#468: The NFL’s Loyalty Test

  The controversy swirling around the bended knees by NFL players raises issues about our national identity and our commitment to it. 

On Thursday, the Supreme Court Justice picked by Donald Trump spoke to a select audience about defending the First Amendment. Here is what Neil Gorsuch said:

To be worthy of the First Amendment freedoms, we have to all adopt certain civil habits that enable others to enjoy them as well. When it comes to the First Amendment, that means tolerating those who don’t agree with us or those whose ideas upset us, giving others the benefit of the doubt about their motives.

Also Thursday, Tennessee Titans tight end Delanie walker revealed that he and his family had been receiving death threats.  These were apparently how fans responded after he suggested that fans should not come to NFL games if they felt disrespected by player protests.  

These two events reveal the opposite extremes the controversy has surfaced.

It’s tempting to think that the upset over the NFL protests is a mere distraction from the more serious problems facing America.  Certainly, for Trump himself, it is convenient if the public and media fight among themselves over the NFL players rather than focusing their attention on his handling of affairs with North Korea, or his slow response to the crisis in Puerto Rico, or his tax plans.

But in 21^st century America, matters of race are never a “mere distraction.” And this case is above all about race.  But the real and unfortunate distraction has been to pretend that is about something else. So perhaps it is helpful to reflect and clarify on how the controversy about the NFL is a test of loyalty both for Americans and for Christians.

The clarification requires stating some basic facts to clear the air:

First: the NFL players did not introduce politics onto the playing field.  This was done in 2009 when the U.S. government began paying the NFL millions to stage “patriotic” events before each game: color guards, gun salutes, fly-overs—all designed to boost recruiting efforts by whipping up patriotic fervor.  In short, this is government-paid advertizing for the military, and it had the effect of bringing politics onto the NFL’s playing fields.

It’s just silly to complain if the players, understanding that politics is already at work here, decide to take advantage of the situation someone else has created.

Second: the players are not protesting the flag or the anthem.  Colin Kaepernick explicitly said that he meant no disrespect to either, but was in fact protesting the bad treatment of African Americans by police.  One may agree or disagree about the issue of police brutality, but it has nothing to do with either our flag or national anthem.

Third, this is not a protest about soldiers or veterans.  The original protest about police brutality has been transformed, in response to Trump’s “Sons of bitches” attack, into a protest about the First Amendment itself.  In neither instance are the players attacking, objecting to, or showing any disrespect for members of the military.  In fact many protesters are themselves veterans, and many other veterans support them. 

The players did not make the decision to have soldiers on the field, and they should not have to take any responsibility for it.  The players need to be on the field to play the game, but football could continue even if no soldier ever set foot on the gridiron.

Fourth: player salaries have nothing to do with the protests.  Yes, these players are millionaires - -but they are responding in protest to the attacks of someone who is even richer than they are. To allow a billionaire president to make such attacks, and then to claim that his target audience cannot protest because they are rich, is completely inconsistent. 

Some fans are even arguing that the players are “ungrateful” because they want to protest despite being well paid.  But First Amendment rights cannot be bought off; players do not lose those rights when they accept a paycheck, no matter how large.  And since most of them are African-Americans, calling them ungrateful sounds like a new way of calling Black Americans “uppity.”

Bill Russell takes a knee with his Medal of Freedom

Fifth:  Kneeling is not disrespectful.  The simple fact is, kneeling has been a gesture of respect, loyalty, even fealty, for centuries.  Many of us kneel when we pray, as a sign of respect.  And many players kept their hands over their hearts to reinforce that sign of respect.  This protest does not use kneeling as a sign of disrespect, but simply as a sign of protest--first, a protest against racialized police brutality, and second as a protest in favor of First Amendment rights.

Sixth:  Thus the real issues are (1) racialized police violence and (2) the right to protest itself--that is, free speech.

Once we accept the facts of the case, we can look at the underlying question of loyalty.

Loyalty here can mean many things.  It can mean loyalty to a flag, or to a song, or to a team, or to the Constitution, or even to a higher law.

Many Americans of course have strong emotional feelings about the flag, and we’re even in the habit of pledging our allegiance to it.  But while the actions that surround the flag often suggest that people regard it as something sacred, this cannot really be true. 

First, the U.S. Supreme Court has long determined that in the name of protest people may even burn the flag.  It also ruled that people have the right not to salute the flag. What this demonstrates, no matter how you feel about it, is that the right to protest is more important than this piece of cloth.  We cannot defend the flag by preventing protest.  Instead, we must protect protest even if it harms the flag.

Many Americans also have strong emotional attachment to the national anthem.  And the singing of the anthem at sports events became popular and routine during the 20^th century, and especially during and after World War II.  But most people only know the first verse, and except for the final line “The land of the free and the home of the brave,” the rest of the song is simply a celebration, not of American values or institutions, but of a battle victory over the British in 1812. 

The song has been linked to sports, but we do not sing it in a theater before a movie, or a play, or in church before each ceremony.  We are perfectly capable of being Americans and celebrating American values and institutions whether we sing this song or not.

These things symbolize our nation and our people, but they are only that: symbols. If we treat them as though we must love them to love the country, we make them fetishes, as if they are the whole of us. It’s like loving someone’s big toe, instead of the whole person. This is not patriotism, it’s pathology.

And worse, to turn this song or this flag into something sacred—something, for example, higher than protest itself--is to fail the loyalty test that Americans, and especially American Christians, should be passing.

For Americans, the values enshrined in our Constitution are the highest standards we possess as a people.  The right to protest is the First Right among these, and nothing else in our social life is higher or more important.  Any attempt to prevent rightful protest as “disrespectful” to the flag or the anthem--or even to the military--is actually an act of profound disrespect for the Constitution itself, the very foundation of our nation, which those other things represent..

And for Christians, the lesson should be even more obvious.  Treating any object--a song, a flag, even a veteran or soldier--as something sacred fails the test of loyalty to the First Commandment: “Thou shall not have false gods.” Christians believe that only God is sacred, and that God’s will creates a higher law than any other law.

That law includes, especially for Catholics, the idea that we are one human family, all children of God, all brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, and that therefore any division among us is a scandal to our faith.

 The very notion that Blacks in our country have been mistreated for centuries must be a source of shame to all of us.  That shame reflects the fact that America has failed to do God’s will for centuries, that slavery really is our original sin, and that we have not finished our penance and amendment for that sin. Using the flag and the anthem as camouflage to hide that makes the sin worse. Using our soldiers as human shields to hide our sin is worst of all.

So while loyalty to team, to flag, to a song, to the military may all be good things, the real test of our loyalties this: is our first loyalty as Americans to the Constitution?  Is our first loyalty as people of faith to the will of God and God’s higher law?

Viewed this way, the controversy is hardly a “mere distraction.” As serious as the other problems facing us are, this challenge of loyalty to God and Constitution cannot be ignored, cannot be forgotten, cannot be avoided.  It is a test of loyalty that, sooner or later, this nation must pass—or the nation will fail.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2017

#390 Revisited: The Blasts Heard ’Round the World

On the anniversary of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, I am re-posting the blog I wrote the day after. It remains my most-read posting.

Initial reflections  on the day after the bombs went off...

      Patriots day is perhaps the quintessential American holiday, even though (or perhaps because) it is celebrated only in Massachusetts.  It marks simultaneously the beginning of the end of Britain’s occupation of the American Colonies and the birth, in rebellion and blood, of a new country. 

The iconic images surrounding Patriots Day are familiar to all Americans.  “One if by land, two if by sea.” “The midnight ride of Paul Revere.” “The British are coming!  The British are coming!” The shot heard round the world.  The Minutemen. Lexington and Concord.

And so each year, just after dawn, the Redcoats arrive again at Lexington Green to be confronted once more by the local Minutemen.  A shot rings out, and a skirmish ensues.  Men on both sides fall, and the colonial militia is driven back, and the Redcoats proceed toward Concord.  But along the way the British troops are terrorized by the rebels harassing them along their route and sniping at them from behind trees and rocks.  Meanwhile tourists follow the rebels, clicking photos of the reenactment.  Local churches offer pancake breakfasts for the visitors.

Schools and most workplaces are closed, so baseball fans leave home early for the annual 11:00 Red Sox game.  With luck, the Red Sox will win and the game will end early enough for the Fenway faithful to stream into Kenmore Square in plenty of time to watch the runners passing by.

More than 20,000 of those runners begin their day early far from Boston in the small New England Town of Hopkinton.  They’ve come from all over the world, and the runners with numbers have qualified for Boston by running other marathons with impressive times.  For many years, Boston was the only non-Olympic marathon that required runners to qualify this way.  It is, after all, the oldest annual marathon in the world. It was a sacred tradition here long before marathon running became popular.

More than 200,000 fans line the streets along the 26-mile route from Hopkinton to Boston. Boston’s quarter-million college kids take Patriots day as an annual rite of spring, cheering on the runners while partying outside for the first time since football season.

Patriots Day is the day Boston’s cityscape finally returns to vibrant life after the relative quiet of the long cold New England winter. It is the day Bostonians remember why they are blessed to live here.

Given all this, the crowds along the entire length of the marathon course are unrivaled for numbers, enthusiasm, and hospitality. The day I observed the 100^th running with my youngest son, we joined hundreds of thousands of spectators cheering for passing runners for five hours until we had clapped our hands raw and yelled our voices hoarse. For participants, Patriots Day is the day Boston opens its arms to the world and offers a running experience no other marathon can match.

But Patriots Day 2013 was unlike any other.  In Lexington and Concord, the battle reenactments were long finished. The winners of the wheelchair races had finished; the women’s and the men’s winners (both from Africa) had already earned their victories, the Red Sox had already won a walk-off 10^th inning victory, and the mass of “weekend warrior” runners were approaching the finish line flanked by the world flags lining Boylston Street.

And then at 2:50 the bombs created a new kind of Boston massacre.  These truly were blasts heard ’round the world, since the heavy media presence guaranteed that the images and sounds of explosions would achieve global reach within minutes. It is hard to imagine a more symbolically-rich venue to attack. 

As of this writing, there’s no public information about who did this or why.  But as shock gives way to outrage, two difficult truths are worth keeping in mind.

First, while the victims were innocents (including a family from my own Dorchester neighborhood) we should not project their innocence onto ourselves as a collective nation. It is tempting to pretend that such villainy is only for “others,” that we are only the victims and never the perpetrators of violence, and that America never attacks innocent victims. This is, unfortunately, just not true.

In fact, American has proved especially prone to using revenge as a pretext for killing innocents. After Pearl Harbor took nearly 2000 American lives, Harry Truman thought the Japanese got their just deserts when our atom bombs killed more than 100,000, mostly civilians—and most Americans agreed. When 9/11 killed nearly 3,000, Many Americans accepted the death of more than 150,000 Iraqis (mostly women and children) as just vengeance. We Americans are proven masters of overwhelming retaliation. Perhaps some of us are proud of that, but we cannot pretend we do not have blood on our hands.

Even now our country inflicts suffering on innocent victims. Some even make the case that American violence is the evil twin of the Boston bombing: http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/the-boston-marathon-and-u-s-drone-attacks-a-tale-of-two-terrorisms/ . So while our outrage is certainly justified, we do well to avoid becoming self-righteous about our place in a violent world.

Second, while the perpetrators of the marathon bombing must be caught and punished, we should resist thinking that destroying all evil-doers will solve the problem of terror and violence in our world.

For Christians, this is an impossible dream. We believe we belong to a fallen humanity, a race who by nature can never completely purge evil from our midst. We can never destroy all the bad guys, for there will always be more of them in the next generation.

This means that true security only comes when we learn how to deal with evil even while knowing we cannot eradicate it.

This is, of course, what Jesus meant by his terrifying saying “Love your enemies.” He and his followers believed—and still believe—that evil and violence are NOT the strongest powers in our world, that retaliation is not the ultimate solution, and that there exists a love that can conquer hate.

For us, this poses a simple but tough challenge. Either Christianity is right, that love is ultimately stronger than violence, or else it is wrong. Either Gandhi and King and Jesus were right, that we must love our enemies, or they were wrong. But what we cannot doubt is that stamping out all evil people is a silly, naïve, and dangerous dream.

Martin Richard, 8, killed in the bombing

Bostonians are already acting to “retaliate” with love. The stunningly rapid and effective action of the first responders (some of them mere bystanders) seems to have reduced the death toll to unthinkably low numbers. The heroic marathon-like services of those working Boston's emergency rooms and operating theaters likewise minimized death and suffering. The flood of blood donors to Boston blood banks, and the widespread offers of housing and hospitality reflected the depth of Bostonians' care for the victims.

Some people have decided to join the ranks of the 8500 marathon volunteers in 2014. Some have vowed to run again. Some will host visitors. Some will simple turn out to observe, determined that next year’s crowd will outdo 2013.

Maybe someone will even propose making Patriots Day a national holiday.

After all, this is the city where the Revolution began. We know there are villains in the world, and we know it took force to expel the occupiers before. We are determined not to be occupied by villains again, and not to be driven by terror, but to live as we should, as a joyful and peaceful people, and thus deprive the villains of their victory.

And when we prove that no one can defeat the courageous hope and generous spirit of Boston, that message will be heard ’round the world.

  © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

#400: Who’s YOUR Wisdom Figure?

The 50^th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington triggered a remarkable array of commentaries from all angles.

Many naturally focused on Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, some specifically singling out his vision of an America where character counts more than color.

Some argued that we should also remember that other leaders, like A. Philip Randolph, were also major figures in that event. Some sought to remind us that the event’s prime focus was not only racial equality but rather “jobs and freedom.” Some commented that the March’s call for greater rights and opportunity has relevance today, beyond the African-American community, for immigrants, gays, undocumented workers, and those suffering from our current economic malaise. Some, finally, reminded us that King’s vision later widened beyond civil rights to embrace non-violence in all its forms—including his controversial opposition to the war in Vietnam and his call for a non-violent spiritual revolution.

But amid this array of remembrance and interpretation one thing seems clear. The March on Washington, not just for those attending or viewing on TV, but for those who learned about it later, established Martin Luther King as one of the great—if not the greatest—wisdom figures in American life.

He is not alone:  Americans find wisdom in Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, and others. But for at least 45 years (since his April 1968 assassination) King has stood out. He is now the only American honored with his own national holiday. His letters and speeches are treasured by millions and studied in schools across the land. His face is as well-known as any American in history, and his memorial on the National Mall is a rare honor for a non-president. His “I Have a Dream” speech—much of it improvised in a moment of inspiration—is often regarded as the greatest American speech of the 20th century.

King’s iconic status means that people admire him even if they know little about him. It means they are inspired by what they do know of his vision and values. It means they conform their vision of America—and of life—to his. It means that King’s opinions and convictions are largely beyond scrutiny and criticism for millions. In a secular society not given to devotion, he is venerated as former ages venerated saints.

In this he shares a rare popular status accorded very few individuals in the modern world. In Western culture, such iconic status is reserved for those who wield wisdom rather than power. Heads of state, generals, and corporate giants do not acquire such status. It goes instead to people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, and Martin Luther King.

For me this raises a point of personal curiosity. As we observe the March’s 50^th anniversary, I wonder: Who are the wisdom figures in each of our lives?

I ask this question for myself and my own generation, but especially for my children’s generation. And I ask for two reasons.

First, because any life without wisdom cannot be fully lived. The mystery of life is too complex and rich to savor without some insight into its true meaning and value. And few humans possess the personal tools to plumb that mystery alone, without the help of others. The “examined life” is not a solo performance. We need wisdom figures just to appreciate our own lives. So we turn to those who inspire us with insights that surpass our own.

Second, I ask because our times demand wisdom more than ever. Vatican Council II (1962-1965) absolutely nailed our current challenge when it observed that the human race had never acquired so much new power so fast as it had in the 20^th century. And it reminded us that such vast growth in power requires a parallel growth in wisdom. For only wisdom can harness power and steer it toward good; without wisdom, growing power risks growing dangers.  In the 50 years since Vatican II, the specters of nuclear war, climate change, international terrorism, ecological and economic disaster, genocide, bioengineering and technology run amok have all confirmed Vatican II’s view that our future depends on matching our expanding powers with expanded wisdom.

But where do we find such wisdom? Who offers it?

Of course, wisdom may be sought in literature, philosophy, and art as well as in our religious traditions. But most people find it embodied in exceptional individuals who point us to those other sources. The March’s anniversary reminds us that, for millions of Americans, that individual is Martin Luther King. And that is a good thing.

But I wonder still about many born since King died, raised in a world saturated with comfort and convenience yet consumed with anxiety about the future of their lives, their nation, and their world. Who offers them the wisdom they need?

Sometimes we read of the next generation’s search for heroes—but heroism is about achievement and character, while wisdom is about insight and vision. Athletes can be role models and heroes, but make unlikely wisdom figures.  Celebrities are known for their fame but not for their insight.  People in public office may be admired for their abilities and occasionally even for their courage, but politics is seldom seen as wisdom’s natural home. Corporate giants may be shrewd and powerful and even ruthless, but few of us believe that the bottom line reveals much about the fullness of life.

So if young Americans need wisdom figures—and they do—but cannot find them in sports, show business, politics, or the corporate world—where can they find them? (All evidence suggests, of course, that they will not even LOOK within religious institutions).

I think back to my own formative years, and think of the people who inspired me with their wise insights into life’s purpose and value.  When the pop song “Alfie” asked “What’s it all about?” I turned to the obvious figure from my own family religious tradition: Jesus. And as I came of age I found other figures to follow. Often these were people themselves inspired by Jesus, or else were following visions that complemented what I knew of Jesus’ wisdom.

Over time I was lucky enough to find many wisdom figures to inspire and guide me.

There was John XXIII, the pope who proved that our ancient faith and the contemporary world need not be estranged. There was Pete Seeger, the troubadour who made his music a voice for justice. There was Guy Leger, a Dominican priest who taught me that all true beauty, just like all goodness, is sacred.   

There was Dag Hammarskjold, UN leader who linked the

Dag Hammarskjold

spiritual life and public policy. There was Albert Schweitzer, who showed how crucial but how also how challenging it is to practice “reverence for life.” There was Gandhi, who proved that non-violent love could conquer hate. There was Bob Lindsay, a Jesuit priest who taught me to find reality beyond appearances.

There was Dorothy Day, who reminded us of the non-violent love at the core of Christian faith. There was King himself, who linked Gandhian non-violence with the gospel-fired flame of racial justice. 

Some of those people I was blessed to know. The others I was blessed to know about. I am still eager to find new wisdom figures: since finishing two recent biographies of Francis of Assisi, I suspect I may soon add his name to my list. All told, it is a good list: robust enough to fuel much reflection on my life and living.

But the main thing is to HAVE such a list, to know the answer to the question: “Who is on MY list? Who are MY wisdom figures?”

That question is also important to those you love: where do they seek and find the wisdom that enriches their lives and nurtures their spirit?

Celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington, countless observers spoke of  "progress” to measure that event’s legacy. How they assess our “progress” seems to depend on their interpretation of that event’s meaning. So they measure racial justice, or the range of freedom, or economic opportunity, or social equality, or even the strength of our hope or the scope of our national vision.

But for those who now see wisdom in the figure of Martin Luther King, perhaps “progress” is more personal, and must be measured more by the vitality of our spirits than by the prosperity of our land, more by the peace in our hearts than by the turmoil in our world. For King never spoke without preaching, and behind all his preaching was the gospel of peace.

  Bernard F. Swain PhD 2010

Thanks to those who sent donations by Paypal or emailed to send a check. Your help encourages me to keep this up. It's not too late to participate in my annual blog fundraiser! (see #399, the next blog entry below)

#390: The Blasts Heard ’Round the World

Initial reflections  on the day after the bombs went off...

      Patriots day is perhaps the quintessential American holiday, even though (or perhaps because) it is celebrated only in Massachusetts.  It marks simultaneously the beginning of the end of Britain’s occupation of the American Colonies and the birth, in rebellion and blood, of a new country. 

The iconic images surrounding Patriots Day are familiar to all Americans.  “One if by land, two if by sea.” “The midnight ride of Paul Revere.” “The British are coming!  The British are coming!” The shot heard round the world.  The Minutemen. Lexington and Concord.

And so each year, just after dawn, the Redcoats arrive again at Lexington Green to be confronted once more by the local Minutemen.  A shot rings out, and a skirmish ensues.  Men on both sides fall, and the colonial militia is driven back, and the Redcoats proceed toward Concord.  But along the way the British troops are terrorized by the rebels harassing them along their route and sniping at them from behind trees and rocks.  Meanwhile tourists follow the rebels, clicking photos of the reenactment.  Local churches offer pancake breakfasts for the visitors.

Schools and most workplaces are closed, so baseball fans leave home early for the annual 11:00 Red Sox game.  With luck, the Red Sox will win and the game will end early enough for the Fenway faithful to stream into Kenmore Square in plenty of time to watch the runners passing by.

More than 20,000 of those runners begin their day early far from Boston in the small New England Town of Hopkinton.  They’ve come from all over the world, and the runners with numbers have qualified for Boston by running other marathons with impressive times.  For many years, Boston was the only non-Olympic marathon that required runners to qualify this way.  It is, after all, the oldest annual marathon in the world. It was a sacred tradition here long before marathon running became popular.

More than 200,000 fans line the streets along the 26-mile route from Hopkinton to Boston. Boston’s quarter-million college kids take Patriots day as an annual rite of spring, cheering on the runners while partying outside for the first time since football season.

Patriots Day is the day Boston’s cityscape finally returns to vibrant life after the relative quiet of the long cold New England winter. It is the day Bostonians remember why they are blessed to live here.

Given all this, the crowds along the entire length of the marathon course are unrivaled for numbers, enthusiasm, and hospitality. The day I observed the 100^th running with my youngest son, we joined hundreds of thousands of spectators cheering for passing runners for five hours until we had clapped our hands raw and yelled our voices hoarse. For participants, Patriots Day is the day Boston opens its arms to the world and offers a running experience no other marathon can match.

But Patriots Day 2013 was unlike any other.  In Lexington and Concord, the battle reenactments were long finished. The winners of the wheelchair races had finished; the women’s and the men’s winners (both from Africa) had already earned their victories, the Red Sox had already won a walk-off 10^th inning victory, and the mass of “weekend warrior” runners were approaching the finish line flanked by the world flags lining Boylston Street.

And then at 2:50 the bombs created a new kind of Boston massacre.  These truly were blasts heard ’round the world, since the heavy media presence guaranteed that the images and sounds of explosions would achieve global reach within minutes. It is hard to imagine a more symbolically-rich venue to attack. 

As of this writing, there’s no public information about who did this or why.  But as shock gives way to outrage, two difficult truths are worth keeping in mind.

First, while the victims were innocents (including a family from my own Dorchester neighborhood) we should not project their innocence onto ourselves as a collective nation. It is tempting to pretend that such villainy is only for “others,” that we are only the victims and never the perpetrators of violence, and that America never attacks innocent victims. This is, unfortunately, just not true.

In fact, American has proved especially prone to using revenge as a pretext for killing innocents. After Pearl Harbor took nearly 2000 American lives, Harry Truman thought the Japanese got their just deserts when our atom bombs killed more than 100,000, mostly civilians—and most Americans agreed. When 9/11 killed nearly 3,000, Many Americans accepted the death of more than 150,000 Iraqis (mostly women and children) as just vengeance. We Americans are proven masters of overwhelming retaliation. Perhaps some of us are proud of that, but we cannot pretend we do not have blood on our hands.

Even now our country inflicts suffering on innocent victims. Some even make the case that American violence is the evil twin of the Boston bombing: http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/the-boston-marathon-and-u-s-drone-attacks-a-tale-of-two-terrorisms/ . So while our outrage is certainly justified, we do well to avoid becoming self-righteous about our place in a violent world.

Second, while the perpetrators of the marathon bombing must be caught and punished, we should resist thinking that destroying all evil-doers will solve the problem of terror and violence in our world.

For Christians, this is an impossible dream. We believe we belong to a fallen humanity, a race who by nature can never completely purge evil from our midst. We can never destroy all the bad guys, for there will always be more of them in the next generation.

This means that true security only comes when we learn how to deal with evil even while knowing we cannot eradicate it.

This is, of course, what Jesus meant by his terrifying saying “Love your enemies.” He and his followers believed—and still believe—that evil and violence are NOT the strongest powers in our world, that retaliation is not the ultimate solution, and that there exists a love that can conquer hate.

For us, this poses a simple but tough challenge. Either Christianity is right, that love is ultimately stronger than violence, or else it is wrong. Either Gandhi and King and Jesus were right, that we must love our enemies, or they were wrong. But what we cannot doubt is that stamping out all evil people is a silly, naïve, and dangerous dream.

Martin Richard, 8, killed in the bombing

Bostonians are already acting to “retaliate” with love. The stunningly rapid and effective action of the first responders (some of them mere bystanders) seems to have reduced the death toll to unthinkably low numbers. The heroic marathon-like services of those working Boston's emergency rooms and operating theaters likewise minimized death and suffering. The flood of blood donors to Boston blood banks, and the widespread offers of housing and hospitality reflected the depth of Bostonians' care for the victims.

Some people have decided to join the ranks of the 8500 marathon volunteers in 2014. Some have vowed to run again. Some will host visitors. Some will simple turn out to observe, determined that next year’s crowd will outdo 2013.

Maybe someone will even propose making Patriots Day a national holiday.

After all, this is the city where the Revolution began. We know there are villains in the world, and we know it took force to expel the occupiers before. We are determined not to be occupied by villains again, and not to be driven by terror, but to live as we should, as a joyful and peaceful people, and thus deprive the villains of their victory.

And when we prove that no one can defeat the courageous hope and generous spirit of Boston, that message will be heard ’round the world.

  © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

#383 Does the Pope Matter?

Amid all the coverage of Pope Benedict’s resignation, two points emerge.

       One: the media is having a field day.  Time magazine has put Benedict XVI on its cover, with two stories inside.  Jokes abound, from Jon Stewart to Facebook.  Self- designated experts from Las Vegas to Rome are handicapping the election of the next pope.  As I write, the front page of today’s Boston Globe reports at length on  speculation that Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley may be in the running.  Of course, 40 other home-town bishops around the world are subjects of similar speculation.  In other words, Conclave-mania has broken loose.

But the second point, typified by Frank Bruni’s New York Times Op-ed piece on February 18, is that perhaps all this media attention deceives us into the false notion that the pope matters more than he really does.  Bruni claims the pope and his curia are really “a royal family of dubious relevance,” at least to the majority of Catholics in North America and Western Europe.  I think Bruni has a point--but he also protests too much, in a way that brings out the old debater in me.  So allow me to revert to my former forensic format: I’ll list Bruni’s arguments, and respond to each point, one by one (read Bruni at http://nyti.ms/130cVoA ).

Bruni argues that widespread media attention results from mere “habit and convenience.” The media is drawn to the drama, the “visual backdrops,” the pageant.  It is mere spectacle.

But of course spectacle attracts more than media.  It attracts the public too, and can entertain, enthrall, even inspire them.  The 1,000,000-strong crowd for Barack Obama’s 2008 inauguration may never forget that event.  For some, it was life-changing.  

     The truth is that spectacle does hold sway with the human spirit, and Bruni belittles it needlessly.  Catholicism clearly has a knack for spectacle on a global scale.  This is an advantage, not a liability.  The question that must be asked is: is this merely empty spectacle, or is it a means to a greater end?

Next Bruni argues that the pope gets notice as part of our cult of celebrity.  The election holds out drama and the prospect of victory, much like American Idol, Iron Chef, the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, or presidential elections.  The election is our “ecclesiastical Oscars.”

This may be true, but once again Bruni seems intent on missing what matters.  The fact is that not all celebrities are created equal.  Some are merely “famous for being famous,” while others are famous for their impact on people’s lives.  Fifty years ago, Ed Sullivan was a celebrity and so were the Beatles, but no one thinks Sullivan had their lasting influence.   

Wilt Chamberlain was famous winning the NBA championship the spring before Martin Luther King was shot, but only one earned a national holiday and the Nobel prize.  To call the pope a celebrity begs the next question: so what?

Among celebrities in the western world, perhaps the Queen of England is the post closest to the pope’s status, and garners similar media attention for herself and her own royal family.

     Even her role as a symbolic leader is similar, but the pope is no mere figurehead.  Even Bruni calls him the CEO of a worldwide organization, recognizing that he functions as a genuine executive.  And his reach far exceeds the British Commonwealth. So reducing the pope to mere “celebrity” is a half-truth at best.

Next Bruni admits that the Catholic Church is a large and powerful organization (though he fails to note how prevalent and dominant its “charities and agencies” are), but then he argues that today’s U.S. Catholics are “less invested” and “less attached” to the church than 50 years ago.

As a general rule, this is true. But it does not make Bruni’s case against the pope’s relevance.  Quite the contrary.

First, because much of the last 50 years of Catholic history has been a case study in how the pope does matter.

When John the XXIII opened Vatican Council II 50 years ago, his humble daring transformed the Catholic scene overnight.  
 Before John, the pope had been a remote, largely invisible figure operating a great distance from US Catholics. The Vatican might as well have been Olympus, or another planet. But then the Council came, and suddenly Vatican events were the stuff of daily coverage by The New York Times’ John Cogley and of insider perspective from Xavier Rynne in The New Yorker’s “Letters from Vatican City” for four years running.  Moreover, Vatican events were now (for the first time) a global spectacle thanks to satellite TV.  And John’s council soon touched every Catholic at the parish level, especially through changes in liturgy and sacrament.  Moreover John altered the church’s image beyond Catholics: today’s warmer Catholic-Protestant and Catholic-Jewish relations are the result of his influence.

Admittedly, this happy profile of papal power and impact did not last long.  No doubt millions of U.S. Catholics today are disenchanted with the institution, even alienated from it.  But ironically, this strengthens (rather than weakens) my case against Bruni.  For rejecting Church teaching is not the same as ignoring it, and disenchantment is not the same is indifference.  In fact, I would argue that today’s decline in practice among U.S. Catholics has happened, not in spite of the popes, but because of them.

Sociologist Andrew Greeley documented as early as the mid-1970s that U.S. Catholics were distancing themselves from the institution, and famously argued that there was a single cause: Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which rejected his own papal commission’s recommendation that church teaching on contraception be revised, and instead reasserted the existing prohibition against all “artificial” means of birth control.

Perhaps Greeley overstated his case, but certainly after 1968 millions of Catholic parents opted to reject Paul’s position in good conscience.  Baby boomers, barely emerging from adolescence in 1968, typically decided there own path into marriage family and parenthood would not be guided by Humanae Vitae.  And they in turn raised kids for whom official church teaching on contraception--and indeed on masturbation, premarital sex, and most other matters sexual--was in fact irrelevant to their lives.  In short, three generations of Catholics have not simply drifted away from the institution--they have been pushed by, or ran from, papal action.  Their alienation stands as proof that the papacy, far from meaningless, is capable of significantly affecting people’s lives--for better or for worse.

More recently, of course, the clergy sex abuse scandal has further tainted the church’s credibility on matters sexual--and handed young Catholics their silver-plated alibi to ignore the institution.  John Paul II’s handpicked U.S. bishops transformed the face of U.S. hierarchy: once committed to Catholic renewal and public dialogue, the U.S. hierarchy in the 1980s and 1990s became a corps of company men devoted to protecting their own interests.  Beginning with Boston’s Bernard Law and ending with LA’s Roger Mahony, these men earned a self-inflicted reputation for hypocrisy in high places that has scandalized millions of U.S. Catholics.  This was not some random, accidental occurrence.  This was the effect (albeit unintended) of papal strategy and action.

Even John-Paul’s illness illustrates my point: at the very moment that decisive papal action might have provided the damage control needed to rehabilitate the hierarchy’s good name, his age and illness (in concert with the custom of the pope serving until death) made him incapable of the crisis management the church needed. 

 So once again, the fallout among U.S. Catholics traces to the pope’s doorstep.

The rest of Bruni’s argument is a parade of polls documenting the gap between Catholic officialdom and the rank and file.  The portrait that emerges is indeed bleak.  But since these statistics are themselves the product of papal and hierarchical mismanagement, they cannot demonstrate that it makes no difference who the next pope is or what he does.

On the contrary, the examples of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John-Paul II over the last 50 years suggest that the pope’s performance affects the life of rank and file Catholics more than ever before.

Imagine, for example, if the next pope were to revise the mandate of priestly celibacy.  A century ago, this news would spread out gradually from Rome via print media.  Today, it would be an instant media firestorm that would alter the Church’s--and the pope’s--public image literally overnight.  And it would transform seminaries and dioceses, as well as our priest shortage, in short order.

Or imagine that the next pope calls Vatican Council  III.  We could foresee several years of virtually non-stop coverage of the institutional Church once again transforming itself.  It defies such imagining to argue that no one would pay attention.

Finally, Bruni’s whole argument depends on glossing over its most significant weakness: his focus is almost exclusively on U.S. Catholics (with a token nod to Canada and Europe).  But our 60 million Catholics represent only 5% of the world’s Catholics.  And the Church’s standing in South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia is vastly different from the American Catholics scene.  Assessing the papacy’s impact requires a separate account for each region.  And certainly the overall posture of the pope cannot be gauged by his response to the situation of a 5% segment of Catholics.

(I am reminded of a similar mistake the French made when the pope’s World Youth Day was held in Paris in 1997. Assuming the rest of the world to be as blasé about the pope as themselves, they were caught flatfooted--and ankle deep in overflowing toilets!--when 2 million kids showed up.)

  But given Bruni’s narrow focus, this much can be said: the actions of four popes since 1962 have either helped or harmed the institutional church’s standing among American Catholics--and the same will be true for the next pope.  Perhaps the media’s superficial, celebrity-and-spectacle driven interest will wane soon after the election, but Catholics everywhere, including the U.S., will be affected by the papacy that follows--for better or for worse!

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

America’s Moral Crossroads

On this Martin Luther King Day, during which the Inauguration festivities repeatedly linked freedom and war, I offer this reminder (written on King Day 2005):

In the years since King’s death, people who insist on reducing him to a “champion for racial justice,” period, have tamed his legacy. This dulls the true prophetic edge of a man who saw his own nation at odds with God’s will both at home and abroad.

        For many Americans, Martin Luther King Day gets lost as one of those minor, even token observances like Labor Day and Veterans Day. Yet there are three important reasons to pay serious attention to this holiday.

(1) Since slavery was America’s "original sin,” and since we still struggle with its consequences, it makes sense to take this occasion to stop and reflect on our Christian responsibilities in promoting a racially just society.

(2) The second reason is somewhat broader: Dr. King was not a public official, nor even a professional politician. He was an ordained Christian minister, a preacher, a trained theologian. By the time of his assassination in April 1968, he had become widely regarded as the moral leader of America. Today he is the only American singled out for his own holiday. He has become the closest thing were have to a national patron saint. Today, when many are concerned about “moral values” (some even expect their President to be their moral leader), King offers a timely example of what moral leadership really looks like.

(3) The third reason may be even timelier: Peace. We’ve just come through the Holy Day of “Peace on Earth” we call Christmas, as well as the World Day of Peace we now celebrate on January 1. Now, two weeks later, we honor the man who finished his career by moving beyond the civil rights movement to become a champion for peace.

Of course, King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 because of his commitment to a non-violent campaign for racial justice. But in his acceptance speech, he spoke of a commitment to non-violence that went beyond race-relations:

“This awards represents a profound recognition that non-violence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time—the need for men to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”

King knew, of course, that such recognition had not yet worked its way into US public policy. Indeed, 40 years later we still try to overcome oppression and violence by resorting to violence and oppression.

The Nobel Prize did not alter King’s character, but it did transform his agenda. While he still fought for black people’s rights, he began to sense the movement had an even higher   calling: to work for all people of good will. “Maybe our mission,” he said, “is to save the soul of America.”

For years King had promoted non-violence as the chief “weapon” in the civil rights struggle. Even as innocent children died in that struggle, he had long preached that the solution was not “getting our ammunition and going out shooting physical weapons.” Instead, he said, “We must know that we have something much more powerful. Just take up the ammunition of love.”

This was nothing but straight Gospel talk, of course, but King was coming to see non-violence as more than just a tool—in fact, as a value in itself—and he began to address himself to “Americans of good will who are committed to the struggle for brotherhood and the crusade for world peace.”

By then the US was not just struggling with civil rights; it was also a nation at war. Many within the movement urged King not to overstep his role, not to risk bogging down in the growing national turmoil over war in Vietnam. But finally King’s conscience dictated that he break his silence on the war, even if it meant breaking ranks with his allies in the movement.

The decisive moment came in April 1967, with his sermon at Riverside Church in New York City, the speech now known as the “Silence of the Night” speech, the speech many historians regard as King’s greatest—and the speech that redefined his place in American life.

He admitted that many supporters lamented his move, asking, “Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” and arguing “Peace and civil rights don’t mix.” His response: “My conscience leaves me no other choice. ” For he had come to see a darkness closing around America, and he believed someone had to break “the silence of the night.”

What was that darkness? It was the victory of violence in the world—not only violence by those oppressing racial minorities, but especially by “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.” He even worried that the war could make America a nation whose soul was “totally poisoned.”

He knew this would shock many, but he challenged them to see the logic of his outlook, appealing to his vocation as a minister of Jesus Christ:

 To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war... Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them?

For King, as for Pope John Paul II, being a Christian means being above all a citizen of the world, and he shared the world’s view that US war-making was “disgraceful” and “perverse.” He urged all draft-aged people to seek conscientious objector status, and called on clergy to mobilize war resistance.

But King was not done.

“The war in Vietnam,” he said, “is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.” The world, he said, is going through a major historical revolution, and our nation is “on the wrong side.” Without  “a significant and profound change in American life and policy,” he feared we would be mired in violence and turmoil for generations to come. Believing this, he proposed a radical shift in American values:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies…A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." …America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.

This marked a major turn in King’s ministry. Until now he had always argued that the civil rights movement was needed to fulfill the “core American values” this nation was founded upon. Now, in a new and radical way, he was arguing those values needed to change if America was to meet its responsibilities to the world and to the Gospels.

In the years since King’s death, people who insist on reducing him to a “champion for racial justice,” period, have tamed his legacy. This dulls the true prophetic edge of a man who saw his own nation at odds with God’s will both at home and abroad.

Taming King’s message does disservice to both him and to our people, for today our nation still continues its warlike ways, yet Americans cry out for truer values. We cannot pretend to fulfill his dream by making peace with African-Americans if we also continue to be “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

King concluded his Riverside talk by depicting America at a moral crossroads, faced with a historic choice. Would we choose the shameful legacy of nations who possess “power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight”? Or would we instead choose to end the night by learning to make peace our way in the world?

 If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

 America failed to heed him then, and 38 years later we find ourselves still stuck in the vicious cycle of violence. Is it our dark dead end, or have we simply circled back to the same old moral crossroads? If so, perhaps we have another chance to make the right choice, if only we will want the bright dream he dreamed. 

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2005