Recently, Pope Francis issued a letter ostensibly addressing seminarians preparing for the priesthood. The letter stressed the importance of teaching Church history, particularly a history free from the restraints of ideologies. (See "Letter of the Holy Father Francis On The Renewal Of The Study Of Church History").

In this paper, I want to use the Pope's comments as a point of departure to examine the relationship between history and ideology. I will do this by providing a brief synopsis of something called deconstructionism.

"History is written by the victors." So said no less an authority than Winston Churchill. While the statement might not be literally true, it does allude to the significance of the ideology of the "victor" on the historical record.

The term ideology can be a vague term. In general, ideology can be defined as a set of beliefs and philosophies of an individual or particular group. As such, ideology can incorporate a diverse number of topics, including politics and economics.

To some extent, Pope Francis notes the danger of a history written by the victors. In particular, there can be a propensity to whitewash certain less-than-desirable aspects of history. This altering of history extends to the Catholic Church, as well.

The Pope argues that we must reject an "angelic" view of the Church. To properly love the Church requires that we accept her "stains and wrinkles." As Catholics, we need to see the Church as she is, including the missteps, if we are indeed to love the Catholic Church.

For Pope Francis, this perspective acts as a guardian against a "misguided approach that would view reality only from a triumphalist defense of our function or role." This "misguided approach" is commonly referred to as deconstructionism.

Personally, I have found deconstructionism to be one of the most challenging concepts to define.

Deconstructionism began in the metaphysics of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. However, it is more widely associated with the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. For Derrida, deconstruction was a way of interpreting literary, religious, and philosophical works.

Derrida conceived deconstructionism as a kind of textual criticism that involves discovering, recognizing, and understanding the underlying assumptions, ideas, and frameworks that form the basis for thought and belief.

So, what exactly is deconstructionism? Martin Heidegger viewed deconstructionism as the process whereby we "arrive at those primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of Being -- the ways which have guided us ever since." (See Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. 1962).

For the purpose of this essay, deconstructionism will be defined as an attempt to "reread" a text, theory, or tradition by injecting one's own cultural, religious, political, and philosophical predispositions into it. (See also Kreeft, Peter. Socratic Logic 3e Pbk. St Augustine Press Inc., 2010).

For critics of deconstructionism, such as Peter Kreeft, this results in the reader imposing his own meaning on a text that may not be what the author intended. Indeed, this seems to be what Pope Francis has in mind when he writes that a deconstructionist approach can "spurn the spiritual and human riches inherited from past generations and ignore everything that came before them."

As one can see, deconstructionism so construed becomes a threat to the riches of tradition. It is for this reason that the Pope points out that "we cannot come to grips with the past by hasty interpretations disconnected from their consequences" and that reality "is never a simple phenomenon reducible to naive and dangerous simplifications."

Deconstructionism as a type of textual criticism is not unknown in the discipline of hermeneutics, either.

Theology has developed various methods of biblical criticism or interpretation. The most widely used and accepted method is called exegesis.

Exegesis may be defined as the art and science of investigating and expressing the true sense of Sacred Scripture. Its function is to find out what precisely a given passage of the Bible says. Its rules are governed by the science of hermeneutics, whose practical application is concerned with exegesis. (See Hardon, John. Catholic Dictionary. 2013).

Catholic theology has developed six steps to properly engage in exegesis: historical, grammatical, rhetorical, canonical, liturgical, and magisterial.

Although all stages of analysis may be relevant to both the literal and spiritual senses, these first three analytical stages -- historical, grammatical, and rhetorical -- intend primarily to establish the literal sense, while the next three -- canonical, liturgical, and magisterial -- intend primarily to establish the spiritual senses. (Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology).

As stated above, exegesis endeavors to determine the most precise meaning intended by the author(s) of the text. However, another type of biblical interpretation, called eisegesis, takes an entirely different approach.

Eisegesis means reading into the text with preconceived concepts we may have. This can often mean coming to the Scripture with a biased cultural lens that did not exist during the time the Bible was written. At its worst, it can be used to twist Scripture to assert a particular belief. It is not uncommon for some to take a Bible verse out of context and interpret it using their own biased perspective.

In this paper, I have used the comments of Pope Francis as an impetus to explore the dangers of deconstructionism and eisegesis.

Textual interpretation - how one understands a particular text - is not abstract or the domain of scholars alone. Within the context of biblical interpretation, understanding who the author was, the author's intent, his intended audience, and the cultural milieu in which the text was written have a profound import on comprehending the Bible.