by Morris West
‘Let us look at him in space first. The universe which he inhabits is immense, galactic. It stretches beyond moon and sun into an enormity of dimension which our mathematics can only express by an indefinite extension of zeros.
‘Look at man in time. He exists now at this moment, but his past goes back to a point where we lose him in a mist. His future prolongs itself beyond our conception of any possible circumstance.
‘Look at man by numbers, and you find yourself trying to count the grains of sand on a shoreline without limit.
‘Look at him by scale and proportion and you find him on the one hand a minuscule dwarf, in a universe without apparent limits. Measure him by another scale and you find in partial control of the enormity in which he lives…’
The most sceptical of his hearers – and there were many in the audience who were disposed to be dubious of him – found themselves being caught up and carried along by the strong current of his eloquence. The passion of his conviction expressed itself in every line of his weathered face, in every gesture of his thin, expressive hands.
Rudolf Semmering, the grim, soldierly man, found himself nodding approval of the noble temper of his subject. Cardinal Rinaldi smiled his thin, ironic smile and wondered what the pedants would make of this valiant intruder into their private domain. Even Leone, the harsh old watchdog of the faith, leaned his crabby chin on his hand and registered a reluctant tribute to the unflinching courage of this suspect spirit.
In Kiril the Pontiff the conviction grew, swift as a conjurer’s mango plant, that this was the man he wanted: a man totally committed to the risk of living and knowing, yet anchored firm as a sea-battered rock to belief in a divinely planned unity. The waves might tear at him, the winds might score his spirit, but he would stand unshaken and unshakable under the assault. He found himself murmuring a message to sustain him. ‘Go on! Don’t be afraid. Your heart is right, and it beats in time with mine. No matter that the words stumble and the record falters. The vision is dear, the will points straight and true towards the Centre. Go on!…’
Télémond was in full course now, expounding to them his view of matter – the material of the universe which expressed itself in so many different appearances, and finally in the appearance of man.
‘…“God made man of the dust of the earth!” The Biblical image expresses aptly the most primitive conviction of man – a conviction confirmed by the most advanced scientific experiment – that the stuff of which he is formed is capable of indefinite scaling down to particles infinitely small…At a certain point of this scaling down, man’s vision of himself becomes blurred. He needs spectacles, then a microscope, then a whole array of instrumentation to supplement his failing sight. For a moment he is lost in diversity – molecules, atoms, electrons, neutrons, protons…so many and so different! Then suddenly they all come together again. The universe, from the farthest nebulae to the simplest atomic structure, is a whole: a system, a quantum of energy – in other words, a unity. But – and I must ask you to lean and linger and think upon this most important “but” – this universe is not a static whole, it is in a constant state of change and transformation. It is in a state of genesis…a state of becoming, a state of evolving. And this is the question which I ask you to face with me now. The universe is evolving and man is evolving with it – into what?…’
They were with him now. Critics or captives of the idea, they were with him. He could see them leaning forward in their benches, intent on every phrase and every inflection. He could feel their interest projected towards him like a wave. He gathered himself once again and began to sketch, with swift, decisive strokes, the picture of a cosmos in motion, rearranging itself, diversifying itself, preparing itself for the coming of life, for the coming of consciousness, for the arrival of the first subhuman species, and the ultimate arrival of man.
He was on his own ground now, and he marched them forward with him, out of the misty backward of a crystallizing world to the moment when the change to life from non-life took place, when the megamolecule became the micro-organism, and the first biotic forms appeared on the planet.
He showed them how the primitive life-forms spread themselves in a vast network around the surface of the spinning globe; how they joined and disjoined into a multitude of combinations; how some conjunctions were swiftly suppressed because they were too specially adapted to a time and a condition of the evolutionary march; how others survived by changing themselves, by becoming more complex in order to guarantee their own endurance.
He showed them the first outlines of a fundamental law of nature – the too specialized life-form was the first to perish. Change was the price of survival.
He did not shrink from the consequences of his thought. He took his audience by the scruff of their necks and forced them to face the consequences with him.
‘…Even so early in the evolutionary chain, we are faced with the brutal fact of biological competition. The struggle for life is endless. It is always accompanied by death and destruction, and violence of one kind or another…You will ask yourselves, as I have asked myself a thousand times, whether this struggle necessarily transfers itself, at a later stage of history, into the domain of man. At first blush the answer is yes. But I object to so crude and total an application of the biological pattern. Man does not live now on the same level at which he lived when he first made his appearance on the planet. He has passed through successive levels of existence; and it is my belief, supported by considerable evidence, that man’s evolution is marked by an effort to find other less brutal, and less destructive modes of competition for life…’
He leaned forward over the rostrum and challenged them with the thought that he knew was already in their minds.
‘You ask me why I do not invoke at this moment a divine intervention in the pattern of human evolvement. It is because we must continue to walk along the exploratory path which we have set ourselves. We are limiting ourselves only to what we see. And all we are seeing at this moment is man emerging as a phenomenon in a changing universe. If we are troubled by what we see, we must bear the trouble and not seek too easy an answer for it. I make this point although man has not yet appeared to our exploring eyes. We have leapt forward to meet him. Now we must go back.’
He could almost feel their tension relax. He stole a swift glance at the front row of the audience. Leone was shaking his white head and making a whispered comment to a Cardinal on his left. Rinaldi was smiling and he lifted one hand in an almost imperceptible gesture of encouragement. Kiril the Pontiff sat erect in his chair, his scarred face immobile, his dark eyes bright with interest.
Gently now Télémond led them back to the main stream of his story. He showed them the primitive life-forms reproducing themselves, multiplying, joining and rejoining, groping ingeniously but indifferently towards stability and permanence. He drew for them the tree of life and showed how it branched and yet grew upwards; how certain twigs died and fell off; how certain branches ceased to grow; but how, always, the main thrust of growth was upwards in the direction of the large brain and the complex organism, and the most flexible mechanism of survival. He showed them the first subhuman species – the hominoid, which was the prelude to the human – and finally he showed them man.
Then, brusquely, he presented them with a puzzle.
‘…;From where we stand now we see a continuity and a unity in the evolutionary process. But if we look closely, we see that the line of advance is not always a firm and a definite stroke. It is dotted in places, or broken. We cannot say where, in point of time, life began. Yet we know that it did begin. We know that the pterodactyl existed. We have dug his bones out of the earth. But where and by what mutations he came to be is not wholly clear to us. We see him first as plural …;many pterodactyls. But was there a first couple or were they always many? We do not know…So, with man, when we first find him on the earth, he is many. If we speak as scientists, there is no record of the emergence of man as a single couple. In the his
toric record written in primal clay, men are suddenly present. I do not say that they came suddenly, any more than that the pterodactyl came suddenly. All the evidence points to a slow emergence of the species, but at a certain point in history man is there, and with man something else is there as well…Consciousness… Man is a very special phenomenon. He is a being who knows, he is also a being who knows that he knows. We have come, you see, to a very particular point of history. A creature exists who knows that he knows…
‘Now, my friends, I want you to address yourself to my next question only as scientists, only as witnesses of the visible evidence. How did this special phenomenon emerge?
‘Let us step back from him a moment. Let us consider all those phenomena which preceded him, many of which still coexist with him, from the micro-organism to the hominoid ape. All of them have something in common – a drive, a groping, an urge to fit themselves for survival. To use an overworked and imprecise term, it is an instinct to do those things, to enter into those combinations and those associations which will enable them to proceed along their proper line of continuity. I prefer to choose another word than instinct. I prefer to say that this drive, or this capacity, is a primitive but evolving form of what culminates in man…Consciousness…’
Once again he had brought them to a crisis and he knew it. For the first time he felt really inadequate to display to them the whole range and subtlety of the thought. Time was against him and the simple semantic limitation and the rhetorical power to persuade them into a new, but still harmonious view of the nature and origin of humankind. Still, he went on resolutely, developing for them his own view of the cosmic pattern – primal energy, primitive life, primitive consciousness, all evolving and converging to the first focal point of history, thinking man. He took them farther yet, by a bold leap into their own territory, showing all the lines of human development converging to a final unity, a unity of man with his Creator.
More vividly than ever before he could feel the mood of his audience shifting. Some were in awe, some were dubious, some had settled themselves into complete hostility to his thought.
Yet, when he came to his peroration, he knew that he had done the best he could and that for all its sometime vagueness, and sometime risky speculation, his address had been the true reflection of his own intellectual position. There was nothing more he could do but commit himself to judgement and rest courageous in the outcome. Humbly, but with deep emotion, he summed it up for them.
‘I do not ask you to agree with me. I do not put any of my present conclusions beyond reconsideration or new development, but of this I am totally convinced: the first creative act of God was directed towards fulfilment and not destruction. If the universe is not centred on man, if man as the centre of the universe is not centred on the Creator, then the cosmos is a meaningless blasphemy. The day is not far distant when men will understand that even in biological terms, they have only one choice: suicide or an act of worship.’
His hands trembled and his voice shook as he read them the words of Paul to the Colossians:
‘“In Him all created things took their being, heavenly and earthly, visible and invisible…They were all created through Him and in Him; He takes precedence of all, and in Him all subsist…It was God’s good pleasure to let all completeness dwell in Him, and through Him to win back all things, whether on earth or in heaven, unto union with Himself making peace with them through His blood, shed on the Cross.” ’
He did not hear the thunder of applause as he stepped down from the pulpit. As he knelt to pay his respects to the Pontiff, and lay the text of his address in his hands, he heard only the words of the blessing and the invitation – or was it a command? – that followed:
‘You’re a bold man, Jean Télémond. Time will tell whether you are right or wrong; but at this moment I need you. We all need you.’
EXTRACT FROM THE SECRET MEMORIALS OF KIRIL I PONT. MAX.
…Yesterday I met a whole man. It is a rare experience but always an illuminating and ennobling one. It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price…One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet demand no easy return of love. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.
This is how I read Jean Télémond. This is why I have decided to draw him to me, to ask for his friendship, to use him as best I know in the work of the Church…Leone is uneasy about him. He has said so very bluntly. He points, quite rightly, to ambiguities and obscurities in his system of thought, to what he calls a dangerous rashness in certain of his speculations. He demands another full examination of all his writings by the Holy Office, before he is permitted to teach publicly or to publish his research.
I do not disagree with Leone. I am not so bold that I am prepared to gamble with the Deposit of Faith, which is, after all, the testament of Christ’s new covenant with man. To preserve it intact is the whole meaning of my office. This is the task which has been delegated to Leone in the Church…
On the other hand I am not afraid of Jean Télémond. A man so centred upon God, who has accepted twenty years of silence, has already accepted every risk, even the risk that he can be mistaken. Today he said so in as many words and I believe him…I am not afraid of his work either; I do not have the equipment or the time to judge truly of its ultimate value. This is why I have counsellors and experts learned in science, theology and philosophy to assist me…
I am convinced, moreover, that honest error is a step towards a greater illumination of the truth, since it exposes to debate and to clearer definition those matters which might otherwise remain obscure and undefined in the teaching of the Church. In a very special sense the Church too is evolving towards a greater fullness of understanding, a deeper consciousness of the divine life within itself.
The Church is a family. Like every family it has its homebodies and its adventurers. It has its critics and its conformists; those who are jealous of its least important traditions; those who wish to thrust it forward, a bright lamp into a glorious future. Of all of them I am the common father…When the adventurers come back scarred and travel-worn from a new frontier, from another foray, successful or unsuccessful, against the walls of ignorance, I must receive them with the charity of Christ and protect them with gentleness against those who have fared better only because they have dared much less. I have asked the Father General of the Jesuits to send Jean Télémond to keep me company at Castel Gandolfo during the summer. I hope and, pray that we may learn to be friends. He could enrich me, I think. I, for my part, may be able to offer him courage and a respite from his long and lonely pilgrimage
In an odd fashion he has given me courage as well. For some time now I have been engaged in a running debate with the Cardinal Secretary of the Congregation of Rites on the question of introducing the vernacular liturgy and a vernacular system of teaching into the seminaries and churches of missionary countries. This would mean inevitably a decline of the Latin liturgical language in many areas of the world. It would mean also an immense task of translation and annotation, so that the works of the Fathers of the Church would be made available to clerical students in their own language.
The Congregation of Rites takes the view that the merits of the change are far outweighed by its disadvantages. They point out that it would run counter to the decisions of the Council of Trent, and to the pronouncements of later Councils and later Pontiffs. They claim that the stability and uniformity of our organization depend much on the use of a common official tongue in the definition of doctrine, the training of teachers, and the celebration of the liturgy.
I myself take the view that our first duty is to preach the Word of God and to dispense the grace of t
he Sacraments, and that anything which stands in the way of this mission should be swept aside.
I know, however, that the situation is not quite so simple. There is, for example, a curious division of opinion in the small Christian community in Japan. The Japanese bishops want the Latin system preserved. Because of their unique and isolated position, they are inclined to be timorous about any change at all. On the other hand, missionary priests working in the country report that work is handicapped when the vernacular is not used.
In Africa the native Cardinal Ragambwe is very dear that he wants to try the vernacular system. He is very aware of the risks and the problems, but he still feels that a trial should be made. He is a holy and enlightened man, and I have great respect for his opinion.
Ultimately the decision rests with me, but I have deferred it because I have been so vividly aware of the complexity of the problem and of the historic danger that small and isolated groups of Christians may, for lack of a common communication, be separated from the daily developing life of the Church. We are not building only for today, but for tomorrow and for eternity.
However, listening to Jean Télémond, I felt myself encouraged to make a decisive step. I have decided to write to those bishops who want to introduce the vernacular system and ask them to propose to me a definite plan for its use. If their plans seem workable, and if at the same time a certain select number of the clergy can be trained in the traditional mode, I am disposed to let the new system be tried…I expect strong opposition from the Congregation of Rites, and from many bishops in the Church, but a move must be made to break the deadlock which inhibits our apostolic work, so that the Faith may begin to grow with more freedom in emerging nations.