Of Tim Tebow and Christmas Trees in the Park

The Christmas Tree in the Place

Notre Dame--just because it is in front

of the Cathedral doesn't make it a

symbol of Christian faith

I am not keen on this Tebow thing.  I don’t mean Tim—he’s fine, seems not only to play good ball but to be a very good man—but this prayer thing.  I don’t go for it.  The bible verse in eye black or whatever is fine.  Talking about Jesus is fine.  It is just that I think Jesus had a point when he said
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward  But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.  And your Father, who sees in secret will repay you.   (Matt 6:5-6)
     It is like those people who in a communion line need to drop to their knees just to show the world that they take Jesus more seriously than the rest of us luke-warm believers who follow the established procedure and remain standing to receive.  Nevertheless, even though I think the public displays of piety are indicative of a psycho-spiritual immaturity I want to defend Tim Tebow’s choice to publicly demonstrate his faith.  Rabbi Joshua Hammerman recently attacked Tebow’s public religiosity making the ridiculous claim that it can lead to “insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.”  Rabbi Hammerman retracted his statement and his column was pulled from the internet but the point had been made.  There are a lot of people in our society that want to see religion banished from the “public square.”  And this brings us back into the conversation about the crèche on the Courthouse lawn in Leesburg VA.   By the way,lil’ ol’ country town Leesburg isn’t the only place having this dispute.  Big ol’ California Gay Town Santa Monica is embroiled in it as well, but we will save that for future entries. 
     In looking at our Founding Fathers and the “Christian Nation” issue we need to differentiate between the “Public Square” and “The State,” or as we should call it for clarity—government.  A County Courthouse lawn is not only public space, it is government space.  A Courthouse lawn represents, symbolizes, like the Courthouse itself, the institution of government.  The same can be said for a State Capitol (or the U.S. Capitol),  government office buildings, the public lawns and chambers of official residences, embassies or other space where government functions.  This can be differentiated from publically owned (but governmentally administered) spaces such as streets or  public parks.  Government space, I think, should be free of religious (or anti-religion) symbols.  Public space, on the other hand, should be open to the public with equal access to all.  I don’t think that a crèche or a Menorah or an atheist slogan belongs in government space but I also think it is wrong to bar Muslims or atheists or Buddhists from erecting displays where Christians or Jews are so permitted to place their symbols.  There are those in our society who want religion to be restricted to the private sphere.  They would maintain that there should be no public displays of any religious symbols.  That is a restriction upon religious freedom.  While there are some religious groups who themselves see religion as a private matter—Quakers, for example—and while there are religions such as Judaism whose rites are traditionally practiced in the privacy of home and synagogue, there are other religions, Christianity being one, whose rites are meant to be public and to attempt to restrict their practice to behind closed doors is to inhibit their religious freedoms.  So Tim—I think you need to give Matthew 6:5-7 some thought, but if you want to showboat your religious faith I will defend your right to do so. 
     And before we move on from the subject of religious displays, there is need for one more clarification and that is between religious symbols and societal symbols.  A crèche is a religious symbol, a “Christmas Tree” has nothing to do with Christian faith.  “Christmas” is actually an amalgamation of two celebrations.  There is a Christian holyday.  A wreath with four candles, a crèche, a star, wisemen on camels, shepherds, Silent Night, a Saintly Bishop Nicholas,  or a good king Wenceslaus—all these symbolize the Christian feast.  There is also what anthropologists might call a “solstice celebration.”  The days are getting longer; the spell of winter is broken.  Christmas trees, candy canes, a fat man in a red suit with presents, strings of lights—these are about the solstice celebration.  Now not everybody chooses to celebrate the solstice.  That is a choice they make. They have no right to begrudge others having a glass of eggnog (or even getting snockered) while toasting the earth’s change of tilt.  But celebrating or not celebrating the solstice is not the same as celebrating or not celebrating the birth of Jesus.  There are plenty of people who don’t regard Jesus as anything more than pious fiction but who are into celebrating the solstice.  Personally, I would like to find a way about celebrating the birth of Jesus without having to get trapped in the solstice thing.  But don’t denigrate my religious faith by saying that a light-covered tree or an overweight elf represents my religious convictions.  I don’t need to see the baby Jesus at the Mall but don’t scream because there is a Christmas Tree in the town square.                 

  

Of Courthouse Lawns, Religion, and Christian Nations--Our American Tradition

Thomas Jefferson's gravestone at

Monticello commemorating his

authorship of the Virginia Statute

for Religious Freedom

  For the last two entries we were looking at Founding Fathers and the idea that they established the United States as a "Judeo Christian Nation"--an idea that Barbara Curtis of Mommy Life Blog maintained as indisputable corresponding with a reader of this blog in regard to the Leesburg Courthouse debacle. Ms. Curtis, though a journalist of some reknown, like many who publish does not always do her research so I thought that I might do some research on the topic to clarify it. Two days ago we look at the colonial roots of the United States which could give some arguement in favor of the Christian Nation theory. Yesterday we began looking at the Founding Fathers themselves and what we can learn about their political philosophy. I started with Thomas Jefferson but he needs more than one entry so we will continue today with Jefferson and his approach to religion and public policy.

      Thomas Jefferson counted his three greatest accomplishments as authoring the Declaration of Independence, authoring the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and founding the University of Virginia. It was for these three things alone, and not even for his Presidency, his purchase of the Louisiana Territory, or his significant contributions to the natural sciences and the consequent advances on the agricultural and economic development of Virginia that he chose to be remembered. Let’s look at that Virginia Statute to see if it gives us any clues as to Jefferson’s views on the new Republic being a “Christian Nation.” 

An Act for establishing religious Freedom.

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;
That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do,
That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical;
That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind;
That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry, 
That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,
That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;
That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;
That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;
That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;
And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right   
     I am sorry Ms. Curtis, but that, to me, does not sound like someone who thought his efforts on behalf of good government was establishing a “Judeo-Christian nation.”  In fact, it sounds like he is insisting on a level playing field for people of all and diverse religious opinions.  Not all the founding fathers may have agreed with him, of course, but Jefferson is the single most important actor in the shaping of the new nation and he was not trying to set up a Christian republic.   

America: Undisputedely a Christian Nation?

Jefferson's home at Monticello

In my previous entry I spoke about the Christian roots of our American nation.  I mentioned that there were three colonial foundations on which the United States is built—the English, the Spanish, and the French and all three represented Christian monarchies.  Two of these colonial societies were Catholic, one was Protestant.  While all three have contributed to our culture, our political identity as a nation is taken only from the English/Protestant heritage and that heritage represented both an Anglican (Virginia, New York, Georgia, and the Carolinas) and a Reformed (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut (Congregationalist), Rhode Island (Baptist), Delaware and New Jersey (Presbyterian).  Pennsylvania (Quaker) and Maryland (Catholic) were anomalies, though Remember that Maryland had strong Anglican and Reformed contingents and Catholics were not only a minority but after 1688 were excluded from political life.  Nevertheless, given the wealth of the Catholic gentry they were certainly not without influence in the life of the colony.    Now despite the religious ties of the colonies—several with “Established Churches” (Anglican in the South and in New York, Congregationalists in New England)—we also saw that in only three—Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland—did religion play a significant role in their foundation.  Reconsidering, I suppose we should include Rhode Island in that number as Roger Williams and his friends left Massachusetts over theological disputes that led to their excommunication from the Congregationalist Church.  Only one of these four, however, was founded with the explicit intention of being a Christian society and that was Massachusetts.  So on to the time of our Revolution and the “Founding Fathers.” 
      Well, what were the religions of our Founding Fathers?   Were they Christians and what were their intentions regarding the religious identity of our nation?  Did they intend to establish a Christian Nation? 
      Almost all of the Founders of the American Republic were Christians, of a sort.  I say “of a sort” because the understanding of what it meant to be a Christian differed in the mid- and late-seventeenth century than what we hold to and we would not recognize all of them as Christians today. Indeed in today’s world several, and several of the more important founders of our nation, would probably not identify themselves as Christians if they had access to our understanding of the term. 
       Almost all delegates to the Continental Congress who approved and signed the Declaration of Independence were affiliated with one religious group or another.  More than half of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were Church of England, now Episcopalian.  Others were Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Unitarian, and Quaker.  One, Chalres Carroll of Carrollton, was a Catholic.  Several signers identify themselves with double affiliations.  John Adams, for example, was a Unitarian but also Congregationalist.  Unitarianism was at the time a faction within Congregationalism.  Thomas Jefferson is usually identified as Episcopalian and Benjamin Franklin as a Quaker when in fact both were Deists and not Christian at all. This is particularly important to note given that Jefferson and Franklin played an especially key role—along with John Adams—in the development of the Declaration of Independence.  They would go on to be among the principal shapers of our American Republic.  Franklin was the dean of the Founding Fathers, the oldest and most distinguished to whom the others deferred and he took an active role in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that gave us our Constitution.   
      Jefferson was baptized an Episcopalian and when he died his grandson read the Episcopal burial service at his grave but in between Jefferson was what today would call an agnostic. He acknowledged the existence of a Supreme Being and indeed wrote eloquently of the Supreme Being.  I particularly like his quote inscribed on the architrave of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”  Great Quote.  Of course, one of the forms of tyranny over the minds of man for Jefferson was organized religion, particularly hierarchical denominations such as the Anglican and the Catholic.  When Jefferson writes of “God” it is important to keep in mind that he did not believe in the God of the Judeo-Christian revelation but rather the Rationalist Deity of the Enlightenment, an impersonal “clockmaker-god” who set up the universe with its laws of nature and then let it wind its mechanical way unguided by a divine hand.  Jefferson regarded Jesus as a great moral teacher but did not think him more divine than any other human person. Jefferson created his Life and Morals of Jesus of  Nazareth by cutting (literally cutting with a razor from his King James) and pasting selections from the canonical gospels in a chronological order and eliminating anything of the supernatural—the virgin birth, miracles, angels, the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, and his resurrection.  Jefferson’s exegetical skill had convinced him that these were accretions added by the evangelists to the original message of Jesus.  With a bible like that, Jefferson couldn’t be elected nothin’ in Virginia today—though he would be a strong Democratic candidate in Massachusetts.  Jefferson’s agnosticism did not make him opposed to Christianity, however, and he made contributions in his old age to various churches—Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist—as he felt that religion was a good vehicle to train the common folk (he also was a elitist) in good morals.  During his time as ambassador to France he had extensive contact with Catholicism at the court of Louis XVI.  He felt that Catholicism was identified with the ancien regime and humanity would be better with Catholicism passing into the historical oblivion that Enlightenment figures were confident was its destiny.  (My favorite Enlightenment quote—which which Jefferson was familiar—is Diderot’s: Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest.  I don’t share the sentiment, I just love how outrageous the quote is.) With his every day relationships with Catholics Jefferson was a gentleman and wrote a cordial letter to Bishop John Carroll in 1801 supporting Carroll’s effort to purchase land in the district of Columbia for the building of a Catholic church. Jefferson, for his part, could not have but noticed that the Catholics in the colonies were ardent supporters of Independence from Britain and though few in number were enthusiastic supporters of the Republic.   Once America split into parties in the mid 1790’s Catholics tended to side with the Federalists rather than we Jefferson’s Republicans—the ancestors of today’s Democrats, but unlike the more virulent Federalists, the Catholics were strongly committed to republican rather than monarchical government.  Catholic thought favored a stronger central government at the expense of the States while Jefferson and his Republicans (now Democrats) were for a weak Federal government and stronger powers to the States.  See how things change, Kundun?  Most important to understand Jefferson’s ideas regarding the place of religion in public life is to remember that Jefferson had authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty.  I will post it in a future posting, but suffice it to say here that it makes religious belief or disbelief irrelevant to public and political life.  Given Jefferson’s own disbelief in traditional Christianity it is clear to the reader that Jefferson was not only concerned about strife between Anglicans and Baptists—the immediate area of strife in newly independent Virginia, but also to protect his own position as a post-Christian rationalist who was also governor of Virginia.  I will post that in my next posting and then we will go on to Adams, Franklin, and other Founders of our Christian Nation.  Or not. 

Of Courthouses, Christian Nations, and That Damn Drinking Water in Loudon County

Saint Mary's Chapel, Saint Mary City,

Maryland--the first Catholic Church in

English North America

I had an email from one of my regular readers who has been what we might call an active bystander to the Leesburg Courthouse Lawn Debacle that we spoke of the other day.  A spokesperson for the Knights sent the board of supervisors an email saying:
The many Loudoun County citizens who place their belief in God and try to live a faith based life are being continually subjected to policy statements placed on our County Courthouse grounds by a myriad of atheistic organizations. Citizens of faith are infuriated by these policy laden signs, such as the one below, that have been erected at very regular intervals on the Loudoun County Courthouse grounds. These signs, for the most part, refer to God's non-existence, and denigrate those, who believe in God.  So although, some would claim these signs profess our freedom of speech, the very regular and continued placement of them on the courthouse grounds are neither fair, nor civil to citizens of faith. We hope that our Loudoun County Supervisors takes this issue to heart, and more closely monitors its policy for permits to use the courthouse grounds for displays. 
     Now, remember the Knights started this situation when they organized a protest against a county policy that would have prohibited any displays on the Courthouse lawn.  The Board of Supervisors backed down and agreed to allow ten displays allotted on a first come first serve basis.  That was a huge mistake.  The Knights’ protest backfired because the policy that would permit Christians to put up their annual Christmas displays also permitted people of other faiths and no faith to erect displays as well.  Several Knights realized this fight was a mistake from the get-go and want to back-off from supporting displays on County property while others, like the gentleman who sent the above email, want religious displays to be allowed but not displays that advocate rationalism, agnosticism, or atheism.  They are probably right that some of the displays that have been put on the public lawn make light of—if not mock—believers.  That is not civil behavior but then civil behavior has never been part of Loudon culture where polemic has long outshouted reason, goin' back at least to the War Between the States.  What they do not seem to realize is that you cannot allow one opinion access to the public space and bar others.  And this is where I found a historical conundrum come to the fore.  In the string of emails my correspondent forwarded to me a Loudon maven of some journalistic renown got into the fray  insisting that the United States is a Judeo-Christian nation, and not only insisting but leaving no room for dissent. Barbara Curtis inserted herself into the conversation writing: There is also the fact that our nation is indeed a Judeo-Christian nation - there's no disputing that. 
      Are we a Judeo-Christian nation?  I think that can well be disputed.  There are various strands that go to make up our national identity.  The three main colonial pillars on which today’s United States is built are the English, the Spanish, and the French.  The English colonized the eastern seaboard from Georgia to what is now New Hampshire extending westward to the Appalachians; the Spanish colonized Florida and from what is now Texas north to Kansas and west to include California and everything in between.  The French colonized Maine, Vermont and the Mississippi Valley from what is now Wisconsin down to New Orleans and including the Ohio Valley up to the Great Lakes including western Pennsylvania and upstate New York.  The Spanish influence in Florida was neither pervasive nor long-lasting and the French influence faded except in Louisiana.  However, the Spanish influence in the Southwest is stronger today than what remains of English influence along the Eastern seaboard.  All three of these colonial powers were Christian nations though the Catholic Spaniards and French would not have accorded that honor to the Protestant English and the Protestant English would not have considered the papist French and Spaniards to be true Christians. 
     Other than in Louisiana where French influence is still strong on the law, our American legal system is borrowed and adapted from the English.   Our Constitutional heritage, while it has developed differently—and significantly so—from the British, is shaped by Enlightenment Rationalism that was all the rage in English Coffee houses and French salons of the eighteenth century.  It was also influenced, especially as regards the Bill of Rights, in Magna Carta and the consequent English understanding of the relationship of public government and private rights.   (While we all talk about rights, no one speaks of corresponding duties which is a tragic flaw of our republican tradition.)   So basically we need to focus on the English heritage more than the French and Spanish to determine the nature of our nation if we want to talk about “nation” in the political sense.  And in this whole dispute about access to public space on a Courthouse lawn, we are speaking in a political sense.  
      Are we a Judeo-Christian nation?  Well again, we need to look at the various strands of English tradition out of which the political structure of the United States was formed.  When one reads Jonathan Winthrop’s “City on a Hill” speech (actually a sermon entitled A Modell of Christian Charity (“Modell” being his spelling, not mine) we can see that the Puritans came to Massachusetts Bay explicitly to establish a Christian Commonwealth.  Of course, there would be no Courthouse crèche issue with them as they banned Christmas altogether.  It was a “papist” holiday. Initially the Governor, William Bradford, instructed non-Puritan members of the colony that any celebration had to be confined to the privacy of their homes.  In 1647, during the Puritan Government of Oliver Cromwell in England, New England Puritans passed a law criminalizing celebrating the day in the colony.  In 1669 a five shilling fine was imposed on anyone in Massachusetts celebrating the day. So the Massachusetts heritage would say: Christian yes; Christmas no.  Rhode Island was an escape colony for Massachusetts residents who found Puritanism not to their taste.  Roger Williams and the other founders of the Rhode Island colony rejected Puritanism to become Baptists.  In the Baptist tradition they favored individual conscience over law and thus declared freedom of religion for Rhode Island.  I am not sure whether this freedom of conscience extended to Catholics or not but America’s first synagogue is Touro Synagogue in Newport, built in 1763.  Now that date is fairly late for what we are talking about but it is a sign of authentic religious freedom that Jews as well as Christians were granted freedom of worship.  There is no record of Catholic Worship in Rhode Island until the time of the American Revolution.  Rhode Island Baptists were strict on the separation of Church and State as the Baptist tradition has been in general up until the last thirty years when increasingly, like Evangelicals and some Catholics, more and more Baptists, especially Southern Baptists, want Christian practices enshrined in civil law. 
       Pennsylvania was settled by Quakers who did practice religious tolerance for all, including Catholics. There was no “Established Church” in Pennsylvania which functioned with separation of Church and government. New York and Virginia were Anglican colonies where the Church of England was established by law and the clergy were salaried by the government.  Catholicism was illegal in both colonies, but Christmas was not.  In the Anglican tradition, Christmas was a big thing: Church in the morning and dead drunk in the afternoon. That, incidentally, explains why Puritans made Christmas illegal.  This was a time when Anglicanism was still a Protestant religion and while it maintained a recognizably Catholic Liturgy and certain holydays such as Christmas, it eschewed such popish foppery as crosses on the altar much less a crèche on the lawn.   Maryland was the sole Catholic colony and religious freedom was guaranteed by the Lord Proprietor to all Christians of whatever denomination. Catholicism was legal in Maryland—until the Cromwellian Interregnum in England when the Lord Proprietor was deprived of his authority—and then from the Restoration until the Glorious Revolution of 1688.  After that Catholicism was, in practice though not in law, tolerated if practiced discreetly.  During the Proprietorship of the Lords Baltimore, Catholicism was never an established Church.  As for Maryland Christmases,  Christmas was celebrated by the Anglicans and Catholics in their various houses of worship and together the rest of the day in manor houses and taverns as they both had a taste for the grog.  While the Lord Proprietor was Catholic himself, there was no established Church in Maryland and the Jesuit priests who labored there supported themselves as other wealthy Marylanders by their plantations.  The Carolinas and Georgia were nominally Anglican in their Royal Charters but religion didn’t catch on their much in colonial America.  John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, preached in Georgia as a young Anglican priest but it was only with the residue of the First Great Awakening that the colonists took to religion—mostly Methodist and Baptist preachers at the time of the American Revolution and subsequent decades.  Perhaps it is wrong to say “the residue of the First Great Awakening” but it was several decades after the great preaching of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield and it was just before the Second Great Awakening took off with the Cane Ridge Revival in Bourbon County (isn’t that ironic) Kentucky in 1801.  Thus I think we can say that while each of the colonies had religious roots, only three: Massachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were founded for religious purposes and of these only one, Massachusetts, was founded to be a Christian society.   We will have to look at our Founding Fathers and their religious practices and views in a future entry.

How Arlington's Policy on Altar Girls Helped One Young Man Find His Priestly Vocation

School girls bringing up the gifts at Mass in Kerala

More on the water problem in Loudon County: A few weeks back (November 23) I wrote about Father Michael Taylor of the Diocese of Arlington who is discontinuing allowing girls to serve Mass in his parish.  I received the following reaction to that post.  My correspondent wrote me:  
My wife and I and our three children, then ages 16, 15, and 13 moved from Indianapolis to Northern Virginia in 1994 and registered in our local parish.  All three of my children had been Mass servers in our parish in Indianapolis and wanted to continue in this ministry in our new home, but the pastor said that the two boys (the 16 and 15 year olds) were most welcome but that girls were not allowed to be altar servers in the Arlington Diocese.  My daughter was crushed and her brothers, very protective of her, decided that if she could not be altar servers they would prefer not to serve either.  The boys are “Irish twins”—that is, two siblings born within the same 12 month period—and they are a “matched set”—both over six foot, basketball players—tall, well built, and if I do say so, very handsome.  (They take after their mother.)   
     The pastor was anxious to have them become servers and approached them several times after Sunday Mass about becoming altar servers.  They were awkward and shy in their refusals but told him that no, they were not interested.  They were both in scouting and also active in the parish youth group.  The younger son has a particularly good singing voice and not only sang with the youth choir, but sometimes soloed or cantored at Mass.  The Church has always been very important to us as a family and we had strong ties to Saint Meinrad’s Abbey while we lived in Indiana.  I had taken them several times to Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky as well.  I was always hopeful that one or the other might choose a priestly vocation.  My older brother is a Trappist Monk , and my mother’s brother, now deceased, was a Monsignor in the Boston Archdiocese.  
      In any event, the pastor showed up at our door one summer evening.  Bishop Keating was to come for Confirmation that fall and he wanted to give another pitch about the boys becoming servers.  They would be perfect he said for carrying the bishop’s miter and crosier.  As we sat on the terrace my wife explained to Father that this was a family decision and that if their sister could not serve, the boys chose not to serve.  My wife has a strong personality and felt very strongly about this, as do I, but it was very clear that this was the boys’ decision.  Nevertheless, in mid sentence, Father turned to me and said: “you had better get control of your family back from that b**** and be the man to make decisions for your family.”   The following Sunday my wife, my children, and I began attending the Episcopal Church.  We have found it to be a very happy home.  And yes, my older son found a vocation to the priesthood.  He and his wife are both priests and together serve a large campus ministry parish in the Midwest.  Father opened our eyes to see that a Church that would keep girls—or women—off the altar cannot possibly be proclaiming the Truth of Christ in whom “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female” (Gal 3:28).  So good luck to our former “pastor,” to Father Taylor, and the Diocese of Arlington—the Episcopal Church can use more folk like you.      
A note from your Blogger: I want to make it perfectly clear, lest there be any confusion on the matter, that Father Taylor is not the pastor mentioned in this letter but it was another "gentleman."  Father Taylor was only newly ordained at the time and had not yet been given a parish of his own,  Moreover, as I pointed out in my earlier article, Father Taylor, whatever his opinion on girls serving Mass,  is an exceptionally kind man and good priest.  Obviously that cannot be said of all the clergy today.

The Knights and the Leesburg Crusade

Now, I admit it is a bit secular but wouldn't it be

nicer at the Courthouse than a skeleton in a Santa

suit--and more traditional too, in fact more in Virginia

tradition than a creche. 

There is definitely something in the water in Loudon County Virginia that causes Virginians to alter their reality coordinates.  Jeff Heflin and his mother mounted a holiday display of a crucified skeletal Santa Claus on the Courthouse lawn.  Now that may sound bizarre to you, but it is only the latest chapter in a long saga of religious wars in this solidly Christian and Republican town.  Leesburg, by the way, is the home of former Senator Rick Santorum, currently a 2012 presidential candidate, and the tainted water theory probably explains quite a few things there as well. 

      The issue began several years back when the County government said that there could be no holiday displays mounted on the Courthouse lawn in the center of Leesburg during the Christmas season.  Loudon County is pretty solidly Christian with both strong Evangelical and Catholic contingents.  (The Evangelicals represent many of the long-time residents; the Catholics came mostly with the housing developments that have just swamped this once charmingly rural area into what is now a bedroom-suburb of Washington DC, about an hour to the south along the Potomac.)   Many residents were outraged that there would be no crèche on the Courthouse lawn.  There had been a crèche placed there at private expense for over twenty years and the Rotary club had sponsored a Christmas Tree there for half a century. 

     Knights of Columbus Holy Family Council 6831 attached to Saint John the Apostle Church in Leesburg was not about to stand by for this secularization.  They organized a protest that led the County Board to reconsider the policy and the board decided in fairness to all citizens ten displays could be put on the Courthouse grounds on a “first come first serve” basis.  What the Knights had not foreseen was that not only would Christian groups with good will for all vie for Christmas displays, and perhaps a Jewish group would want a Chanukah display (there aren’t many Jews in Loudon County), but atheist groups might want their displays as well. (I am unaware of any requests from Islamic groups, but that would provoke an interesting response.)   In fact, since atheism isn’t seasonal, disbelievers mounted displays throughout the year.  Now as a reward to the Knights’ efforts, there is a war of competing ideologies going on in the middle of this otherwise quaint town.  It is a bit confusing about this crucified Santa however as the woman who put it up is an atheist but her son who helped her is a Christian.  They claim that it isn’t a pro-atheist statement but rather a “piece of art” that draws our attention to how the true Spirit of the Season has been corrupted into gross materialism.  Well, they do have a point but the work is somewhat ambiguous.  Art, after all, says what the viewer apprehends not necessarily what the artist intends. 

      Anyway, we owe this imbroglio to the Knights of Columbus who undoubtedly meant well but who opened Pandora’s Box of religious strife.   The Knights are now insisting that Christian displays be allowed but that atheists not be given space on the Courthouse lawn.  That solution will obviously not hold up constitutionally.    Tempers are running high in Leesburg and the Prince of Peace is becoming a symbol of civic strife—not for the first time in history.      Of course in colonial days when Leesburg had its origins there would have been no issue.  There would not have been a crèche—far too Catholic in a colony where Catholicism was illegal.  There would have been some festive holiday greens perhaps.  The Christmas tree had not yet come from Germany but Virginians draped laurel and evergreen and holly swags and wreathes to cheer them against the cold days and long nights of winter.  Perhaps if there is to be decoration of public property it should be this discreet sort of greening and let the religious displays be made on private and Church properties.  A crèche on the lawns of the Presbyterian and Methodist and Catholic  Churches would be lovely and a contest among them good ecumenical fun;  an electric Menorah at the synagogue (though I think Leesburg’s solitary synagogue is pretty far out of town center) would be pretty silhouetted against the darkening skies of December would non-offensively to anyone give hope.   And you know, I don’t think anyone—even an atheist—would really want a crucified Santa in front of their home.  As for the Courthouse, deck the halls and call it quits.  Besides, the lawns, though spacious, are not nearly expansive enough to handle ten displays without looking tawdry.    And Knights—let’s do something constructive that reminds the world that Christ came to gather all people together into one and not to stir up sectarian strife.  Crusades are over.  They were a disaster.  This is the age of Pacem in Terris. 

Aztec Godess/Catholic Virgin: Either or Both Have Been Good News For the Poor

The Image of Our Lady of
Guadalupe

The story is that in December 1531, only twelve years after the conquest of Mexico by the
Spaniards, an indigenous Aztec peasant passing by the ruined temple of the goddess Tonantzin on the hill of Tepeyac near what is today Mexico City met a young woman who told him she wanted a church built on the spot of their encounter.  The peasant, named Juan Diego in Spanish, relayed this request to the bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, who told him that he needed proof of the lady’s high station to make such a request. Returning to the site,  Juan Diego was told by the woman to gather roses that were growing there—roses blooming in December—and bring them to the bishop.  Juan Diego cut the roses, folded them in his poncho, and returned to the bishop.  At the bishop’s residence, he opened his poncho and the roses fell to the ground revealing an image of the lady imprinted onto the poncho. 

     It is a lovely story, but problematic.  There is no mention of the account in the extensive records kept Archbishop  Zumárraga .  The earliest mention of the image is in regard to a sermon preached by Zumárraga’s successor,  Alonso de Montúfar, a Dominican who relayed the story.  Archbishop Montúfar preached his sermon in the Church at Tepeyac where the image was venerated by the local Aztec people.  The Archbishop encouraged this devotion.  The Franciscans who had custody of the shrine insisted that the painting had been done by an Indian named Marcos and discouraged veneration of the image as superstitious.  The Archbishop removed the shrine from the custody of the Franciscans. 

     The image itself is exceptional in several ways but not in any that might require a supernatural origin.  The material the image is on is most likely a fabric woven from the agave plant.  This fiber, called ixtle appears course as if it were a mixture of linen and hemp but in fact is almost silken to the touch.  The material has been treated in places with a primer to better hold the pigments. The pigments themselves seem chemically to be typical of sixteenth-century pigments but, despite the fact there is some flaking, are of an exceptional vibrant color and luminosity.  In other words, while they appear within the range of what could be manufactured in the sixteenth century chemically, the quality is extraordinary.   There are some signs of brush strokes but not significantly so.  There is no underpainting or sketching, the image—if painted—done in freehand.   It does seem, however, that through the subsequent centuries there are layers of paint that have been added—and some removed—however there is not any varnish finish to preserve or lock in the pigments.  All this only makes it more complex.  It technically would be within the scope of human manufacture but the quality makes it inexplicable for an amateur artist working under the minimal conditions of immediate post-conquest Spanish America. 

      Juan Diego is no less a mystery.  There is some difficulty in establish his existence in a historically reliable way.  Until 1995 the oldest documentary mention of him was mid seventeenth century, almost a hundred and thirty years after the alleged vision. However,  in 1996 with Pope John Paul anxious to beatify him, a parchment (actually deerskin) was produced illustrating the vision and scenes form his life. This previously unknown parchment was dated 1548 and bears the signatures of two well known Spanish priest Antonio Valeriano and Bernardino de Sahagun, active in Mexico at that time.  The authenticity of this document has as of yet neither been proved nor disproved but its being previously unknown for almost five centuries places the burden of proof on those who argue for its authenticity.   Probably more important than its factuality is the issue of what the image and story represent.

      The story that the Virgin Mary—patroness of the Conquerors—would appear to a peasant from the conquered peoples, appear as one of them, and appear pregnant is a story of tremendous hope for a vanquished people.  On the other hand there is something dubious in the story as well.  Locating the site of the vision amid the ruins of a temple to the Mother Goddess of the Aztec people, building a Church on the spot and installing the icon of the Aztec Virgin for the veneration of the indigenous people smacks of religious syncretism.  Of Course Christianity has long built Christian cult on the foundations of pre-Christian mythology.  But this explains the debate between Archbishop Montúfar who saw the evangelizing potential in the icon and was not adverse to building a Christian cult on an Aztec foundation and the Franciscans arguing for strict orthodoxy.  Over the centuries this image and the legends that have surrounded it have given the hope it symbolizes to millions and millions of the poorest and most oppressed victims of colonialism.  Whatever the “facts” the Virgin of Guadalupe has embodied the Good News for the poor, the liberation for the captives, that her Son came to proclaim.