Why empty churches?” “

New age, meditative and curative therapies, new religious movements outside or parallel to the Christian tradition, and religious groups that have arrived in Europe from other continents: how can the Church understand why people find an answer to their own spiritual needs in such groups? What “strategies” should be adopted to better exploit the Christian mystical tradition? These were the questions addressed at the seminar on “alternative religions” held at Baar, in Switzerland, from 25 to 28 March. The meeting, promoted by the CCEE, Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe, was attended by 24 bishops and experts from England, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Croatia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Hungary, Lithuania, Portugal, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Scandinavia, Slovakia, Hungary and Ukraine. The final communiqué recommends the European Episcopal Conferences to “recognize the effects of alternative religions on culture with a view to evangelization; consult and involve experts; and keep each other reciprocally informed about these phenomena which often have ‘transnational’ dimensions or character”. Here’s a summary of the seminar’s conclusions. CHURCH AND NEW AGE. How is the Church tackling the phenomenon of New Age and spiritual revival in the world? After the recent publication of the document of the Holy See on the matter, now the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue is gathering the reactions of Episcopal Conferences throughout the world. Archbishop PIERLUIGI CELATA, secretary of the Council, has spoken of the diffusion of New Age in the world. It is, he says, “in expansion everywhere”: in Great Britain and France, where “it is identified with modern culture”, in Poland “where people are attracted by the promises of being cured with universal energy”, in Iceland through “contact with the dead and occult practices”, in France with “physical and psychic practices”, in Italy, “especially in affluent circles, with the search for physical and psychological well-being in holiday and therapeutic centres”, in Argentina “with the diffusion of gnostic ideas and angelology”, and in Australia with the spread of “theosophic societies and Steiner schools”. It’s a phenomenon that is regarded by the Church with some suspicion, but that does reveal a yearning for spirituality on which the Church must reflect if she is to respond more effectively to the new challenges. In many countries, in fact, as Archbishop Celata has pointed out, “some aspects of New Age have entered into the practice of Catholics”. So pastoral guidelines are necessary to clarify the matter and draw distinctions. In this regard the inter-dicasteral commission that brings together the four Pontifical Councils of culture, inter-religious dialogue, evangelization of peoples and Christian unity is planning to convene, for the first time, a Consultation on New Age and alternative religions in the Vatican from 14 to 16 June, to be attended by representatives of all the episcopates affected by the phenomenon. DISBELIEF AND RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE will be examined in a forthcoming document that the Pontifical Council for Culture intends to publish in a couple of months’ time. It’s the outcome of a questionnaire sent out in a thousand copies (only 300 have so far replied) to episcopal conferences, religious congregations, Catholic universities and centres throughout the world; its results are currently summed up in an Instrumentum laboris for internal use. The aim of the document, as RICHARD ROUSE of the Pontifical Council for Culture explains, “will be to ask ourselves: given that 70% of Europeans say they are religious in one way or another and that there is such great interest in religious questions… how come our churches are so empty? What’s to be done?”. From the data collected so far it emerges that “disbelief is not growing in the world; indeed militant atheism is declining and exerts no public influence with the exception of some regimes such as Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and China”. What is growing, on the other hand, is “religious indifference and atheism in practice” with a “substantial decline in the number of people who go to church”. At the same time, however, “especially in the Western world – as Rouse has pointed out – a new revival more spiritual than religious in nature is emerging. It’s a revival that rejects the mediation of the institutions. The divine is no longer regarded as a personal being and man himself becomes the protagonist of religious action”. ASIA AND AFRICA IN EUROPE. Europe is beginning to be characterized by a strong presence of Asian and African religions: there are now about a million Buddhists (of whom 700,000 immigrants) and also a million Hindus (of whom 900,000 immigrants) in Europe. The “initiated” African Christian Churches, i.e. born from the initiative of individual Africans, are also rapidly growing; there are some 300 in Germany alone. They exist in this new situation of “religious pluralism” without causing “any social conflict” with Europeans, indeed they may be for Europeans “a challenge and an opportunity”: this is the panorama described by the Protestant theologian and sociologist of religions MARTIN BAUMANN. Asian religions, in particular, “have already been present in Europe for 150 years – Baumann explained – but over the last ten years they have also begun to emerge in the public arena, with the construction of temples and places of worship”. It is thus becoming ever more frequent, in the streets of Swiss or German cities, to witness religious processions, in which deities of the variegated Hindu pantheon take the place of saints. Or, without travelling to distant lands, it is possible to witness a ritual of requests for cures with scores of men rolling on the ground over an area of a kilometre round a Hindu temple somewhere in Germany. And if “in the early 20th century the German emperor asked his people to defend the most sacred values of Europe against the threat of Asian religions – Baumann continued – today it is observed that there is no missionary tendency among these religions, on the contrary they pose us questions about how we ourselves practice our Christianity”. Baumann also dismissed the claimed “threat” that some practices such as yoga and mysticism may also bring with them dubious theories and philosophies such as that of reincarnation: “They are so much focused on personal well-being that the theological foundation is lost in secularization”. The Protestant theologian and expert on religions BEJAMIN SIMON described in turn the “initiated” African Christian Churches that have existed since the 1920s and that can be classified in three categories: those founded in Africa and then imported into Europe by a kind of “mission in reverse from the southern to the northern hemisphere”; the churches of the diaspora that derive their origin from biblical groups of Africans in Europe and the “transcultural” churches that differ from the previous category by having “daughter churches” in other African nations, in general in the country of the founder. The process of the birth of these churches passes from a phase of strong “cultural shock” on arrival in Europe, with the “tendency to seek isolation in monoethnic communities”, explained Simon, “to a phase of opening up to the language of the host country, subsequent inculturation with European citizens, and then genuine ecumenical dialogue”. THE “THERMOMETER OF SECTARIAN TEMPERATURE”. JOACHIM MULLER, delegate of the Swiss Church for inter-religious dialogue, has even devised a kind of “thermometer of sectarian temperature”, to establish what it is that makes a “religion ill”. The “normal temperature” is when “people dedicate themselves in a group, wish it to be successful and experience their own religious faith dialogue with others”. The temperature rises “when people begin to think that their own group is better than others, when they are asked to renounce their previous life, and when any form of internal criticism is considered dangerous and involves sanctions against the conduct of the individual”. Fever “leads to collapse” when members of the group are asked to “dissolve their own personality, and combat ‘infidels’ outside the group, including family members and friends; in some cases even suicide is justified as the search for a better world”. There exists, however, also the possibility of the thermometer plummeting below the normal bodily temperature: “when a person says he only belongs to the Church for services like baptism, communion or marriage… but is indifferent to the life of the community”. Some delegates also invited reflection on the possible presence of sectarian groups even within the Catholic Church. RELIGIOUS PLURALISM AND THE CHALLENGES FOR THE CHURCH. Paying attention to alternative religions, on the basis of scientific knowledge; establishing national groups to examine these questions in each individual country; sharing one’s own knowledge via internet and e-mail with the Churches of other European countries; adopting a position of dialogue, but also a critical stance, towards the various religious groups: these are, for the European Churches, some of the attitudes to be adopted to “alternative religions”. According to PETER FLEETWOOD, assistant secretary of the CCEE, in response to a demand for meaning and spirituality that emerges from the great diffusion of these religions at the European level, “the Church may offer the rediscovery of traditional Catholic mysticism”. Archbishop Pierluigi Celata recalled that “in response to the religious pluralism present in Europe today, believers must find in us an attitude of dialogue, understanding, welcome, respect and solidarity. This serves as a stimulus for the reinforcement of the identity of Catholics and often produces also a positive return in the country from which immigrants come”. With regard to relations with Islam, the Pontifical Council for inter-religious dialogue has also come up with the idea of initiating dialogue with Islamic imams in Europe, “to enable them to get to know Catholicism and dissolve possible situations of conflict”.