True to Our Tradition

“That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

(Luke 20:37–38)

Last week, Pope Francis released a brief letter “On the Renewal of the Study of Church History.” In this letter he urges Catholics to develop "a genuine sense of history,” because,

“No one can truly know their deepest identity, or what they wish to be in the future, without attending to the bonds that link them to preceding generations.”

We learn who we are, and who we may become, through placing ourselves in continuity with those who have come before us. So much of BCF’s work involves recovering the treasures of Catholic theology and practice that we have all but forgotten. 

The past is (appropriately!) vividly present in our Futures track of resources for those who serve the next generation. Our classroom posters and curriculum on spiritual friendship introduce young people to the countercultural, life-shaping role of friendship in the lives of Biblical heroes and ancient and medieval saints. Our friendship retreats bring the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas to bear on the problems and concerns of the post-pandemic, always-online generation.

But in reality, all of our work is shaped by our astonishment at the hidden treasures of Catholic tradition. We are so grateful to the historians whose own relationships to the Church were varied, but who rescued for all Catholics the witness of the past.

From the historical research of Peter Brown, we have learned the beauty of different ways in which the celibate life was lived in the Early Church.

We have learned the holiness of love between men or between women from historians like Alan Bray and Claudia Rapp, who show how ordinary people have lived out these loves.

The ethical, cultural, and theological history of same-sex love, friendship, and transgression have been traced by other Christian academics like Mark D Jordan, whose work has helped us make connections between our work and the thinking of St Thomas Aquinas.

They have done so much to rescue what Pope Francis calls “insights from those whose voices were not able to make themselves heard over the centuries.” In discovering these voices from the past, we understand in a deeper way the experience of St. Basil the Great, who said that he and St. Gregory of Nazianzus were “two bodies with a single spirit,” and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, whose beloved sister-in-law Rebecca became her “soul’s sister.” When Rebecca was dying, as Elizabeth held her and shared her faith, Rebecca voiced the promise of Ruth to Naomi: “Your people will be my people and your God, my God.”

From ancient Moab to 1800s New York to California today, a lineage of prayer connects Ruth, through her descendant Jesus, to her spiritual children.

The Holy Father emphasizes that our history must not be “triumphalist” propaganda. Gay people know well that Catholics have done harm, with the best intentions. Francis reminds us that we cannot achieve “reconciliation and social peace” without an honest reckoning with these harms done, and the damage they have caused to gay people’s relationship with the Church and with God.

We must tell our own stories honestly too. Renewing our relationship to neglected aspects of Scripture and forgotten forms of love will not make us perfect. We will have new problems. Every vocation—every path of love—includes characteristic crosses, characteristic joys, and characteristic temptations, into which even the best among us sometimes fall. But the problems of love are always better than the problems of the absence of love.

Ss Sergius and Bacchus, Wikimedia Commons