Barnabite Origins 6. Conclusion

St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria [by Cristina Bellazzi]

Recently, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, outlined Anthony Mary’s role in the history of the Church in a manner which appeared to us to be perfectly on target. It was at the end of a liturgy held on May 28, 1997, in the Barnabite church of St. Charles Borromeo in Rome, to celebrate the first centennial of Anthony Mary’s canonization. This is the gist of the Cardinal’s remarks: in the 16th century, two persons shared the same starting point, but in the process reached diametrically opposite outcomes. Both found their initial inspiration in St. Paul. However, one of them, Luther, ended up by dividing the Church. The other one, Anthony Mary, a true disciple of Paul, remained faithful to the Church and contributed to her true reform. We might add that their different outcomes depended on their different approaches. Even sympathetic students of Luther, a man of deep faith and a great theologian, admit that, at least in some statements of his doctrine of justification, Luther did lapse into one-sidedness and exaggeration. At the very least, some formulations of his doctrine remain open to misunderstanding and need supplementation and correction. We believe that this is due to his merely subjective approach which skewed his basically commendable desire to return the Church to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it was experienced in Sacred Scripture and especially in Paul. The bottom line appears to be that Luther’s focus on justification was too narrow and practically exclusive. Anthony Mary’s approach was far more comprehensive and orthodox. Firmly rooted in the living tradition of the Church, Anthony Mary came to embrace Paul in the totality of his many-sided personality and rich doctrine. For Anthony Mary, Paul was not only the Theologian of his Letters. He was as well the Mystic who encountered the Risen Christ on the way to Damascus; the Slave and Lover of the Crucified and Eucharistic Christ; the indefatigable Apostle of the Gentiles, and the Martyr who having fought the good fight to the end and run the race to the finish, crowned his witness to Jesus Christ, his personal Lord and Savior, by shedding his blood. This is the Paul who lives on in the Church. We recognize him in St. John Chrysostom, Cassian, St. Dominic, Fra Battista da Crema. Through them Anthony Mary, too, encountered the living Paul. Thus he became an additional ring in a long chain. By grasping it, we will make this Paul a dynamic presence in our lives as well.

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