Over the last year, I’ve had the pleasure to tell you about many Protestant ministers and scholars who have come into full communion with the Catholic Church. It’s a special joy when these men and women let us know that the St. Paul Center played an influential role in their conversions.
One former pastor has gone so far as to become a benefactor of the Center. Ivy League-educated and long active in the ecumenical movement, he resigned his pastorate in 2006. He packed his bags and started his life over, taking up a new career. When he began to unpack the books he had accumulated over a long pastoral and academic career, he thought better of it. And he donated his sizeable library to the St. Paul Center.
I was moved by something he told us: “When I was young, the journal everybody had to read was —.“
I’ll leave out the name, but simply add that he’s right. I cut my academic and pastoral teeth on the same journal of biblical theology.
He went on: “Now, Letter & Spirit has taken that place in my life, and I suspect it’s about to take that place in the world of biblical interpretation.”
That’s high praise, and it’s daunting. But I can see what he means. I, too, am impressed what my colleagues have accomplished through three editions of our journal. The most recent issue is our biggest; and it includes two theologian-cardinals, as well as several world-renowned scholars.
The journal is just one facet of our work promoting biblical fluency for the Church’s clergy and teachers. We also host annual conferences for these folks, and we publish their research in two series of books.
We want to help Catholic scholars read the Bible from the heart of the Church. Only from the heart of the Church can a teacher say, with St. Paul, “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct? …. But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).
The growth of these programs should be good news to seminarians and seminary administrators — because they value fidelity to the Word. It should be good news to parents who are sending their children off to college — and want to be sure their children will learn the truth without compromise.
As we prepare to celebrate the year of St. Paul — and as we look forward to the Church’s upcoming Synod on the Word of God — we rejoice for the progress we’ve been able to make (with your help) during the reign of Pope Benedict XVI. He’s a true pontiff — that is, bridge-builder. He shows us the bridges from the Old Testament to the New, from the first-century Church to the twenty-first, from Scripture to theology, from the university to the cathedral.
We’re pleased to cross his bridges now that we’ve come to them, by God’s grace. Thank you for crossing with us!
November 2007
