The Church and censorship
MARK DOWD
Brought to book
A best-selling life of Jesus by a Basque priest has been banned in
Spain. Spanish bishops accuse José Antonio Pagola of heresy, yet
his book is bringing some of the world’s most marginalised
people into the Church
H
e could have been forgiven for
thinking that Christmas 2010 was
going to be especially joyful.
Celebrated Basque priest and
author José Antonio Pagola had just received
an important endorsement for his best-selling
book, Jesus: an historical approximation,
from none other than Cardinal Gianfranco
Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for
Culture. Ravasi had just commended Pagola’s
work in an interview with the Italian paper
Il Sole 24 Ore, saying it was a great resource
for the “non-technical” reader wanting to dis-
cover more about the life of Jesus.
But on 20 December, Pagola received a
phone call from the Bishop of San Sebastián,
José Ignacio Munilla, during which he was
informed that the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome was
going to investigate his book after pressure
from a handful of influential Spanish bishops,
including the Cardinal of Madrid, Antonio
Maria Rouco Varela. He was now obliged to
observe a respectful silence over the matter,
a process that could take up to five years.
The book, which was first published in 2007
and which has sold just short of 100,000
copies worldwide, is now nowhere to be seen
on the website of its publisher, PPC – the
Madrid-based Propaganda Popular Católica.
All copies have been hurriedly withdrawn
from Spain’s bookshops. There have even been
reports that the conference of Spanish bishops
requested a certificate of destruction for the
remaining 6,000 copies that were selling like
hot cakes.
This is the most talked about religious book
in post-Franco Spain. The work is the fruit
of years of thinking and writing by a man who
was rector of the local seminary and went on
to become the popular vicar general of the
San Sebastián Diocese for 22 years. Those
who know Pagola well say that this book is
like none other he has ever written. He was
almost in a fever when he was working on it.
He was on a mission.
Pagola had a simple message to convey.
God must be understood as, not power, but
compassion. The explosive good news to the
marginalised and hopeless, and the eruption
of God’s kingdom in human history, was the
central message of Jesus, but one that the
institutional Church was in danger of losing
track of.
4 | THE TABLET | 26 March 2011
Collectively, Pagola sensed that the
groundbreaking radicalism was being lost,
so in his book he set out to depict, in clear,
accessible layman’s language, as much as
the historical sources allow, a comprehensive
picture of Jesus of Nazareth. Just who was
he? What was his contemporary world really
like? Why did he want to go beyond complex
religious codes and ritual practices? And
why did he end up on collision course with
the local Jewish authorities and the delegates
of imperial Rome?
Scholars of the quest for the “historical Jesus”
may find little new in the 550 pages. But the
book was written for a wider lay readership,
which explains why it will soon be available
(unless you are in Spain) in Spanish, English,
Italian, Portuguese, Serbo-Croat and
Japanese. So what is all the fuss about?
The Church in Spain is polarised. Many
bishops and clerics view the Basque country
as a hotbed of dangerous libertinism. Within
three months of the book’s publication, the
Bishop of Tarazona, Demetrio Fernández,
published a series of criticisms, eventually
saying that “the Jesus of Pagola is not the
Jesus of the faith of the Church”. Others waded
in. Pagola issued a comprehensive response,
asserting that his critics were conflating the
Jesus of history with Christology, which was
never his intention in the book. Nevertheless,
he made concessions and added two new
chapters, 14 and 15, “Raised by God” and
“Exploring the Identity of Jesus”, both of which
would not be strictly necessary in a book lim-
iting itself merely to historical sources.
But by late spring 2008, the unrest con-
tinued among the hard core of critics. The
then Bishop of San Sebastián, Juan María
Uriarte, contacted Pagola and warned that
there was a real possibility of a censure by the
bishop’s conference. On 16 June, the Basque
bishop seized the initiative and awarded the
book his own personal nihil obstat and impri-
matur, effectively declaring the book to be
free from doctrinal and moral error.
Two days later, in what must have been a
personal humiliation for Uriarte, the Spanish
conference of bishops blasted back. They
accused Pagola of creating a damaging rupture
between history and faith, of negating Jesus’
own self-understanding of his divine identity
and also of denying Jesus’ intentions to found
the Church as a hierarchical community.
José Antonio Pagola, whose book Jesus:
an historical approximation has split
the Church’s hierarchy
By now, Pagola was receiving letters from
agnostics who were rediscovering their faith,
and from parishes and base communities in
Latin America that were using the book as a
vital tool of renewal. There was even a series
of testimonies from a group of sisters, the
Oblates of the Holy Redeemer, who had used
the book in a series of study groups with pros-
titutes in the Philippines, Portugal and
Guatemala. All this cut little mustard with
Pagola’s opponents.
At stake are some very serious questions,
not just about academic freedom and doctrine,
but about what can and cannot be written.
More than 30 theologians from all over Spain
supported Pagola and took the bishops to task
for making no references in their criticism to
the Church’s own guidelines set out in a 1993
document by the Pontifical Biblical Council.
These theologians quote John Paul II:
“Catholic exegesis freely makes use of the
scientific methods and approaches which
allow a better grasp of the meaning of texts
in their linguistic, literary, socio-cultural,
religious and historical contexts.” Moreover,
they note the words of the present Pope, who
asserts in Jesus of Nazareth the indispensable
importance of the historical-scientific method
as a tool, an appendage towards a deeper
understanding of the Christ of faith.
Pagola’s work is undoubtedly more inclined
towards the former than the latter. But would
we take to task a maths professor who has
published a hugely popular algebra book by
complaining there was little about trigonom-
etry or geometry in it? Moreover, Pagola’s
new chapters deal extensively with the faith
experiences of those who encounter the risen
Jesus and how we understand Jesus as “mes-
siah”, “Incarnate Word of God”. Would this
content have been included by one who had
totally “ruptured” the Jesus of history and the
Christ of faith?
O
f course, there may be something
else going on that has irked the
bishops. Pagola does not mince
his words. In an online interview
last October, he was asked if he would like an
open discussion with Pope Benedict about
the contents of his book. Pagola replied: “I
would like for Rome to listen to the various
theological movements that exist today within
the Church, not only in Europe, but above
all, I would be happy if the hierarchy would
dare to lead a movement of conversion to
Jesus Christ and his project of the Kingdom
of God. Nothing is more urgent than this in
the Church today.” Which implies that Rome
is not listening and that the hierarchy is failing
in the task of conversion.
In another Pagola book recently published,
Following in the Footsteps of Jesus, in only
the second paragraph of the book, we find:
“The Church celebrates the Risen Jesus as a
vine full of life, but it is largely made up of
dead branches.”
But perhaps most difficult of all for the car-
dinal of Madrid and other senior figures in
this most clerical of countries, on page 279
of the controversial book, we find: “In Jesus’
movement all patriarchal authority disappears
… No one is above the others. No one lords
it over the others. There is no rank or class.
There are no priests, Levites and lay people.
There is no place for intermediaries. Everyone
has direct, immediate access to God, the
Father of all.”
The remaining mystery in all this is how
the Spanish conference of bishops managed
to persuade Rome to start a process of inves-
tigation, given that not only had Pagola’s own
local bishop given the book his blessing, but
that his work is said to enjoy support not just
from big hitters such as Cardinal Ravasi, but
also the CDF’s very own secretary, Archbishop
Luis Ladaria. It appears that the clinching
encounter may well have been a summer 2010
discussion in Rome between Madrid’s
Cardinal Rouco and Cardinal William Levada,
head of the CDF, in which Rouco spoke pas-
sionately about the “harm” being done by
Pagola’s book.
Of course, in the Church there is always
the law of unintended consequences. Although
withdrawn in Spain, the PDF version of the
book zips around Spanish parishes and com-
munities via the click of a mouse. Sales in the
United States are strong, although the pub-
lishers there concede that some conservative
Catholic groups returned copies of the book
once it became the subject of doctrinal
investigation.
Those close to Pagola say he has a diary full
of at least 12 months’ speaking engagements.
He has just published a commentary on
Matthew’s gospel. For this 73-year-old author,
a quiet and serene retirement looks to be
about the last thing on the cards.
■ Mark Dowd is a freelance journalist based
in Madrid.
CATHERINE PEPINSTER
‘Resistance to the
exploitation of
people had been led
by people of faith’
The British Humanist Association
(BHA) has found, if not its soul, its
metier – decorating London buses.
Last year, double-deckers toured the
capital with the slogan “There’s
probably no God. Now stop worrying
and enjoy your life.” This year it’s “Not
religious? In this year’s census say so.”
The organisation has already
pre-empted this weekend’s census
and its question on religion with the
results of its own YouGov survey,
revealing that 61 per cent of people
identified they belonged to a religion
(a decline on the 2001 figure) and
the remaining 39 per cent did not.
The BHA is one of the loudest
voices in the very public debate
about the place of religion in society.
Its message is not only that religions
have too much influence but they
are in crisis, with declining numbers
of believers. But there might be a
different way of looking at Britain –
a way that suggests in reality it is
secularism that is in crisis.
Last week, a little-publicised event
in the House of Lords produced
some evidence about secularism’s
difficulties, and religion’s ability to
thrive. This had nothing to do with
the established role of the Anglican
bishops in the House of Lords,
although one of the speakers at the
event, Lord Harries, did once sit as a
bishop (and now as a peer in his own
right). Rather, contributors to the
event – a seminar on the interaction
between faith and politics – provided
some fascinating insights into what
Britain is like, not just at the heart of
power but in local neighbourhoods.
The event was hosted by the
Lord’s Speaker, Baroness Hayman,
who gave a gracious response to
Pope Benedict’s address in Westminster
Hall last year, when he made a plea
for religious belief to be part of the
discourse of our society.
While Lord Harries represented
the more traditional face of British
religion – Anglican liberalism – the
two other speakers, the Chief Rabbi
Jonathan Sacks and the political
scientist Bikhu Parekh, highlighted
how intertwined the debate over
religion’s place in society has become
with multiculturalism and the place
of ethnic minorities.
The three took a similar view: that
faith remains a source of moral
responsibility and altruism. Secular
thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas
and Tony Judt appear to endorse
this, both having suggested that the
contemporary world lacks a moral
narrative. Yet the continuing
religion-in-the-public-square debate
suggests, rather, that there are
competing moral narratives, and
none is more contentious than the
narrative about equality.
Lord Parekh, with his knowledge
of the Indian sub-continent,
suggested that part of the problem
stems from Europe’s lack of
experience in dealing with equality
because until recently nation states
were based on a unity of values. Now
it has to deal with competing values,
some emerging out of religions
themselves – the Muslim woman
who wants her hair covered, which
secular France can’t abide – while
others emerge from ideas about
human rights: the gay couple who
want to be married, which the
Churches reject as having the same
validity as heterosexual marriage.
Lord Parekh, however, was not
quite correct. Europeans do have
experience of common values being
challenged. It was Sixties feminism
that made the personal political, and
feminists remain some of the
strongest critics of institutionalised
religion, as was evident from the
more strident contributors to the
House of Lords seminar. But it’s the
connection between the personal
and faith that really divides the
critics of religion and its supporters.
While humanists like those at the
House of Lords seminar want
religion to be something private and
individual, believers see it as
communal – and that has led them
to forge creative relationships in
some of the poorest parts of Britain,
the neighbourhoods that often feel
alienated from conventional politics.
Maurice Glasman, one of the most
recently ennobled peers, has yet to
make his maiden speech in the
Lords. But at the seminar we got a
flavour of the passion he will bring to
it, when he, a Jew, spoke of the alliances
in East London often forged between
Catholics and Muslims, that have
led to successful campaigns for
decent working conditions and pay.
Resistance to the exploitation of
people and the commodification of
life, as well as the critique of the
causes of the economic crisis, he
said, had been led by people of faith.
This was solidarity writ large and
secularism, he felt, offered no
alternative. That is its crisis. It has
been left behind while faith groups
have found a way to empower
the powerless.
26 March 2011 | THE TABLET | 5
 THE ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
TABLET
www.thetablet.co.uk
1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk,
London W6 0GY
A world in a grain of dust
Tel:+44 (0)20 8748 8484
Fax:+44 (0)20 8748 1550 GUY CONSOLMAGNO
EDITORIAL
Email: thetablet@thetablet.co.uk I HAD WANTED to follow up here on the of the material that made up the planets.
Editor:Catherine Pepinster
Editorial Consultant:Clifford Longley results of the Hayabusa mission, which I have And even more delightful is that
Deputy Editor:Elena Curti mentioned many times over the years in this astronomers, looking at nothing more than
Assistant Editor and column. This was the probe the Japanese Space the average infrared colours of asteroid
Foreign NewsEditor:James Roberts
Production Editor:David Harding Agency had sent to asteroid Itokawa, and which Itokawa, had previously suggested that their
Chief Sub-editor: Polly Chiapetta touched the surface of that asteroid in 2005. best guess for its composition was exactly the
Home News Editor: Christopher Lamb After overcoming a number of technical type of meteorite that the dust grains turn out
News Reporter: Sam Adams
Rome Correspondent: Robert Mickens crises, including the failure of the system they’d to be made of. It’s always reassuring – though,
Arts Editor: Brendan McCarthy devised to get chunks of rock into a sample truth be told, we’re always secretly surprised
Literary Editor:Sue Gaisford canister, the probe actually succeeded in – to find out that this stuff actually works.
Religious Books Editor: Alban McCoy
Parish Practice: Diana Klein sending its sample-return capsule to the As I said, I wanted to write about this tri-
Online Editor: Abigail Frymann Australia desert last summer. Since the sam- umph of the Japanese Space Agency. But now,
COMMERCIAL, MARKETING pling system had failed, the most they could one cannot even say the name of that coun-
& ADVERTISING have hoped to recover were a few bits of dust try without thinking of the earthquake that
Publisher: Ignatius Kusiak
Marketing Manager: Ian Farrar inside the container. Their silence in the fol- hit the coast of Japan just a week after it
Email: ifarrar@thetablet.co.uk lowing months had led me to conclude that presented these results. Of course, there’s no
Tel: +44 (0)20 8222 7358 they had got nothing. But earlier this month, connection at all between the two. But in our
■ Display advertising and inserts
Email: agata.zukowska@redactive.co.uk at the annual Lunar and Planetary Science emotional reactions, the one evokes the other.
Tel: +44 (0)20 7880 7668 Conference in Houston, scientists from Tokyo (There’s also the practical fallout. This
■ Classified: +44 (0)20 7880 6217 University presented wonderful results. summer, the Japanese are to be hosting a tri-
SUBSCRIPTIONS With a special Teflon spatula, the Japanese ennial meeting on asteroids, comets and
Tel:+44 (0)1795 414855
Fax:+44 (0)1795 414555 scientists had carefully scraped some 1,500 meteors. Even though the host city is on the
Email:thetablet@servicehelpline.co.uk flecks of dust, the size of grains of flour, from western coast, completely untouched by the
DIRECTORS the side of the canister. After getting them off tsunami, the reaction of the United States
John Adshead CBE, Chairman; the spatula (by tapping it with a screwdriver), Government to cancel all unessential travel
Robin Baird-Smith, Tina Beattie,
Angela Cunningham, Julian Filochowski CMG, they measured the chemical composition by government employees to Japan for now
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, and physical state of these bits. The result: they has meant that scientists from Nasa have had
Ignatius Kusiak,Keith Leslie, Susan Penswick, are definitely pieces of the asteroid. They look to cancel their trips. Without them, it is not
Catherine Pepinster, Paul Vallely CMG.
like a well-known variety of ordinary chon- clear how the meeting will proceed.)
CALENDAR
Sunday 27 March: drite meteorite, designated as type LL6. In ancient times, calendars were numbered
Third Sunday of Lent (Year A) This result is a tribute to the patience and from events that everyone could remember.
Monday 28 March: skill of the scientists. It’s an important addi- In a similar way, today we connect places with
Lent feria
Tuesday 29 March:
tion to our small inventory of samples that some powerful (and usually unhappy) image
Lent feria we’ve brought back from celestial bodies (the in its history. “New Orleans” evokes hurricane
Wednesday 30 March: only others are the Moon rocks and dust from Katrina, “Lockerbie” has come to mean a
Lent feria
Thursday 31 March:
Comet Wild). It’s scientifically profound terrorist attack. We can only look forward to
Lent feria because it shows that asteroids and meteorites the day when “Japan” means more than just
Friday 1 April: really are made out of the same stuff: not just the sight of damaged nuclear plants.
Lent feria similar, as I might have thought, but indis-
Saturday 2 April:
Lent feria tinguishable. Our collections of meteorites ■ Guy Consolmagno SJisthe curator of
Sunday 3 April: may indeed be a pretty reasonable sampling meteoritesat the Vatican Observatory.
Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday)

Glimpses of Eden
■ For the Extraordinary Form calendar go to
www.latin-mass-society.org/ordo.htm
Published weekly except Christmas. Periodicals
Postage Paid at Rahway, NJ, and at additional
mailing offices.
THE LAST bird ever to sing canopy in a brittle dance. He sawed the
U.S. Postmaster: Send airspeed address in our neighbours’ birch smaller branches first, throwing them down
corrections to The Tablet, c/o Air Business Limited,
4 The Merlin Centre, Acrewood Way,
tree was a linnet. As it to a colleague who shredded them, before
St Albans, Herts AL4 0JY, UK. landed in its branches at climbing inexorably to the very top, cutting
Annual subscription rate US$179. 10 o’clock this morning, we boughs as he went.
© The Tablet Publishing Company Limited 2011
The Tablet is printed by Headley Brothers Ltd, watched the sun light his red cap, and listened Each tree is a miracle; each felling, a disas-
The Invicta Press, Lower Queens Road, Ashford, to his sweet chiming call until five past the hour ter. Monuments to luck, the odds against acorn,
Kent TN24 8HH, for the proprietors The Tablet
Publishing Company Limited, when he flew off, spooked by the approach of ash key or hawberry ever becoming a mature
1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London the tree fellers. plant are massive.
W6 0GY 26 March 2011
Independently audited certified average
It takes many years for a tree to grow but Over the years, our neighbours’ birch tree
circulation per issue of THETABLET for only half an hour to be cut down. Aside from has hosted countless birds and insects, shaded
issues distributed between 1 July and
31 January 2010 is 21,858.
the chainsaw’s banshee wail, the death of a tree us from the summer sun and drawn our eyes
is curiously quiet. It might be a giant, but even deep into its green dreams. And now it has gone.
Volume 265 No. 8888 ISSN: 0039 8837
when it falls its long length, the final throe is Within five minutes of the feller’s departure,
far quieter than a rabbit in a snare. A sigh rather on our side of the fence we were planting its
than a groan. I could barely watch the feller replacement.
climb the white trunk, setting the slender Jonathan Tulloch

36 | THE TABLET | 26 March 2011