#304: Outside the Boxes

EXCERPT:
Is it possible that Tom Brady is Vatican II's gift to the NFL?

Outrageous as this sounds, it is both (1) a serious and plausible claim and (2) an idea with serious implications for Catholic Baby Boomers and their grown children.

We Boomers fear our kids could come to represent a "lost generation" in Catholic history. That would not be tragic for Catholicism (which has seen lost generations before, and survived), but it would be tragic for us (the generations lost before were not our kids!).

Second, we fear that the legacy of Vatican II may be squandered -- and that would be a tragedy both for us (a major source of hope in our lifetimes would lose its future) and for the institutional Church (the historic opportunity Vatican II represented might never come again ).

Faced with these discouraging prospects, we Boomers long for signs of hope, or at least consolation.

Enter sports journalist Charles P. Pierce, with his 2006 book Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything. Pierce makes a compelling case that Tom Brady's greatness lies in qualities inherited from Vatican II.

That case goes like this.

Pierce describes the skinny kid who struggled for recognition first in Catholic high school, then as backup at the University of Michigan, and finally as the #4 QB with the New England Patriots. His stardom in three Super Bowl victories culminated a journey that, according to Pierce, "began in a Vatican II family."

It seems that Tom’s father, Tom Sr. joined the Maryknoll Missionary Society in September, 1962, just as Vatican II was getting underway. Had he remained a Maryknoller, Tom Brady QB would not exist. But he eventually decided to abandon "propagating the faith" in favor of "propagating the faithful," and left the seminary in 1965, just months before Vatican II finished.

That experience left him a true believer in Vatican II’s doctrine of the Church as the “People of God.” This implied the notion that authentic authority comes not for rank, but from the respect of others -- be they colleagues, family members, or teammates.

This, says Pierce, is the key to understanding young Tom Brady. From the start, what impressed those sharp enough to notice was not his size, strength, speed, or skills, but something intangible (because it was something within him): the ability to rise above others and lead them without losing his bond with them. Pierce calls it standing out without being "culled from the herd.” This gift enabled Brady to become the game’s biggest star while remaining a loyal and popular teammate.

In 2000, the New England Patriots waited six rounds to draft him, but finally chose him in part because Bill Belichick, himself a coach’s son, had long since learned the value of such intangibles--"all those things that don't fit into the boxes on the clipboard."

The rest is history. Brady stands out not for his size or arm or speed, but for his ability to inspire the kind of team confidence that produces peak performance under pressure. Pierce labels this gift "an instinct for communion," and offers this closing argument:

Tom Brady is not the conspicuous Catholic that his father is, but there is in him an instinct for communion. It was stronger than the capricious authority under which he played at Michigan. Something innate sensed that the real authority was what was loaned to him by his teammates through their respect and, especially, through the way they played when he was on the field. Vatican II created change, controversy, and perhaps a couple of saints along the way. Within one of the most profane contexts imaginable, its spirit also may have helped create a quarterback.

The moral of the story? Pierce gave me the insight that the next generation may represent a new kind of Catholic. If Vatican II suceeded in “removing the chains” (chains of guilt, fear, obligation, and duty), this new, unchained generation may indeed embody a Catholic identity that is not conspicuous, but rather innate—an authenticity that demands and offers respect for the dignity of all people, values authority only when it genuinely serves the common good, and acknowledges the intangibles within us all that will always remain outside the boxes.

Pierce says Vatican II produced a laity intent "to live the Council and not argue about it." For me, that is hope enough: that our kids, while not "conspicuous Catholics," might still live the Council. If so, then they are its heirs, and the Council is alive in them.