#447: Why Justice Scalia’s “Original” Genius Is a Bad Guide for Catholics

The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reminds us that how we interpret the past also guides us into the future—but his method is less helpful for the Church’s future. 

Any official document that guides a people must be interpreted, so that people know what it means.  And once the authors die, the task of interpreting falls to others. That is why we have the U.S. Supreme Court: to interpret the charter we call the U.S. Constitution. And the tributes following the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia make it clear that, for his contribution to how the Supreme Court functions, Scalia can arguably be ranked the most important Italian-Catholic in American history (with all due respect to Columbus and Frank Sinatra).

Scalia’s famous method for interpreting the Constitution was labeled either “originalism” or “textualism.” Either way, the strategy was to detect the true meaning of the Constitution in the words of the text itself, the legislation, without the “legislative history” (ideas, influences, sources, historical conditions or developments).

This strategy grew from Scalia‘s broader convictions.  Son of an academic, graduate of a Jesuit high school and college, trained in philosophy and theology and classical western culture, he developed deep respect for the rule of law, and a healthy suspicion that human nature often seeks to avoid or rationalize the demands of law into something more to our liking.

For Scalia, law reflects the agreements people reach to achieve a consensus about the basic question “How shall we live together?” Laws answer the question with standards of conduct, rules for proper procedure, and boundaries of what was acceptable behavior.  The law is thus a kind of fundamental social compact: it embodies agreement in the text--the very words--of any law.  Respect for such law, for such texts, is thus the foundation for the social solidarity of a people, guiding our unity against the whims and prejudices and disputes of the moment.  And thus the “rule of law” is superior to the “rule of man.”

Scalia knew that, in American Life, such rule is even more fundamental.  Our social solidarity does not come naturally to Americans.  We trace our roots to too many places; we emerge from too different cultures; we belong to too diverse races; we speak too many languages.  Even our shared national memories go back only a few generations.  Our nation of immigrants must find unity elsewhere then culture, or language, or race, or history.  And so we find it in the law, in the Constitution, which unites us by establishing the principals, the institutions, and the rights that we all share.  It is the Constitution which provides the unifying force that trumps (you should pardon the expression) all our differences.

This unifying function, Scalia knew, makes the Constitution our most sacred text--our “American scriptures.”  And that makes interpreting it a solemn responsibility.  In his view, that responsibility required a method of interpretation focused above all--or even only--on the text itself.  The aim was to determine “what did this text’s authors mean?” Any other meanings were either secondary or irrelevant.

But of course the practical result of this approach was to make Scalia one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative justices.  And it strikes me that many conservative Catholics find his approach equally attractive for interpreting things in Catholic life as well as American Life.  They prefer to stick to the texts of things, often taking them quite literally without reference to outside sources.

This is especially true when it comes to the documents of Vatican Council II (1962-1965).  Once the Council’s 16 documents were published in 1966, Catholics at all levels devoted untold hours to examining their texts.  And the impact of the Council has generally been determined by how the documents have been interpreted and explained.

Naturally those interpretations vary, and for 50 years three generations of Catholics have read the documents and come away with different meanings.  No wonder!  Compared to the U.S. Constitution, the documents of Vatican II are a dramatically more difficult interpretive challenge.  They cover hundreds of pages, they are translated from Latin originals into hundreds of languages, they draw on 20 centuries of thinking and practical experience, and they address not only constitutional workings of the world’s largest organization, but also its historical development, political system, practical procedures, and its priorities for the future.

This textual complexity was unavoidable, even necessary--but the results have been troubling.  Even 50 years later, no interpretation enjoys consensus.  Some Catholics view Vatican II calling for revolutionary change, while others see it affirming tradition.  Some find warrant for wide experimenting in liturgy, but others find a call to preserve Latin.  Some see justification for every for new moral teachings, but others find only permission to employ new wording for the old teachings.  Some see a historical watershed, others detect a call for continuity.

In most of these debates, all sides have invoked the Council’s texts to prove their case.  But this has not led to consensus, for the Council’s documents are so vast they provide--like the Bible itself--fuel for almost any position.

Personally, I have long believed that we cannot fully understand the work of Vatican II by focusing solely on the documents themselves. And Scalia’s death has forced me to clarify why.

Let’s began with an analogy: Vatican II is to its 16 documents as the Constitutional Convention is to the Constitution. 

In both cases, the texts we need to interpret are the products of a deliberative body--they were both “composed by committee” and then voted on.  Scalia argued that, once the members of the Constitutional Convention had committed their intentions to paper, our interpretation must be limited to what the text says.  Whether we agree or not, it is a reasonable position--and it has proven influential.  Even liberal justices have said of Scalia’s impact, “We are all textualists now.”

But this analogy limps, because the two cases are not exactly alike.  Here is the difference: for 50 years, Catholics have not quit talking (and debating) about “Vatican II”--meaning Vatican Council II.  But what is the last time you heard any one debate about the Constitutional Convention?  You see, Americans have always focused on the document, not the event that produced it.  But Catholics have always focused on the event, even if they never read the documents.

There are two reasons for this.  One is common sense: the Council was the biggest meeting in history: 2000 men gathering for four years in the glare of constant global publicity.  The second reason is more complicated, and has to do with how authority works in the Catholic Church.

The Roman Catholic Church is a hierarchical structure, with fairly centralized authority under the pope and Bishops.  But for Catholics, this authority is not supposed to be blind or arbitrary, for we believe that it enjoys the inspiring guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Thus, the Church’s authority always depends on the greater authority behind it: the will of God.

Now the highest ranking office is the pope, but even the pope’s authority is not as great as a general council, where the pope presides over the world’s bishops and they act together.  There have only been 21 such councils in Catholicism’s 20 centuries. By definition they are extraordinary events—events where, Catholics believe, the Spirit’s guidance is especially powerful.

For Catholics, what is sacred about Vatican II is not the documents themselves, but rather the Spirit’s presence, guiding the Church at that precise moment in history. In other words, it is in Vatican II as an event that we expect to find the Spirit working.  And this event was much greater than the documents it produced.  It began the moment Pope John XXIII conceived the idea of the Council within weeks of his election in 1958.  It continued through several years of preparations before the Council convened in October 1962.  It includes what John said about his intentions for the Council in speeches, interviews, and letters.  It includes the work of many commissions, the hundreds of speeches by the Council Fathers, the decision after John’s death to elect Paul VI, the working relationship between John and Paul, and Paul’s own statements during and after the council.

In short, we cannot interpret Vatican II’s meaning by looking only at its official texts.  To discern the divine guidance of the Spirit--to discover the sacred truth of the Council expressing the will of God--we must consider the entire event. Such consideration, far from complicating our interpretations, can actually clarify and simplify. 

For example, John XXIII more than once (including his speech opening the Council) called Vatican II “A New Pentecost” or even “A Second Pentecost.” Moreover, when John died and Paul VI was elected, he opened the Council’s next session (in October 1963) by quoting John about “The New Pentecost”! Since Pentecost marked the birth of the Church, John (and Paul) clearly intended Vatican II to bring about the rebirth of the Church.

 This was a lofty, historic, even heroic expectation--and no interpretation of Vatican II can leave it out. John’s vision, clearly grasped and embraced by his successor, must frame every interpretation of every text the Council produced.

 If the Catholic Church has not been “Reborn” in the last 50 years, then either we have failed to achieve the Council’s purpose, or we have never really understood (or accepted) it.

In sum, Antonin Scalia’s “textualism” is a plausible theory for interpreting the U.S. Constitution, for that document grounds our national unity even though we may not believe the Founding Fathers were divinely inspired.  But when Catholics interpret Vatican II, we affirm that the Council Fathers were divinely inspired, and so all their work--and not just the Texts they produced--demand our attention.

Thus we may say “Long Live the Constitution!” (meaning the text) but we also say “Long Live Vatican II” (meaning the event). In secular terms, we must honor not just the Council’s “legislation” but also its “legislative history.” After all, America is a nation of laws, but Catholics worship the God of history.

   © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#431: We Need the Right Kind of Leadership

Events in Ireland El Salvador can teach powerful lessons for the leaders of the Church in the United States. 

The recent Pew Research Center study on religious affiliation brings disquieting news: the number of American Catholics who have stopped practicing their faith has increased, especially among the millennial generation, since the last Pew study in 2007.  The Catholic Church is losing members faster than ever, and faster than any other Christian church.

But this begs the question: how can we stop, or even reverse, this trend?  I suspect there is no single answer, but last week’s events in two other countries suggest that one answer is: we need the right kind of leadership.

These countries are Ireland and El Salvador, and their contrasting experience shows the difference between two kinds of leadership: the right kind and the wrong kind.

This contrast may surprise us, since on the surface these two countries, though distant, are similar in several respects.  Both are small countries with small populations  (Ireland 4.6 million, El Salvador 6.3 million).  Both have overwhelmingly Catholic populations.  Both countries’ church hierarchies have had powerful cultural and political influence.  Both share a history of oppression at the hands of a foreign colonizer.  And both have seen grinding poverty.

Yet last week we saw sharply contrasting events.  In Ireland, the vast majority of Catholics, refusing to follow the Irish hierarchy’s opposition to same sex marriage, approved a constitutional revision legalizing civil marriage between gays.  That same week, thousands of Salvadorans attended (and millions celebrated) the beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero, soon to be Saint Oscar Romero.

Common sense tells us that leaders cannot lead if no one follows.  This raises a new question: why did Romero inspire such following, while the Irish hierarchy inspired rejection?  As we Americans witness so many (especially young) Catholics rejecting their Church, the question is both practical and urgent.  So the cases of Ireland and El Salvador are not just relevant, but also instructive.

One can argue that both the Irish and the Salvadoran church leaders have bad track records.  Once Ireland gained independence from Britain, the country’s clergy were among its most powerful figures (some have called Ireland at that time a Vatican colony!). Before becoming Dublin’s archbishop, John Charles McQuaid was a major architect of the Irish constitution, constructed on the principle that Irish law should reflect Catholic doctrine. The constitution specifically notes the "special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church" in national life. As Scholar Timothy White wrote:

By the time [Irish leader Eamon] De Valera wrote and Ireland enacted a new constitution in 1937, the Catholic religion was guaranteed a special role in society and the entire document adapted principles of corporatism that were popular in Church thinking at that time….De Valera’s constitution provided an effective and formal merger between the Catholic Church and the Irish nationalist elites.

Ireland was, as the New York Times wrote, “a theocracy in all but the name.” Many public institutions (like the schools) were in fact run by the Church. Several generations were thus raised by a domineering and harsh hierarchy who taught a version of Catholicism obsessed with rules and sex and guilt.  The result was not only a morally repressive culture but an appalling array of oppressive Catholic institutions (from parishes to schools to hospitals to convents to orphanages to homes for single mothers) that achieved the psychological and even physical enslavement of many Irish Catholics.

In my first parish job, in 1972, I asked the pastor and his assistant priest, both Irish nationals, why they had come to America to work.  Without hesitation or reflection, both give the same answer: “I came to escape the Irish clergy.” Since then, revelations of widespread clergy sex abuse and exploitation of girls has reinforced popular disgust with the hierarchy.

In El Salvador, the story was slightly different.  Independence from Spain left in place a moneyed elite that owned most of the country’s land and dominated its institutions, including the Church itself.  The Salvadoran clergy, as part of the country’s small educated elite, came mostly from the wealthy landowner families.  This was especially true of many Salvadoran bishops.

Thus El Salvador’s Catholic leadership maintained a longtime partnership with the ruling elite (including the military) that maintained its status by perpetuating the gap between rich and poor.  By preaching that their suffering was God’s will, the hierarchy helped keep the poor in their place.

But by Romero’s time, the hierarchy was shifting its mission, as Vatican II (1962-1965) inspired change in the Church in Latin America. At the historic Medellín (Colombia) conference in 1968, the region’s bishops decided to abandon their traditional role as defender of the status quo and to support the poor struggling for social justice.

Romero was known as a conservative, skeptical of both Vatican II and Medellín. Yet on his appointment as Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977, Romero became almost immediately outspoken in opposing injustice and defending the poor. He had witnessed the suffering poor and government violence even against priests in his previous role as bishop in Santiago de María, which made him distrust authorities and fear for his people.

Oscar Romero had the courage to break with bad leadership and lead another way.  He took the side of the poor, decried their oppression, and became a prophetic voice for all the marginalized and destitute of El Salvador.  But this break made him not only a threat to the elites but even a traitor to his class, and his punishment was assassination during Mass at the hands of a government-sponsored death squad.

The 1980 Funeral of Oscar Romero

Thus Romero became a blessed martyr because he championed the suffering poor against their powerful oppressors.  In this he communicated the truth of the Gospel.

But the Irish hierarchy, meanwhile, was not the partner of an elite oppressor - -it was itself the perpetrator of oppression.  And unlike Romero, it never broke from its harsh and abusive practices.  Instead, as Ireland grew more prosperous and Ireland’s links to other countries (especially the U.S.) grew stronger, the nation’s culture drifted away from the rule of bishops.  In effect, the Irish began to assert a “second independence” (first from the British, now from the Church).  The huge turnout for the gay marriage referendum and a 2-to-1 vote in favor was the result.  For many, the vote was not so much about redefining civil marriage, or about accepting gays, or even about expanding constitutional rights.  Instead, for many Irish voters, this was their “Declaration of Independence” from the Catholic hierarchy.

For me, the lessons from El Salvador and Ireland are obvious and important.  First, leadership that distorts Catholic tradition to serve some other agenda (especially the preservation power) is bad leadership, so finally people refuse to follow.  Second, defending systematic inequality as God’s will is one such distortion of our faith.  Third, rule by sexual repression is another such a distortion of faith.  Fourth, only by breaking away from such distortions and preaching the authentic Gospel message can Catholic leaders restore people’s confidence in their own leaders.  Only then will people follow the leader.

For American Catholics, these lessons invite reflection.  If we are losing members, especially young members, is our leadership somehow responsible?  Has our hierarchy championed the Gospel message?  Has it been, like Jesus, committed to “preach good news to the poor”? Has it, like Jesus, chosen “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed”?

Or has our hierarchy too often complacently accepted the growing gap between the 1% in the 99%?  Has it too often been sidetracked by its “culture wars” obsession with all things sexual?  Has it lost the trust of millions of millennials by its horrific failure to protect children and discipline their priestly molesters? 

In short, is the hemorrhage of U.S. Catholics best understood not as a crisis of faith among the young, but rather as a crisis of credibility of among our leaders?

Blessed Oscar Romero inspires millions of Catholics (in America as well as El Salvador) as a model of holy, courageous, and effective leadership.  Does he also inspire our bishops?  Can they become credible leaders like him?  If yes, perhaps more of us will be inspired to follow them.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#397: A Truly Jesuit Pope

After merely 100 days, the new pope is already quietly charting  a different course for the Church...

It seems like Pope Francis keeps catching my eye with an outlook unlike any pope since Blessed (soon Saint) John XXIII.  This time it was the remarks Francis made to a group of papal nuncios, who nominate bishops in each country whenever there is a vacancy.  Francis was talking about the kind of candidates he wanted them to look for, and he was characteristically blunt about what kind of candidate to avoid. According to Thomas Reese in the National Catholic Reporter:

Pope Francis described the kind of persons he wants them to put forward. He wants pastors who are "close to the people, fathers and brothers." They should be "gentle, patient and merciful; animated by inner poverty, the freedom of the Lord and also by outward simplicity and austerity of life." They should "not have the psychology of 'Princes.'"…The pope specifically warned them against ambitious prelates who want to be promoted from one diocese to a more prestigious one. He cited the ancient view that bishops "are married to a Church" and should not be "in constant search of another."

     And the Catholic News Service quoted Francis acknowledging that what he was asking for was not easy:

"It's a delicate task," the pope said. "Beware of those who are ambitious, who seek the episcopacy."

These remarks reminded me that Francis is a Jesuit, and confirmed my experience of the sharp difference between the Jesuits and some diocesan priests.  The difference is often between humility and ambition, and it is illustrated by two examples from my own life.

First came the example of Father Raymond Swords, SJ.  He was president of Holy Cross when I arrived there. He held degrees in theology and mathematics, taught mathematics at Holy Cross, and then found himself president in a time of great cultural upheaval.  While generally regarded as a low-key, uncharismatic figure, he nonetheless became the focal point of some dramatic events during my senior year (1969-1970).

President Swords (left) confers an honorary degree

 The fall term brought the Vietnam Moratorium, a mass movement of protest against the war that garnered huge crowds demonstrating in most major cities across the United States.  In Worcester, Massachusetts (the state’s second largest city and home of Holy Cross) a rally was held on city hall plaza.  Fr. Swords appeared on the podium and announced today he spoke, not for the college, but for himself as a Catholic, as a priest, and as a Jesuit.  He explained that he had reluctantly concluded that the war in Vietnam could no longer satisfy the requirements of the Church’s just war theory, and so he felt compelled to call for an end to the war--and to urge all Catholics to do the same.

Suddenly, Ray Swords was no longer just the chief administrator of our school.  Suddenly he became our leader.  The assembled protesters gave him a standing ovation.

In December a labor dispute led to the expulsion of some black students and the decision by all the blacks on campus to leave Holy Cross permanently (see CrossCurrents #346, A “Small” Crisis Recalled, for details).  After several days of pressure on the administration to restore order on campus, Fr. Swords arrived at a packed “town meeting” of students to announce an amnesty for the expelled students and the creation of an “open university” to reflect on the lessons of recent events and their implications for the college’s future.  That night he received his second standing ovation from the students.

That spring Nixon invaded Cambodia, the National Guard killed four students at Kent State University, and Holy Cross went on a general strike (as did hundreds of U.S. campuses).  It was a time when many college presidents were being hanged in effigy on their own campuses, but at Holy Cross the senior class voted to invite Raymond Swords--their own president--to be their commencement speaker.  In his address, he predicted that the future of the college would be secure if future classes followed our example of moral conviction and committed action:

What you young graduates are completing here today--your four years of living and learning at Holy Cross--has had no real parallel in the past history of this college.  But most of all it is different because what you are commencing here today is--I believe and I hope--something new in the history of Holy Cross.  That “something new” is the beginning of a life-long commitment to fundamental change--social and political, cultural and religious--a commencement grounded on a level of awareness and concern never before achieved by so many in so short a time.  In a profound and genuine sense the class of 1970 has been radicalized as no other class before it.

 When he finished, the entire class rose to its feet and to deliver his third standing ovation of the year.

This man left the mark of his indelible character that year on our class and on our school.

 One year later he finished his 10-year term as Holy Cross president and moved on--to become president of Cranwell Prep, the Jesuit high school In Lenox, Massachusetts. He later led Jesuit high schools in Manhattan and Portland, Maine.

To me, that move—from college president to high school work—typified the Jesuit commitment to service, a commitment rooted in the dedication to one’s work regardless of its status.  Loyola’s maxim “Age quod agis” (“Do what you are doing”) meant that ambition was out of place in Jesuit Life, that one’s mission was to contribute to the whole mission of the Jesuits and of the Church.  “Promotions” were not permanent, and “demotions” were not punishment.  The alternation of “higher” and “lower” positions made Jesuit Life humble by design.

That this is precisely what some commentators noted as a significant aspect of electing a Jesuit as pope. Here is Rev. Richard Ryscavage S.J., a professor of sociology at  Fairfield University:

“St. Ignatius Loyola never wanted us to become bishops. Some exceptions were made in the mission territories, where Jesuits were sometimes the most qualified candidates for becoming leader of a diocese. At times, the Pope himself would intervene and promote a Jesuit bishop to the College of Cardinals. These were exceptions to the rule. St. Ignatius wanted to prevent us from ‘climbing the Church ladder’ by ambitioning high offices.”

Fr. Ryscavage explained that St. Ignatius’ original objection to seeking higher office was in response to the clerical careerism so prevalent at the time. Thus Jesuits take an additional vow not to seek high office.

All of this contrasts sharply with my experience of a certain kind of diocesan priest. The truth is that clerical careerism never died out.  Over my 40 years in church work I’ve occasionally encountered priests who projected a certain ambition.  I cannot describe concrete symptoms of that ambition; it always was a kind of intangible aura such men carried with them like baggage.  But when I felt it, I would tell myself (and often tell others too): “That man wants to be a bishop.” As it turns out, every single one of those men did become bishops, their ambitions fulfilled. Many of them lead dioceses today far from their native local church.

I was seldom privy to the details of the clerical politics that produced such bishops, but I’ll never forget the remark of one pastor, a close family friend, who early in his priesthood had declined the tempting invitation to become a bishop’s secretary (often a step toward higher office).  He confessed to me that he was indeed tempted by that prospect of higher office, but even then he knew he was uncomfortable taking that path.  He described “climbing the church ladder” to me.

“There are only two ways to get ahead,” he told me.  “One is to climb over other guys.  The other is to push them out of the way.” He decided he wanted none of it, became a pastor instead, and stayed in his small, out-of-the-way parish for nearly 30 years until retirement. 
He and I both knew one exception to the rule, however.  One of his seminary classmates, Dan Hart, had left a high diocesan office

Fr. Dan Hart

to return to parish work, where he and I were colleagues.  This priest taught fourth grade CCD and worked with me on baptismal and confirmation programs.  One day, out of the blue, he was named an auxiliary bishop, and several years later became bishop of a New England diocese of his own.  

I always said the highest compliment I could pay him was this: he always remained “the same old Dan Hart” I had known in the parish.  And that was enough to make him a terrific bishop: caring, accessible, solicitous, an authentic shepherd.

Bishop Dan Hart

True, he had never been a great parish priest.  He was a tepid preacher, a dry teacher, an uninspiring liturgist. Yet his very ordinariness made him a good bishop.  “After all,” I would explain to others, “The standards for bishops are much lower than for parish priests!”

Sadly, the last 10 years have demonstrated that truth, and worse: those few priests who sunk below the usual standard and abused children with their power were the very priests that bishops worked hardest to protect.

Ironically, neither Ray Swords nor Dan Hart ever served as a pastor, but they had the qualities a pastor needs. What they proved was that, pastoral skills aside, the personal qualities of humility, simplicity, and authenticity are enough to make a bishop great.  That’s why, 43 years after my college commencement, I’m sure that Pope Francis is onto something.  If we could have more bishops with qualities like Ray Swords and Dan Hart--bishops who adopt a Jesuit spirit of avoiding ambition--the Church will be better for it.

And these are precisely the gifts Pope Francis has brought to his job as Bishop of Rome.  Here is hoping we now get more bishops in his mold. 

  © Bernard   F. Swain PhD 2013

#383 Does the Pope Matter?

Amid all the coverage of Pope Benedict’s resignation, two points emerge.

       One: the media is having a field day.  Time magazine has put Benedict XVI on its cover, with two stories inside.  Jokes abound, from Jon Stewart to Facebook.  Self- designated experts from Las Vegas to Rome are handicapping the election of the next pope.  As I write, the front page of today’s Boston Globe reports at length on  speculation that Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley may be in the running.  Of course, 40 other home-town bishops around the world are subjects of similar speculation.  In other words, Conclave-mania has broken loose.

But the second point, typified by Frank Bruni’s New York Times Op-ed piece on February 18, is that perhaps all this media attention deceives us into the false notion that the pope matters more than he really does.  Bruni claims the pope and his curia are really “a royal family of dubious relevance,” at least to the majority of Catholics in North America and Western Europe.  I think Bruni has a point--but he also protests too much, in a way that brings out the old debater in me.  So allow me to revert to my former forensic format: I’ll list Bruni’s arguments, and respond to each point, one by one (read Bruni at http://nyti.ms/130cVoA ).

Bruni argues that widespread media attention results from mere “habit and convenience.” The media is drawn to the drama, the “visual backdrops,” the pageant.  It is mere spectacle.

But of course spectacle attracts more than media.  It attracts the public too, and can entertain, enthrall, even inspire them.  The 1,000,000-strong crowd for Barack Obama’s 2008 inauguration may never forget that event.  For some, it was life-changing.  

     The truth is that spectacle does hold sway with the human spirit, and Bruni belittles it needlessly.  Catholicism clearly has a knack for spectacle on a global scale.  This is an advantage, not a liability.  The question that must be asked is: is this merely empty spectacle, or is it a means to a greater end?

Next Bruni argues that the pope gets notice as part of our cult of celebrity.  The election holds out drama and the prospect of victory, much like American Idol, Iron Chef, the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, or presidential elections.  The election is our “ecclesiastical Oscars.”

This may be true, but once again Bruni seems intent on missing what matters.  The fact is that not all celebrities are created equal.  Some are merely “famous for being famous,” while others are famous for their impact on people’s lives.  Fifty years ago, Ed Sullivan was a celebrity and so were the Beatles, but no one thinks Sullivan had their lasting influence.   

Wilt Chamberlain was famous winning the NBA championship the spring before Martin Luther King was shot, but only one earned a national holiday and the Nobel prize.  To call the pope a celebrity begs the next question: so what?

Among celebrities in the western world, perhaps the Queen of England is the post closest to the pope’s status, and garners similar media attention for herself and her own royal family.

     Even her role as a symbolic leader is similar, but the pope is no mere figurehead.  Even Bruni calls him the CEO of a worldwide organization, recognizing that he functions as a genuine executive.  And his reach far exceeds the British Commonwealth. So reducing the pope to mere “celebrity” is a half-truth at best.

Next Bruni admits that the Catholic Church is a large and powerful organization (though he fails to note how prevalent and dominant its “charities and agencies” are), but then he argues that today’s U.S. Catholics are “less invested” and “less attached” to the church than 50 years ago.

As a general rule, this is true. But it does not make Bruni’s case against the pope’s relevance.  Quite the contrary.

First, because much of the last 50 years of Catholic history has been a case study in how the pope does matter.

When John the XXIII opened Vatican Council II 50 years ago, his humble daring transformed the Catholic scene overnight.  
 Before John, the pope had been a remote, largely invisible figure operating a great distance from US Catholics. The Vatican might as well have been Olympus, or another planet. But then the Council came, and suddenly Vatican events were the stuff of daily coverage by The New York Times’ John Cogley and of insider perspective from Xavier Rynne in The New Yorker’s “Letters from Vatican City” for four years running.  Moreover, Vatican events were now (for the first time) a global spectacle thanks to satellite TV.  And John’s council soon touched every Catholic at the parish level, especially through changes in liturgy and sacrament.  Moreover John altered the church’s image beyond Catholics: today’s warmer Catholic-Protestant and Catholic-Jewish relations are the result of his influence.

Admittedly, this happy profile of papal power and impact did not last long.  No doubt millions of U.S. Catholics today are disenchanted with the institution, even alienated from it.  But ironically, this strengthens (rather than weakens) my case against Bruni.  For rejecting Church teaching is not the same as ignoring it, and disenchantment is not the same is indifference.  In fact, I would argue that today’s decline in practice among U.S. Catholics has happened, not in spite of the popes, but because of them.

Sociologist Andrew Greeley documented as early as the mid-1970s that U.S. Catholics were distancing themselves from the institution, and famously argued that there was a single cause: Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which rejected his own papal commission’s recommendation that church teaching on contraception be revised, and instead reasserted the existing prohibition against all “artificial” means of birth control.

Perhaps Greeley overstated his case, but certainly after 1968 millions of Catholic parents opted to reject Paul’s position in good conscience.  Baby boomers, barely emerging from adolescence in 1968, typically decided there own path into marriage family and parenthood would not be guided by Humanae Vitae.  And they in turn raised kids for whom official church teaching on contraception--and indeed on masturbation, premarital sex, and most other matters sexual--was in fact irrelevant to their lives.  In short, three generations of Catholics have not simply drifted away from the institution--they have been pushed by, or ran from, papal action.  Their alienation stands as proof that the papacy, far from meaningless, is capable of significantly affecting people’s lives--for better or for worse.

More recently, of course, the clergy sex abuse scandal has further tainted the church’s credibility on matters sexual--and handed young Catholics their silver-plated alibi to ignore the institution.  John Paul II’s handpicked U.S. bishops transformed the face of U.S. hierarchy: once committed to Catholic renewal and public dialogue, the U.S. hierarchy in the 1980s and 1990s became a corps of company men devoted to protecting their own interests.  Beginning with Boston’s Bernard Law and ending with LA’s Roger Mahony, these men earned a self-inflicted reputation for hypocrisy in high places that has scandalized millions of U.S. Catholics.  This was not some random, accidental occurrence.  This was the effect (albeit unintended) of papal strategy and action.

Even John-Paul’s illness illustrates my point: at the very moment that decisive papal action might have provided the damage control needed to rehabilitate the hierarchy’s good name, his age and illness (in concert with the custom of the pope serving until death) made him incapable of the crisis management the church needed. 

 So once again, the fallout among U.S. Catholics traces to the pope’s doorstep.

The rest of Bruni’s argument is a parade of polls documenting the gap between Catholic officialdom and the rank and file.  The portrait that emerges is indeed bleak.  But since these statistics are themselves the product of papal and hierarchical mismanagement, they cannot demonstrate that it makes no difference who the next pope is or what he does.

On the contrary, the examples of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John-Paul II over the last 50 years suggest that the pope’s performance affects the life of rank and file Catholics more than ever before.

Imagine, for example, if the next pope were to revise the mandate of priestly celibacy.  A century ago, this news would spread out gradually from Rome via print media.  Today, it would be an instant media firestorm that would alter the Church’s--and the pope’s--public image literally overnight.  And it would transform seminaries and dioceses, as well as our priest shortage, in short order.

Or imagine that the next pope calls Vatican Council  III.  We could foresee several years of virtually non-stop coverage of the institutional Church once again transforming itself.  It defies such imagining to argue that no one would pay attention.

Finally, Bruni’s whole argument depends on glossing over its most significant weakness: his focus is almost exclusively on U.S. Catholics (with a token nod to Canada and Europe).  But our 60 million Catholics represent only 5% of the world’s Catholics.  And the Church’s standing in South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia is vastly different from the American Catholics scene.  Assessing the papacy’s impact requires a separate account for each region.  And certainly the overall posture of the pope cannot be gauged by his response to the situation of a 5% segment of Catholics.

(I am reminded of a similar mistake the French made when the pope’s World Youth Day was held in Paris in 1997. Assuming the rest of the world to be as blasé about the pope as themselves, they were caught flatfooted--and ankle deep in overflowing toilets!--when 2 million kids showed up.)

  But given Bruni’s narrow focus, this much can be said: the actions of four popes since 1962 have either helped or harmed the institutional church’s standing among American Catholics--and the same will be true for the next pope.  Perhaps the media’s superficial, celebrity-and-spectacle driven interest will wane soon after the election, but Catholics everywhere, including the U.S., will be affected by the papacy that follows--for better or for worse!

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

#380: Dying Before Our Time?

Americans are likelier than people in other wealthy nations to think they are in good health. But they would be wrong…

In recent years, I have asserted that both scandal and mismanagement by the Catholic hierarchy have led to the loss of influence for Catholic Social Teaching. Thus one of the great sources of public wisdom in our culture ends up getting ignored or even dismissed. But no matter how badly the custodians of this tradition perform their duties, we American Catholics ignore that wisdom at our peril.

Now comes evidence that ignoring the lessons of Catholic Social Teaching is costing people their lives. A recently released study by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine (U.S. Health in International Perspectives: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health ) attempts to determine why the U.S. ranks last in life expectancy among all wealthy nations. (see http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13497&page=1)

The Gospel of John makes it clear that Christian faith and a full life are closely linked, when Jesus says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Catholic Social Teaching includes “Health Care” (one key to a full life) on its list of human rights. As one commentator explained: “Human fulfillment requires health, work, education, access, leisure, resources, security and many other things, which we define as human rights.”

But this massive study expands the reality behind these principles. Part 1 begins with this basic fact:

The United States ranks at or near the bottom on multiple measures of mortality and morbidity, in all age groups up to age 75, in males and females alike, and in virtually all other subgroups of the population. 
                                          
Then Part 2 it asks why. And Part 3 explores ideas for changing our course.

Last week’s wide media coverage of the report focused on its account of firearms deaths--the most newsworthy item, of course, in the wake of the Newtown tragedy.

But this 424-page study is bigger than that. It is a landmark that offers for the first time a comprehensive answer to why Americans suffer a health disadvantage. For Catholics who believe good public health is a human right, this analysis touches not only on social justice, but on life and death.

The evidence shows that the U.S. health disadvantage is pervasive across people’s lifespan, gender, class, and even race: “Americans face shorter lives and greater illness at all ages.” In a word, we are sicker and we die sooner--even if we don’t know it.

The breadth of our health inferiority is stunning:

When compared with the average for other high-income countries, the United States fares worse in nine health domains: adverse birth outcomes; injuries, accidents, and homicides; adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections; HIV and AIDS; drug-related mortality; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and disability.

Think a good medical care system is enough to guarantee “healthcare”? Think again! This pervasive disadvantage is determined by far more than our Medical Care System. The study outlines four more key areas that affect our health:

Life-styles and behaviors, social and economic circumstances, environmental influences, and public policies can also play key roles in shaping individual and community health. And a number of these factors may be critical to understanding why some high income countries experience significantly better health outcomes than the United States.

When all five are added up, the tally is bleak. This raises the question of whether our “American way of life” is killing us.

It is true that “ObamaCare” should expand the number of insured Americans, but its broad impact is to be determined.

As for personal behaviors, the study finds that 40% of all U.S. deaths are linked to tobacco, diet, inactivity, or drinking. I wonder: why are these behaviors more dangerous in the U.S. than elsewhere?

Certain important unhealthy or injurious behaviors are more common in the United States than peer countries, including high-caloric intake, drug misuse, unsafe driving practices, high-risk sex, and the use of firearms. Poverty, unemployment, and income inequality are more prevalent than in comparable countries, education has not kept pace with other countries, and social mobility is more limited.

On firearms, the data is appalling.

There is little evidence, the study says, that violent acts a more frequent here than elsewhere. Yet they cause more deaths. 48% of violent U.S. deaths (homicide, accidents, suicide) involve firearms. US citizens own 35 to 50% of all the civilian owned firearms in the world--four times as many semiautomatic and automatic weapons as the U.S. Army! Globally, 80% of the firearms deaths occur in the U.S. The U.S. homicide rate is 20 times higher than our peer countries, and 43 times higher for people aged 15-24. (Note: that’s not 20 % and 43% higher, it’s 2000% and 4300% higher).

The U.S. firearms suicide rate is 5.8 times higher than elsewhere and unintentional firearm deaths are 5.2 times higher. All these grim numbers produce a chilling conclusion:

The prevalence of firearms in the United States looms large as an explanation for higher death rates from violence, suicidal impulses, and accidental shootings.

As for social factors in the U.S. health inferiority, the study collected data on income and wealth, on education, on the occupation, and on racial and ethnic identity. Observing that, relative to other wealthy countries, the U.S. possesses a “weak social safety net,” the study finds that our decline in health and life expectancy since 1975 coincides with a 40-year decline in social conditions, and concludes we need to explain the connection:

Life expectancy and other health outcomes…in the United States began to lose pace with other high-income countries in the late 1970s, a trend that has continued to the present. During this same time…there has been a potentially important co-occurrence of worsening social conditions in the United States, notably a rise in income inequality, poverty, child poverty, single-parent households, divorce, and incarceration--all more pronounced than other rich nations.

These unsettling trends present a potentially important explanation for the U.S. Health disadvantage… An examination of these underlying causes can shed light on why the United States appears to be losing ground.

On policy, the study reviewed the nine key health factors from Part One and concluded that each factor has policy implications:

Policy is also relevant to the unfavorable social, economic, an environmental conditions identified of this report as potential contributors to the U.S. Health disadvantage. A variety of policies can contribute to high poverty rates, unemployment call-up, inadequate educational achievement, lost social mobility, and the absence of safety net programs to protect children and families from the consequences of these problems. However, identifying and implementing policy solutions is a formidable challenge.

This means that policy reform is key to longer life for Americans. Not just government policy, but also the policies of corporations and communities and nonprofit agencies and even churches. Those peer countries are ahead of us for a reason: they have instituted social systems aimed at the common good--aimed at a longer, healthier life for all their people. And they are succeeding:

In countries with the most favorable health outcomes, resource investments and infrastructure often reflect a strong societal commitment to the health and welfare of the entire population…Choices about political governance structures, and the social and economic conditions they reflect and shape, matter to overall levels of health.

The sad truth is that our health inferiority does not mean we have failed to achieve what they have achieved. Rather, the truth is this: we have not even tried! The study is clear about the consequences of doing nothing:

The consequences of not attending to the growing U.S. health disadvantage and reversing current trends are predictable: the United States will probably continue to fall further behind comparable countries on health outcomes and mortality. In addition to the personal toll this will take, the drain on life and health may ultimately affect the economy and the prosperity of the United States as other countries reap the benefits of healthier populations and more productive workforces. With so much at stake, especially for America’s youth, the United States cannot afford to ignore its growing health disadvantage. 

We Catholics claim to serve life. We inherit a moral tradition that requires an option to promote the common good. We belong to an institution that believes we all have a human right to the best health and fullest life possible.

From this viewpoint, too many of us have allowed this basic right of ours to be violated by inaction at all levels. Worse than that: we haven’t even noticed it happening. As if we were victims of mass anesthesia, we have slept through the decline in our health and our lifespan, dreaming that all was well. This study sounds a loud alarm that offers no snoozing. It is time we wake up and face the nation that is allowing its people to die before their time--before our time.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013