Te bendecimos a Ti, Señor del tiempo y de la historia, Dios Santo, Rey Eterno, porque has querido que, a través de la intercesión de nuestro Santo Padre Felipe Neri, la acción del Espíritu Santo nos impulse al encuentro de tu Hijo Jesucristo.

Tú convocas día tras día a la Familia Oratoriana, para que fiel a la senda recorrida por San Felipe Neri y los que han seguido sus huellas, responda con prontitud de corazón y pueda caminar hacia la santidad en la humildad, sencillez y alegría.

En este tiempo de preparación al Jubileo del nacimiento de tu Hijo, concédenos congregarnos como familia en México para escuchar tu palabra que nos impulsa a evangelizar nuestras culturas, reflexionar sobre nuestra misión en la historia de hoy, celebrar tu amor y revivir el carisma oratoriano que nos ha dado para servicio de tu Iglesia.

Suscita en todos los hermanos reunidos por el espíritu y enseñanza de San Felipe Neri, el gusto de encontrarnos contigo y con los hermanos en la comunión de una misma familia.

Te lo pedimos por intercesión de la Santísima Virgen María de Guadalupe, Madre del Redentor, luz de San Felipe Neri y Estrella del Oratorio.

¡Oh Padre!, te lo pedimos a Ti, en el nombre de Jesús tu Hijo, que contigo y el Espíritu Santo vive y reina por los siglos de los siglos.

AMEN.

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INTRODUCTION

Why a MEMORY? Each on of us, the participants of the II ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL ORATORIANO MEXICO 1998, could ask ourselves.

Involved as we are in the postmodern context at the end of the millennium, living in the vortex of speed; impelled lack of time, almost suffocating by the immediate experiences that are layered one over the other without waiting to be barely comprehended assimilated much less and projected within a structured plan and progressive existence; enlightened by the impeccable coming of persistent and boisterous novelty that diffuse; confused and fiery by the ghosts in our lives that exist without a form or a defined face... to make MEMORY would make us want a definite contrast superficial and superfluous past of living in the opening of the Third Millennium.

We do not intend to stop time, while being in a state of nostalgia and melancholy of past events, that were already conjugated in the past preterit tense. Also, we do not intend to focus on the memories of the past in such a way that they will impede the agile movement to continue with our current experience or to close the doors on the excitement of the future.

This MEMORY desires the conjugation of the three tenses of past, present, and future. We pretend to surpass the triple temptation of pessimistic existence that despises the past because it no longer exists; that saddens for the present that is considered a non-stop passing movement; and that which discourages an unknown future. In contrast, our MEMORY intertwines with the triple optimism of the past that is the foundation and explanation of the present; of the present; like an undeniable reality of its evidence; and of the future, our compromise that is preparing with responsible and vigorous optimism of the present.

Our MEMORY does not reduce itself to a simple and clear telling and retelling of the “before” our today, nor the “yesterday” of tomorrow. Rather, it is a certainty of what we live by, the raw material of our current essence and the force which impulses us to construct from the acquired experience.

With the same joy and hope with which this oratorian experience was received and begun, that same filled heart of content and hope is offered in its MEMORY.

This MEMORY is the live testimony that the I ENCUENTRO ORATORIANO DE SAN FELIPE NERI, in Pilas, 1992, Seville, Spain, did not remain passively forgotten, like the dead in its tomb, in the last archives of consciousness, only that this II ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL ORATORIANO DE SAN FELIPE Neri, Mexico, 1998 has gathered like a ripe and delicious fruit of a loving and planted seed. In this similar consequential logic, the sowed oratorian experience in this MEMORY seeks to be the live sowed seed in the fertile field of the oratorian world that, congregated by the divine spirit in Oaxtepec, Morelos, Mexico, 1998, will know how to respond “promptly with heart”, to the challenges that the thresholds of the Third Millennium will establish and that without a doubt, requiring them to be awake in the present time.

THE CALL AND RESPONSE:

How, when, where and who initiated the oratorian adventure that this MEMORY generously offers, which ripe fruit of the day?

Let us be like a reference point of what R. P. Antonio Ortega Franco, Attorney General of the Mexican Federation of the Congregations of Oratories and General Coordinator of this II ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL, said in the letter sent to all the Congregations of the Oratorian Confederation and was reported in the elaborated brochure by the Coordinating Commission: “When the Oratory of the Mexican Federation, in the past congress celebrated in Rome(October 1994) accepted the possibility of creating the II ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL ORATORIANO, there was an initial stage of euphoria. Afterwards, came a time of reflection, dialogue, and uncertainties in reference to the economical, political, and social crisis that the country is facing. Finally, the Mexican Federation decided to accept the realization of this great event and elected a Coordinating Commission formed by priests and laymen, who elected the central motto Prompto Corde Respondeant and a general trinomial theme Evangelio, Cultura y Oratorio.

The how, when, and where of the initial paths are clear and defined in the paragraph above, but we wanted to say an honest, franc, thankful, respectful and humble word with regards to “the who”. Not because it is incorrect or wrong what was said by P. Toño in the above mentioned letter, but because we think that it is incomplete and it gives us a moral duty to allow us to complete this response. Especially when we have succeeded in reaching a goal, we would like to render publicly and openly the first place of honor in inspiration and realization to the Holy Ghost and Our Blessed Mother. We, the Congress of the Confederation, the Mexican Federation, the Coordinating Commission and everyone who in one way or another has contributed to the realization of this sublime experience of oratorian fraternity, are merely human instruments cherished by the soft hands of the Divine Providence and the loved children embraced on the lap of Our Gracious Mother.

It is clear, that if our work would have been only humanly initiated rather then by inspiration, and in the matter of divine love, “it should have perished, it should not have been preserved, it should have been aborted”.

Along with the “initial euphoria, the time of reflection, dialogue and uncertainties”, the Mexican Federation, which is formed of the “laity and the ten Congregations of the Oratories of Saint Philip Neri, believing in a Provident God, decided to accept the realization of this great event, the II ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL ORATORIANO, which was proposed by the General Congress of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, 1994, in Rome, Italy with joy.”

MAKING A PATH:

Once accepted and decided to take on the responsibility of the realization of the Encuentro, we began the long, and not always simple, and sometimes fatiguing stage of preparation. The spirit that has accompanied the pilgrimage can be explained by the concise words of P. Toño, in the letter mentioned before: “we have been preparing with joy and dedication, as best as possible, for this important event for everyone, this is why we see it’s realization with optimism.

The realization of this Encuentro has been proceeded by a long and hard preparation, but always within the spirit of joy sustained by the hope of “receiving you with open arms, to share our Christian faith, sharing our cultures and living the beautiful experience of being Oratorians on the road to Third Millennium.”

The Coordinating Commission, Commissions, and the Commissioners

It is well known by the foreigners that the Mexicans possess a characteristic of being ¨ party people ¨. But along with these festive, happy, and enthusiastic characteristics, that was the first reaction during the General Congress and that which P. Antonio expresses like a burst of euphoria. It is not less certain that we had to put our feet on the ground, such that our fireworks displays was accompanied and followed the previously mentioned ¨ time of reflection, dialogue, and uncertainly ¨.

Ours was, not in any way, the optimism of the ingenious and irresponsible , but the optimism of those that know the efforts, the necessities of the organization, the planning, the projection, of persevering in the attainment of the proposed goal.

The election of P. Antonio Rios Chavez as a Delegate of the Holy See for the Oratory-La Profesa, is for us a matter that is read with the sight of faith and was a sign of divine preference and confidence in part by all the congregations of the Confederations. In this occasion, represented by its respective delegates as a clear sign of times that demands a well read, comprehended, interpreted and assumed w grateful evangelic spirit, not only for him, but for us (members of the Mexican Federation of the Oratory).

Certainly the previous has been an occasional deed, but it has surely been a prophetic calling from God for the actual P. Delegate , Mexican , and for us the Mexican Oratorians a manifestation of the designated mysteries of God.

The proposition, the acceptance and the assumption of this noble and in the same way, a serious task, by the Mexican Federation, brought along a whole world of demands not ever thought of by any of us before the Congress. Nevertheless, once we have swallowed the bittersweet drink of the first movement we began, or how we say ¨shoemaker to your shoes¨, and we started the organization process, that how we said previously, branched the formation of a Coordinating Commission, with the P. Antonio Ortega as General Coordinator of the Encuentro. This one, formed by the laymen and Priests of each corresponding Congregation & Oratories of : Guanajuato, Gto.; Leon, Gto; Orizaba, Ver.; La Profesa, Ntra. Señora de la Paz, and San Pablo Tepetlapa, all in the Federal District; San Miguel de Allende, Gto.; Pharr, Tex. (USA).

The same Federation invited some laymen and priests to conform the initial Coordinating Commission, the one that with the passing of time was being completed according to the existing circumstances, especially the rhythm with which they were multiplying and stating precisely the commissions.

In the following, we present a graphic outline of ¨Oratories, Commissioners and Commissions¨ with which the Encuentro was obtained its organization and its development.

For the members of the Coordinating Commission, this long road has signified a complex and enriched experience that faced many challenges. One principal challenge and its explanation derives from the fact that none of us are experts in coordination, organization, and the conducting of groups. But after many reunions, (30 monthly meeting and now more often) God and St. Philip Neri placed in our way Esteban Bulnes, an ex – novice of the Oratorian Congregation of La Profesa. With his experience in entrepreneurial organization, we really took the moderation and programming of our reunions which began since March of the present year.

On the other hand, in Mexico, we say ¨ there is no more wax than that which burns¨ and it is not that we devalue ourselves, but the challenge of the Coordination of the Encuentro opened the windows of initial imagination and it awakened the spirit of adventure. We can really describe ourselves as an adventurous group, because we have made a breakthrough, especially with regards to the work of the Mexican Federation. This is the first event that we, the Congregations and the members of the Oratories of Mexico, organize at such a level.

We also say that we have invented, because those responsible of the different commissions did not have a definite plan. Nor have we taken the different responsibilities according to our particular abilities. We have begun to sense, try and expose our ideas, origins and also the corrections of our failures. It has been a really great challenge of thinking and carrying our ideas, initiatives and attempts. We have always held a strong conviction that this had to come out right; regardless of any difficulty, questions, and tensions that formed part of the overall experience.

One of the only reasons that our delegates, Assistants of the General Congress in Rome spoke out was to refuse the fast and spontaneous development of this Encuentro. Due to the uncertain economical situation of our country. However, once the offer was accepted, we utilized the same spirit of brotherhood and solidarity so that we could host the best possible for everyone. We had already vowed to be with the Hotel Del Prado that is located in Cuernavaca, Morelos, (information that you received in your brochures).When the monetary devaluation occurred it made us rethink our situation and we were compelled to change the place of the Encuentro, obtaining its change of location to the Centro Vacacional Internacional of Oaxtepec, Morelos. Nevertheless, this change did not reduce the initial plans we had in services we were offering our guests. As a matter of fact we lucked out with our decision, because we managed to lower costs considerably. As we previously mentioned, these changes did not affect the quality of our efforts; rather, it gave the Commission flexibility with respect to new tasks.

We have had to overcome several obstacles, especially with registration cards that were late in arriving; although several arrived on time.

As you have been able to observe as a participant of this Encuentro, Oaxtepec is a tropical paradise with exuberant vegetation and with several attractions. Everything in Oaxtepec is extensive, although, kind of far away, but available to see with the greatest panoramic view from any angle. In regards to food, we have made an effort to provide the most essential. Similarly, we say of all our activities that encompass our Encuentro. And since our work has been one of teamwork, with different commissions in different tasks, we have managed to devote our hearts as hosts. We are living in a strong experience of solidarity in charity and corresponding in everything.

We have provided each participant this MEMORY in diskette, because it seems like a better option instead of getting it in printed form.

With the data we have recorded from electronic mail from the participants, we have reached a realm of possibilities of world intercommunications due to the medium of new and innovative technology. Therefore, by way of the Internet web page, each one of us can access, and interchange ideas and experiences as journey together like brothers and sisters of the world. The world service Internet page for the Oratory can be found in www.oratorio.org.mx.

May God grant that this II ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL ORATORIANO, whose undertaking by the Mexican Federation has been without precedent and which has affected us deeply, has awakened in each and everyone of us the opportunity to walk with greater faith and a decision to confront with greater intelligence the challenges, which the Third Millennium brings us.

From participating in the conferences and workshops we offer in this MEMORY, we urgently need time, the church, and mankind to respond with promptness of heart .

We only desire the ability to raise our grateful hearts to Our Dear Father Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost that has given us the light, and the Eternal Word incarnate in the Person of the Lord Jesus, for allowing us to conceive the grace of finding our brothers and sisters of the Oratorian world, to carry on in our lives the beautiful and evangelic face of the spirituality of St. Philip Neri, with his pedagogy of a loved child of God. He impulses us to be true and right as apostles of liberty, happiness and hope in our surroundings. Surely in our minds and goodwill we respond to the sentence of the wise monk, Agostino Ghettini, who said this four centuries ago to a Roman Apostle, “Your people are in Rome”, but they are in our personal calling, “Poland Oratories, your people are in Poland; South Africans, your people are in South Africa; Costa Rica, your mission is in Costa Rica,...”. And it has been directed to you and me personally, so we can be Oratorians of the Third Millennium; where the divine providence has let us be born and live.

Now we embrace each other with affection and commitment to give the Oratory a joyful face and dedication to the Third Millennium.

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INAGURATION

SPEECH OF SOCHITL DURAN

7/13/98

Buenas Noches Damas y Caballeros,

Para muchos de ustedes han tenido que viajar muchas y muchas millas. Algunos de ustedes cruzaron el Atlántico, Pacifico y otros viajamos menos, no importa la distancia, estamos aquí como Iglesia hermanos y hermanas en Cristo y en la alegría de San Felipe Neri. Se personalmente que muchos de ustedes pasaron por muchos obstáculos en su preparación para hacer este viaje, por ejemplo en tratar de obtener visas, otro la situación económica. Sin embargo, con todo esto, pongámoslo en el pasado y disfrutar el momento. Siendo que este es el ano del Espíritu Santo, el verdaderamente esta trabajando muy duro, con todos nosotros aquí presente. Somos un regalo especial que poco a poco se va desenvolviendo y solo se va revelando con una persona, una sonrisa, un saludo, un abrazo o al compartir. Estoy mas que segura que San Felipe Neri esta muy contento viendo esto pasar. Con mucho orgullo puedo decir que México y su gente/pueblo se le conoce por su hospitalidad. Y es por eso damas y caballeros departe de lo que formamos la Comisión Oratoriana de este personalmente a Oaxtepec, Morelos, México a su II Encuentro Internacional Oratoriano. Deseamos que tengan una feliz estancia, Gracias y Dios los Bendiga.

SPEECH OF P. ANTONIO RIOS CHAVEZ, D.A.S.S.

Rev. P. Eduardo Cerrato, General Procurator of the Oratory Confederation of Saint

Philip Neri, R.R.P.P. Permanent’s Deputies, Priests, Oratorian Laity, Nun Present.

You´re welcome,

The 1^st International Meeting of the Oratory in Sevilla, Spain; “Oratory, Intuition of St. Philip”, is now in Oaxtepec, Mexico, a invitation to answer with heart.

The Cardinal James F. Sttaford, president of the Pontifician Council, in the eve of this year, 1998 Pentecost in St. Peter Plaza, being the Pope John Paul II with more of 300 thousand persons pertaining of 56 different eclessial movements, well mentioned to St. Francisco de Asis and to our Father, St. Philip Neri, like the greatest laity promotors.

The Cardinal Newman, with his thoughts and writings, make to the Vatican Council II, know the authentic Church’s concept, determining the laity’s roll in the Church and in the world.

Well, now, we have the chance of being witness of the ones that met Cardinal Newman, that are guided by him, to the knowledge of the Oratory of St. Philip , and so, some congregations had born and others Priests and Laity Fraternities, that live of his spirit and have him like patron.

In the III Christian Millennium threshold the old Oratory’s trunk sprout out and we cannot ignore the reference that everyone make, ones dispose to make success balance or at least, want to learn the history lessons, others augur a great future, we are not indifferent to the important things that establish the measures, always conventional, of men’s way, along the time.

But we add to the merely terrestrial valuations, the idea of eternity, of faith and hope in God and then results that all the measures disappear and the time born, flies, and converts our life in a mystery kept by God´s hands and that non-stop fluidity of time and hope, is record in the eternity. We step on the way of time that passes and we admired to discover a globality that has everything.

The Providence perennity, God that accompanies us and the faith, makes us to think that we are not going to God but we come from him.

This obligate us to the gratitude, to confess him like our Father that mate everyone in Jesus Christ, his son.

Saints make that way, that converting their time in eternity , take the Heaven in their soul, like our St. Philip to whom the cycle started in earth.

We want to reach that, and learn how to communicate to everyone by the ways of time, but convinced that we are in the eternity.

The time looses all it measures and every day everything starts again, but only stays what is eternal and come from God. The happiness is to know that God possess us, the love is know to be thankful and the force is to share it.

We wish each of you this happiness, the one of our prophet, St. Philip.

We hope this 2^nd International Oratorian Meeting, organized with a lot of pledge, with such an illusion, by the designed committee of the Mexican Federation, that preside the M.R.P. Antonio Ortega Franco, National Procurator; impel us with the prayer, the conferences and with the movements of Oratorian recreation to answer vigorously and quickly with the heart.

Well, be everyone welcome.

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MONDAY, July 13

Chronicle

Our way of making memory can not remain “in a simple narration of what we have done”, but to recognize how the Spirit requires to manifest before different circumstances, with the desire to show us the best path.

Well, “we are now finding ourselves”, and we now want to make it a reality, although we are in a hurry and surely because of the expectations, what we need to remember in our hearts that every oratorian member: that St. Philip Neri be, the inflamed Spirit, our pedagogy light towards and to the Third Millennium.

To us, like St. Philip Neri, the story tells us, and urges that, his example always, allows us to respond “with Promptness of the Heart”, since with this we play with our Oratorian identity.

We ought to live our experience, from this opening day, like the “inauguration” of a new era, which remains by the imagination of St. Philip Neri, opens our hearts to hope, based on our joyous experience that Our Dear Loving Father demonstrates to us.

This first day allows us into what we hope, bring us faced forward to the Third Millennium, the awakening of the laymen. Unfortunately, we have not manifested this desire, with the forces of the “Spirit times” and in great part it depends on the fact that we still live in the clergies way. Let us not dwell on God’s Spirit, which made his heart joyous and illuminated St. Philip Neri’s intelligence, in the fear, of feeling “displaced” for those who are in our congregations, the authentic reflection of where can locate our real image, our clearest identity.

Let us make an Oratorian liturgy, that is to say, “happy and committed”, of the discussions made on this first day.

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TUESDAY, July 14

Chronicle

Today we awaken with a lot of energy to give the best of ourselves. And if we are talking about the Coordinating Commission, all the participants of this II Congress have offered us their best expression and heart for the initial activities.

We anxiously awaited the discussion that was going to be offered by Dr. Mariano Gonzalez Leal, for which must have been a demonstration of a broad coverage of history, he brought out a lot of interest and everywhere we could see a clique of individuals that were spontaneously offering and defending all the conflicting reactions. During lunch time we had our grandest meal, not including our favorite dessert. The comments fluctuated from the absolute failure and unconditional support. This “Memory” that we have in our hands allows us to value, with a forged spirit from the battlefields what we now have in this Congress, the importance of this Conference.

We believe that it was this “provocation” that at the time of the panel discussions we asked for a space to share from what we have learned from the conferences, since the panel focuses mainly on the conclusions from the workshops.

In the workshops where we held round table discussions, we could appreciate the passion of other people’s opinions, that although they wanted to offer their opinion from the spur of the moment.

We should appreciate and recognize the effort of many who have had to move from their habitations to the sight of the workshops and the restaurant. We also appreciate the service that many have offered with their cars to help transport people’s needs.

St. Philip Neri has accompanied us, with his unconditional spirit, in all the activities. That is the way he is, always an unconditional friend, “how can he not be since he is encouraged by the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

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CONFERENCE: The Oratory and the Postmodern Culture

Dr. Mariano Gonzalez Leal

Laymen

Thank you gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank for the very deep honor for allowing me to participate in an encounter that is so important. In what is really significant, this is the only commitment that can move good people especially the lay people that are in daily contact with the family. The most important values of cultures and especially because very few times we have a chance to have a lay person speak in front of priests for natural reasons and logical reasons. The priests have a culture education preparation in this topic and they can address daily or weekly. The laymen, a slay person, we do not have the opportunity very often. I thank God for this opportunity and also thank God and the people that honored me with the invitation, the people of Gto and Leon.

The reflections that I will draw upon have an essential purpose to ponder and to be on guard regarding whatever threatens our Christian culture. From the viewpoint of the Oratory with two essential values: humanity and joy. From the universal view point of Christianity understood as a Catholic a humane value as well as an omnipresent value. As we said before, a universal value, I will specifically refer to what happens in the particular case of Mexico. However, we will not be able to void making reference to similar phenomenon that I have had to witness abroad. Also, one way or the other remains today, yesterday, and for a long time they have attained to wear the values of our civilization day by day. Also using sophisticated methods and consequently more dangerous methods. As I have stated I want to refer specifically to the case of Mexico, the reason of Catholic routed in Mexico to what created our way of being. The testimonial that I have been recently had as the different dangers, that have been present around our religious identity. And have different masks along the century to hide the same enemy.

Mexico is the country that is culturally the child of Spain. The essential attack to the Mexican identity, as Anacleto Gonzalez Flores said has been historically focused upon attacking our culture Hispanic affiliation because through this culture Hispanic affiliation we are facing to the Christian Western Culture. Of course, we have an historic fact that is constant and that happen around 1873 coming always from the same place from the North. And has devalued generation after generation and gradually progressive and dangerous the way of the family, nation, country and its relation to God and Christian values.

Why do I state that the beginning of every attack that is found within sectors of the church itself here and elsewhere in the world especially the Spanish Americas? They been an attack to the Spanish affiliation Poinsset, the great enemy of Mexico, already Wilson and Monroe when they were asked when will we be able to absorb Mexico to Poinsset, the first ambassador to the United States in Mexico, he answered: the day when Mexico stops being Spanish. A day when Mexico stops being Catholic because of the way of being in Mexico is the way of being of the Ausburgs. And the way of living in the Ausburgs was the way of living of the Catholic King and Queen in the culture mixture that we are going through are exploiting in its negative side. Furthermore, as syncretism, as the modalities of the New Age, will go beyond mestizo cultural origins, through eventually having highly dangerous syncretisms. This does not only happen in Mexico, in happens in Spain, England, Italy, where as syncretism in relation to the Old Celtic religion or the old magic practices of the druids.

If Spain is a country that essentially was made during the seventh century, the Reconquest, we will find that the way of being in Spanish nation, logically and naturally be evangelization. I have always thought that all the people of the World and I refer specifically to Europeans because I can not think of the Middle Ages outside of Europe. I believe the Middle Ages are a strictly European phenomenon. The Middle Ages is a historical moment when the Christian culture is an essential center in life and facts. And the Middle Ages has been said to be a dark age, when really the Middle Ages should be the centuries from making Christianity, the structure of faith, as the rest should be a super structure. Today it seams that the essential structure, according to Marxism’s economy is to others super structures. We will speak about this later on.

But there is no doubt that the Reconquest is a medieval phenomenon and it’s a Spanish phenomenon. The Reconquest isolated Spain from participation in the Crusades. Why? It is because Spain was going through its own crusade. The expulsion of the Moors from the peninsula and this began with don Pelayo in the seventh century and ends January 6, 1492, in Granada. We have to quickly, fast and equally assess the Reconquest period, which is the prologue of our ideological conquest. This is the way of being as a Spanish nation. I think that in Europe each country has had a historical vocation and they have lost this. There has been a devaluation and degeneration on the loss of those countries. Also, you can simple analyze an example, in the case of Italy. The vocation in Italy has been art and it has been a country that has produced great sculptors, musicians and writers but Italy goes into politics. It fails and becomes disintegrated with no identity at all and that loses importance in the story’s context. Thus, we can mention the historical vocations of England, France, etc. Spain did not significantly participate in the Crusades to Jerusalem because it was living its own crusade and Reconquest. That was the reason to be a Spanish nation and it was the reason for the Reconquest, to expel from its land and to get the unity of a Catholic nation that is making of the Spanish religion. Consequently, the vocation of the founding people and children of Spain; in addition, the vocation of Mexico along with Peru they were preferred children of Spain. Such that for many years our nation was known as the New Spain and to be congruent with this modus vivendi, a year had not yet passed from the end of the Reconquest when Spain discovered the New World. What would have happened if the Catholic monarchy had had an heir, if Don Juan would have lived longer and the Spanish dynasty would have failed? We do not know however, we know that in these difficult years of the seventeenth century some referred it as the end of Middle Ages. Others began to talk of new ideas. I also do not believe that Middle Age end on an exact date or that they start in such. I believe every country and every cultural region of the World has its history and talk about the Middle Ages in America or in Asia is absurd, that the Middle Ages is a European phenomenon, but that the same Middle Ages were presented in different stages and styles in Europe.

What causes the end of the Middle Ages? We have always been told that it is the Renaissance in Italy. Personally, I believe that this is only the Renaissance there during that time. Even though, they say that in Spain the Middle Ages ended with the Reconquest, I believe that the fundamental legacy of the Spanish Middle Ages is the University of Salamanca and its great authors: Fernando Lopez, Francisco de Vittoria, Francisco Suarez and Domingo Soto. They are the great scholars and if scholastics were the fundamental product of the Middle Ages that flourishes in the sixteenth century in Spain. It is clear that while there was an advance Renaissance in Italy in the search for pagan style, with the excuse of the reconstruction of legendary art in Spain. You can barely ideologically consolidate the Middle Ages with the scholastic philosophy that did not culminates in Spain, but in Portugal with Francisco Suarez is the University of Coimbra. At the same time in the North, another phenomenon was developing that many consider proper of New Age; the Reform, Antichrist, that they mention in the Apocalypses, has existed in different faces with respect to the change of times. I think that the Reform by Luther and the Calvinistic pragmatism, later the Enlightenment, the Realism, Marxism and today Liberalism, has been no more then the styles adapted to the changes of time. Also, the historical circumstances to fight differently every time, but with the same denominator, the Western Christian culture. This reminds me of the cartoon where they showed Marx pushing a giant rock to the abyss, and the devil laughing at him saying, "this idiot thinks he can push it, I have tried to twenty centuries and I have not accomplished it".

The history of Spain and Islam, the Reform in the history of Great Britain the Anglicanism, the Calvinism and the growth of these two mentalities that defined the beginnings of our own history in Mexico in 1998, two years before the end Millennium. That is to say that spiritual mentality of the Catholic Monarchy, the acquiring of Indies of Philip II, the battle of Lepanto, of the spiritual conquest of America and also the cold pragmatism that is calculating, metallic and Anglo Saxon. So well represented like Anacleto Gonzalez Flores said discussion in 1923, that he named "our vocation and race"; the two great enemies, Reform and Countereform, that is Philip II of Spain and Elizabeth I of England. Those are the end poles.

Let us talk about what is important of our nation’s history and ancestral cultures. Philip II, following and taking the maximum of the ideals of Mexico’s tradition converts to the Catholic church in the Escorial, the beginning of the Countereform and the beginning of the irreconcilable fight that we live in our territory. The conquest has been slandered by the Anglo Saxons (the sons of Elizabeth I), a destruction. No, the English initiated the destruction in the United States. We are not to fall in the traps of Poinsset, the game of Elizabeth I of England, we should not continue thinking that the recovering of the Indies of Spain. It had the same spirit of the English nobility, the Calvinistic pragmatism, is whom ever assaults the most and brings the most gold to the English crown et more of the noble title they will receive. It was not the case in Spain, where knights came with a vision of evangelization that required the sword but never forgot the cross; the clearest test in the group of judgement that were made to all the authorities that made public charges in the New Spain. The punishment that was given to people like Nuñez Guzman, the viceroy of Branciforte, that were traitors of the house of Ausburg, taking of the Indies beginning of the mestizos, were the principle objective was to give the indigenous the dignity to be human. Abuses were made, but we need to remember that a death penalty continues to exist that prohibits abortion. Then, it is imperative to understand then go in their historic moment, because if we come out of this moment to judge the things with our own opinion of another history moment, we will fall in serious injustices.

With this spirit we create, Spanish American and Portuguese American with the other one we make North America. A North America that has a clear theme derived from pragmatism. The Calvinistic pragmatism, condenses in "manifest destiny", "I am richer, more powerful, more privileged and also I am the preferred son of God and God gives me the right to annihilate when ever is inferior to me because God loves me more then another". Great Britain conducted itself with this philosophy, with this philosophy their sons follow. On the other hand Philip II followed the philosophy, "I have a vision to administer the land by divine order and because of that order my obligation is to respond beyond this world", the ability to have extended Gods word. Vasconcelos said, " the World does not divide itself between whites and blacks, nor rich nor poor, nor aristocrats or peasants. This artificial separation we as humans separate in what we believe is the end of mankind and those that believe that there is some thing more in this World, the ones that to accomplish this here, the ones that believe that this is the route to obtain some thing different. Spain used this mentality; however, the pragmatist’s cold and Anglo Saxon conduct is what should be done here, that ended with an appetite for material objects.

The house of Ausburg disappeared in Spain, and had been, however, such a legacy that during their reign they created the values that informed all of our civilization the three traditional values. They were taught to us in past eras: religion, nation and family. These are the three values for which so many heroes gave their life during Christianity what we learn from Don Anacleto Gonzalez stores and the great wise men. In the North these are the three values that should be promoted as a matter of fact with the coming of the House of Bourbon, what happen? In Europe, the French revolution, that under a mask of equality, liberty and fraternity principles committed the most atrocious crimes in history of Europe, the same as those that were committed of the revolution of 1910, liberty, equality, fraternity, are concepts that are absolutely philatropic but divorced Catholic of a believing conception; absolutely linked with material things; of that same mask you can see a projection of Enlightenment, Rationalism and Positivism that took place during the last century, destroying the transcendental values, "I can not believe what my senses tell me". Of course, with respect to experimental science we can not deny that during the past century there was a big apogee. But, what happened with the metaphysics, theology and with the non-experimental sciences? A step backwards that had to convert heroic a positivism that produced great wise men, but had the most of them divorced from a Christian way of life.

Here in America it happened. That is the same year (1813) the Baron of Humbolt published his political essay things about the New Spain that was known since then in the United States. A United States that saw itself deeply influenced by its own pragmatic ideology, Calvinism in life and for its French masonry they had made the revolution. What happened was they did not know there was wealth in the South and there was a possibility of exploiting them, but there was a major impediment: Catholicism, the heirs of Philip II. So then they asked themselves, could we make it all our way? And the answered themselves that it would be the day they stopped being Hispanic, so it meant the day the would stop being Catholic American so, in the laps of thirty years all the revolutions for independence were carried out and the doctrine of Monroe was promoted, whose theme, "America for the America". This message began to immediate translate into perfectly clear aspect. First, the independence and later what Poinsset concerned in a perverse manner way. It is necessary that the Hispanic America be racial against themselves and see us as superior. The easiest manner was to make the Hispanic America loose their identity making them believe that they were children of a murderous, violating Father and of an ignorant, indigenous, violated, and abandoned mother; not permitting them the honor of feeling as descents of someone like Pelayo or El Cid, or of heroes like Moctezuma and Cuachtemoc, not permitting them to understand that mestizos was created painfully because it produced two other nations, that is where a violation of racists began for which the United States practices. And so, in the distraction of our own governmental system already initiated in the Bourbon reforms. If you compare the first Constitution of 1824 with the United States Constitution of 1774 you will find literal translations (the case of giving the president of Mexico the right to give patents for death, something never done in Spain and that it is an English statue inherited by the United States and translated to Mexico’s Constitution). To this followed the destruction the town’s memory of the system of learning. Then the arbitrarily separated the country from the monarch tradition with wise. The pure and impure systems of aristocracy introduced the idea that the systems were strictly North American with lies to the scholastic philosophical and aristocratic tradition and they began to confuse the monarchy with the Absolute to help eradicate any European influence. In this Monroe doctrine the United States will considered an aggression to the moment if any European or Spanish intervention to Reconquest their colonies, wait a moment gentlemen. These were never Spanish Colonies there is a Spanish legislature that says that these colonies were from Spain. This is an Anglo Saxon term referred to as ultramarine province the colonies were Anglo-Saxon. Then, the introduction of the term "Colonies" is made with the intent to make us overlook ourselves to renounce our own traditions as so to eliminate our own Western Christian Culture.

One first step was given (Independence) after the penetration of the Bourbon’s in Spain that came to unsettle itself and that in Mexico with respects to Lodges you see the two great movements, that is to say, the division of parties. The two programs Poinsset was to make Mexico a divided nation that had been a unified monarchy. The first Lodges that were created in Mexico were from the Scottish and Yorkshire and from then on it has not been a unified nation. The parties separate because they divide a nation; make fragments of a nation and impede a universal understanding of the nation that has a monarch system, where you can govern with a laborer, a conservative or syndicalist. Because, there is always a guard that signifies the unity of the nation and is the national symbol that exists further beyond the interest group. Here in Mexico, the president, is still considered the first “Panista” or the first “Perredista”. Are we not all Mexicans? The party vision that was introduced in the first century has been forming their different mask; according to, the historical eras, Yorkshire and Scottish, liberals and conservatives. Furthermore, there is intent to modify when it triumphs liberalism and then the alienation of the last monarchy said, ”Mexico will never be a nation if it does not accept to work under the same nation of the liberals and conservatives”. That is why he formed a governmental body in here there was liberals and conservatives. The phobia was so great within the liberals against the conservatives; that, among themselves intended what they ended and wanted to unify. The liberals triumphed and, like always, the United States stayed behind and it created a more liberal regiment that supplied weaponry to both armed forces. And when don Porfirio finally understood that this was more than a mere liberal regiment; it was necessary, for it to separate from the dependence of North America. On the desk of Ambassador Wilson, a plan was created to stop economical problems of Mexico, which were the products of real estate, and at the same time, constitutional norms were perfected. Nevertheless, all these strategies of making us renounce our own fathers existed a fundamental value of family. The generation of liberals that were appearance oriented was followed by the generation of Post-Revolutionists; however, the Mexican women continues to exist in the family.

The last outbursts and for me the only authentic patriot, was the Christianity of 1926. It was completely destroyed, betrayed, and sold by the famous arrangements of 1929 that gave the amnesty for the “Callista” government to the Christian leaders where there was more deaths during this war.

What followed was a demoralization that began to live in a Catholic memory. You add to this the development of the media and technology, the sophistication that keeps getting more and more dangerous. Today, the enemy has a theme in our homes, televisions; that is, the central location of the house. And is the cheapest nanny that shares its doctrine with “The Simpson’s”, soap operas, and all types of magazines that would never compare to the great novels and works of art of yesterday.

In this society there is an urgency to recover the role of priests in society that it will once again take its central role in Christian communities. So, let us not let down our guard! We still have time to do it.

I would like to conclude with this expedition that it was more of an enumeration of historical phenomenon, leaving as testimony that the enemy is not new; that, the Antichrist, to my judgement, has always existed. I have referred to him in relation to our own history. Marxism ended, one of its masks, but it now has another: Neo-liberalism, annihilator of the family, convictions and national convictions that have sold us the fatal idea of the globalization as it was an irreversible phenomenon that we can not stop. This globalization is another lie, that we have to be the same as everyone else, in order to loose our sense or patriotism. The worst is the reaction against this, which is that it has been sold with force and like language and unique monotony they unite. It is the fundamentalism that here Mexico that is present as the indigenous fundamentalism. From this globalization, we pass to the extreme reaction of fundamentalism without an understanding of our mestizaje; that is, our identity, nor right nor the political parties, but in the transcendental senses of mankind.

I would like for us to remember, those of us who are parents and priests, that there is a focal point superior to society. The focal point is the priest. I think, he should be the point of reference to the Christian culture (like it used to be). The confinable counselor of families, he should be a man that, because of his culture, and because of his attire and physical presence inspires respect, love, protection, and a sense of superiority for us who are the church. So we can ascend to our highest cultural level instead of our spiritual guides to fall like my previous dioceses.

I would like to ask that you orient us, the lay people, to assume a role in society and Christian culture so it does not fall under the attack of the Third Millennium. It is nothing new; it is the same as always. The enemy that is always present and now has a name frightens us with the New Age and Millennium, but the phenomenon is the same as always. Let our own family, churches, and dioceses in our own communities live a Christian Life.

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SEMMINAR: PROPHETIC AGENS OF THE ORATORY

Prophetic existence

Philip Neri: The Prophet

Prophetism in Lain America

Prophetic elements of Philippian Spirituality

The Prophetic role of the Oratorian Woman in L.A.

Proposal as to how the Oratory can penetrate today, its prophetic dimension in L.A.

Workshop:

Exposition

Work Groups:

Reflection and Commentaries:

What are, for you, the three central characteristics if St Philip Neri’s prophetism?

What facilities do you find for living the oratorian prophetism? Mention two

What difficulties do you find for living the oratorian prophetism? Mention two.

Plenary

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1.- The prophetic existence.

God acts in the history gearing the human freedom; and the means that uses to act about the human freedom, respecting it, is the word. God directs the word to his people througt men chosen form the people: The prophets. They are messengers of the word of God in the history. God the flame messengers and his witness, sentries.

The prophets didn't arise at random; they sprang from the suffering and mistreated floor of the poor of the Earth. The prophets appeared in the most critical and difficult moments in the history of the town of the Bible; when they arose: the monarchy, the kings, the false religion to the service of the dominant power.

The prophets are the spokesmen of the pains, of the fights, of the hopes, of the dreams of men and women of the field and of the suburbs of the cities. They rise, they leave the anonimity, moved by an absolute and loving fidelity to Yaveh. The cradle of the prophecy is not the temple neither the sacred habit, but the squares, the streets of the city, the market, the lands and the villages of the interior where it is the life hard and suffering of the town. The prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, to the plundered poor.

The prophet above all is a call, she is a person possessed by the Spirit of Yaveh. His vocation is also born to the interior of a town elect. Inside this town it is necessary to assist the sense of the prophetic vocation: to Guide Israel so that he walks in faith and obedience in presence of the Lord.

The prophets are men of the word. This means that they must put to disposition, mainly, their language. As if they had to give the meat and blood, the life and expression of their language, so that in them the word of God is embodied. The prophet never got used to consider the divine word as the creation of her own spirit. The typical of the prophetic conscience is that the communicated word always comes from wanting living off God.

The prophets speak the language of the poor. Their language is direct and to the point. Their word is impactante and it penetrates in him but deep. The prophets felt calls, almost forced, to make that it was heard the interpellation and demand from the alive God to their town.

They don't live off the privileges of the power. They challenge to the whole country: kings, priests, false prophets and to the whole nation. Their declared enemies are those that explode and they dominate. The prophets are amid the conflicts and they don't escape from them, neither they hide them. They expose them. Their conscience is critical, lucid, concrete and militant. They know how to discern by the light of the Spirit of God. They are not apolitical neither neuter. They don't live outside of the reality. They have concrete and historical projects. They take party being placed with determination on the side of those impoverished. Their screams resonate in all the layers of the society.

The prophets denounce with clarity the injustices and they point out their causes. The fundamental injustice is the alignment of the conscience of the poor: they were imposed a conscience of inferiority. The unjust system of the kings transformed the poor person into an inferior being, an indolent one, a sinner that didn't deserve a life better than which had. This way, the rich one could be calm in the possession of their wealth for that the poor person, and not other, he was the culprit of their own poverty.

The prophet non single accusation the injustices and the errors, neither so alone it stimulates to the town to be solidary; he announces, especially, the central certainty of the faith: God is with us! He hears our scream!

This way, the prophet contributes to raise in the town a new conscience that it is born of the source of the life: The love of God. They are people of hope. Amid the most seriuos accusations, they open roads and horizons to the life. They are solidary men until the last consequences, with the cause of the poor of the earth.

The mission that the prophet completes is unpleasant to him and repugnant to the other ones. The prophet supports scorn and reproach (Jer. 15,15). He is had as a lunatic by their contemporaries. Soledad and misfortune were part of their recompense, to side of the jeer and the persecution.

The true prophecy is only possible in the solidarity with the poor. To be prophet it is necessary to break up with the dominance structures. The memory of the past as experience of fidelity to the Alliance is one of the approaches but important so that the town can discern if a prophet is false or true.

The Father has been revealed through the prophets like the God that acts in the history and transforms it in favor of the life of the poor, of the weak ones. He is the God that makes alliance with their town, that is related and it commits, but also who corrects and denounces their weaknesses and injustices. However, walking of the prophecy of th O.T. leads us to Jesus. The revelation arrives to its fullness in its Son. (Hb.1, 1-2).

Jesus of Nazareth is the Father's correspondent (Mc.1, 9-11), to announce the arrival of the Kingdom (Mc 1,14-15) establishing it from the experience of God like Father, as the Abba.

Jesus announced with words and actions the Kingdom. It proclaims the good one new at the pobres(Mt.21, 23-25). He carries out the promises of the Alliance (Mt 1,22-23). He forgives to the sinners (Mt 9, 10-13), he reinstates those excluded (Mc 1,26-28). He renovates the Alliance (Mt 21.1-17). He manifest from the present that the salvation has arrived that God wants the life for all.

Jesus transforms the scream of the poor in call of God. Most of their time cohabits with those who don't take place in the society, with those excluded: sinners, prostitutes, sick, settle, children, women, foreigners, poor.... in other words, the simple town. They are the privileged addressees of their announcement (Lc. 4, 18-19) and they are those that recognize in The to a prophet that speaks with authority (Mc 1,27). In Him they find their past, with their mission, with their God. With Jesus the town recovers their dignity.

In a same way Jesus will denounce the justification of a society oppresive and unjust, on behalf of God. He will expose everything that that goes against the Father's project that gives death to the human being that removes him life to the town and he makes them slave and the neighbor's enemy (Lc. 6, 24–26; 11,37 ss). This unchains the fury of the groups or classes: scribes, pharisee, priests, rich and rulers that represented and they exercised some type of power in the society. The controversies that will have will be around the law and to the temple in whose name the society was configured.

The salvation-liberation work of Christ will necessarily go by the conflict, the persecution and the cross (Lc. 19, 45–48) but it is in fact the road for which will be carried out the messianic hope, the project of God: the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is nothing less than the approbation of his life and work for the Father.

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2.- Philip Neri: The prophet

To speak of Philip Neri's profetism is to speak of the word that God says on the history, about the reality that the town lives, and in this case, in a special way, the Roman town.

The time that Philip Neri lived (1515-1595), it is marked by a strong dynamism in all the aspects. Some of them are:

- Scientific and cultural discoveries as the compass and the printing.

The arrival in America.

The Renaisance: it will mark an alive sense of the freedom and of the personal conscience.

The social class of the bourgeoisie emerges.

The nationalities and the absolute kings begin to offer new political possibilities.

The fights for the hegemony in Europe between France and Spain and the constant threats of the turks.

The mundanización of the papacy (Alejandro VI, Julio II and León X) and of the high clergy; the relaxation of the first floor clergy.

The spirituality is marked by a practical intense, but feeble devocional, encouraged by an obsession atmosphere by the sin and fear to the eternal condemnation, fear to the demon, etc.

Two reformations are contemplated: the Protestant and the Catholic. The Protestant is a desire to return to the gospel and a reaction against the Roman church. The Catholic includes a turn to the gospel and a reaction in front of the Protestantism.

The council of Trento. This was imposed the task of extirpation of the errors and the safeguard of the Gospel. A more spiritual papacy arises; the bishops return to their residences; the Seminars begin for the formation of the Clergy; a liturgical reformation begins. The inquisition arises.

Wars, pests and widespread poverty.

It is amid this reality that Philip feels the call of God and the seduction of the Gospel and it is where it is called to carry out his mission.

We will try to meditate on the features that make of Philip Neri a prophet, a Witness of God: I Announce of the Kingdom and accusation of the anti-Kingdom, the solidarity with the poor and the persecution, the conflict.

2.1. announce of the Kingdom and accusation of the anti-Kingdom.

Philip enters in a dialogue with God and his town.

The wars had left to their step poverty, illness and death and addet to that the corruption of the authorities, they made of the poor person, of the weak one, prey easy of the desperation and of the injustices. Philip will see in them to the same Lord Jesus and his mission, to likeness of him (Lc. 4, 18) will be to take the Good News to the poor that God is with them and that its project is that they have abundant life. (Jn. 10, 10).

Their announcement will not only carry out it in the temple but for the streets and squares, in the houses, hospitals, etc.

For the poor the message is of hope for that God takes care of them and because their situation will change. But for the rich and powerful his announcement becomes accusation, because it unveils the interests that govern to the society and the injustice with which is knitted.

The announced God, the God of the Gospel, will be source of a new conscience in the listeners, because it is a God that assumes the pains and sufferings of the one rejected, ignorant and impoverished; that enters in the history and it transforms it. He is the God that comes to them, who it cures them the wounds, who forgives them and gives them hope. (Jn. 10, 1-15). Philip will create spaces where it is listened and meditate the word of God: The Oratory. And other community spaces where the evangelical values are lived. And in Jesus' practice he will find the one on the way to arrive to the human being and to make him brother and son of God. (Lc. 19, 1 and ss.).

Although the ignorance of the clergy in this time and its little pastoral action took to the error to the faithful ones, Philip announces the Gospel using everything, all available resources at every possible occasion. The word of God will be within reach of how many they treat it. Their simple treatment captured people, besides his clear and direct language. He knew how to communicate with the young and children, the same as with the adults and old, it didn't matter the social class to which belonged, he took them freely for the one on the way to the exhortation to love to God in the impoverished siblings.

His contemplation of the reality discerned by the light of the Gospel, prepares him to accompany, to guide and to give advice to the men and women of his time.

2.2. The solidarity with the poor

Philip, when opting to follow Christ, will opt to be poor, to stay with the poor and to serve them. For him, the solidarity with the orphans, prisoners, beggars, sick and heretics, gipsies, etc. became more and more urgent for the situations of misery and injustice that prevailed, which led him to work in favor of the impoverished brother's life.

It is a solidarity that unifiles, thant mates able to feel the neighbor's pain and of acting in consequence for love and in justice to the example of the one Crucified who assumed the pains of his town. Philip, therefore, won't fear to defend the poor, to the prisoners and the heretics when it is necessary and of preaching to all the love and the mercy of God for the human being. In a same way he will look for projects that demonstrate this solidarity. For example: The Brotherhood of the pilgrims and convalescent. He will look for through the God of the gospel, to dignify and to humanize the man.

The pain, the suffering and the poverty that Philip assumes in solidarity with the town and I eat evangelical demand, (Mt. 25, 31 ss.) will be a scandalous accusation to a society that produces poor and that it is identified with ‘wordly values’.

2.3. Persecution and conflict

Philip's action was not very seen by all. In 1559 Cardinal Espoletto had low control during months Philip's work and summoned him many times to declare. It was reproached to him to found a new sect and they criticized him introducing so many novelties: Lay that preached in the churches and the meetings of the oratory, so much in the church as outdoors.

It was prohibited to him the confession, the pilgrimage to the Seven Churches, (to consider that they could finish in rebellion). Time later these prohibitions were lifted.

In 1567, under the Pope Pío V, resolved to close the oratory, but Cardinal Borromeo was able to avoid it.

The visit to the heresy convicts brought to Philip that in 1569 the Pope sent two dominicos to the oratory to listen to what was preached and then to inform him; but they liked what they heard and found not anything to condemn.

Philip defended himself without fear in front of his opponents and he prayed for them. He considered that the persecution and the conflict were against same God and not against him that alone it obeyed him.

CONCLUSION:

THE PROPHETISM OF ST. PHILIP NERI, AT THE SERVICE OF THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH

Philip loved to the Church and correspondent went to her to announce the Gospel in a moment of rigidity in the face of the rupture changes with the Protestants. There his tender and simple figure makes return the eyes to the message of God, to the project of the Kingdom.

The step of the Spirit reformed to the Church, calling it to the conversion from the announcement of the Gospel. The Word of God will reform to the Church, he will give new life when being announced as Good News to the poor, sick and sinners and when assuming its necessities, sufferings and weaknesses. From the most fragile, from the poor, the Church will be reformed.

This word of God wil be strengthened by the lay ones, it will make them subject inside the Church; their paper won't already be of mere spectators and receivers, neither they will be afraid of God, they won’t take refuge in idolatrous practices . They will be enabled to hear the Word of de God, its meditation and preaching and will also have the mission to build the Kingdom of God, transforming society and makin it more humane..

For the hierarchy of the church, Philip will be an example of how to live the priestly ministry and where the announcement of the Gospel, the service to the poor and the being shepherd of the community, are basic and indispensable elements.

The word unites people, the one that forms community, but a community whose characteristics are: prayer, sharing, solidarity, love and forgiveness.

This step of the Lord in a time of division goes reconstructing the unit, from the far away, from those forgotten, a communion that has to go by the solidarity with those that suffer.

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3.- Prophetism in Latin America

3.1 The prophetic dimension of the Christian life in Latin America.

The profetism is inherent to Christ's following. His life is framed in the announcement of the Kingdom of God.

The memory of Christ’s death and resurrection is a continent whose characteristic is the growing breach between rich and poor, the injustice, exploitation and violence, question us deeply. Latin America suffers the impoverishment of millions of people and they continue to increase day bay day. Our Bishops have denounced this situation in the Episcopal Conferences of Medellin, Puebla and Santo Domingo (n.179) as well as court neoliberal's politics that has brought death, exclusion, and quick impoverishment of the majorities and the wealth without limits of some.

The clamor of the poor town has arrived to God and his answer in favor of the life sprouts in our lands with urgency and from the place where the human being life is threatened of death. In the face of the victims we have recognized the one Crucified (Puebla n. 31; Sto. Domingo n. 178) and this has challenged and it continues challenging us as Christian, because it is the fruit of a history of oppression that continues until our days. The oppressors have changed but the victims not: the indigens and the women are those most affected ones; they have supported per centuries the exploitation, humiliation and oppression.

For the church, assuming the pain of the poor town has been to recover the gospel and to assume the Christian commitment of continuing Jesus Christ mission saving-liberating (Lc. 4,18-19). It is worth to mention that some sectors of the church has been assumed this responability, however, a great majority has stayed to the margin.

3.2 Features of the prophetic-transforming presence in Latin America.

Latin America looks for to reach the development, the democracy, the total emancipation. It is in a stage Of strong transformation that is given among tensions and conflicts that have left in their step a lot of blood of innocent spilled. The prophetic-tranforming presence of the church in this reality:

- Had had the necessity to know more than close the reality of the town that suffers, of to analyze it and to be sensitive to the situation of misery and oppression in that are the majorities. A reality that is view and discerned communitily by the light of the Gospel.

- Has made center of their life the Word of God and unavoidable commitment of taking the Good one New to the poor, to announce them the proximity of God (Mc. 1, 15) and their preference toward them (Stgo. 2, 5-7). This announcement has dignified men and women, has brought the hope among those that suffer and it has liberated them (Puebla n. 267 and 268).

An announcement that has become accusation of all that is opposed to the Kingdom of God, as the injustice, corruption, exploitation, violence, drug traffic, etc. (Medellin II, 20-21) and the same neoliberal system implanted in our tweets, deepening the distances in the society. While some enjoy the big scientific, technological and cultural advances of our time, millions of people lack the necessary one to live worthily: feeding, dilutes, light, education, etc.

The Church, in the face of the rolling force of the structure of the sin, has become voice of those that don't have voice, it has defended the life of the oppressed, defenseless and excluded.

- The church has assumed the human promotion as logical consequence of the evangelism that offers to the person's integral liberation (EN 29-30). Promotion that should take from less human conditions to more human conditions.

Inside the field of the Human Promotion we find the topics:

Human rights

Earth

Impoverishment and solidarity

Ecology

Work

Migration

New economic order

Latin American integration

Family and life

This has taken to the organization of the town in cooperative of production, consumption and services; in committees of: Defense of the vote, health, alternative medicine and others. It leaves impelling the concientización and participation of the lay ones in the politics, in the search of the very common one (Medellin 14), of the democracy, of the defense of the human rights and the solidarity with those impoverished.

- The church has wanted to promote a new evangelism in-cultural that offers the Gospel valuing and promoting the values of the towns indigenous Afro-American and also of the mestizos by means of a respectful and fraternal dialogue with them. In a same way goes supporting the efforts to have their rigths recognized and uniting with then their vindicating struggle for: Freedom, health, earth, education and others. It has also promoted an in-culturation of the liturgy.

Their purpose is to promote the integral development that favors a fair and solidary society, where the values of the Kingdom are lived and the community dimension of the town is recovered that walks with its God in the history.

It is necessary to emphasize that in Latin America, the prophets are par excellence the poor; they constantly interpellate for their scream against the injustice and in favor of the liberation; for the demand of solidarity that their misery causes; for their participation will to be subject of the history and of ecclesiastic community.

3.3 Sanctity and martyrdom in Latin America

The town of God is called to the sanctity. A sanctity as Jesus Christ style; He is the source of where the Christian feed. It is the Sacred Spirit that guides and continues the revitalizing action and liberadora of Jesus in the history.

The sanctity is not another thing that to participate of Jesus' mission and to follow road. This path implies to announce the Kingdom of God and to denounce everything that is opposed, standing by the impoverished, promiting the life, and looking for the justice; in an other words, to be configured around Jesus and his Kingdom and to assume the conflicts, the persecutions and the cross.

Following Jesus in L.A. has led God’s people to commit themselves to ther evangelizing mission and fulfill it in a conflictiving reality where poverty is not a natural phenomenon but an historical truth, bruougth about by the opression of a small group on the majorities. This is precisely there where the latinoamerican is called to live the sanctity. Under the light of the Gospel, that situation has been declared as sin structure (Medellin: Dcto. PEACE) and like challenge to the evangelism.

Latin America lives the persecution for decades, a structural, anonymous and collective persecution as answer of a system that is threatened and that it defends its privileges violently. Behind only problems of political, economic, cultural and military order are not; there is also, a theological problem, because it is destroying to the same town that is poor and Christian for many that are also considered Christian.

Many Christian: lay, religious, priests and bishops have suffered and they suffer persecutions that include from the levelling to the home, humiliations, jail, tortures until murders, libels, threats of death, attacks. It doesn't care the means; everything is part of oneself project. For that they use the whole dominant structural apparatus (judicial, legislative, executive, media, military etc.). This persecution is systematic, intentional and constant. It tries to confuse, to distort and to divide; it presses to the ecclesiastic organization and all those that unite with it.

The persecution and repression to the Church perpetuated in the poor and believing town, have for objective to brake and to annihilate the concientización processes and liberation of the town.

Certainly, the martyrdom produces fear in somebody and in other many it confirms the following Christ and it consolidates to the community, it maintains the hope and the love increases, because Jesus' resurrection assures that it is not the tomb the destination of those without future, but the full Life, the Life in abundance.

4.- Prophetic elements of the spirituality philippian

- It doesn't only announce in the Temple, but, preferably, in the squares and streets, there where is the life hard and suffering of the town.

- It announces and it denounces through the ministry of the word. We are men and women of the Word.

- Our language is simple and direct, moving away from everything that unnecessary that only serves to distract and to give shine, to Jesus' way.

- We preach a near God, full with fondness, merciful, being sowers of hope.

- We try to give a message in-cultural, since Philip Neri was teacher in being made “everything to all, to win it to all.”

- It Searchs of alternative projects as fruit of the solidarity to give answers to peremptory necessities, always trying to humanize and to dignify the man.

- It assumes the conflicts with the powerful ones (Lc. 6, 24–26) that the mission bears. It overcomes the natural fears that means to have difficulties, to enter in difficulties to help the poor, as the Good Samaritano. This courage that characterized Jesus and his pupils, fruit of the Spirit, also glowed in Philip Neri.

- We live with joy of the life of the Resuscitated. “My peace leaves you, my peace gives you” (Jn. 14, 27; 20, 20). Philip Neri lives in that spirit from Resuscitated Jesus when revealing the peace and the happiness that come from God. For this reason also is recognized as the Prophet of the Happiness (joy).

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5.- The prophetic paper of the oratorian Woman in L.A.

The paper of the woman oratoriana in Latin America is taken when assuming the suffering of the poor, as demand of Christ's following, of making own the Father's project. And it is translated in evangelical option for the poor.

Her profetism is the defense of the life and the accusation of all that takes or cause the death. Therefore, she promotes and it impels everything can increase, develop and take care the life of the unprotected in the society. She will promote the alternative projects, the political formation, the defense of the human rights, etc. It is a profetism taken root in the history, in awareness and solidary with the poor and excluded. She searches an alternative society where everyone has a place amd cam have a worthy life.It is loaded with hope for those impoverished, because God has made his habitation among them and He is the one that has the last word on the history.

The Good New of the Kingdom of God it is taken by the streets, homesteads and where they are the far away. The Ecclesiastic Communities of Base are impelled (CEBs) as focuses in those that one lives in community and in service to the neediest siblings. This same Announcement takes us to live in community and to live among them; it demands us to qualify us in all the aspects, to analyze the reality and to discern the signs of the times.

The oratorian woman that lives her prophetic paper is a gift of God given in gratitude to his town, to his Church that favors the community that works to achieve the integral formation and the participation of the lay ones in the society and Church. The profetism is to participate of the word of God and of the pains and sufferings of the town. It constitutes our happiness and our commitment of being witness of the Kingdom. And this is not possible if we don't stay in constant conversion and road.

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6.- Proposal of how the Oratorian today can embody their prophetic dimension in L. A.

Philip Neri sees in the one Crucified the pain and the injustice that they are object many human beings. This made him look for their erradication and he makes it loving and serving the poor of their time.

Also today, as Oratorians, we are in front of the Christ that suffers in our siblings. The crucified of our towns, we find them in the thousands of unemployed rushed to desperate situations; in the traveling salespersons, the clean one–windshield, and it swallows–fires; in the not well paid workers and in the stopped peasant and indebted; in the migrants treaties as criminals and in the youths bordered to the suicide by not having access to the education and a work; in the women and children slaughtered to yearn a better future, and in the natives forced to take the weapons so that their demands are listened and resolved; in the political prisoners, in the beggars, etc.

The faces sufrientes of our towns are many; in them same Christ speaks to us. And the spirit that guided Jesus, the same one that received Philip and that we receive us in the baptism, he sends us to prophesy: to announce the liberation to the captive ones, the hope to the poor... (Lc. 4, 18 – 19). This Spirit invites us to enter there in the history and being witness of God.

For we require to make it of the FAITH a liberation motor and a factor of critic of the effective, perverse and inhuman order, for so many millions of people. For this reason we propose:

To recover and to deepen in the historical Jesus that is the Christ of the FAITH, to continue him with fidelity in this reality that played us to live. In a same way, to reread Philip Neri: his life and mission inside his historical context, to drink all the wealth that God gives us in his person.

To know the phenomenon of the historical dependence of the Continent that gave origin to the oppression and, at the same time, the desire of autonomy and the liberation process.

To analyze the permanent reality and to discern it by the light of the Gospel. To be modernized in all the environments in order to be able to dialogue with the men and women of our time.

To study and to meditate the Vatican II, the documents of the CELAM: Medellin, Puebla and Sacred Domingo, among other, to be able to have a clear posture in front of the situation of injustice and oppression that lives Latin America and power to give an evangelical word, a responsible word, in favor of the life of millions of human beings live in infrahumans conditions.

To promote an incultural evangelism that allows to the town to be expressed with their symbols, with their code, inside the ecclesiastic space and to safeguard the cultures of their total destruction. An evangelization that opts for the life and offers in the lay ones an integral formation and impel their participation in the transformation of the society, so that inside the new social relationships is generated more justice and conditions of life for all.

To form communities in the neighborhoods, where the Word of God is listened. To take the Good one New to those more far from our colonies, neighborhoods, ranches etc.

To announce the Gospel leaving of the reality of the Latin American town that expresses their yearnings and sufferings; that calls to the conversion and the search of a fairrer society, especially for those that are tramped.

The insert of our religious communities in popular and excluded means.

To foment the solidarity and communion with the fights of the oppressed ones: indigenous, peasants, unemployed and women, etc. creating concientización spaces and of service to the poor and of participation in the search of the very common one. Without the real actions in favor of the poor life, of the victim, we won't participate of the cause of God (Mt. 25, 31ss.) .

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CONCLUSION:

One of St. Philip Neri's favorite sentences that expresses with simplicity what there was in his heart is: “WHEN we BEGIN to MAKE GOOD ?”, a goodness that it constituted his prophetism and that it was translated in the announcement and in the permanent service to all, but especially to the poor. Today Jesus Christ, in Philip Neri's person makes us the same invitation that made to people from Rome.

Philip's answer today in Latin America we can envisage it for his answer in Rome. In this Continent crucified by the power oppressor's injustice, it will have a word of hope for the poor, it would stay with them and it would put on to their service; it would take care of them and it would defend them. But he would also have an accusation word and call to the conversion for those that now they laugh and they feel sure in their wealth or comfort. Yes, Philip would cry to see crucified the Son of God in many our brother and he would start to get him off the timber.

Our answer to God and the history, we have it....

Sisters Violeta Gutíerrez,

Carmen S. Palmenr

y Ma. del Carmen Romero.

RR.FF.

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SEMMINAR: Postmodern Culture and the Challenge of the Protestant Sects

Dr. Albert Holder

Pharr, Texas.

Introduction

I have been asked to comment on the “phenomenon of the Protestant sects in the context of postmodern culture” and to bring to light “the challenges this phenomenon presents to Christian life.” In some ways I am an unlikely candidate for such a task for I am no expert in postmodern culture and I never belonged to what maybe properly called a “Protestant” sect. To rectify my ignorance of the former, I shall rely on the readings I have done on my own sense of the postmodern scene; as for never having been a Protestant, I shall assume that experience in a Christian sect of any sort parallels in some of its essentials the Protestant experience.

In the few moments we have together, I would like to explore with you six elements that relate to the sectarian phenomenon: 1) the common philosophical roots of post-modernism and sectarianism; 2) postmodern culture; 3) sectarianism as both reflection of and reaction to postmodern culture; 4) the sectarian mind-set, a personal view; 5) historical development of Mormonism as a model of sectarian development generally; and finally, 6) the challenges which sectarianism presents to Catholic Christian life.

At the risk of oversimplying or even ignoring many facets of sectarian phenomenon, I shall use in sections four and five my own experience as a member of a small church called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, one of two main branches—the other being the Mormons—of the ´Restoration´ movement.

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1. Philosophical Roots of Post-modernism and Sectarianism

Neither postmodern culture nor the Protestant sects can be understood without considering briefly developments in human thought that accompanied the Protestant revolution of the 16^th century. The schoolmen of the middle ages preceding that fateful century took it as a given that truth was one, whether revealed truths of the Faith or natural truths discoverable by human reason: both were rooted in the one God of truth and could, therefore, never be in real conflict with each other. The belief, of course, remains the faith of the Church to this day.

About a century after Martin Luther produced his religious revolution, however, Rene Descartes effected a philosophical one: he split revealed or religious truth from natural truths by declaring their link, metaphysics, to be incapable of producing scientific truth about God.

Descartes taught that true knowledge was that produced by reason alone, operating on observable nature through the new mathematics which he himself would help to formulate. Thus, he reduced religion and faith to mere sentiment incapable, in his view, of producing true knowledge (Chervin and Kevane 211-12). Descartes remained a devout Catholic throughout his life, but by bracketing out or compartmentalizing religious truth he unwittingly laid the groundwork for subjectivizing it. After Descartes, there was no philosophical reason why religious truth as perceived by one person should not be very different and equally valid to that perceived by another.

Before Descartes, theology was regarded as the queen of the sciences, and philosophy her most important handmaiden. Philosophy and metaphysics had served the ultimate truths of the Faith by unifying all knowledge in God. After Descartes, religion, philosophy, and metaphysics will be forever barred from the consideration of those who seek a scientific knowledge of God based on human reason.

Philosophy, after Descartes, will never escape the effects of his truncation of faith from reason. However various the philosophical systems developed by his successors, men like Spinoza, Kant, Shopenhauer, Hegel, Marx, or Sartre, they will all bear the common mark of human thought divorced from God.

Immanuel Kant completed the subjectivizing tendency in Descartes’ thought by effecting what has been called his ‘Copernican revolution’ in philosophy. If Descartes made it impossible for human thought to ascend via metaphysics to God himself, Kant made it impossible for man to grasp objectively even the cosmos around him; for Kant, “the human mind does not discover truth, but makes it, like the divine mind” (Kreeft 18). A century and a half later, John Paul Sartre, foremost spokesman for atheistic existentialism, recognized his own philosophical lineage by declaring that Descartes' formula, "I think, therefore, I am", already contained the fundamental truth of modern existentialism: that man is a creature whose existence precedes his essence, who has no human nature except that which he invents for himself by his own actions (Holman and Harmon 193).

Thus, Descartes and Kant laid the philosophical groundwork for the moral subjectivism inherent in secular existentialism and observed increasingly in the youth of today. To illustrate, U.S. News and World Report for July 21, 1997 carried an editorial untitled “A no-fault Holocaust” by John Leo, who cites several examples of what he calls ´absolutophobia´, “the unwillingness to say something is wrong”. Consider, he says, the experience or Professor Robert Simon of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. Simon relates that, with increasing frequency, his students are unable to pronounce a moral judgment on horrors such as cannibalism, human sacrifice, or even the Holocaust of World War II.

Mr. Leo continues by citing the experience of another teacher and free-lance writer, Kay Haugaard, who has taught creative writing at Pasadena City College in California since 1970. In an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education, she writes that her students nowadays have trouble making moral judgments about human sacrifice. The subject comes up regularly in her discussions of Shirley Jackson´s The Lottery, a novel about a small American farm town where one person, chosen by drawing lots, is sacrificed each year to make the crops grow. In class discussions, the immorality of such a practice never surfaces even under Haugaard´s persistent questioning. Asked if she believed in human sacrifice, one student replied, “I really don’t know. If it was a religion of long standing...” Haguaard was stunned, for this was the same student who wrote passionately about saving the lives of the whales and preserving the rain forest. What is the cultural milieu which has produced this moral confusion?

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2. Postmodern Culture: What is it?

Descartes dreamed of a science based on analytic geometry, his new mathematics, with a potential for total control of the natural world. Others followed in his stead who would found the new sciences and develop the technologies that would fulfill his dream, the technology-driven modern culture of the past 150 years. But modern culture has also led to the catastrophes of the World Wars and other horrors of the twentieth century. Paradoxically, it would seem, man has cast his web of rational technologies over Nature only to find himself entangled in its mesh, a victim of his own sport, for modernism knows no Savior beyond man himself. Its world has been cut off from God by the philosophies which dominate its peoples.

Like modernism, post-modernism knows no hope beyond man himself. Yet the post-modernist insists he will not bow to uncontrolled Frankenstein monster of modern technology. In a world dominated by ideas of productivity and efficiency which deploy man’s rational powers in the service of what Henry Kariel calls “an unrelenting utilitarianism” or “instrumentalism”, the post-modernist looks desperately for some space in which he may experience the freedom of ´play´(Kariel 8-9).

In his 1989 book, The Desperate Politics of Post-modernism, Kariel catalogues the mindset of the post-modernist. The post-modernist...”keeps struggling against the conviction that God or Nature has determined [his] schedule” (45). He is convinced that modernism (slavish devotion to a runaway technology) produces cultural amnesia because uncontrolled technology at the service of consumerism takes every cultural icon and trivializes it to the point of meaninglessness. The TV Burger King commercials featuring cartoon drawings of Camelot dragons grinning vacuously at a child gobbling his hamburger and the failed attempt to mold Mother Teresa´s face on bakery buns leap to mind. Because nothing is sacred, soon nothing will have meaning.

Postmodern artists like Christo create inane art as if to counter this. Christo produced a ´white fence of sheet plastic´ that meandered for miles across the California landscape and terminated in the waters of the Pacific. The artistic point was not the throw-away plastic itself but the collaboration elicited from various landowners and local governments who allowed his ´artwork´ to be erected on their land. Such artists hold out “no hope, [but] merely intensif[y] the elements of a world caught up in an ungovernable, self-enacting process” (38). For those who are truly hopeless, perhaps inanity is next to sanity!

The post-modernist inhabits a world of “unbridled social subjectivity” and believes he has license to reject any and all scripture as holy (Kariel 85). He embodies the attitude recorded by Hannah Arendt of those who survived the Holocaust: they cannot accept any “a priori God-given code for human conduct;” their only given is “men’s disposition for action” in which men must devise not only “new laws but ... find and devise their very measure, the yardstick of good and evil, the principle of their source” (89). Reading this, the Catholic hears echoes from Eden of the serpent’s voice, The post-modernist does not accept the existence of an ultimate Being behind the “variable appearances”[of reality] (90).

Most chilling for the Christian, Kariel tells us that the ´telos´ or end which inspires the post-modernist is to bring to the fullest expression every possibility of human conduct, for he refuses to recognize any definitive lines between good and evil: “Nothing is disqualified by virtue of some unchanging a priori category”(90).

Post-modernists reject the idea of any law rooted in a divine Being: “socially enacted laws alone organize our affairs... We ourselves are responsible for... postulating points of entry and exit, birth and death”(91). If we doubt whether this view of life colors the vision of ordinary citizen or belongs, rather, only to an academic elite, we have only to ask ourselves how many juries, drawn from citizens in every walk of life, have failed to convict Dr. Jack Kevorkian for his role in assisting people who wish to commit suicide.

The post-modernist affirms the “dramaturgic view” of life: “life is serious but it is only appearance... and should not been taken too seriously...” (93-94). There is no significant difference between appearance and reality. Dramaturgy, therefore, views the world as a stage and life as a play in which, though we be constrained to take it seriously, we know it, nonetheless, to be only a play. This view characterizes those epochs in which historical events, e.g. the Holocaust, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc., are so inexplicable as to explode the prevailing value system in which they occur. Finally, the post-modernist views every ´law´ whether social, moral, or physical as tentative: it holds only for the moment in question (94).

The atheism of postmodern culture, while avowed explicitly by only a few, like Kariel of the intellectual elite, nonetheless pervades postmodern society with an attitude which ignores rather than denies the existence of God. God simply becomes irrelevant. The new Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to this as a “practical atheism, which restricts [man’s] needs and aspirations to space and time” (paragraph 2124). This is the cultural ambiance, then, in which the Church must confront an ever-growing number of sects.

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3. Sectarianism: A Reflection of and Reaction to Modern and Postmodern Culture

Modern and postmodern culture contain the precise mix of elements necessary to the rapid formation of new sects: religious subjectivism, moral relativism, technologically-driven utilitarianism, and, consequent upon these three, the threat of a meaningless world, anomie.

Martin Luther set out to make every man his own pope, authorized by the Holy Spirit to decide for himself the meaning of Holy Scripture. Luther eventually drew back from the implications of the right of private interpretation of the Bible, but the genie of religious individualism had already escaped its bottle and, joining forces with a secular philosophy of subjectivism and a moral relativism, awaited the coming of the twentieth century revolution in communications to produce ever more rapidly the bewildering array of modern sects. If man himself is the measure of religious and moral truth, then license is given the more charismatic among men to gather around them followers. From this perspective, the sects mirror modern society: today estimates of the number of sects range as high as 28,000 with new ones forming as we speak. The old joke about how a small American farm town rated a first Baptist, a Second Baptist and a Third Baptist Church makes the point: First Argument, Second Argument, Third Argument!

But the sects form not only as a reflection but also as a reaction to postmodern culture. As I noted above, post-modernism itself is a reaction against the tyrannous technocracy of the modern world. The formation of religious sects is a reaction against both, for in both the solvent of an overpowering technology dissolves man’s sense relationship of his fellowman, to his past and his future. Modernism deploys man’s rational energies toward the strictly instrumental end of increasing efficient production of goods and services. The question that prevails ultimately in such a system is not whether something should be done but whether it can be done. Enamored of such technical power, society empties itself rapidly of meaning.

Post-modernists react to meaninglessness by enacting the dramaturgic view of life: true, they say, life has no meaning other than the one we invent for it, but we will enact all of life that we can by making of it a play, a drama, and thus put on it the best face we can. In this they resemble the ancient Stoics who, oppressed by their own philosophy of deterministic monism, decided manfully enough that a stern virtue ought still to be their aim in life. The postmodernist, as we saw earlier, has given up on virtue, having opted for ´play´ instead.

But human nature still exists and it demands of life a religious meaning expressed in a social context. When a culture no longer supplies that meaning and context, as it once did in the Catholic Middle Ages, the alternative is anomie, or meaninglessness, leading directly to apathy, despair, and even suicide. Hence, sectarians react to the threat of meaninglessness by gravitating toward whatever charismatic leader or group speaks clearly and strongly enough to provide meaning for life and a demanding social context within which to incarnate it. Writes Dean Kelley, “We are inveterate meaning-mongers. We try to make sense out of experience, even if we have to resort to non-sense to do it”(Kelley 38). He cites Emile Durkheim´s study of suicide in which most suicides were “caused by anomie (anomy) or ´normlessness´: in our terms a malady of the absence of meaning”(40).

Of course, human nature, devoid of Catholic truth, cannot guarantee that the religious meaning adopted will be either reasonable or rooted in the faith given ´once for all´ by revelation through Christ. Consider the snake-handlers of West Virginia, the perfervid antics of Jimmy Swaggart, or the serio-comic assertions of the ´flowing-water Baptists of Brazil, among countless others. The latter proclaimed the inefficacy of multiple baptisms in a Church font since the water would get dirtier and less purifying as more and more sins accumulated in it! The solution: baptism only in rivers or streams.

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4. The Sectarian Mind-Set: a Personal View

How does the member of a sect experience the meaning of life?

There may be, of course, as many answers to that question as there are sectarians, but some elements of experience will be common to all. Perhaps, my own experience in a small sect will be illuminating.

I was raised a second-generation ‘cradle’ Reorganized Latter Day Saint, a small off-shoot of the movement founded by Joseph Smith in 1830. Though about 20 times smaller than the Mormons, our 250,000 member church (in 1960) was the largest of the 15 or so groups which, after the assassination of Joseph Smith, refused to follow Brigham Young west to Utah. Our claim to legitimacy over the Mormons consisted in having the sons and grandsons of Joseph Smith as ‘prophets, seers and revelators’ to guide our movement. The first hundred years of the RLDS church were spent trying to establish our claim as the ‘true’ Restoration in contradistinction to the polygamous branch in Salt Lake City, which also claimed legitimacy through Brigham Young and his successors. Dean Kelley, in his sociological study of contemporary churches, places the RLDS church, accurately I believe, on the liberal side of the spectrum and the Mormons on the conservative side (31, fig. 14).

Like many young people in sects of this sort , I experienced a conversion to Christ when I was sixteen. Looking back, I can see quite clearly that that experience (it occurred at a week-long youth camp) constituted a clear call from our Lord to commit my life to Him. In a way similar to John Henry Newman’s youthful conversion while still in an Anglican, my own experience removed from my mind forever the questions whether God existed, whether He loved me, or whether He had a particular destiny for my life. But I also see that Christ’s call to me was highly colored by the lens of the RLDS faith. My conversion experience also settled for me what should have been a more objective question: Which church was the true church of Jesus Christ? At the time I could not separate commitment to Christ from commitment to the RLDS faith in which I had been raised.

Therefore, I became an avid, but uncritical, reader of RLDS church Scripture and history. One of our books, The Doctrine and Covenants , records Joseph Smith’s instructions to Oliver Cowdery, an early convert, about how Cowdery could test the truth of a doctrine:

“... you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it be right, I [God] will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right; but if it is not right,... you shall have a stupor of thought, that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong.”

Doctrine Covenants 10: 3b-d, RLDS edition

The ‘burning of the bosom’ as authentication for religious convictions has become the hallmark of the Mormon invitation to believe their doctrines. For a young RLDS like me, it also had great force, though it would be gradually attentuated as our church moved further toward the liberal side of the religious spectrum.

As a youth, to read our church history and unique Scriptures with this ‘burning bosom’ mentality was to be in a state of almost continual religious excitement. In addition to the Inspired Version of the Bible and the Doctrine and Covenants, I read my mother’s copy of the Book of the Mormon (700 pages in length) at least five or six times in the year that followed my conversion, interspersing it with repeated readings of the first volume of our church history, a tendentious work recounting the miracles, prophecies and persecutions of the Restoration movement from 1830 to 1844, when Joseph Smith was killed. The point illustrated in countless different ways in these readings was that Joseph Smith was a true prophet sent from God to restore Christ’s true church and gospel after a lapse of some 1,200 years during which its place had been taken by the apostate Roman Catholicx Church. Such heady reading by a young lad earnestly seeking to identify the meaning of the life did, indeed, produce the promised ‘burning in the bosom’.

But authentication of one´s religious convctions by means so highly subjective as the 'burning in the bosom' or the ‘inner light’ or the charismatic ‘ gifts of the Spirit’ would seem to be a recipe for religious anarchy: the ultimate do-it-yourself religion. Indeed, RLDS history records the fractious disputes which often erupted among the brethren whose fires of religious imagination burned almost as hotly as Joseph’s. It also records the intense and prolonged efforts required of Joseph Smith to ensure that the doctrines authenticated by the burning in bosom would be those promulgated by his own revelations.

Still, the highly subjective experience of authentication tends to be held in check by the human need for religious experience within a social structure, Thus a polar tension exists in sectarian individualism which tends, in spite of itself, to coalesce around some leader or group through a process of surreptitious identification with God. A conversation I had with my lady barber illustrates the point. I came in for a hair cut to find her poring over a tattered and much-marked Bible. Settling into the barber chair, I asked what she was doing. “Preparing for my Sunday School class,” she replied. “How do you decide what to teach?” I asked. “Oh,” she said, “ I find that if I read the Bible prayerfully, ideas come to me which really help the kids I teach.” Then, abashed at the assertion of her own competence, she humbly averred, “It’s not really me, you know, but the Lord.”

Sectarians generally identify themselves with God through direct inspiration, and they, like my lady barber, remain unconscious of this identification because it is camouflaged by a humility, which masks two uncomfortable facts: 1) the presumptuousness of having made themselves the arbiters of religious truth and 2) the discomfiture of knowing that the real source of most of their opinions lies in the group they belong to. Yet one can hardly fault the devotion and very real Christian love exemplified by the lady barber, or of many other fundamentalists like her. Such self-identification with God finds its philosophical grounding in the Cartesian rationalism and Kantian subjectivism we have already discussed.

The Quaker’s inner light, the Pentecostal’s ecstatic speaking in tongues, and the Mormon’s “burning of the bosom” and even the dry Bible proof-texting of the Jehovah’s Witness are all variations on the same theme: identification with God through personal experience which authenticates for the individual the religious tenets of his sect.

The sectarian mind-set which I inherited as a part of my religious upbringing presented me with a real conundrum when I began my approach to Catholicism. Having lived long enough to see the futility of attempting to authenticate the Church by subjective tests, I seemed to have no other way to arrive at a decision. I wrote to a friend, Sheldon Vanauken, who gave me a curt, no-nonsense reply: “If the Faith makes sense to you, then you may choose to believe it.” Not without the help of God’s grace, of course.

How different from my former religious experience! There I endured a continual restless search for fresh ‘spiritual experiences’ of every variety—dreams, visions, prophecies, healings, serendipitous coincidences—each one treasured as further evidence that belonged to the true Church of Jesus Christ but none alleviating permanently the restless itself.

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5. The Historical Development of Mormonism as a Model for Sectarian Development Generally

The way in which the two main branches of Joseph Smith’s Restoration Movement have developed over the past 154 years provides an illuminating parallel with the development of Protestant sects generally. The Mormon church and the RLDS both spring from common source: the Restoration church founded and led by Joseph Smith, Jr. for fourteen years until his death in 1844. All the mainline Protestant sects likewise spring from a common source: the Roman Catholic Church of the sixteenth century. Allow me to trace briefly the history of these two Mormon sects.

Since Joseph Smith’s central tenet was rejection of all Christian bodies as mere offshoots of the great apostate Roman Catholic Church, authentication of his movement would depend on his personal charisma, prophetic gifts, and miracles. Nothing from the past, neither the Bible nor the early Fathers nor any development of doctrine such as the Trinity, could be accepted as untainted by the great apostasy until Smith had ratified it anew through a revelation of his own in which, often as not, it would undergo some modification.

After his death, the process of codification of doctrine within the movement assumed two different forms: the conservative approach of the Mormons, whose apotheosis of Joseph Smith meant that anything the prophet said, no matter how personal, or speculative, or bizarre, must be regarded as directly inspired by God; and the more liberal approach of the RLDS church which early on insisted that only those of Smith’s doctrines which he formally presented to the church for ratification should be regarded as inspired. Most of Mormonism’s peculiar doctrines regarding Adam-God worship, spiritual wifery, polygamy, blood atonement, priestly exaltation, eternal progression, etc., arise from Smith’s statements recorded in his diary, in private letters or in speculative writings he never published.

Ratification of the prophet’s declaration meant something quite different to each group: for the Mormons, ratification meant formal acceptance in much the same way that the ancient Israelites accepted God’s covenant through Moses. Faced with a declaration coming straight from God through his prophet, Mormon legislative conferences do not quibble: their alternatives are to submit or to rebel. We RLDS often sniffed that their assemblies were mere rubber-stamp operations.

For the RLDS church, ratification of a prophetic declaration was, indeed, attended by a sense of religious awe: after all, our prophets, until recently at least, always prefaced their revelations with “Thus saith the Lord”. But for us, ‘ratification’ carried a democratic overtone. Joseph himself had ‘revealed’ that proof of divine inspiration would be evidenced when the various quorums of priesthood--eleven in all—unanimously agreed to his ‘revelations’. Among the RLDS assemblies, a true democratic scrutiny always preceded ratification.

It is instructive to note the difference these two approaches have made during the 154 years since Joseph Smith’s death. Both sects inherited an authoritarian and priestly structure centered in a prophet-president of the church believed to be as directly inspired by God as were the apostles of Christ. Yet, today, each church presents a quite different face to outsiders.

Following the democratic impulse which requires their prophets to submit inspired documents to a church assembly for approval, the RLDS church has moved rapidly toward rapprochement with the American cultural milieu. Democratic debate became the Trojan Horse which introduced dissent into the heart of the church and undetermined its faith heritage. On every moral issue debated in U.S. and Western society today, the RLDS church has accommodated itself to the social currents of the society at large. This holds for moral questions like divorce, contraception, abortion, or homosexuality as well as doctrinal questions like women priests, inspiration of Scripture, or inspiration of the prophet himself.

Thirty years ago, Time magazine characterized the RLDS church as a “fossilized sect”. The characterization remains accurate today if by fossilized we mean a church that has lost its mission of proclaiming the restoration of the gospel as it once understood it. Today, the RLDS is a negative growth organization that appears to be dying slowly. It fails to attract new members because it no longer proclaims passionately the meaning of life contained in its original ‘gospel’ and is moving toward accommodation with its social environment.

If rapprochement vis-à-vis the rest of the world marks the RLDS church, resistance to the world marks the Mormons. Even though they have reached accommodation with American culture on major issues like polygamy (officially banned in 1890) and a segregated priesthood disavowed in 1978), the Mormons continue to make their mark on the United States and the rest of the world. The bizarre roots of many of their beliefs have been exposed repeatedly, even by some of their own historians. Yet they continue to flourish with one of the highest growth rates of any religion anywhere. Why? And why has the RLDS church, springing from the same historical roots, failed to flourish?

Sociologist Dean Kelley offers a plausible explanation:

Contrary to the impression given by many contemporary churches, the true business of the genuinely religious organization is not baby-sitting or entertainment, not social work or social action, not even what passes for religious education or theology, unless these activities are the means for acting out or otherwise communicating the meaning of life which the religious group wants to proclaim.

Kelley 136

The simplest rationale for the vigor of the Mormon church as for the limp performance of the RLDS church during the last 50 years lies in the strictness or leniency with which each church has treated its faith heritage. The Mormon church has been unwilling to be “diverted from its distinctive mission in the realm of meaning” (Kelley 138). However absurd its beliefs, however poorly rooted they may be in history or Biblical revelation, however much of the Book of the Mormon may fly in the face of archeology, the Mormon church confidently continues to offer a meaning for life.

Through participation in its priesthood, temple worship and proxy baptism for the death, Mormonism offers the hope of exaltation in the next life to its adherents. The Mormon church hierarchy takes its beliefs seriously enough to require two years of self-paid missionary service from every faithful young Mormon male, seriously enough to define terms for faithful membership in practices such as abstinence from smoking and drinking and the ten percent tithe of gross income, and seriously enough to shun or expel members who publicly flout its beliefs and practices. In short, it imposes a meaning on life which actively resists secular culture’s prevailing tendency toward anomie.

Even the manner in which Mormons reached accommodation with American culture on the questions of polygamy and segregation is illuminating when contrasted with accommodation as practiced by the RLDS church regarding the feminist issue of women priests. There is no record of a prolonged and open debate or dissent within lay circles of Mormonism or even within its hierarchy about the evils of polygamy or segregation. Discussion there must have been. But the discussion and decision to make a change was restricted to the highest level of leadership, announced to the church by its prophet as “new light” from God, and accepted docilely by most Mormons. The few who continued to disagree after some formal efforts toward reconciliation were simply cut off.

In contrast, for nearly 20 years, the RLDS hierarchy allowed open debate and dissent from the received tradition of the male priesthood among laity and priesthood alike, before proclaiming “new light” through its prophet authorizing women’s ordination. Not just the decision but the entire decades-long process employed to reach that decision mirrored democratic processes in secular American culture. Once ratified, the decision was enforced and approximately one third of the membership broke away into plethora of schismatic groups. And now, while the RLDS hierarchy entertains debate on new social issues like the acceptability of the gay ‘lifestyle’, currently agitating American society, the growth of the church has stopped dead in its tracks.

The historical development of the two branches of Mormonism provides us with a paradigm for the way in which the Protestant sects in general reflect and react to postmodern culture. The RLDS church is a study in miniature of the mainline Protestant sects that began almost five centuries ago. Like them, it showed initial vigor from its inception in 1860 until 1960, when its leaders allowed members and ministers alike to begin a process of dissent from its faith heritage in a attempt to reach accommodation with American society. Dean Kelley shows convincingly that this same pattern, extending over a somewhat longer time-frame, represents the experience of the American Lutherans, United Methodists, Episcopalians, Anglicans, Presbyterians, American Baptists, the United Church of Christ, and the Unitarians. These are churches whose religious beliefs have become secondary to another goal: ecumenical harmony with each other, social action, and accommodation to the prevailing culture (88-89).

Mormonism, on the other hand, provides us with a model for those Protestant sects which have refused to abandon their distinctive belief systems, which make consistently high demands on their members, and which have shown a willingness to shun or expel those who openly dissent. Most of these groups are of more recent vintage. The Jehovah’s Witness, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Assemblies of God, Churches of Christ, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Southern Baptists. Among them will also be found tiny sects, too numerous to mention here, some of only short duration.

I believe that the Protestant sects which have become ecumenical and social-action oriented represent a challenge to the Church quite different from those which follow the Mormon pattern of development. The former, Dean Kelley calls “lenient churches” and the latter, "strict churches” (120-21). Interestingly, Kelley places the Roman Catholic Church exactly in the middle of his gradient illustrating the descent from strictness to leniency. Catholics, he says, seem to have found their way around the dilemma of leniency vs. strictness facing Protestant churches. Catholics have both. They have ecclesiolae within the ecclesia (114-15).

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6. The Sectarian Challenge to the Christian Catholic Life

Since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has committed itself to ecumenism. Pope John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint devotes his entire encyclical to underscoring the Church’s commitment to it as an a outgrowth of our Lord’s priestly prayer, “May they all be one, Father, as you and I are one.” “Believers in Christ [of whatever persuasion] cannot remain divided. If they wish to...effectively oppose the world’s tendency to reduce to powerlessness the mystery of redemption, they must profess together the same truth about the cross”(UUS 1).

The first challenge we face, therefore, is not how to confront the welter of sects around us but how to confront with them the ‘mystery of lawlessness’ which tends to void the power of Christ’s cross in the secular world. We must learn, says the Pope, to pray together: common prayer is “the soul of the whole ecumenical movement and can rightly be called ‘spiritual ecumenism”(UUS 21), because it centers us, in spite of our differences, on the Lord and the Master of us all.

Second, we must pursue ecumenical dialogue. The Pope sees opportunity in the very subjectivism I have been criticizing above. “The personalist way of thinking...is linked to the Christian truth [about Man who ] cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (UUS 28). The true role of the subject, it seems, is to serve as a point of departure in a dialogical search for truth. Humility and mutual regard must inform this dialogue. Nor will it be permissible to alter “the deposit of faith, changing the meaning of dogmas, eliminating essential words for them, accommodating truth to the preferences of a particular age...The unity willed by God can be attained only by the adherence of all to the content of revealed faith in its entirety” (UUS 18). One of the first fruits of dialogue conducted with prayer will be a searching examination of Catholic and Protestant consciences to arrive at the truth of our mutual offenses and seek the forgiveness that not only heals but opens our hearts to trust one another as we seek reconciliation in Christ (UUS 33).

Finally, prayer and ecumenical dialogue must lead to practical cooperation among Christians in service to humanity. We have described above the phenomenon of cultural amnesia which permeates western societies; cultural icons lose their meanings by being trivialized and made to serve an ignoble commercialism. Moral values become more and more confused as sexual libertinism of every variety is encouraged under the banner of ‘alternate life-styles’. The litany of modern and postmodern ills is all too familiar: divorce, contraception, narcissism, abortion, euthanasia, suicide and assisted suicide, child abuse, sadism, and, most lately, Satanism. With the exception of contraception, here are social evils which Christians of every persuasion can address with common action. The Pope sees such ecumenical cooperation as a “true school ecumenism, a dynamic road to unity” (UUS 40).

I suggested above a distinction between lenient and strict sects. The opportunities for ecumenical prayer, dialogue, and cooperation are largely confined at the present time to the former. The virulent anti-Catholicism with which they began has largely spent itself, and the philosophical currents and social forces of modernism and post-modernism have eroded their own confidence in some tenets of their faith. In spite of this, they still retain elements of Christian belief and practice and are especially open to collaboration with the Church in the effort to achieve unity. For them, the Pope’s three steps toward unity in Ut Unum Sint will be fruitful approach.

But what of the strict sects? Most if not all of these are still infected with various strains of anti-Catholicism, some more virulent than others. They stand apart not only from what they see as a corrupt society but also from the blandishments of the Whore of Rome, as some of them are pleased to call us. Nonetheless, some evangelicals and fundamentalist have joined hands with Catholics on numerous occasions to oppose anti-Christian social practices and legislation: Abortion and gay rights issues have probably produced more ecumenical efforts between Catholics and these groups than even those produced by cooperation with the so-called ‘lenient’ churches. Such efforts must be pursued, but I believe something more is demanded of us if we are to confront the challenge of the strict sects.

Many of the strict sects proselytize aggressively among Catholics; they still see Catholics as non-Christians who labor vainly in the toils of idolatry, mariolatry, and a gospel of salvation by good works: all of the old Protestant canards against Catholicism still resonate in their souls. Why is this so? Especially after two centuries in which the Church has given up territorial rights, has relinquished privileged political influence in country after country, and has publicly asked forgiveness on more than one occasion for sins committed by Catholics in the past. Chesterton’s trenchant remark springs to mind: “To cease hating the Church is to begin loving her.” There seems to be no middle ground.

Our response to these strict sects, while prompted by a charity not less fervent than that which animates Ut Unum Sint, must, I believe, take a different tack. In the first place we must not allow our respect for other Christians and our desire for ecumenical cooperation, perfectly appropriate when these are reciprocated, to paralyze us when we are faced with those who see us only as the enemy. This will not happen if we heed the Pope’s admonition not to indulge a false ecumenism which dilutes doctrine for the sake of shallow agreement.

Second, we must not underestimate the danger these sects present to the Church. Estimates run as high as 8,000 Catholics each day who leave the Church for one of these sects. That works out to nearly 3 million each year. Central and South America, especially Brazil, seem to be the most prominent targets for prosyletization, but the effort is global in extent. It is fueled by moneys garnered from Protestants in the United States and projects itself across borders and oceans via television and radio.

If we can avoid the danger of underestimating the problem or misdirecting our efforts, we must take three vital steps directed toward our own laity to stop the advance of the sects among them: 1) kerygma; 2) catechesis; and 3) apologetics.

A strong proclamation of the original kerygma of the Gospel, a complete catechesis of Church doctrine, and a Bible-based apologetics which provides specific answers to biblical attacks on Catholic beliefs and practices is the recipe for turning back the sectarian tide. This is not a three step program as such; rather, like a recipe, these three elements must be blended together so as to inform the way all of us communicate the faith in casual conversations, in classroom settings, in debate, and most crucially for priests, in the pulpit.

Too often, cradle Catholics practice their faith seemingly unconscious of the marvelous grace won for them by the Lord Jesus Christ and proclaimed in the kerygma, the Good News of the Gospel. Often catechized in a strictly rote fashion, they have never heard the earth-shattering news that if anyone is “in Christ, he is a new creature” (II Cor. 5:17). Catholics produced by lifeless catechesis, never see life with the eyes of a reborn Christian who knows that the “world with its lust is passing away” (I John 2:17). They have been taught to do their duty but have yet to discover, in the words of C.S. Lewis, the delight for which the duty has been imposed. They have absorbed a ‘getting-by’ Gospel, sufficient at one time perhaps, to keep them from mortal sins but insufficient to impress the image of Christ on the world around them. It has never occurred to them that they must stand up in the public square and risk themselves as living witnesses of the Lord Jesus. The proclamation or kerygma of the Gospel demands conversion of heart, not just in turning from sin but in turning toward Christ as the center of our hopes and affections.

Kerygma and conversion must inform catechesis. Pope John Paul II writes that catechesis has:

The two-fold objective of maturing the initial faith and of educating the true disciple of Christ by means of a deeper and more systematic knowledge of the Person and the message of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But in catechetical practice, this model order must allow for the fact that the initial evangelization has often not taken place. A certain number of children baptized in infancy come for catechesis in the parish without receiving any other initiation into the Faith and still without any explicit personal attachment to Jesus Christ; they only have the capacity to believe placed within them by Baptism and the presence of the Holy Spirit; and opposition is quickly created by the prejudices of their non-Christian family background or of the positivist spirit of their education...Again, many pre-adolescents and adolescents who have been baptized and been given a systematic catechesis and the sacraments still remain hesitant for a long time about committing their whole lives to Jesus Christ... Finally, even adults are not safe from temptations to doubt or to abandon their Faith, especially as a result of their unbelieving surroundings. This means that catechesis must often concern itself not only with nourishing and teaching the Faith, but also with arousing it unceasingly with the help of grace, with opening the heart, with converting, and preparing total adherence to Jesus Christ [for those]... still on the threshold of faith. Cathechesi tradendae 19.

The Pope tell us that Christ is both the Teacher and the Taught in all true catechesis (CT 6). He points out that catechesis can never have its full impact unless it is imparted by those who live a Christ-centered life. What the catechist has been taught as a doctrine must be experienced as a life-giving encounter with Christ through prayer and the sacraments. In the hackneyed phrase of evangelicalism, the Gospel, like the common cold, must be ‘caught’ as well as ‘taught’.

Proclamation of the kerygma within catechesis implies a greater familiarity with and reliance upon Holy Scripture read with the mind of the Church than is common among many catechists today. Too often, catechesios is performed in one of two ways: either an accurate but rote presentation of doctrine addressed to students who have never experienced conversion to Christ, or reliance on Bible teaching in the Protestant fashion which brings the student to Christ, almost devoid of commitment to Church and Magisterium as his living voice.

The corrective for both deficiencies may be found in the model of catechesis presented to us by the new Catechism of the Catholic Church. It combines a Christocentric presentation of doctrine with overwhelming reliance upon Bible passages and the writings of Church Fathers and Saints. A perusal of this wonderful gift to the Church leaves one with the impression that it is a pastiche of Biblical passages carefully coordinated to bring to light the key doctrines of the Church as developed down the centuries. Pope Benedict XV in his 1920 encyclical commemorating the fifteenth centenary of the death of the great Bible scholar, St. Jerome, said, “So convinced indeed was Jerome that familiarity with the Bible was the royal road to the knowledge and love of Christ that he did not hesitate to say: ‘ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ’” (Spiritus Paraclitus 35). Talk to former Catholics who have been drawn away from the Church into one of the sects and they will often tell you that one reason they joined was that , for the first time, someone opened up the Bible and helped them to discover Christ in its pages.

Traditional catechetics using short questions and answers as a means of presenting the doctrines of the Faith will always be necessary, but it must be supplemented by relevant Bible readings which will allow the Holy Spirit to speak through the inspired Word, investing the doctrines with drama and power. Catechists must know their Bible. Yet many Catholic Bible study courses compound the student's ignorance because their approach to Bible study is so mired in the technicalities of biblical criticism as to be useless to students who wish to read the Bible with the mind of the Church.

Very different is an approach to the Bible now coming out of Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio from Dr. Scott Hahn and other Bible scholar there. He calls his method “canonical criticism” which, in essence, allows the Bible text to speak for itself but always in the context of the entire canon of Scripture and the faith of the Church. In conjunction with Eternal Word Television Network, he and Mr. Jeff Cavins have produced a thirteen hour video course in how to read the Bible as a Catholic.

Furthermore, apologetics must be reinstituted at the parish level where it has almost disappeared during the past thirty years, perhaps because of a misguided ecumenism. St. Peter long ago expressed the essence of apologetics when he counseled the laity to be “always prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence (I Peter 3:15). Here we encounter another obstacle: ignorance of anti-Catholic sects. Aside from some more remarkable doctrine or practice which may have caught their attention, Catholics simply do not know what their sectarian neighbors believe or where they have come from.

Today many materials are available. The laity need to have access to periodicals and books which provide solid arguments for the faith and information about sects. In the United States at least, there are a number of apologetics periodicals like This Rock and Envoy which provide Catholic answers to objections currently raised by anti-Catholic sects. Most Catholics and even pastors remain woefully unaware of their existence. A number of authentic Catholic publishing houses offer a wide selection of books, tapes, and videos, and teaching programs in apologetics. How many have ever heard of Ignatius Press, Franciscan University Press, St. Joseph’s Communications, Tan Book Publishers, the Daughters of St. Paul, or Catholic Answers. These and more carry materials for training in the defense of our Faith.

Finally, the kerygma we announce, the catechesis we give and the defense we offer for the Faith must be imbued with Christ’s vision of the world: “lift up your eyes and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together “ ( John 4:35). Only when Catholics, equipped with the tools for the harvest, begin to view the world as the place they are called to labor in witness for Christ, will they know the joy of laying down their lives in service to the Master. And that vision is the ultimate answer to the challenge of the sects and of the postmodern world we inhabit.

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Works Cited

Benedict XV. “Spiritous Paraclitus”, Daughters of St. Paul, Boston, MA. 1920.

Chervin, Rhonda and Kevane, Eugene. Love of Wisdom, An Introduction to Christian Philosophy. Ignatious Press. San Francisco, 1988.

Harmon, William and Holman, C.Hugh. A Handbook of Literature, 5^th de.

John Paul II, “Catechesi Trandendae”. Teaching the Catholic Faith Today, Twentieth Century Catechetical Documents of the Holy See. ed. Msgr. Eugene Kevane. Daughters of St. Paul, Boston, MA. 1982.

John Paul II. “Ut Unum Sint” The Pope Speaks. Vol.40, No. 5. 1995.

Kariel, Henry S. The Desperate Politics of Post-modernism. University of Massachusetts Press. Amherst, MA, 1989.

Kelley, Dean M. Why Conservative Churches are Growing, A study in Sociology of Religion. Mercer University Press. Macon, Georgia, 1972.

Kreeft, Peter. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven , but never dreamed of asking., Ignatius Press. San Francisco, 1990.

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SEMMINAR: L’oratorio e l’arte

P. Paolo Zanutel D. O - Vicenza – Italia

“L’ arte occupa un posto principale tra le diverse manifestazioni della cultura postmoderna. Filippo, al suo tempo, seppe porre l’arte al servizio del Vangelo. Oggi, l’Oratorio ha saputo dare continuità a questa eredità e come?

Il tema che mi è stato assegnato si propone di illustrare uno degli aspetti della forte personalità di Filippo Neri sul quale, nonostante la ricca bibliografia, non solo agiografica, divulgativa ma anche eccellente da un punto di vista scientifico, di cui gode oggi il Padre è stato a lungo sottaciuto.

Ma in occasione del recente IV centenario della morte di Filippo (1995) la grande mostra “La regola e la fama”, organizzata a Roma ha richiamato prepotentemete l’attenzione sia del mondo scientifico che della opinione pubblica sull’impegno del Neri e dei suoi preti dell’Oratorio circa l’arte come mezzo di educazione pastorale. Perché essenzialmente di questo si tratta. Non un’espressione e realizzazioni (architettoniche, pittorico-figurative, musicale= belle, egregie fine a se stesse, ma strumento per un’elevazione dell’anima e un affinamento del gusto spirituale secondo, ovviamente, i canoni del tempo dominati dalla riforma del Concilio di Trento, conclusosi proprio mentre il Neri vive la stagione della maturità ed è prete da poco più di un decennio.

Credo che la grande mostra romana rimanga come una delle migliori testimoniaze celebrative del centenario che in questo modo ha voluto essere non una serie di manifestazioni effimere ma aiutare davvero a riscoprire la figura di Fillippo, ponendolo all’attenzione degli storici dell’arte e alla rinnovata devozione dei fedeli, non solo di quelli che gravitano attorno ai nostri Oratori.

Bene quindi ha fatto la Commissione coordinatrice di questo incontro a inserire un gruppo di lavoro per riflettere sul tema del rapporto Oratorio-cultura a servizio dell’uomo conteporaneo.

Richiamo brevemente alcuni punti utili alla discussione e alla nostra attenzione, facilitato in questo dal fatto di parlare, tutto sommato, in un incontro di fligi di san Filippo.

Sappiamo come sia stata originale la sua proposta nella Chiesa e come essa, nella sua articolazione (Oratorio, Congregazione, pastorale, ecclesiologia) derivi e sia fortemente improntata dalla persona del Neri.

Do quindi per scontata la conoscenza della sua biografia: anche in questo caso premessa non solo necessaria, ma addirittura indispensabile per carpirne l’opera allo stesso modo di quella di un letterato, di un artista, di un filosofo ecc., senza il pericolo di cadere in un forzato riconoscimiento di meriti non dovuti e mezzo, la biografia, per conoscere aspetti del carattere che determinano le sue espressioni. Per essempio, non è possibile capire il tormento dell’arte di Michelangelo, o il pessimismo del Leopardi, l’impronta cristiana del Manzoni, o l’opera di Teresa di Calcutta, o il pontificato di Giovanni Paolo II se non se ne conosce l’esperienza di vita.

E’ ormai acquisita la formazione unamistica (per il latino, la filosofia), ancorché non sistematica, del Neri. Ne abbiamo testimoniaze da chi ben lo conosceva, ma soprattutto dalla sua ricca biblioteca, il cui inventario fu steso dal padre Prometeo Pellegrini due giorni dopo la morte di Filippo per incarico della Congregazione di Roma. Un copioso elenco di 516 opere a stampa e una trentina di manoscritti, certamente in maggioranza di argomento ascetico-spirituale, ma nel quale figurano anche classici della letteratura cristiana come le Collazioni e le Istitituzioni di Cassiano. Ed è certo che dei suoi libri era geloso tanto che rifuggiva dal darli in prestito sicuro che sarebbero stati difficilmente restituiti (vedi CISTELLINI; Filippo Neri, in Dizionario degli Istituti di perfezione).

Sono libri, come dice il Taguri, che il Padre non custodiva certamente come soprammobili di scansie, ma consultava continuamente per prepararsi alla predicazione anche se volle sempre che questa si mantenesse semplice e familiare, caratteristica che si trasmise nell’oratoria dei suoi figli. Non una predicazione sciatta, perché ben preparata, ma senza l’apparato erudito che invece intaccava l’oratoria sacra contemporanea. I preti dell’Oratorio dovevano parlare all’anima più che all’intelletto degli uditori.

L’ amore per il Filippo lo assorbe giovinetto presso i <domenicani del convento fiorentino di San Marco, dove il beato Angelico ha profuso il meglio della sua pittura, frequentando i corsi per i fanciulli organizzati per la loro educazione dalla Compagnia delle laudi che si faceva carcio della loro educazione. E l’amore per il bel canto e per la musica sappiamo che improntò tutta la vita del Nostro fino a trasferire a Roma la Lauda come egli l’aveva appresa, da principio con semplice stesura melodica omofona, destinata ad arricchirsi di concertazione polifonica per il concorso di insigni musicisti, confratelli dell’Oratorio, come Pier Luigi da Palestrina, tanto da farlo divenire un nuovo genere musicale.

Parsimonioso e severo con sé stesso, tanto da vivere in dignitosa personale povertà, appena ottenuta l’assegnazione della piccola chiesa di Santa Maria in Vallicella, non esita a fare abbattere l’edificio per aprire il cantiere della Chiesa Nuova che vuole ampia, splendida e ricca nella sua architettura, senza risparmio di energie e di mezzi che confida di ottenere dalla bontà dei benefattori, strumenti tangibili della Provvidenza in cui confida senza limiti.

E l’iconografia filippina, dovuta alle scelte dei Padri, che si erano formati alla sua scuola, dimostrano scelte ben precise di artisti spesso fra i più affermati o che attraverso la loro arte, stimolata dall’Oratorio, divennero famosi: Reni, Barocci, il Pomarance, il Cortona, il Piazzetta, il Guercino, il Dolci, lo Zucconi, l’Aleradi, il Messina.

La Congregazione che nasce quasi suo malgrado e con fini prettamente apostolici, eredita tuttavia da filippo l'amore per lo studio. Più di trecento autori di discipline agiografiche, storiche, teoogiche, dal Baronio, al Rinaldi, al Bozzi fino a tutto il Settecento inoltrato con la ricca schiera dei corrispondenti del Muratori nella compilazione dei Rerum Italicarum scriptores la rendono benemerita e distinta nel campo della cultura italiana ed europea, instaurando, fra i Filippini, una tradizione bruscamente interrotta, purtroppo, con l'avvento della stagione delle soppressioni ecclesiastiche per le note legislazioni laicistiche. Eppure compariranno ancora personaggi di rilievo come il Newman la cui figura e le cui opere sono oggi oggetto di attenti studi.

Non ostante le traversie della storia che ridimensionano la presenza dell'Oratorio soprattutto nei paesi della vecchia Europa, anche là dove le Congregazioni non sono più attive rimangono testimoni di una tradizione artistica filippina, le belle chiese e gli Oratori edificati nelle varie città.

Basta scorrere a annotare con attenzione il diffondersi delle congregazioni ad instar che documenta la monumentale opera Memorie historiche della congregazione dell'Oratorio di G. MARCIANO, Napoli 1693 - 1702, in 5 volumi, per constatare come gli insediamenti oratoriani occupino localmente, nel contesto urbanistico, un posto di rilievo per i loro pregi artistici.

Certamente Filippo e i suoi Padri risentono del gusto artistico dei loro tempi, in prevalenza il barocco, ma le esigenze dell'arte non sopraffanno mai il fine proprio dell'edificio di culto che mira soprattutto a creare l'atmosfera adatta alla celebrazione della liturgia, alla preghiera individuale, al rapporto con dio. Tutto, come per esempio, rileva il grande storico dell'arte, l'Arsalan nella sua Guida alle chiese d'italia, non solo l'armonia delle linee architettoniche concorre a creare il clima del sacro, ma anche le spesso ricche tavole, pale d'altare, statue hanno funzione didattico-pedagogica alla preghiera. Non esistono pittori adolcinati nelle chiese filippine, ne s'insinua una pietà del terrore attraverso immagini troppo crude anche per quel che riguarda il tema della morte, caratteristico della predicazione Secentesa.

Nell'Oratorio come nella chiesa filippina predomina la cattedra per la predicazione: ma non è l'impegno principale quello dell'annucnio del Vangelo e dell'istruzione dei fedeli?

Doppo questa premessa, fatta senza scopo di completezza, ma solo per giustificare con la riscoperta delle nostre radici il magistero di Filippo Neri, passo a riflettere sui tre punti che, mi pare emergano chiaramente dal suo approccio con la cultura e che egli ci ha lasciato in eredità preziosa:

L'amore o meglio l'esigenza dello studio

Confronto con l'arte

Confronto, in particolare, con la musica

Lo studio cui alludo dà per scontata la preparazione prevista per il sacerdozio o, per il laico, per il conseguimento di un riconoscimento universitario alla professione.

Oggi è opportuno che ciascun Oratoriano impegnato ad essere "apostolo" curi un continuo aggiornamento nel campo delle così dette scienze umane che curi l'approfondimento, in particolare della pedagogia, della psicologia, della sociologia religiosa.

Certamente impeganti nella pastorale, queste scienze ci offrono utili strumenti per essere in grado di capire, ascoltare guidare coloro che frequentano le nostre chiese e i nostri oratori. Soprattutto i giovani che sono oggi tanto bombardati dalle nuove culture. E' necessario conoscerle per poter dare delle risposte (penso alla New Age, alle nuove proposte religiose, mentre diminuiscono i segni del sacro).

Secondo le culture correnti è innegabile la perdita progressiva della salvezza in senso teologico di azione di Dio per l'uomo e lo sviluppo di vari concetti di autosalvazione, ottenuti con lo sviluppo della mente e del potenziale umano. Si tratta dunque, in fondo, del processo in atto di crescita di una "fede senza dogmi", una forma di transreligiosità, in cui si riscontrano scambi reciproci tra movimenti religiosi volti alla scoperta del proprio mondo interiore nelle sue potenzialità e nei suoi limiti.

Pertanto, credo opportuno suggerire la constante lettura personale di riviste specialistiche di cui abbonda il mercato editoriale sia nel vecchio che nel nuovo continente: permettono di conoscere gli apporti più recenti sui vari problemi (di teologia, di pastorale, di morale ecc.), sono certamente strumenti più agili dello studio di specifiche che sarebbe auspicabile trovassero posto in un'aggiornata biblioteca della comunità o dell'Oratorio, incoraggiando anche i laici a consultarle, studiarle per essere collaboratori preparati.

Curare poi iniziative d'incontri culturali, secondo le specifiche esigenze locali, ricorrendo anche all'apporto di persone particolarmente preparate, specie su temi di grande attualità come la bioetica, la genetica ecc. Mi sembra conserverebbero quell'impronta del primitivo oratorio, non solo scuola di preghiera ma anche di formazione umana e cristiana.

Dopo adeguata preparazione, sarà possible aprire a dibattiti e confronti i raduni dei nostri oratori in cui ciascuno porterà il proprio contributo alla discussione.

Nei nostri Oratori un posto privilegiato dovrebbe essere riservato alla lettura e allo studio della Parola di Dio (Nuovo e Antico Testamento) che Filippo Neri rese possibile ai laici nel momento in cui si tornava ad un esclusiva lettura chiericale della Sacra Scrittura, anticipando atteggiamenti del Concilio Vaticano II!

b) Nei confronti dell'arte un primo e particolare dovere, penso, debba vederci impegnati in una gelosa conservazione del patrimonio artistico delle chiese e delle case delle nostre congregazioni che abbiamo ricevuti come preziosa eredità da chi ci ha preceduto.

E' spesso un "obbligo" pesante, per l'impiego di mezzi finanziari, superiori alle forze e alle entrante delle case. Qui occorre pertanto prima conoscere le possibilità che le leggi locali, regionali, statali offrono a salvaguardia del patrimonio artistico e quindi, con pazienza e tenacia, "opportune et importune", compiere tutti gli iter burocratici necessari ad ottenere contributi. Le nostre chiese, soprattutto, sono spesso delle vere pinacoteche; le strutture murarie necessitano continui restauri; i fondi antichi delle nostre biblioteche bisognano di disinfestazioni e cure. Sono problemi enormi, se affrontati da soli: occorre creare solidarietà ampie intorno ad essi per giungere a dei risultati. E qui un ruolo prezioso di aiuto può venirci proprio dai laici che si facciano carico con noi dei problemi accennati. (Qui parlerei dell'esperienza vicentina: una casa senza mezzi, con padri anziani, sei partito con il restauro dei due organi del De Lorenzi; hai cominciato le stagioni di concerti d'organo che si sono inserite fra le manifestazioni culturali della città, imitate poi da iniziative che hanno contagiato anche chiese della città.

In pochi anni, perseguendo l'obiettivo del restauro della chiesa settecentesca sei riuscito nel'intento, non solo, ma è stato il primo grande restauro delle chiese cittadine che è stato elogiato per la riuscita e ha dato vita ad una gara di emulazione promuovendo lavori di restauro in numerose chiese della Città che da ultimo ha coinvolto anhe la cattedrale. Un progetto che sembrava "pazzesco" ma che preparato e maturato clle

nell'opinione pubblica ha saputo riscuotere il contributo e l'appoggio di tante persone e degli enti pubblici).

I beni artistici sono un patrimonio comune non solo dell’Oratorio: ci sono affidati, e la loro conservazione interpella la coscienza di tutti preti e laici. Solo creando questa cosciente responsabilità saremo in grado di far fronte ai nostri impegni in questo delicato campo. Se la chiesa è funzionante, decorosamente tenuta anche punto di rifeimento per i fedeli, ne stimola la frequenza nella scia della tradizione filippina.

E fra le arti è scontato dire quanto fosse amata dal Neri la musica. Non solo ne fece uno dei motivi caratteristici dell'Oratorio, col canto di Laudi e canti devoti ma, dietro il suo insegnamento, venne curata soprattutto in funzione dell'uso liturgico. Per esperienza personale, ma anche per numerose pubblicazioni, posso attestarvi la ricchezza dei fondi musicali delle antiche biblioteche dei vari oratori italiani, testimoni di un fervore e di una ricca creatività compositiva musicale. Basta poi scorrere qualunque manuale di storia della musica per rendersi conto dell'importanza che in questo campo hanno avuto gli Oratori filippini.

Una sola gloria del passato? Posso tranquilamente smentire. La maggior parte delle nostre case anche oggi cura con passione il canto liturgico, privilegiando il suono dell'organo, ache se non disdegna forme moderne di melodie (ricordo che la prima messa con le chitarre, e allora fece epoca, fu eseguita nel nostro oratorio del Borromini a Roma agli inizi degli anni Sessanta).

E' necessario mantenere alta questa nostra tradizione nei confronti della musica sacra, tanto più ora che si va riscoprendo che, forse troppo frettolosamente, ci si era aperti ad una musica" facile di accordi strimpellati, non adatti alla celebrazione liturgica.

Canto e musica devono essere espressione gioiosa dell'animo ma consoni al tempo e al luogo. Tenute presenti queste premesse, canto e musica richiedono diligente preparazione.

Perciò il nostro impegno deve mirare alla educazione delle voci attraverso la creazione di scholae cantorum o di cori i cui componenti sappiano anche leggere la musica, si sentano consapevoli del servizio prezioso che svolgono nelle nostre assemblee quasi investiti di un ministero.

Deve continuamente essere arricchito il nostro repertorio, soprattutto ora che la liturgia in volgare permette un coinvolgimento totale del popolo, con l'adattamento di facili melodie, che tuttavia non cadano nella sciatteria.

Ma la musica è soprattutto mezzo di avvicinamento ai giovani: il nostro sforzo deve essere quello di capirne i gusti, educarne le "mode", far gustare la gioia dello stare insieme, esprimerla attraverso il canto.

Quante volte, per scacciare la malinconia, o riprendere coraggio, bastano una chitarra e tre giovani che cantano!

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WEDNESDAY, July 15

Chronicle

Wow, the Philipenses´ gaiety is manifested with grandeur! Today, we have showed our best face so that we could leave it on a historical photograph. There is no doubt that the Philipenses’ liking is projected every moment and that every distinct language is not an obstacle for us. A great way to begin this day is by taking a photograph!

It is very important to see people visit the Sacred Temple in their chapel. Having Him as the Sacrament of the Love of the Father, we are going to look for Him in the Sanctuary to share our efforts in the making our Congress, a demonstration of our enthusiasm. Also, to project the Oratory as a real and authentic alternative for our present time.

There is no doubt that the value of “family life” in the Oratory can be fulfilled with enthusiasm and hope in this new era that we currently live in and that needs traveling witnesses of the Philipense spirit. Today’s conference requires that we confront this virtue that every Christian should live by. In the Oratory, it is imperative, especially if we want to really support the growth of a new epoch that is marked by Christian virtue, especially, the virtue of love.

The workshops, today, have really ignited the Oratorio family as an assistant in this Congress. The “Prophet of Joy” calls us to the prophecy, vocation for the intrepids that are capable of audacity and originality, to teach a World that debates between monotony and ambulism.

The Eucharist celebration has been the source and culmination of all our work. Tiredness, there, becomes a redemptous sacrifice and it stays closely united to God’s Mystery of Love.

At the end of the day we still had enough energies to become observers of a Folkloric Ballet, allowing us to sleep in a typical Mexican style.

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CONFERENCE: THE ORATORY IN THE CHURCH TODAY

Pbro. Gustavo Felten

German Villa, Chile.

If we compare the Oratory with other congregations, our institute seems little thing. The Priest Theo Gunkel, founder of Leipzing, used to say that it was a marginal note in the life of the Church. Others ask": What is happening with the Oratory that doesn't grow more? Is it antiquated? Does it need a better organization?

Doubts as these can compose a phenomenon that I would like to call the “oratorian’s inferiority complex." I consider it a dangerous illness that needs an urgent treatment, because easily it could paralyze the sick person. Let us begin to analyze its external aspect.

We are a family

It is true that in comparison with congregations like the Jesuits and Salesians, we are a tiny minority, but we have something very big: we are a family.

According to St. Philip´s explicit disposition, each oratory constitutes a family, and a family is more than an army, because only in the family life is engendered. The family, although it is only composed of three people, it is of another category, it is more than all the social entities. For that reason, let us dedicate to what is our first vocation: to be family and to live in family.

We are old but not antiquated

There is another mistake in the diagnosis of our illness that says that all that is worth has to be new. It is not enough to be modern, it has to be postmodern. The old thing is identified with that antiquated, and the Oratory is old, although it has been founded at the beginning of the modern time, in the Renaissance. With this it shares the desire of a new birth, but it had to be a Renaissance. It is not born from nothing, but of something old that is worth and that it can be the base and norm of the new. The Oratory is not old, but rather it maintains a great appreciation of the old.

St. Philip was probably the first one that included the history of the Church in the liturgy and in the spiritual life. The Cardinal Newman insisted in a concrete and historical road toward God[1]. And Baronio, successor of St. Philip, wrote the first great history of the Church[2]. Which is the great problem of the modern catechizes? That the tradition of the faith has been interrupted from a generation to another. And this, mainly, in the countries of the biggest and old cultures.

This lack of transmission of faith in our time is intimately bound to the weakness of the family. In the moment in that the chain of this transmission is broken it coincides with the collapse of the family inside the modern civilization.

The famous conference of Beijing[3] has made all the possible to avoid in its documents the word " family ". It has dared to throw this front attack against the family after the collapse of the authority of the history and the tradition. If the history is only an accumulation left-overs of the past, one can make with it what is wanted and the surest pillars in the human culture are broken.

These last events show us where does a culture direct that is taking away its own history. It is truly, as tells the Gospel, a house built on sand that doesn't resist the storms of the modern time. With pride and responsibility we lift our head for, with San Philip, with Baronio, with Berulle and with Cardinal Newman to glory us of our big traditions.

We feel the urgent necessity of make them present in our time and our atmosphere, because we are convinced that the humanity cannot live without family neither tradition. I say this with more security in Mexico, where the traditions (older than in the European world), mark until today the life. Its enough with the visitor’s view to the most modern buildings to verify that they receive their greatness and dignity from their Aztec or Mayan inspiration.

We are different

Even more admirable it is that these cultures, until recently, have stayed without verbal testimonies. The alive tradition is transmitted through many conduits. The spirit is more important than the remains of the past. This can be clarity observed with St. Philip, because he didn't write almost anything. The rule of the Oratory has not been possible to formulate before his death and, apart from some fundamental principles, approved by the Pope, it contained only the customs of the Rome Oratory.

What has marked the Oratory until today has been the figure, the spirit, small aphorisms, his person's memory and his originality. The greatest of the history mark their times through their life, they are their pupils those that write it and code, because of that their pursuit or influence goes a lot beyond an institution that they have been founded. It would lack to write a book talking about St. Philip’s influence in so many aspects, a lot beyond a congregation. Philip was limited directly to the Oratory of Rome, he was reticent with new foundations. He surely rejected the foundation of a Oratory in Milán, because its famous bishop, the Cardinal Carlos Borromeo, had an entire program of tridents reformations that limited the free development of a Oratory.

A foundation in Naples that was wanted by several of his pupils, it seemed to him problematic, because it absorbed many own forces. But Philip, with the time could not prevent that new Oratories were born, each house quite different from the other one because the rule defined few things, the rest, depended of the circumstances and the genius of each congregation. It was not this way surprising that the Oratory was developed in several ways and that, truly, each house was and called itself, a congregation.

Philip trusted the Holy Spirit a lot, he had not only received it in the catacombs of St. Sebastian, but rather he left him the development of the things that the he was not able to define. Because of it, he always remitted the question on the founder of the Oratory to the Holy Spirit.

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1. The Variety of the Philipian Charisma

The independence of each Oratory, wanted emphatically by the Saint, facilitated adaptations that went beyond of what had been developed under Philip’s conductive spirit in the Oratory of Rome. As examples I present you two types of life philipian , near to the Oratory philipian, but with own characteristic and that can be paradigmatic for others:

The French Oratory

The French Oratory, was born in 1611, almost the same year when the statutes philipian were approved (1612), and it presents a very different image from the philipians. The Priest Auvray writes (famous exegetic of the French Oratory), About his origin and characteristics in comparison with the philipian: The first house was founded by the Priest Berulle in Paris and each new house adhered firmly to this origin and so the French Oratory extended this way very quick as a hive of bees. When Cardinal Berulle died, in 1629, France was already covered for sixty Oratories to whose head was the general superior who had to assure the uniformity[4] .Differently from the philipian Oratory that doesn't recognize a central authority and it respects more the autonomy of each house.

The philipian Oratory can be compared with a beautiful flower, deployed under the Roman sky that has spilled their seeds on the world and it has made other many flowers to born that are developing like the first one, without being part of it. (He refers to the quick extension of the Oratory in the XVII century in Europe, arriving until Ceylan in Asia, Mexico and Lima in America and now Sudafrica).

"Very different it is the French Oratory that resembles a tree whose roots produce new buds that they grow attached to the trunk. They are two very different images: on one hand multiple, independent and free oratories; on the other hand an unique, centralized congregation, made up of solidary and legally united houses." [5]

In spite of that great difference, the two institutions don't cease of proclaiming their common features: “A common dependence of St. Philip to who both recognize as their founder and inspiring; the lack of votes and the basically secular character of their institutes; a common spirit of happiness, spontaneity and freedom." [6]

The common characteristics come from certain historical continuity. In the first place, personal contacts existed between Berulle and the Oratory of Rome, where have participated, Baronio, Juan Ancina and, in less direct form Francisco de Sales; propitiated by adjacent geographical and cultural areas as Switzerland and the South of France; besides a certain historical proximity, because the events were developed in few later decades to St. Philip’s death.

Now, where do the differences and separations come from? The P. Auvray explains to them, also certain fortuitous historical circumstances and the different character of the towns and people main characters, mainly for the different political situation of the countries.

Italy was subdivided in a quantity of principalities and kingdoms, while France, since in that time, was united under one only king. Berulle also wanted to protect the Oratory against the changing interventions of the bishops that depended from the king and could deform the essence of the Oratory, Berulle, a very provident and retailer man, saw indispensable a stronger organization of the Oratory for its foundation in those circumstances. He was explained saying: St. Philip has adapted his institution perfectly to the necessities of his city, Rome. But, in consequence, he had to leave to the communities of other cities a certain freedom to make the necessary adaptations to their situation. Here was made the principle of the communities independence."[7]

In its concentration in France, the French Oratory has been able to make a great contribution to the history of the Church in its earth. And its founder has been decisive for the beginning of the “École Francaise", the great school of the spirituality from the XVII century. The renovation of the French clergy from inside, is especially because the activity of the French oratorians in the seminars.[8]

After having underlined some features both from the philipian and the French Oratory, I want shortly to characterize a feminine congregation, this time from Spain.

The Philipian sisters. Missionaries of teaching

The Philipian nuns present an interesting example, not only to translate the philipian experience, up to now masculine, in form of life for women, but also to transfer it to another country (Spain) and another time.

It was born in the half of the last century amid the industrial revolution with all their social problems and in a labor atmosphere, in Mataró, coastal city of Catalonia. This situation conditions its apostolate, directed to the woman, workers and maids, without formation and in moral danger.

The Holy Spirit was served as two brothers: Marcos and Gertrudis Castañer, to welcome this restlessness and to transform it in practical measures. The P. Marcos says his plans presentation: “The faith was getting lost every day, to the step that the implety and demoralization were taking roots; that the bad customs extended in all the classes of the society; that the bad doctrines went capturing the youth of the weak sex, singly of the labor class of this city, and that the dance rooms went being increased and they were very converged, and that on the other hand a big and guilty ignorance of the Christian doctrine was seen; that they had many outrages and scandals caused by the factories hard-working youths when leaving them, singly at night."[9]

The two brothers put to disposition of their plans their house and their inheritance and, step by step, they introduce the following initiatives: for the young girls, they organize meetings at nights for the catechizes and the basic teaching, as to read and to write, for bigger, exercises for almost the whole week; they form a congregation of ladies to help the apostolate. Late born also a school. But the apostolate was larger: “to reform women from the childhood, until the last age." In view of the woman's exploitation, it was necessary to occupy Sundays for the Christian doctrine.

Now, when seeing the dimensions of the begun work, the Castañers took conscience that their company needed more solidity: the Bishop's recognition, of the government and of the Pope (Pious IX) and a congregation with votes. This last point gets the attention, because, at the same time, they opted for St. Philip Neri like their spiritual guide, and St. Philip had prohibited to his the votes.

The founders had taken contact with the oratorians, first in Barcelona, later in Rome, where they also knew the Oblatas. Great part of the rules of these and of the Oratory they entered to be part of the new institution, for example, the superior was called ‘Preposita’.

The Barcelona’s ‘Preposito’ had certain authority on the sisters, but more important it was the influence on its spirituality: St. Philip’s figure with their happiness and their apostolic zeal; the primate of the preaching of God’s Word, the mental prayer, etc. It was evident a certain convergence between the inspiration of the Castañers and the spirituality and St. Philip’s apostolate, mainly with regard to the important Sunday’s Oratory and in the great concern of the poor. The only thing that misses inside this process of assimilation is the votes. It gives the impression that the Philipians felt their necessity to be stabilized in front of a very threatening situation. The still woman's weak social position, the convulsions of the political life in the Spain of that time and the responsibility for the many poor that began to depend on them.

Summarizing, we can say that the foundation of the Philipian Sisters shows the width of possibilities of philipian life. St. Philip is not their founder, but their teacher, father, patriarch and boss; tittle that reveal the great esteem and adoration that they has among them and that makes them belong to the philipian family. Other philipian congregations will have elements in common with them.

Relationship and Comparison

All of us that are present in this congress, have received part of St. Philip Neri's spirit together with other influences and in diverse forms, according to the historical situations that we have to live. Nobody has the monopoly and to anybody it lack. It concerns us the responsibility for what we have received and to take care of our inheritance but, like in the parable of the talents, without to bury it neither to hide it, but with happiness and courage to work with it.

These three examples of oratorian vocation are the better known ones and that they have looked for contact between them, especially in the congresses. They are several types of oratorian life and you could compare their relationships with a certain ecumenism. The Philipian Oratorians will be as the Catholics in the apostolic succession, for them, worth their constitutions of 1989 that unite them in a confederation of oratories. Others have a more direct relationship with St. Philip, they can lack elements that were essentials from Philip, and, on the other hand, they have sometimes received other additional influences as, for example, Cardinal Berulle list in the French Oratory or Castañers’ one in the case of the Philipian Sisters. But all of you that have come to this congress, many times with big sacrifices, take with all spirit’s genuineness, the philipian name.

The existent differences don't impede that the values, ideals and the spirit, be elements shared by all. That shows that St. Philip's influence goes a lot beyond an organizational historical dependence, because Philip is not sacred because of founded the Philipian Oratory, in consequence the saint is not exclusive property of this. It has been the town of Rome the one that has promoted his canonization and testified his sanctity. The Oratory is his favorite son, but his irradiation and his work go more beyond than his own intentions, so he didn’t consider himself a founder. He was mainly a great pastor and the men's friend, true humanist and humanitarian, he had people's gift, he made feel well to the other ones, especially to the weak ones, he was a true " father " and in function of this passion for the man, the oratory was born. He made it in the road, almost without wanting it.

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2. The Secular Oratory

Now what Philip began, was not in fact none of the oratories commented until this moment, was rather the Oratory that describe the philipian constitutions in N°2 with these words “the fraternal union of the faithful ones that follow St. Philip Neri's prints and that look for what he taught and he made, to form a single heart and a single soul." [10]

In and after the N°5, it start to speak about the Oratory Congregation as a group, constituted from the beginning to the service of the Oratory. "The members of the congregation should worry about the external faithful, especially those that have been organized as Secular Oratory and participate in their activities."[11]

The old constitutions extend thoroughly on the organization and subdivision of the secular Oratory, while the version of 1989 is much briefer in this point and it insists in their rules should be adapted to today's lifestyle. The Secular Oratory maybe is not the most appropriate name, because it spreads to separate too much the lay to the clergy, while in this last, for lack of votes, it is in fact considered as secular priests. All the members of the Oratory are in a way secular, inserted in the world to their service.

This Oratory’s Secularity has already stood out in another context. It is famous Philip's answer, when they asked him, when he had left the world. He said: “I didn’t know I have left it”.

In this world’s integration, perhaps could also find an access to the base communities, with strong presence in this continent. Of its secularity doesn't fit doubt. But the concern of its sense of the transcendent exists. But a fiber of the oratorian vibrates with them. The width of the Secular Oratorian concept also allows to integrate activities of other organizations or movements that show certain likeness with the style of the Oratory. We have good experiences with the charismatic communities and catecumenals: they can be different Secular Oratory sections or types that would give it a bigger wealth and variety.

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3. The Oratory’s Force

The Stability of the place

The diversity of the philipian charisma and their decentralization could weaken their influence, in effectiveness. From the point of view of the effectiveness, in fact they are problematic. But this category in what refers to the life of the family or the faith, it is very questionable. Although the originality of houses or people can sometimes be extreme and bothersome, we live it like a wealth. But this wealth also has its price.

As in each family, there are enough conflicts. In the Oratory have to be much more, since we lack the knots of the blood and the alternation that takes place with the exit of the children. The only exit of the Oratory, apart from foundations that are exceptional, is the death (like in the marriage that lasts until the death separates them).

To be an oratorian, it is a big and demanding vocation, like in the marriage. This so much more than the oratorians practically doesn't know transfers. In other congregations the problems are solved separating the parts in conflict. We have the stability of the place. One stays in the same Oratory where enters. This point wakes up strangeness to the outsiders. It is important to discover their deep value.

Historically it is San Benito's inheritance and it marks the transition of a church Itinerant to a sedentary church. Already in the Gospel prints of this process are noticed in the first generations. Today we are in a society tremendously motive that affects stable structures as the family where virtues like fidelity and loyalty, perseverance and patience are needed.

The fact that are difficult it doesn't remove them their full validity, today more than ever. On the contrary, it shows more the important of our mission of being family in support of so many families on the edge of the separation. To live in community has always been difficult, but it has always been indispensable.

The lived Gospel is as the oil in the motor of the human society. This is our vocation and not only the philipian Oratory’s ones, that we have it written with big letters in our constitutions, but of all those that want to follow St. Philip. It can be that they sometimes have reasons of exceptional changes, but they should never be “because they don't understand each other", like is said in these cases.

The Family’s Cross

If we want to live as family in the Oratory and because of vocation, is unavoidable the stability of belonging. You cannot have one without the other one. It is a cross, Yes, it is! but the world has been saved by the cross and the one that wants to save the world without the cross, not only makes a mistake, but rather denies to Jesus Christ.

St. Pablo had to learn this lesson in Athens and he says at the end to the Corinthians: “of here ahead don't want to know anybody, but to Jesus Christ, and he crucified”.[12]

Brothers, I invite you to take conscience of this logic to assume this family’s cross. When having opted in the oratorian vocation for the family life, we have opted for its cross. If today the family fails it is because its cross has been rejected. Let us renovate the option of our life: for the family, for the cross. Being Christian is to assume Christ's cross. Being Christian in family is to assume the cross of family coexistence. It is our common destiny with all the families of the earth.

But those that don't know the Gospel of the glorious cross, won't be capable of the fidelity until the death. For that reason the urgent necessity to evangelize people, the culture and, overalls, the family like cell of the human life. Our tradition and the historical hour that we live, impose us this mission.

The Pope has written him encyclical about Gospel of the life; but to talk about life is to talk about family, because in it the life is gestated. We are the first called to announce this Gospel, we that live in family and that we know the difficulties of the family life for own experience. But we have God’s inexhaustible source of energy of faith and love. This impedes that we expect a human love that could give us the life.

Don't many marriages fail because they demand a lot of each one? They demand a love that God can only give: Our experience and the suffering of the Christian love, give the weight to the announcement of the Gospel. They give it the testimony character. How could we give testimony of God’s love power, if we are not capable of endure the crises of the love without separating?

We live and suffer them in flesh and blood. If we don't know how to live in family communities or do we change from house to another, what moral authority will we preach in the families and to the marriages the love of God with?

The task urges. The Christian family, today more than ever, needs the resolved and effective support of the Church, because it has lost the support of the society. The few children that are, contribute to the cohesion of the family. The work that before was a family company, today it separates to the marriage if the two spouses work for separate (what today is in the majority case). The intimate life of the family is cause both of attraction and escape in one. It attracts for the indifference and anonymousness of the atmospheres, as the work or the civic life. And it is an escape cause for the demanding that it is the intimate life as deep encounter and people's stable union.

The first condition for the pastoral family is that the pastors live in family. If the Oratory was not an encounter place and resembles more a pension, it would not be only a danger for the vocation, but rather it would disable us the task. The other way around, our oratorian coexistence, will also give a family touch to our pastoral style.

The new parish concept like “community of communities” goes well with our personality. The force of the primitive Church was the domestic Church, family Church, where they are welcomed to those without family, where they learn from the faith the family virtues. It should be the style of the secular Oratory. Instead of having many groups or sections separated according to sex, age or other approaches, are preferable heterogeneous groups. Inside this atmosphere of faith, makes us well to the celibate ones to share with people of the other sex.

Inculturation

But the family stability is also fundamental for the pastoral today's demand. Our congress has like topic “Gospel, Oratory and Culture", or also “Oratory and Postmodern Culture." Together with the importance that today is given to the culture like addressee and evangelization atmosphere, much of inculturation is spoken.

Without place to doubt, the inculturation is a slow process that demands a long presence inside a certain culture. What better than the Oratory? Our mission is not in the high level, but in the concrete life of the town. More important than talk about inculturation it is to make the inculturation like people, like house, as Oratory.

St. Philip has always looked for people's proximity. He is the example of a base pastoral. Our contribution to the inculturation of the Church is to submerge, to be embodied in a certain social-cultural atmosphere. Not to visit it, neither to make it a mission, but to be identified and to stay. Equally in the society. Non point to organize big campaigns, protests or massive acts, but sharing the necessities of certain people or families, to see their face, their personal individuality.

The old monks, after a period of being moving, began to transplant or to implant the Christianity. We today, as pastors, have certain easiness of to enter in new atmospheres and to toss roots.

In Chile, where the Oratory arrived thirty two years ago, we are in the same place from 1968 and we have our experience. We know on one hand that to make inculturation means to die, to lose the life. Little it is read of this aspect in to the literature. But it is also a to resuscitate as other, more open, tolerant, with more horizon. Today we are like one more in the diocesan clergy, in many opportunities the oldest. Apart from being parish priests, we occupy diocesan positions, as dean, instructor in the diocesan Seminary, youth pastoral. In the municipality one illustrious son has been named. They are small, but significant things for us that are accepted and, without this, there is not evangelization.

Prove of this it is also. That now vocations of our parishes are coming out. I have reached the conclusion that the stability is an important requirement for a solid pastoral. If not, the successor undoes his predecessor's work and in this way, is a continuous begin of zero. A level of faith is not reached and of ecclesiastic life that would present with more fullness what is truly the work of God.[13]

The parish priest old immobility didn't only have disadvantages. We like oratorians are inamovibles. This inamovility also gives a more concrete base to the celibacy. With Biblical base one can say: “The apostle, as the boyfriend's friend and in their representation, marries to his parochial community with Christ and he takes care of it zealously. The pastor is not single, but rather he is married with his Church. And this bond is not an ideology, but concrete knots of loyalty with a community that is composed of well-known people, families, youths, children and old men.

All this combined of factors integrates the atmosphere of the Sec