American theologian promoted by Pope Francis calls for focus on Scripture, evangelization

 

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jan 28, 2025 / 09:30 am (CNA).

In an interview with CNA, Professor Mary Healy of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Michigan discussed her Jan. 11 appointment by Pope Francis to the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Led by British Cardinal Arthur Roche, the dicastery advises the pope regarding the practice and promotion of the sacraments, the Mass, and other liturgies of the Latin rite. Members of the dicastery include nearly two dozen cardinals, bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople from around the world.

Healy, a native of New York, was already serving as a consultor to the dicastery. She holds a doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in addition to other graduate degrees.

Since 2008, she has served as a professor of Scripture at the Detroit seminary. In 2014, Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which ensures the correct interpretation of the Bible. She was reappointed to that position in 2021.

Healy has also served the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and also chairs the Charismatic Renewal International Service (CHARIS) in Rome.

Healy has authored several books, including “Healing: Bringing the Gift of God’s Mercy to the World,” “Scripture, Mercy, and Homosexuality,” and “Men and Women are from Eden.” She is also general editor of the “Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture” and author of two of its volumes, “The Gospel of Mark” and “The Gospel of Hebrews.”

Healy has long called on Catholics to familiarize themselves with the Bible and served as general editor of “The Great Adventure Catholic Bible.” She is also a consultant to the Michigan-based Renewal Ministries apostolate, dedicated to evangelization and renewing the Church.

As explained on the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments website, the dicastery “promotes the sacred liturgy in accordance with the renewal undertaken by the Second Vatican Council. Its areas of competence include all matters that pertain by law to the Apostolic See concerning the regulation and promotion of the sacred liturgy and vigilance in ensuring that the laws of the Church and the liturgical norms are faithfully observed in every place.”

CNA: Given that there has been great debate since the council on reforms to the liturgy, what will be your role in the dicastery?

Healy: As far as I know, the dicastery is not currently working on any reforms to the liturgical rites themselves. Rather, the focus is on providing what Pope Francis called for in Desiderio Desideravi: the liturgical formation of all Catholics so that they can enter more deeply into the liturgy and experience its transformative power in their lives.

My role will be to contribute to this effort. Of course, as a layperson, I (and the other new lay member, Donna Orsuto) have a unique perspective: not that of an ordained minister who celebrates the liturgy “in persona Christi” but that of a member of the congregation who exercises the common priesthood of the faithful. I think it’s beautiful that the dicastery will now have these complementary perspectives.

What steps would you recommend to continue to reform the Church as intended by the Second Vatican Council?

The goal of Vatican II was, in a nutshell, to renew the Church in holiness for the sake of mission, to be able to proclaim the Gospel more effectively in today’s world. In the 60 years since then, there has been much progress but also lots of turbulence and confusion. Of course that goal needs to be pursued anew in every generation, including ours. As for steps I would recommend, here are a few:

1. Prioritize study of the Bible such that Catholics fall in love with Scripture and come to know it as a living word from God. Only by understanding the whole story of salvation can people fully enter into the celebration of the culmination of that story in the sacrifice of Christ. A sign of the hunger that exists to know the word of God is the popularity of Father Mike Schmitz’s “Bible in a Year” podcast and other resources, and the fact that Bibles continue to sell like hotcakes while other books lag.
2. Help all Catholics open themselves docilely to the Holy Spirit and his charisms, as Pope John Paul II urged. The Holy Spirit makes both the Scriptures and the sacraments come alive. As St. Augustine taught, at the liturgy it is the fire of the Holy Spirit that bakes the diverse grains of wheat that we are into the one bread of Christ’s body. Surrendering to the Holy Spirit and letting him have his way is the doorway to a rich, fervent, and adventurous life in Christ.
3. Continually renew the emphasis on evangelization, helping all Catholics take up Christ’s call to become missionary disciples. Nothing invigorates faith quite like seeing another person come to faith in Christ through your witness.
4. Provide liturgical formation so that Catholics can appropriate and live the awesome mystery of redemption that is made present to us in the liturgy and sacraments.

The November 2022 article you cowrote in Church Life Journal asserts: “If bishops and pastors do not reclaim and promote the authentic teaching of Vatican II, the theological and liturgical vacuum will continue to be filled by those who promote the Tridentine liturgy as a way of disparaging the council.” What would you recommend to counteract actions and movements that may disparage or misinterpret the Second Vatican Council?

The best way to counter false or misleading narratives is to proclaim the truth, which is always more interesting and more hope-filled. The documents of Vatican II are profound and inspiring, especially the constitutions on divine revelation, on the Church, and on the liturgy.

Among their achievements is the retrieval of some truths that had become neglected, such as the baptismal priesthood of the faithful, the importance of the Holy Spirit’s charisms, the responsibility of laypeople to actively engage in the mission of the Church, and the call to pursue Christian unity. Yet many otherwise educated Catholics are woefully unfamiliar with the council’s teachings. There is a need for solid catechesis on them in seminaries and parishes.

What are the initiatives of Pope Francis that you might champion as a member of the dicastery?

I hope I can contribute to promoting the full, active conscious participation of the faithful in the liturgy that was the aim of the council’s liturgical reforms. The Lord makes himself present to us in the liturgy, yet so many Catholics attend Mass without being truly present to him. How amazing it would be if all came to the liturgy saying to the Lord (in the biblical phrase), “Here I am” — heart, mind, soul, and body.

What must modern Catholics, especially the young, know about the Second Vatican Council?

Many young Catholics today are drawn to tradition because in a world of sound bites and one-minute fame they long for what is transcendent, sublime, beautiful, and enduring. It is crucial for them to understand that Vatican II was not a rejection of tradition but fidelity to the Church’s living tradition, which develops in accord with the needs of the age, led by the Holy Spirit.

Vatican II recalibrated our devotion to tradition. It took out, polished, and repristinated some aspects of authentic tradition that had been forgotten or sidelined, and it set aside some aspects of tradition (small “t”) that had accrued over time but were less well suited to conveying the mystery of Christ. The implementation of the council was inconsistent and chaotic in some respects, but the council remains the lodestar for the renewal of the Church in our time.

You have been notable in the charismatic renewal of the Church. How did your involvement with the movement begin? What does this renewal offer the Church?

I became indirectly involved as a teen when my parents joined a charismatic prayer group after having experienced a personal encounter with Christ. Then I went to graduate school at Franciscan University, where the campus was full of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

What is important about charismatic renewal is not the movement itself but the grace that gave rise to it: baptism in the Spirit, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit into one’s heart that brings an interior revelation of the love of the Father and the lordship of Jesus. This gift makes people come alive in Christ in a whole new way, and I’m eternally grateful for it. It is a grace not just for members of one movement but for all! I think it is in this sense that Pope Paul VI called the renewal “a chance for the Church.”

Of course not all are called to the specific style and spirituality of the charismatic renewal, but all are called to receive the “sober intoxication of the Spirit” that was given to the early Christians on the day of Pentecost. All are called to be open to and exercise the manifold charisms of the Spirit, given to us by the risen Jesus to equip us for our mission.

In the referenced article in Church Life Journal you also say “a mystagogical catechesis on the doctrines of the faith is necessary in conjunction with a mystagogical catechesis on the Eucharistic liturgy itself.” Why is this necessary in the contemporary Church? How would this be accomplished? What is the dicastery’s role?

Mystagogical catechesis literally means catechesis that “leads into the mystery” — the mystery of love beyond all telling, given to us in the act of love in which Jesus died for us, made present to us in the liturgy.

That kind of catechesis can be done effectively only by people whose lives visibly radiate Christ, who are deeply converted themselves and capable of converting others. We are greatly in need of it today because we are immersed in a culture that you could call anti-sacramental — a culture that sees the world as spiritually empty, a product of the laws of physics and random chance, incapable of mediating the invisible divine mystery. People are desperately thirsty for that invisible God who has drawn near to us and has hidden himself in sacramental signs.

The role of the dicastery is not to carry out such catechesis itself but to offer guidelines, resources, and pathways of formation so it can be carried out effectively on the local level, inculturated as needed in every part of the world.