Catholics Are Smarter Than Protestants

At Boston.com, the Boston Globe points out a startling fact or two or three regarding yesterday's Supreme Court nomination:

Judge Sonia Sotomayor has much to distinguish her, but one element of her biography stands out in the world of those interested in religion and the public square: she is Catholic, and, if approved as a Supreme Court justice, she will be the sixth Catholic on the nine-member court. That is a remarkable accomplishment for American Catholics, who make up 23 percent of the nation's population, and will now potentially hold 67 percent of the high court's seats. Two of the justices are Jewish; the resignation of Justice David Souter, who is an Episcopalian, will leave, amazingly given the history of this nation, just one Protestant on the Supreme Court, 89-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens.

What does this work out to?

• Catholics represent 2/3 of the Supreme Court seats, but 23% of the population, for a representation ratio of 2.9:1.
• Jews are 17% of the Court but 2.1% of the population, for a ratio of 8.1:1.
• And Protestants bring up a very small rear: 8% of the Court but something like 50% of the population, for a ratio of 0.16:1.

What of that lone Protestant? Apparently, he leaves it at that, naming no denomination in particular.

To make the equation even more fascinating, of the 103 Justices in the history of the Supreme Court, only 3 have belonged to a denomination that might be called evangelical: they were Baptists. Maybe you could count Huguenots, too, which were sort of evangelical, weren't they? There was one of those (Gabriel Duval, 1811-1835).

So this begets the question: Aside from Jews being so "overrepresented," what is it about Catholics that makes them better Supreme Court material than Protestants? Any why are evangelicals only slightly better represented than Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims (those three all at zero)?

If I were Catholic, I'd be crowing right now, claiming that the Catholic intellectual tradition is obviously superior to that of the Protestants. I would also say that the anti-intellectualism of contemporary evangelicalism has borne the fruit it deserves.

But I'm Protestant, and evangelical at that, so I'll ask, instead: Where are the brilliant evangelical jurists? Or is such a term a necessary oxymoron?

(An interesting site from which I got many of my statistics is adherents.com.)

Protestants: "People Who SORT OF Want a Religion"

Siskel and Ebert in the '80s, filming promos for their show. I can't think of a good reason to post this, except that it's really, really funny...unless you hate curse words and mockery and derogation of religion. OK, on second thought, it's not funny at all. Especially the religious stuff that starts around 5:45. Don't watch it. (Siskel on the left is Jewish, Ebert on the right is Catholic.)





Gotta credit Hemant.

I am Not an Imposition, Part 5

I’m still in Portland, and still snowbound until probably tomorrow. Now that Portland has officially recorded the snowiest December on record - 16 inches, so far (and a drift of 21 inches outside my mom’s front door) - it seems like a good time to continue my series on environmentalism, a series that obviously has relevance to global warming and how we talk about it.

I’ve been offering excerpts from the book, Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition. The previous installment can be found here.

Here’s the conclusion of the Jewish point of view:

If…there is a God, then everything changes. If there is a God who has created us, then each and every human person has infinite value, and none can be sacrificed for the sake of nature or some abstract cause. (p. 31)

The chapter on the Catholic view offers this:

Nowhere does revelation suggest (as do some contemporary religious and secular environmentalists) that creation, undisturbed by human intervention, is the final order God intended…. The human person and the natural world are never ascribed the same dignity.
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Some would argue that if man refrains from exercising dominion over nature, nature would be better off. Yet the issue bearing the greatest importance is whether man would be better off. When man does not exercise dominion over nature, nature will exercise dominion over man and cause tremendous suffering for the human family….We alone, of all God’s earthly creatures, have the power, intelligence, and responsibility to help order the world in accord with divine providence and thus minimize the effects of natural evil. (pp. 39-40)

And this comes from the Protestant/Evangelical view:

Some environmentalists, especially those in the “Deep Ecology” movement, divinize the earth and insist on “biological egalitarianism,” the equal value and rights of all life forms, in the mistaken notion that this will raise human respect for the earth. Instead, this philosophy negates the biblical affirmation of the human person’s unique role as steward and eliminates the very rationale for human care for creation. The quest for the humane treatment of beasts by lowering people to the level of nimals leads only to the beastly treatment of humans. (p. 69)

In the three months since my previous installment from this book, it seems that the clamor about global warming has subsided. The current economic crisis has shown that the environmental “emergency” has become less of one in the face of joblessness and recession. But I have little doubt that the subject will heat up again once the economy does, too. Here are some of the key points I wish we’d keep in mind as the discussion continues:

• Man(kind) is the pinnacle of God’s creation.
• As such, we are superior to all plants and all animals. We have value, dignity, and eternal consequence that nothing else in creation has.
• We have been given earth to manage for the benefit of mankind; we do not manage the earth for the benefit of the earth, per se.
• All environmental discussions should consider the cost to humans of recommended policies.
• Some costs are in fact too much to pay.
  
  I’m sure that’s not all, but it’s a good start.

And since this is Christmas, let's consider: Does not the incarnation of Christ itself say something about the exalted status of mankind in creation?

I Am Not an Imposition

Global warming concerns have temporarily taken a back seat to hurricanes, financial crises, and the question of which shade of lipstick looks best on a pit bull. But the subject is far from dead.

A couple weeks ago, some European guy was in the news for suggesting that the best way to attack global warming was to stop having children. I didn't pay too much attention to the story, but I do find that it plays into an underlying assumption, often unspoken, sometimes almost subconscious, that accompanies the arguments of anti-global warming advocates.

The assumption seems to be that people are an imposition on the planet. That we should do as little as possible to change it (or as much as possible not to change it). That the earth is in some sense sacred and that we have no right to use or exploit its flora and fauna for our purposes.

And that all leads up to a small book I read recently. It showed up in the mail one day for reasons unknown to me, though I suspect it was sent to all people who subscribe to First Things. The book is published by the Acton Institute and is entitled Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition. This book has separate chapters from Jews, Catholics, and Evangelical Protestants, with each sharing the perspective on environmental stewardship that their faith tradition offers. Reading this helped to put thoughts to my sense of unease regarding the philosophy behind much global warming advocacy. And it supports my main contention when it comes to environmental issues:

I AM NOT AN IMPOSITION

(Nor Are You)

In upcoming blog posts, I'll explain what I mean by the above statement, as I share some of the thoughts from this book.

Ein Feste Burg, And All That Stuff. A Favorite Painting - Cranach in Weimar

I've posted so many things sympathetic to the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church that some of my Presbyterian friends may be questioning my bona fides. But as John Paul II would say, "Do not be afraid!" Perhaps this post will help to reestablish "(w)here I stand."
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This post is an attempt at art appreciation. I freely admit that I am a marketer, not an artist, so if you happen to notice flagrant ignorance, please feel free to correct me (gently).
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I've been working on this blog post off and on for many months, and it is very long, so you may not want to try to read it all at one sitting. The pictures are nice, though, so I hope that will be enough to entice you to come back a few times and read the whole thing.
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I suppose there's a handful of paintings I'd call my "favorite," but if I had the opportunity to take one, and only one, with me into exile, it would be Cranach's magnificent altarpiece triptych which can be found in the Herderkirche in Weimar, Germany.
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I have a special relationship with this painting. In my missionary days, when working in communist East Germany, we would have discipling meetings with the youth pastor and his wife in Weimar. His window faced the Herderkirche across the square, and I attended services there a few times (plus once afterwards, on a return visit years later). I also was able to hear some organ concerts there during the summers. Bach himself attended this church for a time, and a couple of his kids were baptized here. By then, the painting was about 150 years old, but the organ is a much newer affair, so it's not one he played.
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So during these services and concerts, I got to spend a lot of time looking at the painting. Maybe that's part of why I like it so much - that, plus the winsome way it portrays the salvation of the donors, the viewer, and the artist himself. I've even been up on the altar for a closer look, and have walked behind this work to see the other side (I think there's something painted on the back, too, but that's where memory fails me - probably it's just decoration for when the triptych is "closed").




The church goes by several names. In addition to Herderkirche (named after a German poet and philosopher of the Romantic period, whose statue now stands before the church), it is sometimes referred to as the Stadtkirche (city church), though its "official" name is the (Lutheran) Church of St. Peter and Paul. It was built between 1498-1500 and largely rebuilt after heavy damage sustained in WWII bombings.
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Though the church was originally Catholic, it became Lutheran during the Reformation, and barely twenty years after the Reformation reached Weimar, Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) was commissioned to paint this altarpiece. By that time, he and Luther had become friends, even godfathers to each other's children, and he had printed "Luther Bibles" on presses he owned. Cranach painted numerous portraits of Luther (and Luther's wife, Katie) over the years, becoming a sort of "painter of record" for Lutheran reformers. However, Cranach was multi-vocational: in addition to his painting and printing businesses, he owned a pharmacy in his town of Wittenberg (where Luther posted his 95 Theses) and served as mayor for a time.

Although the Calvinistic Reformers made a point of eliminating anything in a church that could be taken to be a "graven image" - statues, paintings, stained glass - not so Luther. He realized that every time someone hears a Bible story, he forms a picture in his mind of what that might have looked like. And if every hearer of the gospel has an image in his mind, "Why then should it be sinful to have it before my eyes?" As long as images were only reminders or teaching tools and not thought to be of intrinsic value, they were welcome.




So Cranach got to work at producing what's been called a work of "evangelical iconography." But he wasn't able to finish the painting before an exile from Weimar of about 5 years following the capture of his prince in a mini-war with the Catholics; he did return in 1552 after the Protestants returned to power, but died only a year later. His son, conveniently named Lucas Cranach the Younger (1515-1586), completed the work his father had begun. The portrait of "The Elder" which you see here was painted by "The Younger" in 1550.

The major donors for the painting were the leader of the Protestant Union, elector Johann Friedrich der Grossmutige, and his wife. Johann Friedrich is the aforementioned prince who was held captive from 1547-1552. Husband and wife are in the left wing of the triptych and their three sons are in the right wing, all of them praying toward the center painting.











The focal point, of course, is the remarkable center painting. Perhaps not remarkable for its artistry or technical sophistication (one commentator refers to its "dispiriting didacticism"), but for the theology and piety and immediacy that preach the Gospel in paint.

You can get a nice close-up of the painting on this site, but turn your volume down first to avoid the loud MIDI file. Click on the various figures you see there, or the directional hands below the painting, and you'll see even more detailed views. Alternatively, just keep reading, because I've reproduced those detailed views below (click on each figure to see a larger version) . . .



Expulsion from Paradise

Adam is driven from the Garden of Eden by fantastical creatures. The skeletal figure doing the prodding I take to be "death," but I'm not sure what to make of the club-wielding figure, which looks like a chicken with breasts.

Adam is moving along at a pretty good clip. Eve, however is nowhere to be seen. It was Adam's sin that made Christ's sacrifice necessary.





















The Ten Commandments

This is presumably Moses presenting the Decalogue to the Israelites. As we'll see later in the depiction of Luther, one foot is pointing into the painting and the other is pointing outward to the viewer - us - as if to remind us that the Law was given not just to the Jews, but to all humankind. The Law, as an expression of God's perfection, shows us our imperfection, indeed, our total inability to live up to God's standard.





















The Snake in the Desert

Numbers 21.4-9 tells of the wandering Israelites who complained about their desert experience and were bitten by poisonous snakes. God instructed Moses to hang a bronze snake in the camp. Anyone who looked at it would be saved. This is a prefigure of Jesus, who will save all who look to His saving work on the cross.

The snake will be mentioned again, in the "Trio in the Triptych" section below.

Notice that the flow of blood from Jesus' side courses through the middle of the camp.















Shepherds

The shepherds receiving news of the birth of Jesus.

Here, Jesus' blood flows above the shepherds, but below the angel, reminding us, perhaps, that humans need salvation, but angels do not.















The Lamb

Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1.29); the almost invisible banner at the top of the staff he carries bears this message in Latin . This Lamb is also a warrior, however (see Revelation 17.14, for example), meaning we can take the banner to be a battle flag.

The area where the Lamb stands isn't the only place in the painting with vegetation, but it appears to be the only spot where things are blooming. The Lamb of God brings new life.





Crucifixion

This is where I wish I knew more about art. I suspect Cranach had something in mind when he painted Jesus' head listing to the right, put bark on the wooden crossbeam, and showed only the very bottom of the placard that proclaimed Jesus "King of the Jews." The flowing white loincloth suggests something to me about Christ's divinity and the breadth of the salvation He was purchasing by His death.

John 19 tells us that a Roman soldier stabbed Jesus' side with a spear in order to make sure He was dead. Water and blood flowed out. The next section talks about where that blood goes.


Justification - The Trio in the Tryptich

This is my favorite part of my favorite painting.

John the Baptist points with his right hand to Christ on the Cross, and with his left hand to the Lamb. John and Jesus have remarkably similar faces, perhaps because they were cousins?

Martin Luther holds the Bible, which he had recently translated into German. On the page are three verses, the first of which he points to:

• 1 John 1.7 - If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.


• Hebrews 4.16 - Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.


• John 3.14 - Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, [v. 15 - that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life].

Luther's left foot points outside the painting, perhaps signifying that his is a missionary message, not one to be limited to personal piety.

Between John and Luther stands the painter, himself, Lucas Cranach the Elder. This is an unusual touch, made all the more unusual - and remarkable - by the flow of blood that springs from Jesus' side and lands right on Cranach's head. Through this, Cranach declares his own devotion and need for atonement, and bluntly asserts that this atonement is not mediated through priest or church. The religious message about salvation is not just abstract theology, but practical necessity, and that's why Cranach needs a "straight shot" of the blood. As the only character who looks beyond the painting to the "audience," he seems to be inviting us into the painting to share with him in the benefit of Christ's blood.

So Cranach draws us in, John points us to the living Word, and Luther points us to the written Word (which itself is living and active).


























Resurrection

We see Christ again, this time trampling Death. His translucent spear (staff?) looks a lot like the translucent staff that the lamb is carrying, and it's held at about the same angle. The skeletal Death looks a lot like the figure that chased Adam from Paradise. I take the lion-like creature to be sin (Genesis 4.7) or Satan (1 Peter 5.8). Notice the snake near Jesus's right knee, just in case we miss the allusion. Notice also that Jesus's red cloak flows under the Lamb's banner which proclaimed him the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - just in case we missed the connection.

Jesus has a fairly nonchalant look on His face as he gazes out of the picture, as if to show that this battle over sin, death, and Satan wasn't much of a contest. It was a lifesaver for us, but there was never any question as to the outcome. As Luther wrote in his most famous hymn:

The prince of darkness grim --
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! his doom is sure --
One little word shall fell him.

Conclusion

And so we see, in this one painting, a view of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. Cranach invites us to view this as participants in the timeless story, however, and not mere onlookers.

"God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5.21).


Bibliography

The following sources were helpful as I prepared this analysis:

• Abstract: From Vision to Testimony: Cranach's Weimar Altarpiece
• Circulatio as Tonal Morpheme in the Liturgical Music of J. S. Bach
• Cyberbrethren: A Lutheran Blog: "Christian Art and the Proclamation of Christ"
• Das Onlineprojekt zu Lucas Cranach
• Ford Madox Brown's Protestant medievalism: Chaucer and Wycliffe
• "Life of Lucas Cranach" PowerPoint Slide Show
• London Review of Books: Eamon Duffy, "Brush for Hire"
• Wikipedia: Lucas Cranach the Elder

Final (for now) Thoughts on the Pope’s Visit

May I share some of my thoughts-observations-conclusions about the Pope’s visit?

• For a rottweiler, he’s pretty nice.
• He doesn’t do the “pompous Pope” act very well. Although he dresses the part, his eyes and voice give him away as more friendly, shy, and pastoral than how we normally think of someone in his position.
• For an 81-year-old, he’s quite vigorous. Simply reading his detailed itinerary for the 5 days he was here leaves one tired, but he kept up the schedule and never appeared wiped out or “aged.” That gives me hope for my own advancing years (though I’m still a few decades shy of 81).
• The U.S. really rolled out the red carpet for him: the greeting ceremony with the President, the closing ceremony with the Vice-President, the provision of the President’s limos (amazingly thick doors!) and helicopter. Maybe other world leaders get that kind of treatment when they make state visits here, but I doubt it.
• My crib sheet held up pretty well. The Pope is Catholic, just as I predicted, and his talks were big (for example) on his role as the apostolic successor to St. Peter, the centrality of “the Church,” and Catholics’ necessity for obedience. Those aren’t the parts I chose for inclusion in my daily highlights, but they were assuredly there.
• Although there are significant, even intractable, differences between Catholic and Protestant theology, both sides of the fence have found a lot of common ground. And that’s not by denying the differences or deciding they don’t matter, but rather by realizing that the things we agree on transcend many of those differences. The divinity of Christ and the dignity of human life would be two of those things; there are more.
• Finally for now, I find it highly interesting that the atheist sites I keep up with generally ignored the visit. Except for one flippant entry on FriendlyAtheist.com that didn’t even make much sense, I have seen nothing that shows any of the anti-religion advocates taking a serious look at the Pope’s visit and, more to the point, the philosophy behind the Pope’s many (and lengthy!) addresses. Instead, they seem simply to have pretended that the visit of the spiritual leader of one billion people just didn’t happen and that hundreds of thousands of people didn’t storm the gates to see him. Mockery looks shallow against this Pope, and perhaps the atheist bloggers, in a fit of insight, realized they were outclassed. Instead, they directed attention toward the movie, Expelled. Really, now.

Benedict on Friday

It was a bit jarring, I admit, to see Pat Robertson sitting in the audience at the Pope’s ecumenical meeting, yesterday – and he was sitting next to what appeared to be an Orthodox priest, no less. Not his usual homeboys! I guess Pat must not be one who considers the Pope to be the antichrist.

Nor are many other Protestants, it would appear. When I think of the history of the Reformation and its aftermath, it was astonishing and heartening to see the leaders who were introduced to the Pope at the end of this service. The head of one of the Lutheran “denominations” in the U.S., the head of the Presbyterian Church in the US, the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, … these are people who would have been branded as heretics a few hundred years ago (if not even more recently than that), and people who would rather have wrung the Pope’s neck than shaken his hand. Obviously, much has changed on both sides.

Following are selected portions of the Pope’s Friday speech to the UN and the ecumenical gathering. Click on the titles if you’d like to read the entire texts. It’s been said often this week that the Pope speaks in paragraphs, not soundbites. That’s for sure.

Speech to the United Nations General Assembly

The principle of "responsibility to protect" was considered by the ancient ius gentium as the foundation of every action taken by those in government with regard to the governed: at the time when the concept of national sovereign States was first developing, the Dominican Friar Francisco de Vitoria, rightly considered as a precursor of the idea of the United Nations, described this responsibility as an aspect of natural reason shared by all nations, and the result of an international order whose task it was to regulate relations between peoples. Now, as then, this principle has to invoke the idea of the person as image of the Creator, the desire for the absolute and the essence of freedom. The founding of the United Nations, we all know, coincided with earth-shaking upheavals that humanity suffered when the reference to the meaning of transcendence and natural reason was abandoned, and in consequence, freedom and human dignity were grossly violated. When this happens, it threatens the objective foundations of the values inspiring and governing the international order and it undermines the cogent and inviolable principles formulated and consolidated by the United Nations. In the face of new and insistent challenges, it would be a mistake to fall back on a pragmatic approach, limited to determining "common ground," minimal in content and weak in its effect.

This reference to human dignity, which is the foundation and goal of the responsibility to protect, leads us to the theme we are specifically focusing upon this year, which marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document was the fruit of a convergence of different religious and cultural traditions, all of them motivated by the common desire to place the human person at the heart of institutions, laws and the workings of society, and to consider the human person essential for the world of culture, religion and science. Human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international relations. Just like their universality, the indivisibility and interdependence of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human dignity. It is evident, though, that the rights recognized and expounded in the Declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history. They are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks. This great variety of viewpoints must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of those rights.
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Since rights and the resulting duties follow naturally from human interaction, it is easy to forget that they are the fruit of a commonly held sense of justice built primarily upon solidarity among the members of society, and hence valid at all times and for all peoples. This intuition was expressed as early as the fifth century by Augustine of Hippo, one of the masters of our intellectual heritage. He taught that the saying: Do not do to others what you would not want done to you "cannot in any way vary according to the different understandings that have arisen in the world" (De Doctrina Christiana, III, 14). Human rights, then, must be respected as an expression of justice, and not merely because they are enforceable through the will of the legislators.
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Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian — a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer. The activity of the United Nations in recent years has ensured that public debate gives space to viewpoints inspired by a religious vision in all its dimensions, including ritual, worship, education, dissemination of information and the freedom to profess and choose religion. It is inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves -- their faith -- in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one’s rights. The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature. The full guarantee of religious liberty cannot be limited to the free exercise of worship, but has to give due consideration to the public dimension of religion, and hence to the possibility of believers playing their part in building the social order. Indeed, they actually do so, for example through their influential and generous involvement in a vast network of initiatives which extend from Universities, scientific institutions and schools to health care agencies and charitable organizations in the service of the poorest and most marginalized. Refusal to recognize the contribution to society that is rooted in the religious dimension and in the quest for the Absolute -- by its nature, expressing communion between persons -- would effectively privilege an individualistic approach, and would fragment the unity of the person.
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In my recent Encyclical, Spe Salvi, I indicated that "every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs" (No. 25). For Christians, this task is motivated by the hope drawn from the saving work of Jesus Christ. That is why the Church is happy to be associated with the activity of this distinguished Organization, charged with the responsibility of promoting peace and good will throughout the earth. Dear friends, I thank you for this opportunity to address you today, and I promise you of the support of my prayers as you pursue your noble task.


Address to Ecumenical Meeting at St. Joseph's Church, New York

My dear friends, the power of the kerygma [proclamation of salvation through Jesus] has lost none of its internal dynamism. Yet we must ask ourselves whether its full force has not been attenuated by a relativistic approach to Christian doctrine similar to that found in secular ideologies, which, in alleging that science alone is "objective", relegate religion entirely to the subjective sphere of individual feeling. Scientific discoveries, and their application through human ingenuity, undoubtedly offer new possibilities for the betterment of humankind. This does not mean, however, that the "knowable" is limited to the empirically verifiable, nor religion restricted to the shifting realm of "personal experience".

For Christians to accept this faulty line of reasoning would lead to the notion that there is little need to emphasize objective truth in the presentation of the Christian faith, for one need but follow his or her own conscience and choose a community that best suits his or her individual tastes. The result is seen in the continual proliferation of communities which often eschew institutional structures and minimize the importance of doctrinal content for Christian living.

Even within the ecumenical movement, Christians may be reluctant to assert the role of doctrine for fear that it would only exacerbate rather than heal the wounds of division. Yet a clear, convincing testimony to the salvation wrought for us in Christ Jesus has to be based upon the notion of normative apostolic teaching: a teaching which indeed underlies the inspired word of God and sustains the sacramental life of Christians today.

Only by "holding fast" to sound teaching (2 Thess 2:15; cf. Rev 2:12-29) will we be able to respond to the challenges that confront us in an evolving world. Only in this way will we give unambiguous testimony to the truth of the Gospel and its moral teaching. This is the message which the world is waiting to hear from us. Like the early Christians, we have a responsibility to give transparent witness to the "reasons for our hope", so that the eyes of all men and women of goodwill may be opened to see that God has shown us his face (cf. 2 Cor 3:12-18) and granted us access to his divine life through Jesus Christ. He alone is our hope! God has revealed his love for all peoples through the mystery of his Son's passion and death, and has called us to proclaim that he is indeed risen, has taken his place at the right hand of the Father, and "will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead" (Nicene Creed).