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Introduction on Vision, Methodology, With An Invitation to Continue Our Journey,Together
Frederick Franck fell in love, early, with the Christian Church. Seeing its imperfections, he fell out of love with the Christian Church. Reading, in 1962, Pope John XXIII’s first speech to the Second Vatican Council (Franck was the only artist to draw all four sessions, from 1962-65), he felt what he calls “an irrepressible impulse” (Fingers Pointing to the Sacred). That Pope awakened many Catholics, in his short tenure, dying from cancer only five years after becoming Pope, to the Universal Christ. Had Pope John XXIII not have died so soon, the Catholic Church, and Church overall, might be farther alone in its compassionate embrace of other religions. His wide influence and enlightened compassion led him to become Time magazine Man of the Year. Never before has an esteemed leader of the Church been so influential in speaking forth a Christ and being “in Christ” to such a mass of peoples and a catholic message that transcended the boundaries of the institutional church and churches. Franck writes of this man:
The man I was drawing in St. Peter’s, faithful as he was to his Catholic tradition, pointed to, and was by his very nature the prophet of a community of faith, not merely beliefs, not merely Catholic, but so catholic, so generically religious that it could embrace all humankind.
Instead of proclaiming new definitions of the exact place of men and women as being either inside or outside his fold, he and his alter ego Cardinal Augustin Bea prayed with Buddhists, Hindus, Protestants and Jews whom he welcomed with the greeting, “I am Joseph your brother,” in an agape, a love feast of human solidarity.
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I noted, essentially, some writings ago that much of the Church is still trying to catch up with Christ. I affirm that again. Christ is the Living Principle, or Word, that is both behind and ahead of us in time, as an evolutionary push and pull, at once. I myself am trying to catch up with Christ. I affirm that again. Indeed, much of the Catholic Church and Protestant Church has yet to catch up with Pope John XXIII, even as much Buddhism needs to catch up with the Buddha.
The call to transcend our tribal boundaries is a call for a transformation far more influential and far-reaching than the popular talk of “spiritual” transformation. This call, to every religion, is a call for a reorganization of the very mentality and processes that define the entire relative system of each living faith.
Reading the Gospels closely shows this process was what Jesus was attempting to do. Jesus Christ is the revelation of this Universal Embrace, which, or whom, exists outside time, and was manifested in time. However, the churches, being humans, like you and Brian, are struggling to mature that vision of Christ in our time and place. In the struggle is the Christ. In the struggle, though it is neither straight nor clear, is our faithfulness. Therefore, I am encouraged, optimistic, and I rejoice in the faithful struggle. I am glad to be part of it, and I hope you are fully in it, also, with joy.
Many non-Christians get enamored with other living faiths, thinking that the Church is the “bully on the street,” so to speak. I once thought that, also, until I realized that the problem is not one, essentially, of faith tradition. A Buddhist or Christian can, equally, for example, manifests the Love and Compassion of God, for Love transcends and transforms, due to the Word’s freedom from all living faiths. Rather, the problem is of the human propensity to seek security inside its particularized “walls.” One matter that helped me see this was in reading a book of dialogue between some Buddhists and Christians. The Buddhists writers, I was surprised, were the more rigid and un-compassionate toward their Christian counterparts. Only one Buddhist seemed to interpret Buddhism in anything other than an exclusive manner. Mostly, the Christian writers were much more empathic and inclusive toward the Buddhist ones. This contradicts much thought in our culture, which assumes Christians are always the “exclusive ones.” These writers, also, being Buddhist and Christian scholars, do not seem to reflect the contemplative sages of both traditions: possibly, a good lesson in how religious academia pulls down inclusive contemplation into exclusive reason.
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