• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • Advertising
  • CR Radio
  • Printing
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

Peter Claver vs. Immanuel Kant

September 18, 2017
By Bishop Robert Barron
Filed Under: Blog, Word on Fire

One of the greatest heroes of the social justice wing of the Church is, quite rightly, the seventeenth century “slave of the slaves,” St. Peter Claver. Born in Barcelona, Claver joined the Society of Jesus and was known, even as a young man, as a person of deep intelligence and piety. Spurred by what he took to be the direct prompting of the Holy Spirit, the young Spaniard volunteered to work among the poor in what was then known as “New Spain.” Arriving in Cartagena, he saw the unspeakable degradation of the captives brought in chains by ship from Africa, and he resolved to dedicate his life to serving them.We have a wonderful letter that Peter Claver wrote to his Jesuit superior in which he vividly describes apostolic work that he did among the slaves, just after they came ashore in Cartagena. He speaks of hopeless people staggering off the ships, stark naked, starving, and disoriented. Many were so sick that they were barely able to stand. Peter and his colleagues brought them fruits and water, and then, he tells us, they contrived to build a crude shelter, using their own coats and cloaks. For the dying, they lit a fire and threw aromatic spices onto the flames so that the sufferers might have a bit of comfort and delight before they died. He adds the touching detail that they employed friendly gestures and signs to communicate concern to those with whom they shared no common language: “This is how we spoke to them, not with words but with our hands and our actions.” I cannot imagine any decent person today who wouldn’t understand and deeply sympathize with everything that Peter Claver did on behalf of these poorest of the poor. They would be justified in seeing him as a seventeenth century anticipation of Mother Teresa.

However, as we continue to peruse Claver’s letter, we discover something that many today would find puzzling, even off-putting. Immediately after caring for their physical and psychological needs, the saint commenced to instruct the slaves in the rudiments of the Christian faith. Once the new arrivals demonstrated a fundamental understanding, Claver continues, “we went on to a more extensive instruction, namely, about the one God, who rewards and punishes…We asked them to make an act of contrition…finally…we declared to them the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Passion.” In other words, just after ministering to their bodies and their troubled minds, he ministered to their souls.

Now don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t exactly recommend that one move to evangelization quite as quickly as Peter Claver did! And I don’t think it’s either wise or fair to propose the Christian faith to those who are physically weak and psychologically traumatized. Nevertheless, it is eminently clear that the great saint, the slave of the slaves, did not drive a wedge between the Church’s “social justice” ministry and its evangelizing outreach. He most certainly did not think that his care for the marginalized began and ended with attention to their worldly needs. In fact, Peter Claver was proudest of the fact that, in the course of his work with the slaves, he baptized upwards of 300,000.

I bring this up, because I’m concerned that afoot in our society and even in our Church today is the unhappy tendency to separate what the Peter Claver kept very much together. How often we hear some version of this: “Well, it doesn’t really matter what people believe, as long as they are decent and tolerant,” or of this: “Being a Christian finally comes down to helping the poor.” Ideas, doctrines, and dogmas seem to be at best private convictions and at worst sources of division and oppression. But all of this reflects, not the Church’s authentic self-understanding, but the Kantian prejudice that has formed the modern consensus. The massively influential philosopher Immanuel Kant held, of course, that religion is basically resolvable into ethics, that everything else that preoccupy religious people—liturgy, sacraments, prayer, preaching, pious practice, etc.—is all finally about making us morally upright people.

But as Pope Benedict XVI reminded us, the Church has three fundamental and mutually implicative tasks: to care for the poor, to worship God, and to evangelize. Each of these calls out to the other two, and all forms of reductionism in their regard ought to be avoided. Keep in mind, too, that Pope Francis, whom no one could ever accuse of indifference to the physical and psychological suffering of the poor, also speaks of those on the “existential margins,” which is to say, those who are alienated from God and unacquainted with the Gospel. The “field hospital” of the Church—and how vividly that imagine calls to mind Peter Claver’s work—is meant for those who need care in body, mind, and soul.

Therefore, yes to social justice! And yes to evangelizing! And down with Kantian reductionism!

 

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Bishop Robert Barron

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

View all posts from this author

Recent Commentary

Finding solace in faith after shootings provide another reminder of horrific day

A lost tortoise comes home

Yard sales, a B2 Spirit bomber, and a backyard scavenger hunt (7 Quick Takes)

CCC collection supports local, global Catholic media and communications

When St. Bernadette’s relics came to Baltimore

Recent Local News

Frederick students close Marian month with outdoor rosary

Hagerstown students bring historical figures to life in ‘wax museum’

Close of Year of the Eucharist will be celebrated at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen

Baltimore native to be ordained Jesuit priest

Sulpicians elect Father Daniel Moore as provincial superior

Catholic Review Radio

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Frederick students close Marian month with outdoor rosary
  • Hagerstown students bring historical figures to life in ‘wax museum’
  • Pope, with Ukrainian families, to lead rosary for peace May 31
  • Student who fled Ukraine feels at home at Maryland Catholic high school
  • Close of Year of the Eucharist will be celebrated at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
  • MOVIE REVIEW: Top Gun: Maverick
  • MOVIE REVIEW: The Bob’s Burgers Movie
  • Church presence in Uvalde, Texas, gives strength, love, archbishop says
  • Mary, Star of the Sea, protects mariners and is guide for all, bishop says

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2022 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED