Pope Francis, Pope John Paul II, the Krazies, and the Synod

Cardinal Donald Wuerl

As mentioned in my most recent posting, the mid-term relatio has caused quite a stir, especially among the neo-trads who can’t see how the Church could ever move away from their pre-conceived ideas about marriage and family life.  On the Synod floor, several prelates such as the resolute Cardinal Burke, the somewhat less steadfast Cardinal Pell,  the less known South African Cardinal Napier, and Archbishop Stanislaw Gądecki who heads the Polish Bishops’ Conference have raised serious challenges to the relatio.  On the other hand, the American Cardinal Wuerl, German Cardinal Reinhardt Marx, Austrian Cardinal Christoph Shönoborn, and Italian Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri have lined up solidly behind Cardinal Kasper and Archbishop Forte in pushing for the agenda advanced in the relatio.  Meanwhile, out in Saint Peter’s Square and in the world beyond—especially in the blogosphere—each side is claiming the tide is turning in their favor.  Who knows?  In a certain way, the relatio is bound to be the high-water mark of the Synod—or at least of this Synod which is only phase I of a two-Synod process.  The final document of this Synod is bound to reflect to some degree the objections of the Burke/Pell faction to the proposed relatio.  The extent to which the conservative reaction will alter the final product is yet to be seen. 
And, as I pointed out several entries back, it gives Pope Francis and his frontmen, Cardinal Kasper and others, a year to answer the objections of the conservative wing as well as to shuffle the deck to a certain degree.  I say “to a certain degree” because the Holy Father does not get to appoint the heads of the various bishops’ conferences who come as delegates, though he may appoint others of his choice to be voting members of the Synod and he appoints the officers of the Synod as well.  And too, in the end the Synod is advisory to the Holy Father and not deliberative.  The final recommendations of the 2015 Synod will probably mark out how far Francis will go in pushing for change in the Church, but it won’t deter him from going to those limits.  It will be very interesting to watch the Holy Father’s homilies and especially his Sunday Angelus messages to see how he tries over the course of the year to shape the direction.  Of course, he has already lost the confidence of the Katholic Krazies who will watch every move and yell bloody murder whenever they hear him say something that tries to push his progressive agenda.  It is just so much fun to see the buskin on the other foot.  But let’s go back to the proposed relatio and in particular to continue on the current subject of argument, paragraphs 50-52 on “welcoming homosexual Catholics.”  Paragraph 52 reads:

Without denying the moral problems associated with homosexual unions, there are instances where mutual assistance to the point of sacrifice is a valuable support in the life of these persons. Furthermore, the Church pays special attention to [...] children who live with same-sex couples and stresses that the needs and rights of the little ones must always be given priority.         

Several of the Krazy bloggers have gone after Cardinal Shönborn for his defense of the love that exists between partners in same-sex relationships, questioning how this love could be “holy” when it is so gravely sinful.  The Cardinal had related that he has friends who live in a registered same-sex partnership in Vienna where he, Shönbron, is Archbishop.  As one of the partners became ill, the Cardinal said the other “has not left is side,” Shöbron went on to say “It was wonderful, human, and Christian, as the one took care of the other.”  Why is the Cardinal so surprised about the depth of commitment and why are the bloggers questioning how this love can be considered to be holy.  All love between or among people is holy.  There may—or may not—be a legitimate question about the sanctity of a sexual relationship between two people but the love between the partners can be just as holy—or, in some cases even more holy—than the love between two people in a sacramental marriage.  Ideally, of course, the most perfect human love would be between two people joined in Christ in the Sacrament of Matrimony, but as objectively holy as this love should be, in the reality of the mystery of sin and grace there is no reason that the marital love in a particular sacramental marriage might not be surpassed in sanctity  by other human bonds, including that of two men or two women whose sexual relationship falls outside the Christian ideal but whose love is nevertheless real and extraordinary in its self-gift. 

Ironically the shift in understanding of human love that we are seeing at the Synod can be attributed to the emphasis on personalism which characterized the writing of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II.  In Philosophy and Theology we are never to lose sight of the uniqueness of the individual person as a manifestation of the Creator’s goodness, an object of the Creator’s love, and a collaborator in the Creator’s design.   As a consequence the individual must always be accorded human respect and given the opportunity for self-realization in the context of the larger society.  He or she can never be subordinated to the good of that larger society, though Christian faith makes the willing self-surrender of the individual for the common good an act of virtue (and in the extreme of heroic virtue) in imitation of Christ’s free self-surrender both in the kenosis of the Incarnation and in the Sacrifice of the Cross.  Indeed, for the Christian, because we are called to conform ourselves to Christ, it is precisely in this self-gift that we find ourselves most perfectly “realized.”   To the extent that we not merely love but love in such a way as ourselves to incarnate that Love which is the Divine Nature in whose image and likeness we have been created, we truly self-realize.  But pardon me, other than saying that such self-emptying love is not limited to marriage, nor is it always found in marriage (even Sacramental marriage), let me admit that I am crossing the line here from history into philosophy and so let me retreat to a historical perspective. 
For centuries people in the Church, including some at the uppermost levels of the hierarchy have—and at times purportedly in the Church’s name have—overlooked the intrinsic value of each human person and sanctioned biases and bigotries that have ignored the value and dignity of the human person.  I could go through the usual list of atrocities that the Church’s detractors drag out—the base slaughters that accompanied the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders in 1099, The Albigensian Crusades, the persecution of Muslims and Jews in the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, the long and ugly history of anti-Semitism in Catholic Europe, the sanctioning of slavery, the linking of colonialism and evangelization, the persecution of the Huguenots,  the betrayal of the Jesuit missions to the Guarani—the list goes on and on but despite the polemics the facts are there.  We, as a Church, have too often been on the wrong side of racial and religious bigotry.  We have too often totally ignored the fact that each and every human person has an intrinsic and inalienable right not only to life, not only to basic human dignity, but live in such a way as to realize the potential God has created in him or her and to make the contribution to the human family for which God has created him or her.  This is not contingent on one’s sexual orientation anymore than it is dependent on one’s race or religious beliefs. 
I have lived a considerable portion of my life below the Mason Dixon Line.  I have seen the Catholic Churches in Maryland and Virginia and Louisiana and other places and I have seen their balconies where non-white Catholics were relegated to sit at Mass.  I have heard the stories from men and women who remember that they had to come to Holy Communion after the “white folk,” that they could not be altar-boys because they were “colored,” that they were told that they could not join a particular religious order because of their race.  This has only changed in living memory.  I know priests who told me that they were, as young priests, forbidden by law to marry couples of mixed race.  They never questioned those laws.  When the Civil Rights movement began to work for change in American society, many of these priests were told by their bishops that they were not to speak out in favor of racial equality.   I know of bishops who insisted, when they visited an African-American parish for confirmation, that the altar servers who handled their miter and crosier wear gloves.  The Personalist philosophy of Pope John Paul runs contrary to this sort of bigotry but there is still plenty of bigotry in the Church today.  We may not see it when it is directed to the LGBT community but then we didn’t see it either when it was directed to non-whites. 
This Synod threatens to pull the rug out of those who justify their bigotry on “moral” grounds.  The Synod is not changing any moral doctrine.  It points out very bluntly that there are moral quandaries associated with same-sex relationships.  It makes it very clear that same-sex unions, while they may achieve an equality before the civil law with “traditional marriage,” cannot be reconciled with our Christian faith as presented in the Catholic Tradition.   But the relatio does seem to be calling us to treat all God’s children with that inalienable respect to which they are entitled as human persons.  It does seem to be admonishing us not to discriminate against people—or against the children entrusted to them—in name of “Christian morality.”  It can hardly do less and be faithful to Christ and to his Gospel. 

Does Rome Have a Bias against America?

I received this email from a reader and promised to respond to it

Something just came to mind from reading your blog posts.  America magazine and even to some degree American Catholic (Franciscans out of Ohio) are panned by some as too liberal.  Are "America" and "American" charged words in Roman Catholicism?  Does having "America" in their names suggest an intentional desire to emphasize their ties to American Catholicism over European Catholicism?
Or am I just reading too much into that?  I can't think of a Catholic publication, radio program, etc. that people consider "conservative" here in the states that has "America" in its name.

This is a great question.  And in one word the answer is “yes.” 

In this blog I have a series on the history of the Catholic Church in the United States.   It is a topic I intend to return to—especially a more close examination of the history of the Church in the colonial and revolutionary period in which Catholicism in the British North American colonies and in the infant republic was stamped with a democratic character, an ecumenical openness, and a reluctance to exert power in political and social matters.  In case you haven’t noticed, that isn’t the contemporary Catholic take—either here in the U.S. from the Bishops or in Rome from the Holy See.  It was only at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries that Rome even began to notice that there was a Catholic Church in the United States and that it was quite different in character from the European model of Church.  Let me refer back to the entry of  April 13^th  2011 where I wrote:

The Holy See was increasingly frustrated with the American Church.  They were appalled at its openness to non-Catholics, they were fearful of its democratic heritage, and they did not understand why it was so unable to influence the society in which it was rooted.  The Holy See saw a potential for power in the American Church that it had not itself yet recognized.  While it may have been only a small fragment of the general population, it was the largest—and fastest growing—religious body in the United States.  Surely with the right sort of leadership it could leverage itself from its position in the shadows of American Presbyterianism, Methodism, and Episcopalianism into the  catbird seat of American public influence.  All it needed was the right leadership..

There was a definite change in leadership style in the American Church after 1900 and the appointment of William O’Connell at Archbishop of  Boston and his soon thereafter appointment to the College of Cardinals.  Over the years, and especially the mid-century period there was some backsliding into American oriented prelates being appointed from Rome.  While men like Mundelein and Spellman could not have been more loyal to Rome, they were also died-in-the wool Americans, particularly in the issue of separation of Church and State where they defended the American aberration from Roman Doctrine, and the American spirit began to revive.    During the papacy of Paul VI and especially the years that Jean Jadot was Apostolic Delegate this Americanism thrived.  In the 70’s and ’80’s there were appointed remarkable bishops that took Vatican II to the limits of its revolutionary doctrines—men like Cardinal Bernadin, Cardinal Shehan of Baltimore, Archbishop Hallinan, Bishop Clark of Rochester, Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, Archbishop Roach of St. Paul, Archbishop Kelly of Louisville, Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle, Archbishop Quinn of San Francisco, and many others.   The election of John Paul II, however, marked a sure but steady change of direction in the Church and under John Paul, and now with Pope Benedict, the first and all important characteristic for appointment to the hierarchy is an unquestioning loyalty to Rome.  Now, there is nothing wrong with this.  Indeed the unity of the Church requires that the various dioceses throughout the world, through their bishops, are firmly cemented in unity with the See of Peter.  But what is worth noting is that the emphasis that this is given; the loyalty and total obedience to every detail of the authority of the Holy See is a clear indication that Rome does not trust the American Church.  For a wider discussion of this topic, you might want to check the various blog entries under the labels “Americanism” and “American Catholics and Roman Catholics.”
The only thing I want to add to this, is that I am very familiar with Rome and the Curia Romana.  I have lived and worked in Rome for various periods totaling about ten years of my adult life.  I am normally in Rome two to four times a year.  I have many friends in Rome with whom I am in regular contact and who stay with me when in the States or whom I meet at various international meetings.  The vast majority of these friends are Italian and are connected in some way or other with international Catholicism.  Indeed, the vast majority are clergy, some holding Vatican posts. 

My experience is, and I will speak only from experience, that Curial officials, especially the Europeans in the Italians in particular, have strong cultural biases against America in the realms of culture, religious practice, and law.  They openly mock American culture in terms of art, music, literature, cuisine, education, and intellectual work. The Italians in particular tend to be very culturally isolated believing that there is nothing beyond the Alps that compares to anything Italian.  There is a strong degree of Racism, especially directed towards peoples of South-East Asia and Africa.   What is tragic about this is that Church attendance among American Catholics—while it could be better—is six times that of Italian Catholics.  There is no comparison t the financial support given the Church—both locally and to the Holy See—between American and Italian faithful.  For all the issues about celibacy, it is far better observed in the American Church than it is among Italian clergy.  The American Church has issues, but it is a far more vibrant Church than one finds anywhere in Western Europe.  Far from being a model for the Americans, the European Church—and the Italian Church in particular—has much it could learn from us (and from other national Churches around the world) and the tampering in American Church life by Rome is doing far more damage than help.  Indeed, the Curia should get the beam out of their own eye before they try to clear up the speck in ours.

American Catholics in the Civil War

Let’s take a look at the role of Catholics in the American Civil War. In the two decades before the war many of your large Protestant denominations (Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians) broke apart into Northern and Southern Churches. The issue, of course, was slavery, an issue that was dividing the country. As the abolitionist movement grew strong in the North and as the South became more and more defensive of its "pecuiliar institution," the unity of these denominations inevitably fractured—and would not be healed for decades. The Episcopal Church fared somewhat better, undergoing a “separation” rather than a division as the dioceses in the Confederacy organized themselves into “The Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America,” without undergoing any doctrinal or canonical division, retaining the same prayer-book while praying for different presidents and Congresses.. The Episcopal Church in the Confederate States, decidedly more "Low Church" in tradition than the more "High Church" North, had the distinction of a Bishop-General when Leonidas Polk, Bishop of Louisiana traded in his rochet and chimere for Confederate gray and accepted a commission in the Army as a General. Bishop Polk was killed in the battle of Pine Mountain Georgia by a Union shell in 1864. Division was not on the agenda for Lutherans either as most Lutherans, indeed almost all, lived in the Union and were either loyal to it or, especially the Scandinavians, were obliviously indifferent to the conflict which had no direct bearing on their rural farm life in Minnesotta and the Dakotas. (Lutherans were already fractured along ethnic lines—Swedes, Germans, Norwegians, Estonians, Danes, and their divisions were often as bitter as the North-South divisions tearing the country apart.)
For Catholics division or even separation was not a possibility as their common allegiance to the Papacy held them in communion—if not agreement—with one another. The Papacy itself had a rather ambigious record on the issue of slavery until Pope Gregory XVI in 1839 issued the bull Supremo Apostolatus which condemned both the institution of slavery and the slave trade. Not all Catholics rallied to the papal teaching. Catholic officials in the United States, Brazil, and other nations which still legalized slavery were not inclined to preach against slavery, Catholic slave owners—including the clergy—did not sell their slaves, much less emancipate them. (The American Jesuits had been ordered by Rome earlier in the century to get rid of their slaves and they did.) Perhaps one of the more embarrassing responses from a Catholic was that of Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (and the only Catholic to serve in that position until the current Chief Justice, John Roberts). Taney was a devout Maryland Catholic. He had freed his own slaves and he “regretted” slavery. Nevertheless, he is responsible for the infamous Dred Scott decision declaring: “It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in regard to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted; but the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” He further declared that Blacks—free or slave—were not and could not be citizens and that Congress had not authority to regulate slavery in the territories. In terms of dissent from Church teaching, Taney’s action would be as if today Justice Roberts or any other Catholic Justice on the court ruled that neither the States separately nor the Federal Government collectively could limit access to abortion. It was a shocking contradiction to the magisterium yet Taney’s dissent from magisterial teaching was in no way punished by Church authorities of his day. This was despite Pope Gregory’s admonition in Supremo Apostolatus: "We further reprobate by our apostolic authority all the above described offences (slavery and the slave trade) as utterly unworthy the Christian name; and by the same authority we rigidly prohibit and interdict all and every individual, whether ecclesiastical or laical, from presuming to defend that commerce in negro servitude under any pretence or borrowed excuse. … or to teach or publish in any manner, publicly or privately, things contrary to the admonitions which we have given in these letters." Pretty clear, huh? By "interdict" Gregory meant of course that any one supporting slavery or the slave trade was to be denied the sacraments and other rites of the Church. It was never enforced against Mr. Justice Taney or any other person--official or citizen--as far as I know, Of course Pope Gregory also had written that race was not to be a barrier to Holy Orders, but no American seminary would accept an Afro-American candidate. It was only in 1886 that Augustus Tolton, the first African American ordinandus, was ordained to the priesthood and that was after being sent to Rome for his educaiton to get around the refusal of the American seminaries to admit him. (There is the case of the Healy brothers whose mixed race lineage allowed them to passé blanc. We will do a blog on them in the future.) Regardless of papal declaraitons, it would not be until the Civil Rights movement in the mid-twentieth century that most Catholic seminaries and religous orders would accept African-Americans and candidates. But Father Tolton is long after the Civil War and we have wandered too far--more to come when we get back to the topic of American Catholics in the Civil War.
The image today is Roger B, Taney, the first Catholic to serve as a justice of the United States Supreme Court and the first Catholic to serve as Chief Justice. He was appointed to the Court as Chief Justice and served from his appointment in 1836 until his death in 1864, He handed down the infamous Dred Scott decision which declared that slaves were property and Blacks, free or slave, could never be citizens.