Since 2006, Michael Mullins has been editor of Eureka Street, the daily online public affairs newsletter from Jesuit Communications. Prior to that, he established the CathNews online Catholic news service for Church Resources, after working for the international office of Jesuit Refugee Service in Rome.
Michael’s question: Since the time of the early companions, it has been a special mission of the Jesuits to confront atheism. My question is about how much of a priority this is currently, and what exactly the Society is doing about it. It seems to me that, in recent decades, religious indifference has been considered a more serious threat than militant atheism. But now, certain high profile atheists such as the late Christopher Hitchens have helped to make atheism fashionable again. I imagine it would be a challenge for the Society to maintain a coherent approach because so many Jesuits are working in countries such as India where religion is hardly questioned.
I think, as you said very rightly, the perception of the modern world is changing and not only among Jesuits but even at the higher levels of the church. The Pope has invited a few agnostics to the meeting at Assisi. He invited not only Buddhists and Hindus and Baha'is, but he invited well-known agnostics from Mexico and France. So something is changing and the range now of positions has widened very much.
We still have some people that could be called militant atheists. We also have peaceful atheists, and I have to say that when I came back to Europe after spending more than 30 years in Japan I was surprised to see that European atheism is very militant. It is anti-something, anti-clerical or anti-God or anti-church or anti-Christianity. Meanwhile agnosticism, or even atheism, in Japan is very peaceful, and they respect the Buddhists and the Christians and the Moslems. They respect religion, but they make their own personal choices and when the beginning of the year comes, I think 90 per cent of the Japanese pray for a good year, even if they consider themselves agnostics. There is a totally different feeling. So there are militant but also peaceful atheists.
There are non-searching agnostics and there are searching agnostics. An article was published about three days before I left about the agnostic from Mexico, and he was saying that Assisi has changed his perspective. He continues to be an agnostic, but he searches.
The Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, continue to be concerned with the service of faith. This is our mission. It is a service of faith. But the question is, how do we serve that faith? It will depend very much on with whom we deal, with whom we talk or with whom we search. The first step is to respect the position of that other person.
What is important to my mind is the search. It is very different to be convinced that what I think in my small brain is the final truth of everything, or to remain open and searching. I think this basic attitude determines whether we are people of faith or not. I think a person that has closed the mind to a few tenets of our faith can be a fundamentalist but not a good believer. I think that the prayer of the New Testament is, ‘Lord, I believe but help my unbelief’. We believe, but now and then we have doubts, and what I said before about crisis - crises are very good because then we keep questioning and we go deeper and deeper into the questions.
Cardinal Ravasi, who was one of the new cardinals appointed last year, is a real humanist and a great thinker. He says, ‘Searching in agnostics is already part of the encounter, with the truth or with mystery or with God... Searching is already part of the journey towards God.’ It's this search that I think is important. The Pope himself has said, ‘It is better to be an agnostic who is searching than a Christian who doesn't search anymore.’ That reminds us of St Augustine, who said, ‘If you understand Him, he's not God any more.’
Therefore, it is better to keep searching and to regain - we Catholics and Jesuits in particular - the humility of good theology. Good theology is always very humble, and again I can quote Ratzinger. When he was young he wrote in a booklet, ‘Theological language has only an approximative value.’ I think this is very wise. We can never be in God with any confidence. God remains elusive.
What we said before about the poor, nobody has seen God but if you befriend the poor, God will be there. You will have each other, you can build a community of love and compassion and mutual help, God will be there. But the face of God will not be seen, so He continues to be a mystery and we have to learn and relearn the humble language of theology. Not the proud language of theology, which says many things but says nothing, but the humble language that points the way. The Chinese said it very wisely, ‘The wise man points to the moon and the fool looks at the finger.’ So theology is just a finger pointing to the moon which is God.
Fr General fielded questions from six people at his address on 25 January. In this edition of Province Express, we feature the second three questions. The other three questions were featured in the last edition.
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