Pope Francis On Liturgy III

Let’s talk about the celebration of the Eucharist. I found this interview with Cardinal Bergoglio from 2007.  He covers other things, but I was struck by what he said about the celebration of Mass as the Latin American bishops met for their conference that year. He told the interviewer that for the first time the prelates gathered at a Marian shrine, and that, unusually for a bishops’ meeting …

Every morning we recited lauds, we celebrated mass together with the pilgrims, the believers. On Saturday or Sunday there were two thousand, five thousand. Celebrating the Eucharist together with the people is different from celebrating it amongst us bishops separately. That gave us a live sense of belonging to our people, of the Church that goes forward as People of God, of us bishops as its servants.

Bishops as servants. It is certainly an insight many of us in lay ministry can appreciate and embrace also: that art and music is something we offer, but we bring it to the liturgy from a sense of service to others.

 

Pope Francis On Liturgy II

What strikes me most about this image posted at PrayTell is the predominance of women, perhaps as many as four generations represented. Contrast that with the images of popes at liturgy–nearly all surrounded by men. Fawning men. Here, the focus is on the liturgical act. On Christ, if you will. Not on the celebrity. Even Peter got that right, fussing about the act.

From a Palm Sunday homily in 2008 (also via PrayTell):

Jesus goes out to meet people, instead of waiting for people to come looking for Him. He goes out to be encountered. Today is the day Jesus goes to be met and He enters the city. Many Christians today have also gone out, in the name of Jesus, to meet the sick in the hospitals[, etc.]…the Church spills into the street because today Jesus is the king of the street, as He was that Palm Sunday in Jerusalem. The place to worship Jesus on this day, more than a temple, is the street. There he was acclaimed, there He was blessed, there He was recognized as the Lord. Out in the street. Later, on Friday, in the corridors of power, among the groups of influence, He was bought and sold [i.e.,
His fate was debated and decided] But where the people are faithful, where the people are believing, out in the street, He was acclaimed.

I think we have a pope who is far from Benedict XVI’s vision, and that of my traditionalist sisters and brothers, that the liturgy itself serves as a seed for the world. And I mean the institutional face of that liturgy in its correctness, propriety, and sobriety. Note the disdain for the “corridors of power … the groups of influence.” This is not where Christ is to be acclaimed.

Instead, it seems the man wearing the fisherman’s ring will use the liturgy as a means to a greater end: the proclamation of the Gospel to the widest possible audience. Even in the US, consider the impact of an evangelical Palm Sunday–what that might be if the Church spilled out to make an impact on our worship spaces larger than that one Easter swelling? And we went out on Easter, too, and were not aimless and dishearted like those on the road to Emmaus. But we had a singular message to spread.

 

Pope Francis On Liturgy I

Let’s talk baptism …

When Cardinal Bergoglio was asked about the baptism of children whose parents were not married, he responded:

To us here that would be like closing the doors of the Church. The child has no responsibility for the marital state of its parents. And then, the baptism of children often becomes a new beginning for parents. Usually there is a little catechesis before baptism, about an hour, then a mystagogic catechesis during liturgy. Then, the priests and laity go to visit these families to continue with their post-baptismal pastoral. And it often happens that parents, who were not married in church, maybe ask to come before the altar to celebrate the sacrament of marriage.

I like this sense of hope and optimism.

My parish had a recent small controversy with the baptism at Sunday Mass of children of two couples, one unmarried and one in a same-sex union. It’s nice to know the Holy Father would support the view that “the supreme law is the salvation of souls.”

 

Where Is Virtue?

I have high hopes for this month’s conclave. I really do. March 11th, I see. Enough time for a few days of voting, then get the new pope fitted for Holy Week vestments.

Against a baseline of the life of faith of the ordinary laity (among whom I count myself as an unorthodox and orthopractic member) there’s not a whole lot any pope can do that can’t be freed up by a concerned and active laity. And alas, the converse is true, that we could get a really good pope doing really good things–but without an active laity, the cause is sunk for another generation or two. So what’s the point? I’d like to think we’re entering into a millennium of the laity. Fresh out of a millennium of monarchy. And good riddance to those aspects that chain human beings to waiting on what their leaders do before stepping out. So I have high but cautious hopes on that count, too.

Over at PrayTell, Bill deHaas assessed Cardinal George’s 1998 commentary on the “exhausted project” of “Catholic liberalism.”

Where to start with sad Cdl George and his conclusion – we have a crisis of truth:
- *exhausted* or *truth* – would suggest that since 1998 exhausted/lack of truth is what we have been living through from unresolved sexual abuse denials; ROTR imagined movements; finanical shenanigans; VatiLeaks; appointment of litmus tested bishops; campaign against theologians we don’t agree with; failed accommodations from SSPX to Anglican Ordinariate; plunging catholic participation in the West; sad efforts called New Evangelism; promoting papal prelatures at the expense of the whole church, in the US church the FOF efforts, anti-HHS mandate, anti-PPACA efforts; Republican catholic bishops; his quote that the next cardinal of Chicago will die in prison, etc.  His conclusion is a lack of truth in the liberal and visible church authority. We haven’t had a liberal church authority for 25 years – his approach has led to where we are today; an exhausted and failed conservative movement that cries out for resolution.

Bill is right. We can pretty much lay the craziness of the last third-of-a-century at the feet of the neo-orthodox who, in an attempt to swing the pendulum back into their court, have mostly knocked themselves in the face. They have missed the lessons of the Theology of the Body–the Pauline theology described here, in which the apostle gives the smackdown to the negativism of the suggestion that a smaller, purer Body is somehow superior.

Cardinal George and others more extreme miss the simple point: Jesus decides who is in, who is out. And all of us sin and fall short of the glory of God. Even the self-styled orthodox.

Although the balance of cardinals would probably be counted “in” these days, the project of Catholic retrenchment has undeniable problems: credibility and immorality among them. As Jesus said, there’s nothing wrong with being blind. The problem is when the blind say, “We see,” and the blindness remains.

I have hope that even if the conservatives sweep the day this month, we will still have their witness–the negative witness of their bishops: Finn, George, Rigali, and others who have fallen far short in the virtue more important than orthodoxy. And that is virtue.

 

The Technological Door Into Lent

My colleague Cody set up a Facebook challenge for our staff and peer ministers, and other student leaders.

Our goal is 1500 invitations and 500 going.

This is a good start for using social media, but I think in 2014, we can seriously up those numbers. But it’s not like we don’t get hordes of people as is.

 

On The Clock?

The Goodbye Bad Bishops site* seems to have been taken over by the Chinese, but if any fisheaters are still keeping track, I wonder if they will put longtime conservative darling Archbishop John Myers on the clock for his latest chancery appointment?

* A web site that pictured disliked bishops and attached a countdown to retirement for each. I last saw it a few years ago.

 

Sampling Some Bitterness

I see the Chant Cafe commentariat is excited about a new sheriff bishop riding into Portland. There’s a good bit about which to comment about this move.

Careerism, first. I remember feeling hopeful about Pope Benedict’s early episcopal appointments in Marquette and Nashville. Wasn’t Nashville’s bishop even baptized in the cathedral? In my thinking, it’s about more than tradition for tradition’s sake. There is a serious pastoral disconnect in the episcopacy these days. That’s not to say that skilled bishops are achieving success or fruitfulness in a third, fourth, or even fifth diocese. But the serious matter is the jockeying for plums, rather than contentment in serving one’s local church. I could understand a bishop being appointed from outside a troubled diocese to bring a degree of healing and order. But the pipeline of otherwise good candidates from small cities to larger doesn’t benefit those smaller communities, and seems to perpetuate a certain insular subculture, separating bishops from the laity. Not to mention the clergy.

Canon law, second. Bishop Sample is a canon lawyer. Ho hum. Is the Church well-served by having so many bishops with such similar resumes? If music is so important, what about a singer, a conductor, or even (gasp!) a person with a liturgy degree. Personally, I’d say the route from abbots and spiritual directors would be more fruitful. One doctor of the church came to us from the catechumenate. And consider: the main interface between canon lawyers and the laity are through marriage cases. What else do we need them for? Appealing to the Vatican on closed parishes? Maybe that’s the idea from the Congregation of Bishops: appoint an episcopacy that knows how to dot its ecclesiastical i’s and cross its episcopal t’s. Fair warning: lots of lay people have canon law degrees, too.

Music. Wow. A canon lawyer from Upper Michigan is going to “clean up” OCP? Are music publishers really, and still, on the list of the Church’s biggest problems. Declining inner city and rural parishes. Not enough pastors. Sex abuse and cover-up settlements. Priests in non-sexual bondage. Bishops have enough on their plates–I doubt they are aiming for church music publishers.

Some of the more humorous comments, especially from people who live nowhere near the Pacific Northwest:

This news makes me feel like when the lights go on at the Easter Vigil!

Really? Christ brings light to the world, rises from the dead, and frees us all from sin. I don’t usually make connections between ideology and the very stuff of salvation.

They had 1700 years of Christian art to choose from (for the Breaking Bread cover), and they chose a picture of an explosion in a confetti factory.

Nice. Not only does the music suck, but the bishop will reform the graphic art department.

Going to Portland is to go to the heart of the issue. Fixing this fixes nearly everything.

I suppose it fixes even the art department.

Speaking for myself, I was never into heroes so much. When I was in Catholic high school, I noticed a minority of teachers were petty gossips, or who had affairs with students, or who had little sense of the self-control, dignity, and honesty my parents tried to instill in me. I listened to teachers I disliked, and I learned from them. But I didn’t emulate them. And I didn’t have really high expectations of them.

I never expected such people to come to my rescue. I prayed to God. I relied on a Savior, not a savior.

If things weren’t working well in my parish, I would look to my own failures and fallibility. I would try to change the things I could: my own attitude, my deficiencies as a musician or a pastoral person. I didn’t need to blame Father N for being a bad pastor. I can’t control Father N. I can make an effort to reform myself.

Likewise with the situation of church music today. Like my friends at the Cafe, I find many aspects deeply disappointing. I don’t affirm everything I see in the major publishers. But I also don’t think they’re colonies from hell looking to seduce the faithful, even the orthodox, into pelagianism or Wicca or such.

When it comes to art, I don’t expect quick fixes. Especially from a canon lawyer-made-archbishop. You can’t legislate quality. You can’t persuade with a fist. Music, like any kind of ministry, is darned hard work. There are no short cuts. It requires prayer, persuasion, passion, and tenacity. It doesn’t happen because a human being has suddenly been transformed into a savior. Hoping for it is a sure path to disappointment. And with that disappointment, I see the bitterness of the Catholic Right continuing to deepen.

So I wish Archbishop Sample the best on the left coast. I think it would have been better had he stayed put. But that’s not something I’m looking to the next pope to remedy. It will remain, in my view, a serious flaw in ministry. But at the end of the day, I think about what I can control: loving and serving my family and engaging my sacramental life there and in the Eucharist, loving and serving my parish community by being the best liturgist and campus minister I can be. Such a life allows me to focus on personal reform and renewal, and bringing Christ (when I can get out of the way) to a relatively small circle of people. Which is as it should be.

 

Catholics Schools Week

It’s been five years since I was in a parish with a school. So I feel far-removed from the concerns and culture of Catholic schools.

Indeed, not all Catholics are convinced of their value. To many hard-core conservatives, parish and diocesan schools are inadequate in passing down an “orthodox” faith. I’ve known several families over the years who prefer to homeschool, to make sure it gets done “right.”

Many parishioners resent the drain of resources for an effort that teaches religion or has direct activities in the faith just a percentage of the time–maybe 20%; maybe only 5.

Archbishop Wuerl spoke of the institutional and financial challenges here. Elements of faith, not so much.

I would like to offer one personal experience, and one concern I don’t see often addressed.

My own faith story began the first week I attended a Catholic school. I recall vividly the day we were lined up in our classrooms, marched down the hall and across the parking lot. My first experience inside of a church, and it was moving. I noticed the stained-glass windows. “Saint Joseph,” I thought. “I know him. Saint Athanasius? Who’s that?”

The pipe organ began playing and it seemed as if a cloud, a spiritual cloud was descending on us kids. I felt surrounded by the music. The priest read the Bible. And he talked about it. My Protestant mother had a few Bibles around the house, but she never talked about them.

Later on, I noticed that the kids up front were on the move. I asked my friend what was going on now. “Communion,” he said.

“Can anyone go?”

“Sure.”

An irregular and unorthodox First Communion, to be sure. But a product of a Catholic school experience: the care taken for the liturgy, including music. The kindly welcome of a new friend who must have thought I was from another Catholic school in the city. I was the first non-Catholic student in my grade.

One challenge of Catholic schools is that in the absence of a stronger Catholic culture, they tend to overwhelm the parish experience for kids and parents alike. It’s not that schools drain parish resources, as I’ve heard the complaint. It’s that the focus on academic achievement (high schools are more prep than Catholic), athletic accomplishment, and youth culture thirty to eighty hours a week tolerate no competition. And let’s face it: the two-hour-a-week parish cannot hope to triumph over the major time commitment of adolescents and the focus of many of their parents.

So, to my friends in education: have a happy week. We have a lot of good things going on, both in your sphere and in mine. Let’s hope we can find some way to work together and pull for a common goal.

 

Still Conferencing

Posting will be light for a few days here …

We’re finishing up the campus ministry conference. It has been a rich experience in the usual ways for me: connecting with new colleagues, sharing insights with my friends on staff here with me, and the various presentations.

The liturgical experience here has been quite good. The music is mostly unfamiliar–lots of 2000′s stuff. No chant. No P&W. Hymnody and mainstream contemporary music. A bit of Taize.

Today’s keynote by Archbishop Chaput was competent. The man has a warm speaking voice. He began his talk with the illustration of the deep relationship between Thomas More and his daughter Margaret. That was excellent. Some attempts at humor are a little sharp. He can’t leave politics alone. Someone asked him a question about religious plurality on Roman Catholic campuses, and he readily conceded he had never considered the matter. To the surprise of some here, he asserted that business as usual will no longer work for the Church. And he’s right, of course. The main problem with that statement is that coming from a bishop, he rather controls the aspects of “t”radition that will be exempt because they touch on something of the ecclesiastical aristocracy, and not really matters that come from the Lord.

But overall, the Archbishop’s talk was genuine, candid, and pleasant. Drawing the correlation of Thomas More and his daughter to the campus minister and the college student was so thoughtful and moving. Kudos for that, in a big way.

Afternoon sessions on discernment (with Mike Hayes, Busted Halo co-founder) and technology (with one of our Iowa State graduates now in full-time ministry) were good.

I have a few things on my mind, so I went to my room early tonight. I have a full weekend of liturgies to get prepared, plus an all-afternoon leadership retreat on Sunday. I may drop in a post on Scripture Saturday if I get a moment. Otherwise, blogging will likely resume on Monday.

 

Collaboration

The morning speaker, Ed Hahnenberg was outstanding in presenting on a wider sense of vocation in the Church, and how this is a needed corrective. If I were to blog on that, I would use up my spare free time today.

Instead, I wanted to relate a thoughtful breakout session from Barbara Humphrey McCrabb of the USCCB’s Department of Education and Fr Frank Donio, SAC, of the Catholic Apostolate Center. They presented on “Collaboration and the New Evangelization.” I was concerned that the session was going to be more psychological and not enough theology, but I needn’t have worried.

They presented collaboration largely within a theological framework. Their presentation zeroed in on three essential qualities:

• Cenacle spirituality
• Communio ecclesiology
• Cooperation technology

In brief, the spirituality of collaboration involves the engaging and intersection of prayer, discernment, and action. In other words, individuals don’t “figure it out” on their own and launch initiatives fully formed from their own interior life. A healthy ministry life also involves action. Plus a balanced approach to discernment. It strikes me as eminently sensible: we always check in with a director, and a community we serve while remaining engaged in prayer.

I like the surfacing of Communio here. The presenters defined it as Trinity (the primal communion of the universe) plus the Word, plus the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. How do we know we have achieved communio? One attendee mentioned when a group of collaborators experience a sum (in ministry) greater than the individual parts brought to the table.

By cooperation “technology,” the speakers were using the term to mean more broadly the “how” of engaging people in a group setting. They stressed the need for actual conversation–that people would be talking to each other. Most importantly, that while one is talking the others listen–truly listen. Listening does not imply agreement. It means engagement.

This last point is a difficult one for many extreme believers. For some of us, we cannot bear to be in the presence of people who disagree with us, and worse, who utter those disagreements. It’s almost as though we are tainted by the very expression of such heinous thoughts as ordained women, moral boundaries in sexuality, or, say in the popular culture, advocacy for the “wrong” sports team.

Much to think about for my own approach to ministry, for service with my colleagues, and certainly for the ministries of the parish that sent us.

 

The Place of Mission

My lectio today wasn’t terribly inspiring. But on the plane this morning, I was reading a bit of the traditional Jewish principle of the Shaliach, the person sent on a mission. Such people act not on their own behalf, but for the person who sent them. Consider Abraham’s servant Eliezer, sent in Genesis 24 to find a wife for Isaac.

I’m in Clearwater Beach, Florida this week with two of my young colleagues from the student center. We’ve been sent to the CCMA (Catholic Campus Ministry Association) convention by our parish. It’s a marvelous location–Florida is wonderful this week, especially on the Gulf Coast. But I’m not here to experience the white sandy beach with my toes. (Though I did that.)

I often have a critical, sometimes very critical hat on when I attend a convention. But there are nuggets of riches and wisdom–God’s grace to be found not only in the speakers, but also in the experiences. Tonight’s speaker, for example, spoke much of the challenges of catechesis among young Catholics. On one hand, it was a depressing talk. On the other, she certainly had insights to lead us to a more engaged and catechized young adult population.

She spoke of the need for more catechesis, but I think the forces of the culture are arrayed more seriously against Catholics of any age engaging in deeper catechesis. We live in an age of specialization. A college physics major is knowledgeable and competent within her or his discipline. But likely knows little about economics. And an economics major may have a dusing of calculus, but cares nothing for the deep math and concepts masters by a physicist.

Likewise, even committed Catholic college students: why should they learn more about their faith when they have “specialists” to assist them. When confronted with a moral dilemma, why not go to a priest, either live or online? Why make a difficult choice when they can engage an expert to tell them the right thing to do?

I’ve had two good chats with colleagues tonight about that very challenge. Young people are earnest, good Catholics. But most don’t perceive the need as long as religion experts are accessible.

Three more days of being shaliach.

 

“Blue” Christmas

We’re not talking liturgical colors.

Teresa Berger posts on “Blue Christmas” on PrayTell. In my parish, we devote November to reaching out to those who have lost loved ones. So this sounds a lot like what we do, except the month before:

These are worship services designed for those who know that the upcoming Christmas celebrations will be painful for them, usually because of the loss of a loved one in the past year.  A blue Christmas service allows people to acknowledge their sense of loss and the shadow it casts over this holiday season, with its deeply emotional and familial  traditions.

Liturgy is a start, but by itself, doesn’t replace the necessary pastoral connections. People who attend a remembrance service for their deceased loved ones likely need (and recognize they need) further healing and those connections with people of their church community. I’m not sure that Advent, with reconciliation form II, one or two (8, 12 December) holy days, family and/or school events, and preparations for Christmas, is the best landing place for another liturgy.

Or perhaps it fills a need not covered at other times. Ms Berger is right that holiday time is a difficult time for people struggling with loss. Reforging interpersonal ties can start with worship, but it also needs personal invitation, and a sensitive reaching out to those in sorrow or pain. Does your community do anything along these lines?

 

The Liberal Case Against Cardinal Mahony

I was reading in Tom Roberts’ book The Emerging Catholic Church and found an interesting anecdote about the retired archbishop of Los Angeles. Roberts was writing about research work done by sociologists Richard Schoenherr and Lawrence Young on the projected population of dicoesan clergy. They had troubling news for the US bishops, who, with the Lilly Endowment, commissioned a study on where clergy numbers were heading from 1966 to 2005. It was particularly troubling for the darling of the hate-Right, who was displeased about Dr Schoenherr’s history (as a person who had left active priesthood years before):

I reject that pessimistic assessment and feel that the Catholic Church in our country has been done a great disservice by the Schoenherr report.

…

(The report) presumes that the only factors at work are sociology and statistical research. That is nonsense. We are disciples of Jesus Christ. We live by God’s grace, and our future is shaped by God’s design for his church, not by sociologists.

Most interesting.

The bishops halted their funding for this research in 1990. It’s a puzzler on a few fronts, but maybe not really surprising considering the overall quality of the American episcopate over the past generation.

First, disciples of the Lord are shaped by the truth, and by our commitment to it. Let’s say we have information that the entire world is made up of pagans. Maybe the apostles were dismayed in the first century at this news. Regardless, they did not find it daunting that they were rejected by members of their own faith, and they develed deep into the pagan empire of Rome to spread the Good News. It would have been easier for Peter to say, “Too darn many people. Let’s just stick with Judea, and Matthew’s Gospel up to 28:15.” And perhaps for some of our sister and brother Catholics: they dwell on the smaller, purer church–because the alternative is just to dang hard.

Second, no serious and thoughtful person would decline to receive important news, even if it were bad. I had a repair guy tell me I’m on the hook for a $193 component for my furnace. Maybe I can bundle up in sweaters during the day and tuck myself under a comforter at night, but the reality is that if I want an operating heating system, I’m going to have to face the truth: one important part of my home is broke, and I have to pay to fix it. The sociologists are not shaping the future. They are just telling the bishops that the temperature is going to drop in their mansion if they don’t attend to what’s broken.

This is part of the cult of leadership around many leaders in our society. People have allowed their intellects to dull to the point where they attack messengers of bad news. I’ve felt the sting of people who are infuriated at bad news I bring. Sorry, but I didn’t have forty million abortions. Like them, I just live in a country that has them.

Count me as not surprised, but disappointed in Cardinal Mahony. There’s nothing really wrong with being a conservative. Some of my best friends are. But what is more troubling is a passive and unresponsive mode of engaging the good world God has given us. If a meteorologist predicts cold and snow, maybe I’ll wear shoes instead of sandals. But I won’t blame the weather forecasters if my feet get cold and red if I take option #2.

A wise conservative, when confronted with sociological trends, would take them under serious advisement. A spiritual person, when confronted with sociological realities, might look to her or his interior life, and assess what part of vocation unawareness is due to her or his own fault. Then take steps to change the things that can be changed.

Cardinal Mahony’s response to clergy sociological trends strikes me as neither wise nor spiritual. And what has it got him? Dr Schoenherr’s piece of “pessimism” has largely been right on. If Cardinal Mahony has been praying and beating the bushes for native-born seminarians for twenty years, it got him nothing. Maybe he rubbed his toes before heading out into a snowstorm in sandaled feet. They still got red. They still got cold. The loss seems less that the number of clergy have declined largely as sociologists anticipated. The loss is that the archbishop and his friends seem largely clueless.

Back to Jesus, and his criticism of religious leadership:

Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not also blind, are we” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.” (John 9:40-41)

No, I think liberal Catholics have a lot to criticize in Cardinal Mahony. I wouldn’t count him as a fellow tribesman. Not by a long shot.

 

 

Online Sacramental Formation

The Archdiocese of Seoul has initiated it for Confirmation. Online resources can be especially helpful to engaged couples. Around thirty percent of the marriages celebrated in my parish involve some degree of separation: one or both engaged persons are away because of work or school, a priest friend from elsewhere is officiating, a couple may be preparing in a nother diocese and marrying here, a few couples prepare with us and get married in the church of one of their parents.

But confirmation: is this a good idea to offer a series of ten one-hour classes and a test for each one?

 

Falsification

Falsification is the principle by which a person tests her or his ideas for possible flaws. In a nutshell, a person considers a plan and then reflects on the possibilities that might derail the effort. Good scientists engage in it. A hypothesis is forwarded, and the researcher considers ways in which a theory can be proved wrong. It strikes me as a rational and orderly approach to the principle “What can go wrong, will go wrong.” Pessimism or pragmatism? Either way, it’s at the core of skilled scientific inquiry.

Something caught my attention in this month’s issue of Chess Life: Andy Soltis’ regular column “Chess To Enjoy.” In it, he looks at the difficult and complex relationship between optimism, worry, and success at the chessboard. In probing the idea of worry, he cites a 2004 study by Michelle Cowley and Ruth Byrne. In this research a group of chessplayers of varying abilities were tested, from average tournament players to the master level, and even a grandmaster. They were given various chess positions and asked to think “out loud” as they analyzed the situation and tried to find the best move.

Top players would find a candidate move, then spend considerable time searching for ways in which the opponent could counter. Players below master level routinely engaged in confirmation bias. When they found a move they loved, they would look for affirmation, then play it. Great chessplayers are thought to be far-thinking in their calculating processes. And the Cowley-Byrne research confirmed this. But more striking to psychologists was the content of the extended calculations. Masters underestimate their candidate move, presume the best of an opponent, and look for flaws in their idea. Amateurs are overconfident, grow attached to their good ideas, and look not so much to the best of what an opponent can deliver to counter their efforts.

Some observations …

In more than a decade online, I have to say that the internet is full of amateurs. People who have good ideas, and who trot them out there with the highest hopes. Often, issues are quickly muddied up, even if they’re citing good authorities. It’s the confirmation bias of chessplayers below the level of master. They don’t test their ideas in the crucible of critical thinking. Things have probably worsened for people who just hang with like-minded allies. Their arguments don’t get poked, probed, and pushed back.

I could use more falsification in my ministry. We’re just starting to revise Communion ministry procedure at the altar in my parish, for a possible implementation after we return to the church and when the pastor comes back from his leave. Lots of things have been suggested, and in one particular suggestion to get the chalices in the hands of the lay Communion ministers more expediently, I take the role of the pessimist. What can go wrong with this procedure? What is the likeliest way for people to mess it up? If it strays too far from old practice, what will I do with the dozen to twenty people our of ninety who never read updates, won’t attend a review session, or who have been doing it for so long they can’t break old habits without great difficulty?

Have I inherited this pessimism from my chessplaying days? Or 25 years of parish ministry? Not as much as would like.

At any rate, it’s a good spur to examine some aspects of my life. What are my presumptions? About parenting, personal finances, hobbies, and even blogging? Is there anything I’m doing that I think is a good idea, but that maybe isn’t? This is one reason I value my wife and our relationship. Being rather different in many personality aspects, we negate the tendency for confirmation bias in one another. We have unity on the essentials: love, respect, faith. We challenge one another on important things: parenting, finances, lifestyle choices. It works better because we’re not the same, because we disagree, and I count my blessings for being a better person and that I don’t have an echo chamber going along with every good notion that pops into my head.

Our bishops, alas, do not enjoy this grace. The higher one goes in the church hierarchy, the more one senses that confirmation bias rules the day. Minds and hearts and spirits are like those chess amateurs. They find a good move. They believe in it. They look around them for confirmation. They don’t think of the negative consequences, and they don’t seem to test things morally, intellectually, theologically.