By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — Those who think that talks about theology must be as dry as books in an old monastery library may wish to turn a page in their thinking.
One of the speakers at the sixth annual Southwest Biblical Conference here on November 20 praised twentieth-century country-and-Western singer Marty Robbins and even played one of his recordings, while the other speaker raises and homeschools 10 children with his wife on a Tennessee homestead.
Sr. Johanna Paruch FSGM Ph.D., who teaches in the theology department of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, said one reason she likes to come to Phoenix is that Robbins was from nearby Glendale, Ariz., and performed such hits as El Paso and also A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation.
The song set in Texas is about a hot-tempered cowboy willing to risk his life over his love for a cantina girl, while the other song is about a teenager disappointed over losing his date for the prom.
The songs “are very strongly Christian though they’re not ‘Christian’. . . . I can sing all four minutes and 27 seconds of El Paso,” Paruch said as she began the first of her two talks here.
Later in the morning, starting her second talk, the nun played one of Robbins’ songs, “just because I can’t resist it,” for listeners on the campus of St. Thomas the Apostle Church here, where the Institute of Catholic Theology, an evangelization program, is headquartered.
The day’s other speaker, Ryan Hanning, Ph.D., delivered one talk. He traveled to the Phoenix audience from the Hanning Homestead in Whites Creek, Tenn.
Despite that rural setting, Hanning has wide acquaintance with language, from fluency in English and Spanish to knowledge of Biblical and modern Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French and Polish.
At his website (www.ryanhanning.com), Hanning asks: “Why are we here? What is good? What is beautiful? What is truth? The good news is that these questions are not answered in isolation. Faith and reason, informed by both Revelation and nature, provide an exciting context in which to examine the fundamental truths as well as the practical realities of our life.”
Hanning reminded his listeners at the Biblical conference that people take for granted their witnessing and participating in miraculous surroundings.
Contrasting the purposes of some notable Church councils, Hanning said the Council of Trent dealt with the errors of “the Reformers” opposing the Catholic Church, while the Second Vatican Council aimed not to combat heresies “but to re-propose the truth to a world that has forgotten it.”
Making his points with slides, Hanning said Vatican II aimed to have the deposit of Christian doctrine guarded and taught more efficaciously, and to respond to a world that placed excessive confidence in technical progress and material prosperity — in other words, seeking comfort over meaning, and options over substance.
Paruch said an unfortunate result of Vatican II was “the mess that happened to catechetics after the council, not caused by the council, but by some people who could be considered heretics.”
An influential figure in the area, she said, was Gabriel Moran, who was a religious brother at the time and said Revelation didn’t exist.
If it doesn’t exist, Paruch said, “then there’s no content to hand on, and there’s no response necessary.”
The idea that Revelation comes from the Christian community is “another bit of a heresy out there” following Vatican II, Paruch said, adding: “Revelation does not come from the Christian community. It comes from God.”
Contrasting the truths of the Bible with creative fiction, Paruch said she loves The Lord of The Rings novel, but she wouldn’t die for that book.
She displayed a slide of what Christianity offers: “The forgiveness of sins, justice, sanctification, redemption, adoption as children of God, the inheritance of Heaven, kinship with the Son of God. What news is more beautiful than this? God on Earth and man in Heaven!”
“There’s so much crap out there . . . about ‘My truth.’ There’s no such thing,” Paruch said, adding that Jesus is the Truth.
The world “doesn’t even know where to look” to have its emptiness alleviated, she said. “It’s not that they know and they’ve rejected it. Right now they don’t know. That Jesus is Somebody who’s foreign to them. They don’t know who He is.”
She thinks St. Pope Paul VI was a white martyr — that is, one who didn’t actually have his blood shed — because “he certainly went through hell” over proclaiming the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae against artificial manipulation of procreation.
“We owe him a great deal, and I’m so glad when he was canonized” in 2018, Paruch said.
Earlier in the day, during her first talk, Paruch said that calling upon the Word of God — who is a Person, not just letters on a page — strengthens people’s lives.
“You can put the whole Bible on your phone and read it that way. . . . The Gospels are that near to us,” she said.
Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted “is outstanding” as a bishop, Paruch said, “but we have many in the Church, and it is my great honor to work for them and with them.”
This longtime teaching nun said she had wanted to be in health care as a nun, not a teacher, but “you know how God is” for having His own plans for people.
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