EXCERPT: Perhaps you saw the same AP headline I did: “Nevada couple stranded three days after GPS leads them astray.” It seems they asked for the shortest route from Portland to Reno, and they got it – but their machine, while full of instant data, was mindless enough to recommend an unsafe, snow-bound road.
Me thinks a parable lurks therein! And with everyone trying to pick a name for the decade that ends this week, perhaps this story offers an apt theme.
It has something to do with technology and our response to it—or, more accurately, our responses.
There are, of course, those people who embrace every new technological advance with gusto – the folks who had home TVs in the 1940s, video cameras by 1970, a $700 single-disc CD player by 1983, a car phone by 1990, and a $4000, 30-inch HDTV by 2000.
Then there are the people who militantly resist every innovation. They clung to black & white TV, to dial phones, they have no use for snow blowers or dishwashers or cell phones.
The first group bought Apple computers in 1982; the second group still holds the line against e-mail.
Most of us, I suspect, are somewhere in between. We neither race into new things nor resist them on principle. We don’t need to be the first kid on our block. We’re content to wait until new technologies prove their worth. We know they often need debugging, and we prefer not to play the role of guinea pig. We guess that subsequent versions will be not only better but also cheaper. And we even suspect that some innovations will eventually either fail or prove actually harmful. So we never went for Edsels or 8-track tapes or Fen-Phen or sub-prime mortgages.
Yet we embrace proven technologies with prudent optimism. We start emailing, while remaining alert to spam and viruses. We buy hybrids, but know that batteries remain underdeveloped. We love the way computers transmit data at the speed of light, but we never forget that they’re still stupid machines. We experiment with voice-recognition software, but chuckle wryly when it types Ratzinger as “rap singer” or Jesus as “cheeses.”
My own humble opinion is that this middle way is not merely moderate, it is also wise.
In fact, a strain throughout Christian history – or at least Catholic history – has been to display mixed feelings about technology in general. Given the Christian view of the world, this makes perfect sense. Since all technology comes from human intelligence and our drive to subdue creation to our benefit, we regarded as potentially a gift (albeit indirect) from God. But since every technology is a human product, it is never perfect, and its flaws may outweigh its benefits.
No humans in history have ever needed this wisdom more than our present generations.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
#277: Obama’s Catholic Case for Peace
EXCERPT:I am baffled: no one else seemed to notice the very thing that struck me most about Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
While some wrongly compared Obama’s discourse on war and peace to George Bush, and others rightly pointed out Obama’s debt to Franklin Roosevelt and the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, no one I have read noticed this: Catholic Church teaching on war and peace is now shaping American policy at the presidential level for the first time.
Obama is clearly no pacifist. He clearly embraces “just war” theory, not only in name, but in its substance. As The New Republic’s Michael Walzer noted, he is not the first President to invoke the theory: "Other presidents have done that, but this one seemed to have a better grasp of the theory than any of his predecessors did."
Secular and Protestant thinkers too, including Niebuhr, have also espoused the just war concept—but they were adopting (and sometimes adapting) an idea of Catholic origin. Obama here became the first US President to adopt Catholic teaching as his own. Without naming it, Obama was making the Catholic case for peace.
For years I’ve told parish groups that we American Catholics are in trouble: a President can claim “just war,” and his Catholic listeners can’t tell he is invoking a Catholic concept, let alone judge whether the claim is legitimate.
But now we hear a President who not only claims “just war,” but explains what he means by it– with an explanation solidly rooted in Catholic thinking. Fifteen centuries after it first emerged, the just war concept is now US foreign policy.
There remain some grounds for disappointment. Obama failed to say that, while Afghanistan may meet just war conditions, Iraq never did. He failed to argue that success in Afghanistan is “morally certain” – a key just war condition. He never answered those who believe “total war” can never meet just war criteria. He never admitted that just war has never actually prevented a war. He failed to link defense of every person’s dignity with the fate of the unborn.
Still, just war theory is a major contribution of Catholic tradition to public policy thinking, and Obama’s speech marks the first time this contribution has been enshrined as the official peace platform of any US President.
Who knows? The day may come when America, invoking this very speech, avoids or ends a war. On that day, not only will humanity take one giant step toward genuine peace, but the Catholic Church will have proven its worth as a global force for good. As Advent approaches the arrival of the Prince of Peace, no Christmas gift could be greater than this: our Church sowing the seeds of a President’s pathway to peace.
While some wrongly compared Obama’s discourse on war and peace to George Bush, and others rightly pointed out Obama’s debt to Franklin Roosevelt and the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, no one I have read noticed this: Catholic Church teaching on war and peace is now shaping American policy at the presidential level for the first time.
Obama is clearly no pacifist. He clearly embraces “just war” theory, not only in name, but in its substance. As The New Republic’s Michael Walzer noted, he is not the first President to invoke the theory: "Other presidents have done that, but this one seemed to have a better grasp of the theory than any of his predecessors did."
Secular and Protestant thinkers too, including Niebuhr, have also espoused the just war concept—but they were adopting (and sometimes adapting) an idea of Catholic origin. Obama here became the first US President to adopt Catholic teaching as his own. Without naming it, Obama was making the Catholic case for peace.
For years I’ve told parish groups that we American Catholics are in trouble: a President can claim “just war,” and his Catholic listeners can’t tell he is invoking a Catholic concept, let alone judge whether the claim is legitimate.
But now we hear a President who not only claims “just war,” but explains what he means by it– with an explanation solidly rooted in Catholic thinking. Fifteen centuries after it first emerged, the just war concept is now US foreign policy.
There remain some grounds for disappointment. Obama failed to say that, while Afghanistan may meet just war conditions, Iraq never did. He failed to argue that success in Afghanistan is “morally certain” – a key just war condition. He never answered those who believe “total war” can never meet just war criteria. He never admitted that just war has never actually prevented a war. He failed to link defense of every person’s dignity with the fate of the unborn.
Still, just war theory is a major contribution of Catholic tradition to public policy thinking, and Obama’s speech marks the first time this contribution has been enshrined as the official peace platform of any US President.
Who knows? The day may come when America, invoking this very speech, avoids or ends a war. On that day, not only will humanity take one giant step toward genuine peace, but the Catholic Church will have proven its worth as a global force for good. As Advent approaches the arrival of the Prince of Peace, no Christmas gift could be greater than this: our Church sowing the seeds of a President’s pathway to peace.
Friday, December 11, 2009
#276: The Long and Winding Road
EXCERPT: St. Jean Pied-de-Port is where pilgrims from three different starting points in France converge to rest one last time before beginning the daunting trek over the mountains into Spain and their eventual destination. The steep cobbled lane leading up to the trailhead is lined with hostels for pilgrims spending their last night in France.
Some make the pilgrimage on foot, others on bicycle or on horseback, or even by car. But they all have the same destination: the town on Spain's Atlantic coast where, legend holds, Saint James the Apostle (Santiago in Spanish, Saint Jacques in French) began his mission to convert Spain. Pilgrims have been tracking to his tomb since the tenth century.
What amazed me most is that each year El Camino sets new records. In 2008, 25,964 Pilgrims passed through St. Jean Pied-de-Port. In 2009, 26,901. When registering to certify their trek, some pilgrims cite "religion" as their motive; some cite "spirituality," others “sport" or "tourism" or "culture." Some cite several motives.
For me, it begs this question: "Why is the pilgrim experience so popular—especially in a secular age like ours?” Many other activities, after all, could serve those same motives. Why is it that pilgrimage draws people? Why do growing numbers choose the pilgrim’s path?
Perhaps pilgrimage touches on an inner desire much like John the Baptist’s -- a desire to make paths straight? Maybe, by completing the trek and conquering its obstacles, pilgrims feel they have filled every valley, made low every mountain and hill, straightened the winding roads, smoothed out the rough ways? We are all pilgrims, of course, all on our way to some destination, however distant or vague.
Advent reminds us that life is indeed a long and winding road. Our paths are seldom straight smooth or flat, and we may often feel like a voice crying in the wilderness. Yet, sometimes we find our way to a place (or a moment) where the pathway stretches before us clear and bright, with a new beginning at the end -- the beginning we Catholics celebrate as Christmas.
Some make the pilgrimage on foot, others on bicycle or on horseback, or even by car. But they all have the same destination: the town on Spain's Atlantic coast where, legend holds, Saint James the Apostle (Santiago in Spanish, Saint Jacques in French) began his mission to convert Spain. Pilgrims have been tracking to his tomb since the tenth century.
What amazed me most is that each year El Camino sets new records. In 2008, 25,964 Pilgrims passed through St. Jean Pied-de-Port. In 2009, 26,901. When registering to certify their trek, some pilgrims cite "religion" as their motive; some cite "spirituality," others “sport" or "tourism" or "culture." Some cite several motives.
For me, it begs this question: "Why is the pilgrim experience so popular—especially in a secular age like ours?” Many other activities, after all, could serve those same motives. Why is it that pilgrimage draws people? Why do growing numbers choose the pilgrim’s path?
Perhaps pilgrimage touches on an inner desire much like John the Baptist’s -- a desire to make paths straight? Maybe, by completing the trek and conquering its obstacles, pilgrims feel they have filled every valley, made low every mountain and hill, straightened the winding roads, smoothed out the rough ways? We are all pilgrims, of course, all on our way to some destination, however distant or vague.
Advent reminds us that life is indeed a long and winding road. Our paths are seldom straight smooth or flat, and we may often feel like a voice crying in the wilderness. Yet, sometimes we find our way to a place (or a moment) where the pathway stretches before us clear and bright, with a new beginning at the end -- the beginning we Catholics celebrate as Christmas.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
#275: Philippe Saez, the Man With Three Names.
EXCERPT: Product of a Basque-language upbringing and elementary education at Notre-Dame de Belloc, Saez was twenty in 1978 when he joined the ETA. The decision was a young man’s revolt against the repression around him. During concert tours in Basque Spain, he had witnessed raids where police, lurking at nightclub exits, took men into custody and raped their dates. He even witnessed an onlooker shot to death in Pamplona in 1977.
“At the time,” he later said, “the ETA still represented the myth of the glorious days of the struggle against Franco. Joining up was a kind of exaltation for me, but I quickly went clandestine,”—in fact, he was made part of the ETA’s most secret commando unit, taking his new code name Txistu (the name of the Basque flute he played and taught).
The ETA trained Txistu in small arms combat, explosives, and bomb-making. In November, 1978 he drove getaway in the killing of a Spanish industrialist. In January, 1979 he took part in assassinating a general in Madrid, and that May he was sentry for a grenade attack that killed three Spanish army officers and their driver.
The next day he realized he had had enough of armed resistance, especially since negotiations had begun between the ETA and Spain’s post-Franco government. So Txistu got the ETA’s permission to quit, and he kept quiet until 1987, when he repented his acts, confessed them – and one year later entered Notre-Dame de Belloc as a Benedictine novice!
He later explained he had felt called to monastic life even before joining the ETA. Now Txistu acquired his third name, Frère (Brother) Jean Philippe. He set about learning theology and cheese-making.
God’s ways are certainly unlike ours, when such troubles over borders and power and violence find their final rest in the serene life of the Benedictine abbey of Notre-Dame de Belloc, amid rolling hills and grazing sheep.
“At the time,” he later said, “the ETA still represented the myth of the glorious days of the struggle against Franco. Joining up was a kind of exaltation for me, but I quickly went clandestine,”—in fact, he was made part of the ETA’s most secret commando unit, taking his new code name Txistu (the name of the Basque flute he played and taught).
The ETA trained Txistu in small arms combat, explosives, and bomb-making. In November, 1978 he drove getaway in the killing of a Spanish industrialist. In January, 1979 he took part in assassinating a general in Madrid, and that May he was sentry for a grenade attack that killed three Spanish army officers and their driver.
The next day he realized he had had enough of armed resistance, especially since negotiations had begun between the ETA and Spain’s post-Franco government. So Txistu got the ETA’s permission to quit, and he kept quiet until 1987, when he repented his acts, confessed them – and one year later entered Notre-Dame de Belloc as a Benedictine novice!
He later explained he had felt called to monastic life even before joining the ETA. Now Txistu acquired his third name, Frère (Brother) Jean Philippe. He set about learning theology and cheese-making.
God’s ways are certainly unlike ours, when such troubles over borders and power and violence find their final rest in the serene life of the Benedictine abbey of Notre-Dame de Belloc, amid rolling hills and grazing sheep.
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