The phrase ‘ministry of the word’ is still an unfamiliar one even to Catholics who are fairly well instructed in the traditional theology of the eucharist. By comparison with talk about the ‘sacrifice of the mass’ the phrase seems odd, and even perhaps quasi-heretical. Historians of the liturgy can tell us a good deal, of course, about the way in which the ministry of the word, as an original and necessary part of the eucharistic celebration, fell into comparative decay, and indeed became almost entirely forgotten as an object of theological reflection for centuries. But here I want to point to an aspect of this subject somewhat different from that which is given to us by the liturgical historian. There is, I think, an important philosophical truth which needs to be dug up from the liturgical rubble in which we have all been poking around for the last few years, before we can give an adequate definition of the ‘ministry of the word’ as part of the whole eucharistic act, and therefore before we can begin to realise once more in practice what it means.

It can be taken as agreed, to begin with, that the eucharistic celebration has to do with the real presence of Christ. It is the permanent sacramental means by which Christ is made present to us and, indeed, in us. But, notoriously, the notion of the presence of Christ has been very variously interpreted.

One might put the point by saying that, in the past all the emphasis, in discussion of the real presence, has been upon the reality of the presence, whereas what we need to explore today in order to restore a balanced theology of the eucharist is the presence of the reality.

This reply, under oath, by Air Commodore Magill to Pat Pottle at the British Official Secrets Trial of February 1962, distils the essence of nuclear deterrence. In the light of common sense, and especially with reference to just-war principles, it also defines its essential immorality.

As a prosecution witness, the Air Commodore was being cross-examined by one of the accused who had invaded a nuclear base in protest and who was later sentenced to imprisonment for this offence. The Air Commodore’s reply is of course in no sense surprising; everybody knows that the backbone of nuclear strategy remains the threatened icineration of enemy cities. (Even is so-called tactical nuclear combat and in so-called strategic counterforce strategies it is precisely the ultimate threat against enemy cities which seeks to enforce the proposed restraints.) What is notable about Air Commodore Magill’s colloquy with his objector is simply that it spells out, with a clarity we cannot evade, the moral cost of nuclear defence.

This cost lies not merely in the risking of future enormities; it involves gravely immoral intentions here and now. These declared intentions to execute city-hostages ‘if the circumstances demanded it’ are no less immediately and categorically genocidal for relating to a future hypothetical condition. No doubt there is a difference between murder accomplished and murder in one’s heart, but it is not a difference between murderousness and non-murderousness.

In February 1963, the Cambridge faculty of divinity sponsored four lectures on Objections to Christian Belief. In the last of them, Canon Bezzant pointed out that we need a natural theology. He said that ‘the only possible basis for a reasonably grounded natural theology is what we call scientific. The difficulty is that there is no such actuality as “science”; there are many and increasing sciences’. True, but there is such an actuality as a scientific discipline, a scientific attitude and habit of mind, a scientific conscience. To be detached, self-effacing, humble, industrious, co-operative, patient, observant, accurate, truthful, temperate is to be scientific. But why should you be any of these things? Why not be passionate, aggressive, arrogant, lazy, lonely, hasty, purblind, vague, false and lustful? Because the conventions of society chance to forbid these self-indulgences ? They don’t. Perhaps it is that without these high qualities and the discipline that lives upon them you cannot penetrate the mystery of the world we inhabit or discern a meaning in the life we have to live. Why is the world open to Aristotle, Newton, Planck, Einstein and their kind and closed to Tamerlane and Jenghiz Khan? Only through the discipline of science, a moral and even mystical discipline, can the existing universe be induced to yield up its secrets. Moreover the power thus liberated creates a human situation (e.g. the unity of the human race) in which the inferior human virtues such as courage and thrift are all inadequate and we cannot live without faith, hope and charity.

Theologies have always differed from age to age and from region to region. Since theology is the intellectual articulation of man’s response to the Word of God, and both response and articulation are conditioned by the historical and cultural circumstances within which they take place, this differentiation is as right as it is inevitable. In the age of the great Christological controversies Alexandria and Antioch had each a special contribution to make: Alexandria a deep apprehension of the underlying unity of God the Word through all states, activities and experiences, Antioch an equally necessary emphasis on the real and full humanity of Jesus. Eastern and Western Christianity have differed in their starting point for an approach to the mystery of God since the days of Tertullian, the West starting from the unity of the Godhead and the East from the Three-foldness. Provided that the unity of the faith is preserved, such variations in theological tradition are an enrichment for the Church.

In a time when the question of the African personality is a sharp and even agonizing problem for the majority of politically, socially and culturally conscious Africans, it is natural that the question of a peculiarly African theology should arise. African self-awareness seems to take on a special, and philosophical, turn among those who have been educated through the medium of French, and it is notable that it has been the Congolese bishops who have called most clearly and ringingly for an indigenous African theology.

The attempt of the Church’s Council to renew its life and to enter into a dialogue with the non-Catholic world has led in fact to the attempt to find ways of communicating with, or of understanding, at different levels, elements within itself and the world in which it finds itself. If the first discovery of the Council was the need for the bishops to communicate with each other, to form a collective mind, and to learn to regulate the processes of civilised discussion, the second was that ancient defensive positions should not prejudice the necessity for intelligibility in a world increasingly literate. The first led to a restatement of the primitive teaching about the bishop’s role, both as representative of the local church, and as a member of that group, or college, that succeeds to the apostles, and shares with the successor of Peter in the direction of the Catholic Church. The implications of this, both in the traditional ecclesiastical sphere, and in relation to the sharing of the presbyterium, or priestly group, in the affairs of the local church, and in the necessarily growing part the holy people of God will take in areas, till recently confined to clerics, is in principle outlined in the Decree on the Church, though the carrying out of the implications of the decree may take long enough.