As each Christmas approaches, encouragements to joyfulness increase. Because joy is enjoyable, the encouragements seem to encounter no adverse reactions, even if they are at odds with matters which weigh on people’s minds. Various factors can induce joy, and it is not mere cynicism to believe that most of the joyfulness each December has no consciously-religious ‘root’. Try an amateur test of that belief. ‘Engineer’ a brief chat with some strangers and ‘steer’ it in a way which leads to the seemingly-unplanned question of ‘Are you caught up in the Christmas spirit?’ or ‘Did you celebrate Christmas?’ If the essence of the answer is ‘Yes’ (even if accompanied by one or more caveats), ask ‘Why?’ The stranger(s) may be ‘thrown off balance’ by that, but – if pressed gently for an answer – would probably say something inadequate such as ‘Because everybody is [or ‘was,’ or ‘does’],’ or ‘Because it’s traditional’.
If then you begin to mention subjects which are out of place amid joyfulness, such as ‘the state of the world’ (seemingly a standard policy of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a prelude to explaining that the Bible is the solution – but without any objective authority by which to distinguish correct interpretations from false ones), you risk being regarded as a ‘wet blanket’.
Some people are joyful by nature. Others are joyful as a policy. Others are joyful when desired events occur, but subdued when undesired events do. On the eve of the 2024 U. S. Presidential Election, the Democratic Party’s candidate portrayed joy as the result of hope and optimism; a more rational sequence (as shown by the result of the Election) is to delay the joy until it becomes clear that the hope and optimism have been fulfilled. ‘Pro-lifers’ can rejoice in the prospect of at least four years before the Democrats can have a chance to replicate the French President’s recent success in making abortion a Constitutional entitlement.
The Christmas ‘festive spirit’ raises a question of whether Catholics are obliged to maintain a joyful disposition despite reasons for the contrary. I specify Catholics, instead of Christians in general, because I wish to think in an authentically-Catholic way and because some criteria are particularly relevant to Catholics. If joy is obligatory, is any weakening of it permissible?
In 1977, The Electric Light Orchestra had a ‘hit’ with a song entitled “Mr. Blue Sky.” It celebrated a sunny, blue sky which had hidden away for a long time. I believe that the song was included in a collection entitled “Out of the Blue.” A very similar event has occurred in the Church since Pope Francis was elected. His personal portrayal and advocacy of joy ‘raised its profile’ so much that it seemed to come ‘out of the blue’. It was recommended formally in his Apostolic Exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium,” by which he set out his strategy (and background attitudes) for “embark[ing] upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy, while pointing out new paths for the Church’s journey in years to come.”1
The Holy Father laid great stress on how we ‘appear’; that is, on the impression of us which will be formed. In his August 2013 interview for various Jesuit magazines, His Holiness said that a missionary style of proclamation of the Gospel “is…what fascinates and attracts…, what makes the heart burn…”2 In “Evangelii Gaudium, he wrote that “an evangelizing community is filled with joy; it knows how to rejoice always. It celebrates at every small victory, every step forward,” 3 and for the purpose of “a pastoral goal and a missionary style which would actually reach everyone without exception or exclusion the message has to concentrate on” (inter alia) “what is most…appealing and at the same time most necessary.”4 This opinion seems to omit situations of sin in which what is most necessary (the sinner’s recognition of the sin and repentance of it) is likely to be unappealing (probably many people will reject a message that they need to change their ways). If, as happens often, ‘exclusion’ is regarded as a plague, and (in order to seem ‘inclusive’) the ‘message’ concentrates on “what is most…appealing,” the effect seems very likely to be that “what is…most necessary” will be equated with what is acceptable to the recipient instead of with principles which by objective Catholic criteria are unassailable. Should we lay down our terms to God, or accept His terms as taught authentically by the Magisterium of his Church? Pope Francis has invoked the concept of a ‘hierarchy of truths’,5 and although conceding that no virtue can be excluded and no truth denied6 he seems to subordinate everything to radiating the Gospel “attractively.”7 That is likely to have just as reductive an effect as the emphasis on “secondary aspects” (especially unpopular “moral imperatives” mentioned in his interview for Jesuit magazines) which he wishes to discourage. If what the Catholic Voices web-site has described well as “neuralgic issues” are passed over in discreet silence in order to make the Gospel more attractive, the effect is likely to be that the Gospel is reduced to little more than “all you need is love” (as The Beatles sang – “whatever…love means,” as Prince Charles once said). Indeed, Pope Francis cited New Testament authorities as justification for exactly that reduction.8 “…[L]ove covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8),” he commented.9 The broad contexts in which he cited this dictum were those of mercy and solicitude for the poor, and specifically the expiational effect of almsgiving (so “covers” is used in the sense of ‘atones for’), but (although there was no sign that the Pope intended or even realised that the dictum can be used also in the following sense) “covers” can mean ‘cloaks’, so it is a reminder that the word ‘love’ is often used to portray sins as virtuous (ideological strategy: labelling a sin as ‘love’ puts its critics on the defensive).
“Evangelii Gaudium” contained other urgings towards conveying an attractive impression. One is the “way of beauty” (‘via pulchritudinis’). This, the Pope wrote, means showing people that believing in and following Christ “is not only…right and true, but also…beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendour and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties.”10 He advocated “a renewed esteem for beauty as a means of touching the human heart and enabling the truth and goodness of the Risen Christ to radiate within it.”11 ‘Touchstone’ concepts such as those might be useful in a homogeneous society, but not in a heterogeneous, heterodox one in which relativism is rife and relativists hold positions of power. Pope Francis wrote that highlighting the beautiful, splendid, joyful nature of Christianity “has nothing to do with fostering an aesthetic relativism which would downplay the inseparable bond between truth, goodness and beauty,”12 but showed no recognition that words lose their meaning in a society saturated with relativistic thinking; ultimately everything is abandoned to individual opinion and choice. Indeed, His Holiness seemed, despite his nominal repudiation of relativism, to have caught some of that disease: we must, he wrote, “be bold enough to discover new signs and new symbols, new flesh to embody and communicate the word, and different forms of beauty which are valued in different cultural settings, including those unconventional modes of beauty which may mean little to the evangelizers, yet prove particularly attractive for others.”13
Again, therefore, the emphasis is not on the message which the ‘evangelisers’ wish to convey, but on the one which the recipients wish to hear or are willing to accept. This strategy is consistent with non-Catholic attitudes. It is dangerous when applied to Catholic doctrine and morality. Belief in Catholic doctrine is, alas, not predominant. Pope Francis does not seem to prioritise converting people to it. He wrote that the Church grows not by changing minds but by attracting them,14 and that growth in faith should not be recognised “exclusively or primarily in terms of doctrinal formation.”15 A distinction between faith and doctrine seems as false as one between the word of God and the teaching of the Church. There exists an objectively-authenticated duty to offer to God the full submission of intellect and will.16 God has “seen to it”17 that His word can be known “with ease, with solid certitude and with no trace of error.”18 The task of interpreting it authentically “has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church” (“the pillar and mainstay of the truth,”19) “whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ”, and “[everything] said about the way of interpreting Scripture is subject finally to the judgment of the Church.”20 “[I]n faithful and respectful obedience” to “the sacred teaching authority” of the Church we accept “that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God.”21 There is very widespread and deeply-ingrained disagreement about those very basic Catholic doctrines. Disunity of belief contributes to disordered behaviour, as is very evident. In contrast with the distasteful fact of rampant defiance of Catholic morals, Pope Francis recommended a palatable programme of stressing a “positive message” of “the attractiveness and the ideal of a life of wisdom, self-fulfilment and enrichment.”22 Such ideas cannot be expected to rescue the world from the reality of relativism, because relativism resists their correct interpretation.
The attractive appearance which Pope Francis encouraged us to adopt is rooted in a joyful disposition. He wrote that evangelisers should never look sad (“like someone who has just come back from a funeral”), but glow with fervour, having first received the joy of Christ.23 He wrote that they “should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet,”24 and “appear as joyful messengers of challenging proposals, guardians of the goodness and beauty which shine forth in a life of fidelity to the Gospel.”25 Scripturally-referenced joy pervades the first thirteen paragraphs of “Evangelii Gaudium,” and characterises the Pope’s style of evangelisation, including his recommendation of joyful gestures during sermons26 which (as advocated in a song by Bing Crosby) should accentuate the ‘positive’ and play down the ‘negative’.27 Although conceding “that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty”, and that it “adapts and changes,” he wrote that “it always endures, even as a flicker of light.”28 He presented as an all-encompassing norm the proposition that “[t]he joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus”, and chose “to present some guidelines which can encourage and guide the whole Church in a new phase of evangelization, one marked by enthusiasm and vitality…,”29 all of which guidelines “help give shape to a definite style of evangelization which I ask you to adopt in every activity which you undertake…”30 How widely has such a transformation occurred? In your area, is it apparent that “the Catholic Church has undoubtedly lost some of its fire.”31 Do you wonder, as did Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue, former Bishop of Lancaster, “[w]hy does our Church feel so tired and worn out? What has dimmed the fire…within us?”32 “…[T]he majority of us are not responding to Our Lord’s call to go out on His mission. …The passion to serve the Lord is noticeably absent in many cases – there seems to be at times a tiredness and reticence…”33 and “I have sometimes noticed weariness, even hopelessness, among some clergy and laity, when asked to engage with the challenges that face us as the Church…”34 Acknowledging implicitly (consciously or not) that these circumstances exist, Pope Francis appealed to us to “recover” (my italics) “and deepen our enthusiasm.”35
The emphasis which “Evangelii Gaudium” placed on the importance of presenting a joyful ‘face’ to the world seems to be the long-established policy of people who issue boundless joy and ‘up-beat’ comment, as if (contrary to the observable evidence acknowledged by the Vatican before the election of Pope Francis) everything is going our way. In England and Wales, for example, a regional Catholic newspaper (no longer published) was full of joyful news-stories. Comparatively few of them revealed progress towards Catholicising society; most concerned happy activities in schools and parishes. Similarly, the publishers adopted enthusiastically “Evangelii Gaudium” for a booklet of daily meditations for Lent. Each day’s meditation started with a quotation from ‘EG,’ and “joy” was mentioned on 44 of the booklet’s 77 pages of text. Many of the meditations seemed to assume that there exist already widespread high levels of joy and enthusiasm resulting from a correspondingly-high level of religious consciousness.
Pope Francis would be delighted if such were the case. Wouldn’t all of us?
1. “Evangelii Gaudium,” paragraph 1.
2. “A Big Heart Open to God,” “America” magazine, September 2013.
3. “Evangelii Gaudium,” para. 24.
4. Ibid., para.35.
5. Ibid., paras. 36-37.
6. Ibid., para.39.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., para.161.
9. Ibid., para.193.
10. Ibid., para.167.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., para.14.
15. Ibid., para.161.
16. “Dei Verbum,” Vatican II, para. 5.
17. Ibid., para.7.
18. Ibid., para.6.
19. “Lumen Gentium,” Vatican II, para.8.
20. Ibid., para.10.
21. Ibid., para.12.
22. “Evangelii Gaudium,“ op. cit., para.168.
23. Ibid., para.10.
24. Ibid., para.14.
25. Ibid., para.168.
26. Ibid., para.140.
27. Ibid., para.159.
28. Ibid., para.6.
29. Ibid., para.17.
30. Ibid., para.18.
31. “Cardinal Hume and the Changing Face of English Catholicism,” Peter Stanford; Geoffrey Chapman; London and New York, 1993, at p.20.
32. “Fit For Mission? Church”; Catholic Truth Society, 2008, p.10.
33. Ibid., p.12.
34. Ibid., p.13.
35. “Evangelii Gaudium,” op. cit., para.10.
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