Destined for the Rise and the Fall of Many in Israel

Pope Francis meets with Sisters
from the LCWR: they came to
the Vatican, I understand, on a
Bus.  

Well Pope Francis called the dogs of war off the American nuns and that marks another watershed day in the history of the American Church as it is a clear sign that the JPII/Benedict XVI old guard is finished, at least for the length of this papacy.  There had been a mounting tension between the American Religious Women and the Holy See dating back to 1979 when Sister Teresa Kane publically addressed Pope John Paul on behalf of U.S. nuns and asked him to consider admitting women “to all the ministries of the Church.” This opened the question of ordaining women, a question John Paul was quick to put the kibosh on and which angered him and his Curia that it was even mentioned.  Pope John Paul had very definite ideas on the place of women in the Church and in particular on how religious women should conduct themselves.  While his understanding of the role of women in the Church actually marked a step—or several steps—beyond what up to then had been Church practice, it hardly fit our current cultural conviction that men and women are equal and should have equal access to responsibility in our world today.  (I choose the word “responsibility” as it is more consistent with gospel values than the word “power,” but I certainly mean power when I speak of responsibility in this context.) 

The changes in religious life, and especially the life of religious women, has been remarkable in the decades after Vatican II.  In following the Vatican II mandate to return to the charisms of their founders, many religious women have renounced the monastic practices that were imposed on them in the late 18^th and in the 19^th centuries, adopting modern dress, moving out of large convents and the quasi-monastic life required in that sort of environment, taking more personal responsibility for their finances, and revamping authority structures to be more collaborative than directive.  They live now not as semi-monastics but as consecrated lay women living according to the evangelical counsels and devoting themselves to the works of the Church.  Of course there are still monastic and contemplative communities, generally enclosed (cloistered) but that vocation is essentially different than that of Religious Sisters in Apostolic communities.  The monastic life too has, in most places, undergone some external change, but remains essentially focused on prayer and the common life.  If anything, the changes in Religious Life after Vatican II have permitted the Apostolic and the Contemplative vocations to more clearly differentiate themselves from each other and permitted women to make the appropriate choice according to the graces given to each person. 

Of course the changes in Religious Life have also empowered women to take responsibility for their own life and mission and this has been deeply troubling to those who favor the misogynist hierchical power structures for which the Catholic Church was once so famous.  The last thing burned-out or incompetent male clerics need is to have self-confident religious women around.  And let’s face it, if there is anything the experience of the Vatican troubling the American Sisters has shown us is that the rank and file Catholics still love the nuns while the good folk in the pews are more reserved in their affection and respect for the clergy.  In 1995 the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of the Consecrated Life and Societies of the Apostolic Life (once known as the Congregation for Religious) divided out the more “traditional” religious communities of women from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (originally known as Conference of Major Superiors of Women) and established for the more compliant nuns The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious.  This left two distinct groupings of American Sisters.  About 80% of American Sisters belong to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. 

The LCWR’s problems began in earnest early in the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI when the Congregation of Institutes of the Consecrated Life and Societies of the Apostolic Life announced a “visitation” of American Sisters belonging to the LCWR affiliated communities.  This was supposedly “for their own good” to see why they weren’t getting the vocations they had once garnered in the 1960 vocational heyday.  The problem obviously was that most of the good sisters weren’t properly veiled and they were living in apartments and had drivers’ licenses—oh, and minds of their own, and used them.  A moving factor behind the original investigation was that nemesis of change, our own beloved Cardinal Burke who, at the time, was a member of the Congregation of Institutes of the Consecrated Life and Societies of the Apostolic Life.  (I am getting tired of typing and retyping that title—from here on out CICLSAL.)   Mother Mary Clare Millea, a Canon Lawyer and the Superior General of the Congregation of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (a community belonging to the Conference of Major Superiors of Women) was put in charge of the visitation.  This—it was thought—would be like putting Ted Cruz in charge of investigating Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  But guess what—it became clear that under the microscope of Mother Mary Clare, the Sisters of the LCWR looked just fine!!!  That wouldn’t do.  So stage II kicked in and Cardinal William Levada, an American who at the time was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (at one time known as “The Holy Roman Inquisition” and the most powerful of the Roman dicasteries) announced that the CDF was going to do a doctrinal investigation of the LCWR because they good Sisters were writing a lot of heresy and spreading false doctrines in their various ministries.  As if they had not learned with Galileo—some people just never learn.  Levada is not Torquemada and was only the front man for a cabal of the truly evil: Cardinal Burke (again!), Cardinal Law (the disgraced Archbishop of Boston whose intransience about a fictional princely immunity kicked off the sex-abuse scandal in the American Church), Archbishop Lori of Baltimore (a slimy sycophant of a prelate if there ever was one—you don’t want to know how he got where he got) and their bankrolling stooge, Carl Anderson, Grand Poobah of the Knights of Columbus whose generosity to Vatican causes with other people’s money has given him great influence in the hallowed halls of the pre-Francisco Reform Vatican Bank.  (Just mentioning these boys makes me want to take a shower.)  Well, the pyre was well on its way to being completed when Pope Benedict surprised the world with his retirement and within a month many things had begun to change.  Within a few months of his election, Pope Francis was addressing the Religious from Latin America and he said, in obvious reference to the North American nuns:

They will make mistakes, they will make a blunder [meter la pata], this will pass! Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine (of the Faith) will arrive for you, telling you that you said such or such thing... But do not worry. Explain whatever you have to explain, but move forward... Open the doors, do something there where life calls for it. I would rather have a Church that makes mistakes for doing something than one that gets sick for being closed up...

Clear enough? One would think.  But just because Petrus locutus est doesn’t mean Roma locuta est, as is becoming increasingly clear in so many ways with top Cardinals publicly disagreeing with a reigning pontiff—something that hasn’t happened in a century and a half.  Ten months later, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, current Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made it clear that the heat was still on the good Sisters.  And then this past Thursday, suddenly, the Vatican said, in tones reminiscent of Gilda Radner’s Emily Litella on SNL, “never mind.”  There, gone. Poof.  Just like that.  Oh yes, there’s a new sheriff in town—or to put it more biblically for Law, Lori, Burke, Anderson and co: there came a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. 

As if that wasn’t enough news for one day, on Friday Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop emeritus of Chicago, passed to his eternal reward.  May God be good to him.  I will do a posting on his someday soon.  He was not a bad man, he certainly was not princely (or princessly) as some other prelates chose to be, but he represented that return to hierarchal autocracy that we witnessed during the reigns of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.  It will be interesting to see that now that Chicago no longer has a living Cardinal, if the new Archbishop, Blase Cupich, will be given a red hat in the next consistory.  Of course, Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput’s predecessor, Cardinal Rigali turns 80 next Tuesday, freeing up another possible red hat.  Cupich and Chaput are cut from very different cloth.  Chaput, despite his Capuchin/Franciscan background is more of the sort of silk popular in Benedict’s papacy; Cupich, a diocesan priest, is more of the Franciscan homespun.  Yes, it’s true: the Religious take the vow of poverty and the diocesan priests live it.  I have seen it all before.  For the best food and wines, the friars and monks will guide the way. But I digress.  The Red Hat contest is further complicated by the fact that Francis will be the guest of Chaput in September for the World Meeting of Families.  Under the two previous popes, such hospitality was usually acknowledged by a cardinal’s hat for the hosting prelate.  But Francis is quite unpredictable.  Nevertheless, it would be perceived as a snub for Cupich to get the hat and Chaput not, after Chaput had organized the September event.  In the meantime, poor Bill Lori is still sporting a green galero on his coat of arms. I am going to be surprised if that changes in this papacy.  And disappointed.  

New Sheriff, New Rules, Missing: One Red Hat

 Father Robert Nugent, SDS, died last week at the age of 76.  Father Nugent had been the founder—along with Sister Jeannine Gramick—of New Ways Ministries, one of the first and most effective ministries to Gay, Lesbian, and transgendered Catholics.  New Ways Ministries set its agenda for opening a dialogue between the LGBT community and the Church so that the hierarchy could have a better understanding of the complex issues and questions facing Catholics with same-sex attraction, but in doing so did not “lay down the law” in terms as black and white as some thought should be.  (This was, of course, before the “Who am I to judge” approach of our current Pope.)  in their open approach, Father Nugent and Sister Jeannine attracted the particular ire of the late Cardinal James Hickey, then Archbishop of Washington.  His Eminence could be, and most often was, totally irrational at the mention of either name—Father Nugent or Sister Jeannine—or at any reference to New Ways Ministries.   

As an example of his irrationality when it came to New Ways Ministries, in 1998—shortly after the homophobic murder of Matthew Shepherd—several Catholic organizations published an advertisement in The New York Times calling for an end to hate crimes against LGBT persons.  Pax Christi USA was one of these organizations.  New Ways Ministry was another.  Many priests and religious signed the advertisement.  Among them were Father Bruce Bavinger SJ—pastor of St Aloysius Gonzaga Church in Washington DC—and Father Larry Madden SJ, pastor of Holy Trinity in Georgetown.  Cardinal Hickey called their Jesuit provincial and insisted that the provincial make both priests swear an oath that they would never again support any statement sponsored by New Ways Ministry.  Now remember, New Ways Ministry was only one of several sponsors of this advertisement which only called for an end to hate crimes.  Reputable Catholic groups had co-sponsored this petition and the list of signees included many leading Catholics.  The advertisement in no way undermined the moral teaching of the Church on sexuality issues.  That did not matter to Cardinal Hickey—any association, no matter how remote, with New Ways Ministry was enough to get you on His Eminence’s fecal roster. 

In 1999 Cardinal Hickey used his influence to persuade then Cardinal Ratzinger at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to issue a “Notification Regarding Sister Jeannine Gramick SSND and Father Robert Nugent SDS” which made it clear that New Ways Ministry was not—at least as it had been reported by Cardinal Hickey to the CDF—consistent with the Church’s moral teaching.  This began a persecution of Father Nugent and Sister Grammick.  Sister Jeannine’s Order, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, were pressured into dismissing her.  Fortunately a more stalwart group, the Sisters of Loretto, took her as a transfer.  Father Nugent was forced into abandoning any ministry whatsoever to persons with same-sex attraction.  So much for searching out the sheep that was lost.

I will not say that Cardinal Hickey was a bad man or even a bad priest.  Granted, his priests found him cold and distant but he actually was just a strong introvert with very poor interpersonal skills.  He was a “company man” who could not understand the Church’s mission of proclaiming the Gospel except in the model of maintaining the ecclesiastical institutions and their power.  To his great credit, he recognized the unique gifts of Capuchin friar Sean O’Malley and advanced O’Malley’s career.  Nevertheless, he can be considered as one of the darker blots on the roster of men chosen to shepherd the Church in the United States.  If it were only the unjust ways in which he acted against Nugent and Gramick, his autocratic ways could perhaps be attributed to a personal antipathy, but his treatment of fellow Cardinal, Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, reveals a most despicable side, a pathology of fear, that impelled the Cardinal to dogmatically fortify his opinions rather than to advance the cause of the Gospel.  When Cardinal Bernardin established the Catholic Common Ground Initiative in 1996 Cardinal Hickey and Cardinal Law—another and darker blot on the history of the Church in the United States—then Archbishop of Boston, publicly attacked Cardinal Bernardin and united their voices and power to do their best to sink his project of opening dialogue with disaffected communities within the Church to discover how the Church in the United States could avoid the polarization and culture wars that were threatening to eat away its vitality.  Hickey and Law made it absolutely clear that in their scheme of things there is no room for dialogue.  Their way or the highway.  They ignited the very firestorm Cardinal Bernardin was trying to avoid from engulfing American Catholicism.  We were privileged to watch he fate of Cardinal Law who, like Lucifer, has fallen like a star from the heavens. Cardinal Hickey went to his grave—actually his mausoleum in the rear of Saint Matthew’s Cathedral—in October 2004, just short of four years after his retirement from the See of Washington at the age of 80.     

While Sean O’Malley is a testimony to the better angels of Cardinal Hickey’s nature, there was—as I pointed out—another side to the man and to that side, another protégé.  His Eminence had a most peculiar relationship with Father William Lori.  I have written elsewhere about Lori—now Archbishop of Baltimore—but perhaps the most telling is the final paragraph of my August 18, 2012 entry on the late Monsignor Ralph Beiting, one of the most outstanding Christians I have met in my lifetime.  Father Beiting, a priest of the diocese of Covington, was for his entire life an outstanding servant of the poorest Americans in Appalachia.  Lori had begun his studies for the priesthood in that same Diocese but as a student, transferred to Washington “because there is no upward mobility in Covington.”  He found that upward mobility in the favor of Cardinal Hickey who appointed Lori as his secretary and kept him close by his side.  Lori, for his part, fawned over the Cardinal in ways that others who were present found nauseating.  It paid off.  Hickey had Lori named one of his auxiliary bishops and before his death was able to secure for him the Diocese of Bridgeport. 

Archbishop Lori, by all accounts, was expected to get a Cardinal’s hat in this upcoming consistory.  Baltimore is the oldest See in the Church of the United States In the last fifty years, each Archbishop of Baltimore but one were named Cardinals.  Moreover, Lori’s enjoys the patronage of Carl Anderson, Supreme Grand Poobah of the Knights of Columbus and generous dispenser of funds to the Vatican and to various conservative causes.  Anderson used his influence to have Lori promoted to Baltimore.  Pope Francis may pay for his decision not to give Lori his coveted hat, but he has sent a significant signal that there are new rules to the game.  I hope for Archbishop Lori’s sake, that he can learn to play by those rules and be the sort of bishop Francis is calling for.  While I have never liked Archbishop Lori, I would like to see Baltimore to have a wise and good Shepherd at its head. And, for that matter, I would like to see each bishop, including Archbishop Lori, be the sort of Bishop Pope Francis seems to want for our Church.

Today's Rebellious Catholics

 You want more about rebellious Catholics?  Look at this video about those damn trouble making nuns that keep poor Archbishop Lori and feather-headed Knights of Columbus Grand Poobah Carl Anderson and Cardinals Burke and Law from getting restful nights’ sleep.  Fortunately with the new prefect, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the “problem” has gone to a Vatican back burner, but I think this trailer makes it clear that the only problem with the nuns is that they take the Gospel seriously.  Hmmm—maybe we do need to think about turning over Church leadership to women.     

http://www.bandofsistersmovie.com/

 

On All of Our Shoulders

Two weeks ago, over 150 Catholic theologians and scholars issued a statement “On All of Our Shoulders” to help us focus on making moral choices in the upcoming election.  Drawing on the magisterium such Catholic intellectuals as John Langan, S.J., Thomas Reese, S.J., Bryan N. Massingale, Dolores R. Leckey, James E. Hug S.J., Peter Steinfels, Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, Anthony Ruff OSB,  Alexander DiLella, John F Haught, Jay P. Dolan, and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, (along with twelve dozen others) have put out a thought-provoking analysis of the philosophical arguments that underlay the political choices in this year’s election.  “On All of Our Shoulders” certainly does away with the lie that the question of for whom a Catholic should vote in the upcoming election is an open and shut case.  It particularly demolishes the misrepresentation that Vice-Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan’s Catholic faith is the root of his political philosophy.  This is not to say that Congressman Ryan is not a good Catholic—far from it.  The Congressman has shown us the importance of his Catholic pieties but it does show us that his social vision is directly opposed to the Magisterium.   I am taking the liberty of posting  “On All of Our Shoulders” in several segments over the next few weeks.  This is not an endorsement of the Obama/Biden ticket.  Our bishops and their allies in the Republican Party (read Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus) have made us well aware of the serious moral questions posed by the Democratic Platform, in particular by the Democratic support for legalized abortion.  They have also waved the canard of the Obama Administration posing a threat to Religious Liberty in an effort to divide the Catholic electorate from its traditional home in the Democratic Party.  That strategy does not seem to be working any better in 2012 than it did in 2008.  What “On All of Our Shoulders” does, however, is to make clear to the Catholic voter that the alternative is every bit as problematic and at least as fundamentally opposed to Catholic teaching.  But then you are all adults and can think for yourself, so I will simply post the statement, as I said, in readable size portions.     

On all of Our Shoulders

A Catholic Call to protect the Endangered Common Good

We write as Catholic theologians, academics and ministers concerned for our nation and for the integrity of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. We write to hold up aspects of the Church's social doctrine that are profoundly relevant to the challenges our nation faces at this moment in history, yet are in danger of being ignored. At a moment when the ideas of Atlas Shrugged influence public debate and policy, we write to proclaim the Catholic truth that the stewardship of common good rests upon all of our shoulders together. This is a responsibility we dare not shrug. We fulfill this obligation in myriad ways, but indispensibly among them, through the policies of our government. We highlight these principles of the Church's social doctrine in the hope that their substance will better influence our political and policy debates.

A Tipping Point

America is at a tipping point where the traditional commitment of our government to protecting and advancing the common good is in very real danger of being dismantled for generations. Members of the "Tea Party," libertarians, Ayn Rand followers and other proponents of small government have brought libertarian views of government into the mainstream; legitimating forms of social indifference. After decades of anti-government rhetoric and "starve the beast" tax cuts, some even appear to exploit predictable fiscal problems to establish a privatized, libertarian order that reduces society to a collection of individuals and shrinks the common good to fit the outcomes achievable by private, for profit firms.

A Threat to the Church's Teachings

Congressman Paul Ryan's candidacy for Vice President brings the threat of this social philosophy home to the Church. We do not question Paul Ryan's faith. We are concerned however, that defenders of Ryan have gone beyond highlighting the aspects of Catholic moral teaching with which his political positions are laudably consistent, to argue that his Ayn Rand "inspired" individualist and anti-government vision and the policies they inform are themselves legitimately Catholic. They are not.

We do not write to oppose Ryan's candidacy or to argue there are not legitimatereasons for Catholics to vote for him. Our concern is that Ryan and his Catholic supporters, must be informed—as prochoice candidates and Catholics who vote for them are perennially and appropriately reminded—that some of his positions are fundamentally at odds with the teachings of the Catholic Church.
We fear the Church's legitimate disagreement with the inadequate exemptions in the Obama administration's contraceptive insurance mandate will lead some bishops to avoid giving due scrutiny to Ryan's disagreements with or misunderstandings of the Church's social teaching. This would be a tragic failure of episcopal oversight. Presidential campaigns have enormous power to legitimate their messages. If Congressman Ryan's Randian vision is allowed to be promoted as Catholic, many believers will be confused and our nation will be deprived of the Church's full wisdom.
Congressman Ryan has forthrightly proclaimed his inspiration by Ayn Rand. This was no passing youthful phase. Few politicians have offered so comprehensive a statement of a social philosophy and shown its links to their policy priorities and political strategies as Congressmen Ryan did in his remarkable 2005 address to the Atlas Society. In addition to naming Rand as the "one thinker" whom he would credit for his entering public service, he stated that he repeatedly returns to Atlas Shrugged to "check my premises so that I know that what I'm believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism." From this perspective he judged "defined benefit" safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare to be "collectivist" and "socialist based." He called for privatizing of Social Security and Medicare into individually funded programs in order to "change the dynamics in this society" and to form "believers in the individualist capitalist system." [1] These values and policy priorities are evident throughout the several budget resolutions he has authored. Defined benefit programs are an explicit target in themselves because they foster "dependence"—a term he invokes 5 times in his 2013 budget resolution. Congressman Ryan's concerns about the growing Federal debt are commendable. It is clear, however, that he had a prior philosophical bias against publically funded safety net programs independent of these fiscal concerns.Given these values, it seems reasonable to conclude that Ryan's deep cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps are policy priorities themselves. Thus, it is not surprising, that the savings achieved by these cuts are swamped by revenue losses resulting from massive new tax cuts for high earners and corporations.
Ryan's rejection of Rand's atheism is laudable, as are his public avowal of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Catholic social doctrine. We do not question the sincerity of his convictions, but must note that a shift from the social philosophy of Ayn Rand to the social doctrine of the Catholic Church is a radical change indeed. Such a conversion would take much time and reflection. Congressman Ryan's policies have remained unchanged through this shift. This suggests that they may in fact still be more indebted to the social principles of Rand than to Aquinas and the Catholic Church. Clarification of the substance of Catholic social doctrine will assist him and other Catholics in discernment of these policies.

footnotes

1  Address by Paul Ryan to Atlas Society "Celebration of Ayn Rand," 2005. (Published transcript is incomplete. Quotes are taken from audio file.) http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2012/04/30/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again.

 

The Rockets' Red Glare; The Bombs Bursting in Air

One of my regulars sent this to me

A bit strong, even “edgy,” but pay attention because it does capture the problem—the Church is losing the war because the bishops are picking the wrong battles.  C'mon guys, we need a change of strategy--or maybe a change of leadership.

http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/fiore/item/Fiore-Smackdown-10259.php

Magisterium and Prophecy

Amaziah, priest of Bethel, said to Amos,

"Off with you, visionary, flee to the land of Judah!
There earn your bread by prophesying,
but never again prophesy in Bethel;
for it is the king's sanctuary and a royal temple."
Amos answered Amaziah, "I was no prophet,
nor have I belonged to a company of prophets;
I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores.
The LORD took me from following the flock, and said to me,
Go, prophesy to my people Israel."

Amos 7: 12-15

Interesting first reading for Mass today.  The homilist explained that Amos was expelled from the sanctuary at Bethel by the priests of that temple because he was such an ardent defender of the poor.  They challenged him: What right did he have to prophesy?  This was a royal temple and he was not appointed to the sanctuary.  He was not a priest.—he was only a shepherd with a few fig trees.  Who was he to presume to speak on God’’s behalf?  What really upset them and caused them to expel Amos was that Amos spoke on behalf of the poor and called out the rich for their wealth.  He compared the wealthy women to fat cows and said that they lie around all day in luxury, getting drunk by lunchtime while the poor were being sold into slavery for the price of a pair of sandals.  And the priests could not have this—the sanctuary depended on the generosity of the rich and the powerful—the very people Amos was prophesying against. 

Then the homilist mentioned other people who were not priests but whom God raised up as prophets in the Church—Saint Francis, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Bridgette of Sweden and how they had spoken for the poor or had called the Church to reform.  He mentioned Mother Teresa who stood before presidents and kings and the United Nations calling for Life—the unborn, the elderly, the terminally ill, and even those on Death Row.  These were all prophetic voices yet none of them was a bishop or a priest.

Finally the homilist mentioned “THE NUNS” and those who wished to silence them.  “Maybe,” he said, “there are problems.  I don’t know.  I don’t see it.  But one of the charges against them is that they speak too much for the poor, they are too involved in ‘Social Justice’.  How can one speak 'too much' on behalf of the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters?  Is this not like Amaziah and the priests of Bethel?  Are prophets squelched when they point out the injustices against the poor because our friends and benefactors are among the rich?”   It was thought-provoking. 

Are Archbishop Lori and his buddy KofC Grand Poobah (and former Reagan Ade) Carl Anderson upset at the nuns for being spokespersons for the poor?  Are Cardinal Law and Cardinal Burke upset at the nuns because the nuns are making their benefactors who support their luxury in Rome look bad?  I don’t know but the tone of things suggests that the days of preaching Justice may be drawing to a close in our Catholic world.  I am the first to admit that there is a Magisterium and it needs to be listened to.  But God raises up prophetic voices outside that Magisterium.  Has since the days of Amos.  And will until Justice pours down off the mountainsides and Charity rules the land. 

Reformation Today! 1

The Son of Man came not to

be served but to serve

(Matt 20: 28)

I think that when we bring up the subject of Reform in the Church what we most need today is a movement to restore the Church to its role as Servant in imitation of its Master who came not to be served but to serve.  All this commotion about the Affordable Care Act and what it purportedly does to our “rights” as Catholic Americans is centered about the idea that we, as Church, should be able to dictate the norms of behavior to the larger society in which we live.  That premise needs to be seriously questioned, but even more we need to take stock of the reality of the declining influence of the Church on our society.  It is unrealistic to think that the Catholic Church can have the political influence on American life that it had through most of the 20^th century.   While some may either grieve or be angry that we can’t shape public policy as we once did, I believe it presents us with the opportunity to be once again the Church that Christ established and not the Church built by human power. 

Years ago I was struck by a passage in William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas’ Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, (Nashville:Abingdon, 1989) in which they critiqued mainline Protestantism in the United States  for its delusions about a lost ability to determine societal norms.  Hauerwas and Willimon wrote:
Everything needed to be reexamined, and the failure of the old answers, seen now more clearly by the glow of the furnaces at Dachau and the fires of Hiroshima, demanded new questions.  The world had shifted.  Mainline American Protestantism as is often the case, plodded wearily along as if nothing had changed.  Like an aging dowager, living in a decaying mansion on the edge of town, bankrupt and penniless,  house decaying around her but acting as if her family still controlled the city, our theologians and church leaders continued to think and act as if we were in charge, as if the old arrangements were still valid.

Well, we could rewrite this today to say

Everything needs to be reexamined and the failure of the old answers, seen now more clearly in the glare of the clergy sex-abuse trials and the investigative lights of numerous financial crimes and ‘irregularities,” demands radical reform.  The world has shifted.  Catholicism in the Developed World—and in particular in the United States—can no longer plod along as if everything has not changed.  Like an aging dowager, living in a decaying mansion on the edge of town, bankrupt and penniless, house falling into ruins around her, but acting as if her family still controlled the city, the Holy See and our own American bishops, continue to act as if they were still in charge, as if the old arrangements were still valid.     

If I am critical of Cardinal Burke for his antiquated pomp and Archbishop Lori for his high-handed ways and the Institute of Christ the Sovereign Priest for their living in a world of make believe baroque revivalism, and Carl Anderson for his shabby influence pedaling at the Roman Curia, and Bishop Olmstead for his ill-informed autocracy, and Cardinal Law for his unrepentant lack of shame, it is because they are holding our Church hostage to a world that exists any longer only in their own fantasies of power.  Gentlemen, the ancien regime is over and it ain’t coming back.  The toothpaste ain’t  goin’ back in the tube.   You—we—simply have no power anymore to chart the course of American society.  Get over it.  Wake up and smell the coffee.  Move on!

And if I am behind the good women of the LCWR and I tend to canonize people like Dom Helder Camara and Archbishop Romero and Bishop Tom Gumbleton, and Sister Joan Chittester,  and Dorothy Day and Social Justice and L’Arche and the Jesuit inner-city schools it is because I believe these are the first fruits of a new age for the Church, an age that will be characterized by service to society rather than exercising power over it.  And as one who looks to the Gospels for guidance, I say “gratias tibi, Domine.”  

Semper Reformanda

Sorry for the hiatus –I have been travelling a bit and on retreat a bit and have had deadlines to meet and—well, excuses are just that, excuses—but I am sorry.  I realize every time I don’t do an entry for more than two days, the readership begins to drop off and I have to get back to work.  And while my readership is relatively small (a couple thousand hits a month) I know from your responses that it is helping a number of you think more clearly not so much about the past as what we can learn from the past for the crisis the Church is in today.  And it is in a crisis.          One of the themes I explore when I teach—and I have been exploring in this blog as well—is the  periodic  need of the Church for Reform.  There is a precept Ecclesia semper reformans, semper reformanda (the Church, always reforming and always in need of reform).  The current mess in Rome with butlers and bankers out of jobs and into court is only one sign of needed reform.  The clear signs that there is a power struggle going on behind the scenes—indeed that Pope Benedict is more a pawn of warring factions than able to give direction himself—is very troublesome.  Even more troubling is the lack of authority the faithful are willing to invest in the hierarchy.  This is clear from the immense support being given the LCWR by the average Catholic-in-the-streets whether it is comic commentator Stephen Colbert or my 92 year old grand-aunt.  The staged and trumped-up charges against the American nuns by prelates whose own integrity has been shown to be not even questionable but voided (Cardinal Law),  prelates who are known for being supercilious rather than  judicious (Cardinal Burke), prelates whose reputation has shown them to be ruthlessly ambitious climbers (Archbishop Lori) and prominent laity who are base influence peddlers with  ties to the extreme right wing of American politics (Carl Anderson) is a clear indication that there is an every-opening chasm between the hierarchy and the faithful and this is a dangerous situation.
       When we look at the history of Church Reform we see several models.  At times, such as in the Reforms of the Emperor Charlemagne and again in the Reforms of his heirs—the Ottonian Emperors of the 10^th century, the reforms were imposed on the Church by political force.  In the Gregorian Reform of the 11^th century and Innocentian Reform of the 13^th, reform was initiated by the papacy itself under the leadership of convinced and evangelical  popes who threw the traditions of patronage and favoritism to the winds and did not hesitate to clean up the rats’ nests into which much of the hierarchical Church had devolved.  Tragically, in the 16^th century when the political power was impotent to reform the Church and the vested interests in the hierarchy were too strong for effective renewal, reform came from within but ended up splitting the Church and, to be honest, throwing out too many babies and not enough bathwater.  I have to say that in my judgment the Protestant Reformations of the 16^th and 17^th centuries were not only tragedies, they were ineffectual.
       Well, not entirely ineffectual.  Human nature is human nature.  Time has shown that while liturgy and catechesis changed in the reformed Churches, human nature most often did not.  Issues of ambition, abuse of power, intellectual rigidity, greed, jealousy all carried over into the new religious groups.  Granted some of the changes were good and should have happened sooner and with sponsorship of the Catholic hierarchy—scriptures and worship in the common tongue, restoration of the Chalice in communion, etc.  (I use etc. when I can’t think of anything else but know there must be something.)
        The Reformers also triggered the papacy finally into action and led to the Council of Trent which is the most successful reform Council in the history of the Church.  Much good came from Trent, but that is not where I want to go in this entry.
       As a historian I have come to see that as much a failure as the papacy so often has been—and I believe currently is—it is it gives a continuity to the Church with which we cannot dispense.  I am terrified of a new reformation that will cause people to walk away in disgust from the papacy.  On the one hand I see the Roman Curia and many of our bishops being the very force that is undermining the papacy by creating this injurious gulf between the institutional church and the faithful.  We need leadership with credibility not with arrogant self-importance.
       It is said that once a priest becomes a bishop “he has had his last bad meal and will never hear the truth again.”  Much of the leadership of the Church is out of touch with the Catholic in the pews.  When you are out of touch you cannot effectively preach the gospel—you become a buffoon like Chaucer’s pardoner.  This is not a time for blind obedience—only God merits blind obedience and I am not sure that he desires it—it is a time for wise and strong leadership that calls us by credible example to put our faith in Christ and in his Gospel.