EXCERPT:
Sometimes you feel at home in the most unexpected places. That's what happened to me last weekend, at the 50th anniversary of Bob Lindsay's ordination.
For more than 30 years my wife and I have been liturgical nomads, trekking from church to church in search of life-giving liturgy and family-supporting community. Sometimes we have found it, but (with one exception) never for long. Most places got stale, or lost key clergy, or ultimately fell short of our needs and expectations.
Perhaps we were spoiled by our church experiences immediately after Vatican II (and even before we married). During my years at Holy Cross, for example, our college chaplain, Father Bob Lindsey S. J., was a central player in my liturgical formation. He was already celebrated for his weekend preaching at the main campus chapel -- I retain vivid images from his homily opening my freshman year: "welcome back from the sand, the sex, and the suds!" -- but that was not what spoiled me.
What did spoil me was weekday evening liturgy, at 11:00 PM, when 100 or so students put their books aside to trudge down to the Saint Mary Chapel, the catacomb-like low dome of the lower church. There we gathered in the rounded sanctuary singing the Psalms set to music by Jesuit Paul Quinlan, who led a small group with guitars, bass fiddle, percussion, and occasional winds, as "Father Lindsay" celebrated the sacred mysteries. The midnight walk back to the dorms became both nightly ritual and community-builder among us worshipers.
In graduate school I spent most of two years worshipping at Saint Paul's in Cambridge, where the "high church" liturgy was framed by the congregation’s full-throated accompaniment of the spectacular boy choir under Ted Marier’s direction. Then Anne and I spent two years worshiping at Saint Thomas the Apostle church in Chicago’s Hyde Park, where a Jesuit liturgical coordinator (whose name I forget) made sure that every Sunday Mass included apt, enlivening music along with creative liturgical actions and a vibrant spirit.
My first three parish jobs (as religious education director) brought me and Anne instant communities of like-minded peers and parents in Laurel (Maryland), Salem (Massachusetts), and Dorchester (Massachusetts). Then, while raising our kids, we mostly worshipped at Boston's downtown Paulist Center, later migrating to Saint William Parish in Dorchester, Saint Ann Parish in the Back Bay, the Jesuit Urban Center in the South End, and finally a trio of parishes within a short drive--one working class, one professional class, one multi-ethnic and multi-lingual.
Since our kids began leaving home in 1994 we have seldom felt at home for long -- and I suspect the failure of any parish to make us feel strong belonging explains why many Baby Boomers like us have drifted away from active church life.
We have often lamented our lack of attachment to any one church community, generally feeling that our presence was neither expected nor welcomed, and even that our absence was not much noticed.
Yet some occasions remind us that we remain part of a community of faith--even in a community of strangers!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
#297: Does Credibility = Conformity?
EXCERPT:
It is always tough to take issue with Emmanuel Charles McCarthy. But I have a problem with his recent critique of Hans Kung’s April 17 letter calling for Church reform (see the site http://www.jesusradicals.com/a-credibility-crisis-reform-by-emmanuel-charles-mccarthy/ for his article “A Credibility Crisis? Reform?). He complains that Kung overlooks the problem of Church support for war and violence. For McCarthy, justifying killing as "faithful discipleship" amounts to a "severe credibility crisis" that "most of humanity sees as obvious."
The Church’s problem, he says, comes from "the discordance between what Jesus teaches and what the Church teaches on violence and enmity." For him, real "reform" requires "restoring conformity to what Jesus command that the church to teach and to obey," and thus "following what Jesus taught by word and deed."
This idea of conformity to Jesus in all respects is so obvious to McCarthy than any other views seems simply irrational. Indeed, McCarthy believes that Jesus' example offers, not just a good way to do things, or an ideal way, but "the only way of doing what he did."
Now, I have no problem with McCarthy’s take on the gospels. Nor do I quarrel with his history. I do not even have a problem with McCarthy’s ethics--I lean toward some form of Christian pacifism myself,and I regard non-violence icons like Dorothy Day, Gandhi, M.L. King, and Nelson Mandela as the moral giants of our day.
My problem is with his whole underlying notion that a credible Christian faith requires conformity in all respects to Jesus and his immediate followers. That is his entire basis for arguing that only a commitment to non-violence can constitute credible reform.
There is a strong case to be made against the just war theory, and an equally strong case to be made for Christian non-violence. But McCarthy has made neither case, and he does both our credibility and faithful discipleship a disservice by equating them with rote conformity.
I simply reject the idea that faithful discipleship equals rote conformity. The problem is this: not only is such a restoration a practical impossibility, but even its most ardent champions (including McCarthy himself) refuse to consistently carry it out.
The simple truth is: for such conformity to be consistent, that would require us to treat Jesus and the first Christians, not as people of their times, but as timeless arbiters of our ethical, spiritual, and even intellectual standards.
This would mean that, to be credible Christians and faithful disciples, we must embrace whatever they embraced, accept whatever they accepted, tolerate whatever they tolerated, and reject whatever they rejected. In short, we must accept the boundaries of their outlook and practice as our own boundaries.
Such a theological principle quickly leads to absurd results--for if, to be credible Christians, we must consistently conform ourselves this way, then we must, like them:
Expect Christ's imminent return and reject any long-term vision or strategy for life on earth; become practicing Jews; abstain from all involvement in politics; not resist our oppressors or occupiers; be silent about slavery and be content to convert slaves to the Christian faith; be silent on many cruelties typical in the Roman Empire, among them torture and crucifixion; share all goods in common and have no private property; regard marriage as a last resort for those unable to maintain celibacy until Christ returns; blame the “Jews” for rejecting Jesus; drop teachings they did not proclaim, such as Christ’s two natures or even the Trinity; drop practices they did not practice: Christmas, infant baptism, ecumenical relations; have bishops and deacons but no priests and no parishes; observe the Jewish Sabbath in synagogue or temple, and then break Eucharistic bread in homes; have no churches; not promote practices or policies they did not have: priests (men or women), acceptance of gays, contraception, etc.
Instead of all this, Christians believe that, as historical conditions change and offer new insights, they may develop their teachings and practices in ways that outstrip the boundaries set by Jesus, the Gospels, and the early Christians. We believe, in other words, that Jesus and his followers were, like us, people of their times -- whereas our faith in Him is a faith for all times.
So we proclaim Christ as the second person of the Trinity, a claim neither he nor his disciples ever made. And we commit the faith to building a better world over the long haul of history (already 100 generations since Jesus, and still counting)--something they never imagined. In fact, Christians began adding and dropping and changing elements of the Christian life as early as 100 AD.
Was Jesus committed to non-violence? Yes. Were the early Christians "pacifists"? Probably yes, at least in some sense of that term. Is Christian non-violence a good and important principle even today? Absolutely!
Can you make a case that all Christians should be pacifists? Sure -- but not by simply arguing that conforms to Jesus.
Can you also claim that Christians who reject pacifism are “not credible Christians”? No -- that is, not unless you are prepared to abandon much of what we today call Christianity and sign up at your local synagogue. But in that case, be prepared to hear someone mention "an eye for an eye"!
It is always tough to take issue with Emmanuel Charles McCarthy. But I have a problem with his recent critique of Hans Kung’s April 17 letter calling for Church reform (see the site http://www.jesusradicals.com/a-credibility-crisis-reform-by-emmanuel-charles-mccarthy/ for his article “A Credibility Crisis? Reform?). He complains that Kung overlooks the problem of Church support for war and violence. For McCarthy, justifying killing as "faithful discipleship" amounts to a "severe credibility crisis" that "most of humanity sees as obvious."
The Church’s problem, he says, comes from "the discordance between what Jesus teaches and what the Church teaches on violence and enmity." For him, real "reform" requires "restoring conformity to what Jesus command that the church to teach and to obey," and thus "following what Jesus taught by word and deed."
This idea of conformity to Jesus in all respects is so obvious to McCarthy than any other views seems simply irrational. Indeed, McCarthy believes that Jesus' example offers, not just a good way to do things, or an ideal way, but "the only way of doing what he did."
Now, I have no problem with McCarthy’s take on the gospels. Nor do I quarrel with his history. I do not even have a problem with McCarthy’s ethics--I lean toward some form of Christian pacifism myself,and I regard non-violence icons like Dorothy Day, Gandhi, M.L. King, and Nelson Mandela as the moral giants of our day.
My problem is with his whole underlying notion that a credible Christian faith requires conformity in all respects to Jesus and his immediate followers. That is his entire basis for arguing that only a commitment to non-violence can constitute credible reform.
There is a strong case to be made against the just war theory, and an equally strong case to be made for Christian non-violence. But McCarthy has made neither case, and he does both our credibility and faithful discipleship a disservice by equating them with rote conformity.
I simply reject the idea that faithful discipleship equals rote conformity. The problem is this: not only is such a restoration a practical impossibility, but even its most ardent champions (including McCarthy himself) refuse to consistently carry it out.
The simple truth is: for such conformity to be consistent, that would require us to treat Jesus and the first Christians, not as people of their times, but as timeless arbiters of our ethical, spiritual, and even intellectual standards.
This would mean that, to be credible Christians and faithful disciples, we must embrace whatever they embraced, accept whatever they accepted, tolerate whatever they tolerated, and reject whatever they rejected. In short, we must accept the boundaries of their outlook and practice as our own boundaries.
Such a theological principle quickly leads to absurd results--for if, to be credible Christians, we must consistently conform ourselves this way, then we must, like them:
Expect Christ's imminent return and reject any long-term vision or strategy for life on earth; become practicing Jews; abstain from all involvement in politics; not resist our oppressors or occupiers; be silent about slavery and be content to convert slaves to the Christian faith; be silent on many cruelties typical in the Roman Empire, among them torture and crucifixion; share all goods in common and have no private property; regard marriage as a last resort for those unable to maintain celibacy until Christ returns; blame the “Jews” for rejecting Jesus; drop teachings they did not proclaim, such as Christ’s two natures or even the Trinity; drop practices they did not practice: Christmas, infant baptism, ecumenical relations; have bishops and deacons but no priests and no parishes; observe the Jewish Sabbath in synagogue or temple, and then break Eucharistic bread in homes; have no churches; not promote practices or policies they did not have: priests (men or women), acceptance of gays, contraception, etc.
Instead of all this, Christians believe that, as historical conditions change and offer new insights, they may develop their teachings and practices in ways that outstrip the boundaries set by Jesus, the Gospels, and the early Christians. We believe, in other words, that Jesus and his followers were, like us, people of their times -- whereas our faith in Him is a faith for all times.
So we proclaim Christ as the second person of the Trinity, a claim neither he nor his disciples ever made. And we commit the faith to building a better world over the long haul of history (already 100 generations since Jesus, and still counting)--something they never imagined. In fact, Christians began adding and dropping and changing elements of the Christian life as early as 100 AD.
Was Jesus committed to non-violence? Yes. Were the early Christians "pacifists"? Probably yes, at least in some sense of that term. Is Christian non-violence a good and important principle even today? Absolutely!
Can you make a case that all Christians should be pacifists? Sure -- but not by simply arguing that conforms to Jesus.
Can you also claim that Christians who reject pacifism are “not credible Christians”? No -- that is, not unless you are prepared to abandon much of what we today call Christianity and sign up at your local synagogue. But in that case, be prepared to hear someone mention "an eye for an eye"!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
#296: Some Good News About Scandal
EXCERPT:
Now that Benedict XVI is sending Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley to manage the sex scandal in Ireland, it is clear that those dismissing this problem as a media invention or minimizing it as an “American problem” were wrong all along.
But even as the scandal widens to a global scale, some good news is emerging. A parish case from Boston last week triggered an old memory for me which suggests that even horrifying scandal may produce some hopeful, if unintended, consequences.
...
The Moral Of The Story. If we compare these cases, we find a radical shift from secretive mismanagement (in the old case) to a more transparent approach (in the new case)
In the older case, the obsession with secrecy dominated everything else, for the Boston hierarchy under Bernard Law consistently infantilized the laity, assuming they could not handle any bad news.
In the new case, they reported criminal behavior to the police. They knew the Boston Globe would cover the story, but they no longer regard the Globe (which won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the sex abuse crisis) as a troublemaking enemy. They knew people would learn of evil-doing in church operations, but they now believe that laity are mature enough to acknowledge such human imperfections but cannot tolerate official subterfuge to keep them from knowing about it. They now realize that no one expects the institutional Church to be perfect, but everyone expects it to be accountable.
The moral of the story, then, is that even the most horrific scandal can have beneficial, albeit unintended, consequences.
Now that Benedict XVI is sending Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley to manage the sex scandal in Ireland, it is clear that those dismissing this problem as a media invention or minimizing it as an “American problem” were wrong all along.
But even as the scandal widens to a global scale, some good news is emerging. A parish case from Boston last week triggered an old memory for me which suggests that even horrifying scandal may produce some hopeful, if unintended, consequences.
...
The Moral Of The Story. If we compare these cases, we find a radical shift from secretive mismanagement (in the old case) to a more transparent approach (in the new case)
In the older case, the obsession with secrecy dominated everything else, for the Boston hierarchy under Bernard Law consistently infantilized the laity, assuming they could not handle any bad news.
In the new case, they reported criminal behavior to the police. They knew the Boston Globe would cover the story, but they no longer regard the Globe (which won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the sex abuse crisis) as a troublemaking enemy. They knew people would learn of evil-doing in church operations, but they now believe that laity are mature enough to acknowledge such human imperfections but cannot tolerate official subterfuge to keep them from knowing about it. They now realize that no one expects the institutional Church to be perfect, but everyone expects it to be accountable.
The moral of the story, then, is that even the most horrific scandal can have beneficial, albeit unintended, consequences.
Friday, June 4, 2010
#295: Scapegoating “Illegals”
EXCERPT:
For the people touting “respect for the law” as the key issue for immigration reform, the term “illegal” has become either a ploy or a fetish.
It’s a ploy if they hide behind “illegal” to camouflage opposition that really is rooted in racism, or paranoia, or delusion, or nativism. I’m sure this applies to some who cannot abide an America filling up with dark-skinned foreigners (who don’t speak English and may even worship a foreign God) and are convinced these people are causing all our troubles.
But let’s assume that most closed door people really are driven by their problem with the illegals’ (and their supporters’) supposed lack of respect for the rule of law. In that case, they risk idolizing the law as if it were some absolute value – as if merely being “illegal” is reason enough to be excluded.
If that is really what people think, they have made “illegal” their fetish: a small piece of the American anatomy that excites them all out of proportion to its importance…
…
Consider this lesson from history. During World War II Angelo Roncalli became Vatican ambassador to Turkey. Aware of thousands of Jews trapped in Eastern Europe under Nazi occupation, he took decisive – and decidedly irregular – action. He got Jewish authorities in Palestine to send bundles of travel papers, he got the Vatican to send bundles of transit letters, and he arranged to issue baptismal certificates to thousands of Jewish children – some reflecting actual “provisional Baptisms,” some simple forgeries. Thus equipped with smuggled, fraudulent, even forged papers, thousands of Jews (some say 25,000) escaped from Poland and Hungary into unoccupied territories. Roncalli also convinced the Turkish government not to deport even the undocumented Jews.
For all these efforts on the half of “illegals” immigrating to Turkey and Palestine, the worldwide Jewish community has declared Roncalli to be one of the 20th century’s "Righteous Among the Nations". Of course, fifteen years later Roncalli was elected Pope John XXIII.
Today’s US Bishops are similarly pro-immigrant, and are fighting to help “illegals” gain acceptance and the legal permission to stay. They know, like Roncalli, that in most cases “illegal” merely means “victims of circumstance” – and they’re committed to helping any way they can.
People trumpeting “the rule of law” as a sacred value must ask themselves: are they also committed to the higher law of human rights? What about God’s law of love for neighbor? Or would they condemn Roncalli for enabling “illegality,” and tell us someone should have sent those Jews – who were Hitler’s scapegoats – back to their fate?
For the people touting “respect for the law” as the key issue for immigration reform, the term “illegal” has become either a ploy or a fetish.
It’s a ploy if they hide behind “illegal” to camouflage opposition that really is rooted in racism, or paranoia, or delusion, or nativism. I’m sure this applies to some who cannot abide an America filling up with dark-skinned foreigners (who don’t speak English and may even worship a foreign God) and are convinced these people are causing all our troubles.
But let’s assume that most closed door people really are driven by their problem with the illegals’ (and their supporters’) supposed lack of respect for the rule of law. In that case, they risk idolizing the law as if it were some absolute value – as if merely being “illegal” is reason enough to be excluded.
If that is really what people think, they have made “illegal” their fetish: a small piece of the American anatomy that excites them all out of proportion to its importance…
…
Consider this lesson from history. During World War II Angelo Roncalli became Vatican ambassador to Turkey. Aware of thousands of Jews trapped in Eastern Europe under Nazi occupation, he took decisive – and decidedly irregular – action. He got Jewish authorities in Palestine to send bundles of travel papers, he got the Vatican to send bundles of transit letters, and he arranged to issue baptismal certificates to thousands of Jewish children – some reflecting actual “provisional Baptisms,” some simple forgeries. Thus equipped with smuggled, fraudulent, even forged papers, thousands of Jews (some say 25,000) escaped from Poland and Hungary into unoccupied territories. Roncalli also convinced the Turkish government not to deport even the undocumented Jews.
For all these efforts on the half of “illegals” immigrating to Turkey and Palestine, the worldwide Jewish community has declared Roncalli to be one of the 20th century’s "Righteous Among the Nations". Of course, fifteen years later Roncalli was elected Pope John XXIII.
Today’s US Bishops are similarly pro-immigrant, and are fighting to help “illegals” gain acceptance and the legal permission to stay. They know, like Roncalli, that in most cases “illegal” merely means “victims of circumstance” – and they’re committed to helping any way they can.
People trumpeting “the rule of law” as a sacred value must ask themselves: are they also committed to the higher law of human rights? What about God’s law of love for neighbor? Or would they condemn Roncalli for enabling “illegality,” and tell us someone should have sent those Jews – who were Hitler’s scapegoats – back to their fate?
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