Pope Francis!

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Joan

(I promised Jeff that I’d finally write something for the blog again. This is not a careful analytical piece, just my first take on the new pope.)

For the moment, I am won over by Pope Francis–I was hoping for a non-European pope, but I never expected such an unusual figure. The first Jesuit pope! The first pope to choose the name Francis! And what an exciting, markedly different style from the one to which we have become accustomed.

Why have I become almost giddy over this pope, with a momentary gleefulness that is likely to be tempered by some bad news or other in the days to come? Ought I not to be tamer and more sensible and scrutinize his record more carefully? I will eventually, eventually. But not today. Today, I am happy, because a new thing is happening, and it seems like a good thing.

Maybe it was just hearing the enthusiastic peal of bells from the local Newman Center across the street from my apartment complex, racing over and wanting to be part of something, and watching impatiently to see what mysterious figure would emerge from behind that curtain (while praying, to be honest, “Please not Dolan…”). (I did not tell that to the nice fellow sitting next to the me in the parish office, who was rooting for Cardinal Dolan.) Maybe it was the enthusiastic faces of the crowds, with their earnest chanting and praying and singing, who could care less about the rain, and the solemn procession of the Swiss Guard, their helmets glinting in the bright lights.

Or something more? Maybe it was his humble, surprisingly demure, almost casual welcome, engendering memes like this one:

I must admit that I knew nothing about Bergoglio before his appointment as pope. Yet now I have a pope who insists on dressing in the simplest of garments, rides the bus with the other cardinals instead of driving the fancy car reserved for him, returns to the hotel to check himself out rather than sending some underling to do it for him. He rode the bus like everybody else in Argentina, and he’ll be darned if anybody will tell him he has to travel in style now that he’s pope. His simplicity and his choice of the name Francis suggest compassion for the “least of these” and a commitment to rebuilding/reforming the Church that is in ruins, as St. Francis was called to do. The pope’s anti-clerical side will serve him well in the important and difficult work of responding to the sex abuse scandals.

Here is a pastoral pope. His demeanor is that of a humble servant, not a scholar, king, or judge. One isn’t sure whether he’d be good at solving some difficult doctrinal dispute (though he is an intellectual, like all Jesuits), yet one feels that one could confess to him or seek his counsel.

Lots of people (mostly people who don’t understand the current state of Catholicism very well) are labeling Bergoglio a “conservative.” If they mean that he opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, then he is “conservative,” but that is a relatively useless way to categorize him (as a Commonweal blogger pointed out), since that’s frankly all of the cardinals. Major changes on issues of sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc. were never on the table in this conclave. Even if one finds all of the options unpleasing, one should still acknowledge differences between the papabile, as the Catholic hiearchy is far from uniform. Theologically speaking, Francis is more moderate than his predecessor, Benedict XVI. He is open to ecumenical and interfaith dialogue (not that Benedict was not, but Francis is perhaps more so), and Francis’s views on the liturgy are noticeably more liberal. Those who have been yearning for a return to the principles of Vatican II might get their wish. And he seems “collegial.” Noted liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, by the way, is pleased with this pope and has countered claims that Bengoglio supported the right-wing military junta in Argentina.

On economic issues, although he was critical of liberation theology and Marxism, Bergoglio has challenged neoliberalism and spoken out against the crippling burdens of debt imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank upon third world countries. Like his predecessor, Pope Francis is likely to criticize unbridled capitalism, and one can hope that he will challenge austerity with vehemence and determination.

Whatever disagreements I may end up having with him, I love him for asking the people for our blessing before giving his own, for riding the bus to work, for kissing the feet of AIDS patients, for scolding uptight priests who refused to baptize babies for not having been born into the “right” kind of families. Yes, probably he should have spoken out and risked his safety during the dirty war, but if he lacks the moral courage of a martyr, at least he seems to have sympathy for the poorest and least. After the lights dim a bit and the Swiss guard put all their sparkly helmets back on the shelf, perhaps I’ll be more critical. For the moment, it doesn’t seem to take a lot to make me really happy.

(photo credit: http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/pope-francis-on-liturgy-ii/)

Abundant Wealth, Extreme Poverty

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Jeff

Drive through Grayson County, KY. You will see humble shacks, some falling apart, sitting next door to beautiful mansion-like homes with clean-cut green grass. We all know in any city, all you have to do is turn the “wrong” corner and you’ll move from a “nice” neighborhood to a run-down area.

We have wealth beyond compare! Yet, this wealth is concentrated in comparably few hands. And those hands become more wealthy and fewer as the years go by.

Why?

Many will claim that it’s not right to give to people who don’t earn their money. It makes them feel entitled, and all they’ll do is laze around and never work if they don’t have to. And besides, those few hands that hold the wealth earned it.

What goes unquestioned, continues to go unquestioned down the decades and years, is the whole idea that an individual earns something. What could any one person do to earn a billion dollars or 35 billion dollars? Yes, Bill Gates created a technology used across the world that makes people’s lives easier. But why do we say that he earned 35 billion dollars for that? This concept of “earning” is a judgment we make– it is a political judgment.

And when we make that political judgment, we make the related judgment that other people ought to earn their bread and their roof and that, in fact, some people never do. We make the judgment that an individual Hispanic woman who cleans rooms, picking up people’s trash and used condoms, flipping over heavy mattresses and changing sheets, and pushing a heavy vacuum cleaner, day in and day out for years does not earn $20k a year. Her work is worth the work of Gates, even though she affects as many people as he does and makes their lives easier.

Wealth distribution is a political choice we make everyday. You can deny that, but you would be wrong. You can argue that people ought to earn their bread and their roof, and, on the one hand, you would be right (if you meant that everyone should work), but on the other hand, you would be wrong (if you meant that a political decision about the worth of someone’s activities should determine whether that person is homeless and hungry or not).

It is a shame and a crisis– a true human tragedy, that we have enough material goods in this world to satisfy the needs of everyone, and yet so many millions suffer while so few thousands eat caviar and drink champagne.

Nothing Left to Show Us

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Jeff

So writes Taylor Brigler about Ashley Judd at the Daily Caller:

We are used to knowing just about everything there is to know about serious political candidates. But will Judd be the first potential senator who has — literally — nothing left to show us?

I want to hold off a minute

on commenting about Judd’s nudity or that some candidates for political office have been seen nude or otherwise “compromised.” Consider first what Brigler is saying here and whether she would say it of a man.

Bigler is claiming, implicitly if not explicitly, that because one has seen Ashley Judd naked, one has seen everything about Ashley Judd. Judd has nothing left to show us. Here, Judd is identified with her body, even more so, her sexuality. We should expect to discover nothing else about Judd– for example, her political positions on any number of topics, her philosophy of life, her beliefs about God or morality or even of her own film career. We have literally seen everything.

Aside from identifying Judd with her sexual body, Bigler presumes, as many people in the media do, that the material world is all that matters. Vision gives us access to anything we want or need to have. Shouldn’t Christians, for one, be concerned about such a materialistic understanding of the world, or of persons? Should not priests and bishops who reject the Vagina Monologues because the play “reduces women to their vaginas” not stand up and reject this presumption of Bigler, of the Daily Caller, and of American society?

But let us consider also, would Bigler, or anyone else, say the same thing about a male candidate running for office? No, and for two reasons: men are not traditionally associated with their sex. Second, men are taken more seriously than women.

But let’s look for a moment at the bigger picture: does it matter that a candidate for political office has been seen nude by the general public, that her or his career required nudity from him or her? One can answer yes to this only if one insists that the moral character of the candidate matters. But if the moral candidate of the character matters, then questions about nudity are not really about nudity. We can discuss whether it is ever moral–whether the internal goods of the practice of acting are ever satisfied by–nude scenes. But that is not a question about nudity per se, but about the choices individuals make in their every day lives. And if we begin to ask those questions–which, believe me, we should–we have to ask them of every candidate running for political office.

And once we ask those questions, we might want to consider how candidates relate to corporations versus the people they represent. What role, if any, religion plays in their lives. What concern they have for the least well off in society.

I know very little about Ashley Judd. I certainly don’t believe I will know anything more about her if I see her naked. But I also know that I know very little about any candidate just from the face he presents to the public. It would be best if we all stopped judging by the cover of the book.

Benedict XVI Resigns

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Jeff

I suppose I must say something about Benedict XVI resigning as pope. But I am not sure where to start or exactly what to say about Benedict, for whatever I say will either fall on deaf ears at this time or will be taken as one more commendation for him.

So perhaps we should think instead about what this could mean for the Roman Catholic Church. The best we could hope for is a pope willing to call Vatican III. The goal of Vatican III would be to push forward without fail many of the initiatives of Vatican II that have been continually resisted. Specifically, we would have a renewal of theology that was human centered, as Christ was. That began where people are in the world and tried to help elevate them to seeing the heavenly kingdom here on earth, to work for Christ’s mission to feed the poor, clothe the hungry, minister the sick, and free the imprisoned.

A Vatican III would focus on the practices of the Church rather than the maintenance of the institution. Every priest and bishop involved in any sex abuse anywhere would be quickly and thoroughly defrocked and sequestered in an abandoned monastery high up in the Alps. The fear of ordaining women as a hindrance to reuniting with the Eastern Orthodox would fall to the wayside, and women would be seen as equal to men. In fact, all people would be seen as equal, and any priest who believed he was more worthy than any other person because of some indelible mark would be defrocked and placed into the same monastery as the other clergy.

Vatican III would declare that there is no difference between the protection of unborn life and the protection of life at all stages, and would excommunicate anyone who claimed to be Catholic but supported economic policies that favored the rich or elite.

It would begin a renewal of the heart that showed everyone the meaning of Jesus’ suffering, which was not establish an institutional hierarchy, but provided the foundation for a ministry of love to all who needed it.

Bishops Bash Compromise

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Jeff

I was not originally going to post on this issue, but it seems worthwhile to say a few things about the USCCB reaction to Obama’s attempt at compromise.

My first reaction is, geez, Obama keeps trying to compromise with people, and every time he gets bashed. Poor guy. And I’m no big fan of Obama, but at a certain point, one starts to cheer for the underdog. And Obama certainly seems to be that every time he tries to compromise. Also, the USCCB doesn’t come off very pretty here: they, like the Republican caucus, are trying to threaten the president’s attempt at compromise with the continued support of law suits against the health care coverage. My pappy always said, “you’ll get more flies with honey than with vinegar,” but Cardinal Dolan’s probably never heard of compromise.

And yet…

One of the bishops’ complaints is

“It appears that the government would require all employees in our ‘accommodated’ ministries to have the illicit coverage—they may not opt out, nor even opt out for their children—under a separate policy,” he said.

I’m not sure what Dolan and the USCCB expect here. How can one legitimately opt out of something completely like this? It’s as if public schools could opt out of teaching evolution because some of their science teachers don’t believe in evolution. Or, as has been said over and over in social media, a Christian Scientist could stop his child from receiving necessary medical care because of his religious beliefs? The Court has never upheld that right. But, of course, with this Court, it might do so by a 5-4 margin. And it wouldn’t mind that this puts us right back in Jim Crowe land — maybe my religion means I don’t have to serve homosexuals at my restaurant. Or my hospital. Or my church. Really, can Dolan open his eyes enough to see the problem here, or is he just so caught up in his passion for free-market libertarianism that he can’t see it?

Do you really like think I am being unfair to Dolan and the USCCB? Than how do you explain this:

Cardinal Dolan also said the proposal refuses to acknowledge conscience rights of business owners who operate their businesses according to their faith and moral values.

Yes, Dolan immediately follows that statement with another more damning one:

“In obedience to our Judeo-Christian heritage, we have consistently taught our people to live their lives during the week to reflect the same beliefs that they proclaim on the Sabbath,” Cardinal Dolan said. “We cannot now abandon them to be forced to violate their morally well-informed consciences.”

So, Cardinal Dolan, when was the last time you went to a rich donor’s house and asked that donor to give all of his wealth to the poor? When was the last time you visited a business owner and said that, regardless of the law, he must provide immediate health care coverage for all of his workers? And a fair, living wage? When was the last time you spoke with George W. Bush and said he could not kill people on death row?

I know nothing of Cardinal Dolan, so maybe he has done these things. But if so, that should be at the center of his entreaty to negotiate a compromise with Obama. Not a threat of legal action in the courts. Because, despite what my pappy said, my Lord Jesus said to turn the other cheek and to love thy neighbor as thyself. But maybe Dolan and the USCCB enjoyed going to court over and over again because of the sex-abuse scandal.

Prayer, Violence, and Human Nature

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Jeff

I skim through the news every day looking for something to post about, to try and tie together thoughts about society and how a new thinking — one rooted in what I cal subversive Thomism — could change society and help us to live more fulfilling live, even flourishing live. Today’s reading has left me in tears. I found this story about an 11-year old girl allegedly gang raped by at least 14 men.

Of course, I am angry. Who wouldn’t be. And part of my anger is toward God. I don’t know how to understand the existence of a loving God when children are harmed in any way. But this act seems especially cruel. I only know that I have no option but to pray for the girl and to find some way in me to pray for the bastards who did this. Yes, I pray for those bastards to, because I do not know them, and I don’t know what could have led them to this act. Perhaps they are evil, and so I have to pray that some how they can be saved from the evil that possesses them and that they can find a love in their hearts. Or maybe something bad happened to them. But I don’t know. All I know is that someone who could do this must have a darkness that needs prayer to drive it away.

And I am really afraid that maybe I am wrong, and God doesn’t exist, or that if He does, He isn’t loving. But before this horror, my heart can only remain quiet and hope, hope beyond hope, that God does exist. Because without God, that little girl will never be healed.

And then I have to wonder about our society. Oh, of course, I’m not f&*^ing stupid — people have done horrible things since the beginning of time. But our advanced, enlightened, civilized society is supposed to be beyond that, and we are not.

Human beings are torn between two tendencies — a tendency to harm and a tendency to love. And I would like to say that if I had the power, I would not take away that free will to choose, but I don’t know if I could be that strong. But I do think that we can work together to be better than this.

So when I see that the town is divided over racial issues in this situation, but stomach turns over. Race should not be discussed here, and it sure as hell should not take the place of discovering who did what to this child.

But our society glorifies violence; it glorifies sex; and it glorifies sex and violence. And when we throw race into a tense situation, the violence seethes beneath it, looking for an outlet. Trapped, people are likely to do anything. That is human nature.

But it is also human nature to find a better way. So most of all, I pray that we find that better way.

Contraceptive, Compromise, and (lack of) Consensus

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Jeff

As NPR reports, the Obama administration has offered a further compromise on the health mandate that required some religious institutions to provide coverage for contraceptives. The new condition allows religious employers to be exempt from providing contraceptive coverage if they meet the following conditions:

opposes providing coverage for some or all of any contraceptive services required to be covered under Section 2713 of the PHS Act, on account of religious objections;
is organized and operates as a nonprofit entity;
holds itself out as a religious organization; and
self-certifies that it meets these criteria and specifies the contraceptive services for which it objects to providing coverage.

I am not concerned about this set of criteria, although I think others could critique it if they want. What I am concerned about is the moral vision that underlies it. Given this exemption, employees would be able to have contraceptive coverage without additional coverage through some other means (which remain nebulous for me as I read the news release).

But what is the moral vision that underlies Obama’s attempt at pacification and compromise? Is he worried about keeping or losing the Catholic vote or being condemned by bishops, or having the whole health care law go down over this one issue because of the number of lawsuits brought forth over it?

And what is the moral vision of the American Catholic bishops who resist the HHS mandate? I remind the reader that this resistance is singularly American coming from the bishops of this country. When speaking to priests even in very religiously conservative nations like Ireland, they ask me why the bishops are making such a fuss over this. Our tradition calls for a right to health care. Should we wonder that the concern raised comes from bishops who openly reject principles of Catholic social thought?

The culture of the United States suffers from an inability to discuss these types of issues from a reasonable standpoint. All we are left with are power moves. We lack an identifiable set of criteria by which to judge what our policies should be, what the common good, and how to prioritize the goods pursued in our society. Even the American bishopric lacks this unifying idea, a symptom of the corruption of American consumerism on the Catholic church. If Catholics in the United States had to struggle like those in other nations to be Catholic, would our bishopric be so divided?

Again, the issue for me is not the lack of merit of either case here. The issue is an inability to articulate a set of moral principles by which we guide and ground social policy and action. We can cite many reasons for the lack of such a set of moral principles, from a history of religious persecution, to the fact of pluralism, to the sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Until we are able to overcome our divisiveness, we will be at the hands of those who know how to pull the strings of power, and we will have harder and harder times of trying to achieve a common good or our own individual goods.

Thomas Aquinas 2013

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Jeff

Many see Thomas Aquinas as just another sign of the static and authoritarian thinking of a religious institution too tied to its past glory to live in the modern world. While it is true that the Catholic Church has adopted Thomas as a universal doctor of the Church, Thomas is more than just a figurehead and his philosophy more than some static doctrine.

We must remember to put Thomas in the context of his world. He joined a new religious order — the Dominicans — against the will of his parents. His mother had him kidnapped and imprisoned for two years to prevent him from joining the Dominicans. The Dominicans, like the Franciscans at the time, were a new order, one dedicated to poverty. They did not ride horses or carriages when they traveled and begged for their meals.

Further, Thomas spoke out against the Cathars/Albigensians. They believed that the body was evil and the soul good. Because of his training in Aristotelian philosophy, Thomas was able to recognize the goodness of both. We subversives should keep this in mind today when we fight against the materialists.

Yes, it is true that Thomas called for the condemnation of certain heresies. But we do not throw out the Declaration of Independence just because Jefferson kept slaves. Instead, we try to live according to the better spirit of the Declaration. Likewise, we Thomists know better than to live according to the literal word of Thomas. Thomas himself show this in the way that he appropriates Aristotle and Augustine and Plotinus. He shines the best light on each of them to find the truth in their philosophies.

Subversive Thomism is based on the idea that Thomas’ philosophy provides the tools for understanding the world, including understanding the modern world. We do not simply rehash his philosophy word for word, though. We use his methodology and combine his philosophical insights with the growth in wisdom in science, philosophy, and theology since his days. Thomas provides a key to understanding and criticizing the modern world in a way that modern thinkers fail to capture.

Our goal is to polish that key, straighten it out, and use it to open the world to love and liberty.

He has annointed me to bring Good News: Sunday Reflection 27 January 2013

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Jeff

What blessings today, sisters and brothers, in the Liturgy of the Word! They speak to us of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah in the One who would bring Good News, they speak of joy found in the synagogue, and they speak of the unity of believers.

The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹ to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we find two significant events. First, we see Jesus, at behest of His mother, performing a simple miracle — turning water into wine — so that a wedding not run out. Second, we hear how Jesus took up the scroll in the Synagogue and proclaimed the Good News: liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, a year of favor from the Lord. We have spent the last week in the US remembering the life and death of Martin Luther King jr. and marching for life in various cities. Many Catholics want to pretend that something distinguishes the work of MLK jr from the work of pro-lifers. But what Jesus tells us is that the Good News is a unity of life and liberty. Life remains death without liberty, and liberty remains meaningless without life. The mission of the Church, if I may be allowed to speak that way, is a catechesis of liberty, sight, and flourishing, and anyone who tries to separate that social mission from the Eucharist misunderstands Jesus and the Eucharist.

Moreover, we must remember: “‘This text is being fulfilled today even while you are listening.’” Our mission is not oriented to some afterlife. It is oriented to the here and now, where blindness, slavery, and oppression occur. Open your eyes, my brothers! Clean out your ears, my sisters! If we do not live every day the Good News, then we are not Christian. And that Good News is liberty, sight, and flourishing.

And how should we proclaim this Good News? With joy!

‘Today is sacred to Yahweh your God. Do not be mournful, do not weep.’

and

‘You may go; eat what is rich, drink what is sweet and send a helping to the man who has nothing prepared. For today is sacred to our Lord. Do not be sad: the joy of Yahweh is your stronghold.’

How are we to go if we are not free? How are we to eat what is rich and drink what is sweet if we are oppressed? How are we to see Yahweh if we are blind? How marvelous that Jesus begins his ministry by attending a wedding and turning water into wine!

So often, my brothers and sisters, we forget that this ministry we have accepted as our own does not belong to me or to you or to someone wearing clerics alone. You, sisters, you belong to the body of Christ. You, brothers, are but a part of the Church’s body.

More, my sisters and brothers: it took me forever to figure out that, not only do each of us belong to the Body of Christ, but each of us has our own vocation. For so long, I thought I had to be a priest to serve God. But that is not what St. Paul says. How am I to share the Good News? What is my vocation? How am I to minister to the imprisoned, the blind, and the oppressed? The answer is there in the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians: we each belong to the body of Christ to bring forth the Good News! And that itself is good news! There are apostles and prophets and teachers. There are miraculous powers, gifts of healing, acts of healing and guidance, speaking in tongues!

The Lord reveals His glory in a multitude of ways. “Find that which you most love, cultivate it, for it is the path to God.”* We know this is true because it comes from a joy of serving and loving the Lord and bringing good news. And how do we know that we have strayed from the good news?

When it no longer recognizes someone as belonging to the Body of Christ. When it spread sadness, not joy. When it enslaves, blinds, or oppresses . When it looks to some other time instead of the here and now of our Lord Jesus.

My brothers and sisters, praise the Lord! Our freedom is found in freeing others! Our sight is found in giving sight to others! Our flourishing is found in helping others flourish!

Amen, I say to you, Amen!

* Anthony de Mello.