#439: After That October Day, America Would Never Be the Same

Last month’s US visit by Pope Francis was the most recent chapter in a story that began 50 years ago this month.

Except for Church insiders and those following the extended reporting of John Cogley in the New York Times or “Xavier Rynne” in the New Yorker, the seismic shift of Vatican II (1962-1965) meant little to Americans, including American Catholics, until the first shockwave reached our shores in the Fall of 1965.

This is the moment when Paul VI broke all tradition and precedent (popes had been, quite literally, “prisoners of the Vatican” for the previous 94 years) by traveling across the Atlantic to deliver his Church’s message to the world. Pope Paul VI, the “Pilgrim Pope,” became the first pope to ever visit the United States.

The scene was the stuff of high theater…

Shortly after Amintore Fanfani, Foreign Minister of Italy and President of the twentieth session of the United Nations General Assembly, had called the meeting to order, he and Secretary General U Thant provided the official escort down the main aisle. Soon, only the slim, white-robed figure stood at the green marble rostrum.

     Pope Paul VI, only hours from his arrival, had already presided over a special service at St. Patrick's Cathedral and met with President Lyndon Johnson at Waldorf Towers under the tightest security precautions ever taken in New York City; that meeting had to be “private” because the U.S. did not yet have diplomatic relations with the Vatican City, so this was not officially a State Visit. Quite a contrast with 2015, when both the White House and the Congress officially welcomed the pope as a visiting Head of State!

Later, Pope Paul would present U Thant with a diamond-studded cross and ring (valued at $115, 000, to be sold to raise funds for alleviating world hunger), meet with a small interfaith group at Holy Family Church on East 47th Street, celebrate Mass before 90,000 people at Yankee Stadium, and visit the Vatican Pavilion at the New York World's Fair to gaze at Michelangelo's Pieta before flying back to Rome.

The Papal Mass Yankee Stadium

But this was moment he had really come for--the moment he had been invited for when planning for a UN conference on "Peace on Earth" began at Santa Barbara's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in 1963. Since the Center's inspiration came from John XXIII's encyclical letter Pacem in Terris, it had seemed fitting to invite his successor to address the UN. Now he stood before the General Assembly, the first Pope to visit the New World. He spoke in French.

     Many listeners expected no more than polite and pious boilerplate, but he had not made the trip for nothing. As Drew Middleton of the New York Times reported, "The Pontiff's address, with its emphasis on universality, disarmament and the development of a world authority, went far beyond the simple pleas expected by most of the delegates." In fact, Paul delivered one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century.

Pope Paul Addressing the UN General Assembly

Specifically, Paul appealed to outlaw all nuclear weapons, issued his famous "Jamais plus de guerre!" cry, urged more concerted action on hunger, and, in "the most controversial part of the speech," advised the UN to admit Red China. Most surprising and significant of all, however, were the Pope's extended remarks about his own church and the UN itself. He began by characterizing the trip's importance from the Catholic point of view:

Like a messenger who, after a long journey, finally succeeds in delivering the letter which has been entrusted to him, so we appreciate the good fortune of this moment, however brief, which fulfills a desire nourished in the heart for nearly twenty centuries. For, as you well remember, we are very ancient; we here represent a long history; we here celebrate the epilogue of a weary pilgrimage in search of a conversation with the entire world, ever since the command was given to us: Go and bring the good news to all peoples. .

Next, he challenged the UN to an extraordinarily exalted view of its own mission:

Now, you represent all peoples...The edifice which you have constructed must never fall; it must be perfected and made equal to the needs which world history will present. You mark a stage in the development of mankind from which retreat must never be admitted, but from which it is necessary that advance be made.

The Pope paused. Then, in the measured tones of the career diplomat he was, he sharpened his point by comparing the UN's global mission to Catholicism's:

You are a bridge between peoples. You are a network of relations between states. We would almost say that your chief characteristic is a reflection, as it were, in the temporal field, of what our Catholic church aspires to be in the spiritual field: unique and universal. Your vocation is to make brothers not only of some, but of all people.

Finally, he sought to convince his listeners that his Church's own concern with humanity's spiritual needs should link, rather than separate, the two organizations:

This edifice which you are constructing does not rest upon merely material and earthly foundations, for thus it would be a house built upon sand; above all, it is based on our own consciences. The hour has struck for our "conversion," for personal transformation, for interior renewal. We must get used to thinking of humanity in a new way...With a new manner, too, of conceiving the paths of history and the destiny of the world...The edifice of modern civilization must be built upon spiritual principles which alone can, not only support it, but even illuminate and animate it.

     It was October 8, 1965. Vatican Council II would end just eight weeks later, but until now it had remained a distant blip on most Americans’ radar. Paul had used this speech to announce the Council’s agenda in the most public way imaginable.

Demands on New York's communication system were greater than for the Kennedy funeral and the five Gemini moon shots combined; A.M. Rosenthal, then the Times' metropolitan editor, called it "the saddest professional day in our lives," because a strike kept the paper's papal coverage off the stands.  But millions saw the TV coverage of the pope landing in New York, the pope meeting the President of the United States, the pope before the UN, the Pope saying mass at Yankee Stadium.

Even then, however, few observers realized that the agenda Paul proclaimed simply as his Church’s “weary pilgrimage in search of a conversation” had already put this vast and ancient organization on a collision course with its own past.

The stated intention at Vatican II was not “collision’” of course; it was “renewal.” Even so, anything new in an institution so old, any move from point A to point B, held the risk of disrupting long-accepted ways.

Francis in America

Vatican II set a course correction for the world’s largest organization, and 50 years later that course is still disputed. But the recent visit by Francis has made 2 things perfectly clear. First, the place of the Catholic Church in American life is more public and powerful than ever before. Second, Francis intends to steer that Church back onto the course intended by Vatican II, especially by his insistent focus on the twin “north stars” of Mercy and Justice.

And thus our Church continues that “conversation with the entire world” that Paul VI began 50 years ago.

Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#211: Our German Shepherd

Here is the third and last reprise of my coverage of Benedict XVI's US visit in 2008:

In one fell swoop, Benedict XVI has gone from bad press to terrific PR. As the Associated Press reported, “Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. visit left behind the impression of a compassionate and candid leader who has made a successful transition from professor to pope.”

After three years of mainly negative reports (CrossCurrents readers will note I’ve argued such reports were mostly undeserved), the Pope used massive media coverage to great advantage.

"Basically, he seems like a nice guy," National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen said, "which already is an advance over what some of his publicity was three years ago when he was elected."

The element of surprise served Benedict's extremely well during his US visit. 

Catholics who doubted the Vatican would ever appreciate how grievously wounded the sex abuse scandal had left American Catholicism were stunned but also pleased to learn of the Pope's unprecedented face-to-face meeting with five victims from the Archdiocese of Boston.

No one had predicted the scandal would occupy pride of place in so many of the Pope’s messages, yet by the time he’d mentioned it to bishops, worshippers at Nationals Stadium, and those gathered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Yankee Stadium, millions of Catholics began to feel that maybe, just maybe, the Pope really did “get it”—even if there was no mention of action to hold bishops accountable for what he called “badly handled” abuses cases.

Those expecting a stern task-master found instead a quiet, gentle, even elegant figure with a ready smile and sparkling eyes.  Most observers were unexpectedly struck by the Pope's evident pleasure to be visiting the one country where religious vitality and modernity cohabit in relative peace—what George Weigel has called the "Un-Europe."

Indeed, Benedict XVI viewed “up close and personal” appears every bit the shy, retiring professor who, after loyally serving John-Paul II for 22 years by playing the role of the Vatican's watchdog, has been liberated by his new office to simply be himself. 

So we watch a brilliant scholar and congenial pastor performing his priestly and professorial duties for the people he personifies.  No longer the “Vatican Rottweiler,” Benedict had suddenly become our “German Shepherd”!

Even so, American Catholics should not have been surprised by the contrast confronting them when Benedict addressed the United Nations. 

As citizens, we've long witnessed the rollercoaster of US-UN relations, capped since 2000 by the Bush administration's open hostility, including the appointment of a virtual anti-ambassador to the UN.  As believers, however, we've seen the Church's rock-solid support of the U.N. extend over more than 40 years. 

Paul VI, the pilgrim Pope, first addressed the UN in October 1965.  His address—justly famous for his call for nuclear disarmament and the dramatic plea "Jamais plus de guerre! War never again!"—also included extravagant praise for the then-young United Nations:

You are a bridge between peoples. You are a network of relation between states. We would almost say that your chief characteristic is a reflection, as it were, in the temporal field, of what our Catholic Church aspires to be in the spiritual field: unique and universal. Your vocations is to make brothers not only of some, but of all people…The edifice which you have constructed must never fail; it must be perfected and made equal to the needs which world history will present.

That history brought John-Paul II’s charismatic presence to the General Assembly's podium twice.  In 1979 he called for a world beyond Cold War, one that balanced the equitable distribution of material goods (touted by communist regimes) with the free and open sharing of spiritual values (espoused by capitalist societies). In 1995 he argued that while everyone can embrace basic human rights based on human reason, they can be guaranteed only by reference to transcendent faith-values

Through all these visits, the unmistakable common thread has been the Church's commitment to the UN’s importance and mission.  This Papal willingness to side with the UN reflects the central theme of Vatican II: bringing the Church more directly into public life—bringing Wisdom to Power.

Benedict followed suit in style. At Yankee Stadium, Benedict made this point explicitly, saying that building the Kingdom of God “means rejecting a false dichotomy between faith and political life, since, as the Second Vatican Council put it, ‘there is no human activity - even in secular affairs - which can be withdrawn from God’s dominion.’ ”

At the United Nations, he devoted his entire address to honoring the sixtieth anniversary of the UN's founding document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

Praising the UN as a "moral center” for promoting a “family of nations," the Pope observed that the UN's founding principles "constitute the ideals which should underpin international relations."

He immediately targeted the US invasion of Iraq (but without naming names) by proclaiming that such ideals are:

All the more necessary at a time when we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action by the international community.

Beyond this call for international coordination, he appealed for a solidarity wherein strong nations would act to support weak nations.  The unity of the human family, he insisted, requires that rights be balanced by responsibilities—and especially the “responsibility to protect.”  If a nation fails to protect its own people, he said, the international community should intervene with legal and diplomatic instruments capable of "pre-empting and managing conflicts.” 

The Pope then launched into a brief argument for the "universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights."

Clearly Benedict sees such human rights as the key to peace:

The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security. Indeed, the victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then become violators of peace.

But he also believes human rights will never be secure if they are regarded as merely legal provisions, rather than natural endowments.  Like John-Paul II, he argued that such rights are "based on the natural law inscribed in human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations.”

Here the Pope echoed Thomas Jefferson's words from the Declaration of Independence, where rights are proclaimed to be "inalienable" since they are things with which humans are "endowed by their creator." 

Of course, Jefferson famously named only three main rights, while the Catholic Church proclaims several more, including some (like healthcare) not recognized in the US.

In any case, Benedict’s appearance (which was the formal impetus for his US visit) reminds us that, despite our national ambivalence about the UN and the internationalism it represents, certain things should be clear to American Catholics.

First, the UN can count on the Roman Catholic Church more than on the US for solid consistent support.

Second, the UN benefits from the global prestige of the Papacy.

Third, the Church benefits from papal UN addresses, which provide the most public stage possible for its social teachings to be heard.

Fourth, the world benefits from the partnership between Church and UN.

Indeed, if peace ever comes, it may well be midwifed by these two international institutions working hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2008

#210: The Evolution of Hope

This is the second of three pieces I wrote around Benedict XVI's visit to the US in 2008.

 

It is no secret that Benedict XVI has not enjoyed good press.  His speech on Christian-Muslim relations caused trouble for its unflattering references; Bin Laden has recently charged him with leading a “crusade” against Islam; his Easter Vigil baptism of a prominent Italian Muslim raised further suspicions that he sees the Church competing with Islam in a time when, we learned this week, Muslims now (and for the first time in history) outnumber Catholics.

But Easter season is a time for hope, and Benedict’s new encyclical “Spe Salvi” is fascinating for what it says about hope, and even more for what it says more about our time and our world.  Far from suggesting that Benedict is a fearful man who lacks hopefulness, this document reveals him as one who feels called to proclaim hope to a world badly in need of  it.

In this sense, this is very much a new kind of encyclical. To John XXIII’s openness to all humanity, Paul VI’s focus on contemporary issues, and John-Paul II’s sweeping vision of a global culture of life, Benedict adds his own personal urgency rooted in lifelong to scholarship and theological reflection . 

The first section focuses on the treatment of hope in scripture.  Here, says Benedict, we find that hope is virtually interchangeable with faith, since by their faith Christians know they have a future. This knowledge is not just information to be filed away, but it performs a practical function: it changes our lives.  We live differently because our faith gives us hope . 

He then reviews how faith-based hope is presented in both the New Testament and the early Church.  For Benedict, Christ’s teaching about the kingdom of God shows us what it means to be truly human by drawing the future into the present and creating a new foundation for life that puts into perspective our "habitual foundation" of routine daily concerns and crises, and gives a "new freedom" to live life in the light of eternity. 

(About “eternal life” he asks two delicate questions: What is it?  Do we really want it?  He admits the notion of “eternal life” in Catholic tradition has often been unhelpful. After all, if “eternal” means interminable, and “life” means the kind of life we already know--is all there is?  In fact, he says, we are driven beyond the life we know to hope for more, even though we cannot grasp what could be beyond: the "blessed life" in which we are all happy all the time!) 

Benedict then moves to an overview of how the very idea of hope has undergone an evolution. During the Renaissance, he claims, developments in technology and global exploration led to a new kind of faith--a faith in progress. And this, he thinks set in motion the "trajectory of modern times" which has led us, in his view, to a crisis of hope . 

This faith in progress depended on two things: the rise of reason and the rise of freedom.  By the 18^th century both of these took on political meaning, and both were seen in conflict with faith and Church.  In this conflict, hope was "rescued" from the custody of the Church 's faith and transformed into a political notion.  This happened in two stages.

First came the French Revolution, which claimed to liberate the victims of feudal aristocracy and ecclesiastical power on the basis of reason, and offered hope of a better life beyond monarchy and hierarchy. 

A second stage drew its inspiration from Karl Marx , who proposed a new revolution to liberate victims of industrialism by promising to replace the control of owners with a classless society. 

Benedict does not deny the noble aspirations behind these revolutions, but proposes two critiques: a critique of heaven and a critique of earth--that is , a critique of faith-based hope as well as a critique of politically-based hope.

In fact, Benedict does not really complain that both science and politics have progressed so far.  He does not blame either one for the crisis of hope he perceives.  Rather, he says, our spiritual formation has not kept pace.  This is very much the central view of Vatican II, which always argued that the central challenge of our time is to match modernity’s technical and political power with a spiritual wisdom capable of guiding that power into a future that is better and not worse than our past. 

But the basic question that Benedict sees underlying this challenge is: What do we really hope for?  If we hope for political structures or scientific achievements that will produce a happy world, he is convinced we are fooling ourselves.  In his view, freedom always remains freedom for evil as well as for good, and no structure can guarantee peoples’ goodness unless it destroys their freedom do so:

Certainly we cannot “build” the Kingdom of God by our own efforts—what we build will always be the kingdom of man with all the limitations proper to our human nature.

Personally, I have often wondered what it was about the widespread political turmoil of 1968, especially the rioting and revolt of students on campuses throughout Europe, that so altered Joseph Ratzinger’s posture in relationship to contemporary society.  In this encyclical, I believe, he presents his answer. 

For those of us who lived through that period as students, many were caught up in the romantic enthusiasm and euphoria of thinking we could actually change the world.  Some of us, however, managed to enjoy the electricity of the moment without being seduced by it. We recognized how naive it would be to expect the prevailing powers to simply yield to youthful idealism and without a fight.

But Joseph Ratzinger could not enjoy even the electricity, for his skepticism was deeper: he saw such enthusiasm as a dangerous capitulation to a false hope that ignored the reality of human nature and human freedom.  And here his pessimism culminates in his call for a critique of the "ambiguity  of progress."  

He is not against progress nor does he believe that the  Church should be, but he sees the evolution of hope that led to 1968 as duping people into the belief that progress would lead to a kingdom of God on earth.  So he repeats Vatican II’s concern that if technical progress is not matched by ethical formation, disaster can follow.  Reason needs faith, because freedom can never guarantee moral perfection.

But Benedict also has a critique of religion. For he believes Christianity has taken the wrong path of treating faith and spirituality as a purely private matter:

Modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task—even if it has continued to achieve great things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the suffering.

Benedict is wielding two blades at once here.  On the one hand he says all utopias eventually become unmasked, unable to produce the perfect society they promise.  To invest our hope in them is to doom ourselves to despair.  On the other hand, faith that retreats into private personal devotions forgets that our communion with Jesus involves a commitment to living for others and to worldly concerns.  If our drive to hope in something more than what we already have is to avoid despair, then our faith must match the idealism of utopia even while it offers more. 

I find Benedict's view somewhat dark but also quite profound.  I may be more optimistic in my view of hope than he is, but I have absolutely no doubt that the issue he addresses is as important as any issue we face today, not only in the Church but also in the world. 

And I also have no doubt that Benedict is raising this issue with a clarity and a power that no other public figure can offer. 

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2008

#209: The Pope of Hope

With Benedict XVI resigning this week, it is time to review what he accomplished during his papacy. The following is the first of a 3-part report from 2008, written at the time of his visit to the United States. This replay article offers a key to understanding the man who is resigning his papacy. The encyclical it summarizes hints more clearly than ever before why the man Joseph Ratzinger was willing to make the move from theologian to bishop to Vatican to Pope.
      The Pope is coming, and my question is: Are you ready for him? 

And perhaps there's no better way to prepare for his first U.S. visit in this Easter season  than to learn a bit about his latest encyclical SPE SALVI –“Saved by Hope.”

The New York Times called it “a complex but elegant argument for the necessity of hope,” and David Scott (who coined “Pope of Hope”) finds this encyclical establishing Benedict XVI’s place in history:

Nearly three years into his papacy, Benedict has emerged as the wisest leader on the world stage today, one who has thought deeply about what ails us in these troubled times and has offered compelling answers for what we should do about it. But very few people, even among Catholics, seem to have grasped this or taken him seriously.

Perhaps this is because Benedict’s press coverage has often been unkind, partly due to his prior reputation and partly due to self-inflicted gaffs.

To be perfectly honest, I must admit that, if Joseph Ratzinger had not become Benedict XVI, I would still be ignoring this man.  By ignoring I don't mean that I didn't know who he was.  I mean I actually avoided paying any attention to him.  The fact is that for the last 40 years, Joseph Ratzinger was not my idea of the kind of spokesperson the Catholic Church needed in the wake of Vatican Council II.

His style and tone seemed altogether too strict, too accepting of the very established church conventions Vatican II sought to renew, too fearful and critical of the contemporary world that Vatican II had sought to embrace.  I tended to prefer those theologians who seemed more enthusiastic about renewal: Karl Rahner, and Edward Schillebeeckx, Bernard Lonergan. 

But none of these men became Pope--and one does not ignore the Pope. So since his election as Benedict XVI I have found myself paying attention in a new way to this man , and close inspection of his major works suggest a complex figure who may reflect the complex age the Church is living through. 

It may even be that this man was born to write encyclicals --and to transform what a papal encyclical can be.  At 81, he may finally have found his true niche in life.  But if so, it has been a long and twisty path. 

By now we all know that as a teenager he was pressed into service as part of the Hitler youth.  After the war ended he spent the 1940s and 1950s living the life of the young priest and scholar.  Vatican II transformed his work when he became one of the theological experts to the German Bishops at the Council, where he served side by side with Han Kung. Their partnership got them both tagged as "progressives" in the theological movement to renew the Church, but while Kung has continued to confirm the label "progressive," Joseph Ratzinger’s public image has long since changed. 

It all happened around 1968, when the May ’68 revolt of Paris students spread across Europe and appeared briefly to portend a profound social revolution.  For professor Ratzinger comfortably teaching back on his German campus, the experience was mind-altering.  Henceforth his posture shifted, and his public image became that of a champion of orthodoxy rather than of change--though he still claimed, as always, to represent the cause of Church renewal and Vatican II.

Then, under John Paul II, he became head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith: the Vatican's "watchdog" of orthodoxy. He served in this role as a loyal soldier, and the private image of a gentle congenial personality was superseded by the public image of a strict and censorious judge.

Time will tell whether Ratzinger’s "watchdog" image was a true or false reflection of the real man, but so far it appears that (like many before him) election to the papacy has liberated him to become his true self. 

(I am reminded of the always compliant and obedient Angelo Roncalli who, in decades of church service, never rocked the Vatican's boat and seemed the prefect candidate to warm the papal seat as a do-nothing caretaker until a younger man could be chosen.  But once elected Pope, he had no one left to obey but God and his own instincts--and promptly called for an ecumenical council that still has the boat rocking 45 years later.)

Benedict’s first encyclical, “God is Love,” was an attempt to elaborate upon the basics of Catholic faith, not by returning to a pre-conciliar view of Catholicism but by cutting through much of the paraphernalia of Catholic tradition to illuminate its core.  Now he is focused on hope and, since he views hope as interchangeable with faith, the two encyclicals have now covered the main virtues of Christian live: faith hope and love.

This new encyclical is written in a distinctive personal style (some passages read like class lectures, and are best left for scholars). So in some ways it tells us as much about Joseph Ratzinger as it does about his views on hope. 

For example, his treatment makes several references to Saint Augustine.  It seems clear there is an intellectual affinity between Ratzinger’s way of viewing Christian faith and Augustine's.  But there is also a curious way that Benedict identifies with Augustine's life as well as his thought. 

This encyclical marks the second time in less than a year that Benedict has publicly referred to the moment when Augustine gave up his dream of forming in a monastic community to dedicate himself to pastoral leadership. The pope devotes an extraordinarily long passage to Augustine’s story:

After his conversion to the Christian faith, he decided, together with some like-minded friends, to lead a life totally dedicated to the word of God and to things eternal. His intention was to practise a Christian version of the ideal of the contemplative life expressed in the great tradition of Greek philosophy, choosing in this way the  “better part” (cf. Lk 10:42). Things turned out differently, however. While attending the Sunday liturgy at the port city of Hippo, he was called out from the assembly by the Bishop and constrained to receive ordination for the exercise of the priestly ministry in that city….

It's obvious why Benedict would draw on the thinking and writing of the best in, who remains one of the intellectual giants of Catholic tradition.  But why is he so struck by Augustine's story as well?  One point of identification is obvious: just as Augustine abandoned the life of meditation and prayer to work in Church leadership, Ratzinger surrendered the quiet and removed life of academic teaching and writing for the turmoil of Vatican politics and public exposure.

For Augustine this meant a totally new life...Amid the serious difficulties facing the Roman Empire…this was what he set out to do: to transmit hope, the hope which came to him from faith and which, in complete contrast with his introverted temperament, enabled him to take part decisively and with all his strength in the task of building up the city. On the strength of his hope, Augustine dedicated himself completely to the ordinary people and to his city—renouncing his spiritual nobility, he preached and acted in a simple way for simple people.

“To transmit hope”—here, I suspect, is the key to understanding both this document and Benedict’s true vocation.

For this encyclical hints more clearly than ever before why the man Joseph Ratzinger was willing to make the move from theologian to bishop to Vatican to Pope.  In writing about hope, he does more than review Catholic thought and teaching. He also reveals his own personal conviction that he must speak out beyond the academy to the public forum, whether as Vatican official or as Pope, precisely because he sees our current situation as a crisis--and specifically, he sees it as a crisis of hope.  

In fact, this encyclical offers a glimpse into the mind of Joseph Ratzinger through the Pope's personal reading of the intellectual history of the last five centuries, a history that in his view reflects an evolution in the idea of hope that has led us—not just Catholicism but the whole world--to a watershed moment: a crisis of hope that only faith can resolve.

It will be no small surprise if the Pope’s upcoming address to the United Nations does not focus on this very notion of the crisis of hope. 

And next time: The Evolution of Hope.    

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2008

#299: The Culture Clash Within Our Walls

EXCERPT:
The New York Times has published a Watergate-style investigative report revealing a secret Vatican meeting in April 2000, more than a year before Boston broke, where alarmed Bishops from twelve countries challenged Vatican officials to confront the sex abuse problem.

The Vatican has so far claimed that its Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) only received the mandate to investigate abuse cases in 2001, when authorized by Pope John Paul II. But the Times reported that Philip Wilson, Archbishop of Adelaide, notified the 2000 gathering of an authorization already in force since 1922, one which he had confirmed in the 1990s with then-CDF head cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI...

It now appears that John Paul II's hesitancy to acknowledge the crisis inhibited Ratzinger from exercising his own authority before 2001…Thus the Times charges that “the future pope, it is now clear, was also part of a culture of non-responsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction.”

For me, that word "culture" jumps out. It suggests this scandal cuts deeper than I had previously realized.

I have always known that the sex abuse crisis operated on two levels. First was the immoral, even criminal behavior of the priests. Second was the mishandling of those priests by bishops...

I have always considered the cover-up to be the bigger scandal, which had the graver consequences on millions of Catholics (especially younger adults) who lost all faith in the institutional church’s credibility and moral authority.
And now I fear the spreading crisis has revealed a third level: an ecclesiastical culture of non-accountability – of immunity from scrutiny or questioning -- that borders on a totalitarian hoarding of power.

Of course, the scandal itself has always been about power rather than sex: the predatory power of priests over children and adolescents, and the paternalistic power that bishops (obsessed with protecting priests) exercised over victims and their families.

But this third level is not about personal power to prey on others, nor about official power to favor priests over people. It is about absolute power (the kind Lord Acton said corrupts absolutely) to do and say whatever one wants -- no matter how stupid or harmful -- while remaining immune to any check or balance...

This culture of immunity, with its disconnect from reality and its blindness to power’s abuse, may well cause more harm to the Church than either the abuse itself or its mishandling by Bishops. In this day and age, such a culture repels almost everyone except those who benefit from its privileges -- and that number shrinks daily.

To the extent that such a culture pervades Catholic life, we will alienate younger generations far into the foreseeable future. They will leave ashamed of their own Church and heritage…

The sad irony is that Catholicism moved to establish a radically different culture of accountability almost 50 years ago…Vatican II (1962-1965) …called for a wide variety of gatherings -- synods, conferences, and councils -- on all levels of church life.

The idea was to disseminate decision-making so the challenges were addressed as locally as possible...Vatican II’s vision for collective decision making at all levels offered precisely the kind of participatory culture that builds confidence among members of any institution. It ensures that authorities at all levels must answer to others for their actions.

But that vision has faded to the degree that the Roman Curia has restored its pre-conciliar role as the all-purpose arbiter, often pre-empting the proper role of bishops, pastors, and even laity. This restoration of a culture without accountability clearly clashes with the cultural program of Vatican II.

Benedict XVI has said that the real threat to the Church now comes, not from outside, but from within. He’s right, but the threat is not primarily priestly misbehavior, or even the bishops’ cover-up, but an entire institutional culture of immunity...

I now fear that this cultural clash within the Church, along with the scandal itself, has become the main story of the post-Vatican II era. Unless this clash is resolved, it may be a long time indeed before people regain confidence in their Church.

How long, O Lord?