Renowned Canadian theologian Gregory Baum, 94, author of the first draft of the Second Vatican Council's "Nostra Aetate," died Oct. 18 in a Montreal hospital. He is pictured in a 2016 photo. Photo: CNS Letter from Canada
The death of Gregory Baum on October 18 in Montreal marked the close of an era for the Catholic Church in Canada.
But not only is it Canadian Catholicism that both mourns and celebrates the life and work of an inspiring nonagenarian; it is the universal Church as well.
Baum was both a controversial figure in the Church and a necessary one. Variously an ecumenical theologian, social scientist, political activist, and prolific author, Baum was first and foremost a model of intellectual and spiritual curiosity.
This is why he was controversial up to the end of his life at the age of 94.
In the same year of his death, he published his ‘non-autobiography’ in which he disclosed his homosexuality, the understanding he had with his wife of many years (Shirley was meticulously, tirelessly and uncomplainingly cared for during her protracted descent into the darkness of dementia by Baum), his querying with restless transparency and searing honesty why he should continue with his expensive dependency on dialysis to live thus preventing much restricted and limited hospital costs from being redirected to other needier cases, and openly wondering about the very goodness of God in an age of genocides.
Not light stuff.
Admirers
Many of his numerous admirers and coreligionists would tread lightly where Baum plowed away indifferent to public opinion. In fact, with a persistent and endearing naiveté he was always stunned to discover that he had critics, detractors, enemies.
He was not only a man of reflective theological hope, he was a perpetual optimist.
In a way he had to be. With his sister, he escaped death by Nazi hatred, survived internment camps in England and Canada, pursued mathematics to the graduate level with the support of an altruistic and disinterested sponsor, converted to Catholicism via St Augustine, was ordained an Augustinian friar, did a doctorate in theology in Switzerland, was seconded to work with Augustin Bea SJ and Cardinal Johannes Willebrands for the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, served as one of the drafters of the unprecedented document on the Church and non-Christian religions, Nostra aetate (this was of special importance to Baum because of his Jewish background), taught theology for decades in two Canadian universities, explored the rich and complex interaction between sociology and theological investigation, publicly challenged Catholic teaching on sexual ethics, resigned from active priestly ministry, married without laicisation and established and edited one of the leading ecumenical publications of the last half-century, The Ecumenist.
A fecund mind if ever there was one.
He was not a comfortable Catholic nor did he make other Catholics comfortable. But he cherished his Eucharistic community, rejoiced in his Risen Christ, nurtured the faith of his impressive cohort of students – a questing faith centred in justice – and followed his native curiosity to new horizons.
May he rest in peace.
Visit Michael W. Higgins’ blog, Pontifex Minimus: http://sacredheartuniversity.typepad.com/pontifexminimus/
The man in detail
Gregory Baum was one of Canada’s most influential and controversial theologians and a participant in the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).
Baum was the author of the first draft of Nostra aetate, the Vatican II declaration that addressed the relations of the Catholic Church with non-Christian religions.
After being admitted to St Mary’s Hospital in Montreal on October 8, he told a friend: “I’m disappearing inside.” He decided not to continue the dialysis treatment that had kept him alive for the last four years.
As a young theologian, then-Fr Baum shot to prominence in the early days of Vatican II. He was mentored by Cardinal Augustin Bea, then-president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. An ally of St John XXIII, Cardinal Bea went looking for credible Catholic experts on Catholic-Jewish relations and found his man in Fr Baum.
Refugee
Gregory Baum was born to a Jewish mother and Protestant father in Berlin in 1923. At 17, in 1940, he came to Canada as a war refugee after a brief stay in England. Among the many Jewish refugees in camps in Quebec were young intellectuals who set up classes for the younger refugees, which Baum attended.
He became a Catholic during the war years and joined the Augustinian order in 1947. He was ordained a priest in 1954. He studied theology at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and published That They May Be One, an influential book about Catholic ecumenism, in 1958.
His involvement in the Second Vatican Council began even before the world’s bishops met in Rome, as Vatican officials were planning the Church’s first truly global meeting.
“I remember the first session I attended was in November 1960,” Baum told The Catholic Register, Toronto, in 2012. “I was at the first session of the secretariat in Rome. We had the first meeting with Cardinal Bea and Msgr (later Cardinal) Johannes Willebrands, and this was all about ecumenism. At the end of the meeting Cardinal Bea said, “I just saw the Pope” and he said to us, that he wants the secretariat to prepare a statement to rethink the Church’s relationship to the Jews.”
St John XXIII’s concern about the six million Jews killed in the heart of Europe during World War II largely drove the Second Vatican Council. Baum had already begun publishing in academic journals about Catholic-Jewish relations.
Baum attended all three sessions of the council as a peritus, or theological expert.
Theology
After the council, Baum taught theology and ethics at the University of St Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. He left the priesthood in 1974 and married. He studied sociology at the New School for Social Theory in New York and, in the 1980s, taught in the religious studies department at McGill University, Montreal.
Baum was a frequent target of conservative campaigners in English Canada and the United States. Msgr Vincent Foy, a Canadian theologian, published frequent articles condemning Baum as a “Marxist…ex-priest.” Msgr Foy popularised a theory that Baum had excommunicated himself by marrying before his laicisation was formally recognised by the Vatican. Baum’s opinions on ordination of women and gay marriage drew frequent criticism.
Baum’s critics were further incensed when he published his 2016 autobiography, The Oil Has Not Run Dry, in which he spoke of his first homosexual experience, at the age of 40.
The author of more than 20 books, Baum said he was never worried by the criticism.
“I live in a dream world in Quebec,” he told The Catholic Register. “I still belong to a wide network of progressive Catholics. I never meet any conservatives.”
He was founder and editor of the influential journal The Ecumenist from 1962 to 2004. The journal highlighted connections between theology and sociology, politics and culture. In his retirement, he became outspoken on Quebec politics, multiculturalism and economics.
– Michael Swan