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 Don
Pascual Chávez, from Mexico, was elected as the ninth successor of Don
Bosco on 3rd April 2002 and re-elected for the same mandate
on the past 25th March during the 26th general
chapter celebrated between February and April 2008. On 26th
November 2006 he was elected President of the USG (Union Superiors
General) for the triennium 2006-2009. His mother tongue is Spanish, but
he speaks correctly English and Italian. He understands also German,
French and Hebrew. Besides his ecclesiastical titles, Don Chavez has
obtained the title for the basic teaching of scientific disciplines.
Both formations have made of him a concretely spiritual man. He is an
intelligent and mentally organised person of dialogue, facing problems
immediately without ever postponing their solution; he is capable of
catching different problems and of facing them at their very roots, with
tenacity and constancy, involving the concerning causes and moving
towards the glimpsed solutions. Deep in his knowledge of the Scriptures,
he enjoys a noteworthy sense of things that makes of him a practical and
concrete man, son of the Latin-American sensitivity which lays-out the
Christian reading of man and his daily reality. His constantly updated
knowledge about the events of life and history has made him particularly
attentive to the signs of the time. We have addressed to him some
questions on the instruction: The service of authority and obedience,
recently published by the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated
Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life.
The whole Instruction is a hymn to obedience, an obedience that is born
in love, nurtures itself with hope and lives in faith. This is what
Cardinal Franc Rodé, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of
consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life, said in commenting
the document. We would like to know your personal evaluation of the
Instruction.
“I am personally very much satisfied with this document. First of all I
think that it is a document that touches the marrow of religious life as
well as of every Christian. Speaking of authority and obedience is not a
specific element of the religious and consecrated people. This element
is clearly specified in number 29 of the text, where among the elements
of universal character, it lists the origin and the end of every human
being, distinctly in key of obedience. The texts explicitly says that
“with an act of obedience, though unaware, we have come to life
welcoming the good will that has preferred us to our non-existence and
we shall conclude our journey with another act of obedience”. I would
say that this is a very beautiful presentation of death as a radical and
definitive entrusting of self in the hands of Deus semper major.
This is why I say that it is a very beautiful document. At the same
time, I think that it wants to help the authority in the triple service
it fulfils with regard to the single persons called to live one’s own
consecration, and this is the theme of the first part, as well as to
build up fraternal communities, central content of the second part, with
the participation in the common mission.
Here also I think that the fundamental element is just this: the
centrality of obedience not only in the life of each religious and of
each Christian, but also of every human being, a thing that contrasts
the irrelevance with which obedience is considered and lived in the
actual and ecclesial culture. In some catholic milieu, obedience is
seen with some gestures of refusal. This is, perhaps, because it is
considered to go against the fundamental human values of freedom,
autonomy and even of conscience. On the other hand, just because of all
this, it becomes always more difficult to exercise a typically
evangelical authority, which implies service, but also the dutiful task
of government and the taking of decisions. Also at testimony level,
with a bit of exaggeration, we can say that poverty is the most valued
among the vows, at times unilaterally, chastity is the most admired,
though sometimes it is not understood, and obedience is generally
despised. Perhaps, it is normal to be like this, but, to say it
emphatically, if poverty constitutes a priority in the testimony of
consecrated life, obedience should constitute a priority of the witness
himself. I think that this reflections can sum up my opinion on the
given Instruction.
You have defined the Instruction, published in the Osservatore Romano,
as “a concrete and deep document, original and extraordinarily open to
the actual situation”, but at the same time “anchored to the tradition
of the Church”. Would you explain this statement better?
“On one side I intended to say that I would define this document as
‘contra-cultural’. I find in it an unmeasured accentuation on one’s own
autonomy and freedom as well as on one’s self-realisation, which seems
to be against the current of the theme on obedience. On the other side
it is in the most typical tradition, not only ecclesial tradition, but
also in the perspective of the Word of God. I concretely refer to the
fact that in the Holy Scripture, starting from the Old Testament,
obedience is indissolubly linked with the fundamental attitude of the
believer, namely faith. From the Scriptures perspective, in fact,
authentic believers are radically obedient. Let us think of Abram, of
David, Moses and the prophets. We can also state that poverty and
chastity do not appear as values in their horizon. However, it is not
the matter of extraordinary personages, because the experience of Israel
itself has been described like this: a people of freed slaves becoming a
holy people with the joy of a free service to God. The instruction also
presents obedience like this. 2.
This Old Testament perspective finds its most perfect incarnation in the
obedience key of the Son of God, Jesus. The letter to the Hebrews and
that to the Philippians bring to evidence that the believer by its
nature is and can be defined as an obedient being. One of the most
fascinating traits of contemporary Christology is the recuperation of
Jesus’ freedom, which can be explained only with his radical obedience
to the Father. I would say that experience represents the filial
attitude par excellence of the Son of God. I think that this may help us
somehow to overcome the prejudice of modern culture against obedience.
The Biblical perspective helps us understand the difference between
“submission”, which implies something servile, unworthy of a human being
since it speaks of “putting oneself under”, and the act of ‘obedience’
that, in all the Biblical languages, has the verb “to listen” as root.
Practically, he who listens well is the one who welcomes what he has
listened to. There is no authentic listening which is not accompanied by
obedience. This is what I wanted to say with my statement”.
The “Immediate addressee” are the consecrated, but about the treated
arguments “the documents touches the marrow of every Christian’s life”,
you have said. How to make this known to others?
“I thing that, though the privileged addressees are the religious, not
only those who exercise the Ministry of authority, the document must be
diffused, because of its theme, among the Christian faithful just to
touch the marrow of Christian life as felt by Jesus. From this
perspective, which seems to be absolute, Jesus clearly said of not
having come to do his own will, but that of his Father. ‘My food, my
nourishment –he said- is that of doing the Will of my Father’. It seems
that everything rotates around obedience. It is a document, like all
others, that, having a specific group as addressee, has also a valence
for the Christian life as a whole”.
Among the themes faced by the Instruction we find “difficult kinds of
obedience”, namely “kinds of obedience in which what is requested from a
religious is particularly hard to be carried on, or those in which the
one who has to obey thinks of seeing “better things, more useful for his
soul than those ordered by the superior”. How to face these questions in
a constructive way on both sides? “
“Undoubtedly the document faces concretely, with extraordinarily rich
sociological and psychological reflections, elements like those
concerning first of all the need of giving the priority to listening,
also by the superior himself, to the end of avoiding every type of
authoritarian attitude. There is an enormous difference between
authoritarian attitude and authority, which helps the growth of others
and is exercised after listening to God, and, on the contrary, to
consider as expression of God’s will what basically is the will of the
superior. It means, on the other hand, helping others to overcome
infantilism and formal obedience. This can be obtained through an ever
more developed unitary discernment. I would say that this is the weaker
part of the document that should be developed further: a part that
regards the discernment. In fact we may find ourselves before an
attitude of letting us understand that it is the will of God what in
reality is not God’s will. We must insist on the need of listening to,
of dialogue and prayer, both on behalf of the superior and of the
religious. However, ultimately, the religious will have always the task
of obeying: The superior might mistake in passing orders, but the
religious will never mistake in obeying”.
What do you think about the fact that the document has caused a scarce
echo from the mass-media?
“I do not know it. Perhaps it is the fact that we have preferred a
presentation of the document to the interlocutors of the General
Assembly of the superiors general and the International Union of the
women superiors general. I have no other element of my own. Personally I
appreciate the text very much. Like other documents of the Church, it is
not perfect, but can be made perfect. Anyhow, what it says proves that
it is a burning theme for today’s culture, necessary for the situation
we are living also within the consecrated life”. |
