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This is the first of a two-part interview with Father Ron Rolheiser. See the November 26 edition of Today’s Catholic for part two.
SAN ANTONIO • Popular Catholic theologian and writer, Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI, has been announced as the new president of Oblate School of Theology, effective next August. Father Rolheiser is well-known in fields of spirituality and systematic theology and pens a weekly column that appears in newspapers worldwide, including Today’s Catholic. He is author of award-winning books, The Holy Longing, The Restless Heart and The Shattered Lantern, as well as, Forgotten Amongst the Lilies and
An Infinite Horizon.
Father Rolheiser has taught theology and philosophy at Newman Theological College in Edmonton, Alberta, for many years and is highly popular as a speaker and retreat director. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Louvain, Belgium. He is scheduled to assume the post from interim president, Father Warren Brown, OMI, on Aug. 1.
Today’s Catholic interviewed him prior to the announcement of his appointment and while he was in town leading the Missionaries to a Secular Culture symposium, held at the Oblate Renewal Center at Oblate School of Theology Oct. 21-23.
TC: What sparked the idea for this symposium, Missionaries to a Secular Culture?
ROLHEISER: Well, two things. It arose at our General Chapter of Oblates in 1998 in Rome, where the American delegation that was there said to the general administration, “We’re a missionary congregation, but our thrust with missions, we’ve always thought of foreign lands — ‘Let’s go to Africa, to Asia and to South America and so on.’ But the real missionary territory would be, as far as the church goes right now, the Western world, North America, our own culture. We need to do something in terms of being missionaries to our own culture.”
I was in the General Administration, trying to take up that challenge, and this is the fourth symposium that we’ve organized, although this one was organized also by Oblate School of Theology here. But the idea is to respond to that idea — and that’s the practical thing. The wider thing is simply the struggle in Western culture, that Western culture’s becoming — and I pick the words carefully — Western culture’s becoming not so much post-Christian, but it’s becoming post-ecclesial. More and more of our own kids, the nephews and nieces, the family and friends, are no longer going to church any more. So it’s an attempt to respond to that. This place is owned and operated by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. We’re missionary Oblates. We’re missionaries, and that’s part of our mandate, except now we’re trying to think mission for the first world, rather than the third world.
TC: How would you compare this year’s gathering with the previous one?
ROLHEISER: First of all, I can name the more obvious things. This particular gathering is larger. It’s the largest gathering for us. This one’s 250 people — probably about a hundred more than we’ve had in the past. Secondly, I think we have people from more places. A good one-third are people from out of state, out of the country. So there are people from all over — mostly from the United States and Canada, but also from England. There are a lot people from New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Indianapolis, Nebraska, Edmonton, Toronto, Seattle, Portland, Washington. So this is a little more national.
Secondly, I think that this group, because it’s a symposium mode and less a consciousness raising event with speakers, I think we got some very motivated people and a lot of professional people. Not to reflect on what we had in the past, but we have a lot of motivated people. We have a lot professional people who bring a lot of their own expertise. So we probably have more flat-out expertise in the participants.
TC: Where do you think our missionaries to this new secular culture are coming from or are going to come from? Who are these people that are here, that are interested in finding the answers to this?
ROLHEISER: Very interesting question. The people who are here wouldn’t necessarily self-define as being missionaries to a secular culture. I think they’re here and they’re searching. “Where do we look?” Maybe, in some ways, they are supposed to be help to missionaries of secularity. Where will they come from? I’m going to answer in a biblical way. God has to give them to us. And biblically, we have no way of knowing if they will come from, for instance, the new generation. Is it going be the young, post-modern person who’s going to be the next Francis of Assisi or the next Clare of Assisi? It might be. It might be some post-modern kid who grew up with no religious training, who becomes the next Francis of Assisi. It might be, for instance, some woman who’s 80 years old, who splits these spiritual atoms and creates an energy that nobody’s created before. We have no way of knowing. God calls old, God calls young, God comes from outside the wall, from inside the wall. It could come from anywhere. But in a certain sense, we’re looking for a “new Francis,” a “new Clare,” a “new Augustine,” people who can re-shape. The reason I take Francis or Clare is they re-shaped, very vitally, the romantic imagination of Christianity.
Today, we have very, very good theology. We have these very, very good intellectual imaginations inside the church — maybe never better. We’ve maybe never had a better theology and a better intellectual imagination in the church than we have today – true for Catholics and also true for Protestants — in scholarship and just the intellectuality and the whole healthiness of the last 50 years. We have libraries full. But the poverty today inside of the church, the reason why the church is struggling, is not so much in the intellectual component, as it is in the romantic component. People have to fall in love with the church and then the intellect often follows the heart. It’s the same when you fall in love with somebody. It’s not your mind that falls in love. Your heart falls in love and then afterwards the mind has to make its adjustment on that. And it’s the same here. We need new romance inside the church. We need just what Francis did. Francis inflamed the romantic imagination still going on 700 years later. Clare did it too. Thérèse of Lisieux did that. For instance, Francis wasn’t a great theologian. He was more of an artist as a saint. He captured the romance. We still have young people following him, going to Assisi and trying to look like him and so on. That’s a romantic ideal.
TC: So we’re still waiting for that person to come. We’re not sure where. It could come from out of left field — we have no idea.
ROLHEISER: It could come from left or right field. If you were writing the script and predicting, I would suspect it’s going to come from some post-modern young person, but God doesn’t follow scripts. That’s the way he creates. So precedents don’t work like in the legal profession. Francis would have been the post-modern young man of his time. Clare would have been the post-modern young woman of her time. So that’s where it came from the last time. But maybe there’s somebody who’s the exact opposite. Who knows? It could come from anywhere. That’s the way God works and that’s the way grace works. Who knows who’s going to catch on fire?
TC: You’re going to be back here at Oblate Dec. 10-12, leading a retreat, is that correct?
ROLHEISER: Yes. The retreat’s going to be on “The Two Halves of Life.” And it’s work that I’m doing. It’s work that’s the grist for my new book that I’ll be writing at that time. And it’s the next level of spirituality beyond The Holy Longing. The Holy Longing tries to define the essential discipleship. What I’m doing in retreat is what I’m doing in my new book, which is an attempt to see if I can push the envelope, to attempt to articulate what’s the next level of discipleship. Where do you go once you’ve mastered the basics? It’s one thing to become proficient. It’s one thing to become good at what you’re doing. It’s one thing to “arrive.”
Suppose you’re 40 or 50 years old, and you’re essentially a very good person. You’re generous, you’re generative, you’re essentially at peace with yourself. That’s one thing — and, in fact, that’s quite an achievement. But the next thing is, “What’s left?” What do you do for the next 40 years of your life? You can never stay at a plateau in anything, even physically. You’re either getting more healthy or getting less healthy. So, what’s next? But also, God keeps asking for deeper commitment. What’s the next level of commitment? |