Avery Cardinal Dulles: A Presbyterian Who Became a Catholic Cardinal - The Journey Home (01-12-2004)

good evening and welcome to the journey home it's a great privilege to be with you tonight and I am a little bit a little nervous tonight because I have a very special guest tonight on our program and we've had very special conference on the program before Tom Howard Scott Hahn we've had father Graham Leonard the former bishop of England but tonight we have Cardinal Avery Dulles and it's a great privilege to have you here your eminence some of you may know Cardinal Dulles is the son of the US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and I didn't know him didn't know very much I think is a little bit before my time but my knew so much about what he did and of course we recognize that name every time we fly into Washington DC so your family has been greatly recognized but Cardinal Doss was the first u.s. born theologian to be raised to the chair the College of Cardinals so it's great to have you here I want to remind you that you're an important part of tonight's program the phone number is the bishops need a theological definition they Karl call on Cardinal Dulles to come forward and I think that bespeaks of of who you are and what you have to say and nothing I want to say is that when I convert it to the church one of the continuing things that I saw that I knew this was the church was when I saw leaders in the church unafraid to talk about Jesus that wasn't always the case from where I came from and it's just a wonderful privilege to have you here with us I'd like to begin as I usually do and invite you to give us your spiritual background that before your conversion to the church well I come from a family that had strong presbyterian roots one of my great-grandfather's was a missionary to India my grandfather was a Presbyterian minister in various parts of the country ending up in Auburn New York where I was born and his wife was my grandmother were very much involved in church work throughout her life and some people hoped if my father would choose a ministerial career but he was influenced by his grandfather and decided rather on Law and Diplomacy as his field but he always had a strong religious interest himself and as a child we used to go regularly to the Presbyterian Church in New York City my father leading the procession with his top hat and cane which people used to wear those days entails even I think but during the 30s somehow that tapered off a bit and where you got a house out in the country were used to go up a weekend said we didn't seem to practice that Sunday observance so much so although I was somewhat familiar with religious topics and with the Bible as a child when I got too into boarding schools and so forth I tended to pay less attention to that and the church services that we went to or rather and nondenominational and would almost say nondescript and there wasn't any very vigorous teaching of any particular Christian doctrine or faithful it was a more general wisdom about life for judging the mind of course but it wasn't you the kind of thing that would grip you so in my classes it seemed to me everything was explained in terms of this worldly elements and so I began to think religion was really quite irrelevant to life and so it ceased to interest me very much during your high school years you spent some time overseas right I spent two years and Switzerland I think the high point of that was it was an Easter vacation that I spent in Italy and that tour of Italy provided me with all sorts of materials which I later drew on when I was moving toward the church because we visited all these beautiful churches and so all this religious art and I got a great respect for the culture of the Italian Renaissance and even the late Middle Ages which I retained to throughout my life but then I came back and went to school in New England for four years before I went off to college now did that your time visiting those cathedrals have an influence on your faith during your period overseas at the mmediately well not perhaps perhaps there was a certain attraction there rather than a direct religious influence at the time of the gander you see the beauty of the ceremonies and I remember being in Rome during Holy Week Palm Sunday and seeing the palms and so forth and we didn't have anything like that in our Presbyterian Church as a young kid I was quite taken by these ceremonies we went to st. Peters and there was a rich ceremony going on on I think it was may have been Holy Thursday or something and those are very impressive now you chose to go to Harvard right for your undergraduate degree when you did let me ask you before we talk about that experience because that seemed to be a key one for your own spiritual growth when you entered Harvard by that time I think you described that you had completely bought into materialism I think I had I would say that I had a consistent philosophy of life exactly that would be too much to expect I guess at the age of 16 or 17 but I think that certainly was dominant in my mind that I thought everything could be explained in terms of matter I don't know how you explained matter itself it was just sort of there didn't need to be explained and somehow or other the atoms spinning around coagulated in certain ways and produced a lot of things like the Sun and the earth spinning off from each other by eye and somehow by accident it just so happened that the molecules got so connected together that in life arose and then life had a sort of a dynamism a tendency to move upward to get more complex and so you had this whole process of evolution which could probably explain it more or less Darwinian terms of things selection and rotations and natural selection and so forth whatever the mechanisms were I didn't I mean no but I thought it could be explained from below without a feeling of feeling too many divine agents so I thought it's more or less superfluous to invoke divine causality at any point in the process and as far as morality concern I was concerned I didn't really see there was any objective moral law that required you to do this that or the other thing I didn't know where that would come from so I tend to think morality is just a social convention of what society decides is for its own long-term interests and tries to persuade people to do things that is socially beneficial rather than what is right or wrong in itself it's kind of sadly the way a lot of our young people head off towards college with that kind of view of freedom it's very convenient to have that kind of view of freedom when you're leaving family and going off to college so you're basically saying that God didn't fit into the equation at least on every day I'm thinking for you you know I didn't have any metaphysics or way of arriving at the existence of God so I just thought that could be omitted from the equation as you say so you went to Harvard and you know one time Harvard was was established to provide ministers for the ministry in New England but I don't often think of Harvard as a place to nowadays to experience a great spiritual no but that that had a big place in your own life so I studied under professors mainly for philosophy and history medieval Europe and Renaissance Studies and so forth and who had a great interest in the history of theology and so I had to study the controversies theological controversies during the Reformation for example and really become somewhat familiar with the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Dante and the gostin and so forth or many of these things were assigned were courses that I was taking and the professors thought that should be taken seriously they weren't Catholics for most part one or two of one life might be Catholic but most of them are presbytery prostitutes of some kind or other and but they least thought that religion was a respectable subject to study and had been very important in history and for culture and so forth so I picked up a lot of theology without taking any courses who were called theology courses that's in the reading that I was forced to do for my own work so I I think that academic experience was the main one in both philosophy and history of culture but also the environment of Cambridge Massachusetts was thoroughly Catholic at that time popular religion was very strong you know she went into a Catholic Church it was full even on weekdays and so forth so the atmosphere Catholicism was very present there and as a living religion which is interesting when you know the history of New England that Catholicism had been established such a strong front there along the Charles River and I became so significant sure because of the immigrants there was a certain town of gone rivalry the town was a Catholic can be gone was not exactly anti-catholic but certainly non Catholic right right so was there any time in so you hear you really through history and philosophy then as what awakened your heart to at least be open to the possibility of God in the Christian faith and I had a personal quest also I just didn't think that even is Ammar utilitarianism quite added up they didn't satisfy me the human spirit I needed something more than that you know it's something that would warrant heroism or sacrifice through generosity and that just wasn't to be found in these systems and I felt that they were very inadequate to the human spirit and I found something else in my historical studies which did seem to speak to the human spirit and philosophy something like Plato had a great deal to mater's his insistence that - you did more harm to yourself by doing evil than by suffering evil it's better to suffer than to perform evil and you corrupt yourself and doing what is against the virtues that are belong and so it is more important to be good to be happy for Plato I thought he was right on that I still think he was right let the motivation for virtue really isn't quite given in Plato and there's where I turned to the New Testament I said you find it in the teaching of Jesus you find it in Paul you find it in John you find it throughout the New Testament the things that Plato seemed to be looking for are clearly stated you know and they hold doctrine of the afterlife punishments and rewards so forth the personal God who was behind the whole moral system that made it make sense to me I said you know Christianity has something that Greek philosophy was looking for and didn't quite find they needed a revelation from God through your history in philosophy and the and which is I find very interesting is that even though your professors were not so much promoting a practical faith but they were open to the reality of it in history and philosophy and taking it seriously yeah and course you were on your own search I'm wondering during those years in college did you have a support system do you have other students who were also on this quest or we're on this all by yourself I was pretty much the solitary quest you know my friends were all religiously indifferent it seemed to me maybe a silent I don't know somehow didn't go to church on Sunday but rather they didn't talk much about it so I didn't have any none of my close friends was Catholic I had one professor was quite vocal about his Catholicism but I only had contact with him for one year and then he went off to teach in Georgetown and left to Harvard so we try looking for myself reading my way into the church I found a Catholic bookstore I used to borrow books and would come home every weekend with my hand arm full of books you don't there's minimal charges for a lending library in the back in there late night the next week it gets more books so I I really read my way into the church but and then occasionally attended church say I was wondering did you did you you didn't immediately go into the Catholic Church did it first draw you back into your your heritage well I first went mainly to Protestant churches around Cambridgeshire and I didn't quite find what I was looking for they I think parson tisn't meant least in New England at that time was at a fairly low level and it tended to be more ethical culture than any particular doctrine you know so I just didn't find any very firm doctrinal preaching the lack of dogma there whereas no Catholic Church I found to create complex and baffling but at the same time I did find that certain revealed truths of me and the Creed and so forth were beyond question made true when they were working from that rather than toward them so I had appealed to me very much I would mention what experience like whatever happened to be a Sunday evening into a Catholic Church it was full of people and they were all singing and they were singing the hymns of Thomas Aquinas in Latin I thought that's the judge for me well she had a good background had bad guys in the matter and I could read it easily so you certainly came in he came into the Church of that in 1940 right yeah 1940 I was the first-year law student actually when I came into the church but I pretty much made up my mind by the time I graduated from college you were a bit of a loner on this quest in college was your family with you on this know of a new world I thought they knew what I was reading and so forth so unto some when I was home during the summer and they might get the idea that we're serious about some of these things but I when I wrote to them in the fall of 1940 that I was coming to the church the next month they seemed to be quite shocked and surprised by that I was not the kind of thing that was done especially in our family I guess we were father was still in a very influential position at that period right actually during the 1930s he wasn't very active in his pursuit of religion and his practice but then after 1937 he began to come back to the church and see it so the importance for the kind of work that he was doing in international relations and things so he was by that time working for the National Council of Churches of Christ and working on the foundations of what was later to become the World Council of Churches he was very much involved in that he wasn't bucket dad - yes but he he was accepting or not very keen about your decision yeah I think he called me down or my mother asked me to come down to talk with him so I did I came down we had a nice discussion for a couple of hours at the end of it he said well you're I was just 22 by that time so I said you're of age you can make your own decisions I think it's the wrong decision but if it's a decision you want to make we can't prevent it so and so we kind of agreed to disagree maybe so I just went out my own way so you became Catholic there is in the same year you begin law school and it's one thing for your family to accept that fact but you ended up with even a more deeper decision which I often I wonder how the rest of your family know this was a number of years later right that you felt that called the priesthood well no actually at the time I came into the church I asked the priest who was instructing me how do I get into the Jesuits oh right away right away I don't know what had made you think the Jesuits because partly by reading in history I'd read about the foundation of the Jesuit theory Jesuits in the 16th century and what they had done and I felt I wanted to belong for an apostolic order that was mobile evangelizing and so teach me that was their kind of work and I thought I could fit into that more or less intellectual apostolate which I had some incarnation toward so I'd appeal to me more than the parish ministry and more than the contemporary religious orders I suppose I could have worked in some other active religious order if I hadn't been accepted by the Jesuits but I liked their long tradition and I liked to what I knew of said Ignatius and his companions of the 16th century I paid admiration for them wanted to be rooted in that tradition so I asked about it when I came into the church but there was a rule I think it's still a rule that you had to be in the church at least three years before you're accepted as a novitiate so I was told to forget about it for three years well then the war came along so it was about six years before I unique no this year by that time I think the family had given up on me totally so I couldn't do anything that they would not accept well you've been a see you that was 1946 so you've been in the Jesuits for 55 56 years yeah yeah you've seen the Jesuits go through a lot and you never wanted to be anywhere else but did you expect that one day you would have the great privilege of being a cardinal that I did not expect that was such a rarity among Jesuits and the only Jesuits have become Cardinals factory speaking of those who in missionary countries or bishops or Archbishop's or something so I certainly didn't expect that to happen but so it did well I'm curious being one that will never become a cardinal what's unique about your life now that your Cardinals is the unique aspects that come to you because you're a Cardinal really very little because if I were under 80 years old there would be quite a lot I would have many duties for religious congregations and things in wrong well but I'm not eligible to be a member of any of those papal congregations in over 80 and I'm not a bishop and so I do very little as a cardinal you know occasionally through solemn masses and things I have to appear in all my investments or so occasionally the surgical events but by and large for I don't have any particular duties are you mentioned the Bishops Conference I am a member of the Bishops Conference kind of an honorary member because I'm not a bishop okay but every time I've been there you've always had important words to say especially when they find themselves a few on different sides of an issue and it's it's good to happen before we take a break your eminence I want to did want to mention a new pose it's a fairly what a reissue of us issue a book that came out in 1946 and I wrote it in 1944 literally at sea really yeah yeah okay this is called testimony to grace and reflections on a theological journey is that your description of your journey into the yes it is his yeah sort of my intellectual autobiography up to that time all right well I think it's those of you are watching will see it listed on the television if you're interested in more details about Cardinal Dulles journey so thank you very much let's take a break and we're back just a moment your questions for Cardinal Avery Dulles welcome back tonight's guests as Cardinal Avery Dulles and again it's a wonderful privilege to have you here and we already have a number of emails and phone calls awaiting and we even have an excited audience out here to buy me off a microphone to get some of your questions out here in the audience but let's let's take our first email your eminence this comes from Gary and Tampa Florida and he asked your Cardinal Dulles will you tell us how the Spiritual Exercises of st. Ignatius affected your conversion to the Catholic faith specifically can you give some insight regarding the three degrees of humility and what sacred scripture passages can you recommend that may lead to a fruitful fruitful prayer regarding humility so first of all the Spiritual Exercises well part did they play in your own journey I think a minimal part I was aware that there were Spiritual Exercises in fact I think that we probably had to look them over at least it's not a book to be read it's a book to be done you know we didn't do the Spiritual Exercises I was more or less familiar with me with the book and the autobiography of st. Ignatius we had to read I do remember so I don't think that in itself had a great impact on my conversion I think the study of the theological controversies of the Reformation period didn't influence me and I felt where Catholics where the Calvin and Luther differed from Catholicism might my sympathies tended to be with the Catholic position as taking it say at the Council of Trent where we had a number of Jesuit theologians working but st. Ignatius himself was not really as no theologian in the technical sense of the word the Spiritual Exercises obviously a great book it's meant a great deal to me as a Jesuit yep I think really the centrality of Jesus is a central thing that this is a society of Jesus and Ignatius and sister that would be its name it was the following of Jesus City and the meditation on three degrees humility is one of those exercises in which what sort of tests oneself was to whether one would be willing to you know follow Jesus not only not disobeying the law of God but even in in giving oneself to to prefer to be with him in his sufferings than not to be that unites us more closely to the Lord if we share in his sufferings as well as in his joy as which are the reward of them so I think many many passages in scripture to attend in that direction but I think the idea that all Christians are following Christ and have to take a share in the cross and Jesus himself says that's issue of suffering and which did you in your journey to the faith did you during that period discover the uniqueness of the Catholic view of suffering versus let's say your Presbyterian background I don't really know I was more concerned with object your doctrines than with spirituality at that time I think so I accepted the Catholic view on on suffering and the value that suffering can have if it's United to the suffering of Christ Redeemer but that wasn't done really in an issue for me yeah because it really doesn't come up much in our Presbyterian backgrounds the issue is suffering yeah but it's such a key part especially of Ignatius Ignatius as theology and the whole foundation in fact it makes me wonder you were brought up in New England and I went to seminary in New England and what what amazed me later when I became a Catholic was how I could go through all those years in New England I could learn about Protestant missionaries to the Indians but I never heard about those wonderful Jesuits up in Canada Isaac jokes and the brave oath or the missionaries Jesuit missionaries to Indian you had a few things to food and French to Xavier you know I never even heard about him I was in that going through my own seminary training let's take our first caller this is Raphael from Kansas hello or if y'all what's your question for us oh hello yes I know good evening Marcus love yourself thank you yeah good evening your eminence I just have a quick question I like your comment on the recent pastoral letter written by Bishop Burke on the dignity of human life and civic responsibility I know he's got have been criticized a lot by some theologian most recently by Dan McGuire from Marquette University as being theologically off-base just like your got comment on that real quick I really don't know the the document you're talking about very well I do know there's been some mention of him in the press that he does want to take a more aggressive attitude in holding Catholics to ethic politicians to make you accountable for taking the positions of the church particularly with regard to these life questions such as issue of abortion which will be discussed in that march for life next week so I applaud that I think that we it's a scandalous to allow Catholic politicians to claim to be Catholic at the same time to be contradicting the doctrine of the church by admitting that they're pro-choice or even pro-abortion politicians are to be a Catholic politician in our country is difficult because how do you get a letter yeah very tough and if you can't get elected you can't help so it's a real there are a few who are getting elected and I don't know how they do it but they managed to get any way or if taking consistent Catholic positions well there's the key is we need Catholic voters who will vote and get out and support these men so they can have that influence otherwise they can't have an influence so it is difficult let's take our next email this comes from Robert in Dayton Ohio Cardinal Dulles what an honor to listen to your conversion story you are one of the spiritual Giants in our church may God continue to bless you you talk for a moment on your vision for the Catholic Church in the third millennium what changes if any do you foresee what are your thoughts on Protestant Catholic discussions and how I'll repeat all these and do you anticipate the Orthodox Church submitting to the authority of the papacy to Jesus through Mary with Peter Robert so first your thoughts on on the third millennia and changes I think a stay the course is what I think free news I think there's been too much talk of changes I know I guess I've getting more conservative in my old age but I think anybody who's a loyal Catholic finds a great deal in the tradition that they want to conserve and I'm afraid what we've been failing to do is to what should I say to mine the tradition first is wealth I think there's so much there when I read the church fathers and the many more doctors and the massage Reformation theologians and so forth but I don't think we need you to start up on some new course I think we just simply need to reiterate the truths and to understand it to appropriate it and to appropriate this whole tradition I hope that we get less excited about trying to do something new that's never been done before and we ought to do what we've always been doing that's right and to appreciate it to make it known we've Catholic Protestant relations I think we're finding more and more in common which is a good thing but we also have to discuss our differences quite frankly I think and to have a challenge one another a little bit I think Protestants have a lot to give Catholics and Catholics have a lot to give Protestants and we shouldn't you be shy about those things they're distinctive to our own traditions we should try to sell them as it were to move to each other and I think one of the great assets that the Catholic Church has ecumenically is the office of Peter the P trying office which was established by our Lord with the idea of holding the flock of Christ together and I don't think there's any substitute for it so I think Protestants whatever looking for a way in which they can overcome their mutual differences and the lack of discipline and conformity in their own churches and perhaps the Orthodox also I think they have a lot of trouble with the autocephalous church use of the Balkans and so forth all going their own way and not abiding by the authority of the patriarch with who has only a primacy of Honor I think you need more than a Primus honor to hold the Church of Christ together and perhaps they will come to appreciate the need for a primacy it has some power as well as some honor we ask you just clarified and to make sure that we're hearing you correctly and that is that on the one hand we certainly are called by Christ in charity it to our ecumenism but accumulative does not mean a watering down of the need to call for unity under our Holy Father right I think the human isn't precisely is the quest for unity among Christian churches and as defined by many authorities it's the quest for visible unity they want to have some physical manifestation of the unity of Christians and of course well is a matter of degree we have some degree of unity already at least among those that baptize those that read the same Gospels those that worship the same Lord that save the Our Father together there are many many things that we do have in common already but it's a matter of increasing our common elements and sharing more and more and things like the March for Life are a visible expression of at least warning or that is not side by side that shouldn't be an exclusively Catholic thing it is not right demonstrate many there's a you know that's there in our Baptist had to guess let's take our next caller this is Lawrence from Arizona hello Lawrence what's your question hi good evening your eminence we are proud and honored to have you in our church as a Cardinal you've done many wonderful things I have three or four questions you mentioned one previously shortly the reaction of your parents to your conversion and then the reaction of your parents and family to your priesthood and then was your mother also Presbyterian and there is $1 family in San Antonio is that some of your siblings yes yes to all the questions is yes so I mentioned more my father who was short of the head of the family but my mother was also presbyterian she was more reticent about her faith I was never really very very clear about how much she believed but she certainly was a practicing presbyterian and I do have a brother who lives in San Antonio with his wife and some of his children now you mentioned earlier when we talked that when you came became a Catholic we're in the journey that your grandmother was still alive yeah you know the missionaries the pastor's wife yeah her response to your incision yes she was quite old and sick at the time she was confined to bed and almost blind and it was evident she wasn't gonna live much longer so my parents asked me if I wouldn't delay my conversion and my interest in the Catholic Church until after my grandmother had died which couldn't be more than a year or two as I said no I have the grace to do it now I've got to live up to the grace well I have it you know and I don't know what Grace's would give them the two years from now so I said we're all right over a letter so I wrote her a letter explaining what I was going why I got the nicest letter back she said oh she was so happy that I had found her strong Christian faith and she had been brought up her her father had been minister to Spain at one time the equivalent of ambassador in those days and she had gotten to know the churches in Spain and some ecclesiastics and so forth and admired them so much and now she had a Catholic nurse who was reading the bio debriding prayers to her I had her bedside every night she was she asked me should recommend another prayer book for her and so forth so we had very nice correspondence for the next few months and I even saw her once before she died she was very very delighted that I was becoming a more supportive person in your family really the most yes all right let's take our next email this comes from Kristin she writes God blessings I am a student at LeMoyne college in Syracuse New York a Jesuit institution Cardinal Dulles since joining the Jesuits how would you say that your spiritual journey has been most impacted how would you relate the spiritual journey in the spirit of st. Ignatius with the uncovering of one's own vocation discovering of who we really are thank you and know that the students of Lemoine would love to have you visit with us any time as you did three years ago good how was your spiritual journey most impacted since joining the Jesuits and I see was talked about relating the spiritual journey in the spirit of st. Ignatius the uncovering the ones on vacation yeah well I did mention the Spiritual Exercises several times and but I don't think it's only the Spiritual Exercises a lot of the spirituality of st. Ignatius comes up in the Constitution's of the Society of Jesus and in his personal correspondence which is extremely rich and giving spiritual advice to people with whom to whom he was writing and we're writing to him so he really was remarkable and did very surprising things sometimes each do exactly the opposite of what you would expect and but he was a real spiritual genius I think as a spiritual guide he really extraordinary man and he is his he founded a religious order that was quite unlike anything that had existed before it was so mobile that he could go to any part of the world you know oh is that the behest of the Pope he saw the Pope as the person in charge of the whole of the hillock Church who you could see where the need was greater until Jesuits go to this do lists and so forth so I want to make himself what kind of society completely dedicated to the Apostles the service of the Pope I think it was a wonderful idea and it's so much needed in the world today I I really feel that their urgent needs that are not being met and there's a terrible lack of of Catholic education in this country and elsewhere and there's a large defections going on people going over yeah but I want to ask you that because earlier you had mentioned that as you look to the this third millennium that you know hold the course but there's an awful lot of us that we don't like some of the things that are on the course and what do you do and so on the one hand yeah I agree that one of the to me one of the virtues we lost in the 20th century is the virtue of patience yeah and so yes there's a side of that but on the other hand well what about the areas that do need change like areas of poor formation I mean any thoughts on that as we have this century yeah precisely I think it's the recent changes that are the source of most of the trouble people are constantly reforming things for the worse had all kinds of reforms and catechetical training in liturgical worship and things that were going on since the Second Vatican Council have really been changes for the worse and there is not the same degree of prayerfulness and contact with the Lord seems to me that we had in previous to worship now there are some advantages and having the in the vernacular I'm certainly not against that but at the same time the thing has been somewhat debased and the the Catholic catechol training has been so psychologize that we've lost the substance and people come after it is for eight years of education to college don't know a thing about their Creed any longer it's just amazing how they could return that in eight years of Catholic schooling but so we need to get back back to the best things in the tradition that's what I really meant all right very good thank you let's take our next caller Michael from Virginia hello Michael what's your question hi my name is Michael browning from from actually from West Virginia and I am I was raised in the I'm 44 years old and I was raised in the Lutheran faith and I met some wonderful Catholics here and I attend the st. John's University parish in Morgantown West Virginia and I'm learning about Catholicism I really love the Eucharist and the power of the Eucharist that is really helping my faith and my question has to do with the doctrine of purgatory I guess you would say and and because I don't know much about and I'd like to know perhaps a recommendation of a books book to read to learn about purgatory and and also to learn about the importance of what what Bible that I could read read like the Septuagint my Greek studies have really helped me to understand the Bible better and is the Septuagint a good study to to get deeper into the Bible study thank you Michael so book about my control I can't think of a book on purgatory at the moment that's per se on it per se it certainly is treated in any catechism and so forth so there's some treatment for purgatory and the present catechism and that might give you some clues and references in the footnotes to other documents of the church on purgatory I've always found purgatory one of the easiest doctrines to believe it just seems to me like a perfect sense that people who are not so bad that they deserve to be sent to hell are not yet quite prepared for the beatific vision they have too many spots on there so from previous sins and so forth they haven't quite eradicated the effects I need a little purification and maybe even a painful purification in order to enter to the vision of God and there are passages in Scripture that seem to refer to something like that and Paul and first Corinthians speaks about some of the hey will have to be burned away I forget just how that is I live out in the country and you know you need a mudroom right yeah yeah yeah where you can take off your muddy boots and take off your other things we can enter into the house well that's a perfect Orie is it's that entryway before we enter into the beautification of God his son George enters is for the Greek Bible that was in use in the early church especially in the Greek speaking church in the early centuries and it really is the basis for the most part for the Vulgate translation of well the bouquet went back to the the pre Vulgate translations I should say the veterans lucky man was based on the boat age and that jerome tended to go more to the Hebrew texts when he did his Colgate version but there was a theory among many of the church fathers that the Septuagint was inspired so I don't think many people hold that today but at least it was the early church and one thing we pointed out many times on the program is that a lot of the New Testament quotes of the Old Testament are clearly from the Septuagint yeah yeah yeah and that in some ways is it is a foundation for believing that the early church that's they use the Septuagint some passages were there in the Catholic Bible appear only in the Septuagint and don't appear in the Hebrew text that we have survived anyway so some of it was actually written in Greek some of the Catholic Bible so on those passages we have to depend on the Septuagint choice up to our dream to pronounce it so it is it's an important thing in the Catholic tradition but the recent translations have preferred to use the Hebrew text where we have reliable he were tossed I'm kind of with with this gentleman that called because I I studied Greek and in college in seminary and I love studying their New Testament in Greek and I was sad to see that that as Catholic so often Greek wasn't a main part of seminary training for our priests I wish they didn't you know there was Latin but not the Greek to keep them in touch with the Greek New Testament I kind of like and the Josephina my know they're teaching it now so we had to learn Greek good day you know when I went to Rome for my doctoral studies that took courses in the Pontifical biblical Institute there they used the Greek text exclusively to comment huh electors were in Latin so that about what you're saying is then it really about the same time in the 60s when Latin was kind of dropped set aside so was the Greek there at the same time coming yes it's coming back some degree at least some students are seeing their importance from learning class and Greek because that's the only way we can get hold of our tradition so you had so many doctoral students during this 60 70s 80s who didn't know foreign languages didn't know ancient languages and so they began to write their dissertations on Protestant theologians who wrote in English some language familiar to them and a lot of the Latin tradition has been lost I thought about that angle on that as an influence to where we've gone in the last 40 years is that shift in emphasis when they don't know the languages they end up going to Protestant theologians yeah thank you very much let's take this next call or Steve from Missouri hello thank you what's your question yes your eminence do you think this touches a little bit on humanism that you talked about earlier do you think that dialoguing effort between Catholics and Anglicans are now hurt because of the their recent ordination of an openly gay bishop thank you I believe it has I think some of the conversations have been suspended because I think the the bishop who was heading up that dialogue was so one of those it was favoring the ordinary lengthy of the Jay bishops oh yeah so that has been an obstacle but I think it's something we can recover from probably but at least temporarily it's a setback in the in the dialogue you think there what do you think is gonna happen you can see people coming back to the Catholic Church or a new denomination define I know it's interesting that at Lambeth apparently the other Anglican churches sort of said the United States policy Episcopal Church is out of light on this and so the dissident elements in the United States and Canada are probably 22 find solidarity with European and African Asiatic anglican churches so rather than go over to Rome I suspect really we'll see what happens well we're hoping we're here waiting and ready let's see if we get one more email and this comes from John Kernan and and sanada's California your eminence as a Fordham graduate you graduate 1958 I am interested in your activities with the students in your observations on this generation of Catholic college students I only teach seminars for doctoral students in in theology and they're fine I must say over have very fine students and they're really interested in historical and theological questions and they're a good selection I for the student body in general I really wouldn't be in a position to to comment I have the impression that they're open but ignorant and somewhat uncommitted so they have nothing against the church they don't have any chip on their shoulder or anything like that they're receptive but they've never been told exactly what the Church teaches why and I do think well there's an urgent need for a Catholic educational institutions and I would improve Fordham among others to tell them what the Catholic Church teaches on very different questions that are urgent issues today and what's the rationale for the Catholic doctrine because they really haven't been taught it isn't so much that they dissent they're just you know sort of say well judge Joe left to my own this is what I would be inclined to think tell me why I'm wrong you need to be told your eminence first of all let me thank you very much thank you Marcus and the program tonight and just a couple things I do want to remind the audience those of you who have been listening TWU TN today and some may not realize that father Benedict Rachelle was in an accident this weekend he was struck by a car and he's in the hospital in critical condition and so a number of times on the network today we've had life broadcasts of the rosary and prayer for father Benedict and so particularly want encourage all of you to keep him in prayer he's a he's an important part of EWTN but he's also has a tremendous work right where you live Cardinal isn't that true there in the Bronx I see a lot of it be in the New York area in the Bronx at the seminary I thought what do you have both of us to do some teaching so I'm very very sorry to hear about that and I'll certainly be praying for him myself all right we want to encourage you at home to keep father Benedict in prayer and if I could a cardinal could I ask you to give us a blessing as we close tonight's program right now yes may the blessing of Almighty God the Father of the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon you all and remain forever thank you very much thank you again for joining us and I want to encourage the audience again that your book which is a 50th reprint 50-year reprint of a testimony to grace and reflections on a theological journey if you'd like to know more about the the details of Cardinal Dulles journey to the church I want to thank you as the audience has for your work with the church Cardinal and always a pleasure to have you here with EWTN and for the rest of you I thank you very much for joining us here in the journey home I look forward to seeing you next week I'll be here on journey home Monday night but then I'll join you Wednesday and Thursday from Washington DC and again I asked for your prayers as we reflectively approach this year's March for Life one of the ways that we can defend the Church's teachings where we live and in the parishes where we worship god bless you and I'll see you again next week

Channel: EWTN

Views: 26,738

Rating: 4.835443 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television, Avery Cardinal Dulles (Religious Leader), Cardinal (Religious Leadership Title), Presbyterianism (Religion)

Id: RcoKXNxPre8

Length: 56min 21sec (3381 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 03 2014