A Tea Party in the Catholic Church

Pope Francis celebrates Mass 

in Philadelphia 

Interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about the power of Tea Party Republicans and how through the gerrymandering of districts and the rise of a right-wing sophisticated media network they have been able not only to have achieved a powerful political machine disproportionate to their actual numbers but now actually be in a position to restructure the rules of the House of Representatives to crush opposition from both the moderate wing of their own party as well as from the Democrats.  In other words, a movement which represents the views of only between ten and fifteen percent of the American People will be able to set the course of Government for the entire nation.  History as seen this sort of thing before whether it was the coup that put the Jacobins in power during the French Revolution, the Leninist establishment of the Soviet Republic in 1917, or the rise of National Socialism in 1933 Germany.  It does not bode well for democracy when small factions can dis-integrate the balance of power.  

But this blog is not about political power struggles.  I only use this example to point out some disturbing glances behind the scenes of the visit of Pope Francis to the United States last month.  It was, in most respects, a great visit but there were some disturbing glimpses in the shadow Catholic world behind the official church.  The Liturgies, at least in New York and Philadelphia (I wasn’t able to see the Washington one) were more the sort of the liturgies with which Pope Benedict would have been comfortable.  They were beautifully done but there was a sense of pomp, even triumphalism, that seemed out of step with Francis’s style and a return to the semi-Tridentine preferences of Pope Benedict.  The music, though magnificent, was somewhat consistently “old school” without integrating so much of the contemporary music, and good contemporary music,  the Catholic Church in America is producing.  Dr. Jennifer Pascual who is the director of music at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and Father Matthew Ernest who is Director of Liturgy for the New York Archdiocese are both deep into the Reform of the Reform model of liturgy that briefly flourished during Benedict’s reign but to which some still cling in hopes of a overturn of the more pastoral liturgical style that has emerged in most parishes in the years since Vatican II.  John Romeri, former Director of Music for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia actually resigned his post last summer because he and Archbishop Chaput simply could not come to a meeting of the minds about the public liturgies of the Archdiocese.  Archbishop Chaput, while a doctrinal conservative, prefers a more simple style of liturgical celebration over Romeri’s insistence on a very “high Church” approach to liturgy.  Dr. Romeri stayed on the planning committee for the Philadelphia Papal Mass and it showed.  It was beautiful but it didn’t speak Pope Francis and it didn’t speak the Catholic Church in the United States. 

There are many places where Reform of the Reform Directors of Music and/or Liturgy have installed themselves to create an opposition, and even an obstruction, to the simpler liturgical styles favored by the Vatican II and post-Conciliar generation of Catholic clergy and laity.  Now, I think a certain spectrum of High-Church/Broad-Church/Low-Church varieties in style is a good idea as it gives Catholics a choice of worship to fit their own spiritualities, but we have to be careful of tying legitimate variations to some sort of self-established orthodoxy or “authentic” Catholicism that sees other expressions as somehow less Catholic. 

I was happy to see the seminarians at Saint Charles give the pope such a welcome.  They sang a song of welcome that seemed to have been composed for the occasion as it mentioned Francis by name (Lord, grant health to our Holy Father, Francis…  I translate salvum fac as “grant health” though it could also be translated as “grant safety” or “grant salvation.”).  Now since the Pope is not particularly comfortable in English, maybe Latin makes some sense here, but again, I wonder.  I like Latin.  I like using some Latin music in the liturgy on occasion.  I particularly like the In Paradisium, the (Lloyd Weber)Pie Jesu, the Mozart Ave Verum Corpus.  I like the Missa de Angelis.  But if the Pope isn’t at home in English, why Latin?  Why not Spanish?  Small point, maybe I am attaching too much significance to it, but it just seemed a bit 1950’s.  And the cassocks.  The cassock, a bit like the biretta, is really a party-badge these days.  I am certainly not opposed to religious wearing their habits—in fact I would rather see religious in their habits than in clerical dress, but where secular priests used to wear cassocks nowadays, they wear black suits with a clerical collar.  Most priests I know don’t even own a cassock.  But I understand that in a variety of seminaries these days students are required to wear the cassock, at least for certain functions or on certain days.  And of course the inestimable Father Z was so generous as hit up his public to purchase birettas for the seminarians of his new diocese of Madison Wisconsin.  Talk about a loony bin of clericalism.  And far more serious, as I have mentioned in previous postings, large number of seminarians in such seminaries as Immaculate Conception at Seton Hall, Mount Saint Mary’s in Emmitsburg and even the North America College are openly contemptuous of Pope Francis and where he is leading the Church.  Feedback from Theological College at Catholic University, Saint Patrick’s Menlo Park, and the Dominican House of Studies in DC suggests an undercurrent of dissent in those seminaries as well.

All of this is just an indication that as in the Republican party, so also in the Catholic Church in the United States, there is a small faction preparing to steer the Church in a different direction than the majority of Catholics would choose.   There is no doubt that a restorationist vision is shared by a majority of younger priests and certainly of seminarians.  The clergy of 2030 will be significantly different in their ecclesiology and liturgical styles than the clergy of the past forty years.  This will only accelerate the number of America Catholics either falling away from the practice of the faith entirely or adding to the already swelling numbers going to other Christian denominations.  Groups such as the Latin Mass Society that favor a restoration of the preconciliar rites as the norm, or we might say making the extraordinary form the ordinary form, will be content as we slide away from the heady enthusiasms of the Second Vatican Council, but it bodes for a much smaller Church and not necessarily a “more faithful Church” but a Church that is closed in on itself and without mission except for self-preservation. 

While I think that overall the “Francis effect” is revitalizing the Church in the Southern hemisphere and even, to an extent, in Europe, unless there is some drastic changes in leadership now, the American Church of 2030 will find itself very idiosyncratic and isolated, a bit like some of the Orthodox Churches like the Church of Greece, that have closed in on themselves and pretty much even shoved the remainder of the Orthodox world away.  

Why They Are Afraid of Pope Francis 13

 Ever since his election in March a growing panic among neo-trad Catholics (those who call themselves “conservatives” or “traditionalists” but whose lack of appreciation for the authentic tradition of the Church puts them more in a sort of ecclesiastical Tea Party trying to establish a retro-Catholicism reminiscent of the years immediately before the Second Vatican Council) has led to vociferous and increasingly enraged complaint about Pope Francis and where he is leading the Church.  From the very beginning there was panic and indignation among the neo-trads over his not wearing the traditional scarlet silk mozetta to meet the crowds in Saint Peter’s Square.   His simplified life-style has provoked contempt from the ultra-Catholic minority even as vast numbers of Catholics are cheered by his down-home everyday parish priest ways. Francis has moved away from the elegant remoteness of his predecessor and  it’s clear that the papal tiara is not coming back any time soon.   It was not long before they realized that Francis is no admirer of the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass or the “Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite) and it would no longer be possible—at least in this pontificate—to claim papal support for the revival of this antique rite.  Well of course things have only gotten worse.  Or better, depending on your perspective.  A more dialogic approach with Gay Catholics, the interview in La Civilta Cattolica, and then Evangelii Gaudium with its condemnation of “trickle down economics,” has shaken the ultramontane commitment of the neo-trads who suddenly have found themselves in the cafeteria line of Catholicism.  
Surprisingly one crucial moment of Francis’ pontificate that they have overlooked is his homily at Lampedusa, an island off the coast of Sicily, where in October hundreds of Africans perished attempting to immigrate (illegally) to Europe.  On October 3, last year a boat sailing from Libya (the nearest point of Africa to Italy, and overloaded with immigrants from Eritrea, Somalia, and Ghana sunk off the Italian island of Lampedusa.  The Italian Coast Guard was able to rescue 155 survivors but “more than 360” deaths were reported.  A second shipwreck occurred just over a week later within the territorial waters of Malta where at least 34 more victims—these from Syria and Palestine—drowned. 
Ironically Pope Francis has visited Lampedusa in July after an earlier boat wreck in which many died  and the Pope gave a remarkable homily touching on the plight of immigrants.   This is what he said—in part. 

“Adam, where are you?” This is the first question that God addresses to man after sin. “Where are you Adam?” Adam is disoriented and has lost his place in creation because he thought to become powerful, to dominate everything, to be God. And harmony was broken, the man erred – and this is repeated even in relations with his neighbour, who is no longer a brother to be loved, but simply someone who disturbs my life, my well-being. And God puts the second question: “Cain, where is your brother?” The dream of being powerful, of being as great as God, even of being God, leads to a chain of errors that is a chain of death, leads to shedding the blood of the brother!
These two questions resonate even today, with all their force! So many of us, even including myself, are disoriented, we are no longer attentive to the world in which we live, we don’t care, we don’t protect that which God has created for all, and we are unable to care for one another. And when this disorientation assumes worldwide dimensions, we arrive at tragedies like the one we have seen.
“Where is your brother?” the voice of his blood cries even to me, God says. This is not a question addressed to others: it is a question addressed to me, to you, to each one of us. These our brothers and sisters seek to leave difficult situations in order to find a little serenity and peace, they seek a better place for themselves and for their families – but they found death. How many times to those who seek this not find understanding, do not find welcome, do not find solidarity! And their voices rise up even to God! And once more to you, the residents of Lampedusa, thank you for your solidarity! I recently heard one of these brothers. Before arriving here, he had passed through the hands of traffickers, those who exploit the poverty of others; these people for whom the poverty of others is a source of income. What they have suffered! And some have been unable to arrive!
“Where is your brother?” Who is responsible for this blood? In Spanish literature there is a play by Lope de Vega that tells how the inhabitants of the city of Fuente Ovejuna killed the Governor because he was a tyrant, and did it in such a way that no one knew who had carried out the execution. And when the judge of the king asked “Who killed the Governor?” they all responded, “Fuente Ovejuna, sir.” All and no one! Even today this question comes with force: Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters? No one! We all respond this way: not me, it has nothing to do with me, there are others, certainly not me. But God asks each one of us: “Where is the blood of your brother that cries out to me?” Today no one in the world feels responsible for this; we have lost the sense of fraternal responsibility; we have fallen into the hypocritical attitude of the priest and of the servant of the altar that Jesus speaks about in the parable of the Good Samaritan: We look upon the brother half dead by the roadside, perhaps we think “poor guy,” and we continue on our way, it’s none of our business; and we feel fine with this. We feel at peace with this, we feel fine! The culture of well-being, that makes us think of ourselves, that makes us insensitive to the cries of others, that makes us live in soap bubbles, that are beautiful but are nothing, are illusions of futility, of the transient, that brings indifference to others, that brings even the globalization of indifference. In this world of globalization we have fallen into a globalization of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn’t concern us, it’s none of our business.
The figure of the Unnamed of Manzoni returns. The globalization of indifference makes us all “unnamed,” leaders without names and without faces.
“Adam, where are you?” “Where is your brother?” These are the two questions that God puts at the beginning of the story of humanity, and that He also addresses to the men and women of our time, even to us. But I want to set before us a third question: “Who among us has wept for these things, and things like this?” Who has wept for the deaths of these brothers and sisters? Who has wept for the people who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who wanted something to support their families? We are a society that has forgotten the experience of weeping, of “suffering with”: the globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep! In the Gospel we have heard the cry, the plea, the great lament: “Rachel weeping for her children . . . because they are no more.” Herod sowed death in order to defend his own well-being, his own soap bubble. And this continues to repeat itself. Let us ask the Lord to wipe out [whatever attitude] of Herod remains in our hears; let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty in the world, in ourselves, and even in those who anonymously make socio-economic decisions that open the way to tragedies like this. “Who has wept?” Who in today’s world has wept?

Most Americans seem to think that Francis was speaking only to the people of Lampedusa and only in the context of the sinking of one boat, but as universal shepherd of the Church Francis was speaking to us in North America as well.  We have a problem of illegal immigrants and the dangers they face every bit as serious as has Italy and the nations of the European Economic Union.  I am surprised that those Catholics advocating for immigration reform have not picked up on Pope Francis’ remarks at Lampedusa.  I also am surprised that those Tea-Party types that claim to be devout Catholics have not looked closely at the Holy Father’s remarks and have not seen that he is speaking to us as well as to the Europeans.  Every year hundreds of lives are lost in the deserts of our frontiers as well as in the seas that separate Africa from Europe.  One cannot be a “good Catholic” and not be concerned about the situation in which the immigrants find themselves—but then so many who claim to be “pro-life” are not, in the end, pro-life at all.

The Obamazation of Pope Francis III

The Founder of the Franciscans of Immaculate,

Father Stefano Manelli, with the Sisters of the

Congregation

For many neo-trads, Pope Francis’ most damning stance was taken on that airplane back from World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro when he was asked—in regard to the case of a priest, Monsignor Battista Ricca, accused of having had several same-sex affairs—what policy he would follow in regard to gay clergy.  Pope Francis first said that he had investigated the rumors about Monsignor Ricca and did not find them credible, but then went on to say: "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?"  This comment sent the world of Catholic neo-trads crazy.  It was a marked departure from the policies of Francis’ two predecessors, Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II, both of whom said that men with deep-rooted same-sex attraction should not be admitted to the priesthood.  Ironically, Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict, despite their tough talk on the issue, were notoriously lax in turning a blind eye to homosexual indiscretions among the ranks of their closest aides and advisors.  In fact, both popes moved rather effortlessly in the atmosphere of sexual ambiguity that has developed in the Roman Curia over the past thirty years.  Francis too seems not to be threatened by being surrounded by a significant number of gay clergy but, unlike his predecessors, he is both honest about it and determined to address the issue.  I am not expecting the reforms of the Roman Curia currently being directed by the commission of eight cardinals to purge every Vatican worker with same-sex attraction.  That would be neither desirable nor realistic.  I am expecting a Curia that has integrity—an administration in which the men and women (yes, there are women in Vatican posts—though not the most significant ones) who are charged with assisting the Pope in the governance of the Church will be people of their word; men and women who, regardless of their sexual attraction, conform their lives to the values the Church proclaims. And I certainly don’t limit such integrity to matters of celibacy as there are far more problems in the central administration of the Church than sexual misconduct.  We need to see a Curia that witnesses to the Gospel to humble service rather than give itself to careerism, graft, and the raw abuse of power.  However, in answering the now-famous question, Pope Francis dealt with the issue of gay clergy very appropriately—as a matter of sin and grace rather than ideology.  Human nature being what it is, even after the reform of the Curia, both sin and grace will still have an operative role in the administration of the Church—after all, that is what our Christian Gospel is about.  And we must keep the mystery of sin and grace front and center in our perspective.  But those who were upset with Francis and his response were unhappy precisely because they want to deal with it as a matter of judgment—not leaving it to the judgment of God but to their own petty pharisaic preoccupation with the speck in their neighbor’s eye. After all, if the Pope declines to judge, how can they claim to have any title to the task?   To bolster their arguments, they even dragged in Franklin Graham, son of the famous Evangelist, Billy Graham.  Unfortunately the younger Graham lacks the Wisdom of Christ’s Gospel that allowed his father to transcend sectarian and other biases and bring people to Christ rather than drive them away with pharisaical harshness.  For many neo-trads who were convinced that the “liberal” ideas of the Vatican II and post-Vatican II years had been turned back forever, this statement of Pope Francis came as quite a shock.  Most bloggers were too stunned to react and scrambled to put the Pope’s comments into a “context.”  There was some concern that he used the word “gay”—an English expression inserted into his Italian remarks—because it “validated” the gay perspective by using a word by which those who identify with the LGBT movement(s) identify themselves.  Among the quick to react was one “Thinking Housewife:” (http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/)   who wrote

ONE of the most disturbing things about Pope Francis’s recent comments on the plane from Rome to Rio was his implication that the Church may legitimately view homosexuality as a permanent inclination and a form of identity. But there is no such thing as a Christian homosexual. There are obviously Christians who have homosexual desires, but not homosexual Christians.

One of her respondents wrote

Those who define themselves by some sin have no place in the Church, and in rejecting the sin, the Church must reject those who identify themselves as willingly, unrepentingly, participating in that sin. 

Talk about make-it-up-as-you-go-along theology.   Well, actually not: I should call it a borrowed theology.  If we were Calvinists this would be true, but in our Catholic world, the wheat and tares grow together in the same field only to be separated out at the final judgment by the One who is to Judge.   This is a key part of the problem with the Francis-bashers.  The Jansenism in which they have been steeped is simply a variation on Calvin’s twisting of Saint Augustine.  The Catholic position is that the Church has a mission to sinners—not after they repent or when they repent—but precisely at that point in their lives when they find themselves in conflict with God’s plan.  I seem to recall something about “Healthy people do not need the physician, the sick do.  The Son of Man has come not for the righteous but for sinners.”  But then perhaps I take Jesus too much at his word.

The Thinking House Wife’s reaction was mild compared to Mundabor’s Blog (http://mundabor.wordpress.com/) whose author’s frustration poured forth in this invective: There is no week now without this disgraceful man reaching for a new deep from the gutter in which he has already put himself.  And this about the Vicar of Christ, the Successor to Saint Peter.   The Liberals were never so vile in their anger with John Paul or Benedict—but hey, not everybody is happy about the changed menu in the Catholic cafeteria. 

In fact, most people took Pope Francis’ comments on gays quite positively and so, considering the dramatic impact of this new approach, the neo-trad critics got surprisingly little traction on this issue.  Moreover the reaction was undoubtedly dulled by another controversy brewing at exactly the same time, and one that stole the gay-thunder by causing a flap about the “Extra-ordinary Form” of the Liturgy and the right of priests to celebrate that form guaranteed by Pope Benedict XVI in Summorum Pontificum.   

Before flying home from World youth Day Pope Francis had appointed Capuchin Franciscan Friar Fidenzo Volpi as Apostolic Commissioner to settle difficulties among the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.  It is still unclear—and the smoke of this still raging fire is making it ever more unclear—what the root issue is that has divided the community. (I have a number of blog entries on the Franciscans of the Immaculate: August 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14  2013.)   The problems seem to have originated with a decision of the Founder/General Superior of the Congregation, Father Stefano Manelli, that in their friaries only the pre-conciliar rites would be used.  While the Congregation is quite traditional, not all friars were quite that conservative and wanted to maintain the option to use the Novus Ordo.  They appealed to the Holy See to protect their rights to use the “Ordinary Form” of the approved Liturgy of the Church.  When Father Volpi began to unravel the complexities of the complaints, he found that it was about far more than which liturgy to use.  The conservative nature of the Congregation had attracted any number of candidates and friars who not only preferred the Baroque Rite, but who rejected the Rite of Paul VI (the Novus Ordo).  Moreover, it was not simply the rites they rejected but the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on issues such as ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue, and freedom of conscience.  At this point the issue becomes are these friars Catholic?  The requirement to accept the teachings of the Council and validity of the post-Conciliar Rites is the very sticking point that is preventing the healing of the Lefebvrist schism.  Father Volpi took severe action.  He insisted that the current Rite must be the normative form of the Liturgy and that permission was needed to celebrate the pre-conciliar Rite.  He also undertook a thorough examination of the course of studies for the friars and decreed that until he was satisfied that the friars were being educated according to current Catholic doctrine, no man would be advanced to ordination.  When he met with resistance from Father Manelli and his chief supporters, Volpi assigned them to remote friaries where they could cause less disruption.  Those friars who wanted to impose the traditional forms on the entire Congregation did not take Volpi’s decisions lying down and the neo-trads—especially those such as the blog Rorate Caeli (http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/) which are primarily interested in restoring the traditional rites, picked up the hue and cry. Neo-trads complained that the rights to celebrate the old liturgy (or to avoid the new) “guaranteed” by Pope Benedict had been abrogated.  The shrieks spread to sites like The Eponymous Flower (http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/) that have a more popular readership among the neo-traditionalist crowd.  Injudicious remarks about Pope Francis abound among those who defend the rebellious friars.  This too has led to a growing estrangement between Pope Francis and what has become a Tea Party within the Church.  I find it interesting that when in 1981 Pope John Paul stepped in and appointed Father Paolo Dezza as Pontifical Delegate for the Society of Jesus after the liberal generalate of Father Pedro Arrupe in order to bring the Society back to the center, the conservative cheered.  Now once again, as so often with Francis, the shoe is on the other foot and some people are not so happy.  Francis is being portrayed as a bully who is persecuting these friars and the religious women attached to the Congregation.  More and more for those on the farther right reaches of the Church, Francis can do no good.  The same polarization that is undermining us as a nation by clogging our political processes with polemic is now driving a wedge in the Church.    

Why Are They Afraid of Pope Francis, 11

Distinguished authority on Marxism, intellectual,

and theological commentator, Rush Limbaugh

I have been meaning to get back to Pope Francis’ interview with La Civilta Cattolica/America and now he has released the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium which, at almost one hundred pages, promises to give us fuel for quite some time to come.  Rush Limbaugh, savant of the Tea Party faction, has gone ballistic accusing the Pope of “pure Marxism,” and taken some easy but irrelevant shots at Vatican “wealth.”  Neo-Trad voices within the Church have either ignored it completely or paid it some light reference—such as Rorate Caeli’s observation that it is “a much more Thomistic text than anything authored by Benedict XVI” and then moved on to their usual cant about how Vatican II has destroyed the Roman Rite and how the advance of “homosexual marriage” is not inevitable.  Meanwhile EJ Dionne, writing the Washington Post, has called the spade.  Maybe they have reason to be afraid of the Pope. 

Christianity has been used over the centuries to prop up the powerful. But, from the beginning, the Christian message has been subversive of political systems, judgmental toward those at the top and demanding of all who take it seriously.

Pope Francis has surprised the world because he embraces the Christian calling to destabilize and to challenge. As the first leader of the Catholic Church from the Southern Hemisphere, he is especially mindful of the ways in which unregulated capitalism has failed the poor and left them “waiting.” His apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel” is drawing wide and deserved attention for its denunciation of “trickle-down” economics as a system that “expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.” It’s a view that “has never been confirmed by the facts” and has created “a globalization of indifference.” Will those conservative Catholics who have long championed tax-cutting for the wealthy acknowledge the moral conundrum that Francis has put before them?

I am anxious to read it because I think I will find it challenging and I need to be challenged.  This season of Advent is one in which we each need to take a look at our lives and see what the barriers to God’s Kingdom we have erected in our lives and allow the Joy of the Gospel to dismantle them.  But we will go back first to the interview and keep looking at the previews Francis granted us there before looking at the feature Evangelii Gaudium.  And as for Francis being a Marxist, it just shows that ol’ Rush wouldn’t know the Gospel from Das Kapital.  Friday is St Nicholas Day—maybe Saint Nick will bring him a copy of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.    

Of German Popes and American Bishops

Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston

with Boston College President, Father William

Leahy,SJ

We have been talking about the German Reform popes and I just want to share one or two reflections on the eleventh century reforms of the Church that might give us something to think about for reform and renewal in the contemporary Church. 
    In a few days I want to review the system of papal elections as one of the chief innovations—or reforms—of the Gregorian Reform was to define the exclusive right of the cardinal clergy of the Diocese of Rome to select a pope.  There were two problems.  One problem was that the custom had arisen of the Emperor, as Vicar of Christ, to appoint the popes.  Fortunately these papal appointees—Sylvester II,  Clement II, Damasus II, Leo IX—were good men and men ardent for Reform.  In fact, the reason the Emperors usurped the ancient rights of the clergy and people of Rome to elect their pope was that the Romans had a tendency to elect men who blocked reform.   Nevertheless, as we shall see, these very same reform minded popes came to see the danger of outside appointment—that the papacy could get caught in politics and the Church might be used for political purposes rather than be allowed to perform its own function given it by its Lord of continuing His work of proclaiming the Kingdom of God.  
     I think this should give us some thought for today in regard to the selection of bishops.  At one time, being a historian, I favored a return to the ancient practice that bishops be elected by the clergy and faithful.  As I am older—and either wiser or more cynical, I am not sure which—I have come to believe that this would be disastrous at least in our American environment.  The danger is that the election of bishops would devolve into the most crass forms of partisan politics. One of the reasons for the failure of “parish councils” to be effective in most American parishes is that we Americans automatically think “majority rules” and we failed to understand that councils were meant to be an opportunity for discernment rather than governance.   Americans seemingly cannot help but becoming caught in the whirlpools of politics and then devolve into partisan factions.  The fact that American Catholics are already quite divided into social (and political) liberals and conservatives is a harbinger of impending schism should “democracy” be introduced into Church structures.  In a culture that has given us the Tea Party, and the recent denouements of the irresolvable debt crisis, the Church would tear itself to shreds in such episcopal elections.  We see the issues being faced by the Episcopal Church and to some extent the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America today and I believe this is no time to experiment with democracy in the life of our Church.  In fact, I am not sure that Americans any longer merit democracy in their government.  In saying this, I certainly do not want to change our form of government, but I would like to see our citizenry wake up to their political responsibilities to be informed about the issues and civil in their political discourse. I remember the words of Benjamin Franklin to a woman who asked him, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, what sort of government we were to have under the new Constitution.  Franklin replied: “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it.”  A Republic demands a responsible citizenship that is informed and educated on the issues before it.  Without mentioning names or espousing one political party over another, it is clear that today’s Americans depend on 15 second sound-bites for their information about some very complex questions.  It would be even worse if the Church with its two millennia of rich and vibrant theological Tradition fell into this trap.  American Catholics—clergy and faithful alike—are too often frightfully ignorant of what it means to be Catholic and fall into the trap of believing what they hear on a “Catholic” radio or TV station or read in blog (even this blog) that portends to speak for the Church.   (This blog has always clearly established that it speaks for no one but its author and that it limits its statements to the historical and make no claim of theological competence.)   
   In expressing my reservations about electing bishops, I am not saying that a process by which clergy and faithful would have a voice in the selection of bishops would not work.  I think the system needs change to permit a genuine discernment process.  But the easy fix of election of bishops would be, I believe, even worse than the current system of papal appointment.  Frankly, it is hard to think of a worse system than the system we now have, but open election would surely be among the possible suggestions.  Papal appointment of bishops is an innovation in Catholic practice, for the most part dating only from the early nineteenth century when, after the defeat of Napoleon, the papacy made a series of concordats with the newly reconstituted European States giving the Holy See the right to appoint bishops in their territory.  For most of history, bishops were elected.  In the early Church they were elected by an assembly of clergy and laity; in the Middle Ages the election tended to fall to the Cathedral Chapters, bodies of clergy that were appointed to staff the Cathedral and often also held the pastorates of the principle churches in the cathedral city.  John Carroll, the first American Catholic bishop, was elected by the Catholic clergy of the new republic and he hoped that future bishops would likewise be elected. Alas, this was the very time that the papacy was wresting the right of election away from the European clergy and was hardly going to grant it to the Americans whose overthrow of monarchy was a challenge to everything the Holy See believed in regarding authority and its Divine Right to govern both in the civil and religious spheres. 
     I think we need to look at the American episcopacy and ask ourselves—and the Holy See—if this is the best they could give us.  Granted we have some outstanding men.  Sean O’Malley of Boston is heads and shoulders above his peers.  Donald Trautman of Erie has a too often overlooked perspicacity.  “Teddy” McCarrick, emeritus of Washington and Cardinal-none-the-less, while sly and ambitious, is a man of unparalleled talents who has well served both the Holy See and the American government in many behind the scenes diplomatic maneuvers.  A trained sociologist, McCarrick has his hand on the pulse of the American Catholic, but alas has gone unheeded by both his mitered peers and Rome.  In fact, the Holy See could not have been more happy to accept his resignation when his 75^th birthday came round some years back.    Another bright boy whose intelligence won him no friends in Rome is John Quinn who took an early retirement (to the relief of Rome and American conservatives) from his post as Archbishop of San Francisco.  Howard Hubbard of Albany and Matthew Clark of Rochester are two survivors of what is now the “Old School” –bishops appointed under the influence of Jean Jadot, the Apostolic Delegate in the late ’70’s.  They have done wonderful work in their respective dioceses, but their influence has been eclipsed by the mediocrity of the vast majority post-Jadot appointees.   There are other bishops of note, but they seem to be in the minority.  Wilton Gregory, once the hope for the future, has fizzled into a bit of a disappointment. Gerald Kicanas was maneuvered out of leadership by the machinations of the intelligent but visionless Cardinal George of Chicago; Timothy Dolan of New York was George’s candidate for president of the Bishops Conference in place of Kicanas.  Dolan seems to have some promise, if not of above-average intelligence at least of good pastoral sense.  Wuerl of Washington has a record of being overly cautious.  He lacks his predecessor’s (McCarrick’s) Machiavellian streak, but he also lacks McCarrick’s dash.  As for Olmstead, Bruskewitz, Chaput, Sheriden—well, alas but mediocrity is beyond their highest reach.  Chaput’s move to Philadelphia and its prospects of a red hat are an indication that the system is broken.   Archbishop Chaput is no Raymond Burke; his Capuchin-Franciscan roots save him from Burke’s pomposity and make him a decent human being but he is not a man of any but the most narrow vision.  Overall, the state of the American Episcopacy is appalling.  When one looks at the outstanding work done in the early ‘80’s with two superbly researched and well thought out  pastoral letters, one on economic morality and the other on the moral issues surrounding nuclear weapons, it is frightening to reflect that today’s hierarchy lack the talent to deliver much needed guidance on contemporary issues.  Sometime I will have to write on why (I think) there has been a dumbing-down of American bishops.  But that will be in the future.  Perhaps a blog on the relationship of John Paul II and Ronald Reagan will give us insight.     

The Plug-Uglies take their show on the road

Philadelphia was not the only city to see anti-Catholicism and anti-immigrant prejudice break out into nativist violence. In 1854 runners for a Baltimore Hook and Ladder company formed an associate called the Plug-Uglies that were associated with the Know-Nothing movement. Know-Nothings, like Today’s Tea Partiers, were not so much a nationally organized party as much as a movement consisting of a network of local associations, clubs, and societies. Like the Tea Party they had a common agenda on which they were united—in this case Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Immigrant—and points on which they could not reach consensus, most importantly, slavery. The Plug Uglies were one local group in Baltimore associated with this agenda; another was a gang called the Rip-Raps.
Despite its Catholic roots, Maryland was a stronghold of the Know-Nothings. They were the only State in the 1856 presidential election to go for the Know-Nothing ticked of Millard Fillmore and Andrew Jackson Donelson. But that was not the first election that the Plug Uglies disrupted. Baltimore had election riots in both 1855 and 1856 as Know-Nothings tried to control the polls in the municipal electins and insure that only nativist candidates received votes and the Plug Uglies played a prominent role in both disturbances. Then in June 1857, a Know-Nothing contingent comprised of Plug Uglies and Rip-Raps from Baltimore and the Shiffler Fire Company from Philadelphia descended on the National Capital in Washington to disrupt municipal elections there. President Buchanan called out the Marines who fired on the crowd. While the Plug Uglies and other out-of-town Know-Nothings were at the heart of the riot the majority of rioters were DC Residents. Nine of the ten civilians killed in the skirmish were White Washington nativists.
Know-Nothings also organized an attempt to disrupt elections in New Orleans in 1858. Historically there was a strong Catholic Presence in New Orleans—it had always been a French Catholic city—and while the riots there were anti-immigrant, the Know-Nothing success was more limited and they seemed not to have the ability to recruit as wide a selection of the population for their mob, Nevertheless, the Know-Nothing candidate was elected. Catholics may not have appreciated the Know-Nothing anti-Catholicisnm, but these old time French families may not have liked the immigrants any more than their Protestant counterparts up north.
Bishop John Hughes of New York took a very pro-active response the nativist threat. A native of what is today Northern Ireland, Hughes was never one to mince words, back down from a fight, or resort to diplomacy when he could hammer a point (or an opponent) ino the ground. After the Philadelphia riots in which two churches, a convent, a school and hundreds of Catholic homes were burned, it was rumored that the ringleaders of the Philadelphia riot were coming to New York to incite anti-Catholic riots there. Hughes called out Catholic volunteers to protect Church property and informed the Mayor that if there was any anti-Catholic rioting in New York the city would “become a second Moscow.” This was a reference to the residents of Moscow burning their own city to prevent Napoleon taking it in 1812. (Remember Tchaikovsky’s famous overture?) The threat was taken seriously—as it was meant to be--and the city government made sure there was no trouble in New York. It will be fun to do some blogs on Hughes but I think tomorrow we will go back to the conclusion of the the story about the burning of the Charlestown Convent. Then i want to go back to the saga of the American nuns (You know, the ones whom the Vatica is hell-bent on "investigating") for a day or two—and then something on Rome. When we come back to this topic, we will deal with the Know-Nothings and the “Pope’s Stone.” No—it wasn’t a kidney stone or a gall stone—but it was just as painful and far more embarrassing.

The image today is John Hughes, 1797-1864, fourth bishop and later first Archbishop of New York.

When the City of Brotherly Love didn't live up to its name part I

I mentioned yesterday that the Know-Nothing Party, known also as the Native American Party and the American Party, bore in several respects a great resemblance to today’s Tea Party. It appealed primarily to working class whites who felt that their livelihood was being threatened by the massive immigration of the time. Like today’s Tea Party it was, at least in its formative years, not a political party as such but a loose coalition of local groups who had reached a consensus on many, but not all, issues. It was unable, for example, to reach a consensus on slavery—a crucial question of the time. It did reach a consensus on immigrants and on Catholicism. It was opposed to rights for both.
The 1840’s and 1850’s were a tumultuous time for Catholics and Nativists alike. Philadelphia suffered particularly badly in the conflict that erupted over the petition of the Catholic Bishop, Francis Kenrick to the School Board that Catholic Children either be excused from the daily bible reading—where the King James Version was read—or permitted to read from the Douai version which was used by Catholics. He also insisted that Catholic children be excused from religious (Protestant) education in the public schools. The School board concurred but this decision started rumors that the bishop and his flock—at the instigation of the pope—were trying to ban the bible from public schools.
Philadelphia, much like Charlestown and Boston, was a field of conflict between its native born working class—mostly Protestant—and the large number of immigrant workers—mostly Irish and Catholic—who were willing to work more cheaply and thus threatening the livelihood of the native-born American workmen. As in Boston demagoguery played on the tension between immigrants and native-born Americans and anti-Catholicism regularly appeared in the pulpit and in print. This was the atmosphere that the Know-Nothings thrived in and in May 1844 the American Republican Party—a local group o f Know-Nothings—organized a rally in the heart of the Kensington District, a stronghold of Irish Catholics. It was obviously meant to be provocative and a good lesson is never provoke an Irishman. The Irish love a fight. Local residents attacked the speakers’ podium and the Know-Nothings fled. They returned two days later in greater numbers. This time the meeting turned violent with several of the Know-Nothing party killed. The mob then attacked a convent of the Sisters of Charity and several Catholic homes. The violence continued the next day and it was beyond the power of the local authorities to stop. The Know-Nothings rallied the nativist forces with the call to deliver America “from the bloody hand of the pope.” Buildings were burned, people were killed until the State militia came in and put the riot down. Bishop Kenrick issued a directive for Catholics to avoid confrontation and violence.
Nonetheless, the violence continued. The Know-Nothings returned the next day and burned down two Catholic Churches—one in the Kensington district and the other in Philadelphia itself, cheering as the steeple of the Philadelphia church tottered and fell. A school and more homes were destroyed, In the final analysis fourteen people were killed, fifty injured and, several hundred at lost their homes, moreover two churches, a convent, and a school were burned to the ground.
The Mayor ordered protection for Catholic churches and Bishop Kenrick closed the churches on the following Sunday to avoid any organized retribution as well as to prevent an attack on the Catholics while at mass. by the Know-Nothings. The Bishop told his flock that they should wait until the legal processes dealt with the rioters. In the end, however, a grand jury decided that the riots were due to “the efforts of a portion of the community (the Catholics) to exclude the Bible form the public schools” and the immigrants having disrupted legitimate public meetings.

More to come on the Philadelphia riots of 1844.

The image today is Old Saint Jospeh's--the oldest Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. Located in Philadelphia. The parish goes back to 1733!