#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

#454: 10 Facts That STILL Answer: “Was Jesus Married?”

Once again the mainstream media has given wide coverage to the "new news" about the wife of Jesus, as Harvard's Karen King finally expressed her belief that the document which began the controversy is probably a fake. This induces me to revisit what I wrote 4 years ago, when the story broke. My aim is to demonstrate why this was ALWAYS much ado about nothing.

In the face of this week's ignorant media hype about a new discovery, let’s set the record straight…

Any talk of Jesus being married always stirs needless controversy, so this week’s news out of Harvard--about an ancient text in which Jesus speaks of “my wife”--poses the kind of teachable moment that calls for some serious fact checking.

Fact #1:  The belief that “Jesus never married” is not Catholic doctrine.  It is true that generations of Christians have assumed that Jesus was single, and passed on that assumption as a kind of pious tradition, part of our popular image of Jesus, like long hair and a beard.  But this popular belief is not in our creeds or our catechism; at most it is an informal, unofficial “teaching” commonly communicated to believers.  But Catholics are not required to believe this, and they never have been.

Fact #2: Believing that Jesus was married is not heresy.  The September 19 Boston Globe claimed that “The notion that Jesus may have been married” is “considered heretical by the Catholic Church.” This is just ignorant reporting.  To be heresy an idea must contradict an “orthodox” doctrine.  But since there is no official Catholic doctrine (one way or another) about Jesus’ marital status, then there is nothing to contradict. Hence heresy on this question is impossible.  Claiming Jesus married does clash with the popular tradition I mentioned above, but disagreeing with popular tradition is not heresy.

Fact #3: The Roman Catholic Church DOES allow married men to be priests.  That same Globe article claimed with similar ignorance that “These issues remain intensely relevant in Christianity today, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, which allows only celibate men to be priests.” Not true!

Catholicism embraces five different “rites ” or worship styles, and four of the five (often refer to collectively as the “Eastern Rites”) ordain married man as priests.  Only the “Latin Rite” requires celibacy of all candidates for the priesthood--and even that is changing, since former Anglican priests may now be accepted as Latin Rite priests even if they are married. The confusion is based on numbers: more than 90% of all Catholic priests belong to the Latin Rite, so celibate priests do outnumber married priests. But the Catholic Church allows both.

Fact #4: Priestly celibacy is not a doctrine.  History rather than doctrine explains why Latin Rite priests must be celibate while Eastern Rite priests may marry in.  Long ago all priests (except members of all-male religious communities) could be married, but in the 11^th century a general rule of mandatory celibacy was adopted for Latin Rite priests. That rule was never adopted for the Eastern Rites.  So the fact here is simple: priestly celibacy is just a rule; there were married priests before this rule was adopted, they are still married priests outside that rule’s jurisdiction, and there will be married priests again whenever the rule is dropped.

Fact #5: We do not actually know if Jesus was married or single.  Our best source is the books of the New Testament, and these books are totally silent on the question.  In fact, they’re totally silent about Jesus from the age of 12 to the beginning of his public life at about 30.  We know virtually nothing of the adolescence and early adulthood of Jesus--the very period when his own culture would have expected him to marry.  If, as a hypothetical argument, Jesus had been widowed in his mid-twenties, his married life would be invisible. It would have fallen into that huge gap in the gospel narratives--a gap that no other source can fill.  The fact is, we just do not know.

Fact #6: We will probably never know.  Harvard’s Karen King, who announced the new fragment, told reporters “It’s not saying we got the smoking gun that Jesus was married.” After all, just because one person writing long after the death of Jesus puts the words “my wife” in the mouth of Jesus does not mean we have discovered a new fact, or even that many others believed it to be so.  And it certainly does not mean these were Jesus’ own words. It just means one person wrote it, true or not, for reasons we cannot know. 

The fragment probably dates from the late fourth century, and may be based on a text from the mid-too-late second century--that is, more than a century after Jesus’ death.  All of the New Testament books are closer to Jesus’ lifetime.  There is nothing in the new discovery that can penetrate the silence of the New Testament.  That silence is definitive, and I can think of no way anyone could penetrate that silence.

Fact #7: The old evidence trumps any new discoveries.  All of the other ancient texts and alternative “gospels” that have fueled books like The DaVinci Code are also further from Jesus time than the authentic Biblical texts.  Most of these alternative texts were specifically rejected as less than reliable during the process of forming the Christian Bible as we know it today.

We are often told history is written by the winners, and the simple fact is the winners are the texts that made it into the New Testament “canon,” which means literally the “yardstick” by which we measure the value of any text about Jesus.  All the alternative texts were the losers, simply because they failed to measure up.  As sources go, the New Testament trumps any other source we can realistically imagine

Fact #8: The New Testament evidence is not clear.  What does the New Testament’s silence mean?  Some argue it means Jesus was single, or his wife would have been mentioned along with his mother, father, and brothers.  Others argue the silence means Jesus had been married, since his culture saw a celibate adult male as abnormal, and we would expect the Gospels to mention someone challenging him, and Jesus offering a response and defense.

Both arguments are logically coherent, but neither one has much evidence to support it.

In other words, the Gospels’ silence cannot really settle the question.  We can speculate: what if, for example, Jesus were widowed before his public life began? His wife might not be mentioned simply because she was no longer present. But any such answer is just speculation.  We know the texts are silent, but we cannot tell for sure what that silence means.

Fact #9: If Jesus was married, our core Christian beliefs remain unchanged.  Nothing in our creeds, are catechisms or our theological principles about Jesus Christ is based on the premise of Jesus’ celibacy.  If Jesus was married, then the popular devotion about his single state would be inaccurate--but nothing else would change.  My Catholicism does not hang on this question, and yours should not either.  For me, the question of Jesus’ marital status is nothing more than idle curiosity.  It is not a deal breaker--or even a game-changer--for my faith. It clearly did not matter enough (one way or the other) to the authors of the Gospels, or to St. Paul, or to the other New Testament authors, to include any mention in their texts.

Fact #10: But it might change some attitudes.  Clearly much of Christian history has been ambivalent or even negative about marriage and sexuality (see CrossCurrents #359).  In the New Testament, St. Paul essentially regards marriage as a last resort so those who cannot hack celibacy do not fall into adultery.  And the assumption of Jesus as life-long celibate has often fueled the double standard by which celibates are superior to married people.  Many modern Christians would like to see that double standard fall, and see a golden opportunity in debunking the celibacy of Jesus.  More broadly, people who disparage the place of sexuality in Christian history might love the opportunity, with the leverage of a new “revelation,” to reboot Christianity over again and get it right this time.  Controversy over minor matters advances the cause and makes good newspaper copy--but such controversy does not fit the facts.

On this score, ironically, our Christian faith is rooted much more firmly in fact than most of the media coverage.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012

#425: Francis’ New Way Out of the Wilderness

We are beginning to see what actual changes the new pope can make.

When Jorge Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis, his unique style was immediately apparent to all.  But many questioned whether that style could translate into substance--whether, in addition to inspiring people, he could actually implement practical changes.  In the last few months of 2014, the contour of those changes has become clearer, as he has taken practical steps consistent with his rhetoric. 

He convened a Synod on the Family that could make Catholicism more welcoming to divorced people, gays, and alienated Catholics everywhere. He has delivered a blunt critique of his own Vatican bureaucracy, the Curia, which makes a change of the Vatican’s culture (and probably the rolling of some of its heads) inevitable.  He has named bishops who share his vision to new posts, and expelled some with conflicting vision.  He was instrumental in convincing President Obama to make his diplomatic opening to Cuba.  And he is supporting the move to make Bishop Oscar Romero an official martyr of the church, emblematic of the Church’s fight for social justice for the oppressed and the poor.

In my view all these moves put to rest the question of whether Francis offers big rhetoric but little action.  And so, less than two years into his reign, we can begin to see not only how he is leading the church with his unique style, but where he is leading it with his decisions.  But to grasp what this means, we must see his actions in their full context--in fact, in four different contexts. 

BEFORE: The Regal Papacy of Pius XII

1. The Context Before Francis. To understand what is really going on, it is important to see how the office Francis holds has been transformed even before he was elected.  I often tell listeners that, since the death of Pius XII in 1958, every single subsequent pope has changed the office in a visible and important way.  The result: today’s papacy looks and acts dramatically different from the 1950s papacy.  In fact, I would argue that no public office on the planet has changed as much as the papacy.

Of course, this transformation all started with John XXIII, who convened Vatican Council II (1962-1965).  And the 50 years since then have been marked by the continuing, chronic, so far unresolved struggle over the meaning and impact of Vatican II.  Francis is, of course, the first pope since John who did not participate at Vatican II.  He experienced it as we all (who are old enough) did, from the outside looking in. Thus he brings a fresh view that may yet finally cement Vatican II’s legacy for the Catholic world and beyond. 

At the same time, Catholicism has witnessed an enormous demographic shift: now 2/3 of all Catholics live south of the equator.  Francis is, of course the first pope from the southern hemisphere, so he brings yet another new perspective. 

The last 20 years have also witnessed a rash of scandals, crises, and closings that have heavily damaged both Catholic life and Catholicism’s public image.  Indeed, in America the Catholic Church is hemorrhaging members faster than any other religion.  And despite his academic brilliance, Pope Benedict XVI seemed incapable of keeping his foot out of his mouth. 

The net result of these recent developments has been a reversal of the incredibly positive PR Catholicism gained from Vatican II.  One may argue that, prior to the election of Francis, the public image of Catholicism had never been worse in our lifetime.

2. The Context of Francis. That public image shifted dramatically almost at the moment of Francis’ election.  As the first southern hemisphere pope, as the first Jesuit pope, as the first Francis, he signaled a shift in papal leadership in the first 10 minutes of his first public appearance, when he asked the assembled crowd to bless him before he blessed them. This show of “Franciscan” humility has marked his papacy ever since.  But when, soon after his election, he accepted an Italian editor’s open invitation for an interview, he went beyond humility to indicate a new, ambitious direction:

Our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope. We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace. Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.

AFTER: The "Cool" Papacy of Francis

Notice the way Francis linked humility and ambition--and linked both to a retrieval of Vatican II’s lost legacy. This combination of humility and ambition quickly made Francis a huge PR success, reflected by Time magazine selecting him as 2013’s “Person of the Year.”  And when his smiling face appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, it was clear that he had become the first “cool pope” in history! 

But this stunning reversal of the Church’s appalling public image--which is no small matter, for it led millions to abandon the Church--was not the whole story.  Instead, Francis has emerged not only as an inspiring figure but as an agent of reform, whose course correction for the Church includes battling corruption, careerism, obsessive preoccupation with the culture wars, and also battling the trickle-down theory that dominates the wider culture and economy.

(On this last point, note that a new book by La Stampa's Vatican watchers, Andrea Tornielli and Giacomo Galeazzi, titled Pope Francis: This Economy Kills, is being released this week in Italy.)

3. The Context of Mercy. Francis is not the first pope to put mercy at the center of his agenda.  In fact, this was a hallmark of John XXIII on the very day that he opened Vatican II:

We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun. The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations…the Catholic Church…desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her

There’s nothing new about an emphasis on mercy, of course. Catholics have long subscribed to (though perhaps many of today’s Catholics are not aware of) the action-steps known as the “Corporal Works of Mercy” and the “Spiritual Works of Mercy.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_of_mercy)

For Francis, Mercy lies at the center of the Church’s mission:

Throughout history, some have been tempted to say that the Church is the Church of only the pure and perfectly consistent, and it expels all the rest.  This is not true!  This is heresy!  The Church, which is holy, does not reject sinners; she does not reject us all; she does not reject us because she calls everyone, welcomes them, is open even to those furthest from her; she calls everyone to allow themselves to be enfolded by the mercy, the tenderness, and the forgiveness of the Father…

But besides quoting the pope on mercy; we must also ask: what does he mean?  The question matters because the English word “mercy” badly translates the pope’s words.  “Mercy” comes from a Latin word meaning “wages.” It referred to God’s reward gives for those who do good works. 

But centuries ago, that word was replaced in the Latin languages for another word, which English never adopted.  The new word, “Miserecordia,” means almost the opposite of the English word.  Instead of the reward we get after doing good, it is the big-heartedness that impels us to do good in the first place.  Like the English word “compassion,” which means to suffer with another, Miserecordia refers to a heart that goes out to those in distress.  This is the word Francis uses, whether he speaks or writes in Latin, or Italian, or Spanish (it is the same word in French and Portuguese as well).

So while “mercy” in today’s English often means “pity” or “leniency,” we would do better to think of it as the impulse to help that comes from “big-hearted compassion”--as if it comes from the heart of God.

With this understanding, we can see why Francis might be regarded by some as a troublemaker, and why “mercy” might even seem a dangerous word.

For the pope’s emphasis on mercy pits him against an introverted Church in favor of a Church that reaches out to the poor.  It pits him against a Church committed to the “counter-culture,” in favor of a Church that promotes an “encounter-culture.” It pits him against any hostility to other religions, including Islam. It pits him against inequality, which makes peace impossible, and in favor of a restructured economy that redistributes wealth and honors solidarity. 

It commits him to a Church that “steps outside” itself, and thus to a Church whose mission is, above all, evangelization.  It commits him to a Church in which doing good is more urgent than arguing over doctrine. Indeed, he has criticized theologically-minded people who dispute doctrine endlessly, saying that we will not live long enough to see these disputes resolved but must act in the meantime.

In sum, Francis wants a new way for us to be Church:

The Lord wants us to belong to a Church that knows how to open her arms and welcome everyone, that is not a house for the few, but a house for everyone, where all can be renewed.

4. The Context of Our Lives. This new pope’s agenda touches us all as individuals, as families, and as communities.  For him, the dynamic is an active one that leads from the big-hearted impulse of God’s infinite  mercy, to the joy that brings us, to our mission to bring that mercy to the world.  For him, the works of mercy are like the beating of a heart, the systolic and diastolic rhythms of compassion and action. 

It is no surprise that among his favorite images from the gospel is the story of the prodigal son, of the father who watches endlessly for his son’s return and rushes out in joy when that return finally occurs.:

In the church, the God we encounter is not a merciless judge but is like the father in the gospel parable.  You may be like the son who left home, who sank to the depths…God is always waiting for you.  God embraces you, kisses you, and celebrates.  That is how the Lord is. 

For us, observing and listening to this man in action, the choice is clear. As he shows a way out of the wilderness that has lost Catholicism both its members and its impact, how do we respond? Do we identify with the Father who continues to reach out to embrace those who’ve been lost? Or are we more like the “good son” who stayed behind, resentful that others get the attention we might deserve, unhappy to hear that relieving their suffering is not only more urgent, but more important,  than our continued comfort? The choice is ours. But he is already showing us the way.

   © Bernard   F. Swain PhD 2015

#369 Revisited: “Was Jesus Married?” 10 Facts

Harvard's Karen King once again made headlines (New York Times, Boston Globe) last week when the fragment concerning the "wife of Jesus" was certified as no modern forgery, but an ancient text---though it is now dated from the 8th century. But the issues around Jesus' marriage remain as they were when the story first broke in 2012, so I am re-posting my blog from September 2012.

In the face of this week's ignorant media hype about a new discovery, let’s set the record straight…

Any talk of Jesus being married always stirs needless controversy, so this week’s news out of Harvard--about an ancient text in which Jesus speaks of “my wife”--poses the kind of teachable moment that calls for some serious fact checking.

Fact #1:  The belief that “Jesus never married” is not Catholic doctrine.  It is true that generations of Christians have assumed that Jesus was single, and passed on that assumption as a kind of pious tradition, part of our popular image of Jesus, like long hair and a beard.  But this popular belief is not in our creeds or our catechism; at most it is an informal, unofficial “teaching” commonly communicated to believers.  But Catholics are not required to believe this, and they never have been.

Fact #2: Believing that Jesus was married is not heresy.  The September 19 Boston Globe claimed that “The notion that Jesus may have been married” is “considered heretical by the Catholic Church.” This is just ignorant reporting.  To be heresy an idea must contradict an “orthodox” doctrine.  But since there is no official Catholic doctrine (one way or another) about Jesus’ marital status, then there is nothing to contradict. Hence heresy on this question is impossible.  Claiming Jesus married does clash with the popular tradition I mentioned above, but disagreeing with popular tradition is not heresy.

Fact #3: The Roman Catholic Church DOES allow married men to be priests.  That same Globe article claimed with similar ignorance that “These issues remain intensely relevant in Christianity today, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, which allows only celibate men to be priests.” Not true!

Catholicism embraces five different “rites ” or worship styles, and four of the five (often refer to collectively as the “Eastern Rites”) ordain married man as priests.  Only the “Latin Rite” requires celibacy of all candidates for the priesthood--and even that is changing, since former Anglican priests may now be accepted as Latin Rite priests even if they are married. The confusion is based on numbers: more than 90% of all Catholic priests belong to the Latin Rite, so celibate priests do outnumber married priests. But the Catholic Church allows both.

Fact #4: Priestly celibacy is not a doctrine.  History rather than doctrine explains why Latin Rite priests must be celibate while Eastern Rite priests may marry in.  Long ago all priests (except members of all-male religious communities) could be married, but in the 11^th century a general rule of mandatory celibacy was adopted for Latin Rite priests. That rule was never adopted for the Eastern Rites.  So the fact here is simple: priestly celibacy is just a rule; there were married priests before this rule was adopted, they are still married priests outside that rule’s jurisdiction, and there will be married priests again whenever the rule is dropped.

Fact #5: We do not actually know if Jesus was married or single.  Our best source is the books of the New Testament, and these books are totally silent on the question.  In fact, they’re totally silent about Jesus from the age of 12 to the beginning of his public life at about 30.  We know virtually nothing of the adolescence and early adulthood of Jesus--the very period when his own culture would have expected him to marry.  If, as a hypothetical argument, Jesus had been widowed in his mid-twenties, his married life would be invisible. It would have fallen into that huge gap in the gospel narratives--a gap that no other source can fill.  The fact is, we just do not know.

Fact #6: We will probably never know.  Harvard’s Karen King, who announced the new fragment, told reporters “It’s not saying we got the smoking gun that Jesus was married.” After all, just because one person writing long after the death of Jesus puts the words “my wife” in the mouth of Jesus does not mean we have discovered a new fact, or even that many others believed it to be so.  And it certainly does not mean these were Jesus’ own words. It just means one person wrote it, true or not, for reasons we cannot know. 

The fragment probably dates from the late fourth century, and may be based on a text from the mid-too-late second century--that is, more than a century after Jesus’ death.  All of the New Testament books are closer to Jesus’ lifetime.  There is nothing in the new discovery that can penetrate the silence of the New Testament.  That silence is definitive, and I can think of no way anyone could penetrate that silence.

Fact #7: The old evidence trumps any new discoveries.  All of the other ancient texts and alternative “gospels” that have fueled books like The DaVinci Code are also further from Jesus time than the authentic Biblical texts.  Most of these alternative texts were specifically rejected as less than reliable during the process of forming the Christian Bible as we know it today.

We are often told history is written by the winners, and the simple fact is the winners are the texts that made it into the New Testament “canon,” which means literally the “yardstick” by which we measure the value of any text about Jesus.  All the alternative texts were the losers, simply because they failed to measure up.  As sources go, the New Testament trumps any other source we can realistically imagine

Fact #8: The New Testament evidence is not clear.  What does the New Testament’s silence mean?  Some argue it means Jesus was single, or his wife would have been mentioned along with his mother, father, and brothers.  Others argue the silence means Jesus had been married, since his culture saw a celibate adult male as abnormal, and we would expect the Gospels to mention someone challenging him, and Jesus offering a response and defense.

Both arguments are logically coherent, but neither one has much evidence to support it.

In other words, the Gospels’ silence cannot really settle the question.  We can speculate: what if, for example, Jesus were widowed before his public life began? His wife might not be mentioned simply because she was no longer present. But any such answer is just speculation.  We know the texts are silent, but we cannot tell for sure what that silence means.

Fact #9: If Jesus was married, our core Christian beliefs remain unchanged.  Nothing in our creeds, are catechisms or our theological principles about Jesus Christ is based on the premise of Jesus’ celibacy.  If Jesus was married, then the popular devotion about his single state would be inaccurate--but nothing else would change.  My Catholicism does not hang on this question, and yours should not either.  For me, the question of Jesus’ marital status is nothing more than idle curiosity.  It is not a deal breaker--or even a game-changer--for my faith. It clearly did not matter enough (one way or the other) to the authors of the Gospels, or to St. Paul, or to the other New Testament authors, to include any mention in their texts.

Fact #10: But it might change some attitudes.  Clearly much of Christian history has been ambivalent or even negative about marriage and sexuality (see CrossCurrents #359).  In the New Testament, St. Paul essentially regards marriage as a last resort so those who cannot hack celibacy do not fall into adultery.  And the assumption of Jesus as life-long celibate has often fueled the double standard by which celibates are superior to married people.  Many modern Christians would like to see that double standard fall, and see a golden opportunity in debunking the celibacy of Jesus.  More broadly, people who disparage the place of sexuality in Christian history might love the opportunity, with the leverage of a new “revelation,” to reboot Christianity over again and get it right this time.  Controversy over minor matters advances the cause and makes good newspaper copy--but such controversy does not fit the facts.

On this score, ironically, our Christian faith is rooted much more firmly in fact than most of the media coverage.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012

#391: The Finish Line

With the 2014 Boston Marathon less than 4 weeks away, the  finish Line has just been repainted on Boston's Boylston Street. So I am re-posting my blog about how last year's bombing transformed that iconic image.

An additional note: since I first posted this, the World Series Champion Red Sox paraded through Boston in November. When they reached the Finish Line, they stopped and placed their trophy on the line with a "Boston Strong" shirt draped over it. Now there are plans for a permanent memorial near the site.

     During the entire week following the Boston Marathon attack, the phrase that stuck in my mind was “the finish line”--for so many reasons.

For Bostonians, the Marathon Finish Line on Boylston Street has now become sacred ground--perhaps it is even becoming a sacred symbol, value, or idea.

Of course, the finish line has always been where the race ends, where the victors are crowned with laurels, where some arrive with arms raised in triumph while others stagger across or even collapsed onto it.   

But for all, since 1897, it has denoted the gold standard of running, since for most runners at Boston the aim is not to win but rather to finish the planet’s most prestigious road race.  Crossing that line is a personal victory for all of them.

But now that finish line has been transformed. It means more than before. One churchgoer returning to one of the Copley Square churches closed off as part of the crime scene said, “Now it’s a starting line too.”

From now on, the finish line is also where the bombs went off.  Future runners will finish only by passing the two spots where three people died and more than 200 others bled.  And very likely the finish line will soon have a memorial to the victims attacked on April 15, 2013.

     For Christians, of course, the symbolic power of the finish line is nothing new, since the Apostle Paul long ago employed the image of athletic achievement to describe his own life as his and approached:

“I have fought the good fight, I have run the good race, I have kept the faith:”--2 Timothy 4:7

And Paul himself was echoing the way the prophet Isaiah viewed life’s need for strength and endurance:

“But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.”--Isaiah 40:31

The stress in both images is not on competition, but on accomplishment, not on winning the race but on finishing the course, not on the contest but on the journey and its destination.

Later Christians built on these images to establish a long tradition of seeing our life as a journey.  This view evolved from seeing life as a race to the image of a pilgrimage which follows its path to its end—but the idea of the race to the finish line was never lost. 

No doubt part of the popularity of the Boston marathon lies in its power to evoke our life’s long struggle to endure all trials and overcome all obstacles until we finally arrive at our natural end.

Sometimes someone’s life actually fits this image.  When my father died last year at 94, my wife said, “He died at the end of his life”--a life that really was a long, fully lived journey to its natural finish (see CrossCurrents #370, “A Quietly Heroic Life”).

But this is not always so.  As Boston 2013 showed and life teaches, the finish line can be moved. 

Runners still on the Boston course after the bombing were stopped short of 26.2 miles.  Yet they were awarded medals for finishing, which meant that for some the finish line was Kenmore square, for others Commonwealth Ave., for others someplace further back along the course.  The finish line moved, caught them unawares, and suddenly ended their races.

The same is true in life, since for some of us the finish line of life arrives well before anyone expects.

I have already written about the child whose life was more like a sprint than the marathon, ending only eight short weeks after his birth (see CrossCurrents #378, “Precious Child”).

As I drafted this piece, another young Boston University student died in a house fire, the 11th BU student to be killed (counting the marathon victim) in the last 12 months.

And on Wednesday, April 17—two days after the bombs and 24 hours before the suspects’ images became public—another runner reached his early finish line.  Our close friends’ son Matthew Shea had suffered leg pains while running high school track; these led to a 10-year-long effort to outrun the cancer infecting his body.  Through several remissions and relapses he not only persevered but filled his life with more acts of courage, generosity, and love than many people achieve in three times his lifespan. He died at 27 knowing, as did his loved ones, that he had run the good race with steadfast hope no matter how fast his finish line was approaching.

In reality, the same is true for all of us.

We are all alike in living our lives as a journey that (for most) is more like a marathon than a sprint.  But we are all unique in that, while we all run the same race of life, each of us runs a personal race on a different personal course.  For each of us, the finish line is different.  For each of us, the finish line is a moving target.  For each of us, its final location cannot be known.  

We may pace ourselves like marathoners, looking forward to careers and vacations and children growing and marriages and grandchildren and retirement. But that is like saving enough energy to get over Heartbreak Hill and still have enough left for the last few miles to the official end of the race. The fact is that our own personal finish line may not be at the end of the official course (called “life expectancy”). For each of us, the finish line may be just round the next corner.

Yet we run on, filling our lives with as much joy and love and hope and courage as we can before our finish line arrives—and trying always to be prepared for it.

For those who died on April 15, 2013, the marathon’s finish line was their unexpected finish.  For the injured, it was a turning point; their lives are changed forever.  And for all of us, it was the reminder that none of us controls the course we run.

Six days after the Boston bombings, the London Marathon was held amid heightened security.  The runners wore black memorial ribbons and made their intentions clear: they are determined to make a show of strength in the face of violence at Boston 2014. 

So next year we can expect more runners, more wheelchair racers, more midnight cyclists, more volunteers and spectators and memorial honors.  The 118^th running of the Boston marathon may well surpass the record numbers of the 100^th running.

And for all those hundreds of thousands along the course in whatever capacity, as well as the millions watching on TV and Internet, that famous and now sacred finish line on Boylston Street will mean more than ever, especially at 2:50 PM.

Perhaps there will be some special moment of commemoration.  Perhaps the church bells will toll.  And if they do, all of us will know they toll not only for those who died, not only for those injured or traumatized, but for all of us who each day, all our lives, run toward life’s certain, sacred, but unknown finish line.

And that will be our shining moment to show that Boston has found new strength, and will not grow weary.

  © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

#414: The Pope and His Saint: 10 Keys to Understanding Francis

Here are 10 reasons why our first Jesuit pope may in fact be the greatest “Franciscan” of all.

Once a pope makes the covers of Time and Rolling Stone, it’s obvious the PR machine is hard at work shaping that man’s public image.  This makes Pope Francis both more visible and easier to misunderstand, since PR is prone to pigeon-hole people so that our impressions of them are reduced to the mental equivalent of sound-bites.  When Rolling Stone says Francis is to John XXIII as Keith Richards is to Chuck Berry, it creates a sharp image for a generation raised on rock music, but gives us no insight into the difference between guitarists and popes.  To understand this pope, we need a more nuanced perspective.

Everyone knows that Francis is Jesuit.  And everyone knows he named himself after Saint Francis of Assisi.  So is worth asking: why choose the founder of the Franciscans rather than the famous Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier?  And the answer opens the gate to deeper understanding, for it turns out that our new pope is, in many ways, as much a “Franciscan” as he is a Jesuit.

Most Americans have a vague sense of Saint Francis’ importance.  San Francisco bears his name.  The California missions reflect the legacy of Franciscan missionaries.  The San Diego Padres are named after them. Some Americans attend Franciscan schools, and many coffee-lovers know that cappuccino is so named because its color matches the traditional Franciscan “capuche” (hood).

But to grasp this pope’s “Franciscan” identity, one must look to Saint Francis himself.  In a recent re-reading of Donald Spoto’s biography The Reluctant Saint, I found 10 ways in which the pope echoes the saint.  Each is a key to a fuller understanding of Pope Francis.

1. Identifying With the Poor.  Saint Francis made the poor a chief focus of his work.  This was a radical move in a time when (much like ours) the Church was seen as a place of privilege and ambition.  Spoto says “Francis’ identity with the social fringe could have been seen as a revolution against the Church.” He also points out that Francis chose poverty for himself as well.  This “did not primarily mean having no possessions but rather not been possessive about anything or anyone”--to make sure that nothing wedged into the bond between himself and God.

Pope Francis has likewise made the poor his priority from day one, and his work and lifestyle in Argentina and in Vatican City embody a commitment to a simple detachment from possessions.

2. Action Over Theory.  Saint Francis was a man of prayer, but he was no theologian.  Rather than ponder the subtleties of scripture, he acted out its Gospel spirit.  Thus he mixed contemplation and action, breaking the monastic tradition of cloistered living.  This fusion of the “via contemplativa” and the “via activa” proved a powerful inspiration for several 20^th century heroes: Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Dag Hammarskjold, and Martin Luther King.  And it inspires Pope Francis today as he calls for a Church that proves its spiritual values by acting them out. This contrasts sharply with Benedict XVI, who never escaped the persona of an ivory-tower intellectual more comfortable in his study that in the trenches.

3. Preaching Peace and Service.  Saint Francis was known as a powerful but simple preacher, and Spoto tells us that the theme of his preaching was “Invariable: peace among individuals.” By this Francis meant the refusal to seek vengeance to defraud, to hurt others--but also it meant “the conformity of every life to the spirit of the gospel, which meant an ethic of loving service.”

Clearly Pope Francis has embraced Peace as his own theme: thus his early decision to wash the feet of prisoners (men and women, Christians and Muslims alike) and his recent public appeals for peace in Syria and Ukraine.

4. A New Model of Evangelization.  When Saint Francis abandoned the old monastic model, he introduced a new but simple strategy: he went out to people, “meeting them wherever they were and speaking to them in their own language and style.”

From the day of his election, Pope Francis has modeled himself on the saint: asking for the crowd’s blessing on his first appearance, wading into the slums of Rio during World Youth Day, proclaiming to clergy everywhere the need to become less enclosed, less “self-referential,” and to reach out to others.  When an Italian journalist (a non-believer) published an open letter to the pope, Francis personally called him to arrange an interview.

5. Rejecting Anger.  Saint Francis’ time was tainted, like ours, by corruption among clergy.  Yet he urged only charity in confronting them:

We must be careful not to be angry or disturbed at the sin of another, for anger and disturbance impede charity in us and others. 

In fact, this was the saint’s attitude to everyone: public sinners, reprobates, even felons.  That same attitude has been the pope’s all along.  He began by calling himself a sinner, uttered his famous “Who am I to judge?” about gays, and has proclaimed that atheists and non-believers can be good people and even partners in building peace and justice.  He has made himself a model of charity like his model saint. 

6. No Condemnations.  This attitude led both the saint and the pope to proclaim a God of mercy rather than condemnation. As Spoto observes:

There was in Francis none of the sanctimonious sensor; he rarely alluded to damnation, and he pronounced no condemnations against any person or any specific belief.  Such a loving, positive of the embrace of the Gospel had not been heard of in anyone’s memory. 

Clearly the pope has gone out of his own way to avoid anathemas, stressing God’s mercy at every turn and conveying the strong message that God’s church welcomes everyone.  Spoto refers to the saint’s “habit of forgiveness,” and we see this constantly in the pope.  Witness his recent moves to honor and rehabilitate the founder of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez, after years of Vatican censorship. 

7. Getting Beyond Rules.  When one of his friars became deathly ill fasting on Francis’ orders, Francis realized that his true power had to depend on something beyond rules:

From this time, he was on the alert never to set down all require adherence to an abstract set of laws; the norms of charity and good example would henceforth always take precedence.

When the pope washed the feet of laypeople instead of seminarians, when he refused to live in the papal palace, when he rode with fellow bishops to pay his own hotel bill, when he carried his own luggage--on all these occasions, Pope Francis shown a willingness, even a penchant, for making good example his priority even if it meant going beyond the rules, protocols, and customs that surround the papacy.

8. Courtesy.  Saint Francis was from a moneyed family. Early on he aspired to knighthood, and all his life he remained a francophile--so the spirit of chivalry was built into his character: “Ever the courtly knight, Francis believed that kindness and gratitude superseded mere human prescriptions.”

So for him, simple courtesy was often reason enough to set aside the usual norms.  When his old friend Jacoba arrived at his deathbed, she was challenging the rule against women in his private quarters.  But his chivalrous spirit prevailed even as he lay dying: “The command against it need not be observed in the case of this lady,” he said.

Pope Francis, like any pope, lives a life apart from others, yet he repeatedly demonstrates his own chivalrous nature.  Whether he is donning funny hats, waving a soccer jersey, joining a group of teens for history’s most famous “selfie,” kissing a man afflicted with skin disease, or simply allowing a young child to hug his leg while he continues preaching, the pope’s public appearances offer ample evidence of his natural kindness and warmth.

9. Doctrinal Conservatism.  Saint Francis broke no ground on church teachings.  Not only was he not a theologian or bishop, he was also essentially conservative in relation to the controversial movements of his day.  Against the heretical Cathars, he praised the material world.  He remained faithful to the Church’s creeds, he did not favor distributing vernacular bibles.  He did not even claim the right to preach doctrine at all.

So too, Pope Francis shows no inclination to challenge official teachings.  Rather, he seems bent (as was his namesake) on challenging the failure of even his fellow bishops to live up to those teachings or present them in an authentic way.  He seems especially convinced that many bishops have strayed from the central priorities of our tradition.  Like his namesake, he models a focus on the radical core of Catholic tradition over a preoccupation with its bells and whistles.  Ironically, this promotes a radical renewal without touching doctrine!

10. Resistance from the Guardians of the Status Quo. Spoto describes the gap between Saint Francis’ hopes for his “lesser brothers” and the clerical order the Franciscans became, and blames that gap on church officials bent on protecting the existing hierarchical system from Francis’ radical vision:

The hierarchy of the church, struggling to retain its identity against the tide of Muslims and heretics, simultaneously admired and feared Francis of Assisi…In the end, as institutions will do, the church did away with everything that identified the friars with the poor…The lesser brothers became a clerical order.”

Similarly, there are rumblings about disquiet among both the curia and the hierarchy about Pope Francis’ agenda--and the blogosphere is full of “traditionalist” Catholics already convinced this pope is dangerous, a heretic, or even the antichrist.

The difference, of course, is that Pope Francis has power that Saint Francis never had.  He can and has fired bishops, curial officials, and bureaucrats.  He can enforce his vision for a genuine, kind, non-judgmental Church that reaches out and makes service to the poor its priority.

In short, dealing with resistance is the one area where being a pope offers the advantage over being a saint!

But all told, these 10 qualities go long way to explaining what makes our new Francis tick.  For all his Jesuit training and experience, he clearly takes special inspiration from the saint whose name he chose, and whose rare qualities he echoes so loudly today.  In that sense, Pope Francis may be the greatest “Franciscan” of all.

  © Bernard  F. Swain PhD 2014