Publisher's version (útgefin grein) ; Background In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990-2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0-9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10-24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10-24 years were also in the top ten in the 25-49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50-74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and development investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Copyright (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. ; Research reported in this publication was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the University of Melbourne; Queensland Department of Health, Australia; the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia; Public Health England; the Norwegian Institute of Public Health; St Jude Children's Research Hospital; the Cardiovascular Medical Research and Education Fund; the National Institute on Ageing of the National Institutes of Health (award P30AG047845); and the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health (award R01MH110163). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders. The authors alone are responsible for the views expressed in this Article and they do not necessarily represent the views, decisions, or policies of the institutions with which they are affiliated, the National Health Service (NHS), the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the UK Department of Health and Social Care, or Public Health England; the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the US Government, or MEASURE Evaluation; or the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). This research used data from the Chile National Health Survey 2003, 2009-10, and 2016-17. The authors are grateful to the Ministry of Health, the survey copyright owner, for allowing them to have the database. All results of the study are those of the authors and in no way committed to the Ministry. The Costa Rican Longevity and Healthy Aging Study project is a longitudinal study by the University of Costa Rica's Centro Centroamericano de Poblacion and Instituto de Investigaciones en Salud, in collaboration with the University of California at Berkeley. The original pre-1945 cohort was funded by the Wellcome Trust (grant 072406), and the 1945-55 Retirement Cohort was funded by the US National Institute on Aging (grant R01AG031716). The principal investigators are Luis Rosero-Bixby and William H Dow and co-principal investigators are Xinia Fernandez and Gilbert Brenes. The accuracy of the authors' statistical analysis and the findings they report are not the responsibility of ECDC. ECDC is not responsible for conclusions or opinions drawn from the data provided. ECDC is not responsible for the correctness of the data and for data management, data merging and data collation after provision of the data. ECDC shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data. The Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study is an international study carried out in collaboration with WHO/EURO. The international coordinator of the 1997-98, 2001-02, 2005-06, and 2009-10 surveys was Candace Currie and the databank manager for the 1997-98 survey was Bente Wold, whereas for the following surveys Oddrun Samdal was the databank manager. A list of principal investigators in each country can be found on the HBSC website. Data used in this paper come from the 2009-10 Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Study Survey, which is a nationally representative survey of more than 5000 households in Ghana. The survey is a joint effort undertaken by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana and the Economic Growth Centre (EGC) at Yale University. It was funded by EGC. ISSER and the EGC are not responsible for the estimations reported by the analysts. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics granted the researchers access to relevant data in accordance with license number SLN2014-3-170, after subjecting data to processing aiming to preserve the confidentiality of individual data in accordance with the General Statistics Law, 2000. The researchers are solely responsible for the conclusions and inferences drawn upon available data. Data for this research was provided by MEASURE Evaluation, funded by USAID. The authors thank the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, conducted by the National Research University Higher School of Economics and ZAO Demoscope together with Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Institute of Sociology, Russia Academy of Sciences for making data available. This paper uses data from the Bhutan 2014 STEPS survey, implemented by the Ministry of Health with the support of WHO; the Kuwait 2006 and 2014 STEPS surveys, implemented by the Ministry of Health with the support of WHO; the Libya 2009 STEPS survey, implemented by the Secretariat of Health and Environment with the support of WHO; the Malawi 2009 STEPS survey, implemented by Ministry of Health with the support of WHO; and the Moldova 2013 STEPS survey, implemented by the Ministry of Health, the National Bureau of Statistics, and the National Center of Public Health with the support of WHO. This paper uses data from Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Waves 1 (DOI:10.6103/SHARE. w1.700), 2 (10.6103/SHARE.w2.700), 3 (10.6103/SHARE.w3.700), 4 (10.6103/SHARE.w4.700), 5 (10.6103/SHARE.w5.700), 6 (10.6103/SHARE.w6.700), and 7 (10.6103/SHARE.w7.700); see Borsch-Supan and colleagues (2013) for methodological details. The SHARE data collection has been funded by the European Commission through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006-028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA N degrees 211909, SHARE-LEAP: GA N degrees 227822, SHARE M4: GA N degrees 261982) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA N degrees 676536, SERISS: GA N degrees 654221) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion. Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the US National Institute on Aging (U01_AG09740-13S2, P01_AG005842, P01_AG08291, P30_AG12815, R21_AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA_04-064, HHSN271201300071C), and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged. This study has been realised using the data collected by the Swiss Household Panel, which is based at the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences. The project is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The United States Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study is a supplement to the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which is sponsored by the National Institute of Aging (grant number NIA U01AG009740). It was conducted jointly by Duke University and the University of Michigan. The HRS is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (grant number NIA U01AG009740) and is conducted by the University of Michigan. This paper uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J Richard Udry, Peter S Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald R Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website. No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. The data reported here have been supplied by the United States Renal Data System. The interpretation and reporting of these data are the responsibility of the authors and in no way should be seen as an official policy or interpretation of the US Government. Collection of data for the Mozambique National Survey on the Causes of Death 2007-08 was made possible by USAID under the terms of cooperative agreement GPO-A-00-08-000_D3-00. This manuscript is based on data collected and shared by the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) from an original study IVI conducted. L G Abreu acknowledges support from Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (Brazil; finance code 001) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq, a Brazilian funding agency). I N Ackerman was supported by a Victorian Health and Medical Research Fellowship awarded by the Victorian Government. O O Adetokunboh acknowledges the South African Department of Science and Innovation and the National Research Foundation. A Agrawal acknowledges the Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance Senior Fellowship. S M Aljunid acknowledges the Department of Health Policy and Management, Faculty of Public Health, Kuwait University and International Centre for Casemix and Clinical Coding, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Malaysia for the approval and support to participate in this research project. M Ausloos, C Herteliu, and A Pana acknowledge partial support by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNDS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P4-ID-PCCF-2016-0084. A Badawi is supported by the Public Health Agency of Canada. D A Bennett was supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre. R Bourne acknowledges the Brien Holden Vision Institute, University of Heidelberg, Sightsavers, Fred Hollows Foundation, and Thea Foundation. G B Britton and I Moreno Velasquez were supported by the Sistema Nacional de Investigacion, SNI-SENACYT, Panama. R Buchbinder was supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Senior Principal Research Fellowship. J J Carrero was supported by the Swedish Research Council (2019-01059). F Carvalho acknowledges UID/MULTI/04378/2019 and UID/QUI/50006/2019 support with funding from FCT/MCTES through national funds. A R Chang was supported by National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant K23 DK106515. V M Costa acknowledges the grant SFRH/BHD/110001/2015, received by Portuguese national funds through Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia, IP, under the Norma Transitaria DL57/2016/CP1334/CT0006. A Douiri acknowledges support and funding from the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South London at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal College of Physicians, and support from the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre based at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London. B B Duncan acknowledges grants from the Foundation for the Support of Research of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (IATS and PrInt) and the Brazilian Ministry of Health. H E Erskine is the recipient of an Australian NHMRC Early Career Fellowship grant (APP1137969). A J Ferrari was supported by a NHMRC Early Career Fellowship grant (APP1121516). H E Erskine and A J Ferrari are employed by and A M Mantilla-Herrera and D F Santomauro affiliated with the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, which receives core funding from the Queensland Department of Health. M L Ferreira holds an NHMRC Research Fellowship. C Flohr was supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre based at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. M Freitas acknowledges financial support from the EU (European Regional Development Fund [FEDER] funds through COMPETE POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029248) and National Funds (Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia) through project PTDC/NAN-MAT/29248/2017. A L S Guimaraes acknowledges support from CNPq. C Herteliu was partially supported by a grant co-funded by FEDER through Operational Competitiveness Program (project ID P_40_382). P Hoogar acknowledges Centre for Bio Cultural Studies, Directorate of Research, Manipal Academy of Higher Education and Centre for Holistic Development and Research, Kalaghatagi. F N Hugo acknowledges the Visiting Professorship, PRINT Program, CAPES Foundation, Brazil. B-F Hwang was supported by China Medical University (CMU107-Z-04), Taichung, Taiwan. S M S Islam was funded by a National Heart Foundation Senior Research Fellowship and supported by Deakin University. R Q Ivers was supported by a research fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. M Jakovljevic acknowledges the Serbian part of this GBD-related contribution was co-funded through Grant OI175014 of the Ministry of Education Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. P Jeemon was supported by a Clinical and Public Health intermediate fellowship (grant number IA/CPHI/14/1/501497) from the Wellcome Trust-Department of Biotechnology, India Alliance (2015-20). O John is a recipient of UIPA scholarship from University of New South Wales, Sydney. S V Katikireddi acknowledges funding from a NRS Senior Clinical Fellowship (SCAF/15/02), the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12017/13, MC_UU_12017/15), and the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (SPHSU13, SPHSU15). C Kieling is a CNPq researcher and a UK Academy of Medical Sciences Newton Advanced Fellow. Y J Kim was supported by Research Management Office, Xiamen University Malaysia (XMUMRF/2018-C2/ITCM/00010). K Krishan is supported by UGC Centre of Advanced Study awarded to the Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. M Kumar was supported by K43 TW 010716 FIC/NIMH. B Lacey acknowledges support from the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and the BHF Centre of Research Excellence, Oxford. J V Lazarus was supported by a Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities Miguel Servet grant (Instituto de Salud Carlos III [ISCIII]/ESF, the EU [CP18/00074]). K J Looker thanks the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Evaluation of Interventions at the University of Bristol, in partnership with Public Health England, for research support. S Lorkowski was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (nutriCARD, grant agreement number 01EA1808A). R A Lyons is supported by Health Data Research UK (HDR-9006), which is funded by the UK Medical Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, NIHR (England), Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates, Health and Social Care Research and Development Division (Welsh Government), Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland), British Heart Foundation, and Wellcome Trust. J J McGrath is supported by the Danish National Research Foundation (Niels Bohr Professorship), and the Queensland Health Department (via West Moreton HHS). P T N Memiah acknowledges support from CODESRIA. U O Mueller gratefully acknowledges funding by the German National Cohort Study BMBF grant number 01ER1801D. S Nomura acknowledges the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan (18K10082). A Ortiz was supported by ISCIII PI19/00815, DTS18/00032, ISCIII-RETIC REDinREN RD016/0009 Fondos FEDER, FRIAT, Comunidad de Madrid B2017/BMD-3686 CIFRA2-CM. These funding sources had no role in the writing of the manuscript or the decision to submit it for publication. S B Patten was supported by the Cuthbertson & Fischer Chair in Pediatric Mental Health at the University of Calgary. G C Patton was supported by an aNHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship. M R Phillips was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, number 81371502 and 81761128031). A Raggi, D Sattin, and S Schiavolin were supported by grants from the Italian Ministry of Health (Ricerca Corrente, Fondazione Istituto Neurologico C Besta, Linea 4-Outcome Research: dagli Indicatori alle Raccomandazioni Cliniche). P Rathi and B Unnikrishnan acknowledge Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal. A L P Ribeiro was supported by Brazilian National Research Council, CNPq, and the Minas Gerais State Research Agency, FAPEMIG. D C Ribeiro was supported by The Sir Charles Hercus Health Research Fellowship (#18/111) Health Research Council of New Zealand. D Ribeiro acknowledges financial support from the EU (FEDER funds through the Operational Competitiveness Program; POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029253). P S Sachdev acknowledges funding from the NHMRC of Australia Program Grant. A M Samy was supported by a fellowship from the Egyptian Fulbright Mission Program. M M Santric-Milicevic acknowledges the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia (contract number 175087). R Sarmiento-Suarez received institutional support from Applied and Environmental Sciences University (Bogota, Colombia) and ISCIII (Madrid, Spain). A E Schutte received support from the South African National Research Foundation SARChI Initiative (GUN 86895) and Medical Research Council. S T S Skou is currently funded by a grant from Region Zealand (Exercise First) and a grant from the European Research Council under the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement number 801790). J B Soriano is funded by Centro de Investigacion en Red de Enfermedades Respiratorias, ISCIII. R Tabares-Seisdedos was supported in part by the national grant PI17/00719 from ISCIII-FEDER. N Taveira was partially supported by the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, the EU (LIFE project, reference RIA2016MC-1615). S Tyrovolas was supported by the Foundation for Education and European Culture, the Sara Borrell postdoctoral programme (reference number CD15/00019 from ISCIII-FEDER). S B Zaman received a scholarship from the Australian Government research training programme in support of his academic career. ; "Peer Reviewed"
Eine dauerhafte Verfügbarkeit ist nicht garantiert und liegt vollumfänglich in den Händen der Herausgeber:innen. Bitte erstellen Sie sich selbständig eine Kopie falls Sie diese Quelle zitieren möchten.
Industrial agriculture delivers cheap food at high cost in terms of degraded land, water resources, biodiversity and rural societies. It exacerbates floods and droughts, and creates enormous greenhouse gas emissions. There is an alternative: regenerative agriculture that mimics natural ecosystems, holding to four rules: no bare soil, no tillage, a diverse crop rotation and a rough landscape that includes woods and wetlands. Subsidising regenerative farming is politically feasible whereas, probably, taxing land degradation is not. Farmers may be encouraged to adopt regenerative farming through small changes to the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) whereby farmers could form Landcare Groups which would develop a regenerative farming brand – analogous to a protected name such as Chianti Classico. They could then sell their brand to a regional Sustainable Farming Panel and, if authenticated, it could receive a subsidy under the CAP.The cost of food Food prices and food security are existential issues for governments as well as consumers. Since the early 19th century, governments have had to grapple with the competing claims of farmers, manufacturing and popular interests. In the UK, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was a victory for popular interests. Since then, most governments, most of the time, have left the food system to the market and food prices have been driven down – notwithstanding wartime spikes and oil-price shocks. Society has been comfortingly deluded that the food system works. It delivers cheap food to consumers but stresses farmers and degrades the land. Governments nurture the delusion, hide the harm by buying off the farmers and ignore the erosion of natural capital. But the system doesn't deliver cheap food: it delivers underpriced food. The real price is being paid by underpaid labour, the taxpayer and degradation of soil, water, biodiversity and climate stability. None of these is accounted for in the price of food. Governments subsidise farmers to support livelihoods, maintain rural economies, guarantee a degree of food self-sufficiency and protect landscapes and ecosystem services. This last intent is reinforced by compliance conditions, but the bar has never been set very high; this is an area of policy making where the state is learning on the hoof (Allan and Dent, 2021: 3-20). The subsidy model has two tracks. Payment by results was an early policy of the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Farmers responded to the incentive and the outcomes included the butter mountain and the wine lake; cheap credit for big machinery and grants for ripping out hedgerows created more environmental damage. Nowadays, subsidies are shifting to activities: areas reserved for birds and bees receive a subsidy whether or not they are endorsed by the birds and the bees – the activity, not the result, entitles the farmer to financial support. Our proposal to support regenerative farming – exemplified here by the Chianti Classico model – is also based on activities because the results are too complex to assess and don't provide a tangible target for farmers. The need to relearn the last 70 years For decades after the end of the Second World War, farming was flooded with cheap fertilisers and miraculous agrochemicals. Fossil fuels were cheap; the military-industrial complex sidestepped adroitly from explosives to fertilisers, from poisons to pesticides; plant breeders developed responsive new varieties. Together, these gifts of technology created the much-trumpeted "Green Revolution" that, in favourable situations, tripled the yields of staple crops. Favourable situations are unequally distributed so, simultaneously, we saw globalisation of the food system and relocation within individual countries. One of the authors of this essay, Brian Chatterton, lives on an abandoned farm in Umbria (Italy) where sharecroppers, the contadini, deserted a life of labour and poverty for paid work in the prosperous north; and livestock were abandoned because there were no herdsmen. A century earlier, in one of the aurhors' country of origin, in Australia, when farm labour joined the gold rush, farmers introduced fences to control their livestock. Fences were not introduced in Italy; instead, the livestock moved to feedlots – not just a move away from grazing but, also, to make use of the great global grain surplus. In the process, manure was converted from a fertiliser to a pollutant. The gifts of technology came with other calamitous consequences – climatic, ecological and social – and the industrial inputs are now expensive and likely to remain so. As a result, an unsustainable situation has been created. There is an alternative to this nonviable process. Over the last 70 years, regenerative agriculture has emerged as a farmers' movement, without fanfare, and has been adopted across 15% of the world's cropland, in particular in North America and Europe.What is regenerative agriculture? Regenerative agriculture is the antithesis of the "Green Revolution". It emerged under the banner of "Conservation Agriculture" (Kassam, 2020), but the aim is not preservation of what remains of soil, water and biodiversity but building back better by mimicking natural ecosystems. Here are its four rules: First Rule: "Ban Bare Soil". Bare soil invites invasion by weeds. Every year, they must be rooted out, the soil turned and we start again – with bare soil. Bare soil bakes in the sun; so do earthworms and myriad smaller creatures that should be maintaining soil permeability. Rain splash turns bare soil into mud – mud that clogs the pores so that rainwater ponds or runs off the surface, carrying the soil with it. When the rain stops, the pulverised surface sets as a crust that yields immediate runoff from the next rainstorm. And bare soil is carried off by the wind: three-quarters of the topsoil and three and a half million people left the Dust Bowl of the American Plains states in the 1930s. The rule is: don't fallow and, between crops, keep the soil covered with a mulch of crop residues. This keeps it cool, arrests soil erosion, and allows all the rain and snowmelt to infiltrate. Second Rule: "Don't Plough".The purpose of ploughing is to control weeds. Weeds can be controlled by crop rotation without resort to poisonous chemicals. Ploughing uses 60-70% of the energy (labour and diesel fuel) consumed in agriculture – and stimulates germination of more weeds. Worse still, it perturbs the soil's physical and biological structure and promotes the breakdown of soil organic matter – the fuel of life in the soil, the glue that binds soil structure, and which holds more carbon than the atmosphere and all standing vegetation put together. Centuries under the plough have drastically depleted soil organic matter. Stop ploughing, and a net loss of soil organic carbon is transformed to a net gain that draws down the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere; and direct drilling leaves the soil surface protected by crop residues. Third Rule: "Adopt a diverse crop rotation".Natural vegetation is diverse and mostly perennial. Recent advances in crop breeding have brought the yields of perennial cereals and oilseeds within touching distance of established annual varieties (Crews, et al., 2018) but, until they are truly commercial, the next best thing is to follow a diverse crop rotation that includes perennial grasses and legumes – both as crops and pastures. Under this rotation, yields of cash crops are greater than any alternative monoculture; integration of crops and livestock makes good use of the additional biomass; and the costs of fertiliser, herbicides and pesticides are cut if not completely eliminated. Fourth rule: "Create a rough landscape".Restore wetlands and woodlands. Plant windbreaks. Windbreaks are shirts for fields; allocation of 4% of the land area to windbreaks brings a benefit-cost dividend of 10% through lower air temperature, greater humidity, cutting wind speed, retaining snow and runoff, arresting erosion and increasing biodiversity. Moreover, the increased surface roughness creates convectional rainfall; and the transpiration of trees and other perennial vegetation, drawing on deep water reserves, promotes the local water cycle and a more habitable landscape. Regenerative farming is commercial: It is a good livelihood, not the fantasy of a wealthy philanthropist. Regenerative farming is profitable but not obsessed with crop yields because greatly reduced costs and risk contribute to profits as well. Rather, it is possessed by sustainability: meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future. For instance, for several generations, the Chatterton farm in South Australia grew two wheat crops in succession after two or three years of poor pasture grounded on ephemeral grasses. Changing the poor pasture to a protein-rich sward of annual medick immediately improved soil fertility – though not wheat yields because weeds benefitted as well. Costs were much lower, because nitrogen fertiliser was eliminated, and sheep numbers increased from 500 to 1,200 (and the sheep were better fed). The whole system was more productive, more profitable. Regenerative farming can also be intensive as the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese demonstrated for millennia (King, 2004); intensive production requires intensive regeneration and that is what they did. Regenerative agriculture is not anti-science: It doesn't reject all the progress made in the last 70 years. It doesn't reject disease-resistant crops and thousands of other scientific advances. It does reject the view we learned at university, half a century ago, that the soil is merely a neutral growth medium and everything else the plant needs can be supplied by the chemical industry. Regenerative agriculture is not nostalgic:We are not advocating ox-drawn ploughs or the return of poor sharecroppers. Some farmers will adopt old crop varieties provided that there is a market for them, but the concept is not to turn our back on scientific advances. If they really are advances, adopt them. Brian Chatterton, for instance, inherited a farming system that burnt any remaining stubble before drilling the next cereal crop and, so, further reducing what was already a low soil organic matter content. We have no wish to return to this destructive practice. Is regenerative farming the same as organic farming? No. They are not the same although they are moving in the same direction. They cater for different markets. Organic farming eschews industrial chemicals like artificial fertilisers, pesticides and weedkillers so as to satisfy the concerns of the affluent who are anxious about chemical residues in their food and are prepared to pay a premium to avoid them. From the farmers' point of view, organic farming requires a great deal more capital, both monetary and human, and the market premium depends on organically grown food being a niche product. Both organic farming and regenerative farming replace chemicals with knowledge, but organic farmers have to make this investment for several years before they attain organic status and qualify for the price premium. Those years without the price premium, nominally to rid the system of industrial residues, are also needed to master the alternative organic farming practices – for instance, controlling pests without industrial pesticides. In the EU, wider uptake of regenerative agriculture will depend on subsidy from the CAP, which we would call payment for environmental services – services that include arresting soil erosion, delivery of fresh water, moderation of floods and droughts, and cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. We assume that the market will not reward farmers who provide these services, so a CAP subsidy will be invaluable during the years of adoption and adaptation to acquire the necessary skills and the equipment. Why should regenerative farming be adopted? To arrest soil erosion: Archaeological evidence shows, for instance, that soil erosion in central Italy during the last 70 years has been greater than the previous 2,000 years of recorded farming history. The erosion map of Europe (Panagos et al., 2020) confirms that Italy has more soil erosion than any other European country. It has hills and mountains but so do other European countries; and if erosion continues at this rate, we can no longer count the future of fields in decades. But soil erosion is arrested by a complete vegetation cover, as practised by regenerative agriculture. Stopping soil erosion is the main reason given by farmers, worldwide, for adopting regenerative farming: they want to stay in business and pass on a productive farm to their children. Direct cost of current system: The war in Ukraine has pushed up fuel prices and, in turn, the price of fertilisers. For farmers, these costs been offset to some degree by an increase in farm gate prices – which have fed through to higher costs for animal feed – but farm gate prices have fallen away again. Prices depend very much on what the international commodity traders decide is in their best interests: the farmers will have no say. Farmers must pay on the nail for their inputs, but their outputs are at risk from world prices and the weather. No-till farming obviously makes a big saving, not just in fuel, fertiliser and pesticides but in wear and tear and tractor power requirements. Carbon footprint of fertilisers and their further pollution:Manufacture of nitrogenous fertiliser requires a lot of energy and its nitrogen-use efficiency is commonly less than 33%. These fertilisers are readily leached, contaminating streams, groundwater and drinking water; and their breakdown in the soil releases nitrogen oxides – with 300 times the greenhouse effect of the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. As temperatures rise and droughts intensify, emissions will increase. To regulate water supply, control floods and droughts:Continuing with the case of Italy, this country faces several water crises but they all stem from the state of the soil. The first requirement is to catch the rain and snowmelt. Under nearly all circumstances, a well-protected, well-structured soil will infiltrate all the precipitation it receives. If there is no runoff, there is no flooding and no sedimentation of streams and reservoirs; the soil stays in place, where we all need it to be. Vegetation or, failing that, a mulch of crop residues protects the soil surface from sun, wind and rain; and enhances soil structure – that is to say, the architecture of the pore space that holds and transmits water. To increase soil organic matter: Soil structure is held together by soil organic matter; the more organic matter, the more resilient the structure. Soil organic matter is also the primary source of plant nutrients, which are steadily released by microbial decomposition under the very same conditions that growing plants need – not in a rush as with artificial fertilisers, so losses by leaching are minimal. Soil organic matter increases under regenerative agriculture because there is more biomass and less decomposition under more equable soil temperatures, the absence of intensive soil disturbance, and without periodic erosion of the topsoil. Cultivate less: Cultivation accelerates the breakdown of soil organic matter which releases the nutrients it holds, so the ploughing of virgin soils provided bumper yields. But yields crashed when the humus was not replaced. Under the current conventional farming system in large parts of Europe, the land is ploughed deeply using powerful tractors that burn a lot of fuel. Ploughing buries the weeds and stubble left from the previous crop but, at the same time, destroys soil structure and permeability and creates a pan at the plough sole that needs even deeper cultivation to break it up. Having used a lot of energy to upend the soil, the farmers have created fields of hard clay bricks that require yet more power to smash them down into a reasonable seed bed. Farmers need to acquire different machinery and use it differently. As a first step, they shouldn't turn everything upside down. Leaving crop residues on the surface protects the soil from the elements and supplements soil organic matter; but increasing soil organic matter also means retaining all crop residues rather than selling bales of straw to livestock farmers. As soil organic matter increases, soil structure improves; the clods will crumble and require less force to create a seedbed. It follows that tractors do not need to be so big and heavy; sowing can be undertaken at the optimum time; autumn rains will be more effective; and undisturbed soil enables mycorrhizal fungi – old friends of higher plants – to proliferate their slow-growing hyphae throughout the soil profile, absorbing and passing on otherwise hard to get nutrients like phosphate. Grow legumes: Sustainable farming also needs legumes that fix their own nitrogen fertiliser from the air and, in turn, release the nutrients for intercrops or other crops in rotation. Bring back grazing: There is little interest in improved pastures in mainland Italy, although there are such legume pastures in Sardinia. A similar situation prevails in much of Europe. Perennial lucerne, erba medica in Italy, is very productive but hard to incorporate into a cereal rotation. The advantage of legumes in grazed pastures or leys is that more of the nitrogen fixed by the plants is retained and the biomass, returned as manure, is spread for free. Animals on feedlots are fed on imported soya and grains grown using chemical fertiliser, and their manure is not conveniently recycled.Retain stubble: A decline in feedlots will also cut the market for straw. Leaving the straw in the field will increase soil organic matter but cereal straw is poor in nitrogen. Microorganisms breaking down the straw take up nitrogen from the soil, in competition with growing crops, so it can pay to add some pump-priming nitrogen fertiliser or a commercial stubble bio-decomposer. Once the straw has rotted, the nitrogen is available again. How to encourage regenerative farming in Europe? Society needs regenerative farming as much as the farmers do – but the market will not pay for it. If we follow the subsidy track, payment by results might be attractive but practical and ethical issues immediately arise. What should those results be? How can they be proven? For instance, we might pay according to improvement in ground cover, soil bulk density and soil organic carbon (easy-to-measure proxies for soil health) (Dent, 2019). But the starting point has to be determined; in the case of soil organic matter, it varies from very low in sandy soils to very high in swamps, and may vary by an order of magnitude within any field. This means a lot of tests. The feasible rate of increase is similarly variable and depends as much on the weather as the farmer; and the gain declines as the soil attains a new equilibrium. When the effective ceiling is reached, is the farmer to be paid simply to maintain it? And is reimbursement to be enforced if it is not maintained, for instance following a change of ownership? We are proposing an alternative, socially well-proven and familiar model based on farmers' actions, not outcomes. It builds upon voluntary associations of farmers that have been the bedrock of regenerative agriculture as a farmers' movement across six continents, such as the Clubs Amigos da Terra in Brazil and the Landcare movement in Australia. The Chianti Classico model The Chianti Classico model is The Chianti Classico model is an alternative, a socially well-proven and familiar model based on farmers' actions, not outcomes. It builds upon voluntary associations of farmers. Chianti Classico is just one among thousands of similar protected names for wine, cheese, ham, etc. throughout Europe that follow similar rules. Essentially, a group of winemakers cooperate, not to make the best wine – that is a matter of fierce individual competition – but to eliminate substandard wine in the expectation that the market will reward them with a higher price. We are proposing local Landcare Groups on similar lines but, since the market will not reward them for farming more sustainably, the new groups will pitch for CAP subsidies. Each group will propose a plan for sustainable farming; a combination of the elements described above appropriate to their circumstances – a plan for the eroded hills of the Val d'Orcia will be different from one for the floodplains of the Chiana, just as Orvieto Classico Superiore is different from Chianti Classico. The group will then add a timetable for implementation and submit the plan to the competent authority for disbursing public funds to support regenerative agriculture. We propose the establishment of a Sustainable Farming Panel for each regional funding body to evaluate these plans. The panel can score the plan on, say, a five-point scale. If the plan is accepted and according to the score awarded, the farmers will receive an annual payment for a period of up to three years to implement it. Payment will be in advance because the costs of change are immediate while the returns and cost savings take time. Most of the payment will be to individual farmers within the group, according to the area proposed for regenerative farming, but 20% may be paid to the group as a whole for education and training, perhaps outside assistance, or as a bonus to members who already have experience of regenerative practices and can serve as mentors. Regenerative farming brand: implementation plan What is a Landcare Group? Like Chianti Classico, it is a legal entity. This is important because the group will be handling public funds. The group is also making promises as a group to the Sustainable Farming Panel. While it is not the same as Chianti Classico and other protected names it should not be difficult to draw up an appropriate legal framework on similar lines. The Landcare Group is not a cooperative, as each farmer farms and sells produce separately. Cooperatives may be formed within the group, particularly for farm machinery, but they are quite separate organisations. The Landcare Group is defined by its objective, which is to maintain a certain standard of regenerative farming. The standard that the group must meet is the standard they put forward in their proposal to the Sustainable Farming Panel, accepted by the panel as sufficient to entitle them to a certain level of subsidy, and subject to review by the panel. For example, a level 1 subsidy may require a 25% reduction in nitrogen fertiliser application and tractor fuel use. Maintaining this standard will entitle the group to the subsidy and this standard will be maintained, firstly, by group action. That is, the group will tell the individual farmer that certain farm practices must change, and they will help to make those changes. Anyone who consistently fails can be expelled but, usually, help from within the group will enable a member to reach the standard. How is a group formed? It may be through existing local farmers' groups, through the encouragement of an accountant or farming adviser, and other ways. Obviously, it needs a commitment to a certain level of sustainable farming. The group is also a source of knowledge that can help other farmers but, if the foundation group is diluted, the core group may be held back as it tries to move up the sustainable farming scale. Guidance on proposals: The Sustainable Farming Panel needs to issue guidance on its priorities for a certain region. For example, the Val d'Orcia in Tuscany is a crisis area for soil erosion, so the guidance will say that proposals must tackle soil erosion as their first priority. It might also suggest measures to improve soil structure such as increasing soil cover and soil organic matter and selective tree planting. This guidance will help groups to formulate their proposals, but it is important to emphasise that the concept is not rigid: guidance is only guidance, not a set of rules. Judging proposals: Over several decades, funding authorities have adopted the competitive approach of the marketplace. If a group of people, or a commune, applies for a subsidy for a new road, a community centre or a theatre group, they will compete for the available funds in the knowledge that funds are limited and not all projects will be funded. The funding authority will receive a suite of well-presented proposals, but the system imposes high costs and risks on those seeking funds: in our case groups of farmers. Farmers need a high level of optimism to be farmers, but they often have a high level of pessimism when it comes to dealing with government agencies. Farmers seeking to become Landcare Groups should not be burdened with extra presentation costs and risks. Moreover, we, the community, want to reduce the climate impact of farming, need to combat floods and drought, need farmers to change. We don't have unlimited funds but must not make the system too expensive and too complicated for farmers. Facing a similar problem in South Australia after three years of severe drought, many famers lacked the cash or credit to sow another crop. The government wanted them to sow the crop because agricultural output was important for the state's economy. So, it provided low-cost loans, but it had to be prudent. Farmers had to provide information to prove the legitimacy of their needs but, as minister of agriculture, Brian Chatterton developed a simpler system to provide a first-step or provisional approval that gave the farmer a strong incentive to provide all the additional information needed to complete the approval. Not one approval was rejected in the second round because the farmer had made the initial application with false information. With this experience, we suggest that a Landcare Group should put forward a proposal in general terms which can be discussed with an Assessment Officer employed by the Sustainable Farming Panel. The officer can then give advice and point out how the proposal needs to be framed to gain approval. From that point, the Landcare Group can be reasonably assured their proposal will be accepted and will have a strong incentive to go ahead and work up the detailed proposal, which would still need to be endorsed by the Sustainable Farming Panel to maintain consistency between the Assessment Officers and to allow proposals that are outside the guidance to be considered. Of course, the bureaucracy would prefer fully complete proposals that can be approved or rejected at one meeting, but the more cooperative approach reduces the risk for the Landcare Groups and, thereby, will bring more of them on board. Monitoring Landcare Groups: Countering land degradation and climate change is imperative so we need to get funding to farmers urgently; the necessary farming changes will take several years to be fully effective. At the same time, we cannot afford to expose millions of euros to fraud. The first and principal means of enforcement is self-assessment. Our experience of self-assessment of the quality of named wines1 suggests that producers are willing and able to make tough decisions to maintain standards. Voluntary systems policed by consent have always proved to be more popular and more effective than command and control. Official checks are, of course, practicable using satellite imagery and, in detail, using UAVs. For example, farmers may promise to tackle bald patches or gullies that can easily be seen and measured on satellite imagery. For examination of actual crop species, an inspector can make a reasonably detailed examination of the cropping pattern of a whole farm in less than an hour using a UAV, and a complete Landcare Group could be checked in a couple of days; but self-policing will be the norm. Cost savings – to the administration: Assessing thousands of individual applications for a regenerative farming subsidy would require a considerable administration, which will be much reduced if farmers apply in Landcare Groups. The groups will be subject to periodic review, not as individual farmers but as groups. Over time, the group might move up the scale or, if they fail to meet their promises, move down; but policing of any individual's adherence to the conditions of the payment can be left to the other members of the group. Members of the Landcare Group cannot avoid assessing their neighbours, but the impact is not so drastic as with the exclusion of a wine from the Chianti Classico label. Cost savings – to the farmers: It is important to consider the cost and risk to farmers in making an application especially if a paid intermediary is employed. The Chianti Classico group approach cuts the cost per hectare and shares these costs among several farmers. Over time, costs are reduced further as farmers join existing Landcare Groups.In the 1960s, European farmers demonstrated that they could change their farming system and produce more food by responding to incentives provided under the CAP. At the same time, these changes also harmed the environment. The farmers will change again if they are offered the appropriate incentives to adopt regenerative farming. The Chianti Classico model is a practical means to do so. References Allan, Toni and Dent, David. "The cost of food: consequences of not valuing soil and water and the people who manage them", in: Dent, David. and Boincean, Boris (ed.) Regenerative agriculture. What's missing? What else do we still need to know? (22 June, 2021). Kassam, Amir. (ed.). Advances in conservation agriculture. Vol. 1-3.Cambridge: Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing, 2020. Crews, Timothy E.; Carton, Wim and Olsson, Lennart. "Is the future of agriculture perennial?Imperatives and opportunities to reinvent agriculture by shifting from annual monocultures toperennial polycultures". Global Sustainability, vol. 1 (2018), p. 1-18. Chatterton, Lynne and Chatterton, Brian. Sustainable Dryland Farming. Cambridge University Press, 2005. King, F H. Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea and Japan. Mineola NY: Dover Publications, 2004. Panagos, Panos; Ballabo, Cristiano; Poesna, Jean; Lugato, Emmanuel; Scarpa, Simone; Montanarella, Luca and Borrelli, Pasquale. "A soil erosion indicator for supporting agricultural, environment and climate policies in the European Union". Remote Sensing. vol. 12, no. 9 (2020) Dent, David. "A standard for soil health". International Journal of Environmental Studies. vol. 77, no. 4, (November 2019), p. 613-618.Note:1- In the case of appellation d'origin contrôlée (AOC)/denominazione di origin controllata (DOC), nearly all the winemakers in the district, as well as some officials, conduct tastings to establish if they are good enough to bear the all-important name. The wines are awarded a class 1 or 2 which is advisory and has no legal standing. Wines that fail class 2 are graded as Unacceptable. Examination of the voting figures reveals that many wines graded 1 or 2 receive votes of, perhaps, 55% in favour and 45% against but, when it came to the Unacceptable grade, there is not a single wine with less than 90% vote to reject. So, producers are quite capable of making the tough decisions needed to maintain standards. Authors:Brian Chatterton, former Minister of Agriculture in South Australia and farmer in Umbria (Italy)David Dent, former head of the World Soil Association;Martin Keulertz, Lecturer in Environmental Management, University of the West of England, BristolAll the publications express the opinions of their individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIDOB as an institution.
La población mundial, que cuenta dos mil millones de habitantes alrededor del año 1950, ha crecido a un ritmo casi exponencial en las décadas siguientes hasta 4 mil millones y 5,3 en 1990 (Naciones Unidas - Departamento de Asuntos Económicos y Sociales, 2010). Sin duda un gran aumento tanto en términos absolutos cuanto relativos. Según las estimaciones de las Naciones Unidas, la población mundial se estima que alcanzará los ocho millones y medio de 2025. Estas tasas de crecimiento se producen, obviamente, tanto en Europa, donde la población ha crecido de 550 millones en 1950 a 750 millones en 2010, y en Italia, donde en el período 1861 a 2008 hubo un aumento de la población de 22 millones de habitantes a casi 60 millones (fuente: ISTAT, 2010). La población ha crecido, sin embargo, a tasas más altas en los países en desarrollo, con una tendencia a la constante en los países industrializados en las últimas décadas. Dicha población mundial intenso tiene consecuencias directas sobre el territorio urbano, mientras que lleva a una extensión de las actuales áreas urbanas menores y pequeñas ciudades. Todo esto, cada vez más, dar lugar a problemas de gestión y uso del suelo, produciendo un crecimiento del componente de la vulnerabilidad en la ecuación de riesgo. Crecimiento de la población no justifica un aumento de las condiciones hidrogeológicas de la inestabilidad. Si es así, ya que la población se ha convertido en firme en los últimos años, al menos en la mayoría de los países industrializados, no hay que hacer frente a riesgos cada vez mayor. En cambio, el modelo de desarrollo económico, basado principalmente en redes e infraestructuras, así como los asentamientos, por supuesto, produce un doble efecto: un aumento de los activos expuestos a la amenaza, una presión sobre el territorio, capaz de hacer la activación de los fenómenos peligrosos más frecuentes. Los fenómenos naturales también tienen un impacto en el marco socio-económico, ya que son responsables de la pérdida de bienes y servicios y, en ocasiones, una pérdida en términos de vidas humanas. En tal situación, la vulnerabilidad de la zona está relacionado con el desarrollo de su sistema de infraestructura social, civil y urbano. Este concepto se expresa claramente en la declaración "Los desastres ocurren cuando los riesgos se encontra con la vulnerabilidad" (Wisner et al., 2004). Esto nos lleva a considerar los desastres naturales como los fenómenos sociales reales. Cuando se habla de riesgo geomorfologicos y de políticas ambientales, uno de los pioneros es, sin duda, Earl E. Brabb, que ya en 1991 en un artículo titulado "El problema de movimientos de ladera del mundo", sostuvo que los deslizamientos son un problema mundial que cientos causa de muertes y miles de millones de dólares de daño cada año en todo el mundo. Los poblemas geomorfológicos son y serán un tema importante y un requisito fundamental del conocimiento para la política de toma de decisiones. A pesar de 20 años han pasado desde que el trabajo Brabb, la situación no parece haber cambiado. No son aún insuficientes los procedimientos de todo el mundo aunque sólo sea compartida que permite evaluar la calidad y precisión de un inventario de deslizamientos o la forma de clasificar en términos de susceptibilidad a los deslizamientos de un área y para evaluar cuantitativa y cualitativamente el rendimiento predictivo. Las imágenes y escenas de devastación, destrucción y muerte que ocurren cada año, hacen que el problema de los riesgos geomorfológicos en un problema social. ¿Quien es el responsable? Seguimos construyendo, incluso en lugares que no son adecuados para la construcción. Tenemos que admitir por lo menos una doble responsabilidad. Si bien es cierto que los acontecimientos que causar un derrumbe apenas son "previsibles", por el contrario sí podemos identificar y predecir donde estos fenómenos se producen con mayor capacidad destructiva, produciendo más daños y reducir al mínimo la vulnerabilidad. Por lo tanto, si no es posible evitar, ya que no es posible predecir, la palabra clave debe ser "la prevención". Cada vez deslizamientos de tierra u otros eventos con características destructivas y letales, que a menudo se supone y se define como "impredecible", nos ofrece con el escenario de las víctimas, los heridos y desaparecidos, el público se estremece y recuerda la vulnerabilidad de los bienes de la comunidad y direciona la discusión sobre el tema de prevención de los desastres naturales o por lo menos tratar de minimizar las consecuencias trágicas que lo acompañan. La ola emocional que sigue a la fase de emergencia se produce entre las llamadas a "enrollar las mangas" a una "cultura de prevención" que "nunca vuelva a suceder", e induce a los legisladores y los técnicos para intervenir con una variedad de medidas urgentes de mitigación y obras y de intervención inmediata, tal vez proponiendo también las regulaciones y leyes dirigidas a "evitar otro desastre similar". Hoy Saponara, ayer Génova, el día antes Giampilieri y San Fratello y así sucesivamente durante décadas: Salerno (1954) con 318 víctimas, 250 heridos y sin hogar cerca de 5.500, y el Longarone y el desastre de Vajont (1963) con cerca de 2.000 muertes de Agrigento, (1966), Valtellina (1987) 53 muertes y 4.000 millones de liras de los daños, el deslizamiento de tierra en el Val di Stava de julio de 1985 (269 muertos), las corrientes rápidas del 5 de mayo de 1998 y Sarno y Quindici y otras áreas de la región Campania, con 153 muertes, Maierato (2010), son algunos de los eventos más importantes que lleva a más de 4.000 las muertes causadas por movimientos gravitativos en medio siglo, un promedio de 4 muertes por mes, además de un daño económico incalculable. Pero cada día hay una lista de los deslizamientos de tierra, carreteras y puentes bajando, a pesar de que pasa desapercibido. A falta de una cultura de prevención y un aumento de la cultura de emergencia en su lugar. Y la protección civil se ve ahora como la única ancla de salvación y la asistencia de los municipios y la población involucrada. Italia es un País que se desmorona debido a la negligencia del hombre y a la falta de prevención. Hay 5,596 sobre 8,101 municipios en riesgo hidrogeológico, el 84% de los centros de población se define en riesgo. Esto sin duda demuestra que las construcciones se construyeron cuando no se podia. De estos municipios, 1.700 (alrededor del 21%) están en riesgo de deslizamientos, 1.285 (casi el 16%) en riesgo de inundación y 2.596 (32%) se encuentran en una combinación de deslizamientos de tierra y riesgo de inundación. El área total clasificada como de alto riesgo asciende a 36.551 km2 (7,1% del total nacional) dividido en km2 de áreas de deslizamientos de tierra y 7.791 km2 de áreas inundadas 13.760. Estas cifras ponen de relieve la inestabilidad hidrogeológica con el que cada región debe enfrentar, tarde o temprano, contra la cual el flujo de millones de euros, a menudo sólo le prometió, no servirá de mucho para la estabilización y obras de medida de seguridad. El informe de Legambiente revela que los municipios son la punta de lanza de una evidente debilidad de nuestro territorio. No hay una única manera de preparar los mapas de susceptibilidad, como lo demuestra la enorme cantidad de artículos científicos producidos incluso durante la última década, y lo mismo es cierto en cuanto a la zonificación de los peligros y los riesgos involucrados, todavía sigue siendo un problema sin resolver en gran medida (Carrara et al., 2009). La contribución de este trabajo las siguientes fases de un estudio con el fin de definir la estructura de la sensibilidad, los riesgos y peligros de un área: 1. Construcción de la base de datos: en este trabajo las diferentes técnicas y métodos de detección de deslizamiento de tierra y delimitación se comparan directamente (trabajo de campo) e indirectamente (fotografías aéreas, software de visualización remota del territorio) y su posterior despliegue en un sistema GIS. 2 Elección y definición de la escala de análisis: De hecho, uno de los problemas más actuales de la proposición se relaciona con los métodos de evaluación de susceptibilidad a escala múltiple. 3 Unidades cartográficas: las diferentes unidades se utilizan para la cartografía y zonificación del territorio, cuya previsión de resultados se comparan con el fin de ser capaces de identificar las unidades de la asignación básica más adecuada para la planificación y para fines de defensa civil, teniendo en cuenta la exactitud científica de que la modelo debe soportar. 4 Elección de los factores control: en el trabajo, es la posibilidad de identificar el conjunto más probable de los factores que se consideran relacionados directamente o indirectamente a la inestabilidad de la ladera. Se proponen procedimientos de prueba y seleccionar el conjunto de posibles factores de control, así como la construcción de modelos específicos para cada tipo de deslizamientos. 5 Construcción de modelos: como para la construcción de un modelo geo-estadístico, las soluciones se comparan diferentes y el modelo de presentación de los mismos resultados y la objetividad que se elija, teniendo en cuenta que las necesidades de una implementación más bajo en términos de costo y tiempo. 6 Validación: los modelos están sujetos a diferentes técnicas de validación, que luego se comparan entre ellos. 7 Exportación espacial de un modelo de susceptibilidad: este es un ensayo para definir y validar los términos de susceptibilidad a los deslizamientos de una amplia zona en los gustos de cientos o miles de kilómetros cuadrados, en base a los estudios de detalle de algunos sectores que lo representan. Al igual que muchos otros autores, con el propósito de este trabajo es hacer una contribución a la comunidad científica, tratando de ofrecer una modesta contribución en la solución de algunos problemas en este campo a través de experimentos y modelos realizados en una variedad de contextos y comparar los resultados entre ellos. En este sentido, unas pruebas se llevaron a cabo en algunas áreas, previamente seleccionadas, será probado y verificado el resultado de algunos de los procedimientos en los años de investigación doctoral. A continuación, un resumen de los resultados vendrán de estas pruebas experimentales TEST 1a: TUMMARRANO river basin: Model Exportation En el marco de un estudio de la susceptibilidad de deslizamientos regional en el sur de Sicilia, una prueba se ha realizado en la cuenca del río Tumarrano (unos 80 km2) tiene como objetivo caracterizar las condiciones de su susceptibilidad movimientos de ladera mediante la exportación de un modelo, definido y entrenado en el interior un número limitado (unos 20 km2) representativas del sector ("el área de origen''). Además, la posibilidad de explotar software de Google Earth y el banco de datos de fotos para producir imágenes de los archivos deslizamiento de tierra ha sido comprobado. El modelo de susceptibilidad se define, de acuerdo con un enfoque multifactorial basadas en el análisis condicional, con unidades únicas condiciones (UCUs), los cuales fueron obtenidos mediante la combinación de cuatro factores seleccionados control: litología afloramiento, la pendiente, la curvatura del plan y el índice de humedad topográfica. La capacidad de predicción del modelo de exportación, formado con 206 deslizamientos de tierra, se compara con la estimada para toda el área estudiada, mediante el uso de un archivo completo de deslizamiento de tierra (703 deslizamientos de tierra), para ver hasta qué punto el mayor tiempo/dinero necesario se tienen en cuenta los costos para. TEST 1b. Tummarrano river basin: modelo de susceptibilidad basado en la Forward logistic regression La regresión logística con pasòs hacia adelante, nos ha permitido obtener un modelo de susceptibilidad por los flujos de tierra en la cuenca del río Tumarrano, que se definió mediante el modelado de las relaciones estadísticas entre un archivo de eventos 760 y un conjunto de 20 variables predictoras. Para cada movimiento del inventario, un punto de identificación de deslizamientos (LIP) se produce de forma automática, como corresponde al punto más alto a lo largo de la frontera de los polígonos de deslizamientos de tierra. Los modelos equilibrados (760 stable/760 inestable) se presentaron a adelante el procedimiento de regresión logística. Una estrategia de construcción del modelo se aplicó para ampliar la zona considerada en la preparación del modelo y para comprobar la sensibilidad de los modelos de regresión con respecto a los lugares específicos de las células se considera estable. Un conjunto de dieciséis modelos se preparó de forma aleatoria extraer los subconjuntos diferentes céldas estables. Los modelos fueron sometidos a regresión logística y validado. Los resultados mostraron que las tasas de error satisfactoria y estable (0,236 en promedio, con una desviación estándar de 0,007) y AUC (0.839, para la formación, y 0.817, para conjuntos de datos de prueba). Como en relación a los predictores, la pendiente en el barrio de las células y la curvatura topográfica de gran perfil y plan local-fueron seleccionados de forma sistemática. Litología arcillosa afloramiento, drenajes midslope, crestas locales y midslope y los accidentes geográficos cañones eran también muy frecuentes (de 8 a 15 veces) en los modelos de la selección hacia adelante. La estrategia de construcción del modelo nos ha permitido producir un modelo de flujo de tierra realizando la susceptibilidad, cuyo modelo de ajuste, la predicción de la habilidad y solidez se estimaron sobre la base de los procedimientos de validación. Test 2. Imera river basin: modelo de susceptibilidad por flujo de tierra basado en las unidades de ladera. Un mapa de susceptibilidad de un área, que es representativa en términos de marco geológico y los fenómenos de inestabilidad de ladera de grandes sectores de los Apeninos de Sicilia, fue producida usando unidades de ladera y un modelo multiparamétrico univariado. La zona de estudio, que se extiende por aproximadamente 90 km2, fue dividida en 774 unidades de la pendiente, cuya ocurrencia esperada avalancha se estimó un promedio de siete valores de vulnerabilidad, determinado para el control de los factores seleccionados: litología, pendiente media del gradiente, SPI en el pie, el índice de humedad topográfica y la curvatura del perfil, y el rango de altitud. Cada uno de los reconocidos 490 deslizamientos de tierra estuvo representada por su punto de centro de gravedad. Sobre la base de análisis condicional, la función de la susceptibilidad aquí adoptada es la densidad, calculado para cada clase. Modelos univariante fueron preparados para cada uno de los factores que controlan, y su rendimiento predictivo se estimó por curvas de tipos de predicción y la relación de efectividad aplicada a la categorías de vulnerabilidad. Este procedimiento nos permitió discriminar entre factores efectivos y no efectivos, de modo que sólo la primera se combinó posteriormente en un modelo multiparamétrico, que fue utilizada para producir el mapa de susceptibilidad final. la validación de este último mapa nos permite comprobar el rendimiento y la fiabilidad de la predicción modelo. Los principales factores reguladores resultaron: la litología y, subordinadamente, el SPI a el pies de la unidad, y tambien el gradiente medio de la pendiente, la curvatura del perfil, y el índice de humedad topográfica dieron resultados satisfactorios. ; The World population, which counted two billion inhabitants around 1950, has grown at an almost exponential rate in the following decades up to four billion in 1980 and 5,3 in 1990 (United Nations – Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2010). Definitely a high increase both in absolute and relative terms. According to estimates by the United Nations, the World population is estimated to reach eight billion and a half around 2025 (Chart 1.1), and then it will become steady around ten billion in 2050 because of the expected decline in fertility. These growing rates occur, obviously, both in Europe, where population has grown from 550 million in 1950 to 750 million in 2010, and in Italy, where in the period from 1861 to 2008 there was a surge in population from 22 million inhabitants to almost 60 million, (source: ISTAT, 2010). The population has grown, however, at higher rates in developing Countries (Fig. 1.1), with a tendency to become steady in industrialized Countries in the last decades. Such an intense world population has direct consequences on urban territory while leading to a spread of current minor urban areas and small towns. All this will, increasingly, result in management and land use problems, producing a growth of the vulnerability component in the risk equation. Population growth alone does not justify an increase of hydro-geological conditions of instability. If so, since the population has become steady in recent years, at least in most industrialized countries, we should not face increasing risks. Instead, the economic development model, largely based on networks and infrastructures, as well as settlements of course, produces a double effect: an increase of assets exposed to threat; a stress on the territory, able to make the activation of hazardous phenomena more frequently. It is however true that recent disasters with great loss of lives (i.e., Sarno Giampilieri, Aulla, Genova and Saponara) are actually the results of the response (letting nature take its course) to the changes in territorial asset occurred after the war. Another cause may be found in environmental changes: when the stress regime in a region changes (such as extraordinary rainfall intensity), the response is obviously new for both sides/slopes and the population. The WWF notes that from 1956 to 2001, urbanized areas in Italy have increased by 500 times and it is estimated that from 1990 to 2005 we have transformed 3.5 million hectares of land. The problem of interaction between humans and the natural environment is a very complex and diversified issue, not often approached in a systematic way, also because of the severe limitations of sources to be invested on research on a medium and long-term, for a better and effective knowledge of the environment, primarily on measures aimed at reducing risk (Plattner, 2005). Natural phenomena also have an impact within the social-economic framework as they are responsible for the loss of goods and services, and sometimes, a loss in terms of lives. In such a situation, the vulnerability of the area is related to the development of its social, civil, and urban infrastructural system. This concept is well expressed in the statement "disasters occur when hazards meet vulnerability" (Wisner et al., 2004). This leads us to consider natural disasters as real social phenomena. This condition is strongly valid especially with regard to landslides (Brabb and Harrod, 1989; Brabb, 1991). Since economic problems common to all countries do not allow either to invest in research projects on a medium and long-term or the stabilization of structures or areas on a large-scale, a new philosophy of environmental policy opens up for all active political and administrative subjects that should govern the use and exploitation of the territory. For this reason, the scientific community is engaged in a continuous search for methods and techniques to estimate the degree of real and potential instability, using the minimum amount of equipment and possible economic resources. Usually there is a substantial difficulty in identifying the most reliable procedures, that allow to approach this matter in a non-traditional manner based on modeling and investigative techniques built on the exchange of experiences between experts and conducting studies and experiments on all continents, and showing different strategies and possible technical combinations depending on the type and/or the number and complexity of the investigation, producing susceptibility, hazard and risk maps, used as the basis for decision-making processes in land management. In this framework, further efforts are needed in trying to make the different methods more objective and shared by all in order to be simple and reproducible, and most of all in transferring the knowledge gained in laws that underpin territorial planning, building regulations, and in civil defense plans (Guzzetti, 2006). When discussing about landslides and environmental policies, one of the pioneers is undoubtedly Earl E. Brabb, who already in 1991 in a paper entitled "The World Landslide Problem", sustained that landslides are a worldwide problem that cause hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars of damage every year all over the world. The same added that these losses can be reduced if the problem is identified and acknowledged in time, but many countries are simply equipped with maps showing where landslides produced problems in the past and they have even less susceptibility maps that could allow policy makers control land use. Landslides, adds Brabb, are generally more predictable and controllable than other natural events of catastrophic nature such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and storms, but despite this, few countries have taken advantage of this knowledge to reduce landslide hazard. Geomorphological problems are and will be an important issue and a fundamental requirement of knowledge for the politics of decision-making. Although 20 years have gone by since Brabb's work, the situation does not seem to have changed. There are still insufficient globally shared procedures even just allowing to assess the quality and accuracy of a landslide inventory or how to classify in terms of landslide susceptibility of an area and to evaluate quantitatively and qualitatively predictive performance. 1.2 Basic concepts One of the most obvious effects of rapid territory development in the past decades is the increasing impact that natural disasters have on man and his activities. Institutions are therefore committed to investing their resources in both the implementation of structural interventions to mitigate the risk as well as implementation of early warning systems and defining guidelines for land management; the latter activities allow, in fact, to avoid or minimize damage to persons and property, produced by natural phenomena, without necessarily investing in expensive resources and long structural interventions. The term "risk" is used in relation to the various components of the social and territorial fabric, as an expression of the expected consequences in the assets as a result of this disastrous phenomenon of assigned intensity at a given time interval. Within the guidelines for the preparation of prevention and management plans in terms of geological risk of the Sicilian Civil Protection Service (Regional Hydro-geological and Environmental Risks department), the term Hydro-geological Risk means the effect on different parts of the territory led by natural disasters such as landslides (geomorphological risk) and floods (hydraulic risks) triggered by events related to climate and its changes. Two main components contribute to the definition of risk: territorial hazard (geomorphological and hydraulic) and vulnerability. The latter depends on both the physical resistance of structures or assets exposed to the threat and the so-called vulnerability of social organization, which is linked, in fact, to the capacity of disaster prevention and management that a community has developed prior to the same disaster. The propensity of a territory to be affected by new landslides, the degree of hazard or risk that characterizes it, are usually expressed with the help of a map in which the area is divided into different zones according to the different values that qualify it. In this mapping, the territory is zoned or divided into homogeneous zones or user-defined fields/areas, whose ranking is defined according to their real or potential degree of landslide hazard (Varnes, 1984). Over the decades, many research groups and national and international commissions have tried to provide precise definitions, trying to reduce the existing confusion of terms in the management of natural hazards. In this section, some basic concepts are expressed as well as the terminology that will be used in the thesis below. Landslide events that develop in a given area involve a large number of environmental variables, to determine undoubted difficulties in identifying a suitable action of management, control and planning. In order to do so, understanding the problem without having a clear conceptual framework and method to be used may not be sufficient. The "forecast" of the phenomena and therefore the modeling phase is always required to designated public administration bodies and territorial control, carried out by the creation of digital simulation models which become crucial at the time when decisions must be taken/made. The creation of maps indicating the different vocation planning of an area, based for example on landslide hazard maps, not only allows you to compose the scene of the incident consequences of a given failure, but also to react under emergency, if magnitude, area, and associated potential damage are known. Planning is a subject which studies and regulates the processes of local governance and to evaluate the resulting dynamics of evolution and development. The principles guiding the choice of planning require development policies coherent with the principles of environmental protection and sustainability in an effort to control the excessive human presence, able to transform irreversibly natural systems and preserve the quality of life for future generations. Information, territorial knowledge and assessment of its natural predisposition and vulnerability are the basis of planning. These forms of knowledge and the use and application of the best technologies available to facilitate information processing and optimization of procedures for evaluation and zoning of the territory, will yield the best design solutions to achieve the desired objectives. Planning is aimed to government land use and management of spatial information, and is achieved by regulating the area according to different uses, which should be awarded taking into account the natural predispositions. Planning activities can affect a large portion of territory, in other words include a supra-municipal area or one that does not match with administrative boundaries (e.g. Provincial Territorial Coordination Plan, Hydro-geological Plan) or urban (e.g. General Regulation Plan). The geological, geomorphological, hydro-geological and seismic component should be placed at the base of the strategic development of the territory. In national legislation, water management is understood both as a natural resource but also as an element of risk, and has been regulated at the watershed level since the nineties (national framework law 183/89 on soil protection). This allow us to overcome divisions and inconsistencies produced by the adoption of targeted areas having only administrative boundaries that, therefore, do not take into account natural dynamics. The zoning of landslide hazard area is considered the most effective level of knowledge for territorial planning and territorial governance purposes. A map showing portions of an area classified as "hazardous" is of great importance due to the fact that these areas are subject to limitations and constraints that also affect the usability or simply the economic value. 1.2.1 Landslides and soil protection Italy, besides having a territory particularly prone to heavily collapse, has a highly populated territory with a density of 189 inhabitants per km2, much higher than France (114 inhabitants/km2) and Spain (89 inhabitants/km2), in Lombardy and Campania respectively, the density changes to 379 and 420 inhabitants per km2. As clear from the Report on landslides in Italy (National Geological Survey, 2007), commissioned by the ISPRA (National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), in the last 50 years almost 500 thousand landslides have been recognized and recorded for an area of about 20 thousand km2, corresponding to 6.6% of the entire national territory. These data should be updated. As indicated by the last study conducted by the Ministry of the Environment (2010), 9.8% of the national area is to be ranked highly hydro-geological critical and 6.633 municipalities are involved, representing 81.9 percent of the national territory. This value, according to a report EURISPES ( Report Italy, 2010) is "largely underestimated", therefore agreeing that "a reliable estimate is made up of about 2 million phenomena and consequently the percentage of the Italian territory subject to ongoing phenomena is more than 20%." The Ministry of Environment, through the work for the realization of development plans undertaken by the hydrogeological Basin Authority, estimated a funding requirement of almost 40 billion euros to hydro-geologically secure the entire country, and 4.1 billion for more urgent works. Undoubtedly, the amounts are considerably high, but it is enough to consider that almost 21 billion euros were spent just to stanch the damages by hydro-geological disasters occurred in the decade 1994-2004. 1.3 Aims and scientific contribution There is no single way to prepare susceptibility maps, as evidenced by the enormous amount of scientific papers produced even during the last decade, and the same is true as for the zoning of the hazard and risk involved, still remaining a largely unsolved problem (Carrara et al., 2009). The contribution of this paper the following phases of a study in order to define the susceptibility structure, hazard and risk of an area. 1 Construction of the landslide database: in this work different techniques and methods of landslide detection and delimitation are compared, directly (field work) and indirectly (aerial photographs, remote viewing software of the territory) and their subsequent deployment in a GIS system. 2 Choice and definition of the analysis scale: the problem of scale models of susceptibility is approached. In fact, one of the most actual problems of the proposition is related to approaches to multi-scale susceptibility evaluation. 3 Mapping units: different units are used for mapping and zoning of the territory, whose foresight results are compared in order to be able to identify the basic mapping units most suitable for planning and for civil defense purposes, taking into account the scientific accuracy that the model must bear. 4 Choice of controlling factors: during the work, it is the possible to identify the most probable set of factors considered to be directly or indirectly related to the instability of the slope. Procedures for testing and selecting the set of possible controlling factors are proposed as well as the construction of specific models for each type of landslide. 5 Model building: as for the construction of a geo-statistical model, different solutions are compared and the model presenting the same results and objectivity is chosen, considering it needs a lower implementation in terms of cost and time. 6 Validation: models are subject to different validation techniques, which are then compared to each other. 7 Spatial exporting of a landslide susceptibility model: this is a trial to define and validate the terms of landslide susceptibility for a wide area in the likes of hundreds or thousands of square kilometers, based on studies of some fields that represent it. Having clear that the result of this type of study is intended to provide maps that can be used by planners in a useful manner, these must be characterized by an immediacy in understanding even by non-experts and they must also be easy to read and interpret. Therefore, these methods should be as simple as possible, for example, susceptibility levels must be clearly expressed not only in quantitative but also in descriptive terms (Clerici et al., 2010). Like many other authors, the purpose of this work is to make a contribution to the scientific community by trying to offer a modest contribution in solving some problems in this field through experiments and modeling carried out in a range of contexts and comparing the results between them.
학위논문 (박사) -- 서울대학교 대학원 : 사회과학대학 사회복지학과, 2020. 8. 홍백의. ; This study characterizes 15 countries' pension reform trajectories and statistically examines how these pension reform trajectories affect pension effort during the CRP (Compound Reform Period 1990-2015). This study defines pension reform are either contractionary and expansionary reforms; pension effort refers to both pension expenditure and pension generosity. Conventionally, studies have often examined how socio-influential factors (e.g. socio-economic, institutional, and political factors) affect pension effort. However, these discourses have heavily emphasized contractionary pension reforms and pension expenditure, but have overlooked expansionary pension reforms and pension generosity. This study argues that the traditional retrenchment-focused approach to pension policy research is rooted largely in inherited theories of the 'Welfare State Crisis' and macro-socio-economics, that are not reflective of the recent post-industrial policy shifts occurring in the world. In particular to pension policy, in response to the 20th century old and new social risks, traditional Bismarckian and Beveridgean countries have implemented a mix of contractionary and expansionary reforms. These reforms were designed to deal with pension financial sustainability and adequacy against old-age poverty. Consequently, two primary limitations of previous studies have become apparent. The austerity-oriented and macro view of pension effort using socio-influential factors overlooks an important building block within the dynamic pension reform process. In addition, existing quantitative and qualitative studies have centered around institutions that examine pension policies from a static perspective - overlooking pension policy dynamic changes. During the CRP, pension systems have experienced two interconnected components - retrenchment and expansionary reforms - that ultimately define pension effort. Accordingly, it is necessary to comprehensively investigate how these components of dynamic pension reform affect pension effort in the context of both pension expenditure and pension generosity. This study organized expansionary and retrenchment pension reforms using ten pension reform variables based on the work Häusermann (2010): insurance (e.g. parametric pension reforms), capitalization (e.g. DB to DC shifts), targeting (e.g. means-tested), and recalibration (e.g. pension credits). In order to evaluate how these pension reforms affected pension effort, this study utilized two analytical methods: unsupervised clustering characterizes pension reform trajectories, and an LMM (Mixed Effect Model) statistically evaluates their effectiveness with respect to pension expenditure and pension generosity. Pension reforms were categorized into four pension reform clusters: labor-activated pension (LAP) reforms, extended privatization pension (EPP) reforms, latecomer structural pension (LSP) reforms, and extensive retrenchment pension (ERP) reforms. The labor-activated pension reform (LAP) cluster is generally composed of advanced welfare states that experienced the highest unemployment rates and most pressing demographic changes prior to the CRP. However, their transition into the CRP has been met with significant GDP growth and high employment rates. At the same time, this cluster is facing the highest level of new social risks in regions like women's labor participation, employment in services, and economic openness. In response to both old and new social risks, most of the countries in this cluster made significant reforms meant to mitigate their effects. Various parametric pension reforms (e.g. increasing the retirement age, penalizing early retirement, etc.) encourage individuals near retirement to continue working or re-enter the workforce, thus increasing labor supply. In addition, targeting and recalibration reforms incentivize participation in the labor market by lowering pension eligibility requirements. The extended privatization pension reform (EPP) cluster is very similar in its Marco-socio-economic structure to the labor-activated pension reform (LAP) cluster, in that it is defined by developed nations that experienced drastic macro-socio-economic changes before the CRP. However, in the CRP this cluster has the highest levels of aged 65 years and older individuals, coupled with a moderately high economic growth. Growth compared to the labor activated pension reform cluster may be lower due to this aging. When a higher proportion of a total population is elderly, a larger proportion of economic expenses must be spent on retirement care. However, another additional feature of this cluster's socio-economics is lower birth rates. Some new social risks of interest that have had a particular effect on this cluster are increasing service sector employment rates and higher economic openness. However, pension reform strategies are vastly different from the labor-activated pension reform (LAP) reform strategies. This reform cluster shifts enrollment in occupational or individual pension programs from voluntary to mandatory and these programs then work in conjunction with existing public pension systems. However, in order to compensate disadvantaged groups and unpaid workers, various expansionary pension reforms were also implemented in tandem; for example, means-tested pension benefits, tax reductions or earnings-related subsidies to employers, employees or individuals. The latecomer structural pension reform cluster (LSP) is uniquely composed of countries that had transitioned from centrally planned economies to widespread market-based economies at the inception of their original pension programs. Their transition to market based-economies was not smooth and this was reflected in their relatively slow economic growth. Structural changes are not the only facet that describes the struggles these countries have had during the CRP; demographic issues have also played an outsized role in their economies. Not only had their relative population aged, but at the same time, there was a dramatic drop in their fertility rates. New social risks have been reflected in their rising proportion of service sector employment and the swift opening of their economies. This cluster turned to structural-based reforms as a countermeasure to the ballooning pension expenditures that ensued, because of these different macro-socio-economic hardships. In order to compensate disadvantaged groups and unpaid workers, various expansionary pension reforms were also implemented in tandem with contractionary reforms (ex. targeting reform), but recalibration reforms were not implemented. The extensive retrenchment pension reform cluster (ERP), is composed of countries that demographically aged the most, and experienced the greatest long-term economic hardships because of economic crises during the CRP. Another critical issue was the decline of birth rates in these countries. New social risks have also added stress to their economic hardships with increases in atypical workers, women's labor participation rates, and serious issues with low employment rates. Under these increasing new social risks and problematic pension structures, the extensive retrenchment pension (ERP) reform cluster retrenched inherited asymmetric pension systems through radical parametric reforms, then means-tested programs were additionally added to compensate low-income groups and impoverished elderly. Each pension reform clusters' socio-economic backgrounds provide insight into the underlying indicators that are correlated with their adoption of different pension reform policies. Using these pension reform clusters as independent variables, this study demonstrates that different pension reforms have diversified the existing architecture of pension effort. According to the Linear Mixed Effect Model (LMM) results, the labor-activated pension reform (LAP) cluster statistically reduced pension expenditure relative to the reference pension reform cluster (extensive retrenchment pension reform cluster). The extended privatization pension (EPP) reform cluster significantly reduced pension generosity relative to the reference pension reform cluster (extensive retrenchment pension reform cluster). While the labor-activated pension (LAP) reform cluster maintained the highest standard pension retirement age and most restrictions on early retirement, the extended privatization pension (EPP) reform cluster created a more direct link between pension benefits and an individual's pension contributions, by shifting to mandatory enrollment in occupational or individual pension programs. This study asserts that pension reforms are the key to understanding pension effort (pension expenditure and pension generosity), and that contractionary and expansionary pension reform policies should be studied together. In addition, existing comparative studies have often excluded East-Asian countries, in particular, China, Japan, and Korea. They should be included in comparative policy analysis that will allow researchers to determine if they are empirically different, and thus compensate or address those differences more effectively in future research. In comparative social policy research, from the new institutionalism perspective, policy classifications should consider the process of policy change, from a dynamic perspective rather than static characteristics. This study suggests that policymakers may need to be concerned about each pension reform's pros and cons in the context of pension expenditure and generosity when adopting a pension reform. In future pension reforms, policymakers need to explicitly design their policies around increasing new profiles who, if not considered more carefully, are at higher risk of poverty in this post-industrialized global economy. The most sensible means of doing this is if policymakers avoid reducing benefits for these groups when legislating future pension reforms. Take Korean pension reforms as an example. Korea adopted an extensive parametric pension (ERP) reforms that may prove to be an effective way of curbing costs, while means-tested incentives provide more generous benefits to the growing population of at-risk individuals. However, extensive retrenchment pension (ERP) reforms have a high risk of providing inadequate pension benefits to at-risk groups without seriously resolving issues with program expenditure. Since extensive retrenchment pension (ERP) reforms do not sufficiently meet the needs of the Korean pension system, the next step is to look at alternative clusters to resolve these issues. Extended privatization pension reforms (EPP) generally supplement pension benefits by adopting a market-based pension component. However, adopting a reform from this cluster will also likely result in stagnated pension coverage, deteriorated pension benefits, and increased gender and income inequality. Adoption of a latecomer structural pension reform (LSP) (e.g. NDC) is also not realistic, because there are a large number of atypical workers in Korea (e.g. self-employed, part-time workers) who are unable to shoulder considerable financial burdens (double payment issues). This study suggests that adopting a labor-activated pension reform (LAP) may be the most effective pension strategy to strengthen Korean public pension system security. This strategy takes into account new career profiles that were previously overlooked by the system; the goal of including these workers to the system would be to reduce the occurrence of old-age poverty. ; 本论文定量比较分析了15个国家在1990-2015 (compound reform period, CRP:1990-2015)综合改革期间的养老金改革轨迹,及其对养老金努力(pension effort)的影响。本文定义了养老金改革包括消减性改革(contractionary pension reform)和扩张性改革(expansionary pension reform),养老金努力(pension effort)包括养老金支出(pension expenditure)和养老金慷慨度(pension generosity)。受"福利国家危机论"的影响,现存的大部分相关学术主要分析了宏观社会・经济因素(包括经济,政治和制度因素)对养老金政策的影响。这些研究集中在研究养老金支出而忽视了对养老金慷慨度的分析. 宏观社会经济背景及制度的遗产(institutional legacy)或历史轨迹等对养老金努力(pension effort)影响效应息息相关,但是本研究认为基于宏观理论并限定于养老金支出的传统文献没有充分的的分析到后工业社会下(post-industrialization)的养老金改革轨迹和特征。尤其是从20世纪末,为了应对新旧社会风险(old and new social risks)的压力,综合型养老金改革(compound pension reform),即消减性改革(contractionary pension reform)和扩张性改革(expansionary pension reform)被纷纷采纳去同时解决养老金财政可持续性和抵御老年贫困的两个问题。本文认为传统文献在研究养老金政策的影响因素中存在两个主要局限性问题:第一,忽视了核心变量-养老金改革对老金支出(pension expenditure)和养老金慷慨度(pension generosity)的影响。第二,现有的定量和定性社会政策比较或聚类研究只从围绕静态角度(static perspective)的政策特征却忽视了政策的动态变化(policy dynamic change)。 本文以Häusermann (2010)的养老金改革理论为基础,分析了包括消减性改革(contractionary pension reform)和扩张性改革(expansionary pension reform)养老金改革的十个变量:保险参数(parametric reform参数改革),市场化(例如: 从DB 改革成 DC),目标化(targeting) (例如: 经济能力审查:means-tested), 再调整(recalibration) (例如:养老金补贴: pension credits)。为了从统计学上评估分析这些养老金改革对养老金努力(pension effort)对影响效应,本文采用了两种分析方法:K均值无监督聚类分析(clustering analysis)和线性混合效应模型(linear mixed effect model, LMM)。根据聚类分析(clustering analysis)结果,15国家在1990-2015期间的养老金改革可分为四个改革类型:劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP), 扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP), 后发结构改革型(latecomer structural pension reform, LSP),和激进消减改革型(extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP). 基于定量统计数据比较分析,线性混合效应模型(linear mixed effect model, LMM)分析结果发现不同的改革轨迹对养老金支出和养老金慷慨度影响不同。 劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP)是由发达福利国家组成,这些国家在CRP(1990-2015)之前遭遇过经济衰退和前所未有的失业率增加和人口转变问题,但是在CRP(1990-2015)的过度期间实现了GDP和就业率的总体水平回升。相比于其他的改革类型,这些国家面临着最高水平的社会新风险(new social risks): 女性劳动就业和服务性就业者不断增加。为了应对新旧社会风险(old and new social risks)和减轻养老金财政压力,这些国家采取了大力度的养老金参数改革。主要包括参数改革(例如: 延后退休, 处罚提前退休等),鼓励接近退休等人继续工作或重新加入劳动市场。此外利用扩张性的目标化(targeting)和再调整(recalibration)改革鼓励人们参与劳动市场并通过养老金水平等。 扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)的宏观社会经济结构背景和劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP)比较相似,但是他们的养老金改革决策却大相径庭。在CRP前期,这些国家也是经历过宏观经济巨变的发达福利国家.低生育率和最高的老年人口比例,这个改革类型的国家面临养老金支出巨大失衡的压力。另外不规则就业者(atypical worker)和服务性就业者的比例不断上升也威胁着养老金政策的长期可持续性。扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)的主要决策是通过强制性策略提高参加职业和商业养老保险并且采取相对应的公共养老金参数改革方案。扩张型改革(expansionary pension reform)主要是为了弥补弱势和底薪群体,例如,对雇主,雇员或个人就行减税并且给以适当的补贴,经济能力审查的(means-tested)养老金补贴改革也是尤为突出。 后发结构改革型(latecomer structural pension reform cluster, LSP)的国家在养老金改革初期经历了市场经济转型独特社会变化。特别是在市场经济转型初期经济增长还没有真正的崛起,养老金制度不仅面临经济转型的挑战,人口转变包括人口老龄化和生育率下降问题更是加剧了养老金制度的财政失衡。另外新社会风险(new social risks)和全球化更激化了服务性劳动者的增加。为了扩大政府财政来源和弥补养老金缺口,这些社会背景推动了这些国家以结构改革(structural pension reform)为主线。为弱势群体也提供一定的社会补助,例如,经济能力审查的(means-tested)养老金补贴,但是后发结构改革型(latecomer structural pension reform cluster, LSP)目前缺乏再调整(recalibration)的扩张型改革(expansionary pension reform)。 激进消减改革型(extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP)在CRP初期临最严重的老龄化增长和经济危机带来的长期经济困难。人口转变(生育率急剧下降,老龄化进程加速)更是加剧了养老金的经济持续性问题。同时,这些国家更面临着由迅速的现代化进程所带来的挑战:服务性劳动者,女性劳动市场的参与与日俱增,就业率急剧下降等新社会风险(new social risks)。在这种社会背景下,激进消减改革型 (extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP)采用了大幅度的参数改革(parametric pension reform)为消减现存的养老金财政问题。资格审核(means-tested)的社会救助被采用去补助低收入人群和老人的养老金收入。 本文把以上的四个改革类型作为自变量研究分析了各个改革类型对养老金努力(pension effort: pension expenditure, pension generosity)的影响效果。根据线性混合效应模型(linear mixed effect model, LMM)的分析结果,相对于激进消减改革型 (extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP), 劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP)有效的消减了养老金支出; 扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)有效的得降低了养老金的慷慨度。相比之下,劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP)维持了最高标准的养老金退休年龄和提前退休的最大限制,而扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)则是通过强制参与职业和商业退休金制度加大紧缩养老金和缴费之间的直接关系。 理论层面,第一,本研究强调养老金改革变量是理解养老金努力(pension effort)的关键。第二,1990年以来的养老金改革应该同时考虑消减性改革(contractionary pension reform)和扩张性改革(expansionary pension reform)。第三,从新制度主义的理论角度来看,社会政策比较更应该考虑动态政策变化(pension dynamic change),不应该只限于静态视角(static perspective)的政策特征。第四,传统的社会政策比较研究文献经常忽略了东亚国家,比如,中国,日本和韩国。本文认为,尤其是比较研究更应该把这些国家包括在内因为通过比较可以更有效的分析这些制度改革决策的差异性。 政策层面,在制定养老金改革方案时需要同时考虑改革对养老金支出和养老金慷慨度影响的利弊。考虑到后工业化所带来的新风险和现存的旧社会风险,在未来的养老金改革方案中养老金长期可持续性需要要均衡养老金支出可持续性和慷慨度。以韩国养老金改革为例,激进消减改革型(extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP)可能有助于控制养老金支出,另外经济审查性的社会补助(means-tested)是可以填充贫穷老人的养老金水平;但是其改革方案很可能让高风险群体(ex. atypical workers, lower-income)面临养老金严重不足的问题。由于激进消减改革型(extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP)不能充分满足韩国养老金制度的需求,本文总结分析了其他三个改革方案的可取性。扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)方案主要是通过市场养老金组成部分来补充养老金福利慷慨水平,但是此改革方案可能导致韩国养老金覆盖率停滞,并恶化高风险群体(ex. atypical workers, lower-income group)的养老金慷慨度并且加剧性别福利水平不平等等问题。后发结构改革型(latecomer structural pension reform cluster, LSP) (ex. NDC) 方案对于韩国的现状更不现实。由于韩国的独特的工业及劳动市场结构,绝大部分的非典型就业者 (atypical workers) 会很难负担双重付费 (double payment issue) 问题。采用劳动激励改革型 (labor-activated pension reform, LAP) 方案可以加固韩国的公共养老金体系并有效的提高新型职业 (new career profiles) 人员的养老金覆盖率且减少老年贫困。 ; 본 연구는 15개 국가를 대상으로 1990-2015년 사이 발생한 다양한 연금개혁의 궤적을 군집화하고 이러한 연금개혁궤적 군집이 연금노력(Pension Effort)에 미치는 영향에 대해 분석하고자 한다. 본 연구에서 연금개혁은 축소개혁(Contractionary Reform) 과 확장개혁(Expansionary Reform)을 동시에 고려하며 연금노력(Pension Effort)은 연금지출(Pension Expenditure)과 연금관대성 (Pension Generosity)을 나타낸다. "복지국가의 위기론"의 영향으로 기존 대부분의 연구들은 연금노력(Pension Effort)과 관련하여 주로 거시적 관점에서사회・경제・정치 영향 요인이 연금지출에 미치는 영향에 대해서만 분석이 이뤄졌다. 특히 핵심적 연금정책수단인 연금개혁에 대한 연구가 부족했으며 연금노력(Pension Effort)에 연금관대성을 살펴본 연구는 많지 않았다. 또한 실질적으로 전통적인 "복지국가 축소론"을 기반으로 분석한 연구들은 脫산업화로 인해 복지정책의 다양한 변화 및 특징을 충분히 포착하지 못했다. 지난 20세기말부터 舊사회위험(Old Social Risk) 및 新사회위험(New Social Risk)을 동시에 대응하기 위해 많은 국가들은 연금제도의 지속가능성 개선을 위해 축소개혁(Contractionary Reform)뿐만 아니라 확장개혁(Expansionary Reform)도 같이 도입했다. 다시 말해, 기존의 연구들은 크게 두 가지 한계점을 뚜렷하게 나타내고 있었다. 첫째, 거시적 관점에서 분석한 기존연구들은 사회・경제・제도적 영향 요인이 연금노력(Pension Effort)에 미치는 영향과 연금관대성에 대해 연구가 부족하다. 또한 가장 중요한 영향요인 변수인 연금개혁에 대해 분석하지 못했다. 둘째, 기존의 질적 및 양적 비교정책연구들은 주로 연금제도의 정태적(靜態的) 특성만 포착했으며 동태적(動態的) 개혁과정에 대한 연구가 부족했다. 따라서, 동태적(動態的)인 연금개혁이 연금지출과 연금관대성에 대해 어떤 영향을 미치는가에 대한 연구가 시급하고 중요하다. 본 연구는 Häusermann (2010)의 연금개혁을 이론적 기반으로10가지 연금개혁 변수를 포함하며 15개 국가를 대상으로 26년 동안 연금개혁궤적에 대해 분석하고자 한다. 구체적으로 연금개혁 변수는 주로 보험(Insurance), 적립화(Capitalization) (예: DB에서 DC로 전환), 표적화(Targeting) (예: Means-Tested)과 再조준화(Recalibration) (예: 연금크레딧 혹은 교육크레딧)를 포함한다. 우선, 군집분석(Cluster Analysis)을 통해서 다양한 축소 및 확장 연금개혁을 연금개혁궤적으로 규명하였고, 선형혼합효과모형 (Linear Mixed Effect Model, LMM)을 통해 각 연금개혁궤적이 연금노력(Pension Effort), 즉 연금지출(Pension Expenditure)과 연금관대성(Pension Generosity)에 대한 영향을 분석하였다. 분석결과에 따라, 4가지 연금개혁 궤적 유형으로 구분할 수 있다: 노동활성화개혁(Labor-Activated Pension, LAP), 민영화확장개혁(Extended Privatization Pension, EPP)개혁, 후발구조적개혁(Latecomer Structural Pension, LSP) 그리고 긴축연금개혁(Extensive Retrenchment Pension, ERP). 노동활성화개혁(LAP)은CRP(1990-2015) 기간 이전의 매우 높은 실업률과 급진적인 인구학적 변화를 겪은 선진 복지국가로 구성되어 있다. CRP(1990-2015)기간에 진입하여 GDP 성장과 고용률 증가세를 점차적으로 확인할 수 있지만 新사회위험(New Social risk)에 가장 심각한 국면을 직면하고 있었다. 예를 들어, 높은 여성의 노동시장 참가율, 높은 세계화 지수 및 서비스업의 증가 등 있다. 이러한 舊사회위험(Old Social Risk) 및 新사회위험(New Social Risk)을 대응하기 위해 대부분 국가들은 다양한 모수적연금개혁을 실시했다. 특히 은퇴에 근접한 연령인 개인들은 계속 노동시장에 남을 수 있도록 많은 연금개혁을 노력해왔다. 예를 들어, 은퇴연령을 높이고 조기은퇴 연령 축소 및 조기은퇴의 감액을 강화하여 노동시장 참여를 유발하기 위한 많은 연금개혁을 했다. 동시에 표적화(Targeting)와 再조준화(Recalibration)등 확장개혁(Expansionary Reform)을 통해 연금 수급여건을 낮춤으로써 서비스업을 비롯한 저임금 노동자들의 노동시장 참여를 장려하기 위한 개혁을 실시하였다. 민영화확장개혁(EPP)은 거시적 사회경제 변화를 경험한 선진국으로 노동활성화개혁(LAP) 클러스터와 비슷한 거시적 사회변화 구조를 경험하였다. 이 클러스터는 CRP(1990-2015) 기간에 높은 서비스업 취업률과 더 높은 경제적 개방성을 나타낸다. 또한 65세 이상 인구 비율이 가장 높고 저출산 문제를 함께 경험하고 있다. 연금개혁 전략은 노동활성화개혁(LAP)의 채택 전략과 뚜렷한 차이가 존재하고 있다. 민영화확장개혁(EPP)은 직업 또는 개인연금의 가입을 자발적 가입에서 강제가입으로 확정하며 기존 공적연금시스템에 대한 축소개혁을 함께 진행해왔다. 저임금 노동자를 보상화기 위하여 자산조사 (Means-Test)를 통해 연금 혜택이나 연금 크레딧 (Pension Credit)과 같은 다양한 확장연금개혁(Expansionary Reform)도 이뤄졌다. 후발구조적개혁(LSP)은 기존의 연금제도는 중앙계획경제에서 광범위한 시장경제로의 이행을 경험한 국가들로 이루어졌다는 독특한 성격을 지닌다. 이러한 국가가 시장경제로 전환한 초기에는 비교적 느리게 경제가 성장하였으며 거시 경제적 전환뿐만 아니라 인구 구조적인 변화도 같이 직면하고 있었다. 또한 빠른 시장경제개방과 脫산업화로 인해 산업구조도 급격한 변화를 겪고 있기 때문에 기존의 연금제도의 골격을 유지하기 힘든 조건에 직면하고 있다. 후발구조적개혁(LSP)은 이처럼 다양한 거시 사회경제적 구조변화로 인해 급등한 연금비용 지출에 대한 대책으로 구조적개혁을 선택하였다. 취약한 집단을 보상하기 위해 여러 표적화(Targeting)와 같은 확장 연금개혁(Expansionary Reform)을 했지만 再조준화(Recalibration) 개혁은 아직 도입되지 않았다. 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)은 가장 빠른 고령화를 겪었으며 출산율이 급격히 하락한 것을 경험하고 있는 국가로 구성되었다. 新사회위험(New Social Risk) 역시 비정규직 노동자, 여성 노동시장 참여율 그리고 낮은 취업률을 포함하는 심각한 사회 및 경제적 어려움을 겪고 있다. 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)은 이처럼 점차 늘어나는 新사회위험 (New Social Risk)과 전통적인 '고급여, 저분담' 연금구조의 어려움에 직면하기 때문에 포괄적인 모수개혁을 통해 기존의 관대한 연금시스템을 축소하려고 한다. 저소득 집단과 고령 빈곤층에 대한 자산조사 (Means-test) 와 같은 표적화 (Targeting) 개혁을 통해 노후소득보장의 보조적 역할을 추가하였다. 본 연구는 위에 도출한 4가지 연금개혁 클러스터를 독립변수로 혼합효과모형(Linear Mixed Effect Model, LMM)에 투입하여 각 연금개혁이 연금노력 (Pension Effort)에 대해 통계적으로 분석하였다. 분석결과, 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)에 비해 노동활성화개혁(LAP)은 통계적으로 연금지출(Pension Expenditure)을 감소시켰으며, 반면에 민영화확장개혁(EPP)은 연금관대성(Pension Generosity)을 통계적으로 감소시켰다. 노동활성화개혁(LAP)의 연금개혁 특징을 보면 은퇴연령과 조기은퇴에 대해 가장 많이 강화했고, 한편 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)은 직업 또는 개인연금 가입을 강제가입으로 확장하여 연금 기여와 혜택 간의 더 직접적인 연결고리를 강조했다. 본 연구의 이론적 함의는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 본 연구는 연금개혁이 연금노력 (연금 지출 및 연금 관대성)에 대한 영향의 가장 핵심적인 변수라고 강조하며 또한 연금개혁은 축소형과 확장형 연금개혁을 함께 연구해야 한다고 주장한다. 둘째, 대부분 기존의 비교연구는 중국, 일본과 한국 등 동아시아 국가들을 제외해왔다. 하지만 비교정책에서 이러한 국가들을 실증적분석을 통해 차이점을 도출하여 미래 연구에서 더 효과적으로 다룰 수 있도록 해야 한다. 셋째, 이 연구는 비교사회정책 연구의 복지정책 및 제도를 분류에 대한 정태적(靜態的)인 관점이 아닌 정책변화를 반영할 수 있는 동태적(動態的)인 관점으로 보는 것을 더 타당하며 심층적으로 분석할 수 있다고 주장한다. 정책적 함의는 다음과 같이 제시하였다. 개혁 클러스터마다 각 장단점이 존재하며 정책 입안가들은 연금개혁 정책을 도입할 때 연금지출과 연금관대성을 모두 고려해야 한다. 특히 脫산업화로 인해 일시적・장기적 실업의 증가, 비정규직고용과 여성고용의 증가 등 新사회위험 및 舊사회위험을 고려해서 미래 연금개혁에서 연금지출과 연금 관대성을 동시에 고려해야한다. 이를 신중하게 고려하지 않으면 脫산업화 이후의 저소득 및 취약계층은 더 높은 노인 빈곤에 직면할 수 있다. 한국 연금개혁의 예를 들면, 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)은 장기적으로 연금지출을 낮추고 또한 자산조사(Means-Test)와 같은 표적화(Targeting)개혁을 통해 사회부조형 연금으로 노인빈곤을 해소할 수 있지만 이러한 포괄적인 축소 개혁은 특히 미래 세대의 저소득층의 심각한 연금부족의 문제를 초래할 수 있다. 또 다른 세 가지 한국의 연금개혁에 대한 시사점을 다음과 같이 제시한다. 민영화확장개혁(EPP)은 주로 개인연금 및 직업연금의 강제가입을 통해 연금의 관대성을 제고하기 때문에 이와 같은 개혁전략을 채택하면 한국의 연금의 보장성을 악화시킬 가능성이 매우 크다. 특히 비전형 노동자와 저소득층의 연금수준을 악화시킬 가능성이 매우 크다. 또한 후발구조적개혁(LSP)은 한국의 연금제도의 현황에 현실적이지 않다고 본다. 한국의 독특한 산업구조 및 脫산업사회적 요구와 수요로 인해 비정규직 노동자의 증가로 많은 가입자가 이중부담(Double Payment)을 직면해야 하는 실정이다. 노동활성화개혁(LAP)은 한국의 공적연금제도를 강화하며 한국의 노인 빈곤 및 新사회위험(New Social Risk) 등 문제를 완화하는데 있어 도움이 될 수 있다고 판단한다. ; Chapter One: Introduction 1 1.1 The Purpose of this Study 1 1.2 Limitations of Contemporary Literature 7 1.3 Identifying Dynamic Pension Reform and Pension Effort 13 1.4 Research Scope and Research Questions 15 Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework and Literature Review 18 1.1 Pension Reform Background 19 1.1.1 Demographic Pressures 19 1.1.2 Macro-economic Pressures 24 2.1 Pension Reforms Trends and Pension Structures 27 2.1.1 Trend 1: Convergence between Bismarckian and Beveridgean Structures 28 2.1.2 Trend 2: Retrenchment of Inherited Pension Systems 41 2.1.3 Summary 43 3.1 What Influences Changes in Pension Effort? Existing Arguments 45 3.1.1 Socio-economic Factors 46 3.1.2 Institutional Factors 50 3.1.3 Political Factors 52 4.1 Pension Reform Implementation - The Linchpin of Pension Effort 59 5.1 Characterizing Pension Reform – Four Pension Reform Dimensions 63 5.1.1 Insurance 69 5.1.2 Capitalization 70 5.1.3 Targeting 71 5.1.4 Recalibration 72 6.1 Empirical Research Overview 73 7.1 Analytical Framework 79 Chapter Three: Research Methodology 81 1.1 Data and Scope 81 2.1 Operational Definition of Variables 82 2.1.1 Dependent Variables 84 2.1.2 Independent Variables 87 2.1.3 Control Variables 98 3.1 Methodology 107 3.1.1 Part One: Pension Reform Classification 110 3.1.2 Part Two: Evaluation for Pension Effort - Linear Mixed-effect Model (LMM) 114 Chapter Four: Empirical Analysis 119 1.1 Descriptive Analysis 120 1.1.1 Data 120 1.1.2 Macro-socio-economic Changes 122 1.1.3 Tendencies of Pension Expenditure and Pension Generosity 127 1.1.4 Pension Reform across Countries from 1990 to 2015 132 1.1.5 Summary 151 2.2 Cluster Analysis Results 152 2.1.1 Identifying Pension Reform Clusters 152 2.1.2 Pension Reform Cluster Descriptive Statistics 156 2.1.3 Pension Expenditure and Pension Generosity 164 3.1 Pension Reform Characteristics in Four Pension Reform Clusters 166 3.1.1 Labor-activated pension (LAP) Reforms 166 3.1.2 Extended Privatization Pension (EPP) Reforms 175 3.1.3 Latecomer Structural Pension (LSP) Reforms 190 3.1.4 Extensive Retrenchment Pension (ERP) Reforms 198 3.1.5 Summary 207 4.1 Mixed Effect Model Analytical Results 211 4.1.1 Pension Expenditure 218 4.1.2 Pension Generosity 226 Chapter Five: Conclusion 232 1.1 Research Summary of Findings 232 1.2 Theoretical Implications 235 1.3 Policy Implications 239 1.4 Research Limitations 244 References 248 Appendix A. 267 Abstract (Korean) 272 Abstract (Chinese) 278 ; Doctor
학위논문 (박사) -- 서울대학교 대학원 : 사회과학대학 사회복지학과, 2020. 8. 홍백의. ; This study characterizes 15 countries' pension reform trajectories and statistically examines how these pension reform trajectories affect pension effort during the CRP (Compound Reform Period 1990-2015). This study defines pension reform are either contractionary and expansionary reforms; pension effort refers to both pension expenditure and pension generosity. Conventionally, studies have often examined how socio-influential factors (e.g. socio-economic, institutional, and political factors) affect pension effort. However, these discourses have heavily emphasized contractionary pension reforms and pension expenditure, but have overlooked expansionary pension reforms and pension generosity. This study argues that the traditional retrenchment-focused approach to pension policy research is rooted largely in inherited theories of the 'Welfare State Crisis' and macro-socio-economics, that are not reflective of the recent post-industrial policy shifts occurring in the world. In particular to pension policy, in response to the 20th century old and new social risks, traditional Bismarckian and Beveridgean countries have implemented a mix of contractionary and expansionary reforms. These reforms were designed to deal with pension financial sustainability and adequacy against old-age poverty. Consequently, two primary limitations of previous studies have become apparent. The austerity-oriented and macro view of pension effort using socio-influential factors overlooks an important building block within the dynamic pension reform process. In addition, existing quantitative and qualitative studies have centered around institutions that examine pension policies from a static perspective - overlooking pension policy dynamic changes. During the CRP, pension systems have experienced two interconnected components - retrenchment and expansionary reforms - that ultimately define pension effort. Accordingly, it is necessary to comprehensively investigate how these components of dynamic pension reform affect pension effort in the context of both pension expenditure and pension generosity. This study organized expansionary and retrenchment pension reforms using ten pension reform variables based on the work Häusermann (2010): insurance (e.g. parametric pension reforms), capitalization (e.g. DB to DC shifts), targeting (e.g. means-tested), and recalibration (e.g. pension credits). In order to evaluate how these pension reforms affected pension effort, this study utilized two analytical methods: unsupervised clustering characterizes pension reform trajectories, and an LMM (Mixed Effect Model) statistically evaluates their effectiveness with respect to pension expenditure and pension generosity. Pension reforms were categorized into four pension reform clusters: labor-activated pension (LAP) reforms, extended privatization pension (EPP) reforms, latecomer structural pension (LSP) reforms, and extensive retrenchment pension (ERP) reforms. The labor-activated pension reform (LAP) cluster is generally composed of advanced welfare states that experienced the highest unemployment rates and most pressing demographic changes prior to the CRP. However, their transition into the CRP has been met with significant GDP growth and high employment rates. At the same time, this cluster is facing the highest level of new social risks in regions like women's labor participation, employment in services, and economic openness. In response to both old and new social risks, most of the countries in this cluster made significant reforms meant to mitigate their effects. Various parametric pension reforms (e.g. increasing the retirement age, penalizing early retirement, etc.) encourage individuals near retirement to continue working or re-enter the workforce, thus increasing labor supply. In addition, targeting and recalibration reforms incentivize participation in the labor market by lowering pension eligibility requirements. The extended privatization pension reform (EPP) cluster is very similar in its Marco-socio-economic structure to the labor-activated pension reform (LAP) cluster, in that it is defined by developed nations that experienced drastic macro-socio-economic changes before the CRP. However, in the CRP this cluster has the highest levels of aged 65 years and older individuals, coupled with a moderately high economic growth. Growth compared to the labor activated pension reform cluster may be lower due to this aging. When a higher proportion of a total population is elderly, a larger proportion of economic expenses must be spent on retirement care. However, another additional feature of this cluster's socio-economics is lower birth rates. Some new social risks of interest that have had a particular effect on this cluster are increasing service sector employment rates and higher economic openness. However, pension reform strategies are vastly different from the labor-activated pension reform (LAP) reform strategies. This reform cluster shifts enrollment in occupational or individual pension programs from voluntary to mandatory and these programs then work in conjunction with existing public pension systems. However, in order to compensate disadvantaged groups and unpaid workers, various expansionary pension reforms were also implemented in tandem; for example, means-tested pension benefits, tax reductions or earnings-related subsidies to employers, employees or individuals. The latecomer structural pension reform cluster (LSP) is uniquely composed of countries that had transitioned from centrally planned economies to widespread market-based economies at the inception of their original pension programs. Their transition to market based-economies was not smooth and this was reflected in their relatively slow economic growth. Structural changes are not the only facet that describes the struggles these countries have had during the CRP; demographic issues have also played an outsized role in their economies. Not only had their relative population aged, but at the same time, there was a dramatic drop in their fertility rates. New social risks have been reflected in their rising proportion of service sector employment and the swift opening of their economies. This cluster turned to structural-based reforms as a countermeasure to the ballooning pension expenditures that ensued, because of these different macro-socio-economic hardships. In order to compensate disadvantaged groups and unpaid workers, various expansionary pension reforms were also implemented in tandem with contractionary reforms (ex. targeting reform), but recalibration reforms were not implemented. The extensive retrenchment pension reform cluster (ERP), is composed of countries that demographically aged the most, and experienced the greatest long-term economic hardships because of economic crises during the CRP. Another critical issue was the decline of birth rates in these countries. New social risks have also added stress to their economic hardships with increases in atypical workers, women's labor participation rates, and serious issues with low employment rates. Under these increasing new social risks and problematic pension structures, the extensive retrenchment pension (ERP) reform cluster retrenched inherited asymmetric pension systems through radical parametric reforms, then means-tested programs were additionally added to compensate low-income groups and impoverished elderly. Each pension reform clusters' socio-economic backgrounds provide insight into the underlying indicators that are correlated with their adoption of different pension reform policies. Using these pension reform clusters as independent variables, this study demonstrates that different pension reforms have diversified the existing architecture of pension effort. According to the Linear Mixed Effect Model (LMM) results, the labor-activated pension reform (LAP) cluster statistically reduced pension expenditure relative to the reference pension reform cluster (extensive retrenchment pension reform cluster). The extended privatization pension (EPP) reform cluster significantly reduced pension generosity relative to the reference pension reform cluster (extensive retrenchment pension reform cluster). While the labor-activated pension (LAP) reform cluster maintained the highest standard pension retirement age and most restrictions on early retirement, the extended privatization pension (EPP) reform cluster created a more direct link between pension benefits and an individual's pension contributions, by shifting to mandatory enrollment in occupational or individual pension programs. This study asserts that pension reforms are the key to understanding pension effort (pension expenditure and pension generosity), and that contractionary and expansionary pension reform policies should be studied together. In addition, existing comparative studies have often excluded East-Asian countries, in particular, China, Japan, and Korea. They should be included in comparative policy analysis that will allow researchers to determine if they are empirically different, and thus compensate or address those differences more effectively in future research. In comparative social policy research, from the new institutionalism perspective, policy classifications should consider the process of policy change, from a dynamic perspective rather than static characteristics. This study suggests that policymakers may need to be concerned about each pension reform's pros and cons in the context of pension expenditure and generosity when adopting a pension reform. In future pension reforms, policymakers need to explicitly design their policies around increasing new profiles who, if not considered more carefully, are at higher risk of poverty in this post-industrialized global economy. The most sensible means of doing this is if policymakers avoid reducing benefits for these groups when legislating future pension reforms. Take Korean pension reforms as an example. Korea adopted an extensive parametric pension (ERP) reforms that may prove to be an effective way of curbing costs, while means-tested incentives provide more generous benefits to the growing population of at-risk individuals. However, extensive retrenchment pension (ERP) reforms have a high risk of providing inadequate pension benefits to at-risk groups without seriously resolving issues with program expenditure. Since extensive retrenchment pension (ERP) reforms do not sufficiently meet the needs of the Korean pension system, the next step is to look at alternative clusters to resolve these issues. Extended privatization pension reforms (EPP) generally supplement pension benefits by adopting a market-based pension component. However, adopting a reform from this cluster will also likely result in stagnated pension coverage, deteriorated pension benefits, and increased gender and income inequality. Adoption of a latecomer structural pension reform (LSP) (e.g. NDC) is also not realistic, because there are a large number of atypical workers in Korea (e.g. self-employed, part-time workers) who are unable to shoulder considerable financial burdens (double payment issues). This study suggests that adopting a labor-activated pension reform (LAP) may be the most effective pension strategy to strengthen Korean public pension system security. This strategy takes into account new career profiles that were previously overlooked by the system; the goal of including these workers to the system would be to reduce the occurrence of old-age poverty. ; 本论文定量比较分析了15个国家在1990-2015 (compound reform period, CRP:1990-2015)综合改革期间的养老金改革轨迹,及其对养老金努力(pension effort)的影响。本文定义了养老金改革包括消减性改革(contractionary pension reform)和扩张性改革(expansionary pension reform),养老金努力(pension effort)包括养老金支出(pension expenditure)和养老金慷慨度(pension generosity)。受"福利国家危机论"的影响,现存的大部分相关学术主要分析了宏观社会・经济因素(包括经济,政治和制度因素)对养老金政策的影响。这些研究集中在研究养老金支出而忽视了对养老金慷慨度的分析. 宏观社会经济背景及制度的遗产(institutional legacy)或历史轨迹等对养老金努力(pension effort)影响效应息息相关,但是本研究认为基于宏观理论并限定于养老金支出的传统文献没有充分的的分析到后工业社会下(post-industrialization)的养老金改革轨迹和特征。尤其是从20世纪末,为了应对新旧社会风险(old and new social risks)的压力,综合型养老金改革(compound pension reform),即消减性改革(contractionary pension reform)和扩张性改革(expansionary pension reform)被纷纷采纳去同时解决养老金财政可持续性和抵御老年贫困的两个问题。本文认为传统文献在研究养老金政策的影响因素中存在两个主要局限性问题:第一,忽视了核心变量-养老金改革对老金支出(pension expenditure)和养老金慷慨度(pension generosity)的影响。第二,现有的定量和定性社会政策比较或聚类研究只从围绕静态角度(static perspective)的政策特征却忽视了政策的动态变化(policy dynamic change)。 本文以Häusermann (2010)的养老金改革理论为基础,分析了包括消减性改革(contractionary pension reform)和扩张性改革(expansionary pension reform)养老金改革的十个变量:保险参数(parametric reform参数改革),市场化(例如: 从DB 改革成 DC),目标化(targeting) (例如: 经济能力审查:means-tested), 再调整(recalibration) (例如:养老金补贴: pension credits)。为了从统计学上评估分析这些养老金改革对养老金努力(pension effort)对影响效应,本文采用了两种分析方法:K均值无监督聚类分析(clustering analysis)和线性混合效应模型(linear mixed effect model, LMM)。根据聚类分析(clustering analysis)结果,15国家在1990-2015期间的养老金改革可分为四个改革类型:劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP), 扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP), 后发结构改革型(latecomer structural pension reform, LSP),和激进消减改革型(extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP). 基于定量统计数据比较分析,线性混合效应模型(linear mixed effect model, LMM)分析结果发现不同的改革轨迹对养老金支出和养老金慷慨度影响不同。 劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP)是由发达福利国家组成,这些国家在CRP(1990-2015)之前遭遇过经济衰退和前所未有的失业率增加和人口转变问题,但是在CRP(1990-2015)的过度期间实现了GDP和就业率的总体水平回升。相比于其他的改革类型,这些国家面临着最高水平的社会新风险(new social risks): 女性劳动就业和服务性就业者不断增加。为了应对新旧社会风险(old and new social risks)和减轻养老金财政压力,这些国家采取了大力度的养老金参数改革。主要包括参数改革(例如: 延后退休, 处罚提前退休等),鼓励接近退休等人继续工作或重新加入劳动市场。此外利用扩张性的目标化(targeting)和再调整(recalibration)改革鼓励人们参与劳动市场并通过养老金水平等。 扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)的宏观社会经济结构背景和劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP)比较相似,但是他们的养老金改革决策却大相径庭。在CRP前期,这些国家也是经历过宏观经济巨变的发达福利国家.低生育率和最高的老年人口比例,这个改革类型的国家面临养老金支出巨大失衡的压力。另外不规则就业者(atypical worker)和服务性就业者的比例不断上升也威胁着养老金政策的长期可持续性。扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)的主要决策是通过强制性策略提高参加职业和商业养老保险并且采取相对应的公共养老金参数改革方案。扩张型改革(expansionary pension reform)主要是为了弥补弱势和底薪群体,例如,对雇主,雇员或个人就行减税并且给以适当的补贴,经济能力审查的(means-tested)养老金补贴改革也是尤为突出。 后发结构改革型(latecomer structural pension reform cluster, LSP)的国家在养老金改革初期经历了市场经济转型独特社会变化。特别是在市场经济转型初期经济增长还没有真正的崛起,养老金制度不仅面临经济转型的挑战,人口转变包括人口老龄化和生育率下降问题更是加剧了养老金制度的财政失衡。另外新社会风险(new social risks)和全球化更激化了服务性劳动者的增加。为了扩大政府财政来源和弥补养老金缺口,这些社会背景推动了这些国家以结构改革(structural pension reform)为主线。为弱势群体也提供一定的社会补助,例如,经济能力审查的(means-tested)养老金补贴,但是后发结构改革型(latecomer structural pension reform cluster, LSP)目前缺乏再调整(recalibration)的扩张型改革(expansionary pension reform)。 激进消减改革型(extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP)在CRP初期临最严重的老龄化增长和经济危机带来的长期经济困难。人口转变(生育率急剧下降,老龄化进程加速)更是加剧了养老金的经济持续性问题。同时,这些国家更面临着由迅速的现代化进程所带来的挑战:服务性劳动者,女性劳动市场的参与与日俱增,就业率急剧下降等新社会风险(new social risks)。在这种社会背景下,激进消减改革型 (extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP)采用了大幅度的参数改革(parametric pension reform)为消减现存的养老金财政问题。资格审核(means-tested)的社会救助被采用去补助低收入人群和老人的养老金收入。 本文把以上的四个改革类型作为自变量研究分析了各个改革类型对养老金努力(pension effort: pension expenditure, pension generosity)的影响效果。根据线性混合效应模型(linear mixed effect model, LMM)的分析结果,相对于激进消减改革型 (extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP), 劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP)有效的消减了养老金支出; 扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)有效的得降低了养老金的慷慨度。相比之下,劳动激励改革型(labor-activated pension reform, LAP)维持了最高标准的养老金退休年龄和提前退休的最大限制,而扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)则是通过强制参与职业和商业退休金制度加大紧缩养老金和缴费之间的直接关系。 理论层面,第一,本研究强调养老金改革变量是理解养老金努力(pension effort)的关键。第二,1990年以来的养老金改革应该同时考虑消减性改革(contractionary pension reform)和扩张性改革(expansionary pension reform)。第三,从新制度主义的理论角度来看,社会政策比较更应该考虑动态政策变化(pension dynamic change),不应该只限于静态视角(static perspective)的政策特征。第四,传统的社会政策比较研究文献经常忽略了东亚国家,比如,中国,日本和韩国。本文认为,尤其是比较研究更应该把这些国家包括在内因为通过比较可以更有效的分析这些制度改革决策的差异性。 政策层面,在制定养老金改革方案时需要同时考虑改革对养老金支出和养老金慷慨度影响的利弊。考虑到后工业化所带来的新风险和现存的旧社会风险,在未来的养老金改革方案中养老金长期可持续性需要要均衡养老金支出可持续性和慷慨度。以韩国养老金改革为例,激进消减改革型(extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP)可能有助于控制养老金支出,另外经济审查性的社会补助(means-tested)是可以填充贫穷老人的养老金水平;但是其改革方案很可能让高风险群体(ex. atypical workers, lower-income)面临养老金严重不足的问题。由于激进消减改革型(extensive retrenchment pension reform, ERP)不能充分满足韩国养老金制度的需求,本文总结分析了其他三个改革方案的可取性。扩展私有化改革型(extended privatization pension reform, EPP)方案主要是通过市场养老金组成部分来补充养老金福利慷慨水平,但是此改革方案可能导致韩国养老金覆盖率停滞,并恶化高风险群体(ex. atypical workers, lower-income group)的养老金慷慨度并且加剧性别福利水平不平等等问题。后发结构改革型(latecomer structural pension reform cluster, LSP) (ex. NDC) 方案对于韩国的现状更不现实。由于韩国的独特的工业及劳动市场结构,绝大部分的非典型就业者 (atypical workers) 会很难负担双重付费 (double payment issue) 问题。采用劳动激励改革型 (labor-activated pension reform, LAP) 方案可以加固韩国的公共养老金体系并有效的提高新型职业 (new career profiles) 人员的养老金覆盖率且减少老年贫困。 ; 본 연구는 15개 국가를 대상으로 1990-2015년 사이 발생한 다양한 연금개혁의 궤적을 군집화하고 이러한 연금개혁궤적 군집이 연금노력(Pension Effort)에 미치는 영향에 대해 분석하고자 한다. 본 연구에서 연금개혁은 축소개혁(Contractionary Reform) 과 확장개혁(Expansionary Reform)을 동시에 고려하며 연금노력(Pension Effort)은 연금지출(Pension Expenditure)과 연금관대성 (Pension Generosity)을 나타낸다. "복지국가의 위기론"의 영향으로 기존 대부분의 연구들은 연금노력(Pension Effort)과 관련하여 주로 거시적 관점에서사회・경제・정치 영향 요인이 연금지출에 미치는 영향에 대해서만 분석이 이뤄졌다. 특히 핵심적 연금정책수단인 연금개혁에 대한 연구가 부족했으며 연금노력(Pension Effort)에 연금관대성을 살펴본 연구는 많지 않았다. 또한 실질적으로 전통적인 "복지국가 축소론"을 기반으로 분석한 연구들은 脫산업화로 인해 복지정책의 다양한 변화 및 특징을 충분히 포착하지 못했다. 지난 20세기말부터 舊사회위험(Old Social Risk) 및 新사회위험(New Social Risk)을 동시에 대응하기 위해 많은 국가들은 연금제도의 지속가능성 개선을 위해 축소개혁(Contractionary Reform)뿐만 아니라 확장개혁(Expansionary Reform)도 같이 도입했다. 다시 말해, 기존의 연구들은 크게 두 가지 한계점을 뚜렷하게 나타내고 있었다. 첫째, 거시적 관점에서 분석한 기존연구들은 사회・경제・제도적 영향 요인이 연금노력(Pension Effort)에 미치는 영향과 연금관대성에 대해 연구가 부족하다. 또한 가장 중요한 영향요인 변수인 연금개혁에 대해 분석하지 못했다. 둘째, 기존의 질적 및 양적 비교정책연구들은 주로 연금제도의 정태적(靜態的) 특성만 포착했으며 동태적(動態的) 개혁과정에 대한 연구가 부족했다. 따라서, 동태적(動態的)인 연금개혁이 연금지출과 연금관대성에 대해 어떤 영향을 미치는가에 대한 연구가 시급하고 중요하다. 본 연구는 Häusermann (2010)의 연금개혁을 이론적 기반으로10가지 연금개혁 변수를 포함하며 15개 국가를 대상으로 26년 동안 연금개혁궤적에 대해 분석하고자 한다. 구체적으로 연금개혁 변수는 주로 보험(Insurance), 적립화(Capitalization) (예: DB에서 DC로 전환), 표적화(Targeting) (예: Means-Tested)과 再조준화(Recalibration) (예: 연금크레딧 혹은 교육크레딧)를 포함한다. 우선, 군집분석(Cluster Analysis)을 통해서 다양한 축소 및 확장 연금개혁을 연금개혁궤적으로 규명하였고, 선형혼합효과모형 (Linear Mixed Effect Model, LMM)을 통해 각 연금개혁궤적이 연금노력(Pension Effort), 즉 연금지출(Pension Expenditure)과 연금관대성(Pension Generosity)에 대한 영향을 분석하였다. 분석결과에 따라, 4가지 연금개혁 궤적 유형으로 구분할 수 있다: 노동활성화개혁(Labor-Activated Pension, LAP), 민영화확장개혁(Extended Privatization Pension, EPP)개혁, 후발구조적개혁(Latecomer Structural Pension, LSP) 그리고 긴축연금개혁(Extensive Retrenchment Pension, ERP). 노동활성화개혁(LAP)은CRP(1990-2015) 기간 이전의 매우 높은 실업률과 급진적인 인구학적 변화를 겪은 선진 복지국가로 구성되어 있다. CRP(1990-2015)기간에 진입하여 GDP 성장과 고용률 증가세를 점차적으로 확인할 수 있지만 新사회위험(New Social risk)에 가장 심각한 국면을 직면하고 있었다. 예를 들어, 높은 여성의 노동시장 참가율, 높은 세계화 지수 및 서비스업의 증가 등 있다. 이러한 舊사회위험(Old Social Risk) 및 新사회위험(New Social Risk)을 대응하기 위해 대부분 국가들은 다양한 모수적연금개혁을 실시했다. 특히 은퇴에 근접한 연령인 개인들은 계속 노동시장에 남을 수 있도록 많은 연금개혁을 노력해왔다. 예를 들어, 은퇴연령을 높이고 조기은퇴 연령 축소 및 조기은퇴의 감액을 강화하여 노동시장 참여를 유발하기 위한 많은 연금개혁을 했다. 동시에 표적화(Targeting)와 再조준화(Recalibration)등 확장개혁(Expansionary Reform)을 통해 연금 수급여건을 낮춤으로써 서비스업을 비롯한 저임금 노동자들의 노동시장 참여를 장려하기 위한 개혁을 실시하였다. 민영화확장개혁(EPP)은 거시적 사회경제 변화를 경험한 선진국으로 노동활성화개혁(LAP) 클러스터와 비슷한 거시적 사회변화 구조를 경험하였다. 이 클러스터는 CRP(1990-2015) 기간에 높은 서비스업 취업률과 더 높은 경제적 개방성을 나타낸다. 또한 65세 이상 인구 비율이 가장 높고 저출산 문제를 함께 경험하고 있다. 연금개혁 전략은 노동활성화개혁(LAP)의 채택 전략과 뚜렷한 차이가 존재하고 있다. 민영화확장개혁(EPP)은 직업 또는 개인연금의 가입을 자발적 가입에서 강제가입으로 확정하며 기존 공적연금시스템에 대한 축소개혁을 함께 진행해왔다. 저임금 노동자를 보상화기 위하여 자산조사 (Means-Test)를 통해 연금 혜택이나 연금 크레딧 (Pension Credit)과 같은 다양한 확장연금개혁(Expansionary Reform)도 이뤄졌다. 후발구조적개혁(LSP)은 기존의 연금제도는 중앙계획경제에서 광범위한 시장경제로의 이행을 경험한 국가들로 이루어졌다는 독특한 성격을 지닌다. 이러한 국가가 시장경제로 전환한 초기에는 비교적 느리게 경제가 성장하였으며 거시 경제적 전환뿐만 아니라 인구 구조적인 변화도 같이 직면하고 있었다. 또한 빠른 시장경제개방과 脫산업화로 인해 산업구조도 급격한 변화를 겪고 있기 때문에 기존의 연금제도의 골격을 유지하기 힘든 조건에 직면하고 있다. 후발구조적개혁(LSP)은 이처럼 다양한 거시 사회경제적 구조변화로 인해 급등한 연금비용 지출에 대한 대책으로 구조적개혁을 선택하였다. 취약한 집단을 보상하기 위해 여러 표적화(Targeting)와 같은 확장 연금개혁(Expansionary Reform)을 했지만 再조준화(Recalibration) 개혁은 아직 도입되지 않았다. 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)은 가장 빠른 고령화를 겪었으며 출산율이 급격히 하락한 것을 경험하고 있는 국가로 구성되었다. 新사회위험(New Social Risk) 역시 비정규직 노동자, 여성 노동시장 참여율 그리고 낮은 취업률을 포함하는 심각한 사회 및 경제적 어려움을 겪고 있다. 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)은 이처럼 점차 늘어나는 新사회위험 (New Social Risk)과 전통적인 '고급여, 저분담' 연금구조의 어려움에 직면하기 때문에 포괄적인 모수개혁을 통해 기존의 관대한 연금시스템을 축소하려고 한다. 저소득 집단과 고령 빈곤층에 대한 자산조사 (Means-test) 와 같은 표적화 (Targeting) 개혁을 통해 노후소득보장의 보조적 역할을 추가하였다. 본 연구는 위에 도출한 4가지 연금개혁 클러스터를 독립변수로 혼합효과모형(Linear Mixed Effect Model, LMM)에 투입하여 각 연금개혁이 연금노력 (Pension Effort)에 대해 통계적으로 분석하였다. 분석결과, 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)에 비해 노동활성화개혁(LAP)은 통계적으로 연금지출(Pension Expenditure)을 감소시켰으며, 반면에 민영화확장개혁(EPP)은 연금관대성(Pension Generosity)을 통계적으로 감소시켰다. 노동활성화개혁(LAP)의 연금개혁 특징을 보면 은퇴연령과 조기은퇴에 대해 가장 많이 강화했고, 한편 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)은 직업 또는 개인연금 가입을 강제가입으로 확장하여 연금 기여와 혜택 간의 더 직접적인 연결고리를 강조했다. 본 연구의 이론적 함의는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 본 연구는 연금개혁이 연금노력 (연금 지출 및 연금 관대성)에 대한 영향의 가장 핵심적인 변수라고 강조하며 또한 연금개혁은 축소형과 확장형 연금개혁을 함께 연구해야 한다고 주장한다. 둘째, 대부분 기존의 비교연구는 중국, 일본과 한국 등 동아시아 국가들을 제외해왔다. 하지만 비교정책에서 이러한 국가들을 실증적분석을 통해 차이점을 도출하여 미래 연구에서 더 효과적으로 다룰 수 있도록 해야 한다. 셋째, 이 연구는 비교사회정책 연구의 복지정책 및 제도를 분류에 대한 정태적(靜態的)인 관점이 아닌 정책변화를 반영할 수 있는 동태적(動態的)인 관점으로 보는 것을 더 타당하며 심층적으로 분석할 수 있다고 주장한다. 정책적 함의는 다음과 같이 제시하였다. 개혁 클러스터마다 각 장단점이 존재하며 정책 입안가들은 연금개혁 정책을 도입할 때 연금지출과 연금관대성을 모두 고려해야 한다. 특히 脫산업화로 인해 일시적・장기적 실업의 증가, 비정규직고용과 여성고용의 증가 등 新사회위험 및 舊사회위험을 고려해서 미래 연금개혁에서 연금지출과 연금 관대성을 동시에 고려해야한다. 이를 신중하게 고려하지 않으면 脫산업화 이후의 저소득 및 취약계층은 더 높은 노인 빈곤에 직면할 수 있다. 한국 연금개혁의 예를 들면, 긴축형연금개혁(ERP)은 장기적으로 연금지출을 낮추고 또한 자산조사(Means-Test)와 같은 표적화(Targeting)개혁을 통해 사회부조형 연금으로 노인빈곤을 해소할 수 있지만 이러한 포괄적인 축소 개혁은 특히 미래 세대의 저소득층의 심각한 연금부족의 문제를 초래할 수 있다. 또 다른 세 가지 한국의 연금개혁에 대한 시사점을 다음과 같이 제시한다. 민영화확장개혁(EPP)은 주로 개인연금 및 직업연금의 강제가입을 통해 연금의 관대성을 제고하기 때문에 이와 같은 개혁전략을 채택하면 한국의 연금의 보장성을 악화시킬 가능성이 매우 크다. 특히 비전형 노동자와 저소득층의 연금수준을 악화시킬 가능성이 매우 크다. 또한 후발구조적개혁(LSP)은 한국의 연금제도의 현황에 현실적이지 않다고 본다. 한국의 독특한 산업구조 및 脫산업사회적 요구와 수요로 인해 비정규직 노동자의 증가로 많은 가입자가 이중부담(Double Payment)을 직면해야 하는 실정이다. 노동활성화개혁(LAP)은 한국의 공적연금제도를 강화하며 한국의 노인 빈곤 및 新사회위험(New Social Risk) 등 문제를 완화하는데 있어 도움이 될 수 있다고 판단한다. ; Chapter One: Introduction 1 1.1 The Purpose of this Study 1 1.2 Limitations of Contemporary Literature 7 1.3 Identifying Dynamic Pension Reform and Pension Effort 13 1.4 Research Scope and Research Questions 15 Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework and Literature Review 18 1.1 Pension Reform Background 19 1.1.1 Demographic Pressures 19 1.1.2 Macro-economic Pressures 24 2.1 Pension Reforms Trends and Pension Structures 27 2.1.1 Trend 1: Convergence between Bismarckian and Beveridgean Structures 28 2.1.2 Trend 2: Retrenchment of Inherited Pension Systems 41 2.1.3 Summary 43 3.1 What Influences Changes in Pension Effort? Existing Arguments 45 3.1.1 Socio-economic Factors 46 3.1.2 Institutional Factors 50 3.1.3 Political Factors 52 4.1 Pension Reform Implementation - The Linchpin of Pension Effort 59 5.1 Characterizing Pension Reform – Four Pension Reform Dimensions 63 5.1.1 Insurance 69 5.1.2 Capitalization 70 5.1.3 Targeting 71 5.1.4 Recalibration 72 6.1 Empirical Research Overview 73 7.1 Analytical Framework 79 Chapter Three: Research Methodology 81 1.1 Data and Scope 81 2.1 Operational Definition of Variables 82 2.1.1 Dependent Variables 84 2.1.2 Independent Variables 87 2.1.3 Control Variables 98 3.1 Methodology 107 3.1.1 Part One: Pension Reform Classification 110 3.1.2 Part Two: Evaluation for Pension Effort - Linear Mixed-effect Model (LMM) 114 Chapter Four: Empirical Analysis 119 1.1 Descriptive Analysis 120 1.1.1 Data 120 1.1.2 Macro-socio-economic Changes 122 1.1.3 Tendencies of Pension Expenditure and Pension Generosity 127 1.1.4 Pension Reform across Countries from 1990 to 2015 132 1.1.5 Summary 151 2.2 Cluster Analysis Results 152 2.1.1 Identifying Pension Reform Clusters 152 2.1.2 Pension Reform Cluster Descriptive Statistics 156 2.1.3 Pension Expenditure and Pension Generosity 164 3.1 Pension Reform Characteristics in Four Pension Reform Clusters 166 3.1.1 Labor-activated pension (LAP) Reforms 166 3.1.2 Extended Privatization Pension (EPP) Reforms 175 3.1.3 Latecomer Structural Pension (LSP) Reforms 190 3.1.4 Extensive Retrenchment Pension (ERP) Reforms 198 3.1.5 Summary 207 4.1 Mixed Effect Model Analytical Results 211 4.1.1 Pension Expenditure 218 4.1.2 Pension Generosity 226 Chapter Five: Conclusion 232 1.1 Research Summary of Findings 232 1.2 Theoretical Implications 235 1.3 Policy Implications 239 1.4 Research Limitations 244 References 248 Appendix A. 267 Abstract (Korean) 272 Abstract (Chinese) 278 ; Doctor
Issue 24.2 of the Review for Religious, 1965. ; The Major Superior an~ Her Subjects' Vocation by Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C. 161 Approach to Mental Prayer by Thomas Dubay, S.M. 188 To Be Samaritans All by Michael M. Dorcy, S.J. 201 The Insecure Junior Sister by Sister Jean de Milan, S.G.C. 209 The Prayer of Christ by Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P, 221 Weep--There Is No Other Way by George A. Maloney, S.J. 239 Nun in the World by Mother M. Claudia, I.H.M. 244 Conte.mplation by Ladislas M. Ors'j, S.J. 248 The Superior as Community Counselor by Sister Angelina Marie, C.D.P. 265 For Teresa, Dying of Cancer by T. J. Steele, S.J. 273 Survey of Roman Documents 274 Views, News, Preview~ 280 Questions and Answers 286 Book Reviews 293 VOLUV_~ 24 NUMBER 2 March 1965 ASSOCIATE EDITORS Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Augustine G. Ellard, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITORS Ralph F. Taylor, S.J. William J. Weiler, S.J" DEPARTMENTAL EDITORS Questions and Answers Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Woodstock College Woodstock, Mar~l~md o~ i63 Book Reviews ~ormtm Weyand, S.J. Bellarmine School of Theology of Loyola University o30 South Lincoln Way North Aurora, Illinois 6o543 ÷ ÷ Edited with ecclesiastical approval by the faculty of St. Mary's College, the Divinity School of St. Louis University. Published bi-monthly and copyright, 1965, by Review for Religious at 428 East Preston St., Baltimore, Md. 21202. Printed in USA. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland. Single copies: 60 cents. Subscription USA and Canada: $3.00 a year, $5.75 for two years; other countries: $3.35 a year. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order. Checks and money orders should be made payable to Review for Religious in U. S. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to repre-sent Review for Religious. Change of address requesta should include former address. Renewals, new subscriptions, changes of ad-dress and business corres~ondence should be sent to: Review for Religious, 428 E. Preston Strut, Baltimore, Maryland 21902. Manu-scripts and editorial correspondence should be sent to: Review for Religious, St. Mary's College, St. Mary's, Kausa~ 66536. Quesdous and books for review should be sent to the respective departmental editors. MARCH I 965 VOLUME o4 NUMBER ~ CHARLES A. SCHLECK, C.S.C. The Major Superior and the Meaning of Her Subjects' Vocation If* one were to investigate the various pontifical docu-ments having special reference to religious communities, he would find them often referring to these as "fami-lies." This seemingly simple expression contains within itself a whole host of suggestions, and in the end would seem to be the nucleus for the spirit (and this would include even the government) and spirituality of every religious community. For these, as we know, have their existence and strength from their communion and inti-mate connection with the end of the Church itself--to lead men to the acquisition of holiness. And how im-portant they are for the life of the Church has been clearly stated by Pope Pius XII in rather striking and forceful terms: The Church would not fully correspond to the will of our Lord, nor would the eyes of the majority of men be raised to her in hope and joy as a standard set up unto the nations or as a sign standing in the heavens, unless there were found in her some who more by example than by word, were especially re-splendent with the beauty of the Gospel? This role of the religious community is not at all foreign to the economy of salvation established by God. All communication between God and man has tended to adopt a sacramental medium--language, representa- ¯ In the summer of 1962 Father Schleck gave a series of six lectures to the Conference of Major Superiors of the United States. The pres-ent article is a revised version of the first of these conferences. The other five conferences will be published in revised form in later issues of the REVI£W. 1Address to Superiors General, February 11, 1958, in The States o] PerIection, ed. Gaston Courtois (Westminster: Newman, 1962), pp. 317-8. Fr. Charles A. Schleck, C.8.C., teaches theology at Holy Cross College; 4001 Harewood Road, N.E.; Wash-ington, D.C. 20017. VOLUME 24, 161 ÷ ÷ ÷ Cha~es A. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 16~ tion, the written or the spoken word, events, customs, even garb and dress. It is in this work, that is, in bring-ing before men the visible mark of holiness characteriz-ing and setting off the true Church of Christ, that religious superiors, especially major superiors, are as-sociated with the Church and her bishops and sovereign pontiff, either by receiving jurisdiction as is true of ~nale exempt orders, or by receiving dominative power by reason oF the approbation of the rules and constitu-tions peculiar to a religious institute.2 Thus, while it is the work of the Holy Spirit to begin, and to nourish and foster, and to bring to consummation the work of grace or of God's special love for those called to the religious life, still He associates with Himself in this work and service, so-called secondary causes or auxiliary instruments in whom He wishes to incarnate His own power and love and through whom He wishes this to be communicated to others. It is for this reason that the Apostle Peter writes: Whatever the endowment God has given you, use it in service to one another like good dispensers of God's mercy; if one does some service, let him do it with the strength which God sup-plies, so that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ? In you, however, this governing role was meant to take definite shape and form. This is evident from the very nature of a religious community which we have called, just above, a family. For a family is a group of persons ruled or governed by those who have been established over it by God--a father and a mother. And this is most important for our present considerations. For the characteristic virtue of family life is not legal justice, or human activity on a quid pro quo basis, but rather piet)~, a potential part of the virtue of justice, adding to it the modification which is brought about by the intimacies and warmth of family life. It is the virtue of justice, we might say, with a heart. For all of you the manner of governing that is to be looked for and expected by all, both those inside the religious life and those outside, even those who view your communi-ties from a distance, must always be that of a woman, a mother. Indeed the title which all or most of you bear quite clearly indicates this wish and ardent hope of the Church and the entire family oF God. This title is at one and the same time the measure and indicator oF your function and task and also the measure oF the crowning glory which God intends for each of you in assigning you your particular role in the Church. For if it is He who elects you or appoints you to your task as He did Ibid. 1 Pt 4:10-1. the Mother of the Lord, He at the same time, as He did for her, makes available for you all the graces both ac-cording to their extension and intensity that are de-manded in the work entrusted to you.4 God made every woman by nature generous, merciful, and compassion-ate; and He gave her the desire to offer herself for others. He implanted in her as her essential spirit and movement the spirit of giving, of molding, of forming, of clothing whatever she touches, of mothering it, and of loving it. And the most noble aspect of this mother-hood is the lifting up of those persons she calls her children to God. That is why the motherhood officially given to you by the Church is the most sublime that could possibly be given to any woman. In a religious community of sisters the governing power is given into the hands of women that they as mothers might lead those under them to the common goal of the entire Christian community--the eternal participation of the body-person of Christ in the mar-riage feast of the Lamb. The role of anyone entrusted with shepherding others has very well been pointed out by Isaiah: It is thine to restore those bound in darkness to freedom and light; it is thine to pasture the flock of God and provide feeding grounds for them as they make their way through barren up-lands. Under your care they will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the heat of the noon-day sun overpower them. For you will be to them a merciful shepherd that will lead them to welling fountains and give them to drink of life-giving water? In you this shepherding assumes a rather well-defined mode of expression. It is to be accomplished in accord-ance with the precise externalization which human nature takes in its being found in women rather than in men. It is precisely by using the qualities and gifts peculiar to women that you make your service contribu-tion to the glory of God and to the welfare of His Church and of your own communities. And this service contribution which you make to these ends is most im-portant today. For the Church was meant to be a mighty organization, hierarchical, structured, full of honor and dignity, having its laws and penalties and the power to enforce them. But the Church was also meant to be a Mother, patient, kind, gentle, tender, full of understanding and compassion. Both you and your subjects are always at hand to remind the Church of this maternal aspect of her mission. It is more than evident from the many writings that have appeared on the subject in recent years that a woman called to the religious life is not at all deprived See Summa theologiae, 3, q.27, a.4. h 49:44. ÷ ÷ ÷ Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 ]63 ÷ 4. ÷ Charles A. SchCle.c~k.C, . REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 164 of motherhood. Rather she is called to exercise this function of her being in a much more intensive and ex-tensive manner than is possible in marriage. It is a motherhood that nourishes and molds and centers its whole activity on the life of Christ. By the grace of her vocation she receives in a single fulfillment the two deepest longings of a woman's heart--her woman's desire for motherhood, and her virgin's desire to be wholly God's, wholly surrendered to Him. All this is quite clear in the case of the ordinary religious sister. But I wonder how often those called to exercise supreme authority in service within religious communities of women realize that they are not at all dispensed from this work of woman but rather are called to exercise a more noble and more universal expression of this same function. They are called by God's providence to exer-cise this same activity in reference to the "more illustri-ous portion of the flock of Christ," those who by God's special predilection and love have been called to the vocation of virginity, which is the marriage of a human person with the Lord. Like the work of the Mother of God in redemption, yours is that of associate, con-tributing under the Spirit and with the Spirit to the work of your subjects' sanctification as Mary did in reference to the Church--as a partner, as a woman, and as a mother. In Christ we are given to see that all is priestly. In Mary we are given to see that all is womanly, all is motherly. Her role in the sanctification of the human race was different from that of Christ. Her "merit," her sacrificial oblation, her ransom, all were those of a woman, a mother. She worked along with Christ her Son, but not as an equal, not as one engaged in the same order of operation. Her office was addi-tional, complementary. It is true that oftentimes this work is most difficult, much more diffficult than the motherhood exercised by your subjects. But the greater the motherhood to which one is called, the more suffering and the more participa-tion in the cross-mystery must she expect to fall to her lot. Nor is this so strange. It will always be true that a mother's greatest suffering is interior, that which cen-ters around the emotions, that which involves anxiety, worry, and concern. And usually it comes only at the end of her function when she finds herself no longer in complete control of the minds and hearts of the persons under her, when she must deal with them no longer as children but as mature adults destined to their own proper creativity and life. Since this is always the situa-tion in which major superiors are called to exercise their office of ministry and service, they know with their election or appointment the rather difficult phase of motherhood to which the5, are called. It was because of this difficulty that the late sovereign pontiff Pius XII attemped to recall the image which the major superior must attempt to cultivate in the eyes of her religious: It is no doubt true, as psychology affirms, that the woman in-vested with authority does not succeed as easily as a man in finding the exact formula for combining strictness with kind-ness, and establishing the balance between them. This is an added reason for cultivating your motherly sentiments. You can say that the vows have exacted from your Sisters as from your-selves a great sacrifice. They have renounced their family, the happiness of marriage and the intimacy of the home. It is a sacrifice of great value, of decisive importance for the apostolate of the Church, but it is still a sacrifice. Those of your Sisters who are the most high-souled and refined, are the ones who feel this detachment most keenly. The words of Christ "no one put-ting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the king-dom of God" finds its application to the full, and nowadays, too, without reserve. But the religious order must take the place of the family as far as possible, and it is you, the superiors general, who are expected in the first instance to breathe the warmth of family affection into the community life of the Sisters. You must, therefore, yourselves be motherly in your exterior behavior, in your words and your writings, even if sometimes this calls for the exercise of self-restraint; but above all, be motherly in your innermost thoughts, your judgments, and as far as possible, your sympathetic feeling. Pray every day to Mary the Mother of Jesus and our mother, to teach you how to be motherly." It is quite evident that your motherhood is to reflect and in a sense continue to image that of Mary. And Mary's motherhood is one that is pure, stainless, free from every trace of contamination of the shadow, of the terrible aspect of the mother-image, of the destructive wiles of the "anima," of the desire to possess or be un-scrupulous in protecting and reducing to childishness the creative powers of those under her, of refusing to give them up to their destiny which is for them also, each in her turn and each according to her own way, to give fruit to the life of the Church of God. Thus your motherhood centers around women, not girls; and it must never become maternalistic or harmful or destruc-tive to their legitimate growth as distinct persons, to their adjustments to society and adult life. It is the proper task of a real mother to foster her daughter's competence and well-defined independence, rather than their opposites. To accomplish this task many things ought to be found in you. First, there should be a workable knowl-edge of the principles of spiritual theology, of the ~ Address to Superiors General, September 15, 1952, in The States o[ Per/ection, p. 217. 4. 4. Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 ÷ ÷ ÷ Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 166 history and forms of the religious life in history, an experiential knowledge and almost the founder's or foundress' love for your own religious community, its constitutions, its customs, the authors of its spirituality, and its activities or apostolates. To this there shouId also be added a practical knowledge of the canon law governing religious communities of women, a practical knowledge of feminine psychology, and some principles of guidance. Second, there should also be present a discretion or prudence that is like wisdom, reaching from end to end. This would include tact, winning manners, knowledge of the human heart at its various levels of development--the young, the mature, the mid-die- aged, and the old. This discretion and prudence for our present consideration will also include a motherly vigilance, a dispassionate firmness that is without weak-ness, the ability to foresee and anticipate the needs of soul and body, an unfailing patience, and a zeal that is tem-perate, that knows how to wait and to seek out or receive those who come to you moved by God's grace. A third element or ingredient that you should possess is experi. ence, of the various apostolates, actually exercised if pos-sible or at least vicarious, of the problems and the diffi-culties they normally cause to religious; also an experience and awareness of human failings, not the least of which are your own failings and half-acknowledged shortcom-ings, a grasp of your assets and liabilities which would give you a proper and ordered self-love, with the desire to employ the former and guard against and make up for the latter, through the normal channels of the Christian life, not the least of which is consultation and personal direction. Finally, genuine holiness ol lile is required. For you ought to be not so much a teacher or one who hands out practical rules of life, of doing, and of making, nor just an interpreter of your community's spirit, but first and foremost a master of its life. For it is your privilege and obligation to see to it that the young life which God entrusts to you is begun correctly, or brought to birth in the novitiate, and then formed and made viable in your juniorates, and matured and intensified and deepened throughout the entire course of its existence in your religious family. For the motherhood with which you are entrusted by the Church does not end until you are relieved of your responsibility or until one or other of your subjects closes her eyes in death in order to greet her Lord in life. The perpetuity and continuation of a fervent community (and the life and vitality of the Church depends more upon this than upon numbers) rests with the major superiors' capacity to maintain and deepen in their subjects the spirit of the Church and of the founder or foundress whose exemplary causes they are meant to be.7 In treating of this quality or ingredient of holiness last, it is not my intention to consider it as the least important of all. Second to prudence it occupies the most important place perhaps. Knowledge in itself is not fruitful. It must be united with love. And how else can religious be taught the ways o[ God, schooled in the Lord's service if their own superiors do not possess these? You must remember that your subjects have entered religion in order to seek sanctity according to this way of life. And this is to be learned from those who are set over them in the intinaacy of their community life. It is along this line that much more stress could be laid today. The quality of the teaching of any master of the Christian life--and this is the primary role of superiors: to lead her subjects to sanctity--will be that of her own life. A young and generous soul will find no better way to learn renuncia-tion or surrender through charity than by following in the path of one who herself is practicing these same things. A secret strength goes out from her and is in some way imparted to those who come in contact with her. The ability to love the religious life and to instill this love into others is most important today when it is so easy not only for those outside the religious life, but even for those inside, to be or to become confused in their "vision of the special function and immutable im-portance of the religious state within the Church." s The primary work of a superior is to teach her subjects how to love God, how to make the gift of oneself the surrender of one's personal mystery to God and the service of the Church, a living reality. Since the religious life is essentially a theologal life, a life of faith, hope, and love, and a sacramental repre-sentation of the transcendent goal of the Christian community--the paschal mystery--it is important that these be lived by those in charge. No long dissertation or reasoning or logic will affect others on these points. The superior must live these, for it is only by being a living exemplar of them that she can really hope to exert her teaching on others. As St. Gregory the Great writes: Like Moses, a superior ought to be seen frequently going in and out of the tabernacle and while there caught up in con-templation such that when she comes out she may give hersel[ over to the needs of her subjects and tasks. She must be known as one who truly serves God and His Church.' T See The Gilts o[ the Holy spirit (Notre Dame: St. Mary's College, 1961), pp. 1 ft. 8Address to All Religious, May 23, 1964; N.C.W.C. ed., pp. 6-7. 8Pastoral Care, II, 5 ("Ancient Christian Writers," v. 11 [West-minster: Newman, 1950], pp. 56-8 passim. 4. Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 167 + + Charles A. $chleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 168 Such a life would be appreciated by almost all who saw it. It would be like the light shining on the moun-tain or the city built thereon. And this is as it should be. For while a superior should not seek the praise of others in conducting herself, this does not mean that she should not seek to be loved; but she should seek this in order that this love might prove to be a path leading to the Lord. It is most ditIicult for one who is not loved by her subjects, however well she might preach, or exhort, and provide logic for the life o[ holiness, to find a sym-pathetic hearing from those who make up her audience. "!'his exhortation to holiness is always most timely for anyone in at~thority. Often it happens that when a person undertakes the cares o[ government her heart becomes distracted by the many things demanding her attention. And then she may find that she neglects that which is most important. For when one in authority implicates herself more than is needful with what is external, it is as though she were so occupied with the actual journey that she forgets the destination. The net result is that she becomes a stranger to self-examination and is no longer aware of her own faults and the great harm that is perhaps being given to others. The care of the inner life cannot be relaxed for the sake of pre-occupying herself with external matters. On the other hand respect for the inner life should not bring about any neglect of the external either, for this is also an essential means of her sanctification and her service of Christ and His Church.a° This balance should be main-tained above all by the major superiors of religious communities. Otherwise, it is most likely that the life of her subjects will grow languid because even though they may wish to make spiritual progress, they are con-fronted with a stumbling block in the example of those over them. When the head languishes, it is rather diffi-cult for the members to retain their vigor. It is in vain that an army seeking victory over the enemy follows its leader if she has lost her way. While the office to which you have been chosen by divine providence lays upon you many duties and func-tions- administrator, organizer, pioneer, missionary, counselor, psychologist, financier (a kind of jack-of-all-trades)-- the one which overshadows all and which sub- 10 This need of the major superior, indeed of every superior, is one more reason why superiors should employ the rule of subsidiarity-- the tendency to delegate and subdelegate, especially in large institu-tions. St. Gregory again provides us with the pertinent text: "Subjects are to transmit inferior matters, so that superiors are left to fre-quently attend to the higher things, so that the eye which is set above for guiding the steps of the body may not be annoyed by dust. For all superiors are the heads of their subjects and should look forward that the feet may not go astray" Pastoral Care, pp. 68, ft. sumes them and colors them or affects them is that of being a woman and mother at the service of the com-munity. Only to the degree that this spirit permeates these functions will they be conducive to your own holi-ness, to that of your community, and to that of the Church.lz Of all these various services, however, the one which is most immediately connected with mother-hood by reason of the very nature of the society which you govern and direct is that of seeing to the spiritual development of your religious. In the series of confer-ences that we are engaged upon here, it is this aspect of your special "vocation" within a vocation that has fallen to me. By reason of the limitation of time and the vast-ness of the pertinent matter on this subject, only a few basic considerations along these lines can be taken up. They are meant to serve as directives and approaches which each of you might follow up through reading and prayer and consultation in regard to the same and other topics falling within the scope of this task. It was sug-gested by one of the members of the executive com-mittee that the areas of the vows, especially the positive aspects, and that of the apostolate might be treated. As a result the following general topics have been chosen, each, of course, with its necessary further delineations: (1) the major superior and the vocation of her subjects; (2) religious poverty and sanctification; (3) virginity and sanctification; (4) religious obedience and sanctification; (5) common life and sanctification; and (6) the apostolate and sanctification. In following out these considerations it will be my intention wherever possible to treat them both from the point of view of theory and practice, at least along general lines, such that the practice may be seen to flow out of and be governed by the theory of the topic dis-cussed. It is true that most of the problems which you encounter in the course of your ministry are of a practi-cal nature, demanding practical and concrete or down-to- earth decisions. Still it seems to me that unless you are acquainted with the directive principles which pru-nA similar idea was indicated by Pius XII in reference to the spirit which should underlie the use of canon law: "Canon law like everything else in the Church is wholly directed to the care of souls, so that by the aid and guidance of laws, too, men may secure the pos-session of the truth and grace of Christ, and may live, grow, and die in holiness, piety, and fidelity to faith. Whether in the administration of ecclesiastical affairs, or in the exercise of judicial functions, or in giving the benefit of his advice to the sacred ministers, or the faithful, the canonist should constantly recall to mind that he must render an account for the welfare of souls to whom he can render great services, but to whom he can also do great harm" (Address on the Fourth Cen-tenary of the Gregorian University, October 17, 1953, in The Catholic Priesthood, ed. Pierre Veuillot [Westminster: Newman, 1957], bk. 2, pp. 270-1). ÷ ÷ ÷ Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 169 4, + + Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 170 dential judgment has to follow in coming to a decision affecting an existential here-and-now situation, it is very easy to be or to become confused (especially by reason of the complicated circumstances of today's religious life) and so arrive at a decision which would not be the best. Such a decision could easily inflict a sometimes serious harm, if not immediately at least in the future, to the lives of not only individuals but also that of your entire community and to the very life of the Church itself. It could also harm the image and therefore the effectiveness of the religious sister who occupies a more respected place here in our own country than perhaps in any other place in the world. The Major Superior and the Meaning of the Vocation of Her Subjects It is axiomatic that the whole order of grace has been ordered by God and is communicated to man in accord-ance with the nature he possesses. Thus the subject or person receiving divine communication will incarnate it and make it visible, will show its effects in a way that is patterned after the very nature of the subject. The very nature of God and His love-relationship to man were meant to be reflected not only in Christ but in all of those who would be incorporated into His body-person, the Church. For the Church is the sacramental continuation of Christ who is the perfect self-expression o~ the Father. She is His body, flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, as we find foreshadowed already in Genesisa2 and stated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians.~3 While human nature is essentially or fun-damentally the same in both man and woman, we find it existing in each of them with profound differences and modes of expression. And this foundation and the deepest significance of this sexual polarity originates not just in nature alone or from God as the author of nature, but in the supernatural sphere or from God as the author of man's supernatural existence. According to the Bible, it is in the polarity of man and woman where we find the image and likeness of God, in fact so much so that only in man and woman taken together do we find and discover what one author has called "the blessed icon of God." In fact it would seem that we must conclude that the physical and biological differences which we find exist-ing between man and woman indicate or point to some-thing much more profound, and that is the difference of soul or human spark, the difference of personality, which exists on all and every level of their being-- ~ Gn 2:23. ~8 Eph 5:22 ft. intellectual, volitional, and emotional, as well as physi-cal and biological. Consequently, when God's grace-communication incarnates itself in woman it takes on a shape and form different from that found in man, and it expresses itself along very well-defined lines. Thus, to understand and to be able to guide or direct or form or shape or mold the life and dynamism of the woman in the order of grace, demands that one know what she is in the order of nature.14 If we were to analyze or look into the overall makeup of woman on all the levels mentioned above, we would see first of all that she is much more alTective or love-directed than man in her approach to reality. It is for this reason that she tends towards the personal and the living. To cherish, to keep, and to protect what is per-sonal and living--this is her natural, her authentically feminine propensity.15 She was created by God to be the complement of man, subject to him in domestic or family life. She was to be the heart and soul of man, of the human race, its vital force, like the human heart that moves the hnman body to action. She has received and she possesses human nature in such a way that its loving force, its receiving capacity, its conserving capacity, its pondering capacity, and its formative, molding capacity are rather strikingly manifest. Indeed it is because she possesses these capacities that she by reason of her entire personality, her body, her soul, her powers of under-standing, her capacity for love, her almost inexhaustible devotion, is made to mother the human race in one capacity or another. She is made to know it as only a mother can know it, in all of its depths, its sublime potentialities, and also in its most embarrassing and material and temporal needs. It is for this reason that God has endowed woman with a family instinct, a maternal instinct, which can be used to build a human family or something far more extensive, the family of man or the family of God. A woman is potentially mother not only in reference to individual beings, but in reference to nature as a whole, to the whole world. And this is rather important for us to recall. For once stress is laid upon this view of woman, her need and power to create in cooperation with man, it can be seen that this need and power is something that can quite easily go beyond the limited confines of the husband-wife couple and encompass all the relations existing between men and women in reference to the human family. This direct and intimate relationship with persons rather x'See F. X. Arnold, Man and Woman (New York: Herder and Herder, 1963). The entire work is excellent on this point. ~ The Writings o] Edith Stein, ed. Hilda Graef (London: Peter Own, 1956), p. 161. ÷ ÷ ÷ Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24~ "1965 '4" 4. Charles A. Schleck, C.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS than with things tends to make her world compact, which is not to be understood in the sense of narrow, but rather as a concentration on what is near at hand. And this is usually true even in her professional world if she lives in such, where she might happen to be an educator, a doctor, a social worker, or a nurse. She brings to this compact world where she functions warmth and a new atmosphere. From all this it should be clear that it is not right for woman to dodge or side-step this mission, to isolate her interests, to make her life too self-centered. She exists for humanity such that every talent she has received must be put at the dis-posal of the hnman family. This analysis of woman would also show that she is in.tuitive, that she has received human nature in such a way that its intuitive ability would be rather clearly set out. She was made to understand the deep sense of the inner values of things, of their spiritual content as well as or even more than their material or temporal con-tent. Thus in the sphere of her intelligence we find a profound difference between her and man. She usually has a finer perception, a better taste, a greater potenti-ality for sensibility and tact. She possesses a greater ability for visual perception, for the visual understand-ing of the world. Her senses are more open to external attractions. In fact it is this very power of observation that is a necessary complement of her intuition, since her judgment (good or bad) is formed by a rapid, almost simultaneous, look into and through the elements of a situation. It is because she is more intuitive that she was made to reveal the deep and the more profound levels of our being which she knows not so much by cold reason-ing or by speculation or by theoretical analysis, as by intuition, by instinct, by connaturality, by an identifica-tion, by a deep and warm knowledge that understands humanity much more intimately than does man. It is her mission to understand humanity, its weaknesses and infirmities, even its sins. It is her mission even to sympa-thize with these without ever, however, consenting to them. It is her mission to encourage, to prevent, to direct, not so much by governing or dominating--for in dominating she destroys both others and herself---as by being, by example, and by living. Thus the role of woman because she is intuitive is to suggest and inspire, not to be an activist principally, but rather a contempla-tive. She is expected to be intelligent but not opinion-ated, submissive but able to lead especially by urging to activity, unassertive but capable, intuitive but clear thinking, not over-active yet quietly efficient. It is in these ways that she is meant to redeem every situation by coming forward with her immense power to heal humanity by being its seer and its poet, and by so act-ing to achieve her place and fulfill herself. An analysis of woman would also indicate that she is more emotional than man; that the emotional side of her life is an essential part of it; that it is an integral part of her so-called "passivity"; that it is the goal, whether conscious or otherwise, of much of her en-deavor and striving. She is frequently preoccupied with surface agitation because of her need to give emotional satisfaction to others and to receive it in turn from them. It is this very deep need for receiving emotional satis-faction that also brings to the fore woman's need for another. She is dependent on others because she hopes to gain from them the security which satisfied emotional needs and wants effect in her. Unless a woman has found this other source of emotional satisfaction, or unless she has sublimated it in relation to a higher person and his interests, she becomes restless, unsatisfied, and frus-trated. She is made to love and to be loved, and she cannot find her sufficiency in herself. That is why a woman who is selfish and self-centered is an anomaly that is more distressing to encounter than a selfish man. For she has denied her nature, as it were, when she ceases to exist for others; and in doing this she has dried up at its source the possibility of those emotional experiences so vital to her person. This need for emotional satisfaction would also seem to account for the woman's impulse of self-surrender, her capacity to yield or to open herself to one who advances towards her with love. Deep down in her being woman knows that her role is one of submission, that only by renunciation can she become her true self. That is why an essential part of her person and her emotional need moves her to submit since this is fulfilled by such a re-sponse. And unless a woman can find one to whom she can submit in love, she will find that her love will not flower and that her emotional need will not be satisfied. This ingredient of self-surrender so evident in the woman's makeup must not be confused with pure pas-sivity as some often think. Woman is actively passive. Her activity is directed more towards the emanation of her personality, in her protection of and care for what she has received and conceived. Thus her person im-plies an active yielding and acceptance of what comes to her in love. It is this very quality which makes woman a unifying force in God's plan. For she is meant to act as an icon or image of humanity's attitude toward God. It is for this reason that we have running through the whole of salvation history the image of the woman pointing out again and again that humanity must be-come feminine before God, open to His advance, ready 4- + Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24 1965 4, 4, 4, Chades A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]?4 to be receptive, ready to yield to His every word and request. Thus it is the woman and not the man who is the archetype of humanity's relationship with God. She is symbolic of the only power which man has in reger-ence to God's love. Thus the childlike quality that we often find among women saints is not to be confused with a weak and playful infantilism. It is rather the longing for and the expression of that security which we can recognize as a rather profound condition of the finest women in history. Its essence is innocent confi-dence, based on that childlikeness which the Lord de-mands for the kingdom of heaven. It is the magnani-mous surrender of oneself, the total sacrifice of self, and unlimited confidence in God's power and fatherly goodness. Thus woman is a sign of faith taken in its biblical sense, faith which expects nothing from man, but relies wholly on God. When these ingredients of woman are found per-fectly in an individual, they would seem to present us with a picture of the divine idea of a human nature that is perfect and truly complete at least in reference to God. And they are found in one person, one woman, the Mother of God. Our Lady provides us not merely with a prototype or archetype of woman redeemed, but of mankind, humanity redeemed. This is the meaning of the Immaculate Conception. It is merely the revela-tion to us of the human being when still unfallen, of the undesecrated countenance of the creature man, of the perfect image of God in man as it existed when the "'fiat" of God's creative activity rested upon him in the dawn of his creation. Indeed what would seem to come from prolonged meditation on the purpose and image of Mary, what seems to sum up her entire personality is her simplicity, which is not so much a virtue as rather the culmination of her perfect and balanced harmonious activity. It is the expression of a real inward unity and purpose. It is opposed to multiplicity and diversity of aims and in-tentions. It is a life entirely directed to God. And sim-plicity is a mark of divinity or of the divine. Mary had a nature that was incapable of pretense, of going too far, or of stopping too short of the mark. She never added anything to what had to be said or done, nor did she ever subtract anything. That is why what we find most attractive in Mary is her complete self-possession in spite of the plethora of grace and divine favor that was given to her as the Mother of God and as the archetype of humanity. She always and everywhere preserved what was natural to her feminine makeup.16 That one person, one woman should be able to l~Ibid., p. 125. transcend the differentiation of the sexes before God is not an entirely unusual phenomenon. It has been said that many important personages such as geniuses and saints have been able to stand above this differentiation in sex, that they have been able to unite in themselves the qualities of both man and woman in a creative harmony. And we may well ask ourselves whether this transcending of natural barriers is not perhaps the highest effect of the workings of grace. If we were to study the treatise on God the Trinity, we would soon discover that the image of woman reflects rather closely that of the Third Person in the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. He is called Love, Breath or Kiss, Gift, and His operation in the economy of salvation is that of a mother-principle. He is called Love, the Person of Love in the Trinity because He proceeds by way of volitional activity in God. To fall into the realm of metaphysics for a moment, we might say that the pro-cession of love or rather that which proceeds through the activity of love proceeds as spirit; spirit, however, signifies or expresses a certain vital or life-giving move-ment and impulse. The activity of love produces an inclination or an out-going or a giving, and this is no less true in the case of the activity of love in God. Thus the Holy Spirit is movement, secret mysterious activity in His very Being, just as is love as found among crea-tures. That is why, perhaps, when He is described in Sacred Scripture it is always in terms and ideas and ex-pressions implying motion or movement--spiritus, that is, wind, breath, or breeze; or He is compared to a river or fountain that flows from the throne of the Lamb.17 It is for this reason that the fathers of the Church are fond of referring to the Holy Spirit as the breath or kiss of the Father and the Son, the most secret but sweet kiss. And this is quite correct. For a kiss is an expression of unity and a means to it. And if anywhere there is not only oneness of love, but also oneness of life be-tween persons, if anywhere lovers are of one spirit and are one spirit, surely this is true within the mystery of the Godhead. Between the Father and the Son there are not merely two lives that melt into one; there is only one life and one heart, one love-producing activity. Thus the breath or the kiss of the Father and the Son cannot be merely a vehicle or medium to procure unity of life in God; it is rather its expression. Hence the Father and the Son do not pour out their breath of life into each other by their kiss, but from the interior of their common heart they pour it into a third Person, one in whom the oneness of their love and their life is ~'See Jn 3:8; 7:38-9; 20:22-3; Ap 22:1 ff. Superior anal Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 175 ÷ ÷ ÷ Charles A. C.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 176 manifested and made visible or expressed.IS It is pre-cisely because He proceeds by way of love and is Love that the Holy Spirit is the most mysterious of the Per-sons in God. Love is much more ineffable than the activity of the mind. For while the latter produces a definite term, a word or an idea, the former, love, pro-duces no term but only a movement toward, an out-going. This is the reason why as soon as we try to de-scribe love we must have recourse to metaphors and similes as we find in the Canticle of Canticles or in the Sequence for the feast of Pentecost. Yet for all this note of movement which is attached to the Person of the Holy Spirit, He is never to be considered as restless or feverish in His quest for any object. Like the other two Persons of the Godhead He possesses all objects, being eternally within them. And like them He is "semper agens et semper quietus" to use a phrase of St. Augustine, always active and yet always at rest. Again, the Holy Spirit is called Gift, One who is to be possessed by the one to whom He is given. This implies that He Himself possesses an aptitude and readiness to be given or the ability and desire to give Himself. A gift, however, implies a free and gratuitous and unreturnable donation the motivating force of which is love. Thus the first thing that we give to another whom we truly and genuinely love is that love by which we wish what is most conducive to his personal well-being. Personal love, therefore, is the first gift that we give to another; and it is the root of all the other gifts that we might impart to this other, for example, the use of one's body in mar-riage. Thus in the life of grace, the first thing that God gives us is Himself, as Personal Love, as Gift, that can be possessed and enjoyed and freely so. From this it should be clear that in speaking of the Holy Spirit as the Gift, we do not intend to deny that in a sense the Word of God also can be said to be God's gift to man in the incarnation and again in the mystery of the divine indwelling. Yet the title would not be as properly the Word's as it is that of the Holy Spirit. Gift is that which proceeds by way o{ love activity, which notion as we have seen is proper to the Holy Spirit. Finally, when the Holy Spirit is sent on mission we see that it is always as sign and mother-principle. He is a sign of the divine renewal that takes place within us as a result of God's love--purity and charity; and He is also the forming principle uniting those who have been created according to the image and likeness of God with their Creator and Father. He is the Sanctifier or the bond linking up man with God. Thus His prerogatives ~s M. J. Scheeben, The Mysteries of Christianity (St. Louis: Herder, 19t7), pp, 183-4, 188, of Love and Gift are most strikingly evident in the work of man's sanctification. It is for this reason that one of the scholastic theologians mentions that when the hu-man person embraces God or surrenders himself to Him in grace, He receives the kiss of God's mouth and the breath of His Spirit. The powers of the person are made perfect and they are elevated to a higher plane of activity. And when this conversion or this turning to God or surrender to Him is intense, then this kiss is so completely efficacious that the individual drinking in God's Spirit becomes totally transformed by Him. And it is then with sobriety and modesty that this individual allows its love and giving to overflow on others according to their worth and necessity, not giving itself wholly over to them nor seeking them for itself but only for God. This we see in the case of the Church. For she was begun by the kiss of the divine mouth, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the mouth of God and embracing in His kiss the Father and Son. And she in turn exists only for one purpose--to communicate the kiss of the divine mouth to others.1~ From this it would seem logical to conclude that there is a very definite affinity or similarity, not perfect in every or all respects to be sure but at least in many, between the woman and the Holy Spirit, such that her mission when actually and really lived even in the natural order would partially imply her being a reflec-tion of God as Personal Love and Gift or Subsistent Breath. The ideas of love and gift and breath imply movement, an outgoing or communicating activity. And the woman is known for her ability to love and to give herself, to sacrifice herself for the benefit of others, to surrender herself in total donation. And she is also known for her ability to urge on gently, irresistibly, and persuasively, like a soft ocean breeze bellying a ship's sails and moving it to port. Certainly this is the work of the Holy Spirit through His gifts and His own presence in man; and this would also seem to be the role of woman--to be a strong yet gentle impulse urging the whole of humanity on to its last goal, communion with the beloved. And finally the woman is mother-principle, or the one to whose lot it falls to communicate flesh and blood or to be at the service of life; and what she gives, life, she is meant to give in a permanent and unreturn-able sort of way. Consequently, we can say that partially at least the woman's vocation and mission is to imitate and con-tinue through space and time as a sign or symbol and cause the mission of the Holy Spirit--to lead humanity 4- 4- 4- Superior and Vocation ~John of St. Thomas, The Gifts of the Holy Ghost (New York:VOLUME 24, 1965 Sheed and Ward, 1954), pp. 37-8. 177 Charles A. SchCl.eSc.Ck., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 178 back to God by showing it that God is a God of love and of gift; by showing it that its duty is to find God, to go back to Him, to love Him by an unreturnable gift of self in the darkness and mysteriousness of a deep faith and trust. And I believe we might say that the woman would represent and personify the Holy Spirit not partially, but wholly, not merely in her origin, but also in her nature, if, without being wife and mother, she could be the center of love between father and son in a family as a virgin. When we come to the consideration of the religious sister we should not expect her vocation to be contrary to her fundamental vocation of woman. Rather we would expect it to lie along the same lines. And yet because of the increased perfection of her vocation in the order of grace we would expect it to lie much further along the road, such that it would enable her to realize and achieve or fulfill her vocation of woman much more profoundly. And I believe that even a rather brief analysis of the sister's role or place in the Church would bear this out. She is given to the Church as a sign, a visible sign of not one but rather of several realities. And because she is a sign, because she acts as a visible and public witness in the Church, she is given to the Church and to the humanity intended to belong to the Church as a visible parable, or a graphic picture, or model or icon or type, for all to see, of the intimate rela-tionship which the whole of humanity is meant to have with God. We mentioned above that all communication between God and man has tended to adopt a sacra-mental or sign-medium--either that of language or events or representations or personifications (for exam-ple, Judith, Moses, the Virgin Mary). And this is no less true of the sister's vocation. Because her role with rela-tion to man is sacramental, everything about her should indicate what she stands for---her dress or garb, the houses where she lives, the entire rhythm and disposition of her life. She is meant to indicate publicly that man belongs entirely to God, that one day he will have to live only for Him and only with Him. She is meant to indi-cate publicly that man belongs entirely to God, that one day it will have to live only for Him and only with Him. She is meant to indicate perpetually not in herself alone, but in the institution which she gives life to during the course of her earthly life, that man is called to experience God's personal love, that he is intended to receive His special attention, that he is called to enter into a relation-ship with God that can best be signified by the bridal rela-tionship, by the union existing between man and wife. Thus the sister is meant to be revelatory in the fullest sense of this word. There is a tradition which runs through revelation, as we mentioned, placing the woman firmly on this side of heaven and identified with God's chosen people, His Ecclesia. It is the feminine image or archetype, which stands for the whole of humanity, for God's chosen and elect. In this role she is not meant to be wife to husband in the sense of being merely an object for masculine projections. She is meant to indicate that the whole of mankind especially in the order of grace is the object of God's special predilection, that it receives all that it has, especially in this order, uniquely from God, as a woman, the body-person of her husband, receives her glory and her name from her husband. This would seem to be at least something of the theological mystery or the reli-gious significance of the woman consecrated to God within the framework of a religious community. And it is for this reason no doubt that her ever further unveil-ing so often means the breakdown of her public mission and of her mystery or sacrament before the People of God and before all called to belong to this People. Per-haps we might identify this unveiling today with the contemporary trend that attempts to prove or demon-strate that woman can make her best contribution to human progress by being not merely equal to man, but identical with him, instead of by being herself. There is a common desire and a legitimate curiosity within the human race to see the goal to which it is divinely destined, to catch while still here on earth a glimpse of itself in glory. And this is given to it in the vocation of the religious sister. This is part of the mean-ing of the reception of the habit assigning her a public mission in the Church and before humanity--to be a sign of humanity's belonging to God as His bride. It is in this way I think that the Sister is meant to be a sign permanently and visibly present in the world of the sublime privilege and compulsory destiny of the whole of humanity--to be open and docile and obedient to the plan of salvation, as a bride is open to her husband.2° How important this is for the vocation of your sub-jects can be seen from the fact that woman insofar as she is directed toward man and toward the love of man re-tains her bridal character throughout her entire exist-ence. Thus a wife in her attitude toward the husband she loves remains a bride throughout her entire life. For the bridal quality of the woman is merely a repre-sentation of her love in its undying and unending re-newal. If this is true of the ordinary woman, it should be even more true of the virgin who is consecrated to Christ. For she by special commission of the Church ~ ¥ictor White, O. P., Soul and Psyche (New York: Harper, 1960), pp. 12 ft. ÷ ÷ ÷ Superior Vocation VOLUME 24, Z965 ]79 + 4. 4. Charles A. SchCle.Sck.C,. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]80 pronouncing on her call from Christ is set aside to be a permanent and symbolic or sacramental renewal in sign of the Church's and of each person's bridal rela-tionship to the Lord. In a much more visible way by her virgin's vocation and by her habit is her bridal quality renewed and her wedding day continuously and daily represented and repeated before humanity. And how perfectly this function and mission or public assignment corresponds with the ingredients of her natural vocation. Surrender to another in personal en-counter is the deepest longing of a woman's heart. When a woman makes this surrender to another creature she is underestimating her worth; and she is, perhaps with-out knowing it, making demands which no creature can possibly fulfill. Only God can receive us in such a way that He fills the quasi-infinite and inexhaustible demands of the human heart to love and to be loved. That is why the aim of the religious life--complete surrender to God--is also the one adequate fulfillment of woman's longing. From this we can see why the "fiat" of the Mother of God at the Annunciation, and its continuation throughout her entire life, and the profession of the religious sister is a visible symbol of humanity's essential religious quality, surrender to God, openness to Him. In a very special way then tlfis atti-tude is truly the special charisma, the ecclesial function of the sister in the Church. And she should not forget that the idea of charisma means not the working out of one's own career designs, but rather the obliterating of one's own person to the point of its becoming an instru-ment of service to the ecclesial community and to hu-manity as a whole. In addition to the religious sister's being a sign of the relationship of humanity with God, she is also meant to be a sign of God's relationship to the world of man. And this is one of love and concern. Thus she is meant to assume the interests and concerns of Eternal Love, or she is meant to reflect and place before the whole of humanity the personal and intense and warm love which God has for it. And she reflects these concerns and interests, even anxiety, in a light that is peculiarly her own; that is, in a maternal light. Thus the religious woman's love dynamism is not only not annihilated in her being called to assume her ecclesial function; it is rather given new life and becomes far more extensive that that of "she who hath husband." 21 It is meant to assume the status and the proportions of the God-man Himself. Thus God by calling her to the religious life communicates to the woman together with the grace of her vocation something that was not there before. This is .o~ Is 5-t: I. a divine dynamism or vitality which makes her every ac-tivity, her every response to God a form of fruitfulness and motherhood. Even though her apostolic work may be rather quiet and performed in relative hiddenness and obscurity, it is still a dynamic power or force that transforms and gives life to all that it touches. That is why her woman's natural desire is not at all annihilated. Rather, it is made to expand as she assumes more and more fully the perspectives of a daughter of the Church. The woman who is called sister is a mother in the high-est sense of the word. This was very strongly asserted by the late sovereign pontiff, Pope Pius XII, in an ad-dress given in May of 1956: The Catholic Church, depository of the divine designs, teaches the higher fruitfulness of lives entirely consecrated to God and to neighbor. Here the complete renunciation of the family should make possible the completely disinterested spiritual ac-tion which proceeds not from any fear of life and its responsi-bilities, but from the perception of the true destinies of man, created to the image and likeness of God and in search of uni-versal love, which no fleshly attachment can limit. That is the most sublime fecundity and the most desirable which man can seek, the fecundity which transcends the biological order and reaches straight into that of the spirit.~ This truth is more important for us to recall than ever before. There is no such thing as a woman's right to a child. There is only the right of the child to a mother. For a woman to be a physician, a guardian, a teacher, or a nurse is not a profession in the masculine sense of the word. It is the form which her spiritual motherhood is to take in God's designs. Thus a profes-sion is not just a substitute for the unmarried woman's lack of physical motherhood. Rather it is the working out of the never failing motherliness that is in every genuine woman. And this is the more true, the more her motherhood turns around those things which are regarded as the timeless possessions of humanity, the cultural and religious values of the human race. Thus in the Church by reason of her religious mission and her apostolate as mother, the sister has her place beside the bearer of religious fatherhood, beside the priesthood of the man. And in this respect she is like the Church who in her character as mother is a cooper-ating principle with the one working within her, Christ Himself. Perhaps it is in this vision of her vocation where we discover the fundamental reason why it was fitting that the priesthood was never entrusted to the woman. The priesthood could not be confided to a woman because then the very meaning and significance which she communicates to man would be annihilated. ~ Address to Doctors on Fertility and Sterility, May 19, 1956; see The States o] Perfection, p. 288, n. 624b. 4. 4. 4. Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 ]8] REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS She is excluded from the hierarchy not becanse she is unequal to man but because she is not identical to him. This exclusion is a recognition of the distinctiveness and individuality of the woman. It is a witness to the fact that there are distinctly feminine tasks in the Church which demand the presence of women. Thus this exclusion far from being motivated from any dis-dain for woman springs from a reverence and respect for the true nature of woman, for the peculiar talents and gifts which God has given humanity in her. In fact in her not being capable of the priesthood she renders the priesthood its most outstanding service. For she teaches it by that very fact that the priesthood institnted by Christ is a service rather than a lordship and that it is a service of joy. Its object is agap~ or charity, brotherhood and the bond of love. And charity is above all not a matter of organization, but one of interior disposition of faith that is active in love. Here we find the special domain of the woman's devotion and gener-osity and youthful unselfishness.~3 It is these same thoughts which prompted Plus XII to write in 1957: We do not have to reaffirm Our certainty that Religious women are indispensable in many fields of the Catholic aposto-late, particularly in the field of education and scholastic activity, no less than in the field of charity. The Church's missionary work would for a long time now have been unthinkable without the participation of the Sisters; and in many fields, where the sacred hierarchy is in charge, the labors of the Sisters are indispensable for the well-organized care of souls. Without their help, the Church would have been compelled to relinquish many op-portunities for progress, and many positions, already painfully won, would probably have had to be abandoned. With the aso sistance of your maternal hands, beloved daughters, the Church is able to support the aged in their declining years; with your warmth of heart the Church is able to warm the hearts of tiny orphans; with your fervor of self-dedication, the Church is able to minister to the sick." The Limitations and Weaknesses of Woman In all this analysis of the woman's vocation and mis-sion in nature and in religion, we are not to forget that in the present fallen order of the human race, these ideal qualities and expressions of her image are always the goal or end after which she is constantly striving, a goal that has been ideally reached only by one indi-vidual, the Virgin Mother of God, and this only through a most special and singular grace. The reason for this need for constant effort stems from the fact that the fall withdrew a unifying force which would have kept in Arnold, Man and Woman, passim. Address to Nursing Sisters, April 25, 1957, in The States o] Per- Jection, pp. 286--7. harmony and balance and unity the various ingredients mentioned above. Thus your subjects must be made aware of these different limitations during the course of their formation and also afterwards, since they mani-fest themselves at different age-levels of our human existence. This education should be geared in such a way as to make them aware of the particular spiritual opportunities which are offered to religious women through the presence of these limiting factors and to make them aware of the various protections available against the spiritual decline to which they are then exposed. Without attempting in any way to present an exhaus-tive list of these limitations and weaknesses, the follow-ing thoughts in reference to them might prove to be helpful at least by way of area analysis. We mentioned above that the woman tends toward the personal and the living, toward the whole of things; that she tends to cherish, to keep and protect; that she tends not so much toward the abstract but rather to the concrete. This tendency toward the personal and living and con-crete can, however, become unwholesomely exaggerated. On the one hand she is inclined to be at times extrava-gantly concerned with her own person and problems and to expect the same interest from others, in the case of sisters, their superiors and fellow sisters. This brings about the tendency to anxiety, to depression, the desire to be recognized, to be given attention, to be loved. This situation can be increased when there is question of slight or serious emotional instability, or even by simple glandular disturbance, or by the rhythm of the woman's body activity. It is from this lack of and yet desire for security and acceptance that there can come diffidence, shyness, timidity, even hostility. On the other hand, this over-concentration on the personal can lead to an unmeasured interest in others, which mani-fests itself by way of curiosity, gossip, indiscreet longing to penetrate into the more intimate part of the lives of others, fellow sisters, pupils, and so forth. Again the tendency which she has toward wholeness can lead to an "explosive" use of her energy, to a superficial nib-bling in all directions without any real unifying end or goal. The tendency which she has to cherish, to keep, and to protect can lead to a possessiveness that far exceeds anything required by her work or associations with others. And finally her tendency to the concrete in preference to the abstract can easily cut off from her vision those things which lie outside her immediate environment, or from the broader view which she ought to be taking of things. Added to these there are other weaknesses which can 4. + + Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 183 ÷ ÷ ÷ Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]84 find their way into the life of woman, such as her tend-ency to an anthropomorphic idea of God which could lead to an over-familiarity with Him or to a sentimen-talized relationship with Him such that she would lack the true reverence for Him which she ought to have. Again, we find that she has an inclination to seIf-de-lusion and to suggestibility; that she is easily persuaded and influenced by appearances rather than by reason and logic. In fact it was this tendency that made Shake-speare have one of his female characters remark: "I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so because I think him so." Likewise because of her strong emo-tional needs we find that at times when these are not satisfied, she can be capricious, moody, unstable, extrav-agant, unpredictable, and rather weak of will. And lastly, but certainly not the least important weakness which can be found in woman is the peculiar expression which her conflicts with authority assume. Generally speaking a thorough analysis of such conflicts would usually indicate that they are not so much with the concept or notion of authority as rather with persons in authority. This would seem to follow from the woman's being occupied more with persons than with abstract ideas.~5 While all these things might seem to pertain more to the realm of mere human psychology and to be espe-cially due to the irresolution of the normal crises of human life--those of vocation, identity, intimacy, par-enthood, integrity, and prayer and action,~6 you should attempt to make your religious see that they provide them with the normal channels through which God Himself works out their salvation. They should be seen as the ordinary "dark nights" through which most religious must pass to come closer to God. Just as He makes use of human instruments to effect our holiness, so too does He make use of the ordinary happenings and situations of human life--physical, biological, emo-tional, moral, and intellectual crises--to lead us closer to Himself. Such an attitude, of course, cannot be achieved unless your subjects are educated to and constantly re-minded of the fact that they must regard the circum-stances of life--at all levels--as given and provided for by God. It is through these very ordinary events of life that grace is made visible and available for them in these rather human "sacramental" forms. It is in this way that you can hope to impress upon your religious ~nW. Demal, O.S.B., Pastoral Psychology in Practice (New York: Kenedy, 1955), pp. 54 ft. ~ For an excellent treatment of these crises, see Barry McLaughlin, S.J., Nature, Grace, and Religious Development (Westminster: New-man, 1964), pp. 1-128. the fact that they are women and that they possess some or all of the weaknesses of women in our fallen economy; that this is something they should not only accept, but in a sense respect and even reverence, seeing in them the peculiar destiny and glory which God Him-self has singled out for them. It is only in this way that the whole of life can become one continuous sacra-mental encounter with God who continues to reveal Himself through the things that are made and through the things that happen. It is only in proportion as they learn to see these things in this light that they can hope to receive in exchange for their surrender to them the life and deepening faith which He promises in return.27 Conclusion While it is impossible for major superiors to person-ally form all their subjects in reference to what has preceded, still it would seem that they would contribute greatly to the spiritual improvement of their communi-ties if they saw to it that these notions of the woman's vocation and mission in the plan of God were system-atically communicated to their religious throughout the years of their formation. It is only in this way that they can expect their religious (1) to make their precise and proper contribution to God's plan, to the work of the Church, to the apostolates o~ the community, and to their own sanctification; (2) to protect themselves against their weaknesses and the harm these could cause to the realization of the various ends and goals of their ecclesial mission; and (3) to make them aware of and able to use for encounter with God the rich gifts and humbling limi-tations of their own personalities. It is only in this way that they like Mary and the Church whom they continue to embody can provide humanity with a concrete theology of mankind or humanity redeemed. It is for this reason that I would suggest that in your visitations and personal interviews with your subjects, these ideas be frequently presented and recalled. By yourselves knowing and appreciating and loving the woman's and the sister's vocation, public function, and problems, and by making this quite evident to your communities, you will show your maternal interest in them as a family and as persons. And once this becomes evident in you, there is greater hope that the family image which ought to characterize the religious life will become an actual reality. There is greater hope that each and all of your subjects will combine all the voca-tions open to woman and reflect the virtues that are proper to them. For as virgins they must continue to ~ Adrien Yon Speyer, Meditations on the Gospel o[ St. John (Lon-don: Collins, 1959), p. 43. + + + Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 185 ÷ ÷ ÷ Charles ,4. $chCle.cSk.C, . REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 186 reflect Mary's humility, her simplicity, her naturalness, her silence, her thoughtfulness, her reflectiveness, her caution or reserve, her complete dependence on grace, and her profound faith both in the world of the present and in that of the future. As spouses of Christ, they must practice a perfect personal fidelity to the one they have chosen; for this is the essential relationship existing between bride and bridegroom reflected so strikingly in Mary, the image or archetype of the Church standing at the foot of the Cross. To maintain this fidelity in-violate will at times demand heroic fortitude in the face of the difficulties that come not only from without but most often from within. And finally as mother, they are to practice or cultivate a sense of and use of the social virtues, of the deep interest and consideration and concern for the needs of others. For motherhood implies an encompassing care and attention, the giving of nourishment and shelter, an activity that is marked by its tenderness and gentleness yet firmness, for the weak and fragile things that are being brought forth in Christ. It demands the exact opposite of selfishness and undue self-interest, of worry and anxiety about oneself and one's personal needs, it is rather characterized by self-sacrifice, by resourcefulness, by the ability and desire to give of one's time and energy to and for others, and by laying at the disposal of the race whatever gifts and qualities God may have given her. Your task today is of gigantic proportions. For how evident is our need for a new Pentecost, for the reign of the Spirit and of His influence and His gentle rule; for love of God and obedience, submission, reverence and a sense of the sacred; for purity, warmth, and fresh-ness; for spontaneity, poetry, and the Godward force-- all of which are presented to us in the picture of the woman redeemed. In a sense we can truthfully say that the greatest need in the modern world is for the truly feminine. For to be wise, to learn wisdom, demands that one be feminine to reality, to let reality flood in, to be molded by reality and so achieve a certain fullness from our absorption of it; to rest in reality, and so achieve a certain peace. In the Consolation of Boethius it is a woman who leads him to Wisdom. Her mission is to tell him, a prisoner in the dungeon, that if he had not cast away the weapons she had given him, he would have been invincible against the attacks of evil fortune. And then she attempts to lead him gently back to the realization that not in gaining possession of anything, but only in obedience and love to and for God, will we find eternal happiness and peace. And the world has need of this collaboration. It has a profound need for women who know how to say to God "fiat," to keep all things in their hearts; it has need for women who can bring the world back to a sense of unity, of religion, and of peace. It must return to the simple things, the human things, to the mystery of life and death, of birth and redemption. And it will find these in the woman who reflects in her very body the constant rhythm of nature itself, who holds the secret of life and who knows instinctively that esse is better than agere, being is so much more than doing. That is why she is a sign of the eternal. Again, we can say that woman has need of women who are genuinely themselves. For she has been and is still attempting to find her role too much in the world of man. The world without women is more the world of adolescents than the world of men. It is a world that easily shakes off its transcendental ties. The all-too-masculine activity of self-reliance and self-redemption has dimmed man's vision of the transcendent. Before this will be rectified, mankind must once more become feminine; that is, receptive of the "Word" which con-stantly seeks entrance into its womb. The profound consolation that woman can bring and give to mankind is her faith in the immeasurable ac-tivity and efficacy of forces that are hidden and invis-ible. For the divine creative force can break forth from God to renew the face of the earth only on condition that the earth lifts up its face with its single contribu-tion: "Be it done to me according to thy word." This is the feminine power which Mary shares with all her sex who will follow her in her love and renunciation. Every woman is made for mercy, love, understanding, and mediation. But it is only when all these are ele-vated by grace that they give her a mission and a mean-ing no longer merely human and terrestrial, but divine and infinite. That is why mankind will find its way to paradise only when it meets the loving woman whose eyes rest in and on God. From all this, one thing stands out quite clearly: To be a woman is a vocation with peculiar and profound responsibilities not only to oneself but to the whole of humanity. Woman is still and let us hope she will re-main the eternal mystery. We would not want to find the solution to her in the discovery of scientific facts alone. For it is from the mystery which she is and which she has received from and in God that human-ity's ideals and inspirations arise and that the super-natural civilization which is the work of the Spirit will finally be achieved. This is your supreme task--to see to it that this is brought about in the women under your charge. And the fact that in God's plan the highest human person is a woman should only serve to spur you on in the accomplishment of your special ecclesial mission. ÷ 4, ÷ Superior and Focation VOLUME 24, 1965 18'/ THOMAS DUBAY,S.M. Psychological Considerations in Our Approach to Mental Prayer ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, S.M., is spiritual director at Notre Dame Seminary; 2001 South Carroll-ton Avenue; New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 188 If we wish to get a man to visit and speak with a friend of ours, we talk not about the theory of conversation but about our friend. Rudimentary psychology suggests that men and women alike are inclined to communicate not by understanding abstract theories of communication but by being drawn to attractive personalities. Yet in teaching mental prayer to our young religious in postulancies, novitiates, juniorates, and seminaries we often introduce them into a supremely interpersonal familiarity through impersonal conceptual analyses and pointed outlines. We are not wholly unlike a man who in order to get Jim to date Joan explains what dating is about rather than what Joan is like. We propose in this essay to advance the thesis that a psychologically natural and humanly appealing approach to instruction in and the practice of mental prayer is through a scripturally and theologically orientated appre-ciation of the mystery of the Trinity indwelling in the souls of the just through charity. We feel that once a young novice or seminarian (or veteran, for that matter) grasps the astonishing God-and-man intimacy implied in the in-dwelling mystery as Sacred Scripture presents it, the whole concept of mental prayer will not only appear to be a nor-mal, expected next step but also an appealingly attractive occupation. And surely it is a chief function of any teacher to make his subject appealing, interesting, challenging. If, however, the divine inhabitation is presented to in-telligent young people for the purpose of moving them to a living of it, we feel that the teacher should avoid isolated approaches: merely speculative on the one hand or merely pietistic on the other. Few are moved by the former alone and no one is much enlightened by the latter alone. Hence, we prefer to begin by a study of Sacred Scripture, first the Old Testament and then the New. The Ancient Intimacy A careful research into the scriptural deposit dealing with God and man relationships will convince one that the theme underlying the whole divine message is an al-most incredibly beautiful desire on the part of God to be familiar with man. A demonstration of this fact is too vast a project to present exhaustively here, but if one studies Deuteronomy, the prophets, and the wisdom literature thoughtfully, he cannot fail to be impressed with the re-markable expressions Yahweh uses to indicate His desire to love and cherish and even fondle His people. Though we cannot attempt a complete exposition of this truth within the confines of our present discussion, we do wish to suggest a few illustrations of what we mean by the divine desire for interpersonal intimacy with man. These illustrations will serve to exemplify our intent in speaking of a scripturally orientated appreciation of men-tal prayer. Somewhat as the fully bloomed flower is contained in the tightly enclosed bud, so is the interindwelling mys-tery (the New Testament does not speak merely of an in-dwelling) of divine intimacy in the new dispensation con-tained in the many themed God-and-man familiarity of the old. Yahweh prepared the human family for the super-natural divine inhabitation by the gradual unfolding of His desire for a tender and mutual love between Himself and His intellectual creatures. In the Old Testament God uses several concrete images to make clear to the Hebrews how deep is His love and concern for them. He declares that His love is like a mar-ried love: He who has become your husband is your Maker. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great tenderness I will take you back . With enduring love I take pity on you, says the Lord your redeemer (Is 54:5,7-8). Then He says that His affection is like parental affection: + It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them into my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I ÷ fostered them like one raises an infant to his cheeks. Yet, though + I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their Approach toMental healer . How could I give you up, O Ephraim?. My heart is Prayer overwhehned, my pity is stirred (Hos 11:3-4,8). It would be difficult in any language to express a more concerned, a more touching, an even fondling intimacy. VOLUME 24, 1965 189 ÷ ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 19~ Further, the divine love must be returned, a privilege that is also an obligation, an obligation enunciated with unusual solemnity and insistence on its being taught and remembered: Hear, O Israeli The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! There-fore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates (Dt 6:4-9). Tender concern has its root in love. A mother is anx-iously solicitous for her sick child precisely because she loves. Yahweh is at pains to convince Israel of His touch-ing concern because He loves with an inconceivably greater love. He uses the image of a father's strong care for his son: You saw how the Lord, your God, carried you, as a man carries his child, all along your journey until you arrived at this place (Dr l:~l). The divine eye is set even on the steps of a man and on each of his bones: His eyes are upon the ways of man, and he beholds all his steps (Jb 34:21) . He watches over all his bones; not one of them shall be broken (Ps 33:21). He cannot forget His human children: Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you (Is 49:15). It can come as no wonder, then, that the pious Hebrew responds with an utter and intimate trust toward this loving-kindness of his God. He piles image upon image to express it: I love you, O Lord, my strength, O Lord, my rock, my for-tress, my deliverer. My God, my rock of refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation, my strongholdl Praised be the Lord, I exclaim, and I am safe from my enemies (Ps 17:2-4). His trust is implicit: I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord (Ps 26:13-4). His confidence is optimistic: Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord; let us acclaim the rock of our salvation. Let us greet him with thanksgiving; let us joyfully sing psahns to him (Ps 94:1-2). This loving trust brings a man very close indeed to his God, willing to pray to Him, eager to find fulfillment in Him: One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze on the loveli-ness of the Lord (Ps 26:4). Even in the old dispensation we may note how strikingly these interpersonal relations brought man near to God. No less than six or seven times in one short prayer does the Psalmist declare his proximity to his Maker: With you I shall always be; you have hold o[ my right hand; with your counsel you guide me, and in the end you will re-ceive me in glory. Whom else have I in heaven? And when I am with you, the earth delights me not. Though my flesh and my heart waste away, God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever. For indeed, they who withdraw [rom you perish; you destroy everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me, to be near God is my good; to make the Lord God my refuge (Ps 72:23-8). One must agree that this is a far from an indirect prep-aration for the indwelling mystery. Finally, we may not omit the yearning for God and the solid joy in the Lord themes so characteristic of any con-templative soul. If we can instill into our novices and seminarians a never to be lost sense of the Hebrew ve-hemence in pursuing God in prayer, whatever else we may do toward their proper formation, we have succeeded in planting their steps firmly and probably perpetually in a prayerful approach to the religious life. To us one of the most remarkable traits of Psalter spir-ituality is this vehemence of the Psalmist's longing for God. By any standard of judgment it is extraordinary. It betrays a lofty sanctity, a deep sense of the divine reality, a vibrant awareness that only Yahweh is the health of the soul. And this too is exactly what our young religious need to learn first in their initial meeting with mental prayer. One likes to imagine what kind of pray-ers we would turn out of our novitiates if we could merely begin to instill the following sentiments into their young hearts: As the hind longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you, 0 God. Athirst is my soul for God, the living God. When shall I go and behold the face of God?. 0 God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water . As with the riches of a banquet shall my. soul be satisfied, and with exultant lips my mouth shall praise you. I will remember you upon nay couch, and through the night-watches I will meditate on you: that you are my help, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy. My soul clings fast to you . I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like parched land . I gasp with open mouth in my yearning for your commands. How lovely is your dwelling place, 0 Lord of hostsl My soul yearns and pines for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God . I had rather one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere . You will show me the 4, 4, 4, A tfl~roach to M~ntal Prayer VOLUME 24, 1965 191 + ÷ + Thomas Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 192 path to life, fullness of joys in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever . Only in God be at rest, my soul (Ps 41:2-3; 62:2-3,6-9; 142:6; 118:131; 83:2-3,11; 15:11; 61:6). If we religious sincerely possess these sentiments, not much more is required. It seems to us that this magnificent Old Testament invi-tation to intimacy with God (developed, of course, at greater length) is the psychologically sound introduction to mental prayer. Nothing is so appealing as Sacred Scrip-ture and nothing so compels a man to want to converse with another as the realization that this other loves him and is actually yearning for a conversation. And such is precisely the Old Testament story. It needs to be mastered by our formation personnel and presented to our young candidates. The New Interinclwelling Intimacy The new revelation uttered by the Word expands the old dispensation familiarity into the divine inhabitation in the souls of the just. If one examines the Gospels and Epistles without presuppositions stemming from diverse schools of theology, he will conclude, we submit, that however one looks upon the indwelling mystery as the New Testament presents it, he must characterize it as closely bound up with interpersonal relationships between the Trinity and the soul. The matter is not primarily spatial or local. God is naturally present everywhere, and the Jews who listened to Jesus knew that fact well from the clear statements of it in their sacred books. A new, supernatural presence seems to leave out of direct con-sideration-- but by no means denies--the natural immen-sity of God, His omnipresent power and His all-pene-trating knowledge. Hence, a priori we might expect that if God is present in the rational creature in some new manner, the newness may be an interpersonal affair, not a mere stark, physical location. Such it is. The indwelling of the Trinity in the souls of the just according to the new revelation is a super-natural, personal familiarity revolving around a mutual knowing and loving, an intimacy tailor-made for initiat-ing and fostering a life of mental prayer and recollected converse. Some Illustrations We may with profit examine a few instances of what we mean in saying that the indwelling presence revolves about the interpersonal relationships of mutual love and knowl-edge (and, consequently, delight). 1. The mutual love relationship. Of all interpersonal relations the most intimate and satisfying is a two-way love. Now it is surely no accident that according to the New Testament love is both a condition and a conse-quence of the Trinity's new supernatural presence in cer-tain men. I[ you love me, keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to dwell with you forever . He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him . I~ anyone love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him . The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us . God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him (Jn 14:15-6,21,23; Rom 5:5; 1 Jn 4:16). Whatever the indwelling mystery means, it surely in-cludes some marvelous mutual love relationship between God and man. And what better preparation for grasping the concept and raison d'etre of mental prayer could one ask than a vivid realization of this fact? 2. The new knowledge relationship. Love presupposes knowledge. A carrot cannot love even on a sensitive level because it cannot know. We would expect, therefore, that if the new supernatural God and man intimacy demands a new love, it would imply a new knowledge. And so it does. In indwelling contexts we find in the New Testa-ment more than one reference to God somehow manifest-ing Himself to those who love Him. We learn that the indwelling Spirit somehow instructs His temple, that a man who does not love cannot really come to know God. You shall know him [the Spirit of truth], because he will dwell with you, and be in you . He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him . You, however, are not carnal but spiritual, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you . The Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God . In this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us . Everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love (Jn 14:17, 21; Rom 8:9,16; 1 Jn 3:24; 4:7-8). Again, how could we better prepare a young religious for a life of contemplating divine Truth than to help him understand this facet of the divine inhabitation, namely, that the Spirit of truth Himself is pouring out the light by which the soul progressively grows in an appreciation of divine reality? The more the young sister, brother, and seminarian realize this communal aspect of mental prayer the less they are inclined to take the dim view that their meditation is an individualistc, isolated, futile experience. 3. The interpersonal relations implied in "abiding, dwelling, temple." There is a vast difference between a stark, naked, merely material presence of one thing to an-other and a warm, personal, mutual knowledge-love-joy presence. If I take a bus trip with a total stranger at my + ÷ ÷ A ~rt oach to Mental Prayer VOLUME 2,~, 1965 193 ÷ ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 194 side (who will not communicate with me), I am alone even though the bus be jammed with fifty passengers. If, how-ever, I journey with a dear friend, the situation is totally changed even though the rest of the bus be empty. For in-tellectual beings spatial presence is only a condition for full presence; and full presence is effected by mutual know-ing, loving, enjoying. It is significant that when the New Testament speaks of the divine inhabitation the words used usually imply much more than what we have called a stark, naked, material presence--as water is present in a jug. They imply a local inbeing, of course, but, much more, they imply the knowl-edge- love-delight presence of persons. In revelation Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are said to abide, dwell, to be given to us, to be in a temple, to be a joy, to be tasted. He will give you another Advocate to dwell with you for-ever, the Spirit of truth . We will come to him and make our abode with him . Abide in me and I in you . He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit .Abide in my love . These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full . The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us . Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?. Do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit? ¯. Crave as newborn babes, pure spiritual milk, dlat by it you may grow to salvation; if, indeed, you have tasted that the Lord is sweet. Draw near to him . He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him (Jn 14:16,23; 15:4,5,9,11; Rom 5:5; 1 Cot 3:16; 6:19; 1 Pt 2:2-4; 1 Jn 4:16). Why are these words significant? Furniture is in a house, but it does not abide there; it does not dwell; it is not given to the house; nor is it a joy to the house. Persons, however, do abide and dwell in the house. They possess the building that may be given to them and they are a joy to one another. God is in an atom, a tree, a star. But they are not His temple, nor does He abide and dwell in them. And they in turn cannot enjoy and taste Him since they cannot know. God is also in the sinner and the pagan. But they are not his temple either, nor does He dwell in them. While both can know intellectually and the sinner may even pos-sess faith, neither possesses the unifying force of love. Nei-ther can taste and see how good the Lord is. Now all this, too, is immensely significant [or teaching and appreciating mental prayer. If this God Who is sought in prayer is so close that He can be tasted, so interested that He indwells, so good that He is given, He becomes a very easy to talk to God, a very easy to love God. And this is precisely what we are trying to get our young religious to do: to converse familiarly, to love ardently. At this point one may ask where he may find reference material on these interpersonal and indwelling relations in the Old and New Testaments. We are not aware of any work on the indwelling mystery that does what we here envision. We have ourselves for some considerable time been working on the interpersonal relations between God and man in the old dispensation and the indwelling mys-tery in the new. This much at least is now apparent, that if one does justice to the data available--and we mean scriptural and theological data--he will have a suitable introduction to an appreciation of mental prayer. We see no reason why novice mistresses and seminary professors cannot with patient study construct adequate courses on their own. 4. Activity of the Trinity within. Most of us conceive mental prayer chiefly as man's activity. God is principally an object reached by our reflections and affections, a lis-tener to what we have to say. It is we who reflect and seek and say. There is a partial truth here, namely, that man does think and will and attain his God. But it is only partial because all of his thinking, willing, attaining originate from the Fountain of all that is and operates. The children of men, we are told, have their fill of the prime gifts of your house; from your de-lightful stream you give them to drink. For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light (Ps 35:9-10). This Fountain pours out life and light from within the soul. He is not a far away God acting at a distance. He is so close He is within; He is dynamically present giving every act in mental prayer, every act of any virtue: The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you . He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit: for without me you can do nothing . The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us . Whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God . In like manner the Spirit helps our weakness (Jn 14:26; 15:5; Rom 5:5; 8:14,26). Both the young novice and the seasoned contemplative should realize that their prayer is anything but a solo flight to God. Their very seeking to pray is a gift given by ÷ their indwelling Guests. All the more are their acts of ÷ faith, hope, charity, adoration so many outpourings of the ÷ Fountain within, Approacl~ to MenUg Prayer for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself pleads for us with unutterable groanings. And he who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, that he pleads for the saints according to God (Rom 8:26-7). VOLUME 24, 1965 Thoroughness in Instruction Introductory instruction for our religious in the inter-personal relationships implied in the indwelling mystery cannot, in our opinion, be adequately given in a twenty-or thirty-minute explanation--not even in two or three half-hour conferences. We feel that our brief discussion in this article is not sufficiently developed for instructional purposes except insofar as it points out a general direction. To leave a deep impact not easily forgotten, the novice master or mistress should develop the indwelling mystery scripturally and theologically for perhaps eight or ten conferences. The novices will then be intellectually and psychologically prepared to see clearly that mental prayer is nothing other than a knowing-loving-delighting inter-personal familiarity with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwelling within their very beings. They are much less likely to get lost or entangled in the intricacies of points and methods, and much less subject to imagining that mental prayer is a refined sort of intellectual study period in matters spiritual. Thoma~ Dubay, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 196 Methods and the Indwelling All this suggests a further question. If mental prayer is essentially an interpersonal converse on deeply intimate terms, what becomes of "points for meditation," intellec-tual considerations, truths thought out in a discursive manner? And especially if higher mental prayer is a sim-ple loving attention to the three divine Guests, why should the beginner be encouraged to engage in reflections? It is not our intention to add to the perhaps too volu-minous literature on meditation methods, but we do wish to offer several observations regarding them in the light of what we have thus far said. Once we grant that mental prayer is an interpersonal familiarity with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then over-board immediately goes the notion that discursive medita-tion is a kind of study period in the spiritual life or, even less, that it implies a time for an elaborate examination of conscience. No doubt the beginner does learn about God and himself through meditation. And this is good. No doubt either that he does occasionally examine his con-duct in view of his reflections and aspirations. Good also~ provided this is kept within bounds. But, and this is im-portant, mental prayer is not primarily aimed at learning or at examining. It is primarily directed to yearning after, desiring, praising, loving God. The Psalms are inspired prayers. How much specula-tion do we find in them? How much examination? Very little. But we do find a large number of variegated expressions of praise, admiration, petition, gratitude, trust, love, long-ing--- expressions that disclose a sublime degree of sanctity in their authors. To illustrate our point we may remind ourselves of the Psalmist's ardent pining after God so im-portant to anyone who is to progress rapidly. We ask the reader to recall the strong words and the brilliant imagery the Hebrew spontaneously used to express his need for Yahweh. If before the intimacy of the indwelling presence was known men could be so vehement in their longing for God, we are hardly expecting too much when we look for the same vehemence after the revelation of the mys-tery. Beginners and the Intellectual Element These observations that mental prayer is neither mere speculation nor self-examination would seem to suggest that our instruction of novices should play down the cog-nitive elements in meditation and emphasize the affective. And this would seem especially to be the case with young sisters whose feminine nature is less inclined to specu-lation. This inference is only partially valid. For the typical be-ginner, masculine or feminine, we may not rule out dis-cursive reflection. Neither our comments nor feminine nature require that we treat human nature, even feminine human nature, as though it were not human. It remains true in prayer and it remains true for women that nothing is willed unless it is first known. This point we shall dis-cuss from the point of view of the young sister, for what we say of her applies a fortiori to the brother or seminar-ian. To say that the vast majority of young sisters do not or should not use their imaginations and reasoning power (discursive procedure) in meditation seems to us to sup-pose that the feminine psychology of cognition-appetition is not a fully human psychology. This position seems to suggest that by some sort of angelic, non-discursive intui-tion the young sister knows her prayer relations to God, while the young seminarian or brother must laboriously reason about and conclude to them. We readily grant that some young religious women even as novices are not inclined to discursive procedures at prayer but rather tend to an affective and at times highly simple prayer. But to us this does not prove that young sisters in general can dispense with imagining Christ in His human nature and with reasoning to proper motiva-tion in practicing the theological and moral virtues in meditation. All this proves is that God leads some souls more rapidly than others or, in other cases, that the young woman already understands through instruction and spir-itual reading the motives for seeking Christ and practicing ÷ ÷ ÷ A l~t~roavh to Mental Prayer VOLUME 24, 196.5 ]97 + ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]98 the virtues. In either case the religious feels no need for discursive reasoning. We doubt, however, that these cases are typical. Being human, women cannot be essentially different in their mental processes from men. And if we urged most young women in our novitiates to dispense with discursive re-flection and get on to affections immediately, most of them would be operating in a vacuum. Without solid intellec-tual basis their prayer could easily degenerate into mere emotionalism. St. Francis de Sales and St. Teresa of Avila (both of whom understood feminine psychology to no small degree) supposed that the ordinary young woman imagined and recalled and reasoned in her early attempts at meditation. The former in his Introduction to a Devout Life (a work originally composed for women) tells Philothea how to make considerations at her mental prayer (Part 2, Chap-ter 5) and in the meditations he actually offers Francis presents many truths for reflection. St. Teresa, a genius both in feminine psychology and in mental prayer, told her sisters that it was good for them to meditate on God's works if they could, and this, she sup-posed by the advice she gave, was the usual case. When she speaks of beginners in prayer, more than once she refers to meditation on the life of Christ. We may note, for example, Chapter 11 in her Life and Chapter 2 of the First Mansions of the Interior Castle. A novice mistress, there-fore, needs a good deal of tact to know when to allow ex-ceptions to the rule, when to permit a young sister to omit imagination and reasoning and when to urge them. A psychological approach to instructing in mental prayer through the indwelling mystery does not require that we abandon the cognitive elements in discursive med-itation; but it does require that we see them in a proper perspective: not mere speculation nor self-examination but as a human requirement for the interpersonal relations of knowing-loving-enjoying the Trinity within. The young religious reflects on reasons for yearning after God not merely for the sake of understanding the divine goodness but for the sake of actual yearning. And the same is true of praising, sorrowing, thanking, wondering, loving, and all the rest. For the beginner discourse in meditation is a means to the end. It is not the end. Advantages of the Indwelling Approach There are several reasons why formation personnel should begin instruction in mental prayer with the divine familiarity-indwelling themes rather than with concep-tual analyses and methodologies. First of all, what we have proposed is realistic and there is nothing so effective as measuring up to reality. Prayer is converse. Not study. Not examination. And God is near, so near He is within. We do not speak with the Father, His Son, and their Holy Spirit by a supernatural telephone line. To teach mental prayer merely as methodology or examination is to teach either artificiality or particular examen. Secondly, when the young novice or postulant first hears about meditation set in this framework, it appears as nor-mal, warm, human. It is appealing, what one would ex-pect. l'Vho is not attracted to conversing with a charming person--and especially when this charming person is like-wise longing to converse? One of the obstacles facing some young men and women just leaving the world is the feel-ing that God is distant, uninterested, or, more likely, dis-pleased with them. Sometimes these youngsters have a vivid recollection of their past unfaithfulness; and they consequently experience difficulty in looking upon God as close, concerned, caring about them. This approach to prayer life through the divine Word itself can do much to break down distrust and fear. Thirdly, our proposed instruction should get the nov-ices immediately into the heart and purpose of mental prayer: the exercise of the theological virtues and the virtue of religion. If it is true that meditation is not pri-marily aimed at learning what the spiritual life is about (classes, conferences, and spritual reading take care o[ that), a method of mental prayer is commendable insofar as it leads one to acts of faith, hope, charity, and the praise of God. To begin instruction by the various methods and points seems to be saying to young novices: "I am going to show you how you can learn more about God and about yourself, so that you may apply this knowledge to your daily life by uprooting your faults and practicing the vir-tues in action." This is good, to be sure, but misdirected all the same. Genuine mental prayer does aid mightily in uprooting faults and practicing virtues, but this result comes preponderantly through growth in love. Here we may add a parenthesis that is by no means ir-relevant. Why do so many priests later give up any serious practice of mental prayer and why do veteran brothers and sisters sometimes find this exercise almost meaningless? Although the chief reason is a neglect of grace somewhere along the line, yet we suspect that a partial culprit is in-struction that presented meditation as virtues to be ac-quired rather than a lovable God to be pursued. One can get tired of reflecting on and even practicing obedience, humility, purity for abstract reasons, but he cannot get tired of pursuing someone he loves. Even in deep aridity the faithful soul who has been pursuing God finds an ir-resistible charm in intensifying the pursuit: O God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines Approach to Mental Prayer VOLUME 24, 1965 ]99 ÷ Thomas Dubay, $.M. and my soul thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water . For your kindness is a greater good than life; my lips shall glorify you . I will remember you upon my couch, and through the night-watches I will meditate on you. My soul clings fast to you (Ps 62:2,4,7,9). Our fourth reason for suggesting this supernatural in-timacy- indwelling approach to mental prayer is that the moral virtues automatically develop once a man or woman is rightly ordered to God. Experiencing through prayer the patience and gentleness of the divine goodness to man is a powerful spur for a man to be patient and gentle with his fellows. And contemplatives know from experience that the indwelling Spirit gives more humility through infused love than they could acquire in months of medita-tion on their own lowliness. A soul which is on intimate terms with God is a soul rapidly shedding its faults. Our approach to mental prayer is aimed precisely at developing this intimacy. The final reason is the most basic and ultimate of all. The indwelling approach being utterly real is a beginning of the end. It is an intrusion of time into eternity. Man's final, inexpressible destiny is a knowing-loving-enjoying absorption in the Trinity: This is everlasting life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ . We see now through a mirror in an obscure manner, but then face to face . Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when he appears, we shall be like to him, for we shall see him just as he is . Eye has not seen or ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love him (Jn 17:3; 1 Cot 13:12; 1 Jn 3:2; 1 Cor 2:9). Pope Leo XIII has observed that there is no substantial difference between the indwelling of earth and that of heaven. The diversity is one of state or condition: now we believe, then we see; now we love and enjoy imperfectly, interruptedly, then we love and enjoy perfectly, without interruption. Man's occupation with God on earth, there-fore, should resemble that of heaven insofar as his condi-tion permits. Living the indwelling mystery in the young religious' prayer Iife should be the beginning of an eternal intimacy: "Mary has chosen the best part, and it will not be taken away from her" (Lk 10:42). REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 900 MICHAEL M. DORCY, S.J. To Be Samaritans All We are all occasionally stopped by the embarrassing question put by others or by our deeper selves: "What is this thing called Christianity all about?" One begins pawing through the prolific--perhaps too prolific-- thematic variations to discover the underlying theme. Incorporated, often encrusted, as it is in its so many varying articulations, the essential Christian message becomes a forbidding complexity. But at its core the Christian message is disarmingly simple, although the living-out of it may be far from a simple matter. For the early Christians the Christian message was the good news, the best news yet. Paul called for a simple acceptance of Christ dead and resurrected. His epistolary explanation of the Christian vocation addressed to the saints at Ephesus has its beauty in the straightforward way in which Paul says: In those days there was no Christ for you . You were strangers to the covenant, with no promise to hope for, with the world about you and no God. But now you are in Jesus Christ; now through the blood of Christ, you have been brought close, you who were once far away. (Eph 2:12-13). The Christian today who remains attuned to his call stands out against his non-believing fellows as one who believes that life is neither absurd nor its own explana-tion, an end in itself. For the Christian, temporal existence has a meaning and a value of its own; but he is at the same time aware that life has another side to it, a side that opens out onto eternity. And he realizes that the temporal ultimately derives its value from the presence of the Eternal within time itself. For the Christian, his-tory is the concrete unfolding of the wisdom and love of God. He believes in a God who is basically a family, who authored life out of love and who labors now in time, trying to end the rift between Himself and man for which man is, and feels himself, responsible. This God, revealing Himself as a God who cares, has in the pivotal event of human history finally, physically entered time in the flesh-taking activity of the Second Person of the divine family, whose life, death, and resurrection evi- Michael M. Dorcy, s.J., is a fac-ulty member of Marquette Univer-sity High School; 3401 West Wiscon-sin Avenue; Mil-waukee, Wisconsin 53208. VOLUME 241 1965 201 Michael Dotty, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 202 dence and effect a plan whereby all men are joined to Him and would live as adopted sons within the family of God. In short, the Christian's God has said: "I have loved you, man! I love you now. This only do I ask in return: Love me." And man fumbles for a response: "God, You tell us to love You. But how do we love You?" God an-swers simply: "If you have seen, really seen, your brother, you have seen God. If you love your brother, you love Me." The Christian confronted with God's tale of love tries to answer by carving his own love story in time. But love is not an easy notion either to understand or to live by. In the New Testament which is the text for the school of love one finds passages which are more helpful than others for discerning what is precisely Christian about Christian love. One such place is the parable of the Good Samaritan where one finds in a compactness perhaps nowhere else equalled in all of Sacred Scripture the es-sentials of the love that was Christ's. Here we have the type of the Christian, of the man whose life completely revolves around authentic love. In the person of the Samaritan, Christ draws a portrait of Himself. Significantly, once when accused by some of the Jews of "being a Samaritan and possessed," Christ an-swered: "I am not possessed" (Jn 8:48-9). The Samaritan of the parable is described in terms which elsewhere throughout the Gospels the evangelists have reserved for Christ. The Samaritan is moved to compassion (literally, stirred in his inwards) as was Christ when He saw the multitudes and took pity on them, or when He melted away under the tears of the widow at Naim (Lk 7:12-3). The story itself is simple, but forever new and rich in meaning: A man was once traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Bandits attacked him. They stripped and beat him and left him to die. A priest chanced by, going along the same road. He saw the victim but went to the other side and continued on his way. Then a levite came by. He too saw him but went on. A Samaritan was also journeying by. Drawing near, he saw him. And he was touched to the heart at the sight. He went up to him, bandaged his wounds, and applied oil and wine to them. Then he put him on his own mount and brought him to an inn where he cared for him. The next day he gave two silver pieces to the innkeeper. "Take care of him," he said, "and whatever it costs I'll pay when I return." "Which o[ the three, in your opinion, acted as a neighbor to the man who had fallen into the hands of the bandits?" He answered: "The one who showed him mercy." "Go," Jesus told him, "and do the same." The Cast of Characters: The Man Without Qualities One can derive much from looking in turn at the characters who make up the story. We know next to nothing (and everything) about the man who was done in by the robbers. He is Oudeis No-Name, the man without qualities (or rather, a man deprived of all but the most insignificant of qualities, that of situs: he was "journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho"). Without name, or race, or nationality, or status in society, quali-tatively denuded of all, he is left physically naked, al-most lifeless by the wayside. He is man in the raw, any one of us, a pilgrim, homo viator, man-on-the-make, man-on-the-move, a fellow traveller on the road of life. To give him any qualities, to endow him with some de-terminations, as we instinctively try to do, is to limit the extensiveness and inclusiveness of the notion of love that is being presented. The Priest and the Levite: The Fatality of Conscious- Hess The priest and the levite are the type of those who fail in the school of love. Representative, first of all, of the twofold division of the tribe of Levi, they are the em-bodiment of the hierarchy of the old dispensation, a dispensation devoid of real freedom. They are actually men enslaved, clutching their alien gods which go by a thousand different names. They are enslaved to the various tyrannies of categorical and legalistic thinking, to idealisms which overlook the here-and-now individual in the name of futurity or collectivity. Here are the Pharisees who rejected Christ because He eluded those preconceived, static, and depersonalized archetypes which they had of the Messiah. Here, too, is the misguided spectator-priest of today who passes by life in the names of celibacy, intellectual pursuits, prayer, and a host of other things. Here is the religious man who has offered himself to God, so wrapped up and tightly closed that God Himself, as Claudel says somewhere, would break His fingernails trying to pry him open. Here is the re-ligious who has detached himself from everything except his detachment. Here is that devastating brood, the im-personal apostles of personalism, and those in love with "love" and nothing more. Here are those who are caught in what Pope John called "the fallacy of overlooking the little good at our disposal in the name of the unrealiza-ble 'better'." Here are men dedicated to "tomorrow" and who use and abuse today for their own ends; men who labor tirelessly for a vague, amorphous, impersonal "Society" and who step all over the people who live next door. Here are the men who will be charitable when things are set, conditions right--men who will dictate their own circumstances, name their own times. Here are men whose effectiveness is dissolved into nothingness because in the name of religion they flee the "world," Samaritans All VOLUME 24, 1965 203 Miclmel Dotty, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 204 forgetting that the spiritual exists for the world and that the function of the Church is to embrace the world much as a lifeguard does a drowning man or much as the Samaritan did the wounded wayfarer. These are men, in short, who have never really learned to say "we." They are those who would leap from the temporal, blind to the fact that God works immanently under their very noses, in the very next face that they meet. It is significant that the priest and the levite are repre-sentative of a class which today we would label "intel-lectuals." Here is the type of man minutely portrayed by such contemporary thinkers and writers as Thomas Mann and Andrd Malraux. These are men who are un-able to bridge through action that gulf of detachment which necessarily follows upon consciousness. In a sense it is man's fate, but paramountly it is the intellectual's scourge. For unlike the animals whose response is quick and instinctual, man with his withinness can, even in the thick of the most violent physical activity, reflect and debate and prolong to eternity that increment be-tween impulse and act. The man who is unable to bridge the gap, who becomes isolated on his "magic mountain," ultimately becomes a man who is untrue, since he neg-lects the truth of his convictions and commitments which can come only in the completion afforded by the act itself. The Samaritan: Spontaneity and Commitment The actions of the Samaritan have much to tell us about true love. The love that was his, that was Christ's, and that Christ would have our own, is a love marked by compassion, spontaneity, personal and lasting commit-ment. The Samaritan was a man who traditionally had in-herited and experienced apartheid---of locale, of creed, of social and political relationships. It should be remem-bered what sentiments the mention of a Samaritan would have evoked on the part of a first-century Jew. The Samaritan was the archetype of the alien, the Stranger, the heretic, the lost-one: in just the preceding chapter (9:52) Luke relates how the Sons of Thunder wanted to call down fire upon a Samaritan village; Christ's dealings with the woman at the well (Jn 4:5) were viewed askance by the disciples. But the appearance in the Gospels of the Samaritans as real individuals en-countered by Christ defies any categorical imposition of traits. A Samaritan was the only one of the ten lepers who returned to thank our Lord (Lk 17:17). He was a man committed, and a man who remained lastingly committed as did the Samaritan of the parable. The Samaritan woman at the well On 4:5) was a woman immediately attractive to us because of her honesty, simplicity, openness, and spontaneity. She wanted to share the goodness that had come her way. She brought others to Christ, and "they heard and believed for themselves." The Samaritan of the parable is a man marked by the spontaneity of his reaction. Both his emotional re-sponse and its resultant action are quick and full. Un-like the priest or the levite who stand for intellectual detachment, the Samaritan is instinctive, but in a thoroughly human way. He is a man who has cultivated receptivity. He is attuned to his entire surroundings. He does not channel or restrict the arena of his purview or of his action. He is open to all. He takes in all he passes by, ready and alert to act. He realizes that his first re-sponsibility is always to that which is at hand. He is completely arrested by the sight of affliction in another human being. "He took pity on him": the Greek word (esplagthtdso-mai) suggests a very human, a very physical emotion. Literally, he was stirred in his bowels (splfigthnos). It is a strong emotion, a pure emotion. And it is a loadstone to action. At times it must override the strict logic of justice or the dictatorship of a false prudence. Another name it has is mercy. What we see is a physical, particular, defi-nitely directed reaction to a particular and concrete in-stance of human affliction. The result of this spontaneous compassion is a spon-taneous recourse to action. The action is immediate and adjusted to the circumstances; it is the "little good at one's immediate disposal." Perhaps the Samaritan was later moved to take positive action towards effecting legislation for better and safer road travel. But this vi-sion of the "better," of the long-range good, did not obliterate the definite and immediate need of the robber victim. And primarily interested in conveying the dis-tinctive, primary, and essential note of Christian charity, Christ did not think it important to incorporate the long-range notion within the parable at all. That is not where the difficulty lies. The visionary can, as the priest and the levite had, blind himself to the live-a-day world in terms of which he is summoned to live out his vocation. The larger view, the looking-toward-tomorrow, are noble and necessary operations. Yet, they are never to be assumed as surro-gates for the immediate needs of today. The prompt and immediate action of the Samaritan protects him from the self-deceit endemic to the vision-ary. A man can easily deceive himself as regards his re-lationship to God, but he cannot as easily do so about his treatment of his neighbor. The truth of love lies in ÷ + + Samaritans All rot.urgE 24, 1,~,5 205 Michael Doroj, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 206 its "deed" (1 Jn 3:18). And St. John further warns us about self-deceit in this matter: "If any man boasts of loving God while he hates his own brother, he is a liar. He has seen his brother and has no love for him; what love can he have for the God he has never seen?" (1 Jn 4:20). These are harsh words in all but the ears ot~ the Samaritan. The Samaritan is remarkable for the sense of commit-ment he shows as he accepts the challenge and responsi-bility which the priest and
Issue 22.3 of the Review for Religious, 1963. ; JOHN XXIII Allocution to Spieitual Directors Our meeting todayI immediately precedes the week of retreat by which We intend to prepare Ourselves for the opening of the Ecumenical Council. You can imagine, then, what is going on in Our soul at this moment as We welcome you who have been chosen for one of the loftiest and most delicate services that exist in the Church. As perhaps you already know, We Ourselves exercised this same ministry at the Seminary of Bergamo shortly after World War I. This precious priestly experience permits Us to understand better the feelings of your own hearts, and at the same time it makes Our conversa-tion with you more intimate and more immediate. Before every thing else, beloved sons, We extend to you Our gratitude for the hidden but invaluable work which you are carrying on in an area that is rich in hopes for the apostolate. Dioceses depend on you; it can even be said that the future fate of the Church is to a large extent in your hands. It is true, of course, that the forma-tion of seminarians must be achieved by the harmonious collaboration of all superiors under the judicious and in-terested direction of the rector; nevertheless, the most important part of this formation pertains to you because your work is executed in the depths of conscience where deep convictions take root and where is effected the real transformation of the young men who are called, to the priesthood. It is the impulse of the Spirit of the Lord that initiates this transformation and brings it to completion; ordinarily, however, a young man will have difficulty in knowing how to follow the impulses of the Spirit without the expert control of the spiritual director. 1 This is an English translation of the allocution Questo incontro given by John XXIII on September 9, 1963, to a meeting of spiritual directors of the seminaries of Italy. The original text is given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 54 (1962), pp. 673-8. $il~irltual Directors VOLUME 22, 196~ John XXII1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 258 We can imagine your daily sacrifices, your trepidations, and your silent sufferings. And God knows with how many prayers and efforts and perhaps anguish you daily pay for the graces of light and perseverance which you implore for your spiritual children. In manifesting to you Our gratitude, We feel that We possess the senti-ments of Christ Himself who, by entrusting to you His most precious treasures, has called you to labor with Him in this sublime work of His grace. /1 Dil~cult and Delicate Task We also wish to express to you Our satisfaction with your meeting and the good results to be expected from it. The education of the young--it is never out of place to repeat this--is a very arduous mission which is justly referred to as the art of arts. This is even more true when it is a question of young persons who in the greatness of their hearts are.giving themselves to the priesthood. The educator of seminarians is well aware that his personal preparation for this lofty ministry should continue throughout the length of his service. He must study the psychology of the students in the seminary; he must live with his eyes open to the world which surrounds him; he must learn from life. But he must also learn from books, from study, from the experiences of his colleagues, and from the progress of pedagogical science, especially from the texts and authors recommended by the Congregation of Seminaries. We cannot disguise the fact that in the matter of edu-cation there have been and are errors that are cloaked by the facile excuse that for the discernment and formation of vocations it is sufficient to have good sense, a sharp eye, and above all experience. We say this with a feeling of sadness. A more enlightened spiritual direction would have spared the Church the priests who do not live up to the greatness of their office, while at the same time it would have procured for her a decidedly higher number of holy ecclesiastics. Moreover, all of you are aware that every age en-counters and meets characteristic difficulties in the edu-cation of youth. In your own case you cannot forget that seminarians today belong to a generation that has ex- + perienced the tragedy of two tremendous world wars and that they live in a world which is evolving with amazing ÷ rapidity. Because of this you may at times be bewil.dered by various manifestations of a personality still unformed, by aspirations and exigencies which seem to be far from the mentality that was present only twenty years ago. This might lead one to conclude that the traditional formation has had its day and that new ways should be tried. On this point We would like to give candid ex-pression to Our thought. While in the matter o[ seminary [ormation it is not good to maintain outmoded ways o[ doing things, still it is necessary to be thoroughly convinced that fundamental principles retain all their~value; without thei~'o~he entire edifice would collapse and [all into ruin. Hence it is nec-essary to care[ully avoid the danger that marginal re-forms, however important and perhaps opportune they may be, should distract attention from what is the central problem o[ all seminary education. Your efforts must be principally directed towards creating in your charges an evangelically integral conception of the priesthood as well as a keen and vibrant consciousness o[ the obligation to tend towards holiness. Unchanged Value o] Fundamental Principles Beloved sons, the problem of personal sanctification was the point of honor and of joy o[ your and Our youth-ful years. Those called to the priesthood in this second half of the twentieth century can have nothing else more at heart both before the priesthood and during the years of its flowering and maturation. They must be persuaded of the emptiness of every apostolic effort that does not proceed from a soul in the state of grace and tending to-wards holiness. You must also take care to guide seminarians to a knowledge and a comprehension of the world in which they are called to live and to work; teach them to sancti[y everything good, sane, and beautiful that progress offers. This does not mean any compromise with a worldly spirit and much less does it imply a lessening o[ the importance of mortification and renunciation. A misunderstood mod-ernization that is preoccupied only with softening semi-nary life or with flattering nature too much would create a personality the direct opposite of Christ, Priest and Vic-tim. On the contrary, a really adequate adaptation to the needs of the times must result in a deeper assimilation to the personality of Christ and Him crucified. It is neces-sary to endow seminarians with a love of the self-denial of the cross in order that they may be able to love the con-dition o[ poverty in which the clergy must o[ten live and be able to meet with courage the renunciations and ex-hausting labors of the apostolate. Firm Discipline and JoyIul Dedication to Sacrifice At times one hears the expressions "autoformation" and "autodomination." It is certainly true that a person is not well formed if he does not know how to control himself; educators are justly concerned to give seminari-ans a practical and progressive exercise of freedom which 4. 4. Spiritual Directors VOLUME 22, 1963 259 4. 4. 4. John XXlll REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 260 will strengthen them to control themselves in determined circumstances and which prepares them better for the life of the ministry. But this cannot be disjoined from firm discipline. A young man will never learn to be mas-ter of himself if he has not learned to observe with love a strict rule that exercises him in mortification and in will power. Otherwise, later in the full exercise of the ministry he will not be prompt in a full and joyful obedience to his bishop; he might even undergo the temptation to as-sume an independence which, while it may not take the form of open rebellion, may nevertheless be manifested in personal action not in harmony with the plan of pas-toral activity suggested and proposed by his superiors. Finally, there can never be too much insistence on the importance of example. And it is you, beloved sons, who give this; it is older priests who give it; and We wish that We could say that all give it. Example is the most elo-quent and persuasive language for the young. Example will draw down an abundance of fruitful graces from the Lord; and from it seminarians will learn in an almost spontaneous way things that frequently are difficult to explain in words. Zeal /or Carrying Out the Decisions o/ the Council Because of the spiritual director's frequent and confi-dential contacts with seminarians, he is one of those per-sons who are incised into the memory; he can, therefore, if he is truly edifying, be one of the most effective sup-ports of future perseverance. Many times the amazing exuberance of Christian life in a diocese finds its true explanation in the silent work of a holy spiritual director who by his example and his teaching has been able to form a generation of holy priests. As We come to the end of Our reflections on this seri-ous and lofty matter of the formation of seminarians to whose good will the reinvigoration of ecclesiastical fervor in the entire Catholic world has been entrusted for execu-tion with the help of heavenly grace and by the applica-tion of conciliar legislation, We willingly give Our hom-age in these solemn circumstances to the sacred memory of those priests, now resting in the eternal light and peace of the Lord, to whose ministry as confessors and spiritual guides you and We entrusted the intimacy of our con-science at the various stages of our life. They are fully worthy of our commemoration. These elect souls who, having entered into eternity, now rejoice in their lofty goal or who~and they too are all holy and blessed--still wait entrance into that goal are according to the teaching of the Church participants in the events of the Church militant; they give her help especially at more important times such as this of the Ecumenical Council. It was the grace of the Lord which gave them on earth the meritorious work of the sanctifi-cation of priests in the past; may that grace now bring forth an abundance of fervor for the new birth which the Council intends to consecrate to the triuml~h of the kingdom of Christ the Lord: "ln holiness and justice be-fore him during all our days" (Lk 1:75). A Shining Example: Vincent Pallotti Beloved sons, the office of spiritual director bristles with difficulties and responsibilities, for it is concerned with the formation of souls into the image of Christ the Priest. It is a divine, not a human work. But this, far from discouraging you, constitutes the foundation of your con-fidence. You have a greater reason to abandon yourselves to the merciful omnipotence of the Divine Artisan who deigns to make use of you. Among the pleasing things of the new fervor which the Ecumenical Council is producing, it gives Us a lively sense of gratification to be able to look forward to the honors of the altar which are being prepared for some of the venerable Servants of God and of the Blessed who are a part of the universal constellation of the holiness of the Church spread throughout the world. We espe-cially look forward to the canonization of Blessed Vincent Pallotti. He was an edifying priest who knew how to unite the spiritual direction of the young clerics of the Pontifical Roman Seminary and of the students of the College of Propaganda with the founding of the Pious Society of Catholic Apostolate. This latter was the first movement in Rbme of Catholic Action in the proper sense of the word. And today we admire the flourishing condition of Catholic Action and its application to the important task of penetrating modern society with the Gospel. The entire activity of this outstanding priest was de-voted to the sanctification of the clergy and, as he himself put down in writing, to the defence of the faith and the spread of charity among Catholics; the one and the other he hoped to propagate in the entire world so that shortly there would be but one fold and one shepherd. He was the apostle of that manifold liturgical celebra-tion which still remains as an outstanding memorial to his far-sighted apostolic piety; this is the celebration of the Epiphany octave which is held each year in the Church of Sant'Andrea della Valle and which serves as a vigorous call for the development of missionary aware-ness in the Christian world and for prayer for the unity of the Church among all the peoples of the world. 4- 4- Spiritual Directors VOLUME 22~ 1963 26] Beloved, here for you to see are the words and example by which under the tutelage and impulsion of grace you can carry out the great work of fashioning the hearts of future priests according to the Heart of Christ. We have a serene assurance that Christ our Highpriest will make Our words to you fruitful. As a pledge of heavenly favors, We give to you and to all the. seminari-ans entrusted to your care Our apostolic blessing. ÷ ÷ ÷ John XXIII REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 262 L. LEGRAND, M.E.P. The Spiritual Value Of Virginity According to St. Paul In his pleax for virginity in Chapter Seven of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul insists on the greater spiritual freedom it gives: I would have you free from care. Now the unmarried man cares for the things of the Lord; his aim is to please the Lord. But the married man cares for the worldly things; his aim is to please his wife and he is divided. And the unmarried woman or the virgin cares for the things of the Lord; her aim is to be holy both in body and in spiri.t. But the married woman cares for the worldly things; her a~m ~s to please her husband (1 Cor 7:32-34). Detachment from the world, complete self-surrender to the Lord, sanctity of life: those are the reasons for which Paul prefers virginity to married life. We have studied elsewhere the "holiness" of virginity.2 It remains now to consider the other two causes which, in the eyes of Paul, make for the superiority of continence. Freedom from the World The language of the Apostle seems plain enough: celi-bacy is good becauge it is care free. The celibate is ame-rimnos, literally "careless." It goes without saying that this "carelessness" is not that of the inveterate bachelor for whom celibacy means only selfishness, attachment to comfort, privacy, and his idiosyncracies, aloofness, and dryness of heart. Paul makes it clear that what he extols is dedicated celibacy. Worldly worries are set aside so as 1 This article is reprinted with permission from Indian Ecclesiasti-cal Studies, v. 1 (1962), pp. 175-95. ~ See L. Legrand, "The Sacrificial Value of Virginity," Scripture, v. 14 (1962), pp. 67-75. 4- 4- 4- L. Legrand, M.E.P., is a faculty member of St. Peter's Seminary; Bangalore 12, In-dia. VOLUME 22, 196~ 263 4. 4. 4" L. Legrand, M.E.P . REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS to allow a singleness of purpose in the spiritual life which would be impossible in marriage. But is that explanation as satisfactory as it seems? Robertson and Plummer see a striking parallel to Paul's exhortation to virginity in saying of Epictetus: Is it not fit that the philosopher should without any dis-traction be employed only on the ministration of God, not tied down to the common duties of mankind, nor entangled in the ordinary relations of life;~ This parallel raises a problem. I1 the parallelism of thought is real, is it not compromising for Paul? Does not make of the Apostle, at least in this instance, a Stoic philosopher rather than a disciple of Jesus; and of celi-bacy an inheritance of Hellenism rather than a genuine element of Christianity? Towards the end of the Old Testament and the begin-ning of the Christian era, the main trends of Hellenistic thought, deeply marked by Platonic influence, saw an opposition between matter and spirit, between the pres-ent temporal condition and .the ideal world to which be-longed God and the eternal reality of things. The body was considered to be a jail which man had to leave to soar through knowledge and contemplation into the se-rene sphere of immutable eternity. An ideal of continent life would have been in the logic of that system. Actually it did not develop in Hellenism as it did, on almost simi-lar premises, in the Hindu systems of the Ashrams and in Buddhist monasticism.4 In fact, the full consequences of the Greek dualism were drawn only by such Christi;tn heretics as the Gnostics, Encratites, Donatists, Cathari, Albigenses, and the like. They condemned marriage as unclean and made of celibacy the necessary condition for salvation. But they were heretics. The Church never con-demned matrimony. Following the biblical view of the world, Christian thought cannot accept the Hellenistic dualism. The material world is a creation of God; hence it is good and so is the human body with all its functions. The order "to grow and multiply" was given by the Crea-tor Himself (Gn 1:28), and in the New Convenant mar-riage has been even raised to the dignity of a sacrarnent (Eph 5:25-32). St. Paul does not' condemn marriage in Chapter Seven SDissertations 3, 22, quoted in A. Robertson and A. Plummer, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (Edinburgh: Clark, 1911), p. 158. 'Yet there were a few Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophers to consider celibacy as a higher state of life. See Epictetus, Disserta. tions 3, 22; 3, 26, 62. See also A. Oepke, "'Gun~," Theologische.; W6r. terbuch zum Neuen Testament, v. 1 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1933), p. 779. But those views never resulted in a wide movement, creating special institutions as was .the case in India. of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; yet is he not in-fluenced by Hellenistic thought when advocating vir-ginity? What does he mean by the "freedom from the worldly cares" which virginity makes possible? Is it not the indifference and the disengagement from the material world which the philosophers, advocated?. Isqt not closer to the Stoic ataraxia or Neoplatonic ekstasis than to the Christian agape? Before attributing to Hellenistic infiltrations the argu-ments of Paul in the seventh chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, one should observe that such an ex-planation runs counter to the general patterns of Paul's thought and life. Paul did not consider salvation and re-ligious life as an escape from concrete realities. He has experienced ecstasy, but like all the genuine Christian mystics, he was more disturbed by it than proud of it.5 If he mentions his raptures, it is only to prove that he has a personal knowledge of what the boisterous charismatic Corinthians used to boast of. But himself, he would not glory in such things; his only pride is in his share in the humiliations of the cross (2 Cor 12:1-10). Ecstasy and deliverance from the material world were not Paul's ideal. His soul took easily to contemplation; yet he did not make of disengaged contemplation his su-preme goal. His life was surely not carefree in the sense that he had nothing to do but to meditate on the unseen realities, for was he not the missionary who had to carry "the daily burden, the worry for all the churches" besides "the labors, exertions, and persecutions" supported in carrying out his apostolate (2 Cot 11:23-27)? When he gave himself as an example of celibate life ("I would like that all of you should be like me" [1 Cor 7:7]), he did not set up a model of carelessness: "Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is scandalized and I am not on fire?" (2 Cor 11:29). Those were not the words or the attitude of a man indifferent to daily realities, lost in a nirvana of radi-cal abstraction. It is therefore a priori unlikely that the freedom from care which St. Paul saw in virginity had anything to do with the philosophical detachment from the material world. He does consider married life entangled in the world to be opposed to celibacy which is concerned only with the Lord. But does that contrast correspond to the Greek opposition of matter and spirit, kyl~ and nous? The answer must be negative. The biblical antithesis between the world (or the flesh) and God (or the Spirit) cannot be reduced to the philosophical dualism of matter and spirit. In the Bible the opposition of the world to s See C. Baumgartner, "Extase," in Dictionnaire de spiritualitd, v. 4 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1961), col. 2187-89. 4- 4- 4- Virginity VOLUME 22~ 1963 265 4. 4. 4. /. M.~.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 266 God is not ontological but moral: the world is not es-tranged from God by essence but by choice. Between the world and God there stands not a contradiction but a re-volt. Such is the clear teaching of the first chapters of Genesis. It is true that on account of man's sin, the whole order of the cosmos has been shaken: suffering and death have entered the world in the wake of sin. Yet though deeply marked by the curse of sin, the cosmos is not evil in itself; the trouble is in the heart of men, not in things.6 For centuries the prophets strove for the restoration of the original order through conversion; if only man would repent, he would recover "life" which is the harmony and peace of the original divine plan. When man proved too stubborn, the prophets understood that he was doomed. Sin was too deeply engrained in the world; death had to do its work; the present world with all its institu-tions had to be carried away. Yet since God is a God of mercy, hope remained. But it .turned into the hope of a new creation, of a salvation beyond death (Is 51:6; 65:17- 20; 66:22; Ez 37:1-14). It is this expectation of a world to come that the New Testament inherited. But that "world to come" or rather "the age to come," according to the exact meaning of the Hebrew phrase, is not the ethereal sphere of "ideas." Salvation does not consist in escaping the world but in passing from one world to another, from "this age" ruined by sin and enslaved by the "Powers" (Gal 4:3), to the "age to come" animated by the power of God's Spirit and irradiated with the divine glory. The aim of life is not "ecstasy" that would snatch man out of his body and above matter and time; it is an Exodus that takes him, body and soul, above the present condition and the corruption of sin. The image of the Exodus was frequent in the later prophets (Is 41:17-19; 43:19-20; 52:11-12) and passed to the New Testament (1 Cor 10:1- 11; Heb 2:1-4; 3:1-3; Apoc 15:1-5). Christian life is a pilgrimage (1 Pet 2:11). The Christian is a refugee run-ning from a doomed city to a place of shelter. Yet what he flees is not the flow of time but the contagion of sin and his refuge is not his spiritual self but God's kingdom. These were also Paul's views and they constitute the background of his apology for virginity. He does not op-pose marriage and continence as matter and spirit, good and evil. What he does contrast is the age to come and the present age. Virginity embodies the spirit of the king-dom; 7 marriage is rather an institution of this worhl. As Paul sees it in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, a,,For evil comes not out of the earth, nor does distress spring out of the g~ound. But man himself begets misery as sparks fly up-wards" (Jb 5:6-7). ~ See L. Legrand, "The Prophetical Meaning of Celibacy," REwEw voa l~tzc*ous, v. 20 (1961), pp. $$0-46. matrimony belongs to the "things of this world." It is not bad indeed but it is intimately connected with the present transient order. It shares in the inconsistency of this or-der; and like it, it is "subject to vanity," "enslaved to cor-ruption" that marks everything belonging to the present era (P, om 8:20-21). The world and its spirit are deeply ingrained in marriage; they enter married life through the very necessity for husband and wife "to please" each other (1 Cor 7:33-34). The verb "to please" in this context has a very strong meaning,s and Paul's thought cannot be properly grasped unless this meaning is recognized. For the modern reader, the words "to please one's husband and wife" evoke merely the sentimental show of affection and possibly of coquetry which expresses and fosters conjugal love. Con-sequently, when the text goes on to say that the married man "is divided" (v. 33), we think spontaneously of a heart divided in its affections in the modern romantic sense of the term. The difficulty for the married man would be that two different objects, Christ and his wife, appeal to his heart and that therefore he would be in the awkward position of being unable to give his love fully to either. This would be a very shallow explanation that hardly does justice to the views of the Apostle. After all, the love of God is not a matter of sensitivity; it belongs to a higher level and does not conflict with human natural feelings. God does not stand as a rival of His creatures if they do not try to usurp His place. The danger in wed-lock does not arise from a normal sentimental attachment to the partner; it lies elsewhere. The real meaning of the verb "to please" points in another direction. In a world which had little concern for chivalry and romanticism,0 more than coquetry and a show of affection were required "to please." The wife "pleased" her husband by giving him the children, he wanted (and birth control was not unknown in the Greco-P, oman antiquity10) and by con-a The Greek verb aresk6 may be very strong. Its connotations are not merely sentimental. In 1 Cor 10:13 Paul's desire "to please everybody" does not mean that he aims at popularity or that he avoids hurting the feelings of others. It expresses Paul's readiness to oblige, almost to serve all. It means about the same as "being all to all" (1 Cor 9:22). See W. Foerster, Theologisches W6rterbuch zum Neuen Testament, v. 1 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1933), p. 455. ~ See J. Carcopino, Daily Li]e in ~lncient Rome (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1956), pp. 94-5; W. J. Woodhouse, "Marriage," Encyclo. pedia o[ Religion and Ethics, v. 8 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1915), p. 444. 10 See A. E. Crawley, "Foeticide," Encyclopedia o] Religion and Ethics, v. 6 (1914), pp. 55-6. Child exposure also was not uncommon. Polybius attributed the decline of Greece° to the oliganthropia caused by those practices: "In our own times the whole of Hellas has been afflicted with a low birth rate or, in other words, with de-population, through which the states have been emptied of inhabi-tants with an accompanying fall of productivity, and this in spite of + + + Virginity VOLUME 22~ 1963 267 ducting the household efficiently (with the concessions to the ways of the world which business implied),xl For the husband it was a matter of securing [or his wife wealth, comfort, and social consideration. "Pleasing" each other covered all the aspects of the conjugal life, everything that made a marriage successful. It is easy to understand that such worldly success implied all sorts of compromises with the spirit of the world. Through the desire "to please," "the worries of the world" (v. 33) entered mar-ried life, those worries which, according to the parable, combined with wealth and pleasures, choke the growth of God's word (see Lk 8:14). If St. Paul is reticent with regard to marriage, it is not because it distracts the heart but because it tends to shoot deep roots into the present age of sin. Those roots are so deep that it is very difficult to cut oneself free, to keep in wedlock the soul of a pilgrim and to live the Exodus. Conjugal affection is not contradictorily opposed to Chris-tian requirements; but great is the danger of remaining bogged down in the present condition of considering 4- 4- 4" L. Legrand, M.E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 268 the fact that we have not suffered from any continuous wars or epidemics . The people of Hellas had entered upon the false path of ostentation, avarice, and laziness and were therefore becoming unwilling to marry, or if they did marry, to bring up the children born to them; the majority were only willing to bring up at most one or two, in order to leave them wealthy and to spoil them in their childhood; and in consequence of all this the evil had been rapidly spreading. Where there are families of one or two children, of whom war claims one and disease the other for its victim, it is an evident and inevitable consequence that households should be left desolate and that states, precisely like beehives, should gradually lose their reserves and sink into impotence" (History 36, 7 as given in A. J. Toynbee, Greek Civilization and Character [New York: New American Library, 1954], p. 73). Modem authors have confirmed the judgment of the old historian: "The misery of a few districts in the third and second centuries B.C. would not suffice to explain the excesses of malthusianism; indeed it had always been a part of Greek manners; but at that time it took frightening proportions. Though we should be cautious in giving a general value to a few figures known only through epigraphy, they are not without sig-nificance. At Miletus, for seventy-nine families which received the citizenship between 228 .and 200, we find only one hundred forty-six children, out of which only twenty-eight were gifts; among those seventy-nine families, thirty-one have two children and thirty-two only one. In the course of the third century at Eretria, one out of twelve families and at Pharsalus one out of seven has more than a son; out of six hundred families known through the inscriptions of Delphi, six only have two girls. Seeing that, we cannot doubt the accuracy of the famous statement of Poseidippos: 'Even a rich man always exposes a daughter'" (R. Cohen, La Grdce et l'helldnisation du monde antique [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948], p. ~80). n See the rather blunt statement of the Pseudo-Demo:;thenes (59, 122): "We have heterae for our pleasure, concubines for the daily care of the body, and wives to beget legitimate children and to have somebody who can be trusted with the care of the household." pleasure, family welfare, and honor as 'the absolute goal, of letting matrimony degenerate into a mere worldly af-fair. What one would attempt if one were alone, one dare not do for the sake of the other so that, actually, through the other party it is the world and its spirit which enter the family. Conjugal harmony is: kept at the c0st of con-descensions to the weakness found or supposed to exist in the other. It is harder still in wedlock than in single life to behave already now as a citizen of heaven, to follow the ideal of the beatitudes, to be poor and meek, to bear persecutions happily, to accept being famished and down-trodden. How rare the spiritual harmony that enables a whole household to meet the challenge of the kingdom joyfullyl As Bacon said, "he that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune" and "children sweeten labors but they make misfortunes more bitter.''12 It may be said that this picture of matrimony is one-sided, that Christian matrimony is not only "a thing of this world." It has also a reference to the world to come by its sacramental value. This is true and the point will be considered later.13 It is clear that to give a complete and balanced theological appraisal of matrimony, Paul should have said that it is in the measure in which it is not transformed by the di-vine agap~ that conjugal love divides the soul. He should have explained that for husband and wife the desire to please each other is wrong only if and as far as they rep-resent for each other not Christ but the world with its devious judgments and seductions. But in the seventh chapter of First Corinthians Paul does not intend to give a full theology of marriage. Either because he was still to appreciate fully the positive Chris-tian value of matrimony14 or simply because--as he often does--he simplifies his thought to express it more clearly, he considers only the "worldly" aspect of married life. This worldly aspect does exist. For all its sacramental value, marriage has one side turned towards the present age. It must have that worldly side to be a sacrament at all, to be a sign. And there is always a risk that it is only this aspect that will be seen by men and that they will set their heart on the sign instead of reaching out to the signified. Sacramental realities can also be veils. Thus ~ Quoted in A. Robertson and A. Plummer,°First Corinthians, p. 154. 13See the second half of the present article. l~This is the view of C. H. Dodd in New Testament Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1953), pp. 113-17. The opposite stand is taken by O. Cullmann, The Early Church (London: SCM Press, 1956), p. 173; and by X. Leon-Dufour, "Mariage et con-tinence selon S. Paul," .4 la rencontre de Dieu: Memorial .41bert Gdlin (Le Puy: Mappus, 1961), pp. 319-28. 4. 4. 4. Virginity VOLUME 22~ 1963 269 4. 4. L. Legrand, M.E.P . REVIEW I:OR REI.I~IOUS 270 when receiving manna in the desert or the miraculous loaves of Jesus, the Jews considered only "the food that perisheth" (Jn 6:27) and dreamt of an earthly kingdom with an unlimited and toilless supply of bread, They failed to perceive in the bread the power of God's word feeding them unto the "life of the ages to come" (Jn 6:26- 40). Thus, as experience proves, married people are easily tempted to set their heart upon the present tenor of marriage and lose sight of its sacramental dimension. In First Corinthians, Chapter Seven, Paul referred to that common experience which had taught the Corinthians that married life is not easily a clear and limpid reflec-tion of the divine agape. Concretely, the necessity for husband and wife "to please" each other often entails compromises with the world; for, as St. Paul and the Corinthians knew well, it is hardly possible "to please" both man and Christ (Gal 1:I0). Hence appears the significance of the contrast Paul saw between marriage and virginity. Marriage is rooted in this world. Virginity belongs to the age to come. Marriage is not condemned. It does not embody the evil of this world; it can be redeemed and transfigured. Yet it is discouraged. This is not because it multiplies earthly obligations and petty worries restricting the men-tal freedom to meditate and contemplate. Neither is because it proposes objects of affection other than Christ. It is not wife and children which disturb men but their worldly--real or supposed--requirements. The danger of matrimony is that by the whole force of circumstances which surround it it tends to remain a "thing of this age" and to enfold men in the spirit of this world. By contrast, virginity is .the ideal condition of the pil-grim who wants to progress swiftly and unencumbered across the desert. Lightly shod and with loins girt, he goes on his Exodus; he leaves the world behind and strives after the world to come. He is undivided. This does not mean that his heart has nobody to beat for but Christ. On the contrary, his love for Christ will have to take on the dimensions of the whole Body of Christ and will have to encompass the world. It means that no human love, no necessity "to please" man, will oblige him to side with the world and place him in the stretched condition of one who belongs to both sides and is torn between two loyalties, two spirits, and two standards. He is free; he has no cares, at least no cares pertaining to this world. He does not know concerns which settled family life is almost bound to cause, concerns for wealth, comforts, safety, fame. He has not the problem of secur-ing welfare and tranquillity for his dear ones in a shaken world that runs to its ruin. The Christian celibate has none of these worries. This again does not mean that he has no cares at all and that he has nothing else to do than to devote himself to intellectual or ascetical pursuit. He has his cares, the "cares for the things of the Lord" (vv. 32, ~4). "The things of the Lord" which should l~'d the virgin's only concern are not the suprasensible ideas reached by contemplation. The "Lord" in St. Paul is the risen Christ, endowed with power a~d glory after His Resurrec-tion. 1~ "The things of the Lord" are therefore the whole order which has the risen Christ as its center, the new creation, the kingdom, and, here on earth, the Church.I° As in the case of the Apostle himself, the concern only for "the things of the Lord" will not mean ataraxia, in-difference. The Christian celibate will not be spared the heavy world and the burning preoccupations of his serv-ices to the Lord. But they will be only the outward mani-festation of his devotion to his Master (see 1 Cor 9:19). Such is the freedom of the virgin. It is not the indiffer-ence which is reflected, for instance, on the serene fea-tures of the gods of Phidias, with their clear eyes that ignore the turmoil of the world to rest on the harmony of the changeless ideas. We could rather feature the Christian dedicated to virginity as the Moses of Michel-angelo (without the gigantism which is the artist's own); there is no indifference in him; he looks firmly at the children of Israel who surround him and his eyes reflect the love of God for the chosen people but also the divine disappointment and wrath. Beyond them, he sees the Holy Land-or the mountain--where he must lead them. His muscular body strains towards it; his face glows with the glory that dawns upon it. Union with Christ The typology of the Exodus does not cover entirely the reality of Christian life. At the same time as it is an ~5,,This designation expresses as does no other the thought that Christ is exalted to God's right hand, glorified and now intercedes for us before the Father" (O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament [London: SCM Press, 1959], p. 195). See also the several studies of L. Cerfaux gathered in Recueil Lucien Cerfaux (Gem-bloux: Duculot, 1954), v. !, pp. :~-188. A synthesis may be found in Cerfaux's Christ in the Theology of St. Paul (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1958), pp. 461-79. 1o The Vulgate and the Latin fathers have."idealized" the opposi-tion between marriage and virginity by reading in v. 32 "quornodo placeat Deo" (instead of KyriO of the Greek text) and probably understanding similarly in v. 34 Domini of God instead of Christ (as Knox has done in his translation). By doing this, they bring the contrast closer to Platonic thought. For Paul, the contrast is not directly between the world and God, creatures and Creator, but be-tween the world and the "things of Christ," that is the present world and the new creation which Christ contains in Himself. ÷ ÷ ÷ girginity VOLUME 22, 1963 4. L. Legrand, M.E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Exodus, Christian life is also life in the Land of Promise. We are still in the desert; yet the glory of the new Jeru-salem dawns already upon us. We are still in the flesh and in the world; yet we live already in Spirit and are the citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20). Correspondingly, virginity does not belong only to the desert but also to the new Jerusalem. It does not show only the tenseness of the pilgrim who wants to be unim-peded in his progression; it marks also the joy of the ar-rival when the soul has found at last what it longed for. Celibacy is not only total detachment from "the things that are upon the earth"; it is also total communion in "the things that are above"; it is life, "hidden with Christ in God" (Col 3:1-8). Free from the world, the celibate ties himself to Christ with bonds of love. Having no wife or husband "to please," the celibate is at liberty to dedi-cate all his care "to please the Lord" (1 Cor 7:82). Here also, when St. Paul says that the aim of the virgin is "to please the Lord," we should beware of giving the phrase merely sentimental significance. "To please the Lord" does not mean simply to comfort and console the Heart of Jesus. In First Corinthians "to please the Lord" is set in parallelism with "to please his wife." This paral-lelism invites us to give the same strong meaning in both cases. In the context of matrimony, the verb "to please!' expressed the interdependence and mutual belonging husband and wife. When applied to the celibate, it must describe the loving enslavement to Christ which gives continence its value. The virgin belongs to Christ as the wife belongs to her husband. To please her husband, the wife must share entirely in his views and wishes. To please the Lord, analogically, the virgin must be totally dedi-cated to Him and take His stand in everything. The theme of the spiritual marriage lies in the background. The construction of the whole passage points 'to that theme: by balancing in parallelism virginal life and con-jugal union, Paul suggests that to some extent Christ is to the virgin what the husband is to the wife.lz ~ See X. Leon-Dufour, "Mariage et continence," pp. ~22-24. In a penetrating literary analysis of 1 Cor 7, the author shows that the very construction of the chapter expresses the mutual belonging of virginity and matrimony. The chapter is built on a scheme A-B-A' (two corresponding parts divided by a digression), quite common in Paul's epistles. Part A (vv. 1-16) is addressed to married people and part A' (vv. 25-40) to the unmarried. Now we notice that in both parts the progression of the thought is disturbed by considerations belonging to the antithetic section: A speaks already about virginity (vv. 6-7) and A' cannot but evoke matrimony "as if the continence to which Paul invites his flock could be given its full significance only in relation with married life" (p. 323). Thus "the very literary and psychological trend of the chapter shows marriage and conti-nence as two inseparable realities contrasting with and yet complet-ing each other" (p. 324). The theme of the spiritual marriage figures explicitly and is connected with virginity in Second Corinthians 11:2: I am jealous for you with a divine jealousy. Fo~ I betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. This verse is a short allegory comparing the Corinthi-ans to a betrothed girl taken to the bridegroom by her father or by the mesit~s, the go-between who arranged the marriage. The image derives from the Old Testament where Israel is frequently called the bride of Yahweh (see Hos 2:21-22; J1 1:8; Is 54:5-6; 62:5; Jer 3:1; Ez 16:6- 43). Admittedly this text does not refer directly to the question of virginity. As in the Old Testament, the bride is not an individual but a community, here the church of Corinth. Moreover, the marriage it alludes to will be celebrated only at the Parousia; for the time being, the Church is only "betrothed." In that context "virginity is nothing else than a metaphor expressing undivided dedi-cation to Christ.''is Yet it is not insignificant that Paul uses the comparison of a "chaste virgin" to describe the union of the Church with Christ. It implies that virginal life is a living likeness of that union. What was a mere metaphor in the Old Testament takes flesh and blood in the person of the virgin. She embodies fully the mutual belonging of Christ and the Church. The "marriage feast" of the Parousia is anticipated in her life. She is given to live in all its integrity the undivided attachment of the Church for her Head. In her shines the agap~ which joins the bride to the Bridegroom and makes them "one body." Virginity is agape; it has all the intensity of love; it is not primarily disengagement and withdrawal. It is unqualified dedication to the "one husband" Christ. It shows forth the exclusiveness of that unique attach-ment. As St. Paul says, using the language of human pas-sion, it is a "jealousy," a love impatient of any alien al-legiance. Christian virginity is a spiritual marriage with Christ. It is true that Paul himself did not use the phrase. Neither did Luke when explaining the relationship of the Virgin Mary with the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of Infancy. The reason is probably that Paul and Luke avoided sponta-neously words which, in the world they lived in, were too heavily loaded with pagan connotations. The hieros gamos, the sacred union of a god with a woman had been a common feature of mythology from Sumerian times on-wards and had its ritual representation in the cult and in the mysteries. In the frame of nature worship or of a ~sSee G. Delling, Theologisches W6rterbuch zum Neuen Testa-ment, v. 5 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1954), p. 835. ÷ ÷ ÷ VirginRy ÷ ÷ L. Legrand, M.E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 274 pantheistic religion, it symbolized the fecundity of na-ture. There is obviously no relation between the pagan fertility cult and the Christian ideal of continence fol-lowed by Mary and tl:te virgins. And it is understandable that Paul and Luke refrained from using the phrase "spiritual or divine marriage," since it could too easily be understood as another case of hieros garnos. That their prudence was justified is proved by the wild conclusions which the comparative school of exegesis, from the times of Celsus till our days, has drawn from the discreet allu-sions they made to the Biblical theme of God's alliance with Israel. Yet it is the allegory of marriage, stripped of any asso-ciation with nature worship, which accounts best for the Pauline and Christian doctrine of virginity. The doctrine of virginity branches of[ from the doctrine of matrimony. We must, therefore, see what marriage meant for Paul to understand what "spiritual marriage" might have meant for him if he had used the words, what he had actually in mind when he wrote of the "chaste virgin presented to the one husband Christ." It is in Ephesians 5:25-32 that the Apostle explains most fully the Christian significance of matrimony. It can be said that if the sev-enth chapter of First Corinthians pictured wedlock as it is in fact, Ephesians 5:25-32 shows it in all its ideal sacra-mental beauty. But the "lofty sacrament" opens on to the prospect of virginity. In Ephesians 5:25-32 as in Second Corinthians II:2, the Church is compared to the bride taken to the bride-groom for the nuptial celebration: Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the Church: for her, he gave himself up, sanctifying her, cleasing her by water aild word, so that he might present the Church to himself all glori-ous, with no stain or wrinkle or anything of the sort but holy and without blemish. Thus men should love their wives. In this text there is no go-between. Christ Himself prepares His bride and there is a stress on the point that she was not pure but was made so by the cleansing love of the divine Spouse. That love which cleanses through the laver of baptism springs forth from the cross; the words "savior" and "he gave himself up" show the sacrificial background of Paul's thought. The cross was already the marriage function which Second Corinthians 11:2 had seen in the frame of the Parousia. It is on Calvary that the bride, cleansed by the love of her Spouse, W:lS em-braced by Him to become "one body" with Him. The greatness of Christian matrimony derives from its relation to the union of Christ with the Church which was realized on the cross. Conjugal love, that mysterious power which tears man and woman away from their fam-ily to draw them together (v. 31) was a sign, a "mystery." It had a hidden significance. In a secret way, it prefigured the love, the agap~ that seals together Christ and the Church and makes them one body (v. 32). The Old Testa-ment did not know this mysterious orientation of the conjugal union but now the mystery is revealed. If placed under the influence of 'the,sacrifice of Christ', that is, if it is lived in the spirit of unselfishness and dedication which breathed in the sacrifice of Christ, conjugal love sym-bolizes the bond of charity which unites the Church with her Head and contains the life flowing through their joint Body (vv. 23, 30). Penetrated with the spirit of Christ, matrimony enshrines the divine agape; it con-tinues the sacrifice of Calvary and its efficacy. By that sacramental efficacy and in the line of that symbolism, each party represents, for the other, Christ and His re-quirements of self-denying charity: husbands love their wives as Christ loved the Church and wives obey their husbands with the same joyful abandon which animates the Church (vv. 33, 22-25). In the measure in which con-jugal affection accepts to turn into charity, wedlock is holy and "has a relevance to Christ and the Church" (v. 32); indeed, it is a part of their mysterious union. Now, "lofty" as it may be, the "mystery" of Christian matrimony remains a sign, imperfect and inadequate as any sign. After all, in Ephesians 5:25-32 it. is not said that Christ loved the Church as a husband loves his wife, but rather that husbands should love like Christ: Con-jugal love does not explain the union of Christ for'the Church; on the contrary, this union reveals the latent significance of marriage. The agap~ of Christ is set as the ideal norm of human love: it is the reality whereas matri-mony is only its sacrament. Though the "mystery" it contained has been revealed, matrimony keeps its existence and its consistency of sign, as if the veil had not been removed but only pierced b~ a powerful light. The light shines through, the veil be-comes the medium of communication of the light; but it is still there; and, transparent as it may be, it may still absorb some of the light. Containing a significance and an efficacy pertaining to the world to come, matrimony keeps its earthly solidity and persists in its "this-worldly" existence. At the same time as it announces the eschato-logical marriage feast of the Lamb, it remains union in a flesh not yet transfigured by the Spirit.19 :~The point can be expressed technically in the theological lan-guage which distinguishes in the sacraments between the sacra. mentum tantum, the res tantum, and the reset sacramentum. In matrimony, the res is the divine agap~ sealing the unity of the Mys-tical Body as it seals Me conjugal cell. The sacramentum tantum is the conjugal union. Christian marriage is reset sacramentum: there is intercompenetration of the symbol and of the spiritual reality. Christian virginity on the contrary is the res tantum of matrimony. 4- 4- Virginity VOLUME 22, 1963 275 4. 4. 4. L. Legrand, M.E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS We saw that it is that "worldly" aspect of matrimony which is responsible for its spiritual opacity.2° The spirit-ual reality may be absorbed in the worldly thickness of the "sign" and even in the most favorable cases when it is the most transparent, matrimony remains a sign, a re-flection, not the light itself. This sacramental value of matrimony is at the same time its greatness and imper-fection. The "mystery" is at once revealed through the screen, yet hidden in its worldly folds. Or, to take an image which is Paul's, it reflects the agap~ of the cross, but only in the cloudy and confused way of the old mir-rors of polished metal (see I Cor 13:12). Because it is a closer participation in the sacrifice of the cross, virginity represents better the agap~ which ani-mated it. It not only reflects that love, it embodies it. Virginity is not a sacrament. It does not set the screen of any sign between Christ and man. In it, the divine love is not refracted through the mediation of any "worldly" feeling. There is nobody who stands for Christ to repre-sent Him; the contact is direct between Christ and the bride. Matrimony is turned towards the agap~ of the sacrificed Christ as towards its fulfillment; virginity com-munes directly in that agap& The agap~ lived in matri-mony was mediated charity; virginity is agap~ reaching directly its object. In the words of the Roman liturgy: While no prohibition lessens the dignity of marriage and while the nuptial blessing resting on matrimony is safeguarded, nevertheless there will be nobler souls who, spurning the carnal union entered into by man and wife, strive after the mystery it signifies ([astidirent connubiura, concupiscerent sacramentura). Without imitating what takes place in matrimony., they devote their entire love to the mystery signified by marriage (nec imi-tarentur quod nuptiis agitur, sed diligerent quod nuptiis pr~,e-notatur).~ 1 Virginity is the plentitude of agapO; it shows forth the reality that matrimony contains only in a veiled way. It is the full revelation of the "mystery" still half hidden in sacramental marriage.22 Like the love of the Spouse in the Canticle, the agapd of the celibate is a blazing fire, a flame of Yahweh (see Cant 8:6).23 This fire of love makes of virginal life a holo- ~o See the first part of the present article. .-a Preface of the Consecration of Virgins in the Roman Pontifical. We fellow the translation given in L. Munster, Christ in His Conse-crated Virgins (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1957), pp. 131-2. ="To be living images of the perfect integrity which forms the bond of union between the Church and her divine Bridegroom is assuredly the supreme glory o~ the virgin" (Plus XII, Sacra Vir-ginitas). = We follow for this text the translation of A. Robert, L~ Can-tique des cantiqu~s (Paris: Cerf, 1951), p. 58. caust in which the "flesh" is burnt up and with it any sign, any reality of the present world. Virginity is love impatient of the mediation of any symbols. In that re-spect too, it is analogous to the sacrifice of the cross: the death on the cross was a sacrifice without rites because in its utter despoliation all the.symbolical realities of the world came to an end; there remained only the naked corpse on the bare wood in a total holocaust of anything belonging to this world. Virginity too is a festivity with-out rites, a marriage feast celebrated without any exter-nal rejoicings because, as the cross and in it, this marriage is consummated and consumed in a holocaust of self-denying love that raises it above this world. It is in that sense that virginity is a spiritual marriage. It is a marriage: in the phrase "spiritual matrimony," the adjective does not obliterate the noun. Virginity is a thing of love, total communion to the divine agap~ which is the essence of the life of Christ and of life in Christ. That marriage is spiritual. Spiritual does not mean metaphorical. The spiritual union of Christ with the vir-gin is not a vague likeness of the conjugal union. It is rather the opposite; virginity gives the true picture of real love in all its intensity and purity. Neither is it spiritual in the Platonic sense of the term. It does not correspond to a chimerical dream of abolition of the flesh. In virginity the flesh is accepted as it was in the Incarnation. But it is sanctified, transformed as the flesh of Jesus was in His glorification. The glorification does not delete the Incarnation; it fulfills it. Virginity is no negation of the flesh but its consecration. The virginal union with Christ is spiritual in the bib-lical sense of the term. It shows man's transformation by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit, the divine force that animates the new creation, takes possession of man's body and soul, freeing them from "the shackles of corruption" to give them "the glorious liberty of the children of God." And the transforming force which the Spirit implants in the virgin is the charity of God (Rom 5:5), the flame of love which, coming from God, consumes the flesh of the virgin and transmutes it into the likeness of the "spiritual flesh" of the risen Christ (1 Cot 15:45-49). The New Testament does not explicitly call virginity a spiritual marriage. Yet its doctrine of marriage and its exhortations to virginity converge towards that theme because both states of life refer to the mysterious con-nubial union of Christ and the Church which marriage prefigures and virginity embodies. Linked by that com-mon relation to the mystery of Christ, virginity and matri-mony are intimately connected. Matrimony moves to- + + + Virginity VOLUME 22, 1963 4. 4. 4. L. Legrand, M .E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS wards a virginal type of love as towards its fulfillment, and virginity is nothing but the full realization of that which is prefigured in marriage. The best exposition of the spiritual meaning of Chris-tian virginity would be, therefore, a Christian transposi-tion of the Canticle of Canticles, the nuptial song of the Old Testament.~4 The liturgy, the fathers of the Church, and the mystics have understood it spontaneously and have repeatedly made of the Canticle the epithalamium of the Christian life dedicated to the Lord. From Origen's homilies on the Canticle to the com-mentary of St. Bernard and the Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross, it would be easy to compose a mag-nificent anthology in which the best of Christian elo-quence and lyricism would figure. As a sample of what this anthology would contain, it is difficult to resist the temptation of quoting at least extracts of the hymn with which Methodius concludes his Symposium on Chastity. The Ten Virgins who have taken part in the symposium conclude their discussion with the triumphal chorus: For Thee, I keep myself chaste, and with a lighted torch in hand, 0 my Spouse, I come to meet Thee. And the stanzas follow each other, composed by Thecla, the most eloquent among them: From above, O virgins, there came the sound of a voice that raises the dead. It says: Hasten to meet the Bridegroom in white robes and with lamp in hand. Turn to the East. Arise lest the King should precede you at the gates. [Chorus:] For Thee, I keep myself .'. For Thee, O King, spurning a rich home and the embrace of mortals, I came in spotless robes, to enter with Thee within tile bridal chambers. [Chorus:] For Thee, I keep myself. In my eagerness for Thy grace, O Lord, I forget my own country. I forget the dances of my companions, the desire even of mother and kindred, for Thou, 0 Christ, art all things to me. [Chorus:] For Thee, I keep myself. 0 blessed bride of God, thy couch do we adorn with hymns. And we praise thee, O Church, immaculate virgin, pure like snow, wise, undefiled, lovely. [Chorus:] For Thee, I keep myself. Open thy gates, O resplendent queen, and take us too within the bridal room. O spotless and triumphant bride, breathing ~ Such transposition is not too distant from the literal sense if it is accepted that in its literal sense the Canticle is an allegory of the convenant relationship of Yahweh with Israel. See A. Robert, Le Cantique, pp. 7-23; also A. Feuillet, Le Cantique des cantiques (Paris: Cerf, 1953). beauty, behold we stand round Christ, clad like Him, singing thy nuptials, O happy maiden.~ The canticle of Methodius weaves a web of biblical themes. The bride of the Canticle and of Psalm 45 has joined the Bridegroom of the parable (Mr 27:.!-13). The voice that arouses the Ten~Vii-gihs is tha(.~vhich had called Abraham and invited him to leave "home and kindred" for the first Exodus to Canaan (Gn 12:1). It is also the voice that raised Christ from the dead. The nup-tial procession is at the same time an Exodus and an As-cension that takes the Church and the virgins to the bridal chamber of the King. There is more in that text than fanciful allegory; the profusion of biblical allusions shows a thought deeply rooted in biblical ground. The hymn echoes Paul's call to virginity, Though amplified, the exhortation of the Apostle is rendered faithfully. The attitude and the bliss of the Ten Virgins corresponds exactly to the ideal proposed by Paul to the Corinthians of a life "free from worldly worries" to be spent "waiting upon the Lord without distraction" (1 Cot 7:35). ~Patrologia Graeca, v. 18, col. 208-9. A substantial part of the hymn is quoted and translated in J. Quasten, Patrology, v. 2 {Utrecht: Spectrum, 1953), pp. 4, ÷ ÷ VOLUME 22~ 196;~ 279 SISTER MARY CELESTE, S.M. The Virtue of Mercy Sister Mary leste, $.M., is on the faculty of the Col' lege of Our Lady of Mercy; 2300 Ade-line Drive; Burlin-game, California. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS As the good news of Christ continues to be heralded, classrooms in Catholic schools rapidly mushroom into being and innumerable extra rows of desks are squeezed into innumerable older rooms; CGD classes flourish; hos-pital beds are filled; homes for the aged, the mentally ill, the delinquent, the abandoned and helpless have long waiting lists; clinics are daily crowded to capacity. The works of mercy are literally endless. Yet precisely for that reason, their true purpose must be all the more clearly understood if the pitfall of activism is to be avoided. This is especially necessary for the sister whose community is officially sent by the Church to bear witness to Christ in the ministry of mercy. She is responsible, in whatever way her individual position allows, to see to it that the works are authentically merciful ones--that they are per-meated through and through with the spirit of Christ's mercy. This means that she must know well what mercy is and how it is incarnated in her own apostolic action. If we follow the fruitful approach of St. Thomas in striving to gain. some insight into the nature of mercy, we will begin not with an abstract definition of it but rather with the concrete existential situation in which a merciful person finds scope for his activities. We may then analyze the kind of response that is given in such a situation, and finally we may ask what kind of person is needed for these works--one who will respond merci-fully. Since mercy, according to St. Thomas, is a virtue,1 this last question involves asking about the particular habit-patterns of virtue which must be integrated into the personality of one who is merciful. But since it also entails a rather complex group of associated virtues and supporting habits, we must examine this structure in some detail in order to find out precisely what kind of effort is needed to build such habits and thus to develop most effectively the virtue of mercy. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.3. Starting-Point: the Misery of Man First, let us turn to the concrete situation. Where does a person inspired by mercy find a ready field for the driv-ing impulse of this spirit? Always~ it is in a need. But it is not just any need; not physical need alone, although this may be part of it. There must be a specifically human need: a situation in which man finds himself in misery, falling short of what he needs to attain his human fulfill-ment. 2 Ultimately, this fulfillment lies in his beatific union with God; and therefore his most radical misery is his sinfulness. All unhappiness stems from this. But in addition to guilt before God, human misery vitiates every facet of existence: it is the old problem of evil in the world of the sons of Adam. The stimulus for mercy, then, is human distress. It is man faced with the impossibility o[ attaining the true happiness for which he is destined,n It is Job buffetted by Satan; it is the unfaithful wife of Hosea in her willful waywardness; it is the thief dying on the cross. In our own day, in a far more sophisticated and complex civili-zation, the misery of man takes on the most piteous of forms--all the heavy trials that burden man's physical life and his mind and spirit; inadequacy and weakness and guilt of all kinds; confusion of the young who idealis-tically grope for vague goals yet are shackled by luxury and habits of indecision; bitterness, bewilderment, neg-lect and persecution, even just punishment; and espe-cially, the despair of those who have given up the search for happiness. It is man in misery, lacking what he needs for the fulfillment of his humanness in union with God. The Works of Mercy: Response to Misery What response does misery evoke in the merciful? It inspires and stimulates the work of carrying out into ef-fective action whatever will i-eally remove the defects which stand in the way of another person's happiness. God Himself is called merciful because oust of His loving kindness He actually takes away the miseries of man.4 Especially by His redemptive Passion and Resurrection, Christ delivered man from the greatest of miseries; and in this act God showed more abundant mercy than if He had forgiven sins without asking satisfaction, for He actu-ally went to the trouble, as it were, of doing something personal and positive to remedy the situation.5 So, too, a merciful person does all he can to dispel the misery of another. *Summa Theologiae, I, q.21, a.4. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.1. Summa Contra Gentiles, 1, c.91. Sumlna Theologiae, 3, q.46, a.l, ad 3. ÷ ÷ ÷ Mercy VOLUMI: 22, 1963 2~! + Sister Mary Celeste, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 282 This means that certain external works are necessary in order to communicate the good things which the dis-tressed person lacks,e St. Thomas classes these works un-der the heading of "almsgiving," and divides them ac-cording to the kind of need that cries out for relieL Some needs are concerned with the maintenance of physical life: food, clothing, shelter, care in sickness, freedom from slavery of all sorts. But man is not merely a physical thing; so proper respect must be given the body destined for resurrection, and his spiritual needs must be relieved by prayer, instruction, and counseling. The sorrowful must be encouraged and the wayward corrected and pardoned.7 It is within the context of the active life, therefore, that the merciful person directly ministers to the needs of his neighbor.S He carries out into the realm of action the teaching of St. John to love not in word or tongue only but in deed and in truth (1 Jn 3:18). Such response to misery in the works of mercy is easily observable in the lives of the founders of religious insti-tutes which flourish today. We are so familiar with the details of our own founder's work that we tend to forget the amazing range of misery with which he was con-fronted. In fact, no individual, however energetic, can possibly cope with the vast extent of human ills that come within his vision. Thus it was a natural development that, under the leadership of a great person, others shar-ing his spirit formed themselves into a group in order to accomplish what they could not do as individuals. The work of schools, hospitals, institutions for the care of the poor and aged and delinquent in turn necessitated the organization of a religious community which would be inspired by the vital spirit of its founder and would as-sure continuity to the works. A community of itself, however, is not enough. Though the outward forms of human misery may change with time and place, its essence is as universal as wounded hu-manity itself. And in her universal compassion, Mother Church incorporates the community as a living member within herself. Through the major superior as her repre-sentative, the Church receives the vows by which an in-dividual religious is totally committed to Christ. In turn, she gives to the community an official mandate to carry out the works of mercy as part of her own universal apos-tolate of bringing all men to union with God in Christ. This goal is identical with that of the perfection o1! hu-man happiness for all men, the ultimate obliteratic.,n of human misery. Therefore, every member of a community nSumma Theologiae, 2-2, q.32, a.5. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.32, a.2 and 3 ~Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.188, a.2; De Caritate, a.8; De Per- [ectione Vitae Spiritualis, c.13. whose very raison d'etre is the Church's works of mercy must be essentially dedicated to the active life of service. Within the framework of her religious life, the sister must minister to the poor, the sick, those in need of instruc-tion and care. If she does not carry out her share with complete personal dedication,, she .not only,, fails to be a merciful individual and thwarts the united endeavor of her community but in a real sense hinders the very work of Christ in His Church. The Merci]ul Person As active religious, then, it is essential that we become the kind of person who will respond to human misery in a way that will really bring about its relief and thus ef-fect the happiness of our fellow man in his union with God. Our vocation is to be a merciful person. What is meant by saying that we want to become a certain kind of person? It is a fact that at entrance into religious life, we are already possessed of a distinctive personality; and personalities vary greatly. Of course, these differences will remain. But when we become a re-ligious, we do intend to become someone in a way that we were not before. We intend to grow into an attitude, to take on a new quality and direction of endeavor which is characteristic of our community. We express this in-tention by saying that we want to have the spirit of the community, to incorporate into our personality that par-ticular aspect of Christian spirituality which is best suited to the apostolic work proper to this community. This means that we consciously try to cultivate those habitual ways of acting which characterize the merciful person. We want, in other words, to acquire the habit, the virtue of mercy.° Human virtue, according to St. Thomas, is an opera-tive habit disposing a man to good action.1° As strictly human, it cannot be merely an automatism which, oni:e acquired, allows us to carry on action in a quasi-mechani-cal and unthinking way, like tying our shoelaces,it Virtue is a mastery-habit, demanding attention and free adher- ~ In this discussion we are speaking of moral virtue as perfecting human powers insofar as it is acquired by our own efforts. It is commonly taught that, in addition, there are "infused moral vir-tues," which complement the acquired ones and come with sanctify-ing grace and charity. lOSumma Theologiae, 1-2, q.55, a.2 and 3. 1, Servais Pinckaers, O.P., "Virtue Is Not a Habit," Cross Cur-rents, v. 12 (Winter, 1962), p. 68. "To define virtue as a habit would seem necessarily to be making man into a pure automaton, and to be depriving his action of its properly human value." The author here clearly limits his meaning of "habit" to "automatism,,' and does not take the word to include "mastery-habit" as we have done here. ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Mary Celeste, S.M. REVIEW FOR REL[GIOUS 284 ence of the will, manifesting an interiority and personal commitment in each action.12 The virtues we acquire be-come, as it were, a second nature to us, wellsprings of good actions which strengthen and dispose our human powers for realizing their specific goodness. Thus, without sacri-ficing individuality, members of a community strive to acquire a perfecting habit which exercises a distinctive influence as the "spirit" of their work. As soon as we begin to ask what mercy is, it becomes obvious that we cannot deal with it as an isolated virtue. In the practical order, of course, this is true of any virtue. Mercy in action requires a whole complexus of related virtues, a patterned grouping of habits to support it. It requires at the same time a principle of unity by which these habits are integrated into the structure of one's per-sonality and can function in cooperation for a common end. Because of the many strenuous and complex de-mands made by the external works of mercy, a sister whose life is dedicated to such worlds will be gravely en-dangered by a lack of unity in her person. But conversely, her life will be all the richer and more fruitful if it is consciously balanced and ordered toward a unified goal. This is especially crucial for a woman. Psychologically, a woman's strength lies not so much in the mastery of a single field as it does in the integrating power which weaves a widespread variety of human activities into a coherent wholeness. In the life of a sister engaged in works of mercy, the pattern of wholeness--that is, of those vir-tues and habits of action which are consciously acquired during the formative years of religious life--is specifically focused on the kind of situation which should evoke mercy: namely, that of human misery. In the responding compassion of the merciful woman, every power of her human personality is engaged. For one whose vocation it is to be thus dedicated and whose calling as religious includes the essential obliga-tion to strive for maturity and full effectiveness in the apostolate, it is important to know clearly how her pow-ers can be unified and perfected for merciful action so that such action comes as it were by second nature, ha-bitually. Everyone has the powers. The crux of the mat-ter is the question of virtue and of the subordinate good habits conducive to virtuous action. Here finally we come to the virtue of mercy in its plenary context: as a kind of master-habit toward whose perfect operation the ac-tivities of other human powers are directed by subordi-n See George P. Klubertanz, S.J., The Philosophy o! Human Nature (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953), pp. 272-97. The content of this paper owes much to further developments of these ideas in a course on Thomistic theory of moral character given by Fr. Klubertanz. nate habits. The mature personality of the religious is stabilized (but by no means stereotyped) and made apt for merciful action by the unified structuring of these interrelated habits. The Perception oI Misery The initiation of actual response to misery is the recog-nition of it. This seems obvious. Yet there are facets of misery which are not so obvious that they are recognized by everyone; and there are degrees of awareness among those who do recognize that there is some need. The sister who aims to acquire the virtue of mercy must ask: How can human misery be most keenly perceived? How ca, n insight into unhappiness be developed and deepened? There is no question, first of all, of "training" our eyes and ears; whatever we see, we see, and getting glasses to perfect our vision is not habituation at all but only an aid to the proper actual functioning of our sense o1: sight. The perception of unhappiness is rather a matter of noticing, of paying attention to those elements within our range of vision which carry meaning. To do this, the powers of imagination, sense memory, and estimative sense must be developed under the guidance of reason so that one habitually notices the kind of detail that is rele-vant. Some accumulation of experience is necessary here. For a young religious endeavoring to build the needed habits, it will be very helpful to have the guidance of an experienced person who can direct her interested atten-tion to the minute aspects of a human situation that bear on unhappiness--the tensing of a cheek muscle, the slight threadbareness of a sleeve, the brittleness of a laugh. What is sometimes vaguely referred to as "intuition" or "hunch" is, more precisely, the focusing of awareness on the material hints and expressions of poverty, ignorance, guilt, pain, confusion, weakness, of any form of human evil. Watching for these hints and observing others more adept at noticing them, we may improve and control our sensitive knowing powers for discerning and evaluating concrete situations of misery. But human misery is not something that can be sensed. It is an intelligible reality that must be understood and judged. A sharpened sensitivity to the material signs of misery will develop only with the growing realization of their meaningfulness in the lives of those we desire to help. In order to read the language of these signs, then, certain acts of intellectual understanding must concur with the functioning of the sensory powers. A mutual re-lationship exists here: by our intellect we comprehend the imeaning in the material image, and this understanding in turn is a guideline for our imaginative and estimative + ÷ ÷ VOLUME 22, 1962 285 + ÷ ÷ Sister Mary Celeste, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS powers to furnish and elaborate precisely those images which bear a meaning-content relevant to merciful ac-tion. How is facility for such intellectual acts acquired? It seems evident that there must be some serious and con-sistent meditation on the human goal of beatitude and on the nature of sin which is the chief obstacle to achiev-ing that goal. The object of mercy is hierarchized accord-ing to the goods which God loves in man and "desires" for him; hence, there must be true judgments about the relative value of various deficiencies in such goods. Sin is the supreme evil, and effective compassion for the sinner is the most merciful act. After this come the many ills concomitant with the sinfulness of man--injustice, preju-. dice, war, poverty, oppression. To judge of these evil~; clearly, a study of the social and behavioral science~ would seem at least highly desirable if not necessary. Complementary to these disciplines, the development of an appreciation for great literature will aid the sister in observing concrete instances of misery and its tragic ef-fect in human lives. In short, a truly liberal education with theology as its core ought to contribute much to tile degree in which the object of mercy is perceived. To keep the proper perspective, we must renew these judgments with conviction until they crystallize into our permanent outlook. But it is not only the object of mercy which must be judged; we ourselves must reflect on how we stand in relation to the action that we are doing. A realistic evaluation of our own position, motivated by concern for the one in need, must include the conviction that we likewise are immersed in the conditions of hu-manity and that therefore whatever good we are able to communicate to others is first a gift to us. The lack of this conviction is pride; and the vice of pride is a direct ob-stacle to the practice of mercy. The proud are without mercy, St. Thomas tells us, because they despise others and think them deserving of the sufferings they have to undergoA~ John Kuskin has stated well the kind of self-judgment that a merciful person makes: I believe that the test of a truly great person is humility. I do not mean by humility doubts about his own ability. But really great men-have a curious feeling that greatness is not in them but through them and they . see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, and ~ncred~bly merciful. Sensitivity to Suffering Though perception of misery is the first requisite of the act of mercy, its essence is in the affective response to misery. For the clarity of perception itself depends basi- Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.2 ad 3. cally upon the concern we have for aiding another. Now concern for another is a matter of love. Human love, like human knowledge, is a unified act engaging the whole person, spiritual and physical. To love someone humanly, it is natural that our feelings should concur with our willing of his good However, there is an initial difficulty in the matter responding to unhappiness: the first impulse in the face of misery is to shun it, for we are naturally attracted to what is pleasant and try to avoid what is evil. Do the sen-sitive appetites, then, have any part in the act of mercy? First of all, we may note that the perception of someone else's misery may provoke one of two contrary attitudes in us. There may be a detached unconcern for an evil that in no way affects us at present, together with the hope that the unpleasantness of seeing another suffer will be quickly removed and forgotten. On the other hand, there may be a reaction of sympathy, a feeling of sorrow for the distressed person. This latter movement"of the sensitive appetite is the act of pity.1~ Now considered on the sensitive level alone, an act is neither virtuous nor morally bad because it is not yet a human act. Can we say, then, that it does not matter which attitude a person has, as long as he is influenced by spiritual love? And further: might it not be better to remain, as far as pos-sible, emotionally uninvolved? If we let our feelings run away with us, there is danger that' sentimentality will govern our actions; and this is not a good. To answer the question of the role of sensitivity in mercy, we may first point out a negative aspect. The dangers of sentimentality should not be minimized; there is a definite risk taken. There is a kind of undesirable emotional involvement which consists in identifying one-self with the patient or one in need to the extent that his anxiety, confusion, and helplessness are communicated to us instead of being relieved by us. This would be equiv-alent to becoming a beggar in order .to .help beggars, and thereby cutting off the very possibility of saving anyone from the misery of beggarhood. Because of warnings about such risks, young religious sometimes fear to admit to themselves that they do feel grief or anxiety for others, that they are really affected by seeing suffering and pov-erty. It would be helpful, when such is the case, to reflect on the consequences of this outlook. Fear of danger leads naturally to avoidance of the dangerous occasion. In this instance, the sister may unconsciously tend to avoid those situations which arouse her feelings of pity, and in so doing is avoiding the very misery toward which mercy is 1~ Sum~na Theologiae, 1-2, q.35, a.8. ÷ ÷ ÷ Mer~y VOLUME 22, 196~ 287 ÷ ÷ ÷ Si~ter Mary Celeste, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS directed. This obviously is not the way to develop the virtue of mercy. A further reflection on the conditions sentimentality would help to alleviate her fears. For pity will never degenerate into sentimentality when its exer-cise is buttressed with the clarity of intellectual vision and intensity of spiritual love required by an act of true mercy. Emotional involvement with those in misery, when incorporated into this virtuous (and hence, controlled) act, will never cause a loss of interior peace, patience, and trust in divine Providence. From the positive point of view, sensitivity to suffering of others should be regarded as a real asset, integral to the practice of mercy. St. Augustine says that mercy is heartfelt sympathy for another's distress, impelling us help him if we can.15 The Latin word for mercy, miseri-cordia, denotes sorrow of heart (miserura cordis) or com-passion for the unhappiness of another as though it were one's own.1. Of course, temperamental dispositions differ and solne persons are more sensibly affected than others; but the emotion of sorrow is a universally human one, and to some extent every human person feels it. Being moved with sorrow for another, we are more likely to do an act of mercy for him. Freely to take on sorrow for a misery that is not our own, to let ourselves be hurt when this is not a necessity, requires a special habit to strengthen our natural sen.,;tendency to fear and reject evil. The virtue of forti-tude is this habit, enabling us to face and accept the diffi-culties of personally assuming the suffering involved compassionate response to misery. This virtue is at the same time a guarantee against sentimentality and a bul-wark to fortify us throughout the consequent difficulties of carrying mercy into practical action. Courage to sympathize, to co-suffer with the unhappy, results also in a keener insight into the depth of misery. One's personal experience of vicarious suffering is the basis for a connatural knowledge which cannot be had on a purely speculative level. No matter how much we contemplate the social conditions of poverty and the par-ticular details of this family's wretched plight, we cannot really know what their misery is unless it affects us in our whole being: unless our judgment is swayed by a concern that is at once a willed and a felt love. In order to under-stand how the redeeming love of God works providen-tially in the "crooked lines" of evils in the human con-dition, we must feel ourselves within this condition. An habitual sensitivity to the suffering of others, habit of pity, is therefore an integral part of the total St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei 9.5. Summa Theologiae, I, q.21, a.3; 1-2, q.35, a.8; 2-2, q.30, a.l. pattern of mercy because the feeling of compassion is al-ready the directing of the sensitive appetites toward the object of mercy.1~ While not itself a virtue in the com-plete sense, pity contributes the "matter" as it were of the total response, being given its "form" or determining specification as virtue by the complementary tendency of merciful love in the will. Because of the dynamic influ-ence of this love, channeled and controlled by right judg-ment, the emotion of pity as a fully human response is truly virtuousJs It gives an intensity to the impulse of mercy to relieve the distress so keenly felt. Charity: the Source ol Mercy Formally and essentially, the act of mercy is a special kind of willed love. Whatever may be the absence or presence, the strength or weakness of supporting habits and virtues in other powers, the absolute requirement for mercy is the free and deliberate choice to love another who is in need. We make this choice as the radical orien-tation of our lives in accepting a religious vocation to an institute whose commission from the Church is to carry out her works of mercy. Thereby we accept the solemn obligation to reinforce by repeated acts what is implicit in this orientation: that is, to develop the habitual facility or virtue for good and effective action most properly be-longing to such an institute. What kind of love is the essence of mercy? In the first instance, this love must be benevolence: a willing of good for the sake of the person about whom we are concerned. It must be completely other-directed, outgoing. Religious are greatly aided in developing unselfishness in love by the numerous opportunities in community living to show thoughtfulness and consideration for others. The mani-festations of such concern are by no means of merely pe-ripheral importance, for a deficiency in love is a defi-ciency in the essence of mercy. Even on the sensitive level, pity is directed not to oneself but to another,a9 A selfish act is a disordered love-choice not only different from but contradictory to the choice of loving mercifully. There-fore, any habitual selfishness, no matter how slight it is or how trivial its object, will be a direct obstacle to de-veloping the virtue of mercy. The subjective aspect of benevolence--that is, true de-sire of good for another--must be complemented by its objective counterpart: desire for another of what is truly 1*St. Thomas notes that the reason why God forbad cruelty to animals in the Old Testament was that even pity for the suffering of animals makes a man better disposed to take pity on his fellow man. Summa Theologiae, I-2, q.102, a.6 ad 8. XSSumma Theologiae, 1-2, q.59, a.l ad 3; 2-2, q.$0, a.$. ~ Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.l ad 2. 4. + 4. VOLUME 22, 196~ 289 ÷ ÷ Sister Mary ~eleste, $3tL REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS good. Ultimately, the true good of man is his perfect hap-piness in union with God. When we desire that a person have what is needed for this, our benevolence toward him is charity. It should be remembered that the dual precept of charity in no way detracts from its nature as a single virtue; by charity, God is loved both as supreme good in Himself and as the goal of human striving. Thus when we love another in charity, we desire for him the beati-tude toward which we also aim. The attainment of this common goal, uniting us in a social bond as fellow viatores, is hindered by our misery. Therefore, if we love God and desire that all men be united with Him, our charity will (as nearly as this is possible) be a love patterned on His. We will not seek in others what we lack and not merely respond to a goodness in others which we find there. Rather, out of the abun-dance of love, we will be able to confer on others a good-ness which we do not find, which we ourselves only hold as a gift in the first place. We will aim to relieve their misery. This is Christian love. If Christianity has been a civilizing influence in the world, it is because, as Da-ni~ lou writes, civilization is "a state of human life in which individual man is accorded his due of respect and love, being loved the more in proportion as he may be defenseless, lonely, or unlucky.''20 Since charity is the essence of Christian perfection, it is afortiori the virtue par excellence of the religious who is bound by vow to strive for Christian perfection. In the religious state, the vows are means to this goal. The pur-pose of poverty is to free one's love from attachment: to material things, for our finite human affections cannot be fully concentrated on God if they are tied down. by many physical concerns. Charity is also hindered by an excessive craving for pleasures of the flesh which prevent the development of spiritual love. Chastity does not stamp out or distort the humanness of love but univer-salizes it so that the concern of the heart may extend to all persons. Charity is hindered most of all by the in-ordinate willing of one's own independence. Obedience especially makes the sister a sharer in community effort which is part of the Church's mission of mercy i'n the world. Thus the specific way in which charity is de-veloped in a religious is intrinsically influenced by the spirit and virtue of poverty, chastity, and obedience as directly oriented to the perfecting of spiritual love: The immediate effect of charity as the benevolent love by which we desire for others their happiness in union with God is our own bond of union with them, a special and personal kind of belonging. "It is the nature of di- Jean Dani~lou, Lord oI History (Chicago: Regnery, 1958), p. 66. vine charity," St. Thomas writes, "that he who loves in this way should belong not to himself but to the one loved.''zl In belonging to another, we take on vicariously whatever is his lot, suffering included. We feel it our-selves even though the misery is'not radically our own.m Thus God Himself is said~to pity us because of His love by which He regards us as belonging to Him33 This note of belonging to the one loved may be re-garded from another aspect also. We see that the virtue of charity is perfected in three "dimensions." First, its extent must be universal, including all persons.destined for beatific union with God. Secondly, its intensity is measured by the hardships one is willing to endure for the sake of those loved, even to the point of laying down one's life. Finally, its effects are seen in the gifts of good-ness bestowed: not only in material things, not only in spiritual benefits, but even in the total personal dedica-tion of oneself.~4 Pondering this last "dimension" of charity, we recall that human love is humanly symbolized in gift-giving. The extent and intensity of love is externally shown by the value of the gift bestowed. There are degrees in the alms of mercy just as in any gift, for mercy is always freely given love, Ministering to the physical needs of another is the first and most evident degree, siv.ce man cannot fittingly strive for spiritual goals if he does not have what is needed materially for a decent human life. On a higher level, there are spiritual benefits which do not exceed the natural human capacity for giving: for instance, the com-munication of truth reached by human insight and evi-dence. But of more value still are those goods which are truly supernatural, such as divinely revealed truth or the grace of the sacraments. One who bestows on others gifts of this kind practices a singular perfection of brotherly love, for it is directly by means of these gifts that man at-tains union with God.2" A gift, however, remains but a symbol. That which is signified is the interior disposition of love which is in the person the motivating source from which his action flows. The true worth of a gift can only be judged by the extent to which the giver's love has been concretized in the per-sonal act of donation. The more fully the whole person must be involved in this act, the more apt this particular kind of action is for expressing an intense and universal love. Now the works of mercy not only give scope for a De Perlectione Yitae Spiritualis, c.lO. Summa Theologiae, 9-2, q210, a.2. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.2 ad 1. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.18,1, a.2 ad 8. De Per]ectione Yitae Spiritualis, c.14. ÷ ÷ ÷ Mercy VOLUME 22~ 196.~ 291 4. 4. 4. Sister Mary Celeste, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 292 complete engagement of the giver, but when they really spring from charity they absolutely require this total dedication. For merciful love is redemptive. It means taking on the misery of another in order to heal and strengthen and lift up; and this can only be accomplished by the involvement of one's whole being and energy. For a woman, this total personal dedication to serving the needs of another is the fulfillment of her essential role as mother. In the apostolate, it is a maternal love which inspires the sister to reach out with compassion to all who, like the child, need care and protection. She sees not only the poor, the sick, and the aged as represented by the child, but all those who are ill in mind and heart, those who are poor in the goods of the spirit. Her work of the fulfillment of professional duties is a form of spirit-ual motherhood. By this very fact, her mission in the Church is closely associated with an essential quality of the Church herself. It must be the vocation of the reli-gious woman to impart to others something of the uni-versal healing compassion of Christ, effecting a true nur-turing and growth of human life Godward. Prudence Directs Merciful Action The love-inspired insight of a mother detects the weak-ness of her child and knows instinctively what is the best thing to do. This connatural knowledge has its exact parallel in the act of mercy, the impulse to action in which there is a giving of one's whole self. Knowledge of the most effective action in a concrete case cannot be a matter of intellectual understanding alone when this knowledge is based on an intense concern for the welfare of the person for whom the action is being done. Judg-ment about such action must be governed by the habit of prudence. Thus the life of one engaged in works of mercy requires that prudence be the directive intellectual habit. This virtue is further perfected by that docility to the motion of the Holy Spirit which is called the gift of counsel.2e For this reason, St. Thomas states that the beatitude of mercy specially corresponds to the gift of counsel, the gift which directs the act of mercy.~7 The concrete circumstances of human misery are sub-ject to changing conditions; but the principles applied in the variety of instances do not themselves change. Mer-ciful action is always a means to bring about human hap-piness; the choice of a best means to achieve a goal is always the concern of prudence. The prudent person is equipped to know what should be done in the concrete so that his decision and effort are suited to the needs of Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.52, a.2. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.52, a.4. the kingdom of God. Thus the prudential judgment nec-essary in the act of mercy must take into account both the needs of the recipient and the potentialities of the donor. Although spiritual alms are of more value objec-tively, it is sometimes a greater immediate need to relieve physical distress; "to a hungry man, food is more neces-sary than instruction in truth.''2s Since our humanness limits the amount of good we can do, St. Augustine coun-sels us to consider those who are nearer to us in time, place, or other accidental condition as the first recipients of our mercy.29 If the act of mercy is not merely hap-hazard, if it springs from the virtue of mercy, it must, then, be directed by prudence. Unity of the Virtues Related to Mercy Among the great variety of circumstances in which misery appears and within the myriad personalities who are called to a special dedication for responding to mod-ern needs, the stabilizing influence of a common spirit is to be found in the basic structure of virtues and habits within which this spirit is translated into action. The master-virtue of mercy has a characteristic pattern simple in its essentials yet comprising all the human powers in total personal engagement. First, because an act of mercy is concerned with con-crete human misery, the initial perception of the situa-tion will be a unified act including both sensory aware-ness of physical detail and intellectual understanding of the meaning-content incarnated in this detail: that is, its relevance to human happiness. Thus the merciful person will notice, will habitually listen and see, use imagination and memory to retain and supply impressions that help this awareness. She will use her estimative power under the control of reason to evaluate in each particular case a lack of what is befitting the dignity of man. She must be able to judge the social evils of the contemporary world with an adequate comprehension of what they imply for human living. Finally, she must be able to see herself as an instrument, a steward entrusted with a gift which is to be transmitted to others; this is her humility. In other words, all her human knowing powers are operative in the perception of what is relevant to unhappiness. Secondly, because an act of mercy is essentially an out-going response to a real situation, the merciful sister acts by the dynamic tendency of her appetitive powers. These will include a sensitivity to suffering that is called pity, a willingness to accept difficulties and to suffer for another that is called courage, and that benevolent love which in Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.32, a.3. St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana 1.28. ÷ ÷ ÷ Mercy VOLUME 22, 1963 293 Sister Mary Celeste, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 294 the supernatural order is called charity. Just as human nature is a body-spirit unity, and just as human knowl-edge is the perception of meaning in the material sign, so too there is a parallel in the appetitive order. The uni-fied act of sorrow for another's unhappiness, the interior act of mercy, is the spiritual love of charity incarnated and expressed in the feeling of compassion. Although supernatural in its cause, charity, mercy is thoroughly hu. man in its mode of operation. Thirdly, there is a kind of reflective moment of both knowledge and love in the act of mercy. Encountering someone in misery, a merciful person experiences a deeper level of awareness by reason of the dynamic orientation of pity and love. This is what St. Thomas calls a knowl-edge of connaturality. In the light of her love which unites her by sympathy to another, the. sister who is mer-ciful can perceive meaning in details which would pass unnoticed by a detached onlooker. This perception in turn strengthens the driving forces of sensitive pity and willed love, impelling her to judge prudently the action that is most effective and committing her to carry out this action courageously without regard to inconvenience or pain. In mercy, therefore, there is required a totality of personal dedication to serving one's neighbor in order that he may together with us come to beatific union with God. Finally, the charity-love by which we will this goal not only the source from which mercy flows forth but is the unifying principle of every virtue and subordinate habit related to mercy. The ultimate goal of man is beati-tude, union with God. It is this goal which mercy, by re-lieving unhappiness, aims to procure. The goals of other virtues and habits are only proximate and intermediate ones which can be subordinated to this primary human end. So charity, qualifying the will, permeates all activity under the influence of the will--all free actions, just as life permeates the whole living organism in all its parts. In a body, all the particular members and organs func-tion for the good of the whole; so in a life of charity, all particular activity is directed toward the supreme good of the whole which is man's union with God.~0 Every virtue and every habit of a merciful person are drawn into the powerful stream of this love. "If a man is merciful," writes St. Gregory of Nyss;,, "he is deemed worthy of divine beatitude, because he has at-tained to that which characterizes the divine nature. Thus is the merciful man called blessed, because the fruit of mercy becomes itself the possession of the merciful.''zx Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.23, a.8; De Caritate, a.3. ~lSt. Gregory o£ Nyssa, The Beatitudes, translated ~rorn PL Mercy is most properly a divine attribute, manifesting the power and goodness of God's redemptive love.82 As source of the exterior works of mercy done by human hands, this virtue likens us to God in similarity of works and is the highest perfection of the active life.s3 As an interior effect of divine charity,.in us, companion of joy and peace and zeal, it is the greatest Of virtues which re-late to our neighbor,a4 Its effectiveness will end only when there is no further human misery left to cry out for heal-ing. 44:1193-1302 by Hilda Graef, "Ancient Christian Writers Series" (Westminster: Newman, 1954), p. 139. ~ Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, aA. ~Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, aA ad 3. ~ Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.4 ad 3. VOLUME 22~ 1963 ALAN F. GREENWALD Psychological Assessment of Religious Aspirants 4. 4" Alan F. Green-wald is director of psychological serv-ices for the Seton Psychiatric Insti-tute, 6420 Reisters-town Road, Balti-more 15, Maryland. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Psychological testing has become increasingly more useful in the selection of suitable candidates for religious life and in the recognition of emotional illness among seminarians prior to ordination. A growing number of seminaries and religious communities are utilizing psy-chological services to assist superiors and seminary direc-tors in arriving at decisions about the psychological suit-ability of prospective candidates for the priesthood. In view of the desirability of a close working relationship between the psychologist and the clergy, it seems advan-tageous to review briefly the methods, strengths, and weaknesses of psychological assessment procedures as they apply to the screening of applicants for religious life. The two extremes--exceptionally well-qualified extremely poor prospects--may be identified easily within the seminary with or without benefit of formal psycho-logical testing. It is the seminarian who is making a mar-ginal adjustment--just "getting by" academically, with-drawn from others, quarrelsome, experiencing difficulties in attention, concentration, or ability to study, yet still able to conform to established minimum standards of conduct--whose symptoms are less flagrant and whose future is far less predictable. These divergent behavior patterns may represent only a transitory disturbance or they could be the forerunner of a more serious mental dis-order. In either case the psychological referral will help to clarify the situation. The psychological suitability of a candidate for the priesthood is not a black and white issue. Rarely, except perhaps in the extreme cases where a young man presents a remarkable array of talents or on the other hand dem-onstrates bizarre, pathological behavior, can a simpl~ de-termination of "suitable" or "unsuitable" be made. The human personality is too complex to permit such a casual oversimplification. Rather, it is necessary to evaluate a broad spectrum of behavior in order to identify con-vergent drives and patterns as well as divergent attitudes and reactions. The primary question usually asked of the psychologist by the seminary is, "What can :you tell us about the psychological suitability of this seminarian for the priesthood?" In response to this question;,the~psychol-ogist seeks to determine the personality assets as well as the nature and degree of any emotional disturbance which may exist. The psychologist learns early that there are no accepta-ble "canned" or cookbook interpretations of behavior, no universals in test analysis, and a notable lack of .un-equivocal prognostic signs today. No test is infallible, and as yet we have not developed the test which can predict with great accuracy how an individual will behave in complex situations. To use less than the most compre-hensive and sensitive instruments available for personal-ity assessment would be a disservice to all concerned. Con-sidering the present state of the art, there still remains honest disagreement as to what constitutes the most valid test battery. But most clinicians favor the projective tech-niques. Projective techniques provide subtle, indirect methods of personality assessment which permit the subject to re-veal his basic pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Because these relatively unstructured tests are less subject to conscious and unconscious distortion and permit greater freedom of expression within a standardized framework, projective techniques such as the Rorschach Inkblot Test, Thematic Apperception Test, Draw a Per-son Test, and Sentence Completion Test are generally preferred to the paper and pencil personality question-naires, for example, the Minnesota Multiphasic Person-ality Inventory. However, Bier,1 Vaughan,2 and others have used the MMPI extensively and developed norms for use in screening seminarians. While it is true that paper and pencil questionnaires have the advantage of ease in administration and scoring and provide quantitative measures of personality charac-teristics, the additional behavioral information elicited by a projective test battery would seem to merit the in-creased expenditure, of professional time and effort. Many 1 W. C. Bier and A. A. Schneiders, eds., Selected Papers [rom the American Catholic Psychological dssociation Meetings of 1957, 1958, 1959 (New York: Fordham University, 1960). W. C. Bier, "Test-ing Procedures and Their Value," Proceedings o] the 1959 Sisters' Institute of Spirituality (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1960), pp. 263-95. W. C. Bier, Description o! Biers Modified MMP1 (Mimeographed; New York: Fordham University, no date). ~ R. P. Vaughan, "Specificity in Program of Psychological Exam-ination," Guild o[ Catholic Psychiatrists Bulletin, v. 8 (1961), pp. 149-55. 4. Psychological Assessment VOLUME 22, 1963 297 Alan l:. G~een~ald REVIEW FOR REL[G]OUS investigators prefer the neat quantitative personality pro-file which the MMPI yields, but too often we find in the behavioral sciences a tendency to follow our sister sciences in attempting to reduce subject matter to numbers and statistics. Behavior does not lend itself readily to this treatment. Even with projective techniques there are ob-jective signs which, unhappily, fail to describe adequately the person they represent. The goal of a psychological screening program is to provide an accurate, reliable pic-ture of the person and not to reduce him to a mass of in-teresting or perhaps not-so-interesting statistics. Many significant test results are qualitative rather than quantitative in nature. Through projective testing, we are able to detect an unwholesome or conflictual, motiva-tion for religious life as well as underlying problems which may interfere with the seminarian's future adjust-ment. Test evidence which relates to motivation, causa-tion, and purposefulness of behavior can prove invaluable in revealing potential difficulties which a seminarian may encounter in his pursuit of a religious vocation. A reli-gious aspirant who demonstrates human sensitivity, strong drive toward achievement, and a desire to serve mankind has significantly different and healthier motiva.- tion than another whose entry into the seminary provides a means of escape from a world perceived as cold, hostile, and threatening to him. Bowes,3 in evaluating nearly 7000 seminarians, has found these major problem areas in order of frequency: (1) purity, (2) interpersonal relationships, (3) scrupulos-ity, (4) mother fixation, (5) obsessive compulsive person-ality, (6) depression, and (7) affective disorders. Becat, se most of these problems do not exist at the level of con-scious awareness, they may go undetected until they g~:n-erate enough anxiety to produce feelings of personal dis-tress and interfere with the person's ,capacity for work and his ability to meet the demands of reality. Often psy-chological testing may detect the presence of abnormal drives or conflicting motives and permit the seminarian to work through the conflict with the assistance of his spiritual director prior to ordination. Psychiatric aid may be rendered when indicated. This coordination of reli-gious and professional services can lead ultimately to a lower incidence of mental illness among the clergy. The use of psychological test procedures with religious introduces the need for specialized handling and inter-pretation. In order for any test results to be meaningful, they must be correlated with the activities, values, and * N. T. Bowes, "Professional Evaluation of Aspirants to Religious Life," a paper delivered in a seminar conducted at St. Mary':~ Semi-nary; Roland Park; Baltimore, Maryland in April, 1962. demands imposed upon the individual by his way of life. One hardly expects to find the same mental mechanisms and hierarchy of needs and values existing in a group of combat marines and in a group of seminarians. Similarly, as Vaughan indicates, all religious cannot be stereotyped and regarded as one. Different orders and assignments within the Church make special demands--intellectual and/or emotional--upon their members, so that prereq-uisites for a Jesuit university professor may differ from those of a Trappist monk. One personality may be better suited for the active, another for the contemplative life. Thus, notwithstanding the elimination of persons with severe emotional illness from the seminary, one needs to understand the circumstances and particular environ-ment in which the candidate will function in order to offer the most intelligent clinical judgment of his over-all suitability. A clear need remains for the development of psychological test norms applicable to candidates for re-ligious life. The experienced clinical psychologist approaches his task with humility, recognizing both the strengths and limitations of his tools. It behooves those who utilize his services to develop a set of realistic expectations in order to derive the maximum benefit from the referral. A word of caution seems in order to avoid overreliance by superiors on test results without giving due weight to traditional methods of selecting religious candidates. The decision regarding a religious vocation should never be made on the basis of test findings alone. The psychologi-cal test should be regarded as a supplementary source of information rather than as a replacement for existing practices. Psychological tests are being applied more widely in the evaluation of religious aspirants. Although no tests are infallible, projective techniques have demonstrated their effectiveness in the study of personality and in de-termining within limits the psychological suitability of persons seeking a religious vocation. Early detection and disposition of seminarians making a marginal adjustment can help to avoid subsequent major disturbances. Psy-chological assessment can be a useful supplement to tra-ditional selection procedures, but there is a need for behavioral scientists to develop a more definitive psycho-logical concept of, as well as test norms for, those aspiring to religious life. ÷ ÷ ÷ Psychological Assessment VOLUME. 22# 1963 299 SISTER M. DIGNA, O.S.B. Uses of Information in a Screening Program ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister M. Digna, O.S.B., is a faculty member of the Col-lege of St. Scholas-tica, Duluth 11, Minnesota. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 300 Psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychometricians, as well as others, subscribe to the assumption that objective information about a candidate's fitness for the priesthood or religious life may be assessed by valid and reliable in. struments in terms of intelligence, personality, and inter-ests. Following the principle that a good, valid test serves as a Geiger counter in detecting intellectual and person-ality assets and liabilities, the Sisters of St. Benedict have utilized test findings for over the past ten years. Having found that a correlation does exist between test data and subsequent religious adjustment, the policy has been initiated of administering the tests prior to admission. ~ln some cases, considerable time, effort, and expense have been saved by a wise use of this information. All favorable findings are referred to a Catholic psychiatrist for further consultation and confirmation. If there is doubt, the in-dividual is given an opportunity to "try religious life." The first type of assessment is that of the applicant's intelligence. Here intelligence is considered from a purely operational viewpoint. The empirical fact is that some people show higher abilities than others. Measurement is an attempt to objectify cognition (intelligence) by eval-uating sensory acuity, perception, memory, reaction-time, and reasoning. Originally the testing program included two scores of mental ability, one based upon the Ameri-can Council Psychological Examination and the other on the Otis Self-Administering Test. The reasons for select. ing these two tests were the availability of the ACE and the ease of administering and interpreting the Otis. Completion of high school has been a basic require-ment for admission into the community. All the sisters at one time or another matriculate at the local college. Since the ACE scores are recorded in the registrar's office, they are accessible for use. However, the ACE scores are not too meaningful in determining the kind of intelligence the individual possesses. For this reason candidates were ranked percentage-wise among all other high school sen-iors or college freshmen tested and placed in the top fourth, lower fourth, and so on. Furthermore, the ACE is highly weighted with verbal factors so that the picture is not too complete. Then too, novice and candidate mis-tresses found difficulty in interpreting 224/81 or still more confusing 127/13. The Otis intelligence quotient was, therefore, a more satisfactory measurement. During the last five years the California Short Form Test of Mental Maturity has been used. This test yields information on total mental factors, language factors, non-language factors, spatial relationships, logical reason-ing, numerical reasoning, verbal concepts, average grade placement, mental age, and intelligence quotient. The following examples illustrate the use of the Cali-fornia Short Form Test of Mental Maturity. Applicant A was a young woman who applied at several communities. Because her educational background was limited to the eighth grade of a small country school, she was rejected. At the time she made contact with the local community, she was working as a domestic in a private home and had taken her vacation to make the lay women's retreat. She was advised to reapply and took the tests with other ap-plicants. The summary data scores indicated that the young woman had intelligence quotient scores in terms of total mental factors of 138, language factors of 141, and non-language factors of 129. Her intelligence grade place-ment was at the 90th percentile for total mental factors and language factors, and at the 60th for non-language factors using the norms for college graduates. The per-centile ranks at her chronological age (C.A.) were 80 for spatial relations, 99 for logical reasoning, 95 for numeri-cal reasoning, 99 for total verbal concepts, and 95 for non-language factors. The young woman was accepted. In one year as a postulant she easily completed two years of a collegiate preparatory program. At the end of her novi-tiate she completed two more years of high school and did very well in college. Her average was A minus or B plus. She is gentle, refined, humble, and modest, but above all deeply spiritual. Surely it is a courtesy to God to recog-nize and utilize His gifts to such a girl. The results of the California Test of Mental Maturity were important factors in the rejection of two applicants, B and C. The intelligence quotients obtained by appli-cant B were 86 for mental factors, 106 for language fac-tors, and 66 for non-language factors. Applicant C's in-telligence quotient, measured in terms of these three factors, were 82 for mental factors, 97 for language fac-÷ ÷ ÷ Screening Program VOLUME 22, 1963 $1~t~ M. Digna REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 302 tors, and 64 for non-language factors. Although the pre-diction of subsequent adjustment in religious life was not too promising on the basis of these scores, the applicants were not rejected merely on this basis. These scores led to a more thorough investigation of their backgrounds. As a result, the mother prioress felt that the applicants were not intellectually equipped to meet the demands of a community that stressed teaching and nursing as an ex-pression of its apostolate. Although information regarding intelligence is very important, the submerged four-fifths of one's personality is just as important as a predictive factor in adjustment to religious life. Originally, the Minnesota Personality Scale was used to discover problems with which the indi-vidual was confronted. This scale was helpful in deter-mining poor social adjustment, family conflicts, and emo-tional problems. Although the scale was structured, the evaluation results merely scratched the surface of the in-dividual's personality. According to Furst and Fricke (1956) a structured test is nonprojective in the sense that users can agree completely on the individual's score; they are projective in the sense that individuals can project personal meanings into the stimuli. Although very losv scores on the Minnesota Personality Scale were clues to more deep-seated troubles, most of the findings were of the obvious type. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) has proved a better instrument since the items, the interrelationships, and the scales all afford information stemming from feelings and emotions. I*: is often possible through careful item analyses to determine the root of emotional experience and to discover hidden attitudes and traits. Supplementing the use of the MMPI, Modified Form, are life histories, ratings from direct ob-servation, and introspective reporting. Because of the MMPI, the psychologist secures a deeper understanding of the individual's problems. The items are structured, and the interpretation from them is deter-mined a priori. For example, if the psychologist or psy-chiatrist wishes to discover whether a person has phobias, he asks questions relating to the individual's fear of snakes, crowds, high places, and so forth. One criterion of phobias is a morbid, exaggerated, pathological fear of some object or situation. The basic assumption is that an individual who has many fears will answer questions per-taining to objects and situations of which the individual is afraid, and he will admit these fears. The test items of the MMPI have to be assembled into scales based upon the principle that the psychologist building the test has sufficient insights into the dynamics of verbal behavior and its relation to the inner core or personality that he is able to predict beforehand what certain sorts of people will say about themselves when asked certain types of questions. Structured personality tests may be employed in a purely diagnostic, categorizing fashion without the use of any dynamic interpretation of the relationship among scales or the patterning of a pro-file. The discrete scores on.': the' Minnesota Personality Scale are an example. The MMPI makes possible more "depth" interpreta-tion. On the basis of the MMPI and other information, some applicants have been rejected. As a typical example, the profile for applicant D demonstrates the use of the results of a personality inventory as a clue to possible poor adjustment to religious life. Although her intelligence quotient scores were average, applicant D presented a poor personality profile. She had two high triads (pairs of threes) above the normal range (30 to 70). Six of the nine scales for this profile ranged from T-scores of~71 to 108. The F score was high. According to Welsh and Dahl-strom (1956), high F scores tend to invalidate the sub-ject's responses. A schizoid may obtain a high F score owing to delusional or other aberrant mental state. The high score for the other scales represented such areas as hypochrondriasis, hysteria, psychopathic deviate, para-noia, schizophrenia, and hypomania. This young woman was not admitted but was counseled to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist to whom she was referred discovered that the applicant had previously been institutionalized. A recent follow-up revealed that she had returned to a mental institution. Applicant E was screened out because of her emotional pattern. This young girl was sixteen years old. Her in-telligence was average but her personality picture was not good. The young woman entered, was tested, and the test material with the following comments was filed in the mother prioress' office: This individual has high scores on the psychopathic deviate, masculinity, and psychasthenia scales. If she shows the follow-ing tendencies or traits it would be very wise to refer her to a psychiatrist: inability to profit from a mistake, attention-getting devices, concentrating on a younger girl in an objectionable manner, having so-called "crushes" on an older woman; any compulsive behavior like hand washing, phobias, fears, and anxieties, depression, worry, lack of confidence, and inability to concentrate. When the young woman began to manifest undesirable traits, her testing material was referred to for counseling purposes. Despite counseling, she fortunately left the community, but unfortunately has not sought psychiatric help. T-he care needed in interpreting test scores may be em-phasized by the responses of applicant F. This young ÷ ÷ ÷ Screening Program VOLUME 22, 1963 ÷ ÷ .÷ Sister M. Digna REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 304 women's profile was unreliable. Unknown to us, the ap-plicant had previously been in two communities. In tak-ing the test, with her high intelligence, test-wiseness, and general sophistication, she presented a pattern falling within the normal range. Fifteen items of the MMPI are designated subtle items because their psychological sig-nificance would not normally be detected by individuals taking the test. Applicant F was able to discern the im-plications of test items and answer them to put herself in a favorable light. This young woman had an opportunity to "try religious life." She received counseling before en-trance, after entrance, and for two years after leaving until she settled down to complete her third year of col-lege, receiving A's in courses she liked, F's and D's in those she didn't. She does not accept God's will in her rejection. Recently, the writer received a letter from a state institution where the young woman has been for the last several years. Applicant G has average intelligence, a fairly well de-fined primary interest pattern, but an unsatisfactory per-sonality pattern on the MMPI. This applicant was tested after entrance and advised to leave. In all cases of dis-missal, the applicants have an opportunity to see a Catho-lic psychiatrist. Through a knowledge of their fields of vocational interest and job placement services, these young women often make a better adjustment as a result of their brief experience in religion. It might be inferred from these data that applicants to religious life have low intelligence or are emotionally disturbed. However, concomitant with the screening out of these "atypical" cases, eighty-one applicants were rld-mitted into the community. In most cases these candi-dates were young women who desired to serve God aad whose intellectual and emotional patterns were not de-terrent factors. Of the eighty-one, six wavered and left. Four of the six have been re-admitted and are making ex-cellent adjustments. Having seen her strengths and weak-nesses, the candidate herself often feels reassured that she can give herself to God if she is generous enough to make the sacrifice and to depend upon His divine grace to assist her. Illustrative of a good profile is that of applicant H. The California Test of Mental Maturity, interpreted in terms of intelligence quotients and grade placement, are at; fol-lows: for mental factors, the intelligence quotient is 118, grade placement, 15.6; language factors, 131, grade place-ment, 70th percentile of students graduating from col-lege; and non-language factors, 105, grade placement, 12.5. Her MMPI falls within the normal range, and her Strong Interest Blank reveals a well-defined interest pat-tern. Her primary occupational interests are in elemen- tary teaching and office work, and her tertiary interests in business education and home economics. It might be wise to say a few words about the use of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank. There rare two forms, one for men and ond for wbmen. The test has been useful in helping the community identify.strong positive and negative interest patterns. About ninety per cent of the reli
