Faith and reason both needed in formation: Emeritus Bishop

Writing in Tūmanako, the newsletter of Palmerston North diocese, the first bishop of the diocese stated that reason without faith cannot know the transcendent dignity of the person, and so a person’s worth is ultimately their usefulness to themselves and to others.

But faith without reason easily leads to the fundamentalism, he added.

The bishop stated that formation doesn’t finish when a person leaves school; the Church should play a key role in the ongoing process.

“Ultimately the Church has something more radical to offer humanity than does secularism because its Gospel is about a love for life and for the world that does not stop at what can be merited or deserved or found useful,” the bishop wrote.

Bishop Cullinane traced out historical developments and emphases in faith formation, noting the deep sense in the human heart of being made for more.

“A sense of being made for more is what ‘speaks’ to us in our deepest longings, in nature around us, and wherever human lives manifest love, belonging, goodness and beauty,” he wrote. “Even the hardened and brazen can succumb before the miracles of life and love.

“At times it can be harder to believe there is no God than to believe there is. Handing on the faith means helping people to ‘see.’ It takes us beyond religion perceived as a duty into the need and desire to give thanks for what was never owed to us.”

Bishop Cullinane wrote that “experiences that touch hearts expand the awareness we have from rational analysis”.

“It’s a bit like the way hearing live music reveals something more about the notes than does reading them on the score. Ritual and other experiences of Christian life expand our awareness.”

After reflecting on the place of liturgy in this context, Bishop Cullinane wrote that the role of “those who facilitate the discovery of God in our lives is not so much the role of teacher or master or even guide”.

“It is more akin to the role of prophets and mystics – those who ‘see’ and ‘listen’ attentively to what is actually there, and can find themselves in awe of it. So, they are able to help others interpret their own experience and the hints of God’s wonderful purpose.

“This is also what makes a homily different from a sermon and from moralising: against the backdrop of the Scriptures which depict God’s presence in human history, a homily helps people to recognise the signs of God’s presence in their own lives, to which they can respond gratefully.”

The bishop reflected on the place of education, which should not indoctrinate or assume a moral neutrality. Moral education is enhanced by religious education, he wrote.

“ . . . [R]eligious education becomes Christian education when we discover in the Person, life, death and Resurrection of Jesus how much we really do mean to God. This is the point of Catholic schools.

“If Catholics are to be able to take their place and make a positive contribution to society, they first need to experience their own identity, savour it and nurture it,” he added.

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Formation for Being Human (Bishop Peter Cullinane/ Tūmanako)