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How a child, 6 gave cardinal a lesson in faith
a profile of Cardinal Christoph Schonborn Archbishop of Vienna and Catechism editor
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| By Fr PAUL BONNICI
25 September, 2005 |
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| TEACHER AND PREACHER: Cardinal Schonborn ... multi-skilled theologian. |
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Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna recently sparked controversy when he wrote an article in the New York Times questioning whether aspects of evolutionary thought such as random variations and natural selection are compatible with Catholic belief in God.
Although the cardinal’s article did not use the term “intelligent design,” it articulated the underlying principle that intelligent design is scientifically provable.
“Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science,” said the article.
Within a week, the article and a follow-up news story generated more that 200 letters to the editor, pro and con, said Thomas Feyer, Times letters editor.
The cardinal’s article also prompted three prominent US scientists who oppose ntelligent design to write a letter to Pope Benedict XVI to ask him to reaffirm church support for
evolution.
The article appeared at a time when the controversy over intelligent design is more than an academic debate confined to scientists and religious thinkers.
In the United States, it’s also being debated in state legislatures and by local school boards. There is pressure to get public school science classes to step up criticisms of Darwinian evolution and to incorporate intelligent design in classrooms as an alternative.
The 60-year-old Dominican Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna comes from a family that
produced two cardinals, in the 18th and 19th centuries. His was one of the prominent noble families of the region known at the time as Bohemia, much of which later became Czechoslovakia.
Pope John Paul appointed him auxiliary bishop of Vienna in 1991 and coadjutor archbishop in April 1995.
When he became a cardinal in January 1998, people outside Austria already recognised his name: Cardinal Schonborn was the main editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He guided the team of seven bishops that produced the catechism in its original French version in 1992. He also co-ordinated the contributions of about 1000 bishops to its drafting and writing and oversaw several of its translations.
Ten years later he admitted that the volume of more than 2800 articles of church teaching has been extremely useful for theology students, catechists and other experts, but is “too voluminous to be the simple guide to the faith that is needed by Catholics”.
He asked the late Pope John Paul II to approve a project to prepare a smaller catechism, but added that writing it would take the “genius” of a St Peter Canisius or a St Robert Bellarmine. Both were authors of popular small catechisms in the 16th century.
The cardinal was then named part of a 10-member commission charged with preparing an
official Catholic mini-catechism; a 150-page draft was completed in February 2004. The final edition was presented to Pope Benedict on June 28 of this year and the American bishops are expected to produce an English translation before Christmas.
In 1996 Cardinal Schonborn was invited to preach Pope John Paul’s Lenten retreat, a special sign of papal favour. He is a member of the Vatican congregations for the doctrine of the faith, Eastern churches and Catholic education as well as the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Goods of the Church. He is a former member of the International Theological Commission.
His skills go beyond those of a theologian. An accomplished linguist, the cardinal speaks French, English, Italian, Spanish and Latin, and he delighted journalists during Pope John Paul II’s June 1998 trip to Austria by fielding one question in Esperanto.
As Archbishop of Vienna and president of the Austrian bishops’ conference, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn’s diplomatic and administrative abilities have been tested by a period of Church turmoil involving laity and the hierarchy.
The conflicts have involved disagreement over the nature of the priesthood, the role of lay people and the authority of the hierarchy. The tensions were heightened by a controversy over Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, the former archbishop of Vienna who resigned in 1995 amid allegations that he had sexually abused minors.
Many have given Cardinal Schonborn high marks for guiding a difficult dialogue with dissident groups and disaffected Catholics in Austria. At the same time, the number of Austrians leaving the church has increased substantially in recent years, and differences among bishops have been made painfully public.
At heart Cardinal Schonborn remains a Dominican, a teacher and preacher of the Word of God. That is backed by a simple faith received from his family.
The same man who played an indispensable role in editing the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” was invited to give a lecture on “The Church Living From the Eucharist” at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans last year.
He used a child’s story rather than a lofty theological text to explain the mystery and power of the Eucharist.
In a world where people often rush through sacred moments, Catholics could learn a lot from Claire, a four-year-old girl in the Vienna Archdiocese, said Cardinal Schonborn.
“Claire is a little girl in a family of six children who prays every day personally for me,” the cardinal told about 500 people at the Archbishop Schulte Auditorium. “When her mother comes back from Communion, she sits down and Claire puts her head on her mother’s breast and says, ‘Mummy, Jesus is now within you. I want to be close to him.’ Her mother said to the parish priest,‘I think Claire is ready for early Communion.’”
The cardinal noted that the parish priest asked Claire if she wanted Jesus to come to her in the Eucharist, and her response was: “No, Jesus wants to come to me.”
“Prepare and receive Jesus and take time to receive him,” the cardinal urged his listeners, adding that the faithful cannot hurry away “when we receive Jesus.”
Cardinal Schonborn, who said he did not think he could offer his audience “anything new” about “the deepest mystery of our faith,” recalled his own conversion
experience in 1961 when, at the age of 16, he travelled with a parish youth group on a pilgrimage to Italy and wound up at a Mass celebrated by St Padre Pio of Pietralcina.
“At 16, you are not very enthusiastic about all these pious, south Italian women crying around Padre Pio,” he said. “Nevertheless, I must say I never have seen before and afterwards the holy Mass celebrated like this. It remains unforgettable.
“It was the reality, the rare moment where I did not only touch through faith the mystery of the Eucharist, but I also could touch and see the reality of what we celebrate in the Eucharist,” he said.
Cardinal Schonborn said it is “a great challenge to believe that this little bit of bread should have become the true body of Our Lord and that little bit of wine is his blood. And nevertheless we believe it. ... As John Henry Newman said, ‘A thousand
difficulties do not make a doubt.’”
When Cardinal Schonborn was in the seminary during the 1960s, a time of great change in the Church, he studied all kinds of theological theories that raised doubts about the reality of the Eucharist. Then he recalled what he said was a watershed conversation about such theories with his aunt, whom he described as “a simple, faithful
person.”
“She looked at me sadly and said, ‘If you take us away from the holy Eucharist, you take us away from everything,’” Cardinal Schonborn recalled.
“That was a great lesson for this young student of theology, and I never have forgotten that short lecture.”
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