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Value natural world as God does, theologian tells LCWR-CMSM
assembly
By By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
DENVER (CNS) -- The summary of faith contained in the Nicene Creed makes
clear that "the Maker of heaven and earth is still in business" and
values creation "for its own sake," Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson told a
gathering of leaders of men's and women's religious orders.
Sister Johnson, a professor of theology at Jesuit-run Fordham University in New
York and a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph, made the comments Aug. 2 in an
address to a joint assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and
the Conference of Major Superiors of Men in Denver.
"Contemporary scientific discovery is bringing a dynamic edge with its
awareness that the world was not made once for all in a static way, but has
evolved through a dazzling array of forms to the state we inhabit today,"
she said.
But looking at those changes through the eyes of faith shows us that "the
world, far from being just a backdrop for our lives or a stage for our drama, is
a beloved creation valued by God for its own sake," she added.
Decrying the destructive effects on the world of "human practices of
consumption, pollution and reproduction" and the disproportionate harm to
the poor from such practices, Sister Johnson said, "Why have Christians who
confess that God created this world not risen up en masse in defense of the
natural world?
"One reason is that ... we have inherited a powerful dualism that splits
all reality into spirit and matter, and then devalues matter and the body while
prizing the spirit as closer to God," she said. "The task now is to
develop a life-affirming theology of the earth/matter/bodies, one that will do
better justice to the world that God makes and so loves."
Following Jesus also involves "a terrific countercultural challenge,"
Sister Johnson said.
"The challenge is not only to bind up wounds, as centuries of magnificent
deeds of Christian charity have done, but to prevent wounds being inflicted in
the first place," she said.
She criticized "exploitative economic structures on a global scale"
and "attitudes, actions and inactions" by white U.S. Christians
"that diminish the well-being of immigrants from other nations who are
struggling to live with human dignity, to say nothing of African-Americans,
Latino and Latina peoples who were born here."
In addition, Sister Johnson said, "we in this Catholic Church continue to
live by patriarchal values that, by any objective measure, relegate women to
second-class status governed by male-dominated structures, law and ritual.
"Even apart from myriad Gospel examples of Jesus' beneficent relationship
with women, his rejection of any relationship patterned on
domination-subordination challenges the church to become a truly inclusive
community," she added.
The suffering of Jesus is "the way the gracious God has chosen to enter
into solidarity with all those who suffer and are lost in this violent world,
thereby opening up the promise of new life," Sister Johnson said.
This belief "impels Christians to enter the list of those who struggle
against injustice for the well-being of those who suffer," she added.
The Aug. 1-4 joint assembly in Denver drew about 700 members of LCWR and about
150 CMSM members.
Celebrating Mass with the group Aug. 3, Archbishop Gianfranco Gardin, secretary
of the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of
Apostolic Life, urged the religious to be "authentic seekers with a thirst
for God."
"The secularized context of a large part of religious life today more than
ever calls for the presence in the church of persons who have withstood serious
and laborious journeys of faith," he said.
"Whatever the charism of the particular community to which we belong, prior
to being pastoral agents, prior to promoting educational or social works, we
must be exemplary believers ... men and women always on the move, pilgrims in
the never-ending search for the living and true God," Archbishop Gardin
added.
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