The Gaming of the Shrew

Sorry for the hiatus.  Sometimes life just gets out of control and needs time and focus to bring it back.   Sure you understand. 

We were looking at Pope Francis’ visit to the United States and I was only going to do one more entry on that topic—focusing on the papal liturgies in New York and Philadelphia—and move on, but then came the news about the Pope’s meeting with Kentucky refusnik, Kim Davis, the county clerk who gained a certain notoriety for refusing to issue any marriage licenses in her county rather than violate her conscience and issue licenses to same-sex couples.   Both Davis advocates and opponents took what they wanted from the papal meeting and in the end it’s ambiguity only puts a drag-sail on the high-flying mania Francis generated among Americans of every political, philosophical, and religious category. 

Of course, during the actual span of the Pope’s visit, there was no word from either Ms. Davis or the Holy See about this visit and it was only after the Pope was back in the Vatican that Ms. Davis’ legal team announced the visit and spoke of the Holy Father’s “encouragement” of Ms. Davis and her “cause.”  Ms. Davis is represented by Liberty Counsel which is affiliated with Liberty University Law School, part of the conservative Christian empire established by the late Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg VA.  Liberty Counsel is known for advancing an anti-homosexual agenda, considering laws that target “hate crimes” to undermine the civil liberties of Americans to “follow their conscience.”  In other words, Liberty Counsel is anxious to protect our supposed rights to exercise our various prejudices as long as our intolerance is an expression of our (Christian) faith.  (Whaaaat?  Which Gospel are we looking at here?)  The Southern Poverty Law Center only this week—and in part because of the manner in which it is handling the Kim Davis case—labeled Liberty Counsel a “hate group,” describing it as  “Liberty Counsel is a legal organization advocating for anti-LGBT discrimination under the guise of religious liberty”. Ms. Davis’ advocates have claimed that the invitation to meet the Pope came from the Holy See, notably the Papal Nuncio, and petitions are circulating for the removal of Archbishop Carlo Maria Vignano from his diplomatic post for “interfering” with a domestic political case.  However, sources in the Vatican Secretariat of State claim that while the invitation came from the Holy See, it came at the initiation (through third party channels) of Ms. Davis defense team.  In other words, Ms Davis and/or her legal team initiated the request for her to meet the Pope so that the opportunity could be used as an endorsement of her position in refusing to issue marriage licenses rather than issue licenses that would be used for same-sex marriages.  Supposedly the Holy See was furious that the meeting—which all had agreed would be confidential—was leaked to the press and felt that the Davis meeting undermined the Holy Father’s broader message of acceptance and inclusion to all people regardless of particularities in their lives.  The Pope, in the same gathering, had met and embraced a former student who presented his same-sex partner to the Holy Father. 

So what do we make of it? 

Well, there were any number of gaffes in the papal visit and while this is a bit more head-liner material than some others, it really doesn’t—I think—merit much attention.  The Pope met with all sorts of people during his visit.  He seemed to cover the bases well there.  Furthermore, while he might not have been well briefed on the complexities of the Davis case, there is a certain argument to be made for “conscientious objectors.”  People need to have the right to be faithful to their moral or religious values without being penalized for it.  Of course, conscientious objectors don’t serve in the army precisely because their religious beliefs would bar them from performing their military duties.  In the same way, if a county clerk is unable to perform the duties and responsibilities of his or her office for religious or moral reasons, they need to resign from that position rather than refuse required and legitimate service to the citizenry.  You really can’t have an entire county where it is impossible to obtain a marriage license.  Francis made good use of his talk at the White House to stand for authentic Religious Liberty.  It is a pity that Ms. Davis’ legal defense team wanted to push the boundaries of that principle to defend the indefensible.  It was a bit of cheap theatre to engineer a meeting with the Pope to give their cause some credibility.  In the end, however, Francis will be able to brush it off as a lesson to be learned in American legal slickness and Kim Davis continues to look more and more the desperate and angry shrew.   

A Genuine Issue of Religious Freedom



Rudwan and Nancy Dawod, The Sudanese

activist, a Muslim, has just been released 

after having faced charges in the Sudan for 

his work reconciling Christian and Muslims. 

 When we talk about threats to religious freedom: here is something substantive.  A week ago, one of my readers sent me the following article by John Zogby and Tom Prichard.  The Rev. Tom Pritchard, an Episcopalian priest, is one of the founders of Sudan Sunrise. Dr. John Zogby is a Senior Fellow at Catholic University’s Institute for Policy research and Catholic Studies.

TORTURED FOR HELPING REBUILD A CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL

                    By John Zogby and Tom Prichard

Rudwan Dawod, a Muslim from the Darfur region of Sudan and non-violent activist, is jailed in Khartoum on charges of terrorism awaiting a verdict on August 13.  If convicted, Dawod could be sentenced to death.  Dawod is a project director for the Washington, DC-based charity Sudan Sunrise, leading an initiative of Sudanese Muslims planning to rebuild the Catholic Cathedral in Torit, South Sudan.

Since the independence of South Sudan, on July 9, 2011, the northern Sudanese regime of Omar al Bashir has been increasingly belligerent towards Sudan's Christian minority.  In April three churches in Khartoum were burned by a mob as police and security officials looked on in tacit approval.  Dawod, a Sudanese citizen married to an American and living in Springfield, Oregon, was grieved by the news of the burning of churches.  He set his sights on rebuilding a church with Sudan Sunrise as a symbol for Sudanese Muslims who stand for peace.

Passing through the Washington area on his way to Sudan, Dawod met with Imam Mohamed Magid, the President of the Islamic Society for North American, who is Sudanese by birth, who wholeheartedly endorsed the project.  (See, www.sudansunrise.org/project/building-reconciliation-torit).

Dawod met with Bishop Johnson Akio in Torit, South Sudan to present his vision.  Bishop Akio enthusiastically responded, proposing that the best symbol for peace would be to rebuild the Cathedral in Torit.  The Cathedral was twice destroyed by forces from the North, and more than 1,000 worshippers gather each Sunday under a makeshift roof near the Cathedral ruins.  The Cathedral was first destroyed in the 1960’s, and then again in the 1990's in the second civil war, in which an estimated 2.4 million Southern Sudanese were killed and 4 million were displaced.

Prior to meeting Bishop Akio, Dawod estimated that he had 200 volunteers. That number grew when Dawod presented his vision to the leaders of the mosque in Torit, when an elderly Imam recounted how the mosque was built in 1941 with help from Christians who contributed financially and with volunteer labor.

Following their meeting, Bishop Akio traveled to the Vatican, where he spoke about the initiative on Vatican Radio.  Dawod proceeded to present the vision to Muslim leaders in South Sudan, and South Sudan government officials, and to make it public by announcing it on radio and through Southern Sudanese newspapers.  The initiative was enthusiastically received in the South by Muslims, Christians and by the government.  During a lull in the project, Dawod traveled to Khartoum to visit his family and renew his Sudanese passport.

This was Dawod's first return to Khartoum since he had been featured in an Al Jazeera English documentary about the growing Arab Spring youth movement Girifna (which means "fed up" in Arabic).  When Dawod arrived in June, non-violent demonstrations against the government of Omar al Bashir were gaining momentum.  Bashir is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Darfur.  While in Khartoum, Dawod helped organize a non-violent protest, a right protected by the Sudanese constitution.  During the demonstration Dawod was abducted by government security agents and beaten until unconscious.  His father, brother and others were abducted the same evening, and their house was ransacked by government security officials who stripped it of anything of value, even the earrings from his sister's ears.

Held for several days in a "ghost house," Dawod was tortured by security who tried unsuccessfully to force a (false) confession that he was a CIA agent organizing a terror cell preparing to place bombs in Khartoum market places.  Dawod was also beaten specifically for opposing the burning of churches.

Dawod's trial has garnered coverage in national media in the US, although often he is described simply as an Arab spring activist with no reference to his leading a Muslim effort to rebuild a Catholic Cathedral.  Also, news media seldom report what it was that Dawod found inspiring about his hero and friend, the late former NBA legend, Manute Bol.   Manute lost 240 family members during the 22-year civil war in Sudan, yet he would say, "Muslims are not my enemies.  They are my brothers.  The problem is the government in Khartoum."  When Manute, a Catholic, was asked why he would have such an attitude towards those he could consider his enemies, he would say simply, "God says we are to forgive."  Manute repeatedly stood up for oppressed Muslim populations in the north of Sudan and dreamed of building schools across South Sudan that would welcome children of Christian, Muslim, animist families and from whatever tribe.

It was through volunteering with Sudan Sunrise to help build Manute's school that Dawod not only came to know Manute, but also his future wife, Nancy.  They were married in 2010.  In 2011 Dawod lead a team of young Muslims from Khartoum who with Sudan Sunrise's help delivered a truck load of relief food to refugees and local needy in Turalei.

Nancy and Rudwan's first child, a daughter, is due in September and will be named "Sudan".  Nancy's prayer is that Rudwan will be safely home for Sudan's birth.

The verdict and sentence, due on August 13, could range anywhere from acquittal to the death penalty.

The US embassy has been sending personnel to Rudwan's trial, and the US House of Representatives Sudan Caucus has issued a call for Rudwan's release.

Despite being beaten for opposing the burning of churches, Rudwan Dawod and his volunteers remain committed to rebuilding the Cathedral in Torit.  The only obstacle that remains is funding.   Rudwan's volunteers and Bishop Akio and his diocese see the strategic importance of this symbol of peace, but unfortunately they do not have the capacity to fund it.  Bishop Akio and the volunteers hope is that one positive outcome of Dawod's ordeal is that the Torit Cathedral will be built as a strategic symbol of peace, as well as the schools of which Dawod and Manute Bol dreamed of building across South Sudan.

For more information, go to www.sudansunrise.org and www.FreeRudwan.org.

Rudwan was released today by the Sudanese Government and will shortly be able to return to the United States

Religious Liberty--For What Purpose? 3

Archbishop William Lori,

the brains behind Fortnight

For Freedom as well as the

harassment of the American

nuns. 

The following paragraphs are  from an article published in several newspapers around the nation this past week regarding the exemption of Torah scholars from the military draft in Israel.  I am not an Israeli citizen and so I have no opinion about that particular question—and in fact I remember that when the United States had a draft seminary students were exempt from it—so that is not what I am writing about.  But in the article were several paragraphs about how the ultra-orthodox are forcing non-observant Jews—and gentiles for that matter—to follow Orthodox religious practices.  

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Zalman Deren spends his days studying the Torah in a small synagogue near the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He's young and able-bodied, with a wife and three children to feed, but has no job because that would distract him from his vocation.

The draft is not the only issue that puts the Haredim at odds with Israel's secular majority, however.

As the fastest growing sector of the population, they are expanding to new neighborhoods where they establish strict religious enclaves where modern Israelis don't want to live.

They have outraged many by forcing women to sit at the back of public buses in their enclaves or trying to ban women from singing at army festivals. Some of them bully and spit on women and girls they think are not modestly dressed.

The ultra-Orthodox have also overplayed their hand in Israeli politics - many secular Israelis resent the kingmaker role their parties play in coalitions that has allowed them to demand a high level of subsidies and exert what they say is excessive influence on religious policies.

How do you feel about religious groups forcing others to follow the practices of their faith?  How does that fit into the American practice of separation of Church and State. 

I have been to Israel often and frankly I have never minded that a restaurant doesn’t serve butter when there is meat on the menu.  I don’t even miss having bacon for breakfast.  I can go without shellfish if I have to.  As a Christian I am always reminded in subtle ways that though my tourist dollar is welcome, I am no more than tolerated.  It’s fne when I am in Israel, but I don’t want to be treated that way in my home country. 

There was a day in this country when Catholics were second class citizens.   Catholic children had to listen to readings from the King James Bible in public schools.  Catholic children had to recite the “Protestant version” of the Lord’s Prayer in schools.  There were towns where Catholics were not allowed to build a church. In fact, in Washington DC 16^th Street—the street that runs north from the White House—was off limits for Catholic churches by a “covenant” that bound people who bought land along that street. 

Well, today there are Catholics who want to force non-Catholics—Protestants, Jews, non-believers, Muslims—to conform to Catholic practices regarding contraception.  It is our right, they claim, to deny access to contraceptive services to our employees who are not Catholic even if we don’t have to pay for those services or provide them ourselves.  We have a right of religious freedom to deny these services to people who work for us.  Of course, there are some who would go so far as to make our employees sign a statement that they agree  with the Catholic Church regarding our beliefs on contraception and family planning.  That isn’t much different tham the pious Hasidim making women sit in the back of the bus, is it?

Protestant Martyrs and Catholic "Liberty"

The burning of Archbishop Thomas Cramner
in the reign of Bloody Mary

I recently was shown this slide-and-music presentation regarding the Fortnight For Freedom and the challenges facing the Catholic Church in the United States to preserve its religious freedom in face of the threats to it by liberal secularism represented by Democratic Party and the Obama administration.  This video is a stirring presentation designed by one Margie Sindelar to make it clear to the viewer that we must make a choice between our Catholic faith and the Affordable Care Act sponsored by President Obama—there is no middle ground; there is no compromise.  Ms. Sindelar shows us images of Pope Benedict representing truth and  President Obama incarnating falsehood.  The former is the good side, of course; the latter, as we all know, the evil side.  The one, in the words of the soundtrack hymn, “Once to Every Man and Nation,” represents bloom and light; the other darkness and blight.  It is very simple really.  Doesn’t require one to think much about the issues—just watch the video and run out and vote against the Reign of Evil currently occupying the White House.  Here is the link to Ms. Sindelar’s video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YIJ-G3gu9JQ

And below are the lyrics of its soundtrack—James Russell Lowell’s poem “Once to Every Man and Nation” put to the music of Thomas J. Williams. (An alternative melody sung in some churches is Haydn’s “Austria”—you would recognize it: it is the melody to Deutschland Deutschland Über Alles, the anthem associated with Hitler’s Germany.)   

Once to Every Man and Nation

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

Lowell wrote the poem as a young man in 1845, the year after his marriage and it was published in The Boston Courier in December of that year.  Though his student-days reputation at Harvard had been one of a troublemaker Lowell went on to make a name for himself as a poet, critic, and editor.  He was active in the movement to abolish slavery and he saw the role of the poet was to be a prophet who called society to account.  He had that Whig optimism that characterized 19^th century liberalism. 

But here is the irony.  Lowell came from a Church family—his father was a Unitarian minister.  Now 19^th century Unitarians were not the vague humanists of today but were still well within the Christian orbit.  They were more Arians—Christians who reserved the fullness of Divinity to the Father but seeing Jesus as his Son come to the world to teach us through the scriptures an enlightened path that would lead us to a better world.  Like most New England Protestants, the standard pieces of religious literature in the Lowell home were the Bible and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, sometimes known as The Acts and Monuments.  This book, first published in 1563 by Anglican clergyman and polemicist John Foxe, recounted a long history of martyrdoms and persecutions stretching back into antiquity in which Foxe managed to make every victim a Protestant—even those long before Luther—and every tyrant an agent of the Pope. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was standard reading in every English (and New England) home from Puritan times down to the 20^th century and it was one of the strongest—if not the strongest—factor in creating an anti-Catholicism that portrayed the Pope as the evil enemy of Christ and his faithful, the Anti-Christ, desirous of forcing his false doctrines on them to the cost of their religious liberty.   The “burning martyrs” to whom Lowell referred in this poem-turned-hymn were the Anglican Divines put to death by burning at the stake under the reign of the Catholic Queen “Bloody” Mary.  The “cause of evil” of which Lowell wrote was Catholicism; the “truth” contrasted with it was Protestantism.  Lowell tells us that innocent and pure Protestant Truth was given the portion of the scaffold by the Catholic Queen—in the wrong—on the throne.  All this makes it a bit ironic that Ms. Sindelar uses this particular hymn as the stirring motivation to win people to the Catholic cause against that evil heir of Bloody Mary, President Obama.  But that is what happens when people don’t know their history. Tut, tut. 

In the Protestant mind of James Russell Lowell, Catholicism with its desire to force its doctrines on good bible-believing Christians is what had threatened religious freedom from the days of those first Protestants—the Apostles—down to his own day.  Lowell saw Protestantism as standing for that freedom of conscience against the tyranny of Catholic Doctrine.  It should make us think for a moment or two. 

Is the freedom that some are seeking in our name the prerogative to impose Catholic doctrine on the larger society—this is the very thing and Lowell and American Protestants had feared from the colonial days of Puritan New England until Vatican II and the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae  that made freedom of conscience a principle of Catholic Doctrine.  There is nothing wrong with winning our countrymen and women to our Catholic faith and its moral principles—indeed to enter into a dialogue leading towards truth is part of our mission as Christ’s Church—but do we truly want to impose unilaterally our principles on others before they come to the truth of the Catholic faith?  Would this not be the true threat to religious liberty when the doctrines and morals of one religious tradition become the standards of the civil and criminal law applicable to all?   As I said in yesterday’s blog, I have my concerns about the Obama Administration’s understanding about the mission of the Church but I am not afraid that my religious liberty is in jeopardy.  To be frank, I am concerned that the religious liberty of others may be in jeopardy due to the extremism of some of my coreligionists.       

What Price Freedom?

The Hagia Sophia--once a church, later

a mosque, now secularized and a museum

I recently was in Turkey.  I had been to Istanbul before but only briefly and was anxious to return and see it again and in more depth.  I didn’t think anything about this at the time, but while I saw women in a variety of dress from western fashions to the hijab to the burqa I never saw either an imam or a Christian (Catholic or Orthodox) priest.   When I returned home, a friend of mine who has ties to the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Istanbul explained to me that other than the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, the Armenian Patriarch, and the Grand Mufti of Istanbul, all clerics of any religion may not wear ecclesial garb off the premises of their religious institutions.  Even archbishops and monastic abbots, while in public, must wear secular dress.   The Turks have no plans for a Fortnight for Freedom to protest this limitation on their religious freedom and it is far more restrictive than our alleged limitation in the United States to practice our Catholic faith fully and openly.        I told my friend that I saw this restriction on clerical apparel as an infringement of religious freedom, a persecution of the Church but he assured me that it was only part of the rigid secularization of Turkish society which is actually designed to protect religious minorities.  When the Ottoman Empire was dissolved after World War I, the new Turkish leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was insistent on secularization of the State.   Secularization in Turkey is extremely restrictive of religion in the public sphere.  Religions, whether Christian or Muslim, cannot run schools or universities other than those to train clergy.  Education is totally secular.  There are no religious emblems permitted in public.  While Islamic practice is on the rise in Turkey, so far this secularization policy has prevented the sort of disputes—often violent—that has set one Islamic sect against another.  It also has served to protect the Christian and Jewish minorities from persecution by the Muslim majority.
      Perhaps one of the strongest symbols of secularization in Turkey is the status of the Hagia Sophia.  Built as a Christian basilica by the Emperor Justinian in 562 (the third church of the name on the site), it was converted to a Mosque within days of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. (Constantinople fell Sunday, May 29^th and Mehmed II ordered the building to be readied for Friday Prayers by June 3^rd.)   The building remained a mosque until 1931 when it was closed and then reopened as a museum—which it is today—in 1935.  Muslims want it to be returned to Muslim worship; Orthodox Christians want it returned to status as the patriarchal Church of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchs.  Its secular status pleases no one but tourists yet it is a symbol in an intolerant world of tolerance, albeit imposed tolerance. 
      I would hate to see religious tolerance imposed on our society by such rigid secularization, but religious groups, if they value their freedoms, need to remember that they cannot dictate policies that restrict the liberties of others.  Our society does not have an accord on such volatile subjects as abortion, same-sex unions, gay adoption, embryonic stem-cell research, artificial insemination, surrogate parenting, voluntary sterilization, end-of-life choices.  These are difficult choices and while religions have the right to educate those of the public who are willing to be educated, they should not expect to have their moral positions imposed—even by a political majority—upon those whose doctrinal and  moral beliefs are different.  If the citizenry cannot discipline themselves sufficiently to allow a moral consensus that transcends religious particularity to evolve then we may find ourselves in a situation like Turkey where restrictions will be placed on the public role of religion to protect the harmony of the larger society.   I would hate to see that; it would be disappointing to those of our national founders who ideally thought that such processes would work in rational and democratic ways without the necessity of banishing religion to the private sphere, but it is our choice.  Freedom does not come without responsibilities.  

A Jesuit Voice of Reason

Just a short entry today—but a great link to something worth reading and instead of reading one of my verbal meanderings  I urge yo to go there and read something worthwhile. 

In the meantime, I love the Jesuits.  They are the best of the best.  And Congratulations to Father Michael Rozier of the Society of Jesus for his posting on The Jesuit Post concerning the Health Care Contraceptive Mandate and Religious Liberty.  I know Jesuits aren’t supposed to become bishops but this is the sort of articulate person we need in Church leadership today. Go Jesuits!!!   Father Ignatius must be mighty proud

http://thejesuitpost.org/site/2012/03/mandated-reporting/