„The Founding Rupture. From Strong to Weak Identity”, w: Some Renaissance/Early Modern
Topoi in the Twenty First Century, red. Krystyna Kujawińska-Courtney, Grzegorz
Zinkiewicz, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź 2016, s. 55-70. ISBN: 978-838088-178-5
Stanisław Obirek
The Founding Rupture. From Strong to Weak Identity
Few introductory remarks
In this essay I would like to show how writing history by Jesuits historians changed in
the last decades. For many years the Jesuit Historical Institute based in Rome published
sources concerning history of this Catholic religious order. The typical and most
representative publication of Jesuits historians is Diccionario Historio de la Compania de
Jesus. Bibliografico-tematico in 2001. What is characteristic for this kind of historiography is
the concentration on facts and limitation of interpretation. More hermeneutical approach
toward the history of the order could be seen in publications by John O’Malley, particularly in
his First Jesuits and Four Cultures of the West. In both books O’Malley presented the Jesuits
more as a cultural phenomenon than as a missionary organization. From the same perspective
I wrote the history of the Jesuits in Poland in 1564-1668.
In the first part of this essay I will present the history of the Polish Jesuits, using
traditional methods, showing the strong identity of this religious order, which had very
significant impact on Polish culture. In the second part I will try to present the change of the
paradigm of Christianity which took place during the II Vatican Council in the second half of
XX century, and its impact on writing history of the Jesuits. According to John O’Malley
Vatican II was first of all “a language-event” (O’Malley J. 2008, 12). I’ve asked O’Malley if
it is appropriate to use the word “rupture“ in relation to the documents of Vatican II, he
answered me in an email as follows: “I would avoid the word rupture. First of all, it has
become the litmus test for conservatives and will bring you unneeded grief and distract people
from what you are trying to say. Secondly, it is pretty much what the followers of Lefebvre
have been saying, and you do not want to be identified with them. Thirdly, it's not a really
helpful word, too absolute in its implications. In historical happenings, even French
Revolution, the continuities are stronger than the "rupture". Look for another way of
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speaking, e.g., paradigm shift, values-shift, or something like that”.1 So perhaps it is really a
kind of continuation for the Church, but for some scholars it make sense to describe what
happened at Vatican II as a dramatic rupture with the past of the Catholic Church. In any case,
Michel de Certeau was the first Catholic historian who draw attention to the second approach.
In accordance with the first approach of writing history we have a support of politicalreligious system, which is conceived as all-embracing, and in the second approach we are
invited to abandon the system, and to observe the Jesuit’s history from the outside, in its
social context, one part in a pluralistic society. In the history of the Jesuit order there were
moments of tension between them and the Church. In other words, Jesuits obeyed the Vatican
orders, but from time to time they respond to the needs of people to whom they were sent
despite of the Vatican dissatisfaction.
Although the first approach of writing history tends to describe and explain the history of
the Jesuits within the system, one cannot ignore the fact that during its history this
organization had disagreements with the system, due to a conflict of interests between them
and the Catholic monarchs and even the papacy, which resulted in a suppression of the order.
1. Reinforcing the system
The Jesuits are members of a religious order which I know from the inside. I also
appreciate them very much for their contribution to cross-cultural studies, or more precisely,
for their involvement in religious and cultural dialogue. The best known example for these
activities are the so called “Jesuit Reductions” which were founded and flourished in eastern
Paraguay for about 150 years, until their destruction by the Spanish crown in 1767. The
“Jesuit Reductions” were communities of local people ruled by Jesuits, which constitute a
controversial chapter in the history of Latin America. They are variously described, either as
socialist jungle utopias, or as authoritarian theocratic regimes. On the missions in colonial
Latin America the Jesuits built some of their most original and influential foundations, which
remains an episode in the history of Latin America.
Another good example of Jesuit activity is the history of their mission in China. It is
considered to be one of the most important events in the early history of the relations between
China and the Western world. It could be described by four major characteristics: 1) a policy
of adaptation to Chinese culture, 2) propagation of Christian doctrine“ from the top down”, 3)
using European science in order to attract the educated Chinese, and 4) openness and
1
John O’Malley in email to me May 20, 2011.
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tolerance toward Chinese culture. This mission is a prominent example for successful
relations between two cultures and belief systems in the pre-modern age. At the time of their
peak influence, members of the Jesuit delegation were considered some of the emperor's most
valued and trusted advisors, holding numerous prestigious posts in the imperial government
(Standaert N. 2008, 172-173). Unfortunately the policy of the Vatican made it impossible to
implement this original method of cultural and religious dialogue in China in XVII and XVIII
century (Standaert N. 2012).
Different situation was in the 16th century Poland where the Jesuits were invited in
1564 to fight against Reformation. From the beginning they started to play an important
religious and also a political role. The reasons for looking for help from the outside were
many. There was the growing popularity of the new religious ideas among Polish and
particularly Lithuanian Catholics, where the powerful Radziwill family gave full support to
the Calvinist Church (Obirek S. 2008). In addition, the first officially Lutheran country in
Europe was founded in the year 1525 in the neighborhood of Poland: Prussia, with an
important intellectual center in Koenigsberg. At that time the Polish episcopate was more
interested in politics than in religious renovation of the Church. This fact is understandable if
we remember that Polish Catholic bishops were, automatically, members of the parliament,
and the primate of Poland had an important function during the period between the death of a
king and the election of a new one as interrex – responsible for the legal aspect of the new
king’s election.
Janusz Tazbir wrote in his article “Anti-Jesuit literature in Poland,” that there is a need
for a new perspective in dealing with the Jesuits’ past: “For long time there were those who
looked on its history [Jesuits] through panegyrical glasses, others only through pamphlets.
Today we try to take the middle road, remembering that only indifference kills. In fact,
pamphlets are usually written only about movements and people that leave a permanent sign
on the history of politics and culture.” (Tazbir J. 1993, 333). If we take the number of
pamphlets written against the Jesuits as a measure for their political and cultural importance
we will be really surprised. It is enough to think of the extraordinary popularity of Monita
secreta written by the former Polish Jesuit Hieronim Zahorowski, which became a world
bestseller and a source for many slanderous stereotypes about the Jesuits (Pavone S. 2005).
When the Jesuits finally arrived in Poland, they rapidly became the most dynamic
element in the confrontation with the Reformation movement, in various ways, from
education to court preaching. The most decisive impact on this process was that of the first
generation of the Polish Jesuits. Many of them entered the Society of Jesus in Rome and were
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educated at the Roman College. Some of the most important were: Jakub Wujek (1541-1597),
an erudite Biblical scholar; his Polish translation of the Bible shaped the style of Polish
Biblical language for centuries. Piotr Skarga (1536-1612), the author of Lives of Saints, which
influenced enormously the religious imagination, not only of Poland, but of all the Slavic
world. He was also the court preacher of Sigismund III for twenty-five years (1588-1611).
Stanisław Warszewicki (1530-1591) who, before joining the Jesuit order, studied under
Melanchton in Wittenberg; as a Jesuit he was sent as the papal envoy to Stockholm in 1574,
when King John III of Sweden showed interest in becoming a Catholic. Warszewicki was also
involved in educating the king’s son Sigismund, the future king of Poland. Those individuals
were very important for the creation of a positive image of Jesuits. The next generations of
Jesuits made an important contribution to Central and Eastern European culture. Let us
remember just three names: Mateusz Kazimierz Sarbiewski (1595-1640), who was described
as the Horace of Poland, the author of Lyricorum libri tres [Three Books of Lyrics], and the
court preacher of Wladysław IV; Adam Adamandy Kochański (1631-1700), the courtier
mathematician of John III Sobieski, who left extensive correspondence with Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz; and Marcin Poczobut (1728-1810), also a mathematician and an
astronomer, a member of the Royal Academy of Science (London), and of the French Royal
Academy. The question of whether they were excellent scholars because they were Jesuits, or
simply because of their personal talents, has remained open.
The fate of the Jesuits universities and schools was similar to the fate of the Society of
Jesus as such. In some places they were welcomed and in some violently rejected. In the huge
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth they experienced differentiated reception, from enthusiasm
(in Vilnius) to open hostility (in Cracow). Indeed in Cracow the Jesuits spent a lot of energy
trying to fight the monopoly of the old Akademia Krakowska without any positive result, and
in Vilnius they found their own Academy, and created a cultural center, which radiated
western culture not only to Lithuania, but also to Ukraine, Bielorussia, Latvia and Russia. We
are still far from a complete picture of the impact of Jesuit’s education on Eastern and Central
European culture. But we can say, together with Eugenio Garin, that it was education with
strong ideological aspiration, and probably it was also the reason why other confessions were
so critical towards the partially successful attempt to have a monopoly in this field in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Garin E. 1957).
What made the Central and Eastern European situation of the Society of Jesus in
XVIII and XIX century unique was the suppression of the Order, in 1773 by the pope
Clement XIV. In that year, two hundred members who worked as Jesuits in the Polish
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Commonwealth found themselves, after the first partition of Poland, henceforth part of
Russia, as citizens of Tsarina Catharine II the Great. Most of them worked in Połock College,
which soon became an Academy. The Tsarina, after visiting Połock and after a debate with
her counselors, decided to preserve the Jesuits as teachers, and gave them extensive autonomy
(Kadulska I. 2004). Thanks to her decision, the Society of Jesus survived and after some years
could by restored. In Prussia, the Jesuit educational system did not meet the expectations of
Frederick the Great, who preferred to control all education systems, and after a few years he
simply expelled the Jesuits from his territory. This explains why the fate of the Jesuits who
became citizens of Frederick the Great in Prussia was different from the fate of the Jesuits in
Russia. This differentiated attitude toward the Jesuit order after its suppression could also be
an interesting case study of the complex relationship between politics and religion. In the rest
of Poland, under the Polish king Stanislaw August, most of the former Jesuits (after the
suppression of the order all the Jesuits were forced to look for new work) became active in the
Commission of National Education, founded in 1773 by the King himself. This fact can be
seen as the Jesuits’ contribution to the Polish Enlightenment. In fact, most of those who were
prepared for teaching had made their studies in Western Europe, mainly in Italy and France. A
good example is Marcin Poczobut, who after the suppression of the Society of Jesus became
the rector of Vilnius Academy and was involved actively in the Commission for National
Education (Popłatek J. 1973).
There was a real paradox and unusual coincidence: Catholic religious order, which
was known for its fidelity to the papacy, was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, and
was saved by non-Catholic monarchs. And more than that: the Catholic Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth was divided between three neighbors – orthodox Russia, Protestant Prussia
and Catholic Austria (1772) and Jesuits, working in Russia (from 1773 till 1820) and Prussia
(for a few years), could continue their activity, while in Catholic Austria and the rest of the
Polish Kingdom they were suppressed. This paradox was expressed wittily by Frederick the
Great of Prussia: “despite the exertions of his Most Catholic Majesty of Spain, his Most
Apostolic Majesty of Portugal, his Most Christian Majesty of France, and the Holy Roman
Emperor, the Jesuits had been saved by his Most Heretical Majesty and her Most
Schismatically Majesty” (Padberg J. 2000, 142). But in XVI and in XVII century the Jesuits
were part of the political system of the Polish-Lithanian Commonwealth and even more –
they were the decisive element for the successful Catholic reform. Below I will try to indicate
some of the strategies used by the Jesuits in their activities.
5
The presence of the Jesuits in the royal courts of Europe has been extensively studied,
but the historians did not pay much attention to the Polish Commonwealth. The decisive
impact of the Jesuits on the religious situation began with their collaboration with the Polish
king Stephen Bathory (1574-1584) who, as a fervent Catholic monarch, was very much
interested in ideological support of the Society of Jesus. Therefore, he gave them full support
in founding new colleges, including the most important educational institution, the Academy
of Vilnius that he founded in 1579. Also his successor, Zygmunt III (1588-1632), was
educated by Jesuits, and was well known for his sympathy toward the Society. Piotr Skarga,
for example, was not only the court preacher for almost twenty-five years but also a close
friend of the royal family. It is likely that this close association of the Jesuits with the royal
court contributed to the opinion that they were more interested in politics than in religion.
The reason why kings were looking for Jesuits as advisers, preachers and confessors
was that the new religious order was strongly supporting the existing political system. For
Skarga, the division between the state and the Church did not exist, because, in his opinion,
both of them were supposed to serve the same purpose. One Church within one state – that
was his idea. He was strongly influenced by biblical models, and he used the example of God
as the model of kingship in the patristic tradition. God was said to recommend autocracy, or
government under one head, who is above all others. Such a head is like God who alone rules
heaven and earth. Being strongly criticized, Skarga tried to confute the criticism of such an
idea by pointing out the differences between absolute dominion, based on God’s law, and
tyranny. Here he quoted the Old Testament tradition according to which Israel’s kings ruled
thanks to God’s grace, and on the basis of His law (Obirek S. 1994).
One of the most characteristic qualities of the Society of Jesus is its ability to
inculturate the Christian message in different cultural and religious contexts. As a matter of
fact, this ‘inculturation’ practice became a kind of trade mark of the Jesuits’ pastoral activity,
and was the cause of many conflicts with the Roman Curia, and probably was one of the
reasons why the order was suppressed in 1773. Today it is accepted as a positive, and in a
way a prophetic– policy of the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s
(Standaert N. 1994). The most important intuition of the Jesuits related to their practice of
inculturation was the realization that the western form of Christianity was only one of many
possible ways to be a Christian. This understanding may be obvious today, but in the
sixteenth century was viewed by many as heresy. In fact, there can be ambiguous results of a
strategy of inculturation. The Polish, or Central and Eastern European, experience can be an
interesting case study. Perhaps it might be more appropriate to name inculturation a syncretic
6
process. It is also important to remember that the Society of Jesus was a part of the history of
Christianity, which was characterized by melting with European culture (Jenkins Ph. 2008).
This perspective (Christianity identified with Western culture) was largely overcome by
Vatican II, particularly through two small documents; one dedicated to the liberty of
conscience “De libertate religiosa” and the second to the relationship of the Catholic Church
to other religions “Nostra aetate” (O’Malley J. 2008). The most interesting consequences
from this new position of the Church was drawn by the French Jesuit Michel de Certeau
(Davis N.Z. 2008).
The Jesuits order, as an institution, was much more a part of European political and
cultural system of the XVI century than a religious community. The members of this order
gave priority to defending the existing, western institution of the Catholic Church and its
claim to be the embodiment of the only true explanation of the Christian message. This is also
true concerning the Jesuit presence in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. When Jesuits
arrived to Poland, they intended to change Polish society, but with time they actually became
a part of that society. What I have in mind here is the phenomenon conventionally known as
the sarmatization of Polish Catholicism. The concept was first used by Janusz Tazbir. For him
more interesting than the question of the Jesuits’ influence on the Polish society is the
question of the ‘sarmatization’ of the order’s members, and the price which the Jesuits paid
for this. It seems that the Jesuits contributed to the construction of a theological justification
for the concept of the state and its structure held by the majority of the szlachta (Polish
gentry). It seems that with the passing years they felt more and more at home with this
concept, and became an integral part of the state. In other words, in the Jesuits’ balance of
accounts for work accomplished in the seventeenth century it would be hard to overlook the
fact that ultimately sarmatism had the upper hand of the Society’s cultural elite (Obirek S.
1999). The concept of ‘Sarmatism,’ familiar to Polish historiography, may need explanation:
sarmatism - the influence of pre-Christians customs and behavior on the Christian society as a
whole. On a similar phenomenon, although in different context, draw attention De Certeau in
the introduction to his The Practice of Everyday Life:
The ambiguity that subverted from within the Spanish colonizers’ `success` in
imposing their own culture on the indigenous Indians is well known. Submissive, and
even consenting to their subjection, the Indians nevertheless often made of the rituals,
representations, and laws imposed on them something quite different from what their
conquerors had in mind; they subverted them not by rejecting or altering them, but by
7
using them with respect to ends and references foreign to the system they had no
choice but to accept (Certeau M. de 1988, XIII).
Of course the Polish Jesuits were not the “conquerors” of Poles, but in a way the final
effect of their activity was similar to that of the Spanish colonizers in Latin America. Carl F.
Starkloff, drawing attention to his experience in Nord America, elaborated the concept of
theology based on syncretic process. For him the elements of the spirituality of indigenous
Indian enriched the traditional Christian theology (Starkloff C. F. 2002). The same could be
said about the cultural impact of the Jesuits on Polish religiosity which is constructed of a
mixture of Roman Catholicism and East European sentimentality. The Jesuits were not only
contributing to the education of the Poles but were also shaped by Polish customs. And
exactly this evolution of the order was seen with suspicion by Vatican. With the suppression
of the Jesuits in 1773 this cultural experiment was ended and came to its end, as it happened
in China and Latin America. The short episode of collaboration of the Jesuits with Orthodox
Monarch of Russia – Catherine the Great and the foundation of Academy of Połock –shows
that the separation from the religious and political center of Catholicism was very creative in
founding new ways for being a religious community. Unfortunately, this tradition is almost
completely forgotten and the present day activity of the Jesuits consists almost exclusively of
commenting the Vatican official documents. In other parts of the world we can observe a
successful attempts to elaborate a new form of theology in the spirit of XVII century tradition
in Asia and Latin America. Just to mention a few names of liberation theologians like
Ignation Ellacuria (1930-1989) assassinated (with his five Jesuit brothers) from San Salvador
or Jon Sobrino (1938) also from San Salvador. Less known is Engelbert Mveng (1930-1995)
from Cameroon, one of the first promoters of African liberation theology and considered to be
the “father of the Church” in Africa. He coined two terms which describe very good the way
how Christianity was introduced in the African continent, namely “anthropological
impoverishment” to describe the European colonization and “anthropological annihilation” to
indicate the arrogance of Christian missionaries in Africa and their attitudes toward
indigenous cultures and religions (Hinsdale M. A. 2008).
Now I would like to pass to the second part of my essay – the changing of the
paradigm in Jesuit historiography, as an example I’ll make a use of the writings of Michel de
Certeau.
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2. Abandoning the system
About 40 years ago it seemed as if the Church was taking a new theological path with the
declaration of “Nostra aetate” and “De libertate religiosa” which were mentioned above. Both
documents were written by Jesuits. The first by Cardinal Augustin Bea, a German Jesuit, and
the second by John Courtney Murray, an American Jesuit. For the first time Catholic theology
spoke in a positive way about other religions, and on the capacity of human being to take
responsibility of its religious choices. New language in theology was a sign of a new attitude
toward the possibility of formulating religious conviction in words. I think that we can say
that the Catholic Church change the paradigm of its view of other religions – it moved from
religious exclusivism towards inclusivism or even pluralism (Dupuis J. 2001). One of the
most important Catholic thinkers to articulate this new way of thinking (independently of the
Vatican II) was an American Jesuit Walter Ong (1912-2003). As far as I can see, he was the
first Catholic theologian in the XX century who was looking for inspiration outside of
Christian theology and took seriously the possibility to change religious conviction as an
outcome of a dialogue with other cultures and religions. According to Ong, the center of the
Christian message should be the human being as such, an individual person, and not the Holy
Scripture, or dogmatic formulations: “The [...] person of every human being, for believers and
non believers, lies in a way beyond statement. The ‘I’ that any one of us speaks lies beyond
statement in the sense that although every statement originates, ultimately, from an ‘I’, no
mere statement can ever make clear what constitutes this ‘I’ as against any other ‘I’ spoken by
any other human being” (Ong W. 1995, 20).
The theological consequences of this way of thinking are enormous. Namely, it means that
it is not doctrinal formulations at the center of theological reflection, but rather human beings.
In other words, before we can start a dialogue between religions, we have to realize that we
meet as human beings. How far this new approach will lead us, it is impossible to say. It
seems that this kind of dialogue is the only way to avoid the dangerous aspects of any
fundamentalism. Ong speaks about American culture, but his observation is also appropriate
for the European context. Ong says that each and every text should not be treated as a final
truth that cannot be interpreted further. This conviction also applies to the Church’s doctrinal
formulations.
In Ong’s thinking we can find a basis, and a support, for a fundamental skepticism toward
an uncritical acceptance of written tradition, including Christian tradition. In other words,
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what is needed is a new form of interreligious dialogue in which not the texts, but the people
involved, will play the most important role.
There is a similar way of thinking in Karl Rahner’s writings. In 1954 he wrote an
essay, entitled "Chalkedon—Ende oder Anfang?" (Chalcedon: Ending or Beginning), for the
occasion of the 1500th anniversary of the Council of Chalcedon, formulating the most
important Christological concepts. For the question “ending or beginning” his answer was
“both”! A dogmatic and clear formulation is, usually, the end of a long and painful process of
searching for a theological solution as well as the beginning of a new understanding (Rahner
K. 1963).
Rahner's point is basically that we cannot look at a written text as dead letters, but
rather must see it as a point of departure for a living and dynamic interpretation of the
concrete Church community context. It is also important to emphasize that Karl Rahner was
one of the most influential theologians during the debates of Vatican Council II and his
interpretation of the documents is particularly significant (Rahner K. 1979). Speaking at the
Weston School of Theology in 1979 Rahner stated: “The Second Vatican Council is, in a
rudimentary form still groping for identity, the Church’s first official self-actualization as a
world Church.” (Rahner K. 1979, 717). This search for identity is particularly salient in regard
to other world religions. Rahner, as well as Ong, does not sanctify any one text, even holy
one. Rather the opposite; both encourage the search for new and more adequate theological
and dogmatic formulations, and a new interpretation of the Holy Scripture.
In the same way we should look at the documents of the last ecumenical council as the
end of a long process of clarification but also as the beginning of a new situation for the
Church. The tormented history of the declaration Nostra aetate is well known and it is not our
aim to rehearse it here. What is interesting for us is the comment made by its main author,
Cardinal Augustin Bea.2 His observation is very similar to Rahner`s: “The Declaration on the
Non-Christian Religions is indeed an important and promising beginning, yet no more than
the beginning of a long and demanding way towards the arduous goal of a humanity whose
members feel themselves truly to be sons and daughters of the same Father and act on this
conviction” (Neudecker R. 1989, 289).
It is important to notice that Nostra aetate is seen as “an important and promising
beginning.” It also means that it is only a starting point for a new approach toward other
religions. In other words, traditional theology could be declared as no longer fitting to
describe the current situation of the Christian religion among other world religions – a change
10
is needed! The proclamation of Vatican Council II by the Pope John XXIII was seen as a new
spring in the history of the Church, and there was a great enthusiasm for the possible change.
When he passes away during the Council, and his successor Paul VI had influence on the
sessions of the Council some theologian started to speak about “winter time” and the
theological debate was frozen (Kueng H. 2011). The culmination of this process was the
publication of the declaration “Dominus Iesus” by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2000 year,
which stated the universal meaning of salvation in Jesus Christ (Dominus Iesus 2000).
On the other hand, the positive openness toward other religions has brought a new
perception of what it means to be a Catholic. I would like to recall the already classical
division of the Church’s history made by Karl Rahner:
“Theologically speaking, there are three great epochs in Church history, of
which the third has only just begun and made itself observable officially at Vatican II:
First, the short period of Jewish Christianity. Second, the period of the Church in
distinct cultural regions, namely, that of Hellenism and of European culture and
civilization. Third, the period in which the sphere of the Church’s life is, in fact, the
entire world” (Rahner K. 1979, 721).
The development of this third period is still in its initial stage, so its result is
unknown, and this explains also why the Catholic Church is still looking for its own identity
as a world religion. One can learn a great deal from those Christians theologians who went to
Asia and returned transformed by their exposure to Asian religions.3 Asia, especially, is the
place where Catholic theologians elaborate new christological approaches. For example,
Jacques Dupuis, Belgian Jesuit who worked many years in India, invented there the concept
of “pluralistic inclusivism” (Dupuis J. 2001, 94). Also theologians, from the new generation,
as Peter Phan, an American theologian from Georgetown University, writes in a similar spirit
when he speaks about “being religious interreligiously” (Phan P. C. 2004), or about multiply
religious belonging. According to him: “There is then a reciprocal relationship between
Christianity and the other religions. Not only are the non-Christian religions complemented by
Christianity, but also Christianity is complemented by other religions. In other words, the
2
At the press conference on the day of its promulgation on October 28 th 1965.
Like: Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths, Enomiya Lassalle, Heinrich Dumoulin, William Johnston, Anthony de
Mello, Raimundo Panikkar.
3
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process of complementation, enrichment and even correction is two-way or reciprocal” (Phan
P. C. 2003, 502).
This theological insight is particularly important for the Jewish-Christian relation to
which the declaration “Nostra aetate” was dedicated. Exactly to this perspective draw
attention one of the most important Jewish theologian of XX century Abraham J. Heschel in
his magnificent essay “No Religion is an Island”. From the many words of Heschel I would
like to quote the final part of this famous lecture, in which he asks about the purpose of
interreligious cooperation: “It is neither to flatter nor to refute one another, but to help one
another; to share insight and learning, to cooperate in academic ventures on the highest
scholarly level, and what is even more important, to search in the wilderness for well-springs
of devotion, for treasures of stillness, for the power of love and care of [humankind]”
(Heschel A. J. 1996, 249-250). In this search for the new fields of mutual cooperation Michel
de Certeau could be a real master.
Michel de Certeau was born in 1925 and joint the Jesuit Order in 1950. In the
beginning of his academic activity he wrote extensively on the history of French Jesuits and
particularly on mysticism. But from the time of the student riots in Paris in May 1968 de
Certeau changed his interest into daily life practice, although his interest in Christianity was
constant. As Frederick Christian Bauerschmitd wrote: “In many ways the work of de Certeau
displays a sensibility which seems characteristically postmodern: an awareness of the
inescapableness of linguistic representation, an overturning of traditional hierarchies of
presence and absence, a recognition of the shattering of meta-narratives, and, perhaps above
all, a concern with otherness. Yet unlike many postmodern thinkers, de Certeau’s sensibilities
are profoundly marked by Christian faith and tradition” (Bauerschmidt F. Ch. 1997, 135).
And Luce Giard, who for many years collaborated with de Certeau and takes care of his
writing, stated that: “de Certeau belonged to this minority of historians who are not afraid of
calling for a thorough rethinking of the prerequisites and presuppositions which rule the
profession as a social body and guide its intellectual commitment” (Giard L. 2000, 18). And
Giard added an important consequence connected to this approach toward writing history:
“For followers of this line, historiography stands as an elucidatory activity which is inherent
to any writing of history. They believe that the historiographical debate opens to historians a
royal path toward clarification and validation of their craft” (Giard L. 2000, 18).
Stephen Greenblatt considers that The Possession at Loudun is the master piece of de
Certeau’s historical writings. Originally published in French in 1970 the book is a kind of
passage from the old to the new style which is well captured by Greenblatt: “Committed to
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justice, decency, and the unvarnished truth, de Certeau has no interest in remystifying a
shameful episode. On the contrary, he ruthlessly uncovers the tangle of bad faith, ignorant
fanaticism, and conspiratorial lies – but he makes us feel the full force of what was at stake
and what was in the process of being forever lost” (Greenblatt S. 2000, XI). The above
mentioned qualities of de Certeau’s style are still more visible in his political pamphlet
published in May 1968, and after the students revolt in Paris. Some of them were collected
and publish by Luce Giard, first in French in 1994 and a few year latter in English as The
Capture of Speech and Other Political Writings. The book is a good illustration of the
positive attitude of de Certeau towards the students expectations (Certeau M. de 1998). Some
of these essays were written as a response to the revolutionary events of May 1968, others as
his response to Latin America experience, and also as a fruits of his cultural and political
activities in France. All together established de Certeau's public reputation as an intellectual
with great insight into the ramifications and possibilities of those revolts. These essays show
de Certeau's political thought, particularly his preoccupation with social discrimination and
his definitive departure from theological thinking. His preoccupation with diverse language,
called by him “heterologies” helped him to include in anthropological reflections all kinds of
manifestation of daily life; from cooking to walking on the street. In this sense, de Certeau
was different from Walter Ong who was interested mainly in relation between orality and
literacy (Ong W. 1982).
In 1971 Michel de Certeau published his dissertation La Rupture Instauratrice—"The
Founding Rupture, or Christianity in the Contemporary World" which could be seen as the
beginning of a new approach toward the heritage of the Jesuits and of Christianity in Europe.
No wonder that this new approach was not accepted by Institut Catholique in Paris as a
doctorate thesis of theology. De Certeau was not interested in Christian theology but was
stating that in the modern time we have to do with “refunding rupture” (Certeau M. de 1971)
and we need to start a new way of reflection on the presence of religion. In other words he
was asking how is Christianity thinkable today at all? (Certeau M. de 1997). De Certeau does
not question Christianity as a religious system, but shows that the daily practice has nothing to
do with official doctrine: “The history of religion has gradually shown, as it has become more
and more sensitive to the contribution of sociology, that the practice of Christians has always
been, and remains today, something other than official laws and theological teaching”
(Certeau M. de 1997, 152). Therefore, there is no sense in studies of the history of Christian
institutions, for example – Jesuits, and its doctrinal documents, but to concentrate on the daily
13
life practices. Even the most important and funding event for Christianity should be seen in
this perspective:
“The death of Jesus and his resurrection within a multiplicity of Christian
languages made and continues to make a faithful freedom possible. But only new
departures manifest and will continue to manifest Christianity as still alive. That is the
first question: no longer to know whether God exists, but to exists as Christian
communities. It is impossible to be Christian without a common risk, without the
creation of a new divergence in relation to our past and to our present, without being
alive” (Certeau M. de 1997, 155).
It is not easy to grasp the real meaning of this statement. But perhaps Natalie Zemon
Davis is right identifying de Certeau’s words as a kind of departure from Christianity in its
traditional form: “Feeling the Christian ground on which I thought I was walking disappear,
seeing the messengers of an ending, long time under way, approach, recognizing in this my
relation to history as a death with no proper future of its own, and a belief stripped of any
secure site, I discover the violence of an instant” (Davis N. Z. 2008, 59). Davis is calling this
statement “his own inner dialogue about how to validate his religious belief other than
through Church authority” ((Davis N. Z. 2008, 59). I think that Michel de Certeau found in it
a new community, similar to this of the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. Indeed in “General
Introduction” to The Practice of Everyday Life de Certeau quoted Witold Gombrowicz and
named him “an acute visionary” and one of the representatives of a new sensitivity, together
with Robert Musil and Sigmund Freud (Certeau M. de 1988, XXIV). In fact Gombrowicz was
the first in Polish literature who, after loosing his faith in God, concentrated his life and
literary oeuvre on daily life, and on human relations. It is particularly evident in his A Kind of
Testament where he presented the main goal of his literary activity: “The Marriage
[Gombrowicz’s drama, SO] should become a Mount Sinai, a place full of mystical
revelations; a cloud, pregnant with a thousand meanings; a galloping work of imagination and
intuition; a Grand Guignol, full of play; a puzzling missa solemnis on the threshold of time, at
the foot of an unknown altar” (Gombrowicz W. 1973, 65). In other words in A Kind of
Testament Gombrowicz presented a kind of new religion, this time without God: “I wanted to
show humanity in its transition from the church of God to the church of man” (Gombrowicz
W. 1973, 97). As I stated in another essay: “Gombrowicz the atheist was not resigning from a
new revelation and new rituals, he himself brought them to life in his writings, there adherents
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can find an explanation for a new religion, a religion without God. Its essence is responsibility
in front of another person, God was left outside the horizon of his interest. Even if in his
stories and dramas he created new rituals it is obvious that what is important is their impact on
other people, and their importance lays exactly in this. Therefore, ethics replaced religion”
(Obirek S. 2010, 254). Similar evolution I can observe in Michel de Certeau, although I can
understand Luce Giard that it is not appropriate to call him “former Jesuit” (Giard L. 1987,
IV), but his anthropology is far from the orthodox approach.
The impact of his thought on Catholic theology is limited, or perhaps does not exist at
all. We may think of many reasons why it is so, but the most important is that de Certeau saw
the history of Christianity as a part of ideological construction of Western Christianity, and
proposed an interesting way to deconstruct it. The most important declaration in this regard
was his already mentioned The Practice of Everyday Life in which de Certeau declares his
interest in the present moment instead for the past:
“By adopting the point of view of enunciation – which is the subject of our
study – we privilege the act of speaking: according to that point of view, speaking
operates within the field of linguistic system; it effects an appropriation, or
reappropriation, of language by the speaker; it establishes a present relative to a time
and place; and it posits a contract with the other (the interlocutor) in a network of
places and relations” (Certeau M. de 1988, XIII).
His protest against Christian tradition is particularly visible when de Certeau shows
the culture of writing and education as a way to control and as a source of violence (Certeau
M. de 1988, 139). Even the Reformation, as a movement based on the return to the scriptural
sources of Christianity, and European Enlightenment with its axiom that theory must
transform nature “become violence, cutting its way through the irrationality of superstitious
peoples or religions still under the spell of sorcery” ((Certeau M. de 1988, 144). Naturally, we
can hear in this analysis of social and cultural reality the affinity with Michel Foucault and
even Marxist thought. In many pages of The Practice of Everyday Life these inspirations are
evident. Also in other books like Culture in the Plural and Heterologies. Discourse on the
Other the interaction with modern and even postmodern thought is evident (Certeau M. de
1997 and 1986). But this analysis we have to leave for another occasion.
15
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