#388: Are the Pope’s Hands “Dirty”?

Pope Francis is the target of some backlash to his generally favorable media coverage.

Over the years I have criticized Catholic bishops repeatedly for lacking prudence.  Long dubbed the queen of all virtues, prudence knows when insisting on the right principle can do more harm than good.  Too often the hierarchy becomes preoccupied with crusading for some particular cause in a way that, by displaying a strident or even arrogant tone, diminishes their influence.

But the hierarchy has no monopoly on such failings.

Some progressive Catholics become so possessed of their own agenda they become blind to all else.  Like some bishops, they push their point so aggressively they lose much of their potential audience.  They end up, like the bishops, preaching to the choir.

A wise Jesuit once offered me constructive criticism: “You are very convincing,” he told me, “but you are not very persuasive.” He meant I was good at making a strong case for my point of view, but not good at making people want to agree with me.  He meant I lacked prudence.  This distressed me, and I’ve spent 25 years trying to fix that.  It also distresses me when progressives commit the same error, because I often agree with them at the beginning but end up not wanting to be their ally.

My inbox recently contained an example of this.  The email contained theologian Mary Hunt’s critique of Pope Francis I from her website (http://www.waterwomensalliance.org/ ). On many issues we have common ground, but her argument does not do them justice.

She describes calling a friend in Buenos Aires “to join in that country’s pride” in the election of their archbishop, yet in the next paragraph makes it clear that she already judged the entire papal election fraudulent:

 The process was flawed on the face of it by the lack of women, young people, and lay people. It was flawed by a dearth of democracy. Not even the seagull that sat on the chimney awaiting the decision was enough to persuade that the Holy Spirit was really in charge.

There is no basis here for “pride,” so her earlier remark rings contrived and disingenuous.

She follows by calling for “structural changes in the kyriarchal model of the church” rather than “cosmetic” or “symbolic” changes.  She argues that the conclave elected a Latin American as a “good business decision,” since European Catholicism has “lost market share”--but then notes that mass attendance in Argentina is as bad as in France!

Perez Esquivel Receiving the Nobel Prize , 1980

She says she “got an education about social justice” working with Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel in Buenos Aires, then devotes 1/3 of her article to linking Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) to Argentina’s brutal “dirty war” even though Pérez Esquivel himself has dismissed such slander:

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel assured today that elected pope Jorge Bergoglio "had no links with the dictatorship” that ruled Argentina between the years 1976-1983.

Francis and Perez Esquivel, 2013

 Speaking to BBC News, Perez Esquivel said that “there were bishops who were accomplices of the dictatorship, but it was not the case of Bergoglio.”

Hunt employs a classic “red herring” tactic that echoes McCarthyism. Alluding to the case of two Jesuits kidnapped in 1976 by the military junta, she asks:

Did the Jesuit superior-now-Pope Francis call the military dictators and agree to their kidnapping? No one is accusing him of this.

Then why does she ask, if “no one” is making the accusation? But of course Bergoglio HAS been accused of this, and Hunt’s question dredges up the slander once more. Then she adds that “Padre Jorge [Bergoglio] is alleged to have intervened with military leaders for the release of the two Jesuits.”

I confess, this is the first time I have ever seen anyone “alleged” to have done something good!  All my dictionaries link “alleged” with either bad things (murder, rape, burglary, conspiracy) or doubtful outcomes (a cure, a miracle)--never with a past good deed.  Hunt’s cynicism is thinly veiled by such language, and anyhow it ignores the known facts.

The evidence is that Bergoglio (then Jesuit provincial, not a bishop) judged the two Jesuits to be in danger, and acted to protect their safety.  When they ignored him and were kidnapped, he acted on their behalf, as he described to biographer Sergio Rubin:

Bergoglio Rides Transit in Buenos Aires

“Because of their work with some priests in the slums they were exposed to the paranoia of the witch hunt…That same night when I heard of the kidnappings I started to move. I saw [dictator] Videla twice and I saw [dictator] Massera.

 The Associated Press adds more details:

Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them, including persuading dictator Jorge Videla's family priest to call in sick so that Bergoglio could say Mass in the junta leader's home, where he privately appealed for mercy. His intervention likely saved their lives, but Bergoglio never shared the details until Rubin interviewed him for the 2010 biography.  Bergoglio told Rubin that he regularly hid people on church property during the dictatorship, and once gave his identity papers to a man with similar features, enabling him to escape across the border. But all this was done in secret, at a time when church leaders publicly endorsed the junta and called on Catholics to restore their "love for country" despite the terror in the streets.

Following Bergoglio’s election, journalists located the surviving kidnap victim Franz Jalics, and he provided these statements:

Franz Jalics Today

With the permission of Archbishop Aramburu and the then-Provincial Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio I moved together with a confrere into a “Favela,” one of the city’s slums. From there we continued our teaching at the university….In the civil-war-like situation back then…the two of us in the slum had contact neither with the junta nor with the guerrillas. Partly due to the lack of information and through targeted misinformation our situation was also misunderstood within the church.…

 These are the facts: Orlando Yorio and I were not reported by Father Bergoglio…It is thus wrong to claim that our capture was initiated by Father Bergoglio…Before, I too tended to believe that we were the victims of having been reported. By the late ’90s, however, it became clear to me after many conversations that this assumption was unfounded…”

It was only years later that we had the opportunity to talk with Father Bergoglio…to discuss the events. Following that, we celebrated Mass publicly together and hugged solemnly. I am reconciled to the events and consider the matter to be closed. I wish Pope Francis God's rich blessings for his office.

At that time, Burgoglio was Jesuit provincial.  Nevertheless, Hunt compares the Argentine bishops’ dirty war behavior to the U.S. Bishops in the sex-abuse scandal, and compares Bergoglio to Bernard Law.  Thus she paints Burgoglio with a wide brush of guilt by association, much like the Argentine journalist Gabriel Pasquini, who attacked Burgoglio with this critique:

Never, in the years he headed the Catholic Church in Argentina, did he acknowledge its complicity in the dictatorship, much less ask for forgiveness. Will he do so now, from the Vatican?

But Pasquini is wrong. Bergoglio became Archbishop of Buenos Aires 1998, and in 2000 was party to this statement from the Bishops conference of Argentina:

We want to confess before God everything we have done badly…We share everyone’s pain and once again ask the forgiveness of everyone we failed or didn’t support as we should have.

Apparently Hunt believes such guilt by association is relevant because it links Bergoglio’s refusal to support liberation theology with the past and current plight of Latin American society.  The premise is that only liberation theology is acceptable; other theological positions “deepen and entrench social injustice.” Specifically, she decries Burgoglio’s opposition to “divorce, abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage,” and then claims:

He shows no evidence from his Argentina actions that he will be any more responsive than his predecessor to changing policies and structures that oppress the world’s poor.

This line of attack troubles me on several grounds.  First, Hunt’s list of social justice issues focuses narrowly on the sex-related issues of our U.S. “culture wars.”

Second, she ignores the “theological positions” entrenched in the social encyclicals of the past 50 years, which (as I’ve detailed many times before) include positions on human rights, health, income inequality, immigration, trade, and arms that are well to the left of the Democratic Party. 

Third, as prominent a liberation theologian as Leonardo Boff (himself once silenced by the Vatican) has expressed support for Francis despite their theological differences:

With Pope Francis, a Church of the third millennium is being inaugurated--far from the palaces and in the midst of the peoples and their cultures.

Asked about the “dirty war,” Boff got more specific:

I'm wondering what interest some groups have in raising this question and not talking about the serious crisis in the Church and its meaning in the face of the crisis of humankind.

Leonardo Boff

Maybe -- this I'll concede -- he could have been more prophetic, like Bishop Hélder Câmara and Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns were in Brazil.…The question is political and for me, it's which side the person is on--the side of the poor, of those who suffer evil inequality? Or of the status quo that wants unlimited growth and a culture of consumption?...Bergoglio took the side of those victims and demanded social justice. If we don't understand this, we're getting away from the main point.

[read more: http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/qa-what-matters-isnt-bergoglio-and-his-past-but-francis-and-his-future/ ]

Finally, Hunt’s attack backfires by betraying the very fault she decries.  You might have wondered, earlier in this article, what “kyriarchal” means.  It’s a recent coinage from the Greek word for “Lord,” referring to lordly behavior that anyone uses to impose their views or will on others. Feminist theologians use the term to suggest that unjust treatment is not just limited to sexism, or even to men.  Anyone can abuse their relationships with others in this way.  Indeed, even feminists can be prone to “kyriarchal” behavior, as one feminist blogger explained [http://myecdysis.blogspot.com/]:

Let's not pretend that just because there are not many propertied males mucking around the fem blogosphere, there aren't queen bees and wanna bees exercising the same kind of behavior.  So when we talk about woman asserting power over other womyn, we're talking kyriarchy.  When you witness woman trying to dominate, define, outline the "movement" or even what an ally should be - that's the kyriarchal ethos strong at work. 

For me, Hunt’s case suffers precisely from this problem.  So sure is she that only her “theological positions” can serve justice, she feels free to impose her perspective with  a version of events designed to convince us that anyone who differs with her views at best unwittingly promotes injustice, or at worst is complicit in it. 

She does not persuade. She plays with facts. She asserts, “The controversy over Bergoglio’s role in the kidnapping of two Jesuits during this period is instructive”—but only instructs us that character assassination is alive and well.

Hunt decries “papal theatrics” which “keep the focus on the personal and spiritual, off the political and theological”--as if Catholic Social Teaching does not focus on both, and as if Bergoglio himself has not spoken of them both together:

Bergoglio as Archbishop

We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least. The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many…..
[To a gathering of Latin American bishops in 2007]

Hunt opens her final paragraph this way: “It is early to opine about the pontificate of Pope Francis”--but of course that is exactly what she has already done!  Her devotion to her agenda is so blinkered she cannot see how transparent it is--and how her credibility suffers

  © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

#377: What Would Jesus Say?

The 2012 election gives new relevance to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John (Chapter 9, verses 1-3)… 
     I had not intended another election piece.  But then Mitt Romney’s post-election analysis provoked so much commentary I felt impelled to join the crowd.

What struck me most was the response of those defending Romney’s claim that it was “gifts” from the Federal Government, and specifically from the Obama Administration, that induced many voting blocs (college students, single women, immigrants, and minorities) to provide Obama with his victory margin.

I personally found Romney’s claim exaggerated and simplistic--but like many such claims it contained a kernel of truth.  Chris Matthews, by contrast, exaggerated the opposite way, interpreting Romney to mean that Obama “bought” the election.  The truth lies in the middle.

On the level of simple facts, the government actions Romney cited did benefit many Obama supporters.  But so what?  Politics has always been about serving your constituent base.  Romney also promised to help folks if elected.  The difference is that Obama, as the incumbent, could do more than promise--he could act.  The field was not level. It never is when an incumbent runs for re-election.

But some Romney reporters read his remarks on a deeper level.  They took them personally not as describing how politics works, but as describing how our society has declined.  They took it as a moral judgment which they agreed with--a judgment against, not Obama, but against those who supported him.  Take this letter to the Boston Globe as an example:

President Obama and Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren won because too many voters buy into the Democrats’ message that the people need their help.  Too many think they are incapable of navigating a world of business, real estate, and commerce.  The Republican message--let government help you help yourself--doesn’t resonate when so many people are on the receiving end of federal benefits…

America is no longer a nation of independent, entrepreneurial, responsible individuals.  We are fearful, lazy, and looking for the government to make the tough decisions and take care of us.

This letter echoes many commentaries since the election, which in turn echo Mitt Romney’s earlier remarks about the 47% who will not take responsibility for their own lives.

The implied moral judgment is clear: the Democratic Party appeals to voters who lacked the virtues of independence and self sufficiency.  It wins elections by catering to the lazy, the weak, and the irresponsible. Such politics takes us down the road to national perdition

I admit I now understand this perspective better than I used to--but I still find it senseless and even repugnant.

I recall how mystified I was when, as a young boy, I first heard this gospel passage:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”--John 9:1-12

The disciples’ question made absolutely no sense to me.  Why, I wondered, would anyone connect misfortune and misery with wrongdoing?  Why would anyone link sickness with sin?

It seemed to me then that Jesus’ response was just plain common sense.  To me, it was more than obvious that people often suffered misfortune through no fault of their own, and needed the help of others.  Didn’t the Parable of the Good Samaritan confirm precisely that point?

And Catholic tradition has long since interpreted Jesus’ remarks to mean that the suffering of others is God’s way of inviting our compassion.  Their suffering means, not that they have done wrong, but that we must prove ourselves to be our brother’s keeper.

As I grew, however, I met more and more people who thought just like those who challenged Jesus (in this case, his own disciples!).  They presume that people in dire straits, especially people who need others’ help (and particularly public sector help), have brought this misfortune on themselves, through some fault of their own.  Such people therefore deserve no help.

The logic still escaped me: how could one think backwards from an outcome of misfortune to its root in moral failing?  But I realized that many people did, in fact, think this way.  As time went by, the gospel passage thus seemed increasingly relevant, as a Christian rebuke against such logic.

I eventually learned, of course, that one strain of Protestant fought employed just this kind of logic in its moral theology.  Some Protestants professed belief in “predestination”--the notion that the identity of those to be saved (as well as those to be damned) is already known to God.  It was almost as if a list had already been drawn up.  This naturally begged the urgent existential question: “Are we on the list of those saved?”  And this led to the more practical question: “How can we know if we are on this list?”

So some Protestants begin to draw conclusions based on observation.  But while the Catholic tradition of “natural law” and always drawn conclusions about God’s will by observing the facts of nature, those Protestants begin to draw conclusions about God’s will by observing the condition of people.  To oversimplify: people observed to be wealthy, successful, thriving were judged to be blessed by God—a sure sign of their salvation.  Those struggling or downtrodden, by contrast, could be judged to be suffering God’s neglect or even punishment--the likely sign of their damnation.

Such a distortion of the gospel message was certainly not what Luther or Calvin had in mind, yet once this oversimplification hijacked the label “Protestant Work Ethic,” it validated the prejudices and moral arrogance of millions of Americans over many generations.  It appears that many Americans still distort the gospels this way.

Last week I mentioned the declining demographic of the American “mainstream” that peaked in the 1950s and is now falling to minority status.  The post-war decade they dominated, the 1950s, achieved a kind of happy “normalcy” many Americans still yearn for as a kind of “golden age.” But this “normalcy” was possible only by ignoring the plight of millions of citizens outside the mainstream.  I’m not just referring to the discriminated minorities that provoked the Civil Rights movement; I’m referring especially to the millions in poverty whose shocking portrayal in Michael Harrington’s landmark 1962 book The Other America triggered the Kennedy administration’s War on Poverty--a war we are still waging 50 years later.

Since the 1950s, those needy millions have not only become more visible, they have become more numerous as new people arrive from Vietnam, Cambodia, Haiti, Latin America and the Caribbean.  Moreover, even the middle class has seen its self-sufficiency threatened: since 1970, real wages have steadily declined, wealth has concentrated into a smaller portion of our population, and the 1950s’ ideal of a family supported by one wage earner has become increasingly rare.

It is little surprise, then, that even before The Great Recession the political climate favored candidates willing to respond to the needs of the poor, the immigrant, young, the single women.  It made political sense, even for candidates who were not motivated by moral concerns.

By contrast, to ignore all those Americans in 2012,  to write them off, and to criticize opponents for offering to help them makes no political sense at all--the election results proved that.

So why would smart politicians deliberately oppose and ridicule such “gifts” to those in need? Why act in a way that makes no political sense? I can only think that the old judgmental mindset of the disciples in John 9:1-3 is still at work.

Those in need, that mindset thinks, suffer misfortune due to their own failures.  They have brought their hardship upon themselves.  They demonstrate themselves incapable of responsible behavior.  They do not deserve the government’s help.  And those who promise such help are pandering to the basest instincts of a society in decline. 

What would Jesus say to people who take this point of view?  We don’t even need to ask what he would say--we already know the answer.  These people should read the gospels.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012

# 83 Freedom’s Façade is Not Enough

A Selection From CrossCurrents Archives to Prepare for Election Day...

We’ve all been duped, from time to time, by Hollywood’s magic. We sit mesmerized by palaces and monuments, spaceships and ships at sea, ancient villages and frontier towns, and even places that exist only on another planet. Sometimes they’re only background pictures, or miniature models—but often they’re full-size sets, mere facades of buildings propped up from behind, beautiful balconies that beckon the hero through an elaborate doorway leading nowhere.

Falling for such facades is part of the make-believe pleasure movies give us, but real life is different. In life, we need to know if an attractive image has any inner life beyond the entryway.

Lately we’ve been hearing “freedom” ringing over our airwaves as repeatedly and rhythmically as the “Hail Mary” at a Rosary meeting. For Americans the word has the sound of sacred truth—who can be against freedom? And when “freedom” is linked to "democracy,” another sacred sound, the call to arms can be irresistible.

So maybe it’s time for some straight talk about freedom. It is an idea that was at the core of Christian faith from the very start. Its meaning and importance have evolved and expanded enormously over the course of Christian history. That history involves Christian theology, ancient and Christian and modern philosophy, varied moral theories, as well as a wide range of political philosophies emerging in recent centuries. That’s all too much to sort through here, but several key points should help get past the rhetoric to the reality:

Freedom is Not an Absolute Value. If everyone does whatever they want, they may be free—but chaos and anarchy are the result. As the old saying goes, my freedom to swing my arms ends at the tip of your nose. Total freedom may be impossible if people are to live together, so restraints are always needed. Iraq offers the perfect current example: until native police can ensure civil order, the freedom people have to commit mayhem and murder will collide with other values: the security and stability Iraq needs.

Freedom is not the Only Value. The American tradition links freedom to the Bill of Rights. But our founders aimed at more than freedom: their slogan “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” reminds us that securing the rights of all is a balancing act among several sacred values.

The French Revolution touted freedom too, which is why the Statue of Liberty stands in New York Harbor as our oldest ally’s gift to us. But the French balanced “Liberté” with “Egalité” and "Fraternité,” and for more than 200 years the world has acknowledged that all of these, not just liberty, are the “passwords to democracy.” And sometimes those passwords conflict, and then freedom must be compromised. That’s why the pro-life movement knows “freedom to choose” cannot be the only value, if life is thereby jeopardized.

Elections do not produce Freedom. People choosing their own leaders is a good thing, but freedom requires more than that. After all, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and Iraq under Saddam all had elections too. If democratic freedom lies in “the consent of the governed,” then people are free only to the extent that they have a voice in all the decisions that govern them: in public policy, in corporate decisions, in the workplace and schools and social organizations and the family and even in the Church.

Choosing which leaders to hire is only a first step toward a real voice in all these areas. Even in America, we have a long way to go before we extend freedom to all areas of our lives—and we’ve been choosing our leaders for a long time (though male landowners have been voting much longer than other males, or females, or blacks).

“Freedom” Can Isolate Us. Often our modern secular culture has redefined “freedom” as a synonym for individual autonomy. To be “free” in this sense means to be left alone, to be unrestrained, to be independent of any obligations, to be subject to no authority except my own. To be “free” means to escape all outside interference—it’s what people mean when they talk about “getting government off our backs.” Carried to the extreme, of course, a “free world” would be a world full of unencumbered individuals who submit to no outside authority and owe each other nothing. This may be “rugged individualism” in its purest form, but it is a far cry from the Christian vision of a world where the golden rule binds us all together as our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.

Freedom is not just a right.  The rise of modern democratic politics (since England’s Glorious Revolution in 1689) has tended to reduce “Freedom” down to the idea of a human right—the right not to be oppressed. Such “freedom” is merely an external condition that can be legislated by public declarations, and constitutions, and Bills of Rights. In Christian history, this external condition has often been called “formal freedom.”

But Christians have traditionally believed in another kind of freedom, often called “real freedom.” Real freedom isn’t just an external condition or right that can be formally declared, it is a capacity we find within us. Specifically, it is the power to act for the good—not only our own good, but also the good of others.

This goes way beyond freedom from oppression to define a freedom for facing up to life’s tough choices. The very idea of “sin” depends on the recognition that we don’t always make the right choices, even though we are free to do so. Christians have generally believed, in fact, that we humans are incapable of consistently doing the right thing without the help of God. On our own, we haven’t the power, the “freedom for” the choices we should make. But God’s grace is, in Christian faith, the force in our lives that supplies the power we need to do good. That’s why St. Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free,” and “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

All this means two things. First, true freedom is much more than we’re led to believe by public leaders. It’s not just something you can produce, like a rabbit from a hat, simply by holding an election or writing a constitution or winning a war. Freedom is not merely a social and political condition we humans create by public acts. It is a moral and spiritual capacity that god creates within each of us.

Second, as people of faith, we cannot sell freedom short, even if others do. Our first instincts are right—freedom is a sacred truth. But God doesn’t offer us freedom for nothing, or just so we can be independent from others. God expects us to respond to his grace, to cooperate with the power he’s given us, to use our power to do his will. If we treat freedom as mere independence or autonomy, we squander that gift and insult its divine giver.

How do we honor the giver? By seeing past the political facade of freedom to its spiritual interior. Popes Leo XIII and Pius XII taught that our mission to re-form the world according to God's plan relies on three spiritual forces: truth, justice, and love. In the early 1960s, John XXIII added a fourth spiritual force: freedom.

So, as Americans we should see freedom as the partner of “Life” and “The Pursuit of Happiness.” As democratic people, we should set Freedom alongside “Equality” and “Fraternity.” And as people of faith, we should embrace freedom as one of the forces the world needs—along with Truth, Justice, and above all Love—if we are to make our world the kind of place God wills it to become. Then we’ve found the fullness of freedom, well beyond its façade.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2005