The Obamazation of Pope Francis VI

Nelson Mandela died last year on December 5^th.  Tributes to the man who smashed apartheid in South Africa poured out from world leaders, among them Pope Francis who wrote:

 It was with sadness that I learned of the death of former President Nelson Mandela, and I send prayerful condolences to all the Mandela family, to the members of the Government and to all the people of South Africa. In commending the soul of the deceased to the infinite mercy of Almighty God, I ask the Lord to console and strengthen all who mourn his loss. Paying tribute to the steadfast commitment shown by Nelson Mandela in promoting the human dignity of all the nation’s citizens and in forging a new South Africa built on the firm foundations of non-violence, reconciliation and truth, I pray that the late President’s example will inspire generations of South Africans to put justice and the common good at the forefront of their political aspirations. With these sentiments, I invoke upon all the people of South Africa divine gifts of peace and prosperity.

For decades Nelson Mandela was a controversial figure.  He was demonized by those who were desperate to keep South Africa a bastion of white supremacy.  He was lionized by those who were determined to break the stranglehold of the Afrikaner minority over the indigenous peoples of South Africa.  Like most historical figures, and indeed like most of us, he was neither as good a person as he should have been nor as bad a person as he could have been, but few people in our modern world have had the impact for justice that  had Nelson Mandela.  On the principle of de mortuis nil nisi bonum we can let it rest there. To the average Catholic the Holy Father’s comments were measured, rational and appropriate.

But the wing-nuts in the Church were not willing to let it rest there.  Their discomfort, indeed fury, with Francis was only fueled by his relatively neutral remarks about the late President.  There were those like “Mac” who wrote on motheofgod.com  “Im (sic) disappointed with Pope Francis choice of words again.”  Ok, fair enough. We can always be disappointed.  But then Janet from Restore DC Catholicism came on a lot stronger with her disappointment, writing:

 With disappointment I read the news that Pope Francis paid public tribute to genocide-facilitator Nelson Mandela …by no stretch of the imagination was Mandela "promoting the human dignity of the nation's citizens".   ...  The Holy Father's "tribute" does not constitute dogma or even the lowest level of Church teaching. Deo Gratias!

Ladies and gentlemen, let's be clear about something, shall we? We have been promised by Our Lord that His Vicar will never solemnly promulgate error. But that's it! Never has Our Lord promised that all pontiffs will be wise. The Church's history has featured many popes who did much damage to the Church. ….we  do not hold him (Pope Francis) above question in matters of prudential judgment.  
 Well that was actually fairly mild compared to “EastSideHunky” on Stephenson County Pro-Life’s blog: Pro-Life Corner and their Posting “Pope Francis and the Child Killer.” 

Francis is clearly a modernist, one day quite orthodox and the next a total liberal. On these “off the cuff” comments one can totally ignore and disregard as divisive as they are. They are not magisterial nor proper to the teaching office of the supreme pontiff. Unfortunately, many conciliar Catholics and libs will either be confused by Frank ( Pope Francis) or cheer his heterodoxy.

This marks a notching up of the rhetoric when a figure as multi-faceted as Nelson Mandela is reduced to a simplistic caricature such as “Child Killer.”  This is precisely the same sort of reductionism that these same voices use to demean President Obama.  And where is the heterodoxy in Francis’ message of condolence?  And what qualifies East Side Hunky to label something as heretical?  This is the sort of partisan negativity that makes any true dialogue, whether political or theological, impossible.  It totally undermines rationality with bias.  But it gets even more outrageous.

When Britain’s Catholic Herald headlined “Catholics around the world mourn Nelson Mandela” one Agnus Dei replied

"No they do not! Not those who abide by the Church's teachings. Those who call themselves "Catholic" and who are not, are far more dangerous than those who say they would never join the Church because they do not agree with Her teachings. They do not harm the Church, professing to follow and worship Christ, yet fulfilling Satan's agenda to remodel Christ's Church in HIS own image. Making Her pay lip-service to Holy Church, whilst at the same time allowing Her to be undermined and perverted by those working so tirelessly against Her. 

Wolves disguising themselves as sheep have come into the sheep-fold and the sheep are being led astray. adhering to the doctrines of demons. The Holy Church of Christ is in perilous danger.

So Pope Francis and other prelates who paid tribute to President Mandela are remaking the Church in Satan’s own image and are leading Christ’s sheep astray.  That is far more than a vote of no confidence in Francis’ leadership, it is a strong indictment against him and his papacy.  But it follows the line of argument put forward by one wing-nut website which expressed its unhappiness with Pope Francis, not only for his message of condolence on the death of President Mandela but for his tolerance of gay people.   It gives us a picture into the rabid hatred that motivates those who are committed to the resurgence of racial hatred and the ties of racial bigotry to gender bigotry. 

The increasingly anti-traditional Pope praised the recently deceased communist and anti-white terrorist Nelson Mandela.  ….

Mandela’s South Africa was a genocidal, anti-white nightmare, where the most disgusting depravities were enshrined as “human rights”.  In South Africa we see the future of the entire White world, a future which Francis and the corrupted Catholic Church are fighting for.

Now granted that particular website is clearly wing-nut territory, but let’s look back to a more moderate one: Stephenson County Pro-Life’s Blog, Pro Life Corner, where Linda writes

Nelson Mandela did NOT sacrifice his freedom for anyone! He was justly convicted to life in prison for the mass murders of thousands of innocent men, women and children, white and black–as the leader of the “armed wing” of the African National Congress. He proudly pleaded guilty of terrorist acts, and REFUSED to denounce his violent activity as the leader of the “armed wing” of the African National Congress. He was a ruthless, heartless killer, a Communist, who enacted revenge while president of South Africa on those who protested his legalization of ABORTION, PORNOGRAPHY, PROSTITUTION, GAY MARRIAGE! Adolph Hitler did a lot of “good things” for Germany: built a modern road system, increased jobs, repaired infrastructure, etc. Do you think Pope Pius XII would have given such gushing accolades for Adolph Hitler at Hitler’s death because of those “good things he did”, like Pope Francis did for the Communist Nelson Mandela? Or would the Pope use the very words of Jesus, speaking of another secular governor, Herod: “That FOX…” This is a sad, sad day in the Catholic Church.

Linda’s rants are reminiscent of the sort of the discrediting libel that the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover put out against the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights Era.  There is a mad, irrational affixing of labels and names that bears no relation to the nuances of historical facts.  People—in this case, President Mandela and, by association, Pope Francis—are painted with broad brushes that ignore the subtleties of fact and the distinctions of history. 

What explanations can we draw from the sort of the attacks that conservative Catholics are making on Pope Francis?  What are they really upset about?  Is it a message of condolence to a nation on the death of their re-founding father? 

At the transition of millennia, we are witnessing the shift of history’s tectonic plates.  Power—and the future—are shifting from the North to the South.  The White race is losing the hegemony over the world since a global consciousness emerged in the sixteenth century with the Age of Exploration.  In the same way—and much closer to home for many of us—the gender roles have shifted dramatically within two generations.  Women head nations, major corporations, and even religions.  Openly Gay, Lesbian, and Transgendered men and women are taking places in society that were closed to them until a decade or so ago.  Those who find their identity (and comfort zone) in the white male patriarchy that has governed life in American—and the greater part of the developed world—society are feeling more and more disenfranchised.  Many of us do not have the standard of living that our parents had twenty years ago.  We feel politically voiceless as well as increasingly economically emarginated.  Change is very threatening.  Nelson Mandela is a powerful symbol of change.  Pope Francis’ papacy is symbolizing change.  A President of African lineage in the White House is enormous change.  Fear and Anger are normal responses when we find ourselves threatened by the slippery slope of being on the downside of history.  Get over it.  Put on your big boy (girl) pants and decide how you are going to be part of the future and stop fighting it.  Our Christian faith tells us that somewhere in that future is the Kingdom of God.  Shape the future, don’t fight it.  

Vatican II And Social Theology

Is there a relationship between

Vatican II and a Theology of

Social Reform?

After my entry yesterday, I do need to be fair to Archbishop Thomas Toolen who was Bishop (Archbishop was a personal title; he was not metropolitan) of Mobile Alabama from 1927 to 1969.  In the early and mid ‘60’s Toolen, as I mentioned, forbad the priests and religious in his diocese to participate in the Civil Rights movement.  It was a volatile time in Alabama, and indeed in the United States.  Americans by the busload were travelling down from Northern cities such as New York and Detroit and Chicago to stand in solidarity with southern African-Americans who were trying to register to vote and to end the segregation policies that were making them second-class citizens.  People standing up for civil rights—both African-Americans and white supporters—were being bullied, injured, and killed in outrageous acts of violence.  Law enforcement officials were not only facilitating these crimes but were meeting the non-violent protests with savage attacks by police dogs and fire houses.  The worst act of violence was the bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1964 in which four young girls were killed by white terrorist member of the Klan.  Toolen’s prohibition of clergy and religious supporting the demonstrations could be construed as distancing the Church from the occasions of violence that were accompanying the Civil Rights movement but the presence—the notable presence of Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Church leaders—including the distinguished and saintly Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakavos, was a tremendous embarrassment to those Catholics who believed the importance of the cause required the risks. 

On the other hand as Bishop, Toolen showed great pastoral concern for African-Americans regardless of religion.  He opened hospitals to care for them when white hospitals would not accept patients of color.  In 1950 Saint Martin de Porres hospital in Mobile became the first hospital in Alabama where white and black physicians served jointly on the hospital staff, though the patients were exclusively African-American.  In 1964 he desegregated the Catholic schools in the state of Alabama.  Toolen would not accept African-American candidates for the priesthood however, and one whom he turned down—Joseph Howze—later became the Bishop of Biloxi. And in 1965 Toolen expelled Father Maurice Ouellet of the Edmundites from the diocese because he had permitted organizational meetings for the Selma marches on parish property.  In other words, Toolen was a man of charity but not of justice and this is a crucial distinction as there are many who believe that our duty as Christians is to give succor to the poor but not necessarily to correct the injustices that cause the poverty. In fact, one change which comes not from the Council itself but from the Encyclical Letter Mater et Magistra of John XXIII and then is reinforced in the Council—and subsequent papal teaching—is that authentic charity is committed to the pursuit of justice.  Our old idea of “charity” as almsgiving is a deficient understanding of the virtue.  While generosity or the desire to offer aid to those who are suffering is one aspect of charity, the theological virtue of charity is the most profound expression of the Divine Nature—quoniam Deus caritas est (1 John 4:8).  And as an expression of the Divine Nature, charity is essentially oriented towards Justice—that is, towards the order of things being conformed to the Divine Will. 

Of course for centuries people believed—and Churchmen taught—that the divergence of wealth and poverty in the world is the Divine Will; that some are rich because God wills them to be rich, others are poor because God wills them to be poor.  The 19^th century Anglican hymn-writer Mrs. Cecil F. Alexander put it this way in her famous hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful.

The rich man in his castle,

         The poor man at his gate,
         God made them high and lowly,
         And ordered their estate.

Since Mater et Magistra, the Catholic Church has moved away from this idea and has increasingly questioned the morality of extremes of wealth and poverty in our world, but a great part of the reaction against Vatican II among contemporary Catholics is a reaction against the Church’s message of Social Justice.  Former Catholic Glen Beck told his listeners that when they hear “Social Justice” in Church they should flee that Church.  Michael Voris—a very unreliable source for things Catholic, has called the message of Social Justice a distortion of our Catholic faith.  The Lefebvrites—the schismatics who followed the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre out of the Church in protest against the changes of the Second Vatican Council, are rooted in the conservative social and economic doctrines of the Action Française. The Tridentine Mass, at least in the United States, attracts congregations that are white and upper-middle class, first-generation of superfluous wealth, precisely because they can be sure that the priests who offer these liturgies will not preach a Gospel that supports socio-economic reforms.  (I have been told that in Great Britain the situation is somewhat different and the “Extraordinary Form” attracts intellectuals and social liberals, but I don’t know the reliability of this report.)   

When we look at the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council in some depth we should probably see how the Liturgy itself has been restructured to make us more aware of the relationship between the Worship of God and the Gospel call to social justice, but this much seems clear that there is a direct relationship between those who support the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and the commitment to Justice.  There seems also to be a corresponding relationship between those who reject, dismiss, or water down the teachings of the Council—including those who insist on a “hermeneutic of continuity”—and those who promote the existing social-economic policies.            

Reflections on Doctor Martin Luther King

Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. stands alongside the

Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia, Archbishop Oscar

Romero of El Salvador and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoffer

of Germany as the Martyrs of the 20th century over the

West Door of Westminster Abbey in London. 

I was using a borrowed office in a church where I was giving a lecture this past week—Thursday—and I noticed on the desk a program for an interfaith concert that had been held at that church the previous weekend to celebrate Martin Luther King Day.  Before I go any further I want to say that I am a great admirer of Dr. King.  His legacy is an important part of building the America we have today where great progress had been made in overcoming the racial barriers that defined our culture within my memory.  Like many Americans this past year I read The Help (and saw the movie).  It reminded me that within my memory there existed this America where doors were closed to people because of race.  (Which isn’t to say that all doors are yet open to all people.)  The Help motivated me to read To Kill a Mockingbird.   I had never read it.  I supposed I had not read it because when it came out (1960) I was in High School and it probably would have been considered “too controversial” though we read Catcher in the Rye,  Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Lord of the Flies—all of which were controversial and none of which were as worthwhile as To Kill a Mockingbird.  But I guess that even in the north and in a Jesuit school, some topics were “too hot to handle.” Certainly race was never discussed. To Kill a Mockingbird made me look not at America but at myself and ask myself to what extent I am a man of character and conviction.  I haven’t resolved that answer yet.  A few years ago I was in Colonial Williamsburg with several friends, one of whom is a very distinguished Monsignor of African American lineage.  We were having dinner at the venerable and celebrated Williamsburg Inn and had both excused ourselves from the cocktail hour to use the facilities before going to the dining room.  As the good Monsignor was washing his hand, an elderly gentleman with whom he was speaking said “There was a day, you know, when you could not have come in here.”  It wasn’t said with any animosity and conveyed no rudeness, hard as that is to explain when one reads or hears the comment without having heard it said in its original context and tone.  It was simply an observation by the elderly gentleman as if he had said “my family has dined here since my great-grand pappy’s day.”  Occasions such as these remind us that America changed direction because of, in part, Dr. King.  

     And yet this man whom the churches honor—as America honors—on the third Monday of January; this man whose statue graces the façade of Westminster Abbey in London, this man who is commemorated in the calendars of both the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, this man whom Catholic Cardinals and Jewish Rabbis pay homage to every January was a man of multiple extramarital affairs.  A great man but no saint.  Of course we know his sin because another man—a man for whom there is no holiday, a man who lies in a grave overgrown with weeds in the shadow of the national Capitol, a man whose name had become a national punchline before fading into an ever darkening obscurity, a man whose alleged hypocrisy tried to hide that he was a deeply closeted gay transvestite—thought he could stop King’s social revolution by exposing his adulteries to the American public.  He dragged King through the mud but the mud hasn’t stuck—to Doctor King.  

     There is a lesson here.  Actually there are several lessons.  One is that original sin runs deep in each of us.  Anne Marie Bigod de Cornuel, onetime mistress of Louis XIV, allegedly said: “there are none who are heroes to their valets nor to the Fathers of the Church among their contemporaries.”   Yes, valets know the soiled linen of their employers and the Fathers of the Church knew the soiled souls not only of their contemporaries, but indeed of humankind.  

      Another lesson, dependent somewhat on the first, is that even as saints are not necessarily great men (or women) so too great men (or women) are not necessarily saints.  One of my favorite books is Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory.  It is a reminder that virtue and greatness are not the same thing.  (That isn’t an endorsement for Newt, by the way.  Of course, I see neither attribute there.  Nor is it an endorsement for Rick Santorum to whom I will grant a measure of character but in whom I don’t see any potential for greatness.  It is sad the neither Catholic candidate can offer us both character and statesman like gravitas. One would hope that our Catholic stock had some sap of confessors and martyrs left running in it and not only the more pallid juice of virgins.)   There are great men and there are men who do great things.  Or actually, there are great persons and persons who do great things as men have a monopoly on neither character nor deeds. 

      We Americans tend to be sloppy and imprecise in making out distinctions.  Men of great deeds have sat in the White House—Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, Franklin Roosevelt.  And there were great men who sat in the White House—Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter to name two more recent ones.  There are men whom if one could get beneath the myths to the historical realities may have been men of great deeds and great character, namely George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but it is hard to objectively assess the former for his character and the latter for his deeds as their presidencies (and for Washington, indeed his whole career) are shrouded in the myths that define our nation.  We have seen the same to be true in the Church.  Men of great deeds such as Gregory VII, Innocent III, Julius II, Paul III have led the Church through times of crisis and led the Church well.  Men of great soul have sat in Peter’s chair: Celestine V, Pius VII, Pius X, Paul VI.  I suspect Benedict XVI might fall in this category when his papacy is finally able to be evaluated. 

      And so back to Doctor King.  A man of great deeds but with a certain weakness of character.  He was not totally without character: he had bravery, he had passion for justice, and he had perseverance.  He was intelligent and articulate.  He wasn’t a saint but he was still God’s instrument as much as some of our greatest popes were.  He was, like Graham Greene’s Whiskey Priest and like so many of us, a treasure in an earthen vessel (2^nd Corinthians 4:7).    And better, I suppose, to be such a treasure even if one’s character is but a clay pot to hold it than to be a golden bowl but to be empty and useless.  Granted he was no saint, but a builder of the Kingdom of God nonetheless.  There is a lot to think about here.