Articles | Neville Ann Kelly, D.Min., Ph.D.

Pope Francis on Embracing Multiple Perspectives

January 17, 2014 By Neville Ann Kelly

The popularity of Roman Catholic Pope Francis has soared as his “off the cuff,” conversational style of speaking continues to make headlines worldwide. In keeping with this trend, the Italian Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica recently published a transcript of the Pope meeting with a group of superiors general of religious orders last November, again sending waves through popular media.

Image Credit: c2010ralanscott, fotosearch

Less emphasized in the press is a significant comment, quoted below, indicating the Pope’s desire to urge a multiperspectival understanding of the world’s complexity. Rather than simply suggesting the important emphasis of social justice toward the marginalized alone, the comment also discloses how the direction of one’s view can change not only perception, but empowers clarity and full understanding of realities.

I am convinced of one thing: the great changes in history were realized when reality was seen not from the center but rather from the periphery. It is a hermeneutical question: reality is understood only if it is looked at from the periphery, and not when our viewpoint is equidistant from everything.

Truly to understand reality we need to move away from the central position of calmness and peacefulness and direct ourselves to the peripheral areas. Being at the periphery helps to see and to understand better, to analyze reality more correctly, to shun centralism and ideological approaches.

It is not a good strategy to be at the center of a sphere. To understand we ought to move around, to see reality from various viewpoints.”

~ Pope Francis

The quote is found in Wake Up the World: Conversation with Pope Francis about the Religious Life , pp. 3-4.

Reference

Spardaro, A. (2014). Wake up the world: Conversation with Pope Francis about the religious life. La Civilta Cattolica(I), 3-17.

Tilling the Soul: An African Theology of Creation

January 7, 2014 By Neville Ann Kelly

The forward-looking impulse of planning courses—and my own learning—always urges me to a simultaneous return to roots. So often found in humanity’s abundant creation myths, these narrative roots run deep, an infinite sustenance of life-giving glimmers of ancient wisdom.

Image "Tree Branches" c. 2010 Ron Chapple Stock — Image “Tree Branches” c. 2010 Ron Chapple Stock

Recently, my United Church of Christ friend Reverend Jane Ellefson sent me an undated essay by the Right Reverend Dr. Noah Komla Dzobo (d. 2010), long time moderator of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Ghana from 1981 to 1993. A significant academic and religious leader, Dr. Dzobo was instrumental in African educational reform, mentoring Rev. Jane during her 7 year sojourn in Ghana.

His extraordinary insight into the comparative meaning of the Hebrew and African Ewe creation myths show creation not as a one-time, static occurrence, but as a perpetual emergence from possibility to transcendence. In his words,

To live is to keep thrusting yourself into new possibilities of existence.”

Rather than a simplistic doctrinal treatise, the exploration that follows invites its reader to become something beyond the present, reaching back into our deepest past toward the not-yet manifest.

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What Time, Mystical “Fire!” and Trigonometry Have in Common

November 21, 2013 By Neville Ann Kelly

In a recent Twitter feed, I occasioned upon a philosopher-musician’s (Randy Vera, 2013) link to a fascinating article about the interdisciplinary history of time. Intrigued, I sent my thanks to its original sender. His response later that day immediately suspended my own deadline, task-laden time as I considered his simple turn of phrase: “the philosophy of science can’t have ‘time’ to itself.”

Certainly amused by this pun-like double entendre, I found myself considering this short reply throughout the day. The short quip captured something quite significant for me, well beyond its particular context, evoking a sense of the developing and interwoven worlds of Henri Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin, Alfred North Whitehead, Bernard Lonergan and beyond. Addressed to the often hegemonized domain war of scientific objectivity with its potent adversary in the subjectivity-grounded humanities—including all things philosophical, spiritual and religious—the saying discloses an insight worth heeding.

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The “Ladder of Divine Ascent”: From Diminished Less to Expanding More

October 21, 2013 By Neville Ann Kelly

Images representing transcendent union with the divine, variously termed salvation, redemption, sanctification, freedom, victory, deliverance and many other English descriptors possibly originate in the conceptual simplicity of the Hebrew yāšaʿ (יָשַׁע), a root indicating broadening, enlarging, and ample spaciousness.

Lestnitsa [The Ladder of Divine Ascent] Manuscript Russia, 16th century NYPL, Spencer Collection — Lestnitsa [The Ladder of Divine Ascent]. Manuscript, Russia 16th century. NYPL, Spencer Collection

While some scholars dispute this linguistic origin, its etymological possibility remains instructive when considering the conceptual foundation of any salvation image to its underlying theme. Understood in light of such an originating concept, images evocative of an ascendant process of enlargement, broadening—such as the Jesuit magis (the more), and the Benedictine dilatato corde (dilated heart)—are particularly effective metaphors for grounding understanding and practice of salvation in conceptions of an ongoing and continual process of conversion and deliverance from one’s former experience of a diminished less toward the presencing of an ever-expanding more.

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Power of the “We”: Knowledge Follows Knowing

September 16, 2013 By Neville Ann Kelly

Throughout last year’s on-campus Visiting Professor appointment, I deeply considered the diverse, undergraduate faces spread out before me in my Midwest Roman Catholic theology classrooms. Most of these students count themselves among the ranks of the Christian baptized, with the majority engaging at least some faith practices.

Amidst a Roman Catholic majority, a smattering of non-Catholics dotted the room here and there, along with two or three non-Christians admitting little previous exposure to Christian thought and practice. This mix granted me increasing inquiry into the process, effectiveness and meaning of how students had learned and encountered their discrete religious traditions.

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