Bad-Mouthing the Patriarchs

Lent concludes at sundown. Indeed, as this is posted, a good chunk of the Eastern hemisphere is already into the Triduum, washing feet and transferring the Eucharist for adoration and prayer.

I’ve been noting the heightened discussion the past few days as the American SCOTUS considers anti-gay laws. One of the more laughable tracks in the argument centers on the biblical foundations of marriage as set down in Genesis. Have any of these people actually read the whole book? Or are they fixated on the charming quote Jesus pulls out to urge people to fidelity?

I’ve spent the last several months in Genesis as part of my daily practice of lectio divina. At times it has been a struggle. A serious struggle. There’s a lot of behavior by traditionally sympathetic characters that I’ve found distracting, disturbing, and not directly conducive to prayer. In my own life these past several weeks, it has led me to a long consideration of compassion. Compassion for people long-dead. Compassion for people who put up with me on a daily basis. Compassion for the situation in ministry in which I find myself: a university town in the 21st century.

That said, can we bad-mouth the patriarchs? Can we criticize Abram’s panic at his wife’s barrenness, and Sarai’s initiative to topple her servant into her husband’s bed? I’d like to think so.

This is an episode as dysfunctional and salicious as any tv soap opera. And we honor Abraham as a Father in Faith for it? The purpose of Abram’s dalliance was to produce a child, and there was nothing special about Hagar in his or his wife’s eyes, except that she was a convenient, nearby fertile woman in their power.

The Genesis philosophy is clear: build a family by any means necessary. Especially if you are an aristocrat who can afford it.

Now for the compassion. The moral of this patriarch’s adventures is, of course, faith in God. But Abram was also given a great burden. God promised him a nation, but he had no idea how this could be accomplished with an unable wife. So he and Sarai took matters into their own hands. And while I shudder at the thought of Ishmael (or anyone) not ever being born, what was the point of this? Enmity sown between woman and servant, the separation of brothers (and some might say alienation), and for what? God worked his grace through Sarai in the end.

There are good arguments to be made in the pros and cons of same sex unions. But I don’t see many of them. I don’t really see any of them in Genesis, a book more difficult to pray through than I had imagined. Maybe I need to reflect a little more deeply on these men. But I genuinely felt sorry for the women on the sidelines: Hagar, Rachel, Dinah, among others. The callous treatment of women–family members even–leaves me with a very dissatisfied taste.

So what do you think? Can a Christian honor the roots of our faith in Judaism while criticizing the patriarchs? Are we obligated to hold pen or tongue and just mutter to ourselves, “I can’t see that being right.”?

 

One Last Post On The New Pope

NCR’s John Allen profiled him the other week. This spot didn’t give me cause for alarm:

These were the years of the military junta in Argentina, when many priests, including leading Jesuits, were gravitating towards the progressive liberation theology movement. As the Jesuit provincial, Bergoglio insisted on a more traditional reading of Ignatian spirituality, mandating that Jesuits continue to staff parishes and act as chaplains rather than moving into “base communities” and political activism.

This is right. Base communities and political activism is for lay people. Clergy have no business in it, and except for basic duties as citizens should leave it to the laity, one-hundred percent.

Some of my liberal sisters and brothers might disagree with me on this, but I think this is essentially a progressive position for modern Catholics. Exceptions might be made, but these would be vanishingly rare. I certainly think the clergy can throw their support behind lay activists. And they should, regardless of ideology. Activism needs to be formed by a deep interior reflection and contemplation. Not by assuming we’re getting contemplatives and reflectors in our midst.

 

If You Don’t Feed The Lions …

Nice quote from Fr Thomas Reese, NCRep correspondent in Rome:

If the Vatican won’t give the media proper information, then all the creative writing and conspiracy theories start coming out. You have got to feed the lions – if not they will bite you!

This in response to the Italian contingent’s crackdown on American cardinals giving daily press conferences after the morning general congregation red hat meet-up.

The American briefings were virtually the only time reporters could hear directly from the cardinals themselves. Because of the U.S. cardinals’ straightforward style, their press conference was drawing growing interest from the more than 5,000 journalists who have flocked to Rome for the conclave.

That clearly ruffled the feathers of some other cardinals, notably the Italians who still feel they have certain territorial privileges when it comes to events in Rome. On Wednesday, an hour before the U.S. briefing, reporters received an email saying it was canceled and would not be held again.

Nice.

Maybe American Catholics would be wondering … why all the openness in Rome and not so much back home? And alienating a sub-clique of cardinals, well, it’s not like these guys are serious papabile, right?

How the USCCB media spun it:

Concern was expressed in the general congregation about leaks of confidential proceedings reported in Italian newspapers. As a precaution, the cardinals have agreed not to do interviews.

…

The U.S. cardinals are committed to transparency and have been pleased to share a process-related overview of their work with members of the media and with the public, in order to inform while ensuring the confidentiality of the General Congregations.

John Thavis, CNS sums it:

It’s ironic and a bit sad that the Americans, who have been completely above board, are being shut down because someone else is leaking anonymously to the Italian press.

Yes, well, I’m sure the Italian cardinals are a little anxious their super secret leaks were getting upstaged by actual information given to the press.

 

Will The Conservatives Ever Be Happy?

Quick answer: no.

Remember this pic of exultant sems in Rome?

The party was almost over the day after Habemus Papam. I suspect that nothing would have satisfied the Catholic Right, especially many of the folks who inhabited the internet that day. Everything seemed like a battle. When your ideology is pitched for battle, anything less than battle and anything less than winning comes up as a failure. and a loss. Joseph Bottum:

Benedict has not done well with (problems)—and perhaps mostly because he was never a good administrator. He was always a serious and absorbed theologian, and his advanced age is not the cause of his incapacity.

Misdiagnosis on the cover-up of bishops. Naturally:

Joseph Ratzinger knew the actual facts, and it took stunning Vatican incompetence to turn him—one of the heroes of that vile era, the man who publicly denounced “the filth” in the church—into a popular villain of reporting on the priest scandals.

Few people would see Pope Benedict as a hero. Others were more far-sighted and discerning. Many others correctly pointed out the problem was with bishops. And the legacy of the second half of the B16 pontificate is that people who want discussion will be targeted and pink-slipped. Convicted criminals will continue on. There may be other reasons why Bill Morris walked and Robert Finn stayed put. The institution can’t be seen to be making moves at the whim of the laity, or worse–the secular press. Newspapers calling for the resignation of a bishop are just about the equivalent of granting permanent tenure.

David Gibson from RNS:

So how is it that Catholic conservatives could go so quickly from ecstasy to agony? To a great degree, it is the way of the world, even in the church.

Partisans tend to graft their own agendas and aspirations onto their favored candidates, whether presidents or popes. Sacred conclaves are hotbeds of messianism every bit as much as today’s domestic electoral process, in part because the church is not immune from politics or polarization.

Disappointment was inevitable because the hopes of Benedict’s fans had blinded them to the parts of his writings (on charity and justice, for example) or his personality traits (such as his loyalty to friends, no matter how incompetent) that didn’t fit with their plans.

This is about right.

If Joseph Ratzinger couldn’t be the messiah, who then, in the college of cardinals will fit the bill. Unless individual Catholics on the ideological Right are willing to reorient themselves to Christ and the realm of the Spirit, they will continue a path of embitterment. Otherwise, we can point to their last happy day: 19 April 2005.

My reaction to that day: a shrug. I hope I haven’t fallen into another trap, a listless apathy that cares little for who sits in the Chair of Peter.

 

More Jail Talk

A new legislative year starts, and bishops are lining up to go to jail over the HHS mandate which, as far as I can tell, is still in the negotiation stage.

It’s interesting to suggest one might go to jail for a just cause. Jesus, of course, suffered unjustly. And perhaps we like to think of the honor of sacrifice for a worthy cause–the end of the build-up of nuclear arms, the Occupy movement, the SOA campus in Georgia–causes not seen in the same light as the current majority ideology on the bishops’ bench.

Equally interesting and possibly illustrative that some of the same bishops are unwilling to go to jail for their own transgressions. Blame has been passed on to others, and prison sentences avoided.

It also strikes me that in the health insurance arena, we’ve been hearing about financial penalties more than we’ve been hearing about the Hobby Lobby CEO going to jail. Face it: if bishops aren’t going to wear prison orange for mismanaging sex predators, it’s not going to happen for idelogical resistance to the federal government. That’s a PR fiasco even the Democratic Party and its president are unwilling to risk.

I’d prefer seeing the bishops team up with the guys who have real insurance savvy, the Knights of Columbus, and drag along Catholic health care institutions and do what could have been done a generation ago: disentangle health insurance from employment and offer a real alternative. If the bishops want to go to jail to get that done, I’m all over that.

 

Who Patrons Impasses?

Bishop Finn invoked Saint Francis de Sales. He’d like to be rid of the NCRep. Kansas City’s conservative Catholics are, understandably, upset with a situation of ecclesiastical impotence:

I have received letters and other complaints about NCR from the beginning of my time here. In the last months I have been deluged with emails and other correspondence from Catholics concerned about the editorial stances of the Reporter: officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.

My predecessor bishops have taken different approaches to the challenge. …

More to the point, the main approach these days to ideological dislike is the pink slip. I haven’t seen much variance to the theme of hurting someone. Getting at opponents through their job is the modus operandi of modern politics. And it happens with such relish.

When early in my tenure I requested that the paper submit their bona fides as a Catholic media outlet in accord with the expectations of Church law, they declined to participate indicating that they considered themselves an “independent newspaper which commented on ‘things Catholic.’”  At other times, correspondence has seemed to reach a dead end.

The suggestions that Bishop Finn resign have also reached a dead end. The institution will not remove him, thus appearing to ally themselves with his opponents. I think my friends in Kansas City have a bishop for the next sixteen years. No other diocese would take him.

In light of the number of recent expressions of concern, I have a responsibility as the local bishop to instruct the Faithful about the problematic nature of this media source which bears the name “Catholic.” While I remain open to substantive and respectful discussion with the legitimate representatives of NCR, I find that my ability to influence the National Catholic Reporter toward fidelity to the Church seems limited to the supernatural level. For this we pray: St. Francis DeSales, intercede for us.

Life often brings us to an impasse. Uncomfortable, frustrating, disappointing, uneasy, and sometimes lingering for a decade or two. Just think of what God has to put up with in dealing with us.

 

No More Russian Children to the US

This is not new information, that tomorrow a Russian law goes into effect that makes illegal the American adoption of Russian children. UCA News covers it here, with this statement about the state of those children’s souls:

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, chairman of the Synodal Department for the Cooperation of Church and Society of the Moscow Patriarchate, said the law was “a search for a social answer to an elementary question: why should we give, and even sell, our children abroad?” Speaking to state news agency Interfax, Chaplin said the path to heaven would be closed to children adopted by foreigners. “They won’t get a truly Christian upbringing”.

In some cases, “sell” is not an exaggeration. In order to adopt overseas, one must have money. One must have money to travel, money for legal counsel, and money to lubricate the bureaucracy (some of it in fees, and some of it in bribes, and some in the gray area in between). And that doesn’t count the setting up of a home with what a child–usually an infant–needs.

The path to heaven closed? In going from one of the most irreligious countries to one of the most Christian, that seems a stretch. Or maybe Archpriest Chaplin has been drinking the American conservative Catholic Cool-Aid on this one.

The young miss has a friend her age who was adopted from Russia many years ago. She has noted the news development. I wonder what she thinks about that.

For me and my wife, a foreign adoption was never seirously discussed. First, we were not dead-set on getting an infant and seeking the “complete” child-rearing experience. We wanted a chance to “imprint” on a child younger than six or seven, and engage the “attachment” of one or more children. We talked with people who had outlays of tens of thousands of dollars to go to Asia. Good for them, but not our path.

The bottom line was that we learned that about a half-million American children are in foster care, and over a hundred-thousand of them are completely cut off from birth parents, either by law or by death. We decided we had to do some small part for them. More from the UCA, which notes that unlike in the US, adoption in Russia has cultural factors burying it:

Adoption is seen as something to hide. In addition, only very young and healthy children are prized because of biases against alleged “genetic defects” passed on by poor families.

The United States is, by far, the most adoption-friendly nation on the planet. Too bad the US bishops can’t parlay that into a significant pro-life witness. Catholic families by the tens of thousands would, with information and encouragement, line up to adopt many of the needy kids available. Given the American indulgence for creationism, I’m not sure how to comment politely on the notion that poverty is a genetic defect. Wealthy people have genetic defects all the time. Aristocratic inbreeding, especially in royalty, is a fact of history.

I also read that a few hundred American couples will be SOL when the law takes effect, and that spent time and resources will not be getting grandfather consideration.

These people do good work. We were on their mailing list during the two years before we adopted our daughter. Worth checking out.

 

Newt Joins Huck On The Godless Trail

Former House Speaker and relatively new Catholic Newt Gingrich has joined the Arkansas preacher and former governor on the meme that America’s not religious enough. Mr Gingrich:

When you have an anti-religious, secular bureaucracy and secular judiciary, seeking to drive God out of public life, something fills the vacuum.

Rev Huckabee earlier said:

And since we’ve ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn’t act so surprised … when all hell breaks loose.

In terms of any measurable sense, the United States ranks very high among the world’s most Christian nations, but still behind Muslim nations, plus most of sub-Saharan Africa. It has ranked so in the past, but we didn’t avoid disasters like this factory fire. Evangelicals would probably suggest it was the fault of those Catholic and Jewish women who worked there. Someone’s always to blame, it seems. And some people seem eager enough to instill fear in others.

If Huck and Newt were up on their Bible, they would know that the Judeo-Christian tradition has always wrestled with the conundrum that the wicked prosper and the just suffer. The Psalmist offered up an entire composition on the question. I think you have to go far deeper than politicians are willing to wade to get at the core of the problem. A serious look will always find the sinner within one’s own skin. And a serious look will likely find a believer in the shoes of a person like Father Bob Weiss, who has distinguished himself for his service to grieving families.

 

NRA Goes Dark

Facebook and Twitter for the NRA has been shut down. I suppose there’s nothing to say in polite (or even internet) company these days about lobbying for semiautomatic weaponry and armor-piercing ammunition.

My own history is that my dad owned a handgun but none of us kids ever knew where he kept it. For awhile, he owned a few rifles and he took me target shooting a few times. After a few years he sold off the guns. I don’t think my mother approved. But guns were no big deal, really.

This Newtown shooter had firearms that were a bit more advanced than point-shoot-reload. There’s really not any defense for such objects. I mean: how many rounds does it take to kill a deer or rabbit? I wonder if their manufacture and sale isn’t driven by the American consumer indulgence for acquisition. I mean: what other goal could the NRA possibly have? It’s got to be about buying more and more weapons that one won’t ever use. Remember, the odds are still five in six that a home handgun will kill a family member before it stops an intruder.

Any speculation on when the NRA starts a comeback?

 

Accidental Religion?

I was reading about the yoga fuss in Encinitas, California public schools. Maybe a person views yoga as exercise, and the use of brain, breathing, and stretching to feel better. So, can that person accidentally practice religion?

I suppose the same could be asked of a pope praying at the Wailing Wall. Or a Jew reading the Gospels.

Or for that matter, an atheist confronted with the singing of Christmas songs, or the posting of the Ten Commandments, or a Christian prayer before a meeting. Is this a sauce simmering for the gander?

 

Political Thinking on Abortion

Is it time to end the political pro-life movement? One blogger forwards the idea. Or given that the abortion rate has been in a slight tailspin for a decade, helped apparently by the current presidency, maybe it’s time to shift to other ideas. Some may say that there’s no time like the present to push the agenda.

I’ve long thought the best pro-life witness is pro-life action. Adoption. Support. More adoption.

 

A Thanksgiving Octave Assembles

Black Friday, then Small Business Saturday make a Triduum. Cyber Monday tacked on, and now a #Giving Tuesday. Naturally, the conservatives will be hopping all over this attempt to get charity out of government hands and into the people’s, where it belongs. If anything, the GOP will need to get way out in front of the 2016 buy-off, eh?

What else can be added to make a neat little octave heading into December?

 

Busy Bishops

Coverage of the Fall USCCB Meeting, Day 1.

Archbishops Dolan and Vigano counseled contrition and holiness.

Channeling his inner Chesterton, the Jovial One asked what’s wrong with the world, and answered:

I am.

The Vatican’s ambassador to the US:

We must continually undergo conversion ourselves, so that our people … will have a renewed trust and confidence in us who are the messengers of the gospel. We must continually beg God to forgive those who out of human weakness have caused great pain to others.

Deal Hudson counseled dialing up the shouting:

Lay Catholics need to have a showdown with their bishops over exactly what they (the bishops) can say in an election cycle because they are not saying enough. This kind of nonsense has to stop.

Speaking of nonsense, I read that the LCWR and bishops had a meeting Sunday. A basic statement was issued:

The three bishop delegates of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, Bishop Leonard P. Blair, and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki; the presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), Sister Florence Deacon, OSF; Sister Pat Farrell, OSF; and Sister Carol Zinn, SSJ; and LCWR executive director, Sister Janet Mock, CSJ, met Sunday, November 11, for preliminary discussions about the doctrinal assessment of LCWR by the CDF.

The discussion was open and cordial and those present agreed to meet again to continue the conversation.

Sr Pat Farrell will be coming to my parish for an event next semester.

Other bishops met bloggers and talked about relevant stuff. Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz on blogging and such:

This is personality driven. What I’m used to is to focus on the message and stay out of the way.

Speaking on racist Catholics, a whisper from the loggia:

We have a major problem when people in our church think they can get away with that and be in communion with the Catholic Church.

Is this one of those gatherings that gets all-day coverage on EWTN? What else are you readers seeing?

 

At The Polls

Tuesday was a thrilling, but deeply busy day. Now that I have two nights of sleep, I’ve recovered in part. Tuesday morning I was filled with the brand of excitement of a kid before a big event the next day. I went to bed about 11, but didn’t get to sleep for another hour. Then I awoke about 1:30am, sleepless again for another hour. By 4am, it was hopeless to continue. I got out of bed, surfed the net a bit, got dressed early, and assembled my food to share with my coworkers and it was off to the polls.

Because of redistricting, my wife and I vote in a different place. And by coincidence or design–not sure why the auditor’s office makes the decisions it does to assign workers–I was designated to work in my home precinct for the first time in seven elections. It happened to be one of the churches in which my parish has worshiped since our recent fire. So I was pretty familiar with the building. I could find the men’s room fast, and little did I know, I would need that piece of info later in the day.

By 6am, our team of seven had arrived. The heavy equipment had been dropped off the previous day, so we set about with ballots, voting tables and their privacy screens, various paper forms, and, for the first time, two laptops with the voter registration books and software. Another Iowa county developed Precinct Atlas a few years ago. It was my first time using a computer on Election Day. I made a very serious error on my very first voter, and I was feeling very dismayed. A roomful of election workers today looks very much like the bridge clubs I used to visit once a week: nice but sharp older people who like doing things the way they’ve always done it. But I got my comeuppance, and then settled down to go through the software much more carefully with the next several voters.

Not only was this our first presidential election, it was the first after redistricting. Our county auditor cautioned us at the school for officials last week that it would be a demanding day. Many Iowans bristle at change. Much of our city was redistricted. Long-time voters showed up where “they always voted,” and having waited in line, they found out they were in the “wrong” place. Add in that my precinct stretches from my neighborhood in a five-block width all the way to the middle of Campustown, and it shouldn’t surprise you that one-fourth of our voters registered as newbies, and another fourth had moved from their previous casting of a ballot. I think we sent another hundred people to another location.

Iowa polls are open from 7am to 9pm. We had a five-minute pause just before 8am. We had a line waiting to vote for the other 835 minutes, plus nearly another hour for the people who were in line at the moment of closing.

There was much less friendly get-to-know-you banter among the workers. Two people I didn’t even talk to–they were at the other end of the table where I sat. We were nose-to-grindstone all day. And despite a 35% advance turnout, it was a very heavy day for person-to-person contact for us.

What are the sorts of challenges we face?

Some voters request absentee ballots but show up anyway. They tell us the ballot didn’t come in the mail, or they decided they wanted to bring it to us in person (they are supposed to mail it), or they changed their minds.

If a person comes to vote for the first time, they must prove they are who they say they are and that they live where they say they live. They sign a public oath, witnessed by an election official. We give them a long list, in advance, of the kinds of documents that prove their address: a lease, a paycheck, a government check, a government document, a utility bill, a cell phone bill, and a few others. One person had a piece of mail from a political party–that wouldn’t do. One poor guy had his lease, but just before he moved in, the landlord switched him to another unit. We couldn’t accept the lease, even though it was in the same building. Most students brought something we could use, usually a utility bill or a paystub. A handful did not, but even then, if a registered voter (usually a roommate) was willing to attest for their address, we would accept a registration. One student had no paper bills–she kept all her statements on her smartphone. Strangely enough, we can only accept printed statements, even though we give them back after we’ve noted the address and name listed.

I don’t think our computers speeded up the process very much. The software was very good, very intuitive. The design of the front and back screens and placement of options was rather awkward. But maybe if they were closer together, there would be more opportunity for the fingerfehler–mistakes.

While I was feeling generally discouraged by all the federal candidates this year, I did have a strong patriotic swell in my heart on Election Day. We reelected a fine county auditor and a number of good local people for our county and state. People seemed generally cheerful after waiting an hour to vote, and I appreciate the special connection helping to facilitate their participation in public life. So when I began to read Catholic commentariats yesterday (“Goodbye America.” … “I’m starting to look forward to the inevitable collapse … but I intend to enjoy it.” … “america is dead to me.”) I was truly wondering about the disconnect between public life and the reinforcement of narcissism on the internet.

At the end, I took heart from a conversation my mother and I had a few days ago. She’s been dropping all sorts of secret family revelations on me the past several weeks. But some nice news was that her recently deceased sister, my favorite aunt, was an election worker for several years. What heartening information. My late older brother was deeply active in party politics, and I thought of him often on Election Day.

The last voter cast his ballot shortly before 10pm. After a quick break, we workers disassembled the booths, gathered forms, turned off our computers, reviewed procedures, and carefully packed everything away. My wife came to pick me up just before 11. She said the young miss had been watching election results all night at home. That was one of the most heartening pieces of news I received all day. On Monday I had told her that I was going to be working all evening at the polls and that I was counting on her to monitor things in my absence.

“Where will I find that?” she asked.

Now she knows.

Another citizen ready to take up the mantle of freedom, self-determination, and civic pride.

 

Archbishop Dolan Pulled Back From The Brink

Archbishop Dolan’s transatlantic travel plans have been cancelled. I see that the Vatican has shelved plans to send a delegation of bishops to Syria.

Syria is a horrific story to follow. The whole world is watching. Well, the part not consumed and obsessed by “threats to American religious freedom” anyway. And the world is seemingly powerless. To me the escalation of hostilities by both sides (This resistance did start as non-violent, didn’t it?) illustrates perfectly the impotence of violence. And it shows that military and economic might is simply not enough to enrich and embellish human existence on its most basic level: growing up, becoming educated, marrying and having a family, finding meaningful work that contributes to one’s person and one’s society. And following God. Ugliness, bitterness, and anger will overtake us at any turn.

I was actually looking forward to seeing what the Jovial One would say and do after he returned from Damascus. They say that grim realities of life were an education for the conservative prelate of San Salvador in the 70′s. Would that all bishops were open to the post-installation education of Oscar Romero. Then maybe Archbishop George’s oft-cited witticism (full story on that here) would have some real teeth, rather than being an ironic predictor of future sex abuse cover-ups.

Not far behind is the impotence of rich businessdudes who advocate for revolution in our own country. I suppose that from the penthouse of Trump Tower, it would look like a scene on faraway tv. And just as one can turn off the tube, Mr Trump can close the curtains. And delete his tweets, pretending it never happened.

Even more disturbing that the robocalls haven’t been turned off (I got two messages last night on my cell.) are the calls on Catholic blogs calling for revolution, resistance, and “taking the gloves off” the next time. Are they trying to tell me all those fists with tense knuckles were really mittens? The Anchoress says people need time to “process.” I suppose she’s right. I hope that processing will lead to more civility, more listening, and more discernment. She’s been among those who have suggested that truth knows no civility and we shouldn’t be shy about being firm and in-your-face about what we believe and what we believe others should believe.

Where do you suppose Archbishop Dolan will go next?