#400: Who’s YOUR Wisdom Figure?

The 50^th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington triggered a remarkable array of commentaries from all angles.

Many naturally focused on Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, some specifically singling out his vision of an America where character counts more than color.

Some argued that we should also remember that other leaders, like A. Philip Randolph, were also major figures in that event. Some sought to remind us that the event’s prime focus was not only racial equality but rather “jobs and freedom.” Some commented that the March’s call for greater rights and opportunity has relevance today, beyond the African-American community, for immigrants, gays, undocumented workers, and those suffering from our current economic malaise. Some, finally, reminded us that King’s vision later widened beyond civil rights to embrace non-violence in all its forms—including his controversial opposition to the war in Vietnam and his call for a non-violent spiritual revolution.

But amid this array of remembrance and interpretation one thing seems clear. The March on Washington, not just for those attending or viewing on TV, but for those who learned about it later, established Martin Luther King as one of the great—if not the greatest—wisdom figures in American life.

He is not alone:  Americans find wisdom in Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, and others. But for at least 45 years (since his April 1968 assassination) King has stood out. He is now the only American honored with his own national holiday. His letters and speeches are treasured by millions and studied in schools across the land. His face is as well-known as any American in history, and his memorial on the National Mall is a rare honor for a non-president. His “I Have a Dream” speech—much of it improvised in a moment of inspiration—is often regarded as the greatest American speech of the 20th century.

King’s iconic status means that people admire him even if they know little about him. It means they are inspired by what they do know of his vision and values. It means they conform their vision of America—and of life—to his. It means that King’s opinions and convictions are largely beyond scrutiny and criticism for millions. In a secular society not given to devotion, he is venerated as former ages venerated saints.

In this he shares a rare popular status accorded very few individuals in the modern world. In Western culture, such iconic status is reserved for those who wield wisdom rather than power. Heads of state, generals, and corporate giants do not acquire such status. It goes instead to people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, and Martin Luther King.

For me this raises a point of personal curiosity. As we observe the March’s 50^th anniversary, I wonder: Who are the wisdom figures in each of our lives?

I ask this question for myself and my own generation, but especially for my children’s generation. And I ask for two reasons.

First, because any life without wisdom cannot be fully lived. The mystery of life is too complex and rich to savor without some insight into its true meaning and value. And few humans possess the personal tools to plumb that mystery alone, without the help of others. The “examined life” is not a solo performance. We need wisdom figures just to appreciate our own lives. So we turn to those who inspire us with insights that surpass our own.

Second, I ask because our times demand wisdom more than ever. Vatican Council II (1962-1965) absolutely nailed our current challenge when it observed that the human race had never acquired so much new power so fast as it had in the 20^th century. And it reminded us that such vast growth in power requires a parallel growth in wisdom. For only wisdom can harness power and steer it toward good; without wisdom, growing power risks growing dangers.  In the 50 years since Vatican II, the specters of nuclear war, climate change, international terrorism, ecological and economic disaster, genocide, bioengineering and technology run amok have all confirmed Vatican II’s view that our future depends on matching our expanding powers with expanded wisdom.

But where do we find such wisdom? Who offers it?

Of course, wisdom may be sought in literature, philosophy, and art as well as in our religious traditions. But most people find it embodied in exceptional individuals who point us to those other sources. The March’s anniversary reminds us that, for millions of Americans, that individual is Martin Luther King. And that is a good thing.

But I wonder still about many born since King died, raised in a world saturated with comfort and convenience yet consumed with anxiety about the future of their lives, their nation, and their world. Who offers them the wisdom they need?

Sometimes we read of the next generation’s search for heroes—but heroism is about achievement and character, while wisdom is about insight and vision. Athletes can be role models and heroes, but make unlikely wisdom figures.  Celebrities are known for their fame but not for their insight.  People in public office may be admired for their abilities and occasionally even for their courage, but politics is seldom seen as wisdom’s natural home. Corporate giants may be shrewd and powerful and even ruthless, but few of us believe that the bottom line reveals much about the fullness of life.

So if young Americans need wisdom figures—and they do—but cannot find them in sports, show business, politics, or the corporate world—where can they find them? (All evidence suggests, of course, that they will not even LOOK within religious institutions).

I think back to my own formative years, and think of the people who inspired me with their wise insights into life’s purpose and value.  When the pop song “Alfie” asked “What’s it all about?” I turned to the obvious figure from my own family religious tradition: Jesus. And as I came of age I found other figures to follow. Often these were people themselves inspired by Jesus, or else were following visions that complemented what I knew of Jesus’ wisdom.

Over time I was lucky enough to find many wisdom figures to inspire and guide me.

There was John XXIII, the pope who proved that our ancient faith and the contemporary world need not be estranged. There was Pete Seeger, the troubadour who made his music a voice for justice. There was Guy Leger, a Dominican priest who taught me that all true beauty, just like all goodness, is sacred.   

There was Dag Hammarskjold, UN leader who linked the

Dag Hammarskjold

spiritual life and public policy. There was Albert Schweitzer, who showed how crucial but how also how challenging it is to practice “reverence for life.” There was Gandhi, who proved that non-violent love could conquer hate. There was Bob Lindsay, a Jesuit priest who taught me to find reality beyond appearances.

There was Dorothy Day, who reminded us of the non-violent love at the core of Christian faith. There was King himself, who linked Gandhian non-violence with the gospel-fired flame of racial justice. 

Some of those people I was blessed to know. The others I was blessed to know about. I am still eager to find new wisdom figures: since finishing two recent biographies of Francis of Assisi, I suspect I may soon add his name to my list. All told, it is a good list: robust enough to fuel much reflection on my life and living.

But the main thing is to HAVE such a list, to know the answer to the question: “Who is on MY list? Who are MY wisdom figures?”

That question is also important to those you love: where do they seek and find the wisdom that enriches their lives and nurtures their spirit?

Celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington, countless observers spoke of  "progress” to measure that event’s legacy. How they assess our “progress” seems to depend on their interpretation of that event’s meaning. So they measure racial justice, or the range of freedom, or economic opportunity, or social equality, or even the strength of our hope or the scope of our national vision.

But for those who now see wisdom in the figure of Martin Luther King, perhaps “progress” is more personal, and must be measured more by the vitality of our spirits than by the prosperity of our land, more by the peace in our hearts than by the turmoil in our world. For King never spoke without preaching, and behind all his preaching was the gospel of peace.

  Bernard F. Swain PhD 2010

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#388: Are the Pope’s Hands “Dirty”?

Pope Francis is the target of some backlash to his generally favorable media coverage.

Over the years I have criticized Catholic bishops repeatedly for lacking prudence.  Long dubbed the queen of all virtues, prudence knows when insisting on the right principle can do more harm than good.  Too often the hierarchy becomes preoccupied with crusading for some particular cause in a way that, by displaying a strident or even arrogant tone, diminishes their influence.

But the hierarchy has no monopoly on such failings.

Some progressive Catholics become so possessed of their own agenda they become blind to all else.  Like some bishops, they push their point so aggressively they lose much of their potential audience.  They end up, like the bishops, preaching to the choir.

A wise Jesuit once offered me constructive criticism: “You are very convincing,” he told me, “but you are not very persuasive.” He meant I was good at making a strong case for my point of view, but not good at making people want to agree with me.  He meant I lacked prudence.  This distressed me, and I’ve spent 25 years trying to fix that.  It also distresses me when progressives commit the same error, because I often agree with them at the beginning but end up not wanting to be their ally.

My inbox recently contained an example of this.  The email contained theologian Mary Hunt’s critique of Pope Francis I from her website (http://www.waterwomensalliance.org/ ). On many issues we have common ground, but her argument does not do them justice.

She describes calling a friend in Buenos Aires “to join in that country’s pride” in the election of their archbishop, yet in the next paragraph makes it clear that she already judged the entire papal election fraudulent:

 The process was flawed on the face of it by the lack of women, young people, and lay people. It was flawed by a dearth of democracy. Not even the seagull that sat on the chimney awaiting the decision was enough to persuade that the Holy Spirit was really in charge.

There is no basis here for “pride,” so her earlier remark rings contrived and disingenuous.

She follows by calling for “structural changes in the kyriarchal model of the church” rather than “cosmetic” or “symbolic” changes.  She argues that the conclave elected a Latin American as a “good business decision,” since European Catholicism has “lost market share”--but then notes that mass attendance in Argentina is as bad as in France!

Perez Esquivel Receiving the Nobel Prize , 1980

She says she “got an education about social justice” working with Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel in Buenos Aires, then devotes 1/3 of her article to linking Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) to Argentina’s brutal “dirty war” even though Pérez Esquivel himself has dismissed such slander:

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel assured today that elected pope Jorge Bergoglio "had no links with the dictatorship” that ruled Argentina between the years 1976-1983.

Francis and Perez Esquivel, 2013

 Speaking to BBC News, Perez Esquivel said that “there were bishops who were accomplices of the dictatorship, but it was not the case of Bergoglio.”

Hunt employs a classic “red herring” tactic that echoes McCarthyism. Alluding to the case of two Jesuits kidnapped in 1976 by the military junta, she asks:

Did the Jesuit superior-now-Pope Francis call the military dictators and agree to their kidnapping? No one is accusing him of this.

Then why does she ask, if “no one” is making the accusation? But of course Bergoglio HAS been accused of this, and Hunt’s question dredges up the slander once more. Then she adds that “Padre Jorge [Bergoglio] is alleged to have intervened with military leaders for the release of the two Jesuits.”

I confess, this is the first time I have ever seen anyone “alleged” to have done something good!  All my dictionaries link “alleged” with either bad things (murder, rape, burglary, conspiracy) or doubtful outcomes (a cure, a miracle)--never with a past good deed.  Hunt’s cynicism is thinly veiled by such language, and anyhow it ignores the known facts.

The evidence is that Bergoglio (then Jesuit provincial, not a bishop) judged the two Jesuits to be in danger, and acted to protect their safety.  When they ignored him and were kidnapped, he acted on their behalf, as he described to biographer Sergio Rubin:

Bergoglio Rides Transit in Buenos Aires

“Because of their work with some priests in the slums they were exposed to the paranoia of the witch hunt…That same night when I heard of the kidnappings I started to move. I saw [dictator] Videla twice and I saw [dictator] Massera.

 The Associated Press adds more details:

Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them, including persuading dictator Jorge Videla's family priest to call in sick so that Bergoglio could say Mass in the junta leader's home, where he privately appealed for mercy. His intervention likely saved their lives, but Bergoglio never shared the details until Rubin interviewed him for the 2010 biography.  Bergoglio told Rubin that he regularly hid people on church property during the dictatorship, and once gave his identity papers to a man with similar features, enabling him to escape across the border. But all this was done in secret, at a time when church leaders publicly endorsed the junta and called on Catholics to restore their "love for country" despite the terror in the streets.

Following Bergoglio’s election, journalists located the surviving kidnap victim Franz Jalics, and he provided these statements:

Franz Jalics Today

With the permission of Archbishop Aramburu and the then-Provincial Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio I moved together with a confrere into a “Favela,” one of the city’s slums. From there we continued our teaching at the university….In the civil-war-like situation back then…the two of us in the slum had contact neither with the junta nor with the guerrillas. Partly due to the lack of information and through targeted misinformation our situation was also misunderstood within the church.…

 These are the facts: Orlando Yorio and I were not reported by Father Bergoglio…It is thus wrong to claim that our capture was initiated by Father Bergoglio…Before, I too tended to believe that we were the victims of having been reported. By the late ’90s, however, it became clear to me after many conversations that this assumption was unfounded…”

It was only years later that we had the opportunity to talk with Father Bergoglio…to discuss the events. Following that, we celebrated Mass publicly together and hugged solemnly. I am reconciled to the events and consider the matter to be closed. I wish Pope Francis God's rich blessings for his office.

At that time, Burgoglio was Jesuit provincial.  Nevertheless, Hunt compares the Argentine bishops’ dirty war behavior to the U.S. Bishops in the sex-abuse scandal, and compares Bergoglio to Bernard Law.  Thus she paints Burgoglio with a wide brush of guilt by association, much like the Argentine journalist Gabriel Pasquini, who attacked Burgoglio with this critique:

Never, in the years he headed the Catholic Church in Argentina, did he acknowledge its complicity in the dictatorship, much less ask for forgiveness. Will he do so now, from the Vatican?

But Pasquini is wrong. Bergoglio became Archbishop of Buenos Aires 1998, and in 2000 was party to this statement from the Bishops conference of Argentina:

We want to confess before God everything we have done badly…We share everyone’s pain and once again ask the forgiveness of everyone we failed or didn’t support as we should have.

Apparently Hunt believes such guilt by association is relevant because it links Bergoglio’s refusal to support liberation theology with the past and current plight of Latin American society.  The premise is that only liberation theology is acceptable; other theological positions “deepen and entrench social injustice.” Specifically, she decries Burgoglio’s opposition to “divorce, abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage,” and then claims:

He shows no evidence from his Argentina actions that he will be any more responsive than his predecessor to changing policies and structures that oppress the world’s poor.

This line of attack troubles me on several grounds.  First, Hunt’s list of social justice issues focuses narrowly on the sex-related issues of our U.S. “culture wars.”

Second, she ignores the “theological positions” entrenched in the social encyclicals of the past 50 years, which (as I’ve detailed many times before) include positions on human rights, health, income inequality, immigration, trade, and arms that are well to the left of the Democratic Party. 

Third, as prominent a liberation theologian as Leonardo Boff (himself once silenced by the Vatican) has expressed support for Francis despite their theological differences:

With Pope Francis, a Church of the third millennium is being inaugurated--far from the palaces and in the midst of the peoples and their cultures.

Asked about the “dirty war,” Boff got more specific:

I'm wondering what interest some groups have in raising this question and not talking about the serious crisis in the Church and its meaning in the face of the crisis of humankind.

Leonardo Boff

Maybe -- this I'll concede -- he could have been more prophetic, like Bishop Hélder Câmara and Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns were in Brazil.…The question is political and for me, it's which side the person is on--the side of the poor, of those who suffer evil inequality? Or of the status quo that wants unlimited growth and a culture of consumption?...Bergoglio took the side of those victims and demanded social justice. If we don't understand this, we're getting away from the main point.

[read more: http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/qa-what-matters-isnt-bergoglio-and-his-past-but-francis-and-his-future/ ]

Finally, Hunt’s attack backfires by betraying the very fault she decries.  You might have wondered, earlier in this article, what “kyriarchal” means.  It’s a recent coinage from the Greek word for “Lord,” referring to lordly behavior that anyone uses to impose their views or will on others. Feminist theologians use the term to suggest that unjust treatment is not just limited to sexism, or even to men.  Anyone can abuse their relationships with others in this way.  Indeed, even feminists can be prone to “kyriarchal” behavior, as one feminist blogger explained [http://myecdysis.blogspot.com/]:

Let's not pretend that just because there are not many propertied males mucking around the fem blogosphere, there aren't queen bees and wanna bees exercising the same kind of behavior.  So when we talk about woman asserting power over other womyn, we're talking kyriarchy.  When you witness woman trying to dominate, define, outline the "movement" or even what an ally should be - that's the kyriarchal ethos strong at work. 

For me, Hunt’s case suffers precisely from this problem.  So sure is she that only her “theological positions” can serve justice, she feels free to impose her perspective with  a version of events designed to convince us that anyone who differs with her views at best unwittingly promotes injustice, or at worst is complicit in it. 

She does not persuade. She plays with facts. She asserts, “The controversy over Bergoglio’s role in the kidnapping of two Jesuits during this period is instructive”—but only instructs us that character assassination is alive and well.

Hunt decries “papal theatrics” which “keep the focus on the personal and spiritual, off the political and theological”--as if Catholic Social Teaching does not focus on both, and as if Bergoglio himself has not spoken of them both together:

Bergoglio as Archbishop

We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least. The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many…..
[To a gathering of Latin American bishops in 2007]

Hunt opens her final paragraph this way: “It is early to opine about the pontificate of Pope Francis”--but of course that is exactly what she has already done!  Her devotion to her agenda is so blinkered she cannot see how transparent it is--and how her credibility suffers

  © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

#341: An “Encore!” for Renewal

As we continue observing the 50th anniversary of Vatican II, I am retrieving a post from the beginning of 2011. The first Baby Boomers began retiring that year, but the challenge they face continues now...

The New Year 2011 marks the beginning of a new phase for my generation. 

I turned 62 last month -- the same age when my father retired.  Thirty years later, he is still going strong, and has now earned more from his pension than he ever did in 39 years on the job at General Electric! 

It wasn't supposed to be that way.  His grandfather's generation never retired at all--they simply died in the saddle.  And while his father retired, he never fully adjusted to being permanently on vacation; he died within a few years, as was typical of his generation, when life expectancy with shorter than today.  My father had no way of knowing  his retirement would last more than 3 decades.

Yet from the start, my father attacked retirement as an active role, performing do-it-yourself projects on his home and property, helping his grown children with their own projects, joining other seniors for community lunches, mall-walking to keep active, and taking his new electronic keyboard to local nursing homes to lead sing-alongs for the "old folks" well into his 80s. 

Those 30 active years reflect a new profile of retired life, when gainful employment gives way to what Marc Freedman has called an "encore career" of other active pursuits.  So retirement has already gone through two phases, shifting from a "permanent vacation until you die" to a second career. 

Now comes the threshold of the third phase.  That's because 2011 is the year when the first “Baby Boomers” (born between 1946 and 1964) turn 65.  The “60s Generation” is in its 60s, and it figures that retirement, like everything else we touched, will never be the same. 

My father, after all, was the exception to the rule.  Not many of his peers lasted 30 years after working, and most did not carve out so many new active roles.  But since the boomers can expect to live to 80 and beyond, long retirements like my father’s will become commonplace. Boomers were the largest generation in US history; now they will become the largest post-employment workforce ever: the population of retired Americans is expected to reach 66 million by 2025. 

It's been called the "longevity revolution," the "third wave," and even "gerontocracy"--the idea that elder baby boomers will be the most powerful shapers of American life, and the first elder generation to dominate a society. 

All of which makes me wonder: how is the Church affected by this? 

Catholic baby boomers, after all, occupy a unique place in recent Church history.  Their parents grew up, got married, and started families in a Catholic Church largely shaped by the immigrant experience, the Council of Trent, and the First Vatican Council.  That Church spoke only Latin and commanded compliance to a complex set of strict rules and regulations; it offered sure advancement for those who entered seminaries and convents, but consigned everyone else to the passive roles “Pray, Pay, and Obey.” It enjoyed an abundance of clergy and religious communities and the massive support of its members, who took their passive role for granted in an age when Church was more about authority than faith and authority was the monopoly of the ordained. 

Baby Boomers were born into that Church.  All of them were baptized in Latin, and most boomers (those born 1946- 1958) received their First Holy Communion in Latin.  But then the work of Vatican II (1962-1965) began to take hold, and the boomers came to maturity in a changing Church.  By the time they settled down to marriage and family, the face of the Church--its liturgy, its sacraments, its devotional life, its public image, its relations with other religions and with the world at large--had all been transformed into something their grandparents could not have recognized and their parents often struggled to embrace. 

Not all boomers embraced that transformed Church either, but most did, and they raised a new generation who (ironically, like their great-grandparents) knew no Church but the one they were born in. 

This made the boomers the threshold generation, with one foot in pre-conciliar Catholicism and another in post-conciliar Catholicism.  By default, they became the custodians of a Church renewal they never chose but only inherited.  That custodianship was radically new in one major respect, compared to previous generations: there were never enough ordained boomers to do the job alone.  So following through on renewal has eventually passed from a generation (the "greatest generation") of aging clergy and religious women and men to a new generation of laypeople. 

And now those laypeople, the boomer custodians of renewal, are themselves feeling their age.  It raises the question: what will happen now to the Church's ongoing renewal? 

In past generations of parish life, of course, Catholics reaching their "golden years" routinely passed the torch of parish leadership to the next generation, usually their own grown children, people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.  But in too many places today, that is simply not happening. The fact is the next generation does not show the emotional attachment to Church that keeps so many boomers active in Catholic life.

  Thus many of my generation wonder how to preserve parish vitality in the years ahead.  Many boomer Catholics are beginning to sense that they are not yet "off the hook," since no one else is available to do the job. Moreover, many boomers believe that the renewal of Vatican II has been hijacked in recent years, and are discouraged and fearful that Catholicism will backslide into a style of Catholic life they've already rejected. 

To me, these feelings frame the next challenge facing Catholic boomers: to enter our retirement years committed to persevere in the great historic task of renewing our church.  We were not renewal’s pioneers, but we may have to be its protectors.

This will require great determination.  Do we believe the work of Vatican II is unfinished?  So be it.  Is the next generation unready to carry renewal’s torch into the future?  So be it.  Has renewal been undermined from within?  So be it.  These are the givens of the challenge we must face.

Columnist (retired!) Ellen Goodman, referring to the place of boomers in American society at large, aptly described the decision facing boomer Catholics:

How will we shape the longevity revolution?  I have the sense that if we don't use this gift of time to open up new possibilities, we may go into a long anxious crouch.  If we aren’t the change agents of aging, we'll be the change resisters...This is a moment to redefine aging...it's not a time to be tired. 

It's true we are arriving at our senior status.  It's true that past generations have taken that as their cue to "retire" from active duty and let the younger generation of clergy and laity take charge of the future.  But times have changed, and anyway our generation has never accepted past ways as a divine mandate.  Rather, we have always regarded inherited routines as something to question and revise. 

If we remain young in spirit, our longstanding desire to make a difference will not flag.  And now that difference may well be this: to become the key players in ensuring that renewal does not die.  Just when others might judge that the renewal promised by Vatican II is either finished (in the sense of completed) or else finished (in the sense of failed), we can be the ones who stand up clapping our hands and call out “Encore!  Encore!” to make renewal live again. 

Indeed, meeting this challenge could mean an encore career for us as Catholics, and could prove to be our biggest contribution of all.  We may not have created renewal, but we can save it.

 Bernard F. Swain PhD 2011

#374: What Foreign Policy?

Foreign policy will not have much impact on the outcome of the 2012 presidential elections. But from the point of view of our faith tradition, that only means the candidates are ignoring some very high stakes.

Pundits covering the last presidential debate seemed surprised by how often the two candidates agreed on US foreign policy--but often that only meant they were united in disagreeing with Catholic Social Teaching on international relations.

Fifty years ago this week, Americans--and the world--were terrified by the Cuban missile crisis.  I had just started high school, and I remember three things from  October 1962.

 First, I was painfully self-conscious of the cast on my arm that I still wore after putting my hand through a window in August.  Second, the Jesuits running the school kept us praying daily for the success of the just-opened Second Vatican Council.  Third was the eerie, surreal sensation of standing outside our building at lunchtime on Friday, October 26 (50 years ago TODAY!), surrounded by my new classmates, all of us scanning the skies for the first sign of a nuclear attack and collectively holding our breaths as we prayed the Soviet ships would turn back before they were fired upon by the US vessels blockading Cuba.

Like many of my 1962 peers, I had read my share of nuclear disaster novels: On The Beach, Red Alert, Seven Days In May, Alas Babylon, etc.  I had also read John Hersey’s Hiroshima.  All these gave me horrifyingly graphic ideas of what a nuclear attack would mean.  My one consolation was the knowledge that, because we all lived in a major metropolitan area, we would not suffer: an instant after the first blinding flash we would all be dead.

Small wonder, then, that the Council Fathers gathered in Rome went out of their way to stake out the Church’s official position on nuclear weapons:

Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation….The arms race in which an already considerable number of countries are engaged is not a safe way to preserve a steady peace, nor is the so-called balance resulting from this race a sure and authentic peace. Rather than being eliminated thereby, the causes of war are in danger of being gradually aggravated. While extravagant sums are being spent for the furnishing of ever new weapons, an adequate remedy cannot be provided for the multiple miseries afflicting the whole modern world. Disagreements between nations are not really and radically healed; on the contrary, they spread the infection to other parts of the earth. …Therefore, we say it again: the arms race is an utterly treacherous trap for humanity, and one which ensnares the poor to an intolerable degree. –Gaudium et Spes #80

Fifty years since that October, how far have we progressed?  The US nuclear arsenal is bigger and more powerful than in 1962, there are more nuclear powers than ever, North Korea has recently joined the club, and the threat of rogue nuclear attacks is far greater now than ever before.

And where do our candidates stand?  They agree: Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons! Iran!  As if the world is safe from the nuclear threat as long as we prevent one particular nation from acquiring them.  As if we are perfectly comfortable living with the nuclear capabilities of North Korea, Pakistan, China, India, Israel, and even France--but could never survive a nuclear Iran!

The fact that the US opened the nuclear Pandora’s box, the fact that only the US has ever committed a nuclear attack, the fact that we maintain the largest arsenal, the fact that we still threaten to use it even as a first strike, the fact that our nuclear history has triggered a competition among nations to acquire the “prestige” and “security” we already enjoy by possessing nukes, the fact that today Iran lives under the threat of an Israeli nuclear attack--both candidates seem blind to all these facts. They can only see that a nuclear-armed Iran would suddenly make nuclear weapons dangerous!

And this blindness does not end with nukes.  On issue after issue that Catholic Social Teaching (CST) considers critical to better international relations and a peaceful world, the candidates were either off the mark or else simply silent.

On Nukes: The only other comment was the notion that we must maintain our alliance with Pakistan because they have 100 nuclear warheads.  Sounds to me like acquiring nukes is the surest way to buy America’s friendship.

On Iran’s Leadership: One candidate proclaimed we must indict their president for international crimes and genocide--without mentioning that, because the US refuses to join the International Criminal Court, we cannot indict anyone.

On Military Spending: the candidates have argued over budget deficits and national debt, and disagreed over spending money the military itself never requested. But neither candidate has proposed any serious reduction in our military spending--the kind of reduction, for example, that would shrink the military’s slice of our budget pie.  

 At a time when both sides target “entitlement” programs as fair game for reduced spending, military spending remains a “sacred cow”--even though it dwarfs the spending of all our allies combined. 

The Catholic Church calls arms manufacturing and sales a major obstacle to attacking world poverty, and Dwight Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex more than 50 years ago, but that complex remains above scrutiny by our political leaders.

Endless War: Both candidates backed drone warfare.  President Obama orders it, and Governor Romney approves of it.  This means the US attacks on foreign soil will continue no matter who becomes President. 

Drones allow us to kill without risk to ourselves, so they have opened the door to attacks that violate Catholic Just War rules in several ways: their wars are undeclared, and not in self-defense, drones often kill civilians (including one 16-year-old American citizen), and their long-term damage to America’s reputation may well outweigh their benefits.  Yet our President continues to personally approve assassination attacks by drones, and so will the next President--no matter who he is.

Rights Violations: In 2008 Obama promised to close Guantanamo, and also campaigned against US policies of torture and rendition.  In 2012 both candidates are silent on these matters, and worse: the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) and the Obama administration’s expanded “kill lists” mean that more people, including US citizens, are having their civil and human rights violated--another breach of Catholic Social Teaching.

Peace?  Both candidates give lip service to peace: it became Romney’s mantra in the last debate, and Obama has received the Nobel Peace Prize.  But neither one offers a credible strategy to achieve it.  CST has repeatedly insisted that the “absence of conflict” falls short of true peace, but now both sides assume that even absence of conflict is not a realistic goal. They argue that terrorism is here to stay, and our vast military power must adapt to combat it.  No one wants to ask why this has happened, or how to end it.  They admit “we cannot kill all the bad guys,” but nonetheless they keeps swatting at the ever-growing swarm--never talking about how to drain the swamp that breeds them.

Immigration:  This often gets treated as a domestic issue, but by definition immigrants arrive from foreign lands.  As so much of the Third World falls further and further behind us, are we surprised that their people flock to advanced economies in the US and Europe?

As early as the 1970s, CST argued that North-South relations (that is, between rich and poor nations) were more critical to the global future then East-West relations (that is, the Cold War).  But American leaders turned a deaf ear, and today we suffer the results--both terrorism and unmanageable immigration--because we failed to use US influence to shape a fairer global culture over the last 40 years.

Now CST stresses that people migrating to escape poverty and oppression are exercising a human right, even if they break the law by doing it.  I keep waiting for a candidate to address our immigration problem in the framework of human rights.  But it’s not happening in 2012.

Resources.  Underlying much of this, of course, is the real US elephant in the international room: we Americans are 6% of the world’s population, yet we consume 40% of the world’s resources.  Even Europeans, who live extremely well by global standards, use only 25% of the energy (per capita) that Americans use.  In short, we are the resource pigs of the world, and we have been for decades, and we show no signs of reforming our gluttonous ways. 

Aside from the ecological damage this does, the consequences on world relations are profound: we proclaim ourselves as the “Number One” model for the world, and our pop culture encourages everyone to admire, envy, and imitate us.  Yet we ignore the truth: the earth’s finite resources can never support our wasteful “American way of life” for all of the world’s five billion people.  That is the real math that does not work. Yet this election has been silent on this.

In sum, a real foreign policy that reflects the values of CST would begin by acknowledging that, while our freedoms and our wealth make us admired and envied, our endless war-making and gluttonous way of life and disregard for human rights make us the rogue elephant that attracts the natural, inevitable attention of big-game hunters who feel compelled to attack the threat we represent to them.

 In the years since World War II we have achieved a kind of global hegemony that reminds us of the historic rise of many great empires.  Catholic Social Teaching embodies a wisdom that cautions us to beware the pitfalls of empire.  It offers a wiser path to avoid the fall of our own empire.  But our leaders are not listening.

 Fifty years after the Cuban missile crisis, our world is no more secure, peace is no nearer, and another generation must grow in the shadow of violence.

I am reminded of the 1963 words of Martin Luther King: “Our Scientific Power has outrun our spiritual power.  We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

Those words happen to echo perfectly the vision of Vatican II: “While man extends his power in every direction, he does not always succeed in subjecting it to his own welfare."

We need leadership that can match our power with new wisdom. Are we getting it?

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012

#302: What Will We Offer Now?

EXCERPT:
....Last week I suggested we might create a "new brand" for Catholicism by taking a cue from Vatican Council II. That Council did not legislate a less Euro-centric, more global Catholicism for its own sake. Rather, the Council examined the signs of the times and concluded that the "modern world" (meaning global culture in the post-World War II nuclear age) displays a widening gap between power and wisdom.

The downside of this insight: what if modern power--military, technological, economic, scientific, political--simply runs amok, unrestrained and unprincipled? The prospect was as horrifying as a mushroom cloud, a global depression, an environmental catastrophe, an invasion or a genocide.

The upside: what if the wisdom traditions of the world, like Christianity, were mobilized to harness and guide the world's power, and to ensure that such power always served good hands with just means? So, instead of fearing catastrophe, we humans might hope for a future of global peace and justice.

This bright vision from Vatican II, based on a partnership between power and wisdom, might help us answer the questions "What good is parish--What can we offer now?" Certainly, the abuse of power concerns everyone, and the urgent need for wisdom is no secret or mystery. Just look at BP, the financial crisis, or the debate over government power.

But there are two hurdles to developing a “wisdom” role for parishes.
First, the Catholic hierarchy has squandered all its credibility as models of leadership using wisdom to guide power. On the contrary, the spreading sex-abuse scandal is a scandal precisely because it displays the abuse of power unguided by any wisdom at all.

Second, parish leaders do not typically see themselves in the “wisdom business.” For parish to offer something new, this will have to change--and we must begin by asking ourselves what kind of wisdom parishes could possibly bring to people's lives that is unavailable to them anywhere else?

I have always believed Vatican II was right about power’s urgent need for wisdom. And now I believe such wisdom is precisely what our parishes need to offer in order to survive and grow. But that makes it absolutely critical for us to begin this conversation: What sort of “wisdom business” can parishes engage in? And how?