A Void In Leadership

Saint Augustine, Bishop and
Theologian

Well the election is behind us.  As of the time I am writing the results have not yet begun to come in—that will be several  hours from now but until then I want to move away from Church and State issues and look at some other aspects of our Catholic life from a historical perspective.  In fact I am making myself (and my readers) a promise that I will go for a week without dealing with politics unless, of course, an issue arises that merits instantaneous comment.  Like that charming little girl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjrthOPLAKM “I’m tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney.”  
So let’s go on to another topic.   How about this one: bishops confusing themselves for theologians.  This is a very significant shift in our Catholic ecclesiology over the last fifteen years or so as American bishops have increasingly taken it upon themselves to evaluate the work of such distinguished theologians as Father Charles Curran, Professor Elizabeth Johnson, Sister Sandra Schneiders, and others who have earned distinction in the academic community.  The view of these pretentious prelates (yes, I know that seems to be redundant these days) is that they, the bishops, are the theologians of the Church and the scholars task is to stand awed before their inspired episcopal intellects before they, the theologians, undertake their humble task of explaining to more popular audiences the profound and august theological insights of the mitered dons.  Boy do they have it wrong.  Bishops are meant to be teachers not theologians.  In that sense they need to rely on the serious academic work of qualified and academically proven scholars just as Sister Sophrinus had to read up on American history before she taught it to us in the seventh grade. 
Well, they protest—look at the great bishops who were doctors of the Church—Augustine, Ambrose, Leo, Chrysostom, Gregory—and one can plainly see that Episcopal ordination confers by grace of the Sacrament Theological competency.  What they have overlooked are the tens of thousands of mitered idiots who were (and are) complete theological nincompoops.  Augustine and company were not theologians by virtue of the fact that they were bishops—they had been elected bishops because they were great theologians. 
Would that bishops today, at least our American bishops, were men chosen for their knowledge of our Catholic Theological heritage, their intelligence and their insight.  Frankly, we have a sorry lot of leaders.  There are exceptions of course—not theologians of proven stature but some intelligent and articulate men.  I remember hearing when I lived in Rome a professor opine:

In Germany the bishops are chosen from among the scholars

In Italy from among the shepherds of souls
And in England from among the gentlemen.
But in America there are no scholars, shepherds of souls, or gentlemen and so they get businessmen.  

Alas, but that seems an all too true insight.

There is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism

The Reverend Mark Schloneger is a Mennonite Pastor in Indiana.  The Mennonites come out of the Anabaptist movement of the 16^th century and like their theological siblings, the Amish, have a strong theology of what they believe should be the proper relationship of a Christian with the State.  Mennonites are committed to pacifism and insist that any loyalty to earthly government comes only after our total commitment to Jesus and his Gospel. 
I did an entry several days ago about Joseph and Michael Hofer, two Hutterite men who were arrested and died in prison during World War I rather than compromise their beliefs. Hutterites are also a part of the Mennonite family of Anabaptist Christians and demand that our first and only true allegiance must be to Christ and his Gospel.  Pastor Schloneger and several other Christian clergy came up with the idea of Election Day Communion as a way to remind Christians that Christ must shape our entire lives and that our politics need to flow from our commitment to the Gospel.  Sharing Holy Communion on this day is also a vivid reminder that while we may have differences in politics, we must maintain our unity in Christ first and foremost.   Pastor Schloneger’s idea of Election Day Communion is a good one.  For us Catholics, of course, we are used to the availability of Mass and Communion each day but that is not the case for almost all other Christians.  Even Greek and Russian Orthodox usually only celebrate on Sundays and maybe twice more during the week.   Episcopalians and Lutherans as well as Churches in the Campbellite tradition—Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ—almost always celebrate Holy Communion every Sunday but rarely during the week.  Most Protestants share Holy Communion only monthly or even quarterly so for a special Communion to  be shared on election day is a powerful reminder that we are called to be One Body in Christ’s One Body and One Fellowship in His Blood.
Let me reprint the internet article to which I was directed for more information.   You can find it for yourself on the CNN Belief Blog.  http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/

It seems frivolous, even foolish.

On Tuesday, as the world turns its attention to who will occupy the most powerful office of the world’s most powerful nation, hundreds of churches will gather across the United States to worship a servant. As votes are counted to elect a president, thousands of Christians will take the bread and the cup to remember their crucified Lord. As winners are projected and the electoral map is updated, Christians of many denominations will sing their praises and proclaim their loyalty to Jesus.  It seems ridiculous, even silly. After all, America is at a crossroads, and we are in the midst of one of the most critical presidential elections of our lifetimes. We know this because people have recited this same tired mantra before every presidential election.
Our fears, our hopes, our worries and our struggles are the currency that buys our votes. And how do politicians and their supporters acquire this precious currency? They invest billions of dollars to foment fear, inspire hope, create worry and exploit our struggles. It’s a power play. Some of us are pawns, and some of us are participants. But some of us are choosing a different part.
I initiated the Election Day Communion Campaign out of a concern that Christians in the United States are being shaped more by the tactics and ideologies of political parties than by our identity and unity in Christ. Out of this concern, a simple vision sparked the imaginations of congregations nationwide: the church being the church on Election Day, gathering at the Lord’s Table to remember, to give thanks for, and to proclaim its loyalty to Jesus. Gathering for Communion on Election Day seems fitting, for the practice of Communion is an inherently political act. It is both a pledge of allegiance to Jesus and a declaration of independence from all other powers making claims on our bodies, minds and souls.
Far too often, the church has abandoned its first love for the siren song of political parties promising protection, prosperity and peace. Far too many times, the church has ceded the practice of its faith to the spiritual and the private while leaving others to address matters of justice. And far too frequently, the church has attempted to speak truth to power while seeking and relying on that same power for protection. The bread and the cup are God’s antidotes to our fickle memories. As we eat and drink together, we remember that all things fall under the lordship of Christ. We remember our sin and need to repent. We remember that God has lifted up the humble, filled the hungry with good things, and chosen to reveal God’s strength through our weakness.  We remember that the only Christian nation in this world is the church, the holy nation that transcends all human-made walls, boundaries and borders.
As we gather at the table, we remember that the power to redeem, to save, and to transform comes not from atop the seat of power but from within the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
We will gather for Election Day Communion not because we think that the issues at stake in this election are unimportant or that our votes don’t really matter. No, we will gather for Communion because we think that the issues at stake in all elections are far too important to be relegated to our votes alone.
The Lord’s Supper reminds followers of Jesus to practice the politics of Jesus. To me, practicing the politics of Jesus means working to protect the sanctity of all human life, whether it is found in the womb, in prison, or in countries at war against us.  It means choosing the way of forgiveness and reconciliation rather than vengeance and violence. It means practicing an economy based on generosity and mutual aid. It means offering care and compassion to suffering people regardless of their immigration status, economic class or religious practice. It means being good stewards of God’s good creation. And, most of all, it means allowing God’s kingdom to break into the entirety of our lives, from the privacy of our homes to the politics we practice in public.
The bread and the cup keep calling me back to the table inscribed with memory. There, I remember God’s choice for the transfer of power. There, I remember where to go with my fears, my hopes, my worries and my struggles. At the table, with my sisters and brothers, I am in the presence of the Holy. Though I’m interested in the outcome of the presidential election, I won’t be watching the projected results as they are announced. I’ve made a prior commitment. I intend to honor it.

1 800 HELP NOW

When President Obama's team picked  a fight with the Catholic Church over contraceptive coverage for employees of Catholic institutions, I stopped contributing to the campaign even though I believe that the ultimate solution is a reasonable one--that the insurance companies and not the Catholic institutions themselves have to pay for the coverage.  I am disappointed and even angry that we Catholics who have supported the President in the face of so much internal pressure from bishops and priests were "left out on a limb" by a foolish policy decision.  So anyway I still have money I had budgeted for the campaign and now I want to contribute that to hurricane relief.  I have been trying to call the Red Cross all day at the ABC hurricane relief hotline--1 800 HELP NOW and just can't get through. It is amazing how tough it can be to give money away!  I will keep trying however as I think this is a worthy cause.  You might want to consider it too.   Oh, and by the way, I will be sending checks to Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities USA as well.  Maybe you might want to do the same

The Year of Faith--and a disheartening history

John XXIII, Benedict's

Forgotten Pope?

When Pope Benedict announced a “Year of Faith” to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, he never mentioned in his apostolic letter, Porta Fidei, the pope that called the Council, John XXIII.  Benedict cited his predecessor John Paul II several times and he even referred to Paul VI but he never once acknowledged “Good Pope John.”  That is no mere oversight.  Papal statements don’t make oversights.  It can be seen as nothing other than a clear and deliberate snub of Pope John. 

The late Father Alcuin Coyle, a Franciscan Friar who worked at the Franciscan curia in Rome for many years and had a wonderful nose for Roman Gossip once told me that the Vatican was resisting the beatification of John XXIII despite having over 20 miracles to the credit of his prayers.  Of course, eventually the powers that held sway at the time had to give in and permit the beatification as the clamor of the faithful was too great.  To balance out the ticket the symbol of ultramontane pre-Vatican II Catholicism, Pius IX (pope from 1846 to 1878) was beatified in the same ceremony.  There seems to be little enthusiasm in the Vatican for the movement to push John XXIII on to sainthood.  John remains a very popular figure among rank and file Catholics but is seen by many in the Vatican as a traitor to all they have worked for and believe in because of the way his Council almost overturned their stranglehold on their bureaucratic power.

The Roman bureaucracy had long been building up a monopoly on Church authority.  I am not speaking of the Pope here and of whatever authority is proper to the Petrine Office, but rather of the immense officialdom that oversees the day to day administration of the Church.  Throughout the nineteenth century the Roman Curia expanded its power as modern communications—originally the telegraph, later the telephone, the radio, and television, and in recent decades the internet has facilitated direct and immediate communication between Rome and dioceses scattered around the world.  In the Napoleonic era and then at the Council of Vienna, concordats with the European powers took away the rights of the clergy in most dioceses to elect their bishops and replaced canonical election with papal appointments.  Missionary countries—and at the time that included the United States—were never granted the rights of episcopal election. After Vatican I and the Decree on Infallibility in 1870 the papacy was supreme in its authority over the western Church and the Curia ever increasingly tightened its stranglehold over all decision making.  The papacy of St Pius X was a time of particular centralization with the Machiavellian Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val as Pius’s chief minister.  The final years of Pius XII, particularly the years after his 1954 illness, were another period in which the Curial officials were able to strengthen their own power at the expense of the pope on one hand and local bishops on the other. 

The stranglehold that this bureaucracy held on Church decision making was one of the things that John XXIII was determined to break and his calling the Council brought the bishops of the world together to provide a challenge to the Curia as a Council not only provided the bishops with a voice of their own but had the authority to change structures of Church administration.  This they did—or attempted to do—with the Conciliar Decrees.  Lumen Gentium (The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Gaudium et Spes (The Pastoral Constitution on the Church), and Christus Dominus (The Decree on Bishops) effectively redefined the role of the Curia and its relationship to the bishops.  The trouble was, however, that the bishops went home at the end of the Council and the Curia stayed. The bishops had left a wounded animal.  The election of John Paul II marked a policy of return to the status quo before the Council.  The Curia had already begun its program of reconsolidating its power in the final years of Paul VI when the Pope, all but paralyzed by a combination of age and depression resulting from the hostility with which his encyclical Humanae Vitae was received, more and more withdrew from everyday governance of the Church.  Who knows what John Paul I would have done had he lived, but John Paul II aggressively supported a return to centralized power.  Some say that John Paul never understood the idea of collegiality and the role of his brother bishops, but I think he understood it well and rejected it. Shared authority didn’t fit into his somewhat narrow experience of having lived under totalitarian regimes for most of his life and the experience of the Polish Church that required lockstep obedience to the Primate if the Church were to resist the Communist rulers of Poland after World War II.  John Paul may have thought that restoring the Curia to power strengthened the papacy but in fact he could never get the control over the Curia himself.  It had become an agency “under” the pope only in name as various desk-jockeys from mighty Cardinals to lowly monsignori  began issuing decrees and decisions independent of the Pope and of one another—creating a morass of contradictory policies coming from Rome.             

Benedict may have thought that he could alter that—take control of the wild animal and tame it under his leadership but he has been mistaken.  In fact, the whole problem of the papal butler, Paolo Gabriele, stealing papal papers and turning them over to journalists was meant, at least in the butler’s mind, of exposing that the Holy Father is no more than a captive of a cabal of Curialists that are steering the Church in the direction they think it should go.  Well, God bless Pope Benedict but perhaps more than a “year of faith” commemorating the Second Vatican Council we need a John XXIII and a new Council to pick up the pieces and put us back on track. 
Incidentally, today is the 54th anniversary Pope John XXIII's coronation

Wondering Where Miss Hilly Done Moved To?

One of my regular readers sent in this photo of a poster he made for the pro-life Rally at Leesburg VA organized by the local parish.  He said that the reception was “muted” among the Jackson Junior League ladies who claim to be pro-life but are only anti-abortion.  (which is good but not good enough if you are faithful the magisterium.)  One of the local Hilly Holbrooks said “Well, what didn’t you put on there?”  Ms Jolene just said “Hmmm.”  Some people just don’t get what pro-life means.  And they totally miss the dilemma Catholics are in this year trying to choose a candidate for whom to vote.    

Real Threats to Religious Liberty

Cardinal Law--whose mishandling

of the abuse crisis may provide the

greatest danger to religous liberty

There is a lot of kerfuffle in some pulpits these days about a threat to religious liberty posed by the Affordable Health Care Act.  Personally, I think it is a red herring.  The Church does not have to pay one red cent to supply contraceptives to the employees of various Catholic institutions.  The insurance companies have to absorb the costs which they are willing to do as it is more cost-effective to supply contraceptives than to pay for pre-natal care and child-birth and the new children who will be added to policies.  What some Churchmen object to is that the Church has to permit its employees—Catholic and non-Catholic—access to contraceptives.  That is a very different issue and one which I think the Church just has to “suck up” and accept.  Having to provide contraceptives is one issue; trying to bar access to contraceptive care for others is another.  HaHJContraceptives may be morally wrong—and while the Church has a strong teaching on this point—there is no consensus either in our society or in the Church. The Church is not the magisterium.  The Church is the community of all the faithful.  And while the magisterium has given its teaching, that teaching cannot be said to reflect the faith of the Church.  This is not a theological blog and I don’t want to get into the theological issues about “reception of doctrine,” but from a historical perspective one can say that a teaching that is not accepted by the faithful does not persist in the “faith held by the Church.”  But I don’t want to get stuck on this point because I do want to move on to two items that we had better prepare for and which will provide a far more real threat to the Church’s freedom.

The first and less serious—only by comparison—of these threats will be the taxation of Church property.  Currently houses of worship, schools, charitable institutions such as hospitals and nursing homes, administrative offices such as chanceries, living facilities for religious such as monasteries, convents, and rectories are not subject to property taxes.  Trust me, that will change in the next thirty years—or at least efforts will be made to change that as localities become more and more anxious to increase their income without putting the burden on businesses and private ownership.  I also would not be surprised to see that while religious—nuns, monks, friars, brothers—are not normally subject to income tax as their income goes not to them personally but to the communities to which they belong and those communities are registered charities, that at some point the religious orders themselves will be taxed for the income of their members and for other income that comes to them through bequests, donations, investments, etc.  I am not saying that this should happen but it is inevitable that some of the forces in our society that are opposed to religion—not simply Catholicism but religion in general—will challenge the tax-exemptions of religious organizations.

The second danger which is far more perilous is the probability that the traditional respect for the secrecy of the confessional will be challenged legally.  This is due in part, in great part, to the poor handling of the sex abuse crisis by the hierarchy.  Ireland is already challenging the right of clergy to remain confidential in court.  Moreover, physicians, psychologists, counselors and others have been called to violate patient-client confidentiality.  When it comes to the secrecy of the confessional there will be no choice but for the clergy to take the consequences as no matter the law the secrecy cannot be abridged.  Do not doubt, however, that this will be a major issue within the next few years.  This isn’t about Obama and his “threat to religious liberty.”  It won’t matter which party is in power –this will be a decision of the courts.  Hopefully with such a strong presence of Catholics on the Supreme Court this danger will not be realized but I will be surprised.  Moreover, while I expect secularists to be part of the challenge to the Church and the secrecy of the confessional, I think liberals in general will see the threat to personal freedom that it would represent and in fact, I think conservatives will be a bigger danger to maintaining this important principle. 

Catholic Calvinism

John Calvin, a patron saint

to some of us Americans

We’re Protestants, you and me, American Catholics.  We might like to think that we are faithful Catholics but we are so conditioned by our culture that we just don’t get the “Catholic thing.”  One example of what I mean is how we look at justice.  Like our neighbors coming out of the Calvinist tradition, we see justice as punitive, but that is not how our Catholic tradition understands justice.  Justice, in our Catholic heritage—whether it be based on the Epistles of Saint Paul or the patristic tradition or even Saint Thomas—is not about punishment due to sin, crime, or other wrongs, but it is about the Divine Order.  It is about each of God’s children having his or her share of creation that God has willed for that particular child of his to have.  This does not mean that we should all have the same.  And it doesn’t mean that we should all have our “fair” share—that is another misconception: that life should somehow or other be “fair.”  But it does mean that God wants the creation he entrusted to us collectively to be distributed equitably.  Of course I have no idea how “much” I should have, much less how “much” you should have.  But I do believe this: that God wants each of his children to have sufficient share of creation to live healthily and with dignity.  And when we talk about how human society should be organized, we Christians—if our faith is real—know that we must make this sort of justice the guiding principle of our actions and our choices.  Thy kingdom come: thy will be done…  God’s will is not being done when some of his children are hungry and others of us have so much more than we need. God’s will is not being done when some of his children are homeless and others own two and three homes.  God’s will is not being done when some of his children are left without medical care and others of us are indifferent to their plight.  A Calvinist would see that my surplus is a sign of God’s favor on me.  A Catholic knows that my surplus is God entrusting me with a responsibility for those who have less than they need.  Of course, good Calvinists and bad Catholics call that “socialism.”