{"id":162,"date":"2022-09-23T12:49:42","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T16:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/?p=162"},"modified":"2022-09-23T12:49:42","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T16:49:42","slug":"cor-ad-cor-loquitur-cardinal-newman-and-the-higher-truth-of-the-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/2022\/09\/23\/cor-ad-cor-loquitur-cardinal-newman-and-the-higher-truth-of-the-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Cor Ad Cor Loquitur:\u00a0 Cardinal Newman and The Higher Truth of the Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melinda D. Papaccio<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I started to write this reflection, I took a call to our ITHIRST Initiative addiction ministry\u2019s helpline.[1]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0A seventy-year-old man from Rhode Island said he wanted help\u2014he was so lonely, he said.\u00a0 While I later found out he wanted help for his alcoholism, I noted that wasn\u2019t the first thing he said\u2014first he said he was lonely.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t surprised. \u00a0He craved community, the company of others.\u00a0 His addiction had robbed him of that, just as it had my son who died of an overdose after a 15-year struggle.\u00a0 Loneliness is something all of us can understand.\u00a0 Connection, especially heart to heart connection, is something we all need.<\/p>\n

Today, medical experts advise us to call this man\u2019s disease as a \u201csubstance use disorder\u201d (or SUD) rather than an \u201caddiction\u201d which carries stigma.\u00a0 The motivation for this change makes sense.\u00a0 I knew firsthand how deadly the stigma we attach to addiction could be.\u00a0 I saw it the many times my son, doing the hard work of recovery, would be knocked down by an encounter with the stigma, and struggle to get back up, feeling so alone in his suffering.\u00a0 As much as I wanted to work against the stigma myself, this term seemed inadequate to describe the very complicated thing that happens to those who are addicted to a substance.\u00a0 In a way, the term puts the focus on the substance, as if getting rid of the substance would solve the problem.\u00a0 If the disorder and all its hallmark traits could be eliminated or healed by removing the substance, I thought how simple recovery would be.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not \u2026 I knew that my son\u2019s addiction, and this caller\u2019s, was much more than an issue of substance use.\u00a0 I saw, as I watched my son\u2019s suffering which started with a doctor\u2019s prescription after a minor shoulder surgery, how there was much more to this affliction than simply the substance use component. We are seeing medical professionals who understand this, like Dr. Fred Rottnek, of St. Louis University School of Medicine who has created an Addiction Medicine Fellowship and argues that \u201c[f]or most people who misuse opioids, addiction is not a primary issue. The primary issue may be a poor outcome from an acute episode of pain or chronic pain management. It may be self-medication for serious mental illness or trauma\u2014public or private, episodic or continuous. Since addiction is often not the primary issue, long-term recovery is more than treatment and sobriety\u2014it is human flourishing.\u00a0 Catholic healthcare, at its best, is all about human flourishing.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 <\/sup><\/p>\n

Healthcare that promotes human flourishing:\u00a0 this is what Newman was proposing in an address to medical students at the Catholic University of Ireland in November of 1858. \u00a0He reminded students that \u201c\u2026bodily health is not the only end of man, and the medical science is not the highest science of which he is the subject \u2026 the mind and soul have legitimate sovereignty over the body\u2026\u201d[3]<\/a> Recovery from addiction provides powerful evidence of the need for \u201csovereignty\u201d of mind and soul over the physical self.\u00a0 As those in recovery know, without a transformation of mind and spirit, there is no real recovery. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t happen in isolation, but in connection with others, because, as so many of us would be surprised to hear, \u201cthe opposite of addiction is not sobriety, but community.\u201d\u00a0 Not only do Newman\u2019s words provide a guidepost in today\u2019s efforts to address the addiction crisis, so too does the motto he chose for his Cardinal\u2019s coat of arms\u2014Cor ad Cor Loquitur<\/em>, or \u201cheart speaks to heart.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

While Newman may be best known as one who extolled the intrinsic value of knowledge, the motto he chose has nothing to do with intellectualism, but rather with the heart.\u00a0 It embodies \u201cthe interpersonal encounter\u201d since, above all, Newman \u201calways wanted to speak from his heart and to touch [others\u2019] hearts.\u201d[5]<\/a> \u00a0In his \u201cDiscourse IX:\u00a0 Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge.\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong>Newman speaks of his affinity for St. Philip Neri, whose heart spoke to his heart:\u00a0 \u201c[he didn\u2019t aspire or presume to greatness] No; he would be but an ordinary priest as others: and his weapons should be but unaffected humility and unpretending love.\u201d[6]<\/a> This man of such lofty intellectual powers was drawn to this humble saint of simple human encounter and called St. Philip Neri his \u201cFather and Patron.\u201d\u00a0 He notes that \u201c[a]ll he did was to be done by the light, and fervor, and convincing eloquence of his personal character and his easy conversation.\u201d[7]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Newman\u2019s description seems to portray Neri as kind of doctor of the soul who \u201c\u2026in that low and narrow cell at San Girolamo, [spent hours] reading the hearts of those who came to him, and curing their souls\u2019 maladies by the very touch of his hand.\u201d[8]<\/a> \u00a0Of St. Philip\u2019s influence on him, Newman said \u201cI can say for certain that whether or not I can do anything at all in St. Philip\u2019s way, at least I can do nothing in any other.\u201d[9]<\/a> \u00a0One might say that \u201cSt. Philip\u2019s way\u201d was to promote human flourishing.<\/p>\n

Newman understood that human flourishing depended on the experience of connection, to others and to God. In one address he complains about those Christians who, rather than \u201cpreaching Christ \u2026 tell them to have faith\u201d which \u201cobstruct[s] the view of Christ\u2026\u201d[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Similarly, one can tell someone desperate for recovery from addiction to \u201chave faith\u201d or that \u201cGod loves them\u201d or that they should \u201cpray for healing,\u201d but this rarely helps move that person\u2019s broken heart in such a way that they actually \u201csee\u201d that this is so; it is the difference between knowing a fact and beholding the truth of it.<\/p>\n

I am privileged to teach a class called Journey of Transformation, in which students read classic texts in the Catholic intellectual tradition and other religious traditions, that address some of life\u2019s \u201cbig questions.\u201d\u00a0 Sensitized by my son\u2019s addiction to the general human tendency toward attachment, I saw how these texts could help them engage the issue and I developed a service-learning component to the course that would put my students in conversation with our ITHIRST ministry\u2019s recovery community.\u00a0 It was my hope that students would be able to begin to behold some truth about the experience of addiction.\u00a0 I wanted their hearts to be moved by the stories of those who have suffered this affliction.\u00a0 I wanted those in recovery to feel seen, their experience validated by these conversations.\u00a0 There could be, I hoped, conversations in which heart spoke to heart.\u00a0 I do this from the core of my own broken heart, to honor my son\u2019s struggle, and to help others have that experience of heart-to-heart connection that he craved but did not have.\u00a0 Over the years, I have seen wonderful moments of connection as a result of these service learning dialogues but it became personal when, several months after my son\u2019s death in 2018, my daughter attended one of our meetings and had a conversation with a young woman about her experience of heroin addiction.\u00a0 Afterwards, my daughter said she understood her brother\u2019s struggle a little better.\u00a0 It was so difficult for family to understand how hard recovery was for him, and it was heartbreaking for him that they couldn\u2019t.\u00a0 However, in conversation this young woman said something that touched my daughter\u2019s heart and helped her behold her brother\u2019s struggle.\u00a0 She said \u201cMy addiction speaks in my own voice\u201d which was her way of explaining her addiction\u2019s power over her. Perhaps it was a moment not unlike moments Newman imagined occurred in St. Philip Neri\u2019s cell, as he tended to the soul maladies of those who came to him.\u00a0 It was a sacred moment, a heart-to-heart encounter. \u201cCor ad cor loquitur<\/em>\u201d\u2014her heart spoke to my daughter\u2019s heart and blessed it with a moment of healing.\u00a0 I am grateful for this.<\/p>\n

In his recent book, The Urge:\u00a0 Our History of Addiction<\/em>, Carl Eric Fisher, a psychiatrist in recovery from his own battle with alcohol and other substances, traces the path of addiction through human history, our efforts to understand it, and find ways to treat it. \u00a0In the end he sees that, despite his addiction, he is not \u201cfundamentally different from the rest of the population\u201d and that addiction is a feature of the human condition. In the human tendency toward attachment substance addiction is \u201cjust the place where our universal human vulnerabilities are most clearly on display\u201d because all of us \u201cwill experience loss of control, loss of power.\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 He also says that those who suffer from substance addiction and those who do not, \u201cshare a fellowship\u201d in that, while substance addiction \u201ccauses unthinkable suffering,\u201d that suffering is \u201ccontiguous with all human suffering.\u201d[12]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Further, it is an affliction of more than just the body.\u00a0 In order for recovery to occur there \u201cneeds to be some element beyond the boundaries of traditional medical care, too\u2014one that goes beyond saving lives to promoting well-being and flourishing.\u00a0 To truly meet the challenge of addiction, a therapeutic response alone is not enough.\u00a0 For centuries, people have sought out a further step, something more recently called recovery.\u201d[13]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 The opposite of recovery is not sobriety, it\u2019s community\u2014Cor ad Cor Loquitur<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fisher ends his book with the insight that \u201c[a]ddiction is profoundly ordinary:\u00a0 a way of being with the pleasures and pains of life, and just one manifestation of the central human task of working with human suffering.\u201d[14]<\/a> He doesn\u2019t sound like a clinician here, and that\u2019s just the point.\u00a0 He sees that, as Newman warned in his lecture to medical students, in addition to the truths of his profession, \u201cthere are other truths, and those higher than his own.\u201d[15]<\/a>\u00a0 That higher truth is borne out in Newman\u2019s motto, in the need for connections of the heart in order for humans to heal the soul\u2019s maladies and to flourish.\u00a0 It is what the elderly man who called our ITHIRST helpline that day needed.\u00a0 It is what my son craved, that heart to heart connection with others, and with God.<\/p>\n

ENDNOTES
\n[1]<\/a> ITHIRST Initiative.\u00a0 https:\/\/ithirstinitiative.org<\/a>
\n[2]<\/a> Rottnek, F., MD, MAHCM. \u201cOpiods: One More Epidemic for Catholic Healthcare.\u201d Health Progress. Journal of the Catholic Health Organization of the United States. www.Chausa.org<\/a> March-April 2018. Accessed July 9, 2022. https:\/\/www.slu.edu\/medicine\/family-medicine\/pdfs\/opioids-one-more-epidemic-for-catholic-health-care.pdf<\/a>
\n[3]<\/a> Newman, J.H., \u201cChristianity and Medical Science.\u00a0 An Address to the Students of Medicine (November 1858), \u201cThe Idea of a University, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1982), p. 383.
\n[4]<\/a> Crosby, J., The Personalism of John Henry Newman<\/em>, (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), p. 66.
\n[5]<\/a> Crosby, J., The Personalism of John Henry Newman<\/em>, (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), pp. 74-5.
\n[6]<\/a> Newman, J.H., and Ed. Martin J. Svaglic, The Idea of a University<\/em>, \u201cDiscourse IX:\u00a0 Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge,\u201d (University of Notre Dame: Notre Dame, Indiana, 1982), p. 178.
\n[7]<\/a> Newman, J.H., and Ed. Martin J. Svaglic, The Idea of a University<\/em>, \u201cDiscourse IX:\u00a0 Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge,\u201d (University of Notre Dame: Notre Dame, Indiana, 1982), p. 179.
\n[8]<\/a> Newman, J.H., and Ed. Martin J. Svaglic, The Idea of a University<\/em>, \u201cDiscourse IX:\u00a0 Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge,\u201d (University of Notre Dame: Notre Dame, Indiana, 1982), pp. 179-80.
\n[9]<\/a> Newman, J.H., and Ed. Martin J. Svaglic, The Idea of a University<\/em>, \u201cDiscourse IX:\u00a0 Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge,\u201d (University of Notre Dame: Notre Dame, Indiana, 1982), p. 181.
\n[10]<\/a> Crosby, J., The Personalism of John Henry Newman<\/em>, (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press,2014), pp. 72-3.
\n[11]<\/a> Fisher, C.E., The Urge:\u00a0 Our History of Addiction<\/em>, (New York:\u00a0 Penguin Press, 2022), p. 283.
\n[12]<\/a> Fisher, C.E., The Urge:\u00a0 Our History of Addiction<\/em>, (New York:\u00a0 Penguin Press, 2022), p. 284.
\n[13]<\/a> Fisher, C.E., The Urge:\u00a0 Our History of Addiction<\/em>, (New York:\u00a0 Penguin Press, 2022), p. 289.
\n[14]<\/a> Fisher, C.E., The Urge:\u00a0 Our History of Addiction<\/em>, (New York:\u00a0 Penguin Press, 2022), p. 300.
\n[15]<\/a> Newman, J.H., \u201cChristianity and Medical Science.\u00a0 An Address to the Students of Medicine (November 1858), \u201cThe Idea of a University<\/em>, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 385.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melinda D. Papaccio As I started to write this reflection, I took a call to our ITHIRST Initiative addiction ministry\u2019s helpline.[1] \u00a0\u00a0A seventy-year-old man from Rhode Island said he wanted help\u2014he was so lonely, he said.\u00a0 While I later found out he wanted help for his alcoholism, I noted that wasn\u2019t the first thing he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5346,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summer-2022-volume-i"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/integratio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}