Religious, Not-Religious, and Transcendence

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Jeff

Recently, NPR’s Morning Edition has addressed the question of religion in America. Friday’s story focused on the fact that people, especially the young, leave the Church because it does not address social issues the way the Bible addresses them. Church authorities and hierarchy are seen as more conservative than the Bible itself. How’s that for a 2+-thousand year old set of documents.

One positive of this story is that young people understand the Bible — perhaps better than many priests and certainly most bishops.

But I want to reflect on something else. In his very wonderful and clearly written book, Technopoly, Neil Postman discusses the way that symbols have lost meaning in American Technopoly. A technopoly is a society in which culture and individuals are put to the service of technology, rather than technology being at the service of individuals. Technopolies eliminate alternatives to themselves by redefining the meaning of some of our most important words — religion, family, politics, art. (I do not mean, by the way, to imply that the redefinition of family which bishops accuse homosexuals and homosexual marriage of bringing about is due to homosexual use of technopoly. Just the opposite.)

Postman suggests that “without a comprehensive religious narrative at its center, a cultura must decline” (p. 172). The question we might ask is whether the rejection of organized religion heralds a rejection of a comprehensive religious narrative.

Or instead, is the move away from religion a symptom that technopoly has won, and religion has failed in the modern era to provide a comprehensive religious narrative?

When we look at the divide, for instance, in the Catholic Church — between LeFebrites and the Church, but also between Kingdom Catholics and Communion Catholics, or left and right, or pro-life and Catholic social thought — we see a Church unable to provide a narrative that can address the challenges of the modern industrial world. I have written on here before that the teachings of Catholic social thought provide a seamless garment understanding of Catholicism, but the very use of the term irritates many lay people mis-lead by mis-informed bishops and priests (seminaries do not require education in Catholic social thought!).

Christianity, led by the Catholic Church, is a lost sheep, still torn up and confused by the findings of Galileo, Darwin, and Freud. But that’s only because the Church has allowed too many of its leaders to dismiss human reason as a gift from God by which we might discover God, in what St. Thomas Aquinas calls the book of nature. It allowed the Bible to answer questions for which it was not suited. Today, in consequence, we look to science for answers to questions for which it is not suited.

Only when we are able to see the Truth of the Bible as a consistent narrative of love will we be able to over-come these divides and put science and religion in their proper places. But right now, we are under the dominion of a technopoly that prevents that at every opportunity.

Individualism and Religion in America

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Jeff

An interesting survey by the Pew Center compares the attitudes of Americans to Europeans on a number of issues. I just want to reflect on a couple of those values. Before I do so, however, I want to just reflect for a moment on the role of these types of surveys.

A survey like this is a tool for condensing information. What kind of information does it allow, however? Surveys can give us no cause and effect, and nuance is lost here. Though 58% of Americans believe state interference is bad, the survey does not tell us anything about why. And we certainly want to avoid the idea that the survey says anything about who is right or wrong here. Surveys do not have that capability.

Now to a more substantive point:

Most notably, Americans are more individualistic and are less supportive of a strong safety net than are the publics of Britain, France, Germany and Spain. Americans are also considerably more religious than Western Europeans, and are more socially conservative with respect to homosexuality.

It should be obvious the value that Americans place on individualism. That value plays center role in our cultural ethos, from our understanding of how America was founded, the way the West was won, and the movies we watch today. Yet, isn’t it a strange juxtaposition to say that Americans are both more individualistic and more religious?

Note something even more surprising: 62% of Americans disagree with the idea that “success in life is determined by forces outside of our control.” This disagreement reflects American optimism– everyone expects that some day he or she will be a millionaire, or at least fairly rich, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But my question is, how can a religious people believe that success is within their control?

I suppose a different way of asking my question is this: Given American values — their belief in individualism and optimism about success — what is it to be religious in America? How does our individualism and optimism construct our religion, and what sort of religion feeds into that individualism and optimism? This question is a worthy one to ask, especially of Catholics. Catholicism, with its celebration of Eucharist, should be a clear rejection of individualism. Are we American Catholics being co-opted by the individualism and optimism that characterizes American life? If so, what does that entail about the meaning of our religion?

A Shout-out to the Mormons

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Joan

Probably lots of other people are saying this, but I’ll add my voice to the choir: I feel sorry for progressive Mormons right now. As a Catholic, I can sympathize. Progressive Mormons must be cringing every time Mitt Romney comes on TV, sort of like I was while Rick Santorum was all over the news acting like he was the quintessence of Catholicism. My solidarity to the good folks at The Mormon Worker and like groups: http://themormonworker.wordpress.com/ (cool, right?).

Left-leaning Catholics are acutely aware that there can be a difference between being an ordinary practicing believer in the pews and believing every statement that comes out of the Vatican or the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. We also know that there is a difference between both of those things, on the one hand, and the right-wing politicians and pundits who claim the banner of our faith, on the other. The situation for progressive/left Mormons is similar.

Further, Catholics, like Mormons, have suffered religious persecution during our history in the United States. (Quick caveat: No, I do not think Catholics are currently a persecuted group in the United States, contra the belief of some right-wing Catholics.) And having a presidential candidate of our faith in the headlines, while many Americans speculated unreasonably about whether the leaders of our faith were trying to control the government from afar? Been there, done that (the Kennedy campaign, of course).

So, solidarity, left-wing Mormons: Although I don’t support the Democrats or the Republicans and will most likely stubbornly vote third party as usual, I hope Mitt Romney loses, so that you can stop having to answer stupid questions all the time and we can all get back to protesting our corporate overlords in relative peace.

Catholicism Is Neither Capitalist Nor Efficient

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Dave

Catholicism Is Neither Capitalist Nor Efficient
By Dave Kovacs

Since Max Weber’s groundbreaking work it has been common to note parallels between the development of capitalism and the development of Protestantism. But only occasionally is it shown how radically anti-Capitalist Catholicism must be. Here I draw attention to one concept: Efficiency.

Those who have dealt with anti-Catholicism know well the claim that the Catholic Church imposes too many burdens: Why have saints, the Blessed Mother, the sacraments, the statues, the sacramentals, the priests, or the rituals when one can go directly to God oneself? In other words: Isn’t Catholicism inefficient?

This line is reminiscent of a businessmen trying to cut out waste and middle men in his financial transactions. That is what a good businessman does in the capitalist model. Just as a good businessman would no more employ four men to do what only one can do, so too some Protestants fear that Catholics have employed too many saints, or too many sacraments, or too many rituals, to do what one can do by just going on his knees and speaking to God with sincerity.

I mean not to put down any sincere Protestant. It is truly beautiful the honesty and sincerity with which they faithfully approach God. We can all learn from their earnestness. My point is that such an obsession with efficiency is simply not Catholic.

And why should it be? The central idea in Catholicism is that God created everything so that everything can bring us, flesh and blood human beings, to union with him. It would have been more efficient for God to save us with a Crucifixion, without an Incarnation, without a Virgin Birth; it would be more efficient for Him even now to save us without the intercession of the saints, without the co-operation of the Virgin Mary, without the Holy Eucharist and the Mass, without Confession. But God has chosen to save us not in spite of the material world; He has chosen to save us through the material world.

In the Catholic world-view everything that exists has the purpose of bringing us closer to God. Sacred times, sacred places, sacred spaces. It may be inefficient to have to use so many created, contingent things in our journey toward God, but who said anything about salvation being efficient?

We’ll leave efficiency to bank managers and pursue salvation through the beauty of the material world that God has created for us.

Kingdom and Communion

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Jeff

I just read this wonderful article by Tomothy Radcliffe, a Dominican, titled “Overcoming Discord in the Church.” It’s a wonderful article that rightfully argues that the divisions we feel in the Church between left and right are problematic and must be addressed. Radcliffe begins, again rightly, by arguing that the terms “right” and “left” are part of the problem, because they are terms imposed on the Church by modernity. Right identifies the conservation or traditionalist, and left identifies the progressive, anti-traditionalist. Yet, as Radcliffe notes “this supposes an opposition between tradition and innovation which is alien to the Catholic Church.”

He says the real struggle in the Church is between Kingdom Catholics and Communion Catholics. Kingdom Catholics look forward to the coming kingdom and seek out in the Spirit’s working in the world. Communion Catholics, on the other hand, hold to rebuilding and maintaining the inner life of the Church. Both Kingdom Catholics and Communion Catholics feel a sense of loss: Kingdom Catholics because the promises of Vatican II were never realized or have been rescinded (as with the recent translation of the liturgy), and Communion Catholics feel that Vatican II was a betrayal of the heart of the Church.

Radcliffe is calling all Catholics to overcome that division — for the heart of the Church is its engagement with the outside. It is Peter AND Paul, Roman AND Catholic.

I find the article very enlightening and promising of the future for the Church. St, Thomas Aquinas recognized that it was by delving into the tradition that we could find innovative ways for resolving new problems. His choice to be a mendicant was one expression of this innovative traditionalism. And he, too, like the Kingdom Catholics of Vatican II was ostracized and marginalized for it. And the same reasoning explains why I feel at home neither in modern philosophy or the traditional philosophy of medieval scholars and yet, why I find both places reminiscent of home.

Thomas was subversive in exactly the same way that Radcliffe is calling us to be subversive today — to speak in our own words and not in the imposed language of modernity, but to communicate with that larger, outside world.

October 13, 1962

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Dave

October 13, 1962

On October 13, 1962 something happened that would revolutionize Catholicism forever.

To understand this revolution, we need to begin by understanding Catholic life in the Western world as it had stood since the time of the French Revolution. It is not the case that Catholic life had always been like this, but as things developed it became very easy to believe that it had been such since the early Church. That mistaken notion was the background of a revolution.

Catholicism, beginning after the French Revolution, and even more so after the Second World War, had become marked by a set of rules. Adherence to those rules is what made you Catholic. Violating certain rules, such as ones about remarriage, was enough to exclude you from the title Catholic.

The rules did not have to make a great deal of sense so long as they were obeyed. Consider the fact that both abortion and eating meat on Friday were mortal sins. Whatever the theology was behind the venial and mortal sin distinction, all the mattered to the laity (and indeed, to most priests) was that the rules were followed; if they were not, Confession was mandatory. These were the days when Protestants were heretics; Jews were prayed for on Good Friday; attending non-Catholic religious services was forbidden; the Index of Banned Books was the moral norm for literature; and Catholic families were obliged to have as many children as possible.

This isn’t to say that the religion was superficial. Many Catholics practiced a great piety based on their deep devotion to God and to living the spiritual life. Those Catholics who went to First Fridays, said the Rosary daily, joined spiritual confraternities, and so forth were often motivated by a deep desire for a union with God. However, the Catholic understanding of that union was, largely, one in which the union was achieved by a specific set of customs and observances.

Moreover, most Catholics gave little thought to how those customs arose or when the rules came to be. It was assumed that Catholicism had always been this way and always would be. In fact, the Council of Trent seemed to solidify some of this in its apparent proclamation that the liturgy, newly codified and exemplified by the Tridentine Mass, would be the liturgy of the Church forever with no alterations.

Then there was the grand centralization of power that took place at the First Vatican Council (1869-1870). In a move which has been difficult for the ecumenical movement ever since, the Pope became infallible. The expectation at that time was that the Vatican Council would be the last council: No additional councils were needed since any future decisions could be decided and resolved by the single man who occupied the papacy.

This explains some of the shock when Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council. Apparently, additional councils were possible. Nevertheless, when the Bishops of the world showed up in October, 1962, the expectation was that the Roman Curia would hand on some list of delegates from their own ranks to be rubber stamped by the Bishops, who would then return home to tell the faithful that everything was basically the same while the Curia went about some mild and superficial business of discussing arcane subjects pertaining to modern Biblical scholarship and how to promote Marian devotion.

The Catholic world and its history took a sharp turn on October 13, 1962, when the Bishops were expected to vote on who would serve on the various conciliar committees. The Curia had already prepared a list of candidates from their own ranks who would make up the lead roles and shape the major documents. Then something unexpected happened.

Two Cardinals by the names of Frings and Lienart refused to accept the list of potential candidates. They demanded that voting be postponed for a day while the Bishops would all get to know each other, and that the next day they would submit their own proposed names for each committee.

At that point the Council no longer belonged to the Curia. The Old Guard would not be calling all the shots. The Council now belonged to the Bishops, to the pastors of the dioceses throughout the world, to the people who had intimate experience with the needs of Catholics whom they had seen experience hardships from birth to death.

What resulted was a Church where rules were less important than authentic spiritual growth.

A great deal of literature has been written about the effects of the Council, in particular about what happened to the unique sense of Catholic identity so strong before the Council and now lost in a strange ambiguity. No one can deny that today Catholic identity is a term that often reminds us of a teenager trying to adjust to a changing voice, a new school and badly fitting clothes while also asserting his independence. My goal here is not to critique what happened; those who are interested might read Andrew Greeley’s fine book, written from his perspective as a professionally trained sociologist, The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council.

Instead I wish to propose that we begin meditating on the Council. We ought to read its documents, but, with an eye toward proper critical methodology, we also ought to understand the world in which they were written. We can begin by understanding the revolution that began on October 13, 1962, when the two Cardinals asserted the right to make the council truly ecumenical, truly representative of the whole Church.

It is my contention that the Council invites and challenges us, as Catholics, to confront the world in new, dynamic ways. It was not a refutation of custom, but it was a relaxing of rules-based mentality. It was not a burying of the past, but an acknowledgment of the future. It was neither triumphalist nor self-abasing, it was instead humble and open to the Holy Spirit. Unlike other councils, it was neither authoritarian nor condemnatory; it was instead understanding and compassionate.

Because the goal of the Subversive Thomist blog is to find ways to live justly and with loving kindness in a world that so often seems to be on the brink of collapse, it is my intention to spend some time reflecting on the Council, its history and its documents. Therefore, for the next four weeks, my Thursday blog post will focus on the Council. Each week I will consider something from Vatican II that still challenges us today, with my central guideposts being the four Constitutions of the Council.

Pope John seemed to have realized that there were many problems facing the modern world; indeed, it sometimes looked like a world on the brink of collapse. I believe he gave us the Council, inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, to help Christians find new, innovative and dynamic ways to go forward with hope, to live the spirit of Christ in the modern age. These ways were not to usurp the old, but they would complement them and bring out the best from our past.

I hope some readers will join me for the journey.

Common Good and Common Church

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Jeff

Nathan Schneider has an interesting reflection on whether Roman Catholics should sit-out of Mass when they disagree with the direction of the Church. His reflection is a response to Ireland’s Jeninifer Sleeman who says she will not attend Mass on November 27th because she wants to call attention to the discrimination in the Church against women. Schneider believes that Sleeman’s sitting-out is the wrong approach. He believes is wrong because Mass is a “mystical encounter with God in community.” We should, he insists, participate in Mass and form a stronger laity within the Church.

First, I would like to state that Schneider is right: the Mass is a mystical encounter and it is an encounter that cannot be had by one. It requires community. As stated in the article “Local Communities and Globalization,” the good of human beings is a common good to be shared by all. God is our good — so we must seek the good in community.

Second, yes, the hierarchy of the Church tends to be exclusive in ways. Recently, for instance, I read about a church in Texas that will no longer let girls serve at mass. Those that do let girls serve will dress boys in black cassocks but have girls wear white to distinguish them. John Paul II, who was a tremendous philosopher and pope, enunciated exclusivist positions when he said that women should make their primary work the work of the mother, even if they work outside the home. As a father, I feel as though I’m told I cannot spend the same quality time or give the same quality of care to my children because of my gender. The Church needs change.

The question remains, as Schneider points out, how do we bring about that change? And as he rightly points out, it must be done in community.

If we truly believe, as we are taught as Roman Catholics, that we are eating Jesus Christ in the Eucharist — we are not eating a sign of Christ, no signifier stands between me and God, but I receive God in my hands and place Him in my mouth — then not going to Church breaks my relationship with God. To let oppressive elements of the Church interfere with that relationship is to surrender and let them win.

If we believe…

Why I Occupy

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Jeff

I am on the borderline of a generational gap in Catholicism: Catholics a little older than I am were very influenced by the Second Vatican Council as well as by the social justice movements that sprang out of both the Council and the 1960s in general. Catholics my age and younger tend to have grown up in the aftermath of the collapse of liberation theology, and with the swing of the pendulum tend to have abandoned most of the social justice causes associated with the older generation, with the exception of abortion, which today many Catholics seem to believe is the only truly acceptable social justice issue.
Nevertheless my conversion to Catholicism fifteen years ago was largely inspired by the commitment to abolishing systemic injustices, a commitment that I found in the pages of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as well as in the writings of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Dan Berrigan, and others.But until now I have been largely isolated in my own activism. Too many Catholics have abandoned this cause, and in the secular world there has been a reluctance, even among self-proclaimed liberals, to talk about the systemic injustices that were the result of the rise of the unprecedented Leviathan corporations and the influence of big business. Instead, the American left spent the better part of two decades ranting about religion, guns, or sexual identity politics, while the monied interests on Wall Street went about their daily business of buying politicians from both parties and turning Washington D.C. against the American people.

But there is something essentially catholic about the Occupy movement. Notice I use a little c. I say it is catholic because in the days and hours I have spent Occupying here in Spokane, the movement has been so ecumenical. For the first time we have been united in our message accusing Wall Street of conspiring with the politicians against the needs of the people. I have been standing side by side with conservatives, liberals, socialists, libertarians, Christians, Protestants, Catholics, Buddhists, atheists, pagans and hundreds of other middle class (and sometimes homeless) Americans.

I remember, some years ago, Ralph Nader mentioning to me that every major religion in the world has warned against giving to much power to the merchant class, especially to the money dealers. He then asked me why it is that religious people have spent so much time bickering over theological disputes and no time uniting against the takeover of the United States by the largest, most powerful corporations. I would like to believe Ralph Nader would be pleased to know that is beginning to change.

When I mention to other Occupiers that the Cathedral, which we can see from our base, is where I attend Mass on Sundays, no one has ever mocked me for being Catholic. Nor have I mocked anyone. When the subject of religion has come up we have always agreed that if we are truly the 99% then we must be united in spite of our religious differences. And we have been surprisingly successful.

Thomas Aquinas pointed out that it is essentially contrary to natural law to make money on money. If he could see the derivatives, mortgage bundling, and Wall Street calculations today, I think he would be horrified. He also stated that excess wealth accumulated by individuals should be considered as money to be given back to those in need.

The Jesuit scholar of natural law Joseph Koterski has said that he believes an Aristotelian account of justice would probably demand progressive taxation.

When you take all these facts into account, I think that it is safe to say that the Occupy movement is bringing to light issues which fall squarely within the Christian tradition.

So why do I occupy? I occupy because for the first time in my life time there is a chance that the people will stand up and say “Enough” to the businesses that have been controlling America.

I occupy because I have been a worker in industry and have seen the factories shut down, the jobs sent overseas.

I occupy because I have friends much smarter than I am who will never go to graduate school, never pursue their own American dream, because they are already buried under hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

I occupy because I worked for Bank of America when employees were told that the only purpose of the bank was to put people into as much debt as possible.

I occupy because I’ve seen people suffer in underfunded nursing rooms and hospitals.

I occupy because this isn’t the kind of country I want future generations to live in.

Most of all, I occupy because I was taught to stand up to bullies. The corporations on Wall Street have become bullies. The political pundits who call us names are bullies. The candidates for office who have been ignoring human needs are bullies. The lobbyists who shift the tax burden to the workers are bullies. The war mongers who send our soldiers to die and spend our money on bombs are bullies. The banks that use police force to put people on the streets are bullies.

For every 99 honest, decent Americans there is one powerful bully.

And bullies will always be tough until someone stands up to them.

I occupy to stand up.
By Dave Kovacs

Subversive Thomism

Living Justly and Loving Kindness in a World on the Brink of Collapse

Tag Archives: Catholicism

Catholicism Is Neither Capitalist Nor Efficient