Theologienne

On humanism

2007-06-16T13:00:00.000-05:00

I think this quote's amazing. Do we too often stamp science and pathology on human realities that belong to the realm of mystery? This is said by the narrator after a character explains that someone is "really not ready" to love her.

What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll--then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship.

--Zadie Smith, in White Teeth

Dinosauresis

2007-06-14T16:50:00.000-05:00

"Until recently, I was unaware that the biblical world was full of dinosaurs." This cracked me up. Not least because the Nativity scene in my house growing up did, in fact, include dinosaurs--two squeaky toys contributed by my brother. They sat on the stable roof.

I'll be honest: part of me is dying for a quasi-ironic road trip to the Creation Museum. Though I find that right in my own backyard, the Field Museum's rolling out an evolution exhibit understood to be "in response" to growing creationist fervor.

(Oh NO you did not just brought the Creation Museum! Oh yeah we DID just brought the Creation Museum, unbelievers! Oh yeah well watch us while WE bring the evolution exhibit, fundies! [Slaps. Hair-pulling. Quiet sobs.])

Cynicism, cynicism, nuance

2007-06-08T11:51:00.000-05:00

Or is it just me?

Fine, the candidates didn't select these pull quotes--and Edwards, in particular, showed more depth of thought in his full quotes here than the lede would suggest. How utterly cool that Sojourners sponsored a forum to ask the Democratic candidates about their faith. It's great to see liberals making faith an issue with other liberals--it distorts reality when Democrats treat their beliefs as something to be trotted out only in front of Republicans.

Edwards was asked to name the biggest sin he ever committed, and couldn't pick just one. Fascinating to picture him coming up with a specific answer, isn't it? How would you answer that question?

Limbo is No Mo

2007-04-20T15:06:00.000-05:00

CNS reported today that the Pope approved a statement by the International Theological Commission suggesting that sending unbaptized babies to Limbo is not the best understanding of God's loving plan.

In a document published April 20, the commission said the traditional concept of limbo -- as a place where unbaptized infants spend eternity but without communion with God -- seemed to reflect an "unduly restrictive view of salvation."

The church continues to teach that, because of original sin, baptism is the ordinary way of salvation for all people and urges parents to baptize infants, the document said.

But there is greater theological awareness today that God is merciful and "wants all human beings to be saved," it said. Grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ's special love for "the little ones," it said. [...]

Limbo has never been defined as church dogma and is not mentioned in the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states simply that unbaptized infants are entrusted to God's mercy. [...]

The church's magisterium has moved toward a more "nuanced understanding" of how a saving relationship with the church can be realized, it said. This does not mean that someone who has not received the sacrament of baptism cannot be saved, it said.

I am glad to see this teaching clarified and in such an open and loving manner. Has anyone else been a student or a teacher and had to muddle through this exchange:

Li'l Catholic: Since God saves us through baptism, what happens if a baby dies without being baptized?
Big Wise Catholic: Well, for a long time people believed they went to a place called Limbo, without God. A lot of people don't believe that anymore.
Li'l Catholic: So do they go to heaven?
Big Wise Catholic: . . .

Other than its catechetical benefits, here are some reasons I'm really excited about this statement:
- From a pastoral standpoint, what a relief to parents who lost an unbaptized child to illness or abortion to believe that God's love is available to their baby.

- From an ecumenical standpoint, this statement is an important reminder of our belief that although all salvation comes through Jesus, in God's grace salvation may also come to those who are not part of the Catholic Church.

- And simply from a Church perspective, I think it's very good for the faithful to see that the Spirit is still speaking to the church. The evolution of thought on Limbo reminds us that even things people have believed for a long time may not be the best way to express the truth about who God is and who we are called to be.

And You're Working For No One But Me

2007-04-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

Happy Tax Day, and here’s hoping everybody made it to the post office on time! (Hi Dad. : ) Or did you? Is anyone out there, being the thoughtful, engaged Catholics that you are, choosing conscientious tax resistance?

Tax resistance is closely associated with those who oppose war (last year nearly half of the federal budget went to the military), although this useful Wikipedia entry points out that some Libertarians and anarchists also do it. Many in the Catholic Worker movement practice conscientious tax objection, although I recall from Dorothy Day’s biography that she herself wasn’t sure about the moral implications of paying taxes as a pacifist in a warmaking country. (She herself did not pay taxes because of her radical poverty, but she knew that solution wasn’t possible for everyone.)

The interesting thing about it from a non-expert’s perspective is that this would seem to be one of the few moral quandaries in modern life about which Jesus has left us explicit instructions. Remember “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s?” And it’s not as though Our Lord only condoned participation in a kinder, gentler state. The Roman empire, at the time of Jesus’ ministry, was busy making war in several parts of the globe, including the active oppression of Jesus’ own people.

So what do you think? Are conscientious tax objectors who try to withhold their financial support from unjust wars misinterpreting Jesus’ intentions? Or am I perhaps interpreting the Gospel out of context?

For the first time, a woman translates the Quran

2007-04-10T12:14:00.000-05:00

The first-ever English translation of the Quran by a Muslim woman will be released next week. Laleh Bakhtiar's comments on her work gave me a lot to think about as to how I, myself, read Scripture. Here, she integrates one verse with her own experience and her understanding of the life of Mohammed as an example.

But when she came to a controversial verse long interpreted as meaning husbands could beat their wives if they strayed, it became personal. Bakhtiar had counseled Muslim women beaten by husbands who said this verse gave them that right. She thoroughly researched the word "dara ba," speaking to 45 Islamic scholars. The Lane lexicon provided the alternate meaning of "go away."

Another verse in the Quran that said Muslim women seeking a divorce cannot be harmed also appeared to contradict the traditional interpretation.

"To me, the God I love would not say husbands can beat wives or even have a threat that husbands can beat their wives," she said. "From the life of the prophet, I knew he didn't do that, so where is this misunderstanding coming from?"

Bakhtiar and others say the controversy this translation has engendered has less to do with Bakhtiar's academic background and more to do with the fact that she dares to translate the Quran as a woman. Merely one facet of the issues of power attached to who studies and interprets holy writings! I'm reminded that not long ago in Catholic history translating the Bible into the vernacular was a capital crime.

As I tell my confirmation students, "Reading the Bible is dangerous!"

This Is My Body?

2007-04-04T14:08:00.000-05:00

Whether it's true or not, did Keith Richards' story about snorting his father's ashes strike anyone else as oddly (and perversely, and in no way endorsed by this blog) Eucharistic? Just in time for Catholic and Orthodox commemoration tomorrow of the Last Supper!

Think about it: what else do you consume because you love and want to be close to the person whose body it is/was/represents? (Trying to be ecumenical with that last one.)

No? No? C'MON.

"Abuser" priest will become Independent Catholic bishop

2007-04-03T14:06:00.000-05:00

From The Milwaukee Channel:

A former Roman Catholic priest suspended for abusing a child will soon become a bishop.

Joseph Collova was suspended after a man said the priest abused him dozens of times at a Milwaukee church.

After the suspension, Collova changed denominations and now works with the Independent Catholic Church in Dousman, which is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.

The Dousman church plans to ordain Collova as a bishop in April.

This is just horrible. Derivative Catholic Churches like the Independent Catholic Church, Old Catholic Church and Polish National Catholic Church provide a spiritual home for some who aren't comfortable in the mainline Catholic Church, and they serve the global Church by providing alternative images of what the Church could be. But the main problem with these splinter churches, both as spiritual communities and as agents of social change, is that with disconnect from a greater community comes a lack of accountability and perspective. What better demonstration of that than this Independent church shuttling someone accused of a serious crime right back into ministry? While it's possible they've investigated the charges and deemed them false, it seems unlikely, among other things, that the Milwaukee diocese would have shared the information they might have on this priest with an outside church.

By appearing cavalier about abuse and about the function of the greater Church community to correct wrongdoing within it, the Independent Catholic Church in Dousman reflects terribly poorly on those who present voices of challenge within the global Catholic Church.

Good news for the Church!

2007-02-09T10:09:00.001-06:00

Even ancient, secretive, male-dominated institutions eventually get with the twentieth century. Congrats, Madam soon-to-be President!

YouTube Witness to Bishop Gumbleton's Ministry

2007-02-01T10:55:00.000-06:00

Detroit Bishop Tom Gumbleton was recently removed from his ministry as pastor of St. Leo's Parish in a move many see as retaliation for his outspoken witness for sex abuse victims, gays, lesbians and women in the Church, and for peace and justice. (NYTimes article)

Bishop Gumbleton's supporters created this video to highlight what his ministry has meant to St Leo's Parish. It is wonderful to see such a modern (not to say shallow) medium as YouTube used for this kind of witness.

P.S. Take action!

Virgin Dragon Prepares to Give Birth

2006-12-21T10:00:00.000-06:00

Wow, it really must be Advent. Even the headlines sound ripped from the pages of Revelations.

Advent Reflection

2006-12-14T14:41:00.001-06:00

"How can one be greater than John?" those gathered asked, watching another seeker being dunked beneath the lake. "John teaches us to act with justice. He lives as a holy man. He welcomes even sinners to listen and to change."

But John promised a greater leader. "The one to come will lead armies, like David," one offered. Another: "She'll be the wisest of queens." "He'll see God's face, like Moses," someone insisted. "Like Lillith, she'll rebirth the world." A child spoke what all were hoping: "The Messiah will vanquish Rome, and we'll be free."

No one thought the promised one would be a refugee, a member of a despised race, born on the road into extreme poverty. No one expected that he would suffer.

John, they could see, was human. Wouldn't the one he proclaimed be the same? Maybe a magician, they thought, to baptize with fire.

Elizabeth would be the first to name him God. No one saw it coming--our great and holy God to crawl into human flesh. Two thousand years later, we try and fail to understand.

This day in Advent, what do you expect of the promised Messiah? And what might our God of mystery send you?

(reflection on this Sunday's Gospel)

Life. Freedom. Conscience.

2006-11-22T14:16:00.001-06:00

Some of the many things I'll be thankful for tomorrow.

This was inspired by musing on the fact that President Bush has now pardoned six turkeys, while his record for human pardons stands at one.

Who would Jesus feed?

2006-11-16T23:56:00.000-06:00

Originally posted at BustedHalo. This picks up somewhere in the middle of a thread about bishops who deny the Eucharist to pro-choice politicians, and in general, whether any Catholic should be denied the Eucharist as what my worthy correspondent called a "loving invitation to self-correction."

* * * *

I wonder how many divorced Catholics--or their children--experience someone's exclusion from the Eucharist as a "loving invitation to self-correction."

Convert To Christ's first comment inspired me to spend some time reading about the Church's activism against the death penalty. Part of the reason the late Pope opposed it so strongly had to do with the fact that the death penalty can be applied arbitrarily and unjustly: accidents such as race or what state you live in factor into the choice of human beings killing another person.

A similar randomness, as ogica so wisely pointed out, is often used to judge a person's unity with Church teaching. A Catholic in public life who honestly believes that outlawing abortion is not the best way to lessen the number of abortions might be singled out while an unrepentant but incognito murderer could be welcomed to the table.

It can be gracious and dignified when someone excludes him or herself from the Eucharist willingly. I've seen people do this who might be living with a significant other but not married, or who might be angry at the church and know they are not loving enough to take Communion, or for other reasons. But at the same time, it makes me sad that someone would feel her or himself unworthy of encountering Christ, or unworthy of being part of the body of Christ, the people of God.

Look at it this way. I've never heard anyone claim that the Eucharist is not the Eucharist based on one's beliefs, in other words, that Jesus is only present in the bread and wine if you believe the right things. This is why Protestants or people of other faiths are expected to refrain from receiving Communion--since Jesus is really present and their theology does not recognize this, it would be disrespectful to Jesus, is the Catholic thinking. So if Jesus is really there, and the Catholic (however sinful) believes that He is really there, why would Jesus not want to be present to that Catholic, to teach them if they are wrong and to strengthen them if not?

"Sr. Joan Chittister is on the road"

2006-11-14T14:31:00.001-06:00

And yet I continue to check her blog over at NCRCafe to see what the leading prophet of thinking spirituality has to say about the election results!

See, I know Sr. Joan won't come back from her peacekeeping mission only to tell us that everything is now A-OK stateside. She'll challenge American progressives to be as visionary in victory as they were in minority, to put the poor and marginalized first, and to look to their own houses. She'll remind us that God calls all of us to social justice and that we can't leave the responsibility for a better world with politicians.

Her speech at the Call to Action conference last week was emblematic. Everyone wants to hear about women's ordination and gay marriage, and God knows those are important to God's people. But Sister Joan, by focusing her address on economic justice and peace, subtly reminded us of how wide is the work to be done in the world. The poor will always be with us, needing God's love through God's people, no matter who is in Congress--or in the pulpit.

Come back, Sr. Joan, and be a voice of reason!

The mere announcement that she's away inspired, to date, 52 comments.

And if you can't wait, check out the discussion we're having over at BustedHalo.

Update: Sr. Joan is back with a moving story of ministry to Iraqi refugees in Syria.

"True family values are cognate with the liberal agenda"

2006-11-02T16:09:00.001-06:00

Ken Mondschein, a Fordham sociologist, traces the decline of marriage to the decline of the middle class:

While they were dating, our parents and grandparents evaluated each other as potential life partners and helpmates. We, on the other hand, don't know if we will be working the same job, let alone dating the same person, in a year. If the traditional incentive for a long-term relationship — that is, building a shared life together — is a pipe dream, why commit? [ . . . ] If, in the end, we decide to act in "defense of marriage," we are going to need a program of paternity and maternity leave, affordable housing, guaranteed health care and social security.

Start fighting for these things today at MomsRising.org. (And try not to kill the buzz by thinking of France.)

And you thought they wanted us washing vessels

2006-10-30T14:32:00.000-06:00

At the direction of Pope Benedict XVI, extraordinary ministers of holy Communion will no longer be permitted to assist in the purification of the sacred vessels at Masses in the United States. [...]The U.S. bishops had asked the Vatican to extend an indult -- or church permission -- in effect since 2002 allowing extraordinary ministers of holy Communion to help cleanse the Communion cups and plates when there were not enough priests or deacons to do so. (CNS via ClosedCafeteria)

No word on whether it's still okay for the little old ladies of your parish to launder the linens. That might just bring them too close to the holy elements of the Eucharist, you know? I find it ironic that "washing vessels" is one of the examples outraged laity sometimes use for what they do when they're excluded from real parish responsibility. I'm also amused that the indult was extended in 2002; as a high-school sacristan, I was definitely purifying vessels (in a sacred, prayerful way, I like to think) as early as '96. Just the latest evidence of my own transgressive status . . .

I think we should see other people.

2006-10-30T12:01:00.000-06:00

So I'm guest-blogging! Check me out at BustedHalo's Spiritual Smackdown (I know, I know.) I'll be posting every other weekday for the month of November, up against a conservative blogger. Leave me some comments over there, especially any ideas you'd like to see the two of us take on!

2006-10-11T10:35:00.000-05:00

In class last night a student mentioned "Eucharistic ministers" and then corrected it to "extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist." Seems like a small thing, but that really burns my toast. God forbid we imply that it's right and normal for laypeople to have ministry that has to do with the Eucharist . . .

Jesus on the Radio

2006-10-06T11:16:00.000-05:00

A friend and I are leading a prayer service at the Call to Action conference in Milwaukee this November. We're going to explore the spirituality of contemporary songs--pop, rock, hip-hop and some quality '80s. Got any suggestions for recent songs that move you, make you contemplate, or fill you with divine joy?

Songs don't have to be explicitly religious, but they can be. As a corollary request, we're trying to come up with tracks that don't sound like contemporary or traditional Catholic music. So extra points for cuts with more than one vocal and without heavy acoustic guitar : )

To get you thinking, here's a great column about the kind of psalmody you find on iTunes. I love, love, love so many of his picks. Never have I agreed so heartily with so much Rocco Palmo had to say.

Politician loses interest groups to effective proposal

2006-10-04T11:14:00.000-05:00

"You're either for reducing the number [of abortions], or you're not:" Slate on Rep. Tim Ryan's anti-abortion bill, which dares to promote--gasp!--birth control.

A New Song: I Will Follow You Into The Dark

2006-09-28T15:13:00.000-05:00

As my friends could tell you, I'm always seeking theological overtones in songs, films, breakfast foods, whatever--but the religious and spiritual aspects of music have a special hold on my imagination. "A New Song" will be a sometime feature where I unpack the theology in a song I can't stop humming.

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me "Son,
Fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

This verse in what's otherwise a beautifully eerie love song ("I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie; lyrics; hear or (gasp!) download it here) always bothers me. Why the driveby smackdown on religion? Given the major changes in religious life post-Vatican II, how many musicians young enough to be making cool music are old enough to have had dealings with black-habited nuns? And whence this weird theology that the singer rejects? He may want to stand against the notion that "fear is the heart of love," an idea I've never heard from a faithful person, but this song doesn't quite get him there.

The singer offers his lover a promise: companionship until death and beyond.

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the "No"s on their vacancy signs [love that image]
If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks
I will follow you into the dark.

It is beautiful.

We don't know from the song that the singer's lover fears death especially. Maybe it's in the singer's reassurance "It's nothing to cry about," but still, seems to me that it's the singer who broached the topic of his lover's death to begin with.

And there's never mention of any fear, on the part of the lover, of making that journey alone.

So which partner can't bear the thought of separation?

Perhaps for the singer, if not his Sunday school teachers, love is the heart of fear.

In case you're wondering, this has NOTHING to do with his arrest.

2006-09-26T12:33:00.000-05:00

I assume the peace movement doesn't like to turn down friends, peaceable folk that they are. So I'll say it for them: Mel Gibson is one friend those against war in Iraq can do without.

Chicago closes its seminary high school. Good.

2006-09-20T10:54:00.000-05:00

By educating young men who would later become priests and bishops, law enforcers and political leaders, Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary helped shape a city and a church.

But in the end, the same shrinking enrollment and escalating costs that have plagued other schools in the archdiocese brought down the historic high school seminary.

On Tuesday, the archdiocese announced Quigley would close its doors in June 2007, marking the end of an era and signaling a significant shift in how the American church is drawing young men to the priesthood. [...]

A majority of families chose Quigley for its college preparatory curriculum. Even Cardinal Francis George has pointed out that Quigley has produced more lawyers than priests.

I know what you're thinking. The American church is drawing young men to the priesthood? (Rimshot.) Seriously, I hate to stomp on the ashes of a beloved institution, but this is a wise choice by the Chicago archdiocese. There's something disturbingly arcane about steering boys toward a demanding lifetime vocation at an age where some malls won't let them in alone.

Besides, I've resented Quigley since the time I happened to meet five of its graduates at a church mixer. All of the young men were married or engaged (you guessed it--not priests.) When I wondered aloud about the odds of meeting five seminary graduates who ended up choosing lay life, they corrected me: as it says above, most Quigley students don't end up choosing the priesthood. One of the guys, with creditable diffidence, mentioned that he and his parents made the choice because "it's basically a good deal": any boy with "sincere interest in the priesthood" can get financial help to attend Quigley.

Obviously this begs the question: Sincere interest? THEY'RE LIKE 12. In effect, the Archdiocese of Chicago has been offering a free or discounted Catholic education to any child--oops, male child--who agreed to "consider" the priesthood. So now that it mostly turns out lawyers and aldermen, they're closing the school--the investment no longer bringing desired returns. Despite the emotional cost to some in the community, it's a worthy gesture of respect to the laypeople whose dollars keep the archdiocese working.

A teacher should choose his words more carefully

2006-09-19T10:09:00.000-05:00

So you must be aware that many Muslims are angry, and a few have acted out in violence, over what they see as anti-Islam statements by Pope Benedict XVI in a speech he made to a group of academics. (CNN helpfully provides a video they title "Watch other Muslims burn the pope in effigy." Sure to be a YouTube hit.) The Pope has offered an apology and explanation, but the extremely mediagenic controversy continues to simmer. Massive furor over a barely illustrative comment made in an intimate academic setting: Pope Benedict's getting the Larry Summers treatment, a comparison I imagine would bemuse them both.

Zenit has the full text of the Pope's remarks up now, although when I checked this link last night they had redacted the offending quote. I'm glad they finally read the speech and noticed that the Pope praises "the will to be obedient to the truth" as a hallmark of both faith and science.

Quoting the anti-Mohammed statement in the full context the pope gave it would require pasting several paragraphs. He mentions both the author of the book he read it in and the name of the Byzantine emperor who actually said it, and even notes that the story is tangential to his main point. The speech is a subtle and extremely smart analysis of the role Greek culture played and plays in Christianity's relating of faith to reason. The Pope decides that reason is an integral element of Christian faith, not merely an artifact of scholarly Greek culture. The document with the anti-Islam quote also contained an assertion by the Muslim scholar that God is not required to behave rationally by human standards, which the Pope uses as an entry into his meditation.

As the Times story linked above points out, some commentors are blown away that the pope apologized at all, and others think, because his apology only mentioned the "reactions" to his remarks, he hasn't yet gone far enough. Both sides are right. The speed and sincerity of the Pope's response should make Catholics proud. The very fact that he spent time reading the document he quotes, a medieval dialogue between a Christian emperor and a Muslim scholar, shows his willingness to approach other faiths with deep scholarship and respect.

But a wise man like the Pope should have known better than to use such a negative quote, especially since it has so little to do with the message of his speech. He didn't need to associate Islam and jihad in order to tell the story about the emperor and the scholar conversing about reason, although that is a decent concrete example of assuming that God reasons with a human mind. (The Byzantine emperor asks how God can both condemn violence and advocate holy war.) The emperor's quote against Mohammed, the words that have inspired anger and violence, has no purpose whatsoever in the Pope's speech: in fact, he never refers back to the words once he's quoted them.

As he mentions in this speech, Pope Benedict was a longtime teacher. His colleagues who teach American literature probably have a very clear idea of how worthy texts--like medieval dialogues, or Huckleberry Finn--need to be quoted with sensitivity. The Pope should issue a fuller apology for a use of language that was not malicious--I don't think so--but certainly thoughtless. After all, it's his job to promote the truth that the Word has world-altering power.

Pax Christi hires organizers?

2006-09-11T14:29:00.000-05:00

Pax Christi USA and the Catholic Alliance for the Common Good are looking for field organizer types to "identify, build, train and resource a network of diocesan leaders who can promote the common good Catholic message within their communities . . ."

Hmm. Common good Catholic message. Reading between the lines, does that sound like organizing Catholic voters around social justice issues like poverty and health care?

"Field Organizers will be hired to work beginning in July/August and continuing thru mid-November/December. Placements will include Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. "

Why yes, it does. What do you think about this? Myself, while I'm beyond all for "promoting the fullness of the Catholic social tradition in the public square," as the Catholic Alliance does, I do get hinky whenever faith is used as a whip to the polls. Absolutely, our country--any country--needs citizens who inform their voting with the full resources of their intellect and ethics. But pollsters and organizers, whether they're working for a living wage or against marriage equality, have a regrettable tendency to (a) oversimplify the religious teachings that touch on their issues and (b) to exaggerate the importance of adherence to those teachings for a person of faith.

I read somewhere that the current Catholic "cult of encyclicals"--the climate that encourages bishops to deny Communion based on a single political issue, among other things--actually originated with politically liberal Catholic intellectuals in the fifties. The bleeding hearts used Catholic social teaching as a weapon against fiscal conservatives, saying that if you weren't in favor of unions, for example, you couldn't possibly be Catholic. Hmm, where have we heard that one recently? Thanks, Catholic fifties intellectuals! You guys rock!

Bringing nasty political tactics into religious discourse is always a bad idea, even before it backfires against one's own beliefs and interests. We don't need a backlash to be hurt: we've already hurt ourselves at the moment we try to shame or exclude those who share our faith. God, not humans, gets to choose the members of the Body of Christ.

To bring this back to Pax Christi's organizers, I imagine they'll encourage many Catholics to take a closer look at Catholic social teaching, which can only be a good thing. I hope they'll succeed in electing people who will fight in the interests of the American poor. But if they can't do that honorably--without reducing theology to sound bites or moral encouragement to fear--any gains made for the poor will come at a sad cost to Catholic honor.

Wasting my youth on the young

2006-08-31T16:51:00.000-05:00

Trumpet blast! Theologienne is a catechist!

I'll be teaching confirmation class, which starts in seventh grade at the parish I've selected as my home (they'll be confirmed next fall.) This parish does the new family-centered model of religious education where both parents and kids recieve some formal education from the church, and parents are expected to do a certain amount of the teaching at home. I'm interested to see how that will work, especially in a sacramental class. Conventional wisdom has it that the ranks of religious education swell in Communion and Confirmation years, because while plenty of parents are concerned that their kids get a good faith formation, even more want to make sure they get all the sacraments taken care of. This education model might not work as well with parents who'd prefer to just drop their kids off and go drink coffee for an hour.

Also, I'm thinking a lot about how to approach kids this young, theology-wise. I was confirmed junior year of high school, and even then we were pretty darn callow. This parish has a good youth group that picks up where religious education leaves off, so there's less of a concern that people will fall away from the church after "finishing" their sacraments, but this might be their last hit of formal faith-thinking for a while. There is a curriculum, but I understand we're at liberty to make our own lesson plans.

As such, I'd joyfully welcome any suggestions for ideas I should emphasize. I'm stymied by how little I can remember of the theological concerns of my own seventh grade class, despite the sound Catholic school formation I do believe we got. Here's what I've come up with:

1) Sex.

2) Can pets go to heaven?

Pope Won't Say No, But Says "Oh"

2006-08-22T18:20:00.000-05:00

Commonweal's blog points to a recent interview with Pope Benedict, noting his determination to present Christianity as a "positive option" and to show how moral pronouncements of "no" stem from a series of deep "yeses." The Pope and I are in complete agreement on this approach, as I'm sure he'll be glad to know. People who are afraid of religion work to characterize it as a series of musn'ts. It's up to people of faith to show how a "no" to overconsumption is a "yes" to generosity, or a "no" to promiscuity is just the natural result of a joyful "yes" to fidelity.

Unfortunately, although the pope would prefer not to say "no," he doesn't seem to have a problem with "Oh, well." Asked about the need for increased visibility for women's leadership in the church, he reiterated the teaching against women's ordination and added, oddly, "But there's a juridical problem: according to Canon Law the power to take legally binding decisions is limited to Sacred Orders. So there are limitations from this point of view . . ."

Hmm, too bad there's nobody in the room with "the totality of legislative, executive, and judicial power" to alter canon law, huh?

Maybe the Pope needs to do like John Paul II, known for referencing himself in his own encyclicals, and ponder a comment he made elsewhere in this interview. How much time do we have, really? Eighty years? Ninety?

"When you have so little time you can't say everything you want to say about "no."

For me, there is no action for justice without faith

2006-08-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

For one of my classes I was asked to write about spiritual approaches and practices that "nourish your faith-based action on behalf of justice." This was perplexing, because I have a spiritual practice like I have a workout regimen--I do things that could fit into one, but any appearance of an overall guiding pattern is purely coincidental. Mostly, I nourish my spirituality by thinking about religious ideas. So this is how I responded.

"Eschatological" means mindful of the Reign of God.
* * * *

I often wonder how people who don't have a faith-based, or specifically an eschatological, view of the world do social justice at all. Service is one thing: the rewards of helping another human being are wired into our brains. But work for systemic change, where you have to constantly remind yourself that because you are making spreadsheets, hustling donations, or kissing up to Senators, the world will become new? What a feat of will it takes to sustain that hope, even for someone taught to expect that Easter yearly returns.

There are Catholics who extol the crucifix and don't want to see the resurrected Christ over their altars. They have a point: the security of forgiveness and renewal can make us lazy. What if we neglect the widow and the orphan: won't we still be forgiven? The answer is not to scare the faithful with the cross, but rather to paint a picture of hope running over into action. God's desire can make a better world, but that doesn't mean that we have no part in it. It is not because the women waited that Jesus rose, but because they waited, they were privileged to see it happen.

In fact, the only way I remain committed to action for justice is through my Catholic faith. Although I know from a student's standpoint that the Bible and the lectionary have both been touched by human hands and prejudices, there's no getting around the fact that on any given Sunday, you're likely to hear Jesus talking about the poor. Teaching the social outcasts and nomads who were his disciples about helping the poor. No excuses for them based on ability or station: Jesus was the consummate idealist. You are physically capable of taking this action, yes? I imagine him saying. Then why aren't you?

Sometimes prayer strengthens and sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes Scripture inspires and sometimes it seems to chide. That's when I allow myself to fall back on the Resurrection, when I don't have enough time or energy, or know too well that I could be doing more. The central message of my faith is one that workers for justice need to hear: that out of seeming tragedy and failure God has worked to change the world.

Clicking and scrolling to clarity

2006-07-07T00:21:00.000-05:00

A daily prayer schedule sounds like a formidable thing, and the way
religious communities do daily prayer, it is. I once attended a
monastic retreat where we prayed in the chapel five times a
day--stunning to us, but it was the monks' daily routine! Luckily, as
with so many other things, the Internet's made it easier for weekend
warrior pray-ers to share in the joys of an activity as done by true
professionals. Lately, I've been adding the daily Psalm hosted by the Erie Benedictines, a community of women best known for blessing the world with Sr. Joan Chittister, to the list of more frivolous blogs I check daily. (When you go to the link, it probably won't have the passages I'm citing--it changes daily and isn't archived, alas.) The Benedictines have a translation done by a sister which uses inclusive language for God and people, and the site leads you through a brief meditation on a daily Psalm. It's so refreshing to take a moment to redirect myself to what's important that I wonder where my sanity would be without it.

The great thing about the way monastic communities deal with Scripture
is that they usually rotate through the whole thing, leaving seekers
to deal with the text's relevance or irrelevance to their own lives.
When you're presented with a seemingly random Psalm, it might express
your present emotions exactly; it might leave you cold, showing where
else your thoughts lie in the moment, or the strength of the biblical
language could help put your problems in perspective.

For example, I was angry at myself for putting too many things off
until later, leaving myself with harder tasks because I didn't have
the discipline to plan them well. How humbling to pray from Psalm 38:

I am buried by my iniquities;
this is a burden too heavy to bear,
the result of my own folly.
I am bowed down, overcome.
I mourn all day long.

My body burns with fever. [In my case, the self-administered
affliction of a sunburn.]
Spent and utterly crushed,
I cry aloud in anguish of heart.

In another moment, this vision of pain imposed by crushing guilt might
have accurately traced my sentiments, but in my current situation it
helped me wonder if I wasn't whining too much--to God and to
myself--about all the "iniquities" of my own "folly." After all,

I trust in you, O God.
It is you who will answer.
I wait and pray,
"Do not let them mock me,
those who gloat when my foot slips."

Like me, the Psalmist can't quite get past worldly concerns--those
imagined mocking others, a constant throughout the ages!--but still
turns to God in trust. Fine, go ahead with your charges against
yourself, the Psalm seems to say, but remember Who you have to come
back to when you're through.

The anonymous prayer leader who writes the site recommends that we
turn immediately from our knowledge of our own failings to compassion
for those of others. "In the stillness of your heart," she wrote,
"open yourself to someone who has angered you. Forgive."

Dorothy Day on Married Sex

2006-04-28T15:22:00.000-05:00

A commentor asked why people in marriages where one spouse has AIDS shouldn't just practice abstinence. It reminded me of this great vignette from Dorothy Day's (also great) biography by William D. Miller:

Dorothy invariably greeted the arrival of her grandchildren with joy and in her notes, at least, seemed not overly stricken when the persistently fruitful Tamar [Dorothy's daughter, who was married, very poor, and eventually had eight kids] would inform her that another was on the way. Once a priest, though, offended her mortally with a saturnine rejoinder when Dorothy told him of the onset of Tamar's fourth pregnancy. . . . His rejoinder was "not much control there." "Having heard this from other Jansenist Catholics, I could control myself to a certain extent," said Dorothy, "but for a priest to say such things . . . Do you know the facts of life, I wanted to say. Instead I said meekly,'Once a year may produce such a result.'"

Day was dismayed at this priest's thoughtlessness about marital relationships and plenty steamed about his slight of her daughter. Not only did she publish their conversation in the Catholic Worker the next month, Miller says, she recounted it in the same space 24 years later.

Dorothy Day Guild looking for miracles

2006-04-27T00:20:00.000-05:00

I mentioned back in September that the Archdiocese of New York was thinking about putting Dorothy Day up for canonization. This week I got some mail from the newly formed Dorothy Day Guild: it's on. I'd happily link you to the Guild's website but they haven't got one; how they expect to do this without a Web presence I don't know, two millennia of saint-making sans modems notwithstanding. Anyway, the Guild is working to spread awareness of Day's life, work and writings and, of course, collecting stories of any miracles that may happen through her intervention. One for "Blessed;" two for sainthood.

This prayer for Dorothy Day's intercession is by Monsignor Kevin Sullivan of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York.

God our Creator,
your servant Dorothy Day exemplified the Catholic faith by her conversion,
life of prayer and voluntary poverty,
works of mercy, and
witness to the justice and peace of the Gospel.

May her life inspire people to turn to Christ as their Savior and guide,
to see his face in the world's poor and
to raise their voices for the justice of God's kingdom.

We pray that you grant the favors we ask
through her intercession so that her goodness
and holiness may be more widely recognized
and one day the Church may
proclaim her saint.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

2006-04-24T15:01:00.000-05:00

Catholic Church to Ease Ban on Condom Use (Deutsche Welle)

Sounds of Earth Moving Captured (Discovery Channel)

In Which Sleep, Blog Readers or Someone Does My Work For Me

2006-04-24T00:47:00.000-05:00

Today I read Quarterlife Crisis and Good Catholic Girls: How Women are Leading the Fight to Change the Church. Now, through the magic of REM sleep, my subconscious will resolve these into a coherent vision of how I will dispel my twentysomething alienation by becoming a leader in the church of tomorrow. That wasn't actually my original plan, but it would be nice if it worked that way, no?

I'm working on a paper on the reign of God for my Biblical Spirituality class. Earlier this year I commenced a thought project on what the Reign or, if you prefer, the Kingdom of God looks like--I figured, since the R of G is what we want to bring about in our lives, knowing what it looks like might help me figure out more perfectly what I should be doing. What does the Reign of God look like to you, and what biblical passages or other sources have helped you shape that vision?

WE're God's Love?! (hides under bed)

2006-04-20T23:00:00.000-05:00

A classmate shared this Wikipedia quote about Peter Lombard (1100~1160), whose writings were very influential to medieval theology:

Peter Lombard's most famous and most controversial doctrine in the Sentences was his identification of charity with the Holy Spirit in Book I, distinction 17. According to this doctrine, when we love God and neighbor, this love literally is God; we become divine and are taken up into the life of the Trinity. This idea was never declared unorthodox, but few theologians have been prepared to follow Peter Lombard in his audacious teaching.

Lombard's words are:

It has indeed been said above and shown by sacred authorities, that the Holy Spirit is the Love of the Father and the Son, by which They love one another and us. Moreover, it must be added to these, that the very same Holy Spirit is the Love or Charity, by which we love God and neighbor. When this Charity is so great in us, that it makes us love God and neighbor, the Holy Spirit is then said to be sent and/or to be given to us; and he who loves the very love, by which he loves (his) neighbor, in this very (thing) loves God, because Love itself is God, that is, the Holy Spirit.**

You'd have to go far to find a more humbling thought. What do you want to make of your love for others, if it's God's love? Make it more pure, less self-interested? More demonstrative and palpable? Greater in scope, for more of God's children? More in quantity--and how in the world do we do that?

**This is from the Franciscan Archive, which apparently has the only existing translation of the Book of Sentences into English. Hint, hint, enterprising graduate students . . .

Talk About Unintended Consequences

2006-04-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

The New York Times had a really interesting article about how castrati--18th-century opera stars mutilated as boys to preserve their high voices--came into being because of a Vatican prohibition against women in church choirs. Obviously, Rome condemned this practice on behalf of the dignity of the body, but by then castrati had become entrenched in popular culture. I couldn't figure out what this reminded me of.

Then I remembered. It's the documented increase in abortion rates with diminshed access to birth control. What did they think, people would just stop wanting to hear high notes?

Say What You Will About Religion

2006-04-17T22:34:00.000-05:00

Although my Easter wasn't quite as fraught as energetic new blogger SRB's, I did have an interesting conversation with a family member about the usefulness of attending church, or being a part of organized religion in general. It went something like this:

People just go to church because they're lonely losers who need the community.
Yup, that does apply to a lot of churchgoers, but half or more are families or couples who are incredibly busy but still find it important to make time for church. Besides, wait until you're out on your own and come try telling me about lonely losers.

Everybody at church acts fake.
After a discourse about how no sane person behaves in class the same way she does out at the bars, I pointed out that one of the great things about church is the way it forces us to at least act as though we believe that people different from us are our sisters and brothers. If you have the means, you can arrange your world so you never have to encounter anyone you don't agree with: drive your own car, live alone, go places where those of your age, race and income cluster. In church, we know that we're not only going to encounter people different from us, but also that our being there advertises the fact that we believe in our own equality with and fraternal love for everyone else there. This is a holy goal, but it's against lazy human inclination, so no wonder if someone acts a little strange in trying to live it out.

Then I went into this unprompted speech about how one of my favorite things about Catholicism is the way it connects you to two thousand years of history. The faith we celebrated Sunday is the same our grandmother was baptized into and the same her ancestors emigrated to exercise freely and the same the disciples began to build after the death of Jesus. (The Easter vigil liturgy, with its sweep from our oldest faith story to the confirmation of the newest Catholics, reminded me powerfully of this.) Your relationship with your faith will probably be the oldest single relationship you have and the only one that may last your entire life. And then it was:

So you're saying that religion is one constant interpretation that never changes.
No, of course the job of our leaders in faith and our own reflection is to take elements of tradition and make them relevant to our own lives. Isn't it WONDERFUL!

But if people do that, they'll just hear what they want to hear. Like people who just want to come and hear that they're forgiven and so they're all okay.
Yes, a lot of people definitely come to religion for what they can get out of it, and hear what they want to hear in any religious message. But at least they're getting their affirmation in a place that is also going to remind them that they have a responsibility to the poor, and a responsibility to be in community with one another, and a connection to history and to the future. That's not the same as the "Whatever you do is totally fine!" message they'd get from other sources, like Oprah.

And that point I carried. Religion: It's better than Oprah!

Love in the Passion

2006-04-16T18:20:00.000-05:00

As I'm posting this reflection on the Passion on our greatest day of joy, I'll give you a pass if you want to wait to read it. I've been slouching toward the Resurrection this week, taking advantage of school break for my own ends and neglecting my pastoral committment here . . .

John 19:25-27

When I read John's Gospel, I almost want to put it down and walk away at moments during Jesus' trial, march to Calvary, and his Passion. The evangelist does not let us have it easy. We want to say, "Stop! It would have been enough to tell us just once"--that the crowd shouted "Crucify him!", that Jesus fell. But instead the author relentlessly repeats, multiplying the sense of the crowd and their flaming hatred, of Jesus' own helplessness. In stories with a buildup so dramatic and violent we're conditioned to expect a last minute reversal, a hero to swoop down and set everything right. Although we know there will be no deus ex machina here, it still breaks our hearts to see the helplessness of the cast of characters we're rooting for: a suffering man and his anguished, powerless friends.

There are a few stark moments of beauty in this story, thrown into relief against the backdrop of hatred, ignorance and pain. One is when the crucified Jesus calls his mother--addressing her tenderly as "Woman," a term of respect and endearment--and calls his friend John, and makes them family to one another. We often interpret this story as an instance of Jesus' perfect concern for those he loved, and it is that. I see it also as a model of our relationship to God in helpless times of trouble. At a time when Jesus felt abandoned, he made sure that two of his best beloved would not be.

Our artistic tradition tells us that the disciple John was a young and gentle man. We can imagine him as someone, like many we know, who retains the loving heart of a child through every stage in life, perhaps a sensitive person whom life's pains and losses have special power to wound. Jesus who sees and loves the human uniqueness in each of us would have treasured his friend's tender nature, and we can be sure that throughout his passion Jesus' heart was filled with concern for the pain and loss of all those he loved.

With them was Mary, who had known this pain would come since she first held Jesus in her arms. Mary had, in all likelihood, taught Jesus his first prayers; she watched as his role with God grew in his own understanding and in the eyes of the world. She traveled with him throughout his ministry and is called his most faithful disciple. Mary heard as public opinion swelled against Jesus, and she walked with him up Calvary. The strength of God must have been with her in so strong a way as to be almost a part of her being. God was not visible when the Son of God died, but God's steadfast, unyielding, parental love was manifest: the mother of God was there on that hill.

Jesus commits John and Mary to one another's care. This is a model of human concern for the welfare of those we love, and it's more than that. As Jesus entrusted the disciple John to the motherly attentions of the one who gave him life, he entrusts all of us who are his sisters and brothers to the care of God who gave Jesus life. John accepted his responsibility to care for Mary's earthly welfare, taking her into his home. We, too, are called to respond to God's parental love with willing attention to God's well-being, God's purpose on earth.

I imagine the young disciple and the aging disciple embracing one another in honor of Jesus' request. Mary's arms encircled one who was human as her son was human; John was comforted by the strength of God who was with Mary intrinsically and innately. Perhaps we, too, can do nothing better when we are faced with the relentless horror of the crucifixion but to reach out our human arms and embrace God. Hold on tight.

Viscerally grateful--but not for long

2006-04-07T15:31:00.000-05:00

Matthew 14:25-32

Peter's terror in this, one of his characteristic scrapes, spoke differently to me after an experience I had earlier this year. Driving north on Lakeshore on a slightly misty evening, I whipped around a curve and suddenly saw a car stopped ahead of me in the lane, its passengers clustering around it. I slammed on the brakes and suddenly, with a horrible noise, my tiny car was skidding towards the concrete lane divider. I tried to gain control of it, while all I could see were my own headlights on that solid wall ahead of me. Amazingly, though, I came to a stop without hitting either the wall or the stalled car that had caused me to skid. (I realized later that I had turned diagonally but was skidding parallel to the wall, which explained why it had seemed to be rushing up to me for such a long moment.) The other cars also had miraculously avoided me. I sat in my lane shaking and sobbing, "God, you saved my life, you saved my life!"

In that moment, I felt the hand of God acting in my life as clearly as if I were holding Jesus' hand to keep out of the waves. But I'm like Peter: no matter how many times God teaches me with stories, yanks me away from catastrophe or fills my nets with fish, I fall back into apathy and doubt. One minute we're transfixed with joy at Jesus' saving power; a few minutes later we realize it's the middle of the night, we've still got to row his prayer-boat back to shore, and our feet are wet. The annoyances of life—especially if we forget that life is in Jesus' service—crowd on top of these Kairos moments as fast as I went into my skid, and with the same power to obliterate all our joy. I've known this story all my life without reading it quite this way, and I'd lacked this perspective on my almost-crash until I read it again: the light hit the mirror just right, and I was able to see myself.

Immigrants' rights: a few days without shopping

2006-04-05T15:41:00.000-05:00

Boycotts of everything will be going on May 1 and, in some cities at least, April 10 to protest HR 4437. Clean up your white shirt and stick that cash back in your pocket: you'll be right in step with hundreds of thousands of US working people and bishops all over the country.

iPope bopping to divine beats

2006-04-04T15:15:00.000-05:00

Last month the staff at Vatican Radio gave Benedict XVI a shiny new iPod. (Although the Papa's known to have a taste for luxury, it's a relatively humble Shuffle.) Apparently he's got it loaded with Vatican radio programming: audio plays, commentary and snore-inducing classical.

I mention this because I'm working with a few friends on a prayer service focusing on contemporary music and thought I'd hit up my dear blogfans for suggestions. Understand that I'm not talking contemporary liturgical music, although we all love the acoustic guitar. I fear that Catholic prayer post-Vatican II risks being stuck in the aesthetic style of era that created it--the sixties--just as firmly as pre-Vatican II worship was mired in the medieval trappings that codified it. Parish choirs sometimes do a good job breaking out of this mold (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a little afraid of them, because everyone knows that she who runs the liturgy runs the parish and that's the choir director, so please stop brandishing those music stands) but when you've got amateurs organizing prayer outside of liturgy you're even more likely to end up surfeited with the chords C, G and F and lyric imagery straight out of Free to Be . . . You and Me. Which is certainly fine in proportion.

But there are more ways of being spiritual than that particular aesthetic vocabulary can express, and my friends and I think the music we listen to contains some fine examples. Which rock, hip-hop, techno or (gasp) pop songs fire your spiritual imagination, and why? I'll try to find your choices and comment on them in a later post, and I'll talk about some of my own.

Reflection on Lamentations

2006-04-03T10:48:00.000-05:00

Super-belated. Sorry.

Lamentations 1:15
“All the mighty ones in my midst the Lord has cast away; He summoned an army against me to crush my young men; The LORD has trodden in the wine press virgin daughter Judah.”

I was just a few days into my first year of college on September 11, 2001. I’ve never seen my student Mass as full as it was the Sunday after that cataclysmic day. I have a powerful image of coming in late to find that I could barely make my way inside the doors, as the church was packed to standing room only, all staring with more than usual intensity at the presider.

In the face of terrible events of such great scope, people often ask how a believer still believes. This wasn’t an issue for those Massgoers that day, and it wasn’t a question after Jerusalem fell. The Hebrews knew that any event so greatly tragic didn’t disprove God: God was clearly bound up in something so huge. Their interpretation was that God had caused this tragedy to happen: perhaps they couldn’t imagine humans capable of such great destructive power.

I was greatly moved throughout the book of Lamentations by the image of the broken nation as a daughter. In many languages today, we call our countries mother- or fatherland: Uncle Sam, la patrie, Mother India. This parental image implies that our nation owes us something, is more powerful than we are, and that perhaps—as all children secretly suspect—we ourselves know better than to do the foolish things our country does.

Contrast this with the image of nation in the book of Lamentations. It grieves a parent deeply to see a child suffer, perhaps more than an injury to oneself. And fairly or not, a parent feels responsible for a child’s wrong behavior. The inhabitants of Jerusalem saw this connection clearly: they felt that where their nation had gone wrong, each of them was responsible. The prophets of our own day are shouting to make this message heard again.

Diagnosis: Prayer hurt heart patients

2006-03-31T10:17:00.000-06:00

This is pretty funny. Patients who were prayed for without knowing it had similar outcomes to those who didn't get prayed for, and those who knew they were being prayed for did worst of all. (This certainly explains a couple of my exam grades in college, Grandma.) Maybe now people will quit studying prayer. It bugs me every time they announce another study that shows that prayer helped people recover from this or that. Oh, well, I wasn't praying for his surgery before, but this changes everything? Studies that thinly hide attempts to prove various matters of faith only contribute to the popular attitude among intellectuals that believers must be dogmatists or naive, and unfortunately, this outcome dresses that stigma up in poetic justice. I sense a certain giggle in the voice of this editorial in the American Heart Journal, where the study was published: they said researchers "must be vigilant in asking the question of whether a well-intentioned, loving, heartfelt healing prayer might inadvertently harm or kill vulnerable patients in certain circumstances."

Dorothy Day's parish could close

2006-03-28T22:42:00.000-06:00

The parish where Dorothy Day worshipped, the Jesuit-run Church of the Nativity in New York, is on the list of parishes tapped by the archdiocese to close. I was thinking about whether Dorothy Day would be sad about this. From reading her biography, I have the sense that she accepted the necessary loss of physical space, even those she had worked very hard for--the Catholic Workers' self-sustaining farm and the beach house where she raised her daughter and which eventually passed into the CW community. It's never easy to say goodbye to a beloved place, but I think the closing of a parish community--and the services it provides in the East Village--would have troubled her more.

On the other hand, Dorothy Day deeply loved the sacraments, and would not have accepted the division we often see between service-minded Catholics and pious ones. The Catholic Worker house where she lived, Maryhouse, is still active in the neighborhood, but where will they worship now?

I'm trying to decide whether it would be fitting, in her honor, to send the Church of the Nativity something in hopes they can stay open, or whether I should just send it to Maryhouse, who will probably end up ministering to Nativity's needy if it closes. At any rate, I found both their addresses:

Church of the Nativity
44 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
(212) 674-8590

Maryhouse
55 East Third Street,
New York, NY 10003
Tel: 212-777-9617

I Don't Wanna Read the Hebrew Bible

2006-03-22T13:54:00.000-06:00

One of the great things about the class I'm taking on Biblical spirituality is that I'm reading much of the Bible I haven't spent much time with before. One of the less appealing things about it is the part about reading much of the Bible I haven't spent much time with before. There's a reason they publish volumes with just the New Testament and Psalms--Jesus' teachings and the prayers he grew up with are transparently relevant and full of solace. If you're having a tough time, it's pretty easy to flip through the Psalms or the Gospels and find some comfort in the fact that God promises to lift you from despair, or just to blow off your feelings in the course of meditating on how great God is.

The Pentateuch and the Prophets, in contrast, are full of terrible things happening to the Israelites, dire imprecations against their enemies, God imposing arcane rules, violence, despair, and genealogy. Individual stories are too long to fit the lectionary or too thorny to fit in a picture book (which explains why there are names I've never heard before) and, toughest of all, they don't have clear morals. It's like, okay, a bad thing happened to that person. Why? God met with Moses and was about to kill him. Huh? I thought God liked Moses. See, that's the great thing about the Gospel parables--sometimes their points are stated right in there, and if not, you've heard them in church or in cliche so often that you know what you're in for. It's easy to see why a person trying to add some Bible to her spirituality would stick to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and David.

But that would be cheating, and Theologienne is deeply suspicious of anything that's too easy. Some folks hold that the only way to make the Bible liberative is to toss out parts of it, but I disagree. To say that any part of the Bible can't reveal some aspect of God's will to us shows a failure of imagination, and by that I mean not making stuff up but deep openness to the Holy Spirit, willingness to let your mind move in ways it hasn't traveled before. It's a good challenge to think about what meaning the saddest stories in the Bible had for those who wrote them down and what hope they can carry for us today. You might need to know the context and you might find it buried in tension, but if you trust that God wants us to hope, the good word has to be in there somewhere.

Tomorrow, my reflection on Lamentations . . .

Green beer flows, religious freedom triumphs

2006-03-17T11:54:00.000-06:00

So if you're like me, you daren't let the word "holiday" cross your lips lest Bill Donohue and his ilk leap out and start whacking you with an Advent wreath, a copy of Left Behind or something even more holy. But where is the president of the Catholic League when the only saint's day most Americans celebrate (well, Valentine's, okay, but at least that's about love) is incarnated as Mardi Gras for cold weather? Getting all stoked about how he's allowed to eat meat on Friday. Could we change the name to Freedom from Snakes Day and see if we can get a rise out of anybody? And why does the media always assume everybody's going to be fascinated by the St. Pat's Lenten exemption? Do they just want to help justice be done by getting the good word out to Catholics? Anyway, go mairir is go gathair!

Falling in love with God this Lent

2006-03-14T23:10:00.000-06:00

In college a friend of mine quit a club with the simple excuse that
he'd gotten engaged. Some of us thought this was pretty funny at the
time, but there is logic to it. Sometimes it takes all your mental
energy to be in love, and all the boring business of everyday life
that interferes with being in love just falls away. In Lent, by
cutting down on some of the more useless elements of life's business,
we give ourselves a chance to recapture or find for the first time a
frisson of Divine love, to remember what it feels like to be in deep
mutual love with God.

Whatever you're doing for Lent, use it so that God has a chance to
reach you. If you're giving up TV, don't pick up a new hobby: find
time for silence or manual work so that God can speak. If it's a food,
that's (at least) three times a day you'll be reminded that God
affects your daily life. What else can you do with that knowledge?

All the space we could possibly make for God by eliminating TV or
iPods or by praying more would make no difference if God didn't reach
out. But the truth is that God is constantly reaching out to us, not
just during Lent; calling, sending flowers and divine text messages (I
<3 U n U R MINE.) We are too good at shutting ourselves off from God's
call, at distracting ourselves so that no insight can slip through, at
talking ourselves into the ideas of our culture and out of God's
genius plans for us. We know what we're about: deep down we know that
falling in love with God is a scary proposition. Better to fill our
ears with buzz and our days with tasks than to leave ourselves open to
the kind of enormous change our enormous God could demand.

But if we keep ourselves shut off from God's gentle nudge, we also
shut out the courage and energy and faith that God offers along with
those enormous, scary plans. And so we force ourselves to open, even
if it's just a chink in the armor, because we know God can shine great
light through a tiny crack. We risk and we receive, and we allow
ourselves to fall in love.

Adam and Eve is about humanity, not gender

2006-03-09T23:53:00.000-06:00

This is my biblical spirituality class reflection from last week (wow, could I possibly have a backlog of material?) on Genesis 2-3.

In her book, which we use in class, my professor understood this creation story as a description of ideal mutuality and equality between man and woman. We’ve all grown up learning that the story of Adam and Eve and the rib is an affirmation of marriage and of married sexuality. This is an important angle, especially given the history of our faith to disproportionately value asceticism and celibacy, a prejudice that survives in the canonization process. But as a single person, I contend that writing this story off as simply marriage is simply not good enough. This story is one of our fundamental Biblical insights into our relationships to God and to one another. Is there nothing deeper to say about men and women in the world than “it’s good when they’re married?” (It’s very odd that traditional Catholic biblical commentators have explained away the Song of Songs, which clearly does describe earthly love, as a metaphor for Christ’s love for the church, and yet the best they could do with this mythic and mystical Creation story has been “an affirmation of marriage.” )

I’m glad that the church is moving towards affirming marriage and married sexuality, and that I won’t have to grow old in a church that thinks marriage and sex are the last resort of the weak and lustful. But too much conversation around relational spirituality, from the Vatican to National Catholic Reporter, still focuses exclusively on marriage and the family unit. Single people are not just miscellaneous laity in some sort of pre-married state. I know that every bit of the Bible is relevant to me now and will be at every stage in my life. There is a distinct spirituality of singlehood to be found, but our humanity and our relationship to God are the lowest common denominator brought into focus through this story. Taking the sheen of marriage off Adam and Eve not only makes their story more universally appealing to the faithful, it clears the field for deeper messages of human nature: equal to one another and created by God.

The Inquisition, Part Deux

2006-03-08T23:25:00.000-06:00

The apostolic visitation is back. Formators warned our seminarians: "There are three words that are going to mean very different things to the bishops than they do here: relativism, critical (as in thinking), and feminism."

Because who needs academic rigor and inclusion when you've got absolutism, dogmatism, and misogyny?

The church is us

2006-03-06T23:33:00.000-06:00

Here's a great comment from a friend of mine on the Church, the body of Christ. He's responding to efforts by Boston's archbishop, recently named Cardinal O'Malley, to change Massachusetts law so Catholic Charities of Boston will be able to bar gay couples from adopting Catholic Charities' kids. My friend wrote:

The church IS good. It is the body of Christ. We are all the body of Christ. What O'Malley and other officials choose to say and do often challenges my faith in the Church, but it shouldn't because the Church is something much more profound than O'Malley. That being said, if one believes that there is illness within the Church, it is his/her duty to heal it rather than abandon the whole and set up a "virtue colony" which will probably end up being hypocritical in the end anyway. It may seem contradictory that the church is "good" but that it also "needs healing," but I think that this gives pretty good witness to the temporal and transcendent nature of the Church and Catholicism's integrated corporeal-spiritual duality.

My response: This exactly captures what I never seem to be able to articulate to people about the church. I agree that the flaws in the Church show its incarnationality. The beautiful flip side of that incarnationality is that you or I are as much of a part of the church as Cardinal O'Malley--we are each the same size light in the kaleidoscope. Sometimes it seems unequal because only some may make policy and get interviewed by the media, but that's false because the Church is only tangentially about internal or public policy--it's about the love of Christ in the world, and you and I have the chance to love like Christ and to show Christ's love in ways and in situations that O'Malley never could. The Spirit moving in the people of God is like a breeze in a field--every stalk moves differently, some of them even move in the opposite direction. And a stalk, obviously, has no hope of knowing the entire picture. But we believe that the Spirit is leading God's people somewhere good.

Ash Wednesday Mosaic

2006-03-04T00:43:00.000-06:00

Ash Wednesday Mosaic
Originally uploaded by theologienne.

I envisioned this project during Ash Wednesday service at a downtown church, where everyone from the very rich to the homeless came to be marked. Although Ash Wednesday is solemn, it always has an exciting air for me because it's the day you get to find out who's Catholic, or better, you see many others (not all Catholic) who like you are interested in attentiveness to the path we're on. Focusing on the commonalities we choose--the ash and the simple gesture used to apply it--also beautifully highlights our diversity.

Idaho priest: Gay unions will strengthen society

2006-03-02T13:31:00.000-06:00

Rev. W. Thomas Faucher, in religious life since age 13, wrote in the Idaho Statesman:

For a Roman Catholic priest to address anything to do with homosexuality at this point in American history is probably not a wise move . . . But I have not always been particularly wise. [Us either.] It is not the right nor the responsibility of the Legislature to decide moral issues. . . The argument says that allowing two people of the same gender to form a legal union would weaken marriage and weaken family life. I strongly disagree and, in fact, believe that allowing same-gender legal unions would strengthen marriage and family life.

Father Faucher dares to acknowledge the goodness of gay and lesbian people and to suggest that American law is not a vehicle for religious doctrine: fellow Christians are going to give him a lot of flak. Send him your support at (no spaces) w t fauch (at) aol (dot) com. He ministers at St. Mary's in Boise.

Ash Wednesday quasi-poll

2006-03-02T00:58:00.000-06:00

I'm actually working on a special Ash Wednesday or I guess slash Lent project for the blog, but let me throw this out really quickly:

What did you hear from the person who gave you ashes today: "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return" or "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel?" Which do you think is better?
What are you doing, giving up, adding in, changing or adhering to for Lent?

A blessed and fruitful Lent to all.

No more taxes for religious ed

2006-02-28T15:36:00.000-06:00

Chalk one up for the Constitution and common sense in sex ed.

Lawsuit Settlement Pulls HHS Funding for Silver Ring Thing Abstinence Program

From The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy:

In a closely watched case, a federal agency has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed against it by suspending funding for a sexual abstinence program accused of using taxpayer dollars to present religious messages.

Under the agreement, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agreed to withhold the $75,000 grant it made to Silver Ring Thing, which runs faith-based sexual abstinence education programs for teenagers throughout the country. The case had been brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which alleged that the group violated the First Amendment because the federally-funded program's abstinence message was not adequately separated from religious components.

Contraception? Not in my tropical backyard

2006-02-27T12:59:00.000-06:00

The founder of Domino's is founding a town to embody his conservative Catholic ideals. I wonder if there will be any low-income housing?

Abortions, pornography and contraceptives will be banned in the new Florida town of Ave Maria, which has begun to take shape on former vegetable farms 90 miles northwest of Miami.

Tom Monaghan, the founder of the Domino’s Pizza chain, has stirred protests from civil rights activists by declaring that Ave Maria’s pharmacies will not be allowed to sell condoms or birth control pills. The town’s cable television network will carry no X-rated channels.

The town will be centred around a 100ft tall oratory and the first Catholic university to be built in America for 40 years. . . .

Monaghan, 68, sold his takeaway chain in 1998 for an estimated $1 billion (£573m). A devout Catholic who has ploughed millions into religious projects — including radio stations, primary schools and a Catholic law faculty in Michigan — Monaghan has bought about 5,000 acres previously used by migrant farmers.

The Sunday Times titled this article Pizza pope builds a Catholic heaven. I hope that's a typo and the venerable Times meant "Catholic haven." Heaven as a place to force conformity, to refuse to change and be changed by the whole uncooperative world? I don't think so. I don't think either of these Catholics thought so either.

Update: According to Working for Change, Monaghan is developing low-income housing in Ave Maria and nearby towns. Good. But this article also tells of his plans to have Mass said hourly in a town of 30,000 souls. Does this seem like an irresponsible, if not impossible, use of ministerial time in a nation with one priest to every 2,200 Catholics?

Cycles of abuse in Genesis

2006-02-22T14:47:00.000-06:00

(another reflection for class; it was on Genesis 7-22)

It’s funny how limited are the notions of Bible stories we acquire from the lectionary. I never realized that Abraham (twice) basically handed Sarah over to sexual servitude, and so I never saw that she visits the same oppression on Hagar by forcing Hagar to bear Abraham’s child. Abraham betrays Sarah in this way because he fears violence against himself, yes, but he puts himself and Sarah in harm’s way because he was following God’s promise of wealth and descendants. In fact, the animals Sarah’s prostitution brings in facilitate God’s covenant with Abraham (15:10 ff.) What would have happened if the couple had stayed home, or if Abraham had owned Sarah as his wife?

Despite these depressing themes, this section carried a beautiful surprise in the story of Hagar naming God (16:13). Although Hagar is forced to submit to abuse from both Abraham and Sarah, she sees the face of God and owns her faith by giving God a name. One translation—David Rosenberg’s in The Book of J—renders Hagar’s exclamation “You are the God I lived to see and lived after seeing,” showing the importance to her of this spiritual encounter and her unique status as God’s servant, outliving the encounter. Even in this problematic selection, full of God’s followers behaving badly, the seeker finds a story of the God of justice, who raises up the lowly.

Disturbing accusations in New York

2006-02-17T17:24:00.000-06:00

From the Village Voice:

Who knows whether Cardinal Edward Egan is sleeping soundly these days. But as head of the New York archdiocese—as the top Roman Catholic prelate in the state—he'd have every reason to be restless after the recent advent of a little-noticed lawsuit.
The suit, now pending in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, was filed on December 13 by Bob Hoatson—a 53-year-old New Jersey priest considered a stalwart ally among survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. Hoatson, the now-suspended chaplain for Catholic Charities in Newark, is suing Egan and nine other Catholic officials and institutions, claiming a pattern of "retaliation and harassment" that began after Hoatson alleged a cover-up of clergy abuse in New York and started helping victims.

But that's not all his lawsuit claims. Halfway through the 44-page complaint, the priest-turned-advocate drops a bomb on the cardinal: He alleges that Egan is "actively homosexual," and that he has "personal knowledge of this." His suit names two other top Catholic clerics in the region as actively gay—Albany bishop Howard Hubbard and Newark archbishop John Myers.

It's not that Hoatson has a problem with, as the suit puts it, "consensual, adult private sexual behavior by these defendants."

No, what Hoatson claims is that, as leaders of a church requiring celibacy and condemning homosexuality, actively gay bishops are too afraid of being exposed themselves to turn in pedophile priests.

Hoatson and his attorney save their worst accusations for Bishop Hubbard, accusing the other two bishops named of consensual sex between adults, but alleging that Bishop Hubbard solicited teenage boys for sex in a park. If this is true, such a terrible breach of pastoral trust absolutely needs to be brought to light, and I feel comfortable with erring on the side of believing the victimized. But in the Albany diocese, Bishop Hubbard is not percieved as guilty of the crime of failure to prosecute bad priests, even if he is guilty of the motives his accusers allege. He's been a leader in working toward diocesan transparency and outreach to victim/survivors of clergy abuse, and he's a personally involved and pastoral church leader. I deeply hope that these accusations are nothing but lies, but it's hard to understand why Hoatson and Aretakis would fabricate motives when the crime they claim isn't in evidence.

On Jesus' call to hate your family

2006-02-13T13:05:00.000-06:00

One of the classes I'm taking this term is on biblical spirituality, or applying the Bible in faith contexts as opposed to analyzing it historically and critically. We have to write weekly small reflections on Scripture passages, which I'll be posting here. This week we were supposed to pick one that's been personally relevant to us.

Luke 14:25-33

Jesus’ call to renounce all our “possessions” and earthly attachments helps us develop a mindset that will protect us from despair when life’s losses inevitably come. This message is more familiar and comfortable to Christians than the anti-family rancor this text also seems to communicate. This year, as I started to build a life independent of my family, I began to perceive a meaning in this text that is actually helpful to my own spirituality. Jesus’ elaboration shows that he wants his followers not to rely more than is wise on their family connections: even if your family is as strong as ten thousand troops, your spiritual life may demand that you seek peace, going another way from what your family situation alone would suggest. Furthermore, both of Jesus’ examples suggest that it is still okay to love your family and to act in their best interest. The king seeks a peace treaty because he doesn’t want his troops to die, and the builder wants to see the tower completed. But the troops don’t dictate the terms of engagement in battle, and in life as a disciple of Jesus, even the people dearest to you are only one component of what will lead to the hoped-for outcome. Ultimately, Jesus tells his disciples in this paragraph not that we shouldn’t love our family, but how we should love them. It’s important that he calls us to “take up our cross” immediately after warning us that we need to be prepared to lose everything most dear to us. We need to keep our family’s role in our life proportionate so that we can listen to the call of Christ, but part of that call is to attend to our responsibilities with love and wisdom.

Be heard by bishops

2006-02-09T12:31:00.000-06:00

So much to post about as the evil of sex abuse continues to blow up all over the country . . . But first, something with a deadline. Anne Y. Koester of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy advises the USCCB Committee on Women in the Church and in Society, and she's presenting to the bishops on the concerns of Catholic women in Generation Y. If you were born with two X chromosomes after 1982, email her at aky2(at)georgetown(dot)edu with thoughts, including but not limited to answers to the following questions. Ms. Koester is nice, and this is a great opportunity to speak truth to power.

1a. What do you find most fulfilling or most meaningful about being
Catholic?

1b. What do you find least fulfilling or least meaningful about being
Catholic?

2a. What does the Catholic Church offer that is helpful to you as a
young woman of Generation Y?

2b. What does the Catholic Church need to offer that it presently does
not for it to be helpful to you?

3. What questions do you have for Church leaders (ordained and lay), or
stated differently, what do you believe Church leaders need most to pay
attention to in the contemporary U.S. Church and in the larger society?

Please feel free to add any other comments you might have that are not
covered by these questions.

Michael Jackson could sing JPII's poems

2006-02-06T16:06:00.000-06:00

Sad Catholic irony reaches new heights.

From Reuters:

Father Giuseppe Moscati of the Edizioni Musicali Terzo Millennio, which specializes in church music and organizes musical events at the Vatican, said his company had the rights to 24 of Pope John Paul's prayers and wanted to put together a group of international artists to set them to music.

"We have been contacted by people close to Michael Jackson who have expressed interest and we are thinking about it," Moscati said.

He dismissed the recent controversy surrounding Jackson, who is living in Bahrain after a Californian court acquitted him of child molestation charges last June.

"He has been cleared of all charges," Moscati said.

No words. None. Only that I'd like to hear John Allen Jr.'s explanation for this one.

Bet you've never had this problem

2006-02-03T13:50:00.000-06:00

When I took my first theology class (Feminist Biblical Interpretation, which ought to tell you something) I bought the first serious Bible I've ever owned. I mean, I had some before that--the kid kind that are disappointing Christmas presents, and then an old and musty one I bought because I liked the gilding on the pages. I used to flip through it looking for annotations from the little old lady who owned it before, and sometimes even read the Psalms. But then in college I got my New Oxford Annotated Bible, an impressive tome with the editors' names on the cover, which must be a hell of a feeling. It's a good version, with exotic Apocrypha and useful historical background, and sometimes I even read it *not* for class. (Although study Bibles aren't really the best for meditation, especially if you're a word junkie like I am who gets all wrapped up in the footnotes.) Anyway. A class I'll be taking this semester (Biblical Spirituality, rumored to be awesome, they had to move it to a bigger classroom, which I somehow find hilarious at a divinity school) recommends The Catholic Study Bible, which I'm sure is also a lovely work.

The respective merits of the Bibles aren't really the issue. (My current has inclusive language, which I don't think the Catholic Study B does, being, uh, Catholic, but then it would be nice to be using the same text as the lectionary.) No, the thing is, two Bibles? Owning two Bibles? For some reason the second Bible seems to me like a third cat or a fourth kid, something whose acquisition makes you "that lady with the [blank]s." You'd be surprised how often people check out my bookshelves, and I think it's important to maintain an image that will allow people who don't believe what I do to the extent that I do to take my opinions seriously. I think people who know me come to know that I am absolutely crazy about God, but I generally try not to word-for-word open with that. I find the image of being crazy about religion even less conducive to good conversations.

It is bad--quite bad--enough that my obviously holier roommate just put up a crucifix in the kitchen. And of course I can't petition for its removal, because it's a crucifix! And I can't get rid of an extra Bible, because it's a Bible! You don't just jettison a Bible for the latest model!

Maybe I can remove all the images from the kitchen during Lent. And conceal that extra Bible on my roommate's shelf.

Since You Like To Prepare To Watch TV

2006-01-31T11:38:00.000-06:00

If you'll be watching the State of the Union tonight, Faithful America offers a reflection on our national score on the Biblical virtues of justice, mercy and humility. They call for openness in government and humility overseas, and keep morality in the public domain (free from paleocon copyright) with the reminder that "budgets are moral documents." Sojourners, an ecumenical group which characterizes itself as progressive where Faithful America's nonpartisan, also offers a resource kit for encountering the State.

On the other hand, to engage with the ideas presented at the same level as the one who'll be reading them, you could take the apostolic approach and go with the perennial drinking game.

Kanye West poses as Jesus

2006-01-25T16:45:00.000-06:00

So I figure this could go one of two ways. One, all sorts of people--you know the kind, the ones you daren't say "Happy Holidays" to--are going to get all over Kanye for depicting himself as Christ. In which case you and I will all enjoy ourselves utterly by asking them "Yeah, I know, you said the same thing when "The Passion" came out, didn't you? You know, how disrespectful it is for one person to have the hubris to take and control the image of Jesus for their own self-aggrandizement? Yeah, I mean, you were all over that Mel Gibson, weren't you?" That will be fun.

The other way it could go is that everyone will get kind of nervous, because Kanye did do "Jesus Walks", after all, and got a lot of Grammy noms, and seems to be a fairly together guy, and plus when looking at that picture they'll realize that hey, Kanye does look a darn sight more like Jesus than James Caviezel, for pete's sake, and that will remind them of the big stink they so patently did not make over Mel Gibson's white Jesus, and then it'll be a race thing, and no one will touch it. That could happen, but it won't be as fun.

Then you have the Super-Intelli Theologienne reaction, obviously better than either of the preceding two, which goes as follows. According to my theological source, TheSuperficial.com, Kanye's explanation of this photo shoot was, "In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts. You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?"

Now we know Kanye is a faithful guy who, even though he likes to talk about how great he is, obviously wouldn't blaspheme by depicting himself as Jesus to make that point. (And we also assume he knows enough about the Bible that did he choose to do something so dubious, he'd use an image of the risen and not the suffering Christ.) So look what he's doing here. Kanye depicts himself as Jesus, knowing that everyone who looks at that picture is going to think, "What, Kanye West thinks he's Jesus?" (Maybe they'll even go on to think, "Mr. West, I know Jesus. Jesus is a friend of mine. And Mr. West . . ." Anyway.) Cause of course we know he isn't. What Kanye's doing is an important postmodern technique which would sound a lot more impressive if I could remember the stinking word for it. Ahh! I'll look it up for you.

Kanye's using a sign that is obviously different from the thing it signifies to show you something about the signified. "Pff, well, Kanye West isn't God." Right, but he's now tricked us into thinking about the discrepancy between humans (even Grammy-winning humans) and God. Whatever Kanye West is--finite, American, lyrical, black, male--the irritated Rolling Stone reader is forced to conclude that God may be that, but is anyway clearly more than that. Not a bad insight on a walk past the newsstand.

Which American Catholic are you?

2006-01-22T15:45:00.000-06:00

(I apologize for this complete non-post after several days of silence, but I'm taking a J-term class which meets three hours, five days a week, and consequently passing through the valley of the shadow of holding my tongue. And actually, I have been looking for a good Catholic meme like this one. Belief-O-Matic is fun too. All right, now, fall to.)

You scored as Liberal Catholic. You embrace the social justice mission of the Church, and the view of Catholic community as seen in the Acts of Apostles. You have a great love of the American democratic tradition, but tend to want to apply these traditions to the Church itself and the deposit of faith. You want a married and female clergy, decentralization of power, and an endless list of reforms. You feel that you are a true champion of the Second Vatican Council.

Like the Neo-Conservative Catholic, your views may be too determined by American culture, and you may uncritically accept many theories that may be harmful to yourself and society; instead you may need rediscover authentic Catholic thinking. You should emphasize the love of God, as your Creator and sustainer.

[Well, I don't like to think that I accept views uncritically, and tend to find my own most helpful to myself and society, but I think the insight that both liberal and conservative Catholics can be unhealthily affected by American society is quite fine. Well done, quiz.]

http://saint-louis.blogspot.com - Rome of the West

Liberal Catholic

95%

Evangelical Catholic

69%

Radical Catholic

64%

Neo-Conservative Catholic

55%

Traditional Catholic

24%

New Catholic

17%

Lukewarm Catholic

10%

What is your style of American Catholicism?
created with QuizFarm.com

US Bishops: Out of Iraq!

2006-01-17T14:38:00.000-06:00

From the Vermont Guardian:

Declaring that the United States was at a crossroads in Iraq, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops said it was time to withdraw U.S. troops as fast as possible, and turn over control of the country to Iraqis.

“Our nation’s military forces should remain in Iraq only as long as it takes for a responsible transition, leaving sooner than later,” said Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando, FL, in a statement.

Oo-ee, do I know some Catholics who are not going to like this. Many of 'em the type who want those who disagree with any tittle of teaching (or fail to vote a disproportionately restricted Catholic position) to leave the Church. So we can all hold our breath for the mass apostasy of America's Catholic hawks.

P.S. In case you don't trust a Vermont paper on peace issues, here's the actual bishops' statement on Iraq. While they focused their press release on their call for dialogue, the statement itself says, "Our nation’s military forces should remain in Iraq only as long as it takes for a responsible transition, leaving sooner rather than later." Right on, Mountain Staters. And thanks, bishops. Keep preaching peace.

Progressives Hail their "Moral Issue"

2006-01-16T11:50:00.000-06:00

I have to study for a take-home tonight, but wanted to quickly recommend this Times Magazine article on the newest political "moral issue," the living wage (What Is a Living Wage? - New York Times).

Rev. Jerome Martinez, a supporter of Santa Fe's living wage movement, said "I have gotten a lot of grief from some people, business owners, who say, 'Father, why don't you stick to religion?' Well, pardon me - this is religion. The scripture is full of matters of justice. How can you worship a God that you do not see and then oppress the workers that you do see?"

I hope this article inspires more Christians in power to think seriously about how they can support the vision of worker dignity contained in Catholic social teaching. Legatus is an organization of Catholic executives, "witnesses to Christians ethics in the field of business," their website says. A list of goals written by one Catholic CEO doesn't invoke these beyond recommending examination of "ethical business practices," (which could have to do with consumers rather than workers)--but he does recommend using religious stamps.

Colombian Town May Mandate Carrying Condoms

2006-01-12T13:08:00.000-06:00

A town with one of the highest HIV infection rates in Colombia may make it a crime not to have a condom on you if you're 14 and up (Town weighs requiring residents to carry condoms, Chicago Tribune.) The Catholic clergy is bemused, to say the least, though I give points for openmindedness to the priest who said he'd rather see more widespread education about the consequences of sex. Although don't you think this plan would also help in that regard?

Wow, what's this, Mom?
It's a pocket scapular. Now shut up and do your brother's laundry.

The proposal's a valuable publicity stunt, and I sure hope it stays just that. I mean, how far is this going to go? Will enforcers be checking expiration dates? "Ma'am, judging by the looks of your boyfriend you've got the wrong size here, I'm going to have to write you a ticket?" Plus, there are so many unforeseeable consequences to this kind of weird governmental intervention. You KNOW the rough kids in Tulua are already thinking up new ways to be bad-ass once even the nerdiest have a Trojan in their backpacks.

Abused bishop stands with all excluded Catholics

2006-01-12T00:35:00.000-06:00

The bishop prays at a trial of antiwar demonstrators earlier this year.

Detroit's Bishop Tom Gumbleton shared today that he, too, was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a priest. Sensible of the range of victims' experiences, the gentle cleric friends call Gumbo went out of his way to note that others have undergone far worse: Bishop Gumbleton escaped the repeated pattern of violent abuse that can leave the worst scars. This brave disclosure has already exposed the bishop to inchoate and slanderous attacks from the blogosphere, but we're not going to study 'bout that narrow-minded offal. Rather, know:

Bishop Gumbleton is best known as a champion of peace and justice, but he's also worked to strengthen the Church as a supporter of gay and lesbian Catholics. According to a mentor of mine who knew him well (and from whom I drew the nickname), Bishop Gumbleton is a large part of the reason the American Midwest is so open, in parish life, to the gifts of women and laypeople. Aisha Taylor of Women's Ordination Conference wrote in an email: "Bishop Gumbleton was the only bishop to join Women's Ordination Conference at our prayerful protest outside the bishops' meeting in November 2004. He wore a purple stole (international symbol of women's ordination), pearls (symbol of that particular protest), and talked with us before leaving the meeting saying he was not going back inside." Sometimes--often--you minister best by standing with those on the outside. With his courageous disclosure, Bishop Gumbleton steps out of the Church hierarchy to join abuse victims and all Catholics who've been staring for too long at a door that's firmly closed.

Is Gender Necessary? Hell No!

2006-01-11T00:30:00.000-06:00

We had a Human Sexuality seminar at school this weekend. It was good to see the priests and nuns and other future ministers of the church recieving scientifically sound, sex-positive education. Part of it, though, really irked me. We were talking about, you know, how sexuality includes gender and identity and how all of that impacts on how we relate to others, and all of a sudden there's this slide up with a list of male and female qualities. You know, women are into social relationships, men are into hierarchical positions. Women want to be listened to, men want to solve problems. (This one particularly irked me as I'm often being tasked for jumping in with solutions, and I have a good female friend who's even more so. (Me: "Geez, I feel so bad I haven't sent so-and-so's present yet." Her: "Oh! Well, send it today."))

Now, granted, my friends are weird, but we aren't that broadly unusual. Since I've got example after example of folks who don't fit these broad generalizations (men who want to be listened to, women who prioritize rules over individuals, women who bond by doing and men who bond by talking, &c) I can only imagine that anyone who genuinely believes these things to be true of most of the human family has a stake in that belief so strong it's affected their worldview. The position of that stake doesn't have to be "I hate men," or "Aren't those women sweet little things." It could be "My sisters and I are at last winning acceptance," or even "Though myself a man, I am comfortable saying positive things about women." Heck, it could just be "I am a person who does well with categories."

This is lazy psychology, but as theology, it's even worse. If you have no problem with going around proclaiming that women are less competitive, more person-oriented, consensus-inclined and values-driven than men (oh yes, I read my Carol Gilligan), then listen: you're saying that women are inherently, by their very nature, more capable of expressing Christian values than men are. Men get the math skills, but we get the sanctity. Well-intentioned, at some point back there a few, futile steps ago, but wrong-headed, dangerous and completely unacceptable.

Categories are comfortable; they make us feel smart. They are also an unacceptable foundation on which to build any brand of theology. Looking at a person as merely a member of one or more groups shuts us off from the brave brand of interaction that remains open to transformation, that allows us to see the uniquely distinct, radically equal presence of God in every individual.

I predict we'll one day look at these "innate" gender descriptions as no more than a late gasp of the personality test craze. It's real easy to create a list of vague traits that arguably coexist but that can never be predicted in a given individual or related to how someone's expected to act in the world. (Quick: are you a Type A or a Type B?) We think of personality tests as magazine and self-help stuff, but fifty years ago they were psychologically hot, all up in the big science journals and stuff. This, my friends, is why we can't base our God-practice on psychology. Our own experience, and that of the people we serve, deserves a place in theological method. And I can't imagine that anyone who gives her own experience at least equal credence to the latest John Gray book would choose to reduce the blazingly diverse human world into a tired punchline: "There are [only] two kinds of people . . . "

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A Franciscan invited a few of us back to the friary for lunch during the seminar, and somehow, among five celibates and one single laywoman, the conversation turned to parenting issues. When I mentioned that my father took time off to help raise me--"but that was in the eighties," in a better job market than today's parents enjoy--one brother gave me a fascinated look. "Wow," he said, "You must be the youngest person at this school!" Since all the other young'ns I know took at least a year or two off since college, we determined that yeah, I probably am.

Theologienne composes another trenchant and deeply spiritual blog post.

I don't mind being the young one. It makes me comfortable with asking out-there questions or dumb ones. It sometimes gives me the not unpleasant aspect of campus pet. (Not teacher's pet--I mean, like, a cat.)

"What are the four main steps in Lonergan's approach to method?"
"Cookie?"

And I'm lucky to feel like I have all the time I could possibly have to figure out how to use my skills to fight for the Church we deserve. Many of my classmates show up with whole portions of their lives behind them: leaving marriages for religious life or vice versa, fleeing a lucrative and soulless job, finally contextualizing a life of ministry or struggling to integrate faith into an established secular situation. My stories, in contrast, are mostly ahead of me. Wherever I go on my next big step, and the next and the next and the next, I'll be taking my Theologienne-ness with me. That's enough to add a certain confidence to your step--even if, at 22, mine's really more of a toddle.

Thought for the day

2006-01-10T10:56:00.000-06:00

Religion is a mixture of legitimations and prophetic challenges in the name of the Ultimate. --Michael Amaladoss, SJ

Corinthians PG-13

2006-01-06T11:00:00.000-06:00

Certain things can be taken for granted when you're a div student. You'll learn at least one thing that makes you question your faith. You'll spend a lot of time answering the questions "What's that?" and "Oh. What are you going to do with that?" And of course, you'll eventually watch the Mandy Moore evangelical parody Saved. I checked it out last night, in a bid to get all my veg-ing done before classes start, and liked it a lot. Unsympathetic characters use religion as a whip and a fence; the likeable ones--thank you, Hollywood--don't abandon faith, but use it to draw strength out of life's confusing and painful events. "What would Jesus do? I don't know, really," muses the central character, a teenager who gets pregnant in a (repented) attempt to save her boyfriend from being gay. "But for now, at least we're all trying to figure it out together." What a mature understanding of what it means to be church.

Ecumenical Advocacy Days

2006-01-05T10:43:00.000-06:00

The Ecumenical Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice 2006 conference, March 10-13 in DC, promises "grassroots advocates, policy experts, politicians, theologians, organizers, and students gather[ing] to shape a new positive, progressive religious vision for U.S. foreign policy." Somebody had better, that's for sure. Sadly, I'll be lepidopterally pinned to work that weekend, but you should go.

How to Live and Why

2005-12-23T00:04:00.000-06:00

O.E. Parker wrote: "Is is important for everyone to live according to a consistent ethic? For anyone? How do you build, find, or choose such an ethic? How do you evaluate its worth?"

Sweet, an easy topic for my first night of vacation! Seriously, though, that's the question, isn't it? Seems like most of lived religion, and quite a bit of lived stuff that isn't religion, is meant to answer the question of how people should live and why. (Except for that part of religion which deals with the question of how people should worship and why, which inspires fights equally if not more bitter.)

We learned a model in our Art of Theology class called theological reflection, kind of a misleading name--it sounds like it helps you create theology, like books in libraries, but it's meant to lead to practice. The general steps are attending to experience, engaging in dialogue between tradition and experience and allowing the fruits of this dialogue to lead you to change your practice. Of course, this presumes a million things about someone's willingness to attend to her own experience, to learn about tradition and to change.

Another weakness of this model is that it begs the question of whether you need to experience something in order to come to a theological decision about it. This model would work fine for developing an ethical response to something that happened to you (assuming you had the time--which is actually a critique of this model we came up with in class) but it's hard to see how it would apply in all cases for making decisions about the future. Some decisions, like whether to join the priesthood, you can approximate by coming close to them, living in formation or something like that. Other decisions, like whether or not to sign a DNR order for a relative, there's really no way to come close to until you've been there. And then, of course, if you listen to your experience in dialogue with tradition and come to change your position on a moral issue you've lived through, people will accuse you of being relativist and wishing to change rules only when they suit you.

I don't think you can "choose" an ethic, and I also notice that people do it all the time. Deciding what you want, and then adhering to it consistently, might work for a New Year's resolution, but it doesn't require the self-transformation of a Build Your Own Ethic (tm) reflection. This would be true whether you were creating yourself a hedonist or a puritan; self-enforced rigidity of behavior isn't transformation, although it's not impossible for the former to cause the latter.

How do you evaluate its worth? I think you answered your own question with your use of the word "consistent." Does the behavior your ethic demands express the person you want to be? Are the general principles behind that ethic expressed in everything you think it leads you to do? Consistency should include a committment to re-evaluating the ethic itself. This might mean that your ethic will change, but it doesn't have to--it could be that the ethic will stay the same but as your life and experience change, you'll find that a completely different understanding of the same ethic is more helpful for you.

Is it important to live according to a consistent ethic? Depends on what you want to accomplish. If you want a meaningful point of reference to look to in making decisions, then sure. (That's why some champions of rigid so-called orthodoxy are so pleased with themselves about it: immobile lodestar, constant certitude.) If you think you'll give a better account of your beliefs by living consistent with them . . . well, it would be nice if it worked that way. Some people will write off all your beliefs because one of them doesn't jibe with theirs, others will be confounded because your ethics don't conform to what they think your ethics should be, given your beliefs, and others will be affronted by the fact that you attempt to live by a constant ethic at all. All love to St. Paul, and I do think it's important not to make a stumbling block where you can, but in an age where everyone (even Theologienne) feels entitled to her own ethical platform I think it's best just to worry about style when it comes to stumbling block removal. One can't go around massaging one's ethics to consist with the local climate. If you think you'll be happier living with a consistent ethic, it's very possible. Many derivations from God's plan for them make people profoundly unhappy. On the other hand, there are definitely those who aren't capable of using an ethic as anything but a whip on their own backs. Is it useful to know what you think so you can figure out how you think in relation to others, and know whether you're learning from someone who agrees or disagrees? One thousand percent. Should you worry that God will love you less if you don't live consistently?

Isn't it obvious?

More relevant commentary on those hilarious Catholics

2005-12-19T14:17:00.000-06:00

The Nation covering Limbo: just the latest evidence that the Church can't sneeze without the media (even if "mainstream" doesn't apply here) catching a snobbily superior sort of pneumonia. It'd be nice if Catholic Relief Services' work in Pakistan or the U.S. Bishops' advocacy for immigrant rights got that kind of ink, but that would never do. In a Bush-battered world, to whom can media consumers feel superior if not those ignorant, superstitious and oh yeah, homophobic Catholics?

And for pete's sake, this isn't even timely. When was the last time somebody told you to your face Limbo existed, or mentioned the concept at all without looking slightly nervous and embarassed? No, those babies have been out on the streets for lo these many years. I say this because, you know, I'm Catholic, and so I think of Limbo as an actual physical PLACE. With STREETS.

Believe by adding, not detracting

2005-12-18T21:58:00.000-06:00

Sorry, dude.

I'm reading pell-mell through Method in Theology (because I have to, not because of the gripping plotline, no offense to Lonergan). It isn't all about dry Method, thank God; he lays out stuff like Good and Meaning, which are, you know, useful for a Theologienne to have a grip on. In this paragraph on dealing with mistaken beliefs, I saw the representation of the two kinds of people who challenge the Church today. Lonergan writes:

It is not enough to remove mistaken beliefs and to reform the mistaken believer. One has to replace as well as remove, to build up as well as tear down. Mere hunting for errors can leave one a personal and cultural wreck without convictions or commitments. By far the healthier procedure is primarily positive and constructive, so that what is true more and more fills out one's mind, and what is false falls away without leaving a gap or scar.

I'm reminded of a progressive Catholic I met who announced that he "hated" the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. I was surprised, because Cardinal Bernardin is practically a saint at my progressive Catholic school; without having read much by the Cardinal himself, I know him as a crusader (oh dear) for healthy Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations and as a leading exponent of the "seamless garment" doctrine of life, which is to say that we should cherish life from conception through death. Radical Catholics often point to this perspective in support of death penalty reform, prisoner's rights and generally as a balanced life ethic instead of just "outlaw abortion. BLAH!" But this man, a "mere hunter for errors," in my view, said, "I'm pro-choice," and so he shredded the seamless garment and the rest of Cardinal Bernardin's worthy teachings along with it. With such a scorched-earth approach to knowledge, don't you wonder why he still chooses to remain Catholic? I suppose there must be some reconstructive knowledge-gathering going on, but this person doesn't seem to have admitted it to himself. Too bad. The first step in Lonergan's transcendental method of theologizing is "Attend."

Gay priests doc falls into open chasm

2005-12-14T18:22:00.000-06:00

The new gay priests document is causing pain and argument, but will its schismatic effect mirror that of dissent on birth control? "We are seeing deja vu of the `Humanae Vitae' crisis," said the Rev. Anthony Figueiredo, referring to the 1968 papal encyclical that defined the church's opposition to artificial birth control and opened deep ideological fissures among Catholics." (Vatican's Gay Policy Gets Liberal Reading - Yahoo! News.) Um, sure--because the number of Catholic couples raising families is totally equivalent to the number of young men becoming priests. Yes, this document affects all Catholics--it will contribute to the shortage of ordained sacramental ministers, and it adds an unpleasant wrinkle to our Church's position on gays and lesbians. But it will most affect men becoming priests, and there's no way these couldn't have already known that the institutional Church position on homosexuality (as separate form the lived experiences and ministries of many Catholics) is not welcoming. Humanae Vitae had such a rumbling effect because it affirmed status quo where a change was seen as possible. Catholics who consider gays and lesbians as equal children of God knew, before this document, that the Church taught differently. Catholics who think gays and lesbians somehow deserve less out of life than others have had their intolerance affirmed. The "schism" Fr. Figueriredo refers to was already there.

Grace, grief, and green ribbons for gay priests

2005-12-11T22:50:00.000-06:00

I apologize for my long absence. Here's that blog on the gay priests document I've been promising.

Readers Jocelyn and Tatiana sent me this poignant reflection by a gay priest on Beliefnet.com. Thanks, ladies. The doc calls Father Gerard Thomas (a pseudonym) a "celibate gay priest," which sounds pejorative to me--you don't normally say a "celibate priest." Let's give the man credit for keeping the vows he took. Anyway, Fr. Thomas calls the document "to use some official church terminology, a cause for "scandal," something that will cause people to lose heart in the church." Scandal comes from "stumbling block"; when St. Paul told the early Christians that to do this or that would cause scandal to the Gentiles, he didn't want any aspect of the Christians' behavior to keep those without faith from knowing God. For how many lapsed Catholics or curious others will this document strike the final blow against Catholicism?

Like any tough time in the Church, this has brought with it its share of unexpected and strengthening grace. (This is easier to say if you're not a gay priest, but such I have never claimed to be.) Laypeople and priests are reacting with strength and fortitude. Priests across America are acting in a variety of brave ways as conscience dictates:

Rev. Leonard Walker of Mesa, AZ has resigned his parish role and is taking a leave of absence from his order, the Salvatorians. Without disclosing his sexual orientation, he said he could no longer in good conscience support the Church's "anti-gay positions."

Rev. Fred Daley of Rochester, NY has come out as a gay priest and retains his ministry and the trust of his parish. Same for Rev. Thomas J. O'Brien, a gay Jesuit ministering in Detroit. Fr. Karl Clemens of Toronto is a retired gay priest who ministers to Toronto's "gay village." It's brave and integritous, if that's a word, of these priests to come out, especially now, when they're walking into a storm. I don't agree with some (warning: language and sanctimony) who hold that for any gay priest to stay in the closet is hypocrisy. In Christ we are without difference, remember? Celibacy means choosing to live your sexuality as an engine of love for all the people you serve, not as a gift of love to one other person. A priest's sexuality, like his race or any other facet of personal identity, should only matter if he chooses to use it to say something about who God is and how the Church needs to be.

I was happily surprised to see many bishops saying they'll still ordain men who understand themselves as gay. Then you have homophobes like Bishop John M. D'Arcy, quoted in the Washington Post, who obviously wants to have no priests to his name in 20 years. Seriously, keep an eye on the diocese of Fort Wayne. In contrast, Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester, practical and pastoral, is still welcoming gay men's vocations.

Lay people are standing up for the Church Jesus wants and the priests they love. Voice of the Faithful is asking us to wear green ribbons to Mass throughout the season to show support for all priests who minister holily regardless of their sexual orientation.

Sure seems to be working for this girl.

Put one on. It'll look great with your yuletide attire.

(Liturgy nerds that we are, my roommate and I immediately wondered why green ribbons were being used. It hardly seems right to evoke Ordinary Time when good gay priests are being told they would not be ordained today. My complicated theory was this: purple in Catholic symbology stands for waiting, and as such it's the color of church reform and women's ordination and it's associated in the Church and the secular world with gay and lesbian rights. So purple would have been the obvious choice, but since in Advent we're surrounded by purple anyway, perhaps green was chosen to provide a contrast? I found with Google that VOTF has used green ribbons to show membership for a few years now, but no explanation of the color. Green ribbons also represent awareness for organ donation, which I found when I did my image search is the pet cause of, um, Ms. World Leather 2004. Anyone have better insights?

Jesus' Actions Exaggerated, Assert the Informed

2005-12-05T00:17:00.000-06:00

The Jesus Seminars are a method of historical study in which biblical scholars vote on which of Jesus' sayings they think are authentic. About 20% of what the Bible attributes to Jesus passes muster. I know many believing thinkers who think this approach is reductive and even silly, and I tend to agree, although I think more could be done in this mega-collaborative vein. Anyway, I thought of the Jesus Seminars when I saw this clip from Family Guy.

New Age Reinvents Wheel of Continence

2005-12-03T23:17:00.000-06:00

Long associated with the wheel used to torture Saint Catherine, the Wheel of Continence has since been discovered to function mainly to carry you home to see your kin. But seriously, a yoga instructor's written a book on how you should get to know someone before you sleep with them.

Safer-sex singer shot down

2005-12-01T22:39:00.000-06:00

Even wearing rubber bracelets!

I owe my diminutive public a post on the seminary document, but for now, ponder this: The Jesuits--the Jesuits!--dropped a singer from a fundraising concert because she's promoted condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS. (Vatican clips condom campaigner from Christmas concert lineup - CNN.) Daniela Mercury, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Justin Guarini, will cede stage space to Paul Anka, who as anyone can see is A-OK with abortion, but hey. My favorite quote in this article? The guy who said "It's the Pope's loss." Such certainty!

Dag, she totally jacked my perm.

Breaking news: Lexington diocese fires lay parish life directors

2005-11-28T23:00:00.000-06:00

Ronald W. Gainer, the bishop of the Diocese of Lexington, called together all his lay Directors of Parish Life right before Thanksgiving and pink-slipped them all. Is the diocese, like the rest of the Catholic Church, so cash-strapped that it can't afford to pay these pastors? No; the bishop just decided he wanted priests in these roles. The laity has too much control; the church needs to move away from its "liberalism" of recent years. No word on where he's finding presbyters. (Perhaps he's got Frankenstein's lab in his basement, which wouldn't be very respectful of the culture of life.) One laywoman, a recent hire, had barely gotten accustomed to her new role and said that the bishop had been quick to affirm her she was doing a great job. Maybe because he knew she was on the way out? But not only laywomen and like rabble were kicked out: permanent deacons will no longer be directing Lexington parishes. The pastors have six months to find new jobs. Apparently by then Bishop Gainer will have pulled 67 priests out of his miter.

In case you were wondering, the Lexington diocese's phone number is (859) 253-1993. You can also email their contact Deacon Jim Paris here, unless, I suppose, the bishop digs up a priest to handle online correspondence. You know, that job really should be handled by an ordained leader of the Church. These laypeople.

I've gotten this info, which hasn't yet hit Google News, from a friend who's the family member of a Lexington parish life director. Not that the axe hasn't already fallen, but like some of my less scrupulous media colleagues, I'm keeping my sources private.

Nun: Woe to you, oil executives!

2005-11-28T22:25:00.000-06:00

The Carmelites of Indianapolis are emerging from their cloister onto the Web. Their slick-looking site, PraytheNews.com, publishes the weekly meditations of several nuns on a current event. (They also have a walk-through introduction to contemplative prayer, a four-part plan, perfect for Advent.)

In Pray the News, Sister Terese writes:

The Gospel paraphrased from Matthew 23:

The oil magnates and CEOs sit by the side of White House executives and eat at the tables of their congresspersons. They preach justice and fairness but they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear and lay them on the shoulders of the unemployed, the poor, the families struggling to make it, the widows and widowers; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to lower pump prices or fuel for winter homes. They do their deeds that are seen by others, for they drive cars that are big, and fly in private jets, and mingle with the powerful and the mighty. They love to have the places of honor at corporate meetings, and to be greeted with respect in the halls of the stock market and board rooms.

Woe to you, oil executives! For you lock people out of a share in the profits! Your pockets are lined with millions while you lay the burden on those lacking health care, decent housing, food, and voice to be heard.

We need to read the Gospel through the filter of today’s news. Maybe if Matthew lived in 2005, it wouldn’t be paraphrased.

Y'all heard it here first. Sister says shape up!

The squash of faith and the potatoes of freedom

2005-11-24T11:47:00.000-06:00

Last Sunday Cardinal George, passing over goats and sheep alike, preached on being thankful for our faith and for our freedom. Introducing a theme I find neither particularly Christian nor especially American, he implied that complacency ought to follow gratitude: "And people call attention to the bad things done by corrupt men and women in government and in the Church, but you need to ask yourself, where would you rather be? The Church, like the government, is composed of fragile and sinful humans like you and me." And moved on from there. I was depressed. But I rallied some when the Cardinal compelled us to remember that material need and low social status inhibit a person's utilization of freedom, and that until we take care of the needy we can't authentically give thanks for a nation universally free. (This is again my paraphrase, and I may be making the point a little more strongly than Cardinal George.) It's a message we need, an example of Christian faith problematizing American freedom, a message that's countercultural rather than complacently patriotic.

Too often patriotism and faith get muddied together like traces of mashed potato and squash. (I hate that.) At my cousins' Thanksgiving Mass today they're probably singing the idolatrous patriotic medley they seem to recess to on every national holiday. But if Cardinal George--though he didn't put it this way--can draw on his faith to question his country, and can hold gratitude and critique in the same head, perhaps calling the Church to account in light of some American values ought not be such a sin. The Church does not commit to equality and to freedom of dialogue in the same way the US does, and God knows the American execution of these ideals is flawed as it is. Yes, the squash of faith and the potatoes of freedom need to be distinguishable, but it's a richly laden plate that can boast both.

This is a time in our country when for a few months, selflessness stops being countercultural, and every bank, store and dentist's office bloom with full donation bins. Lesson: there's no culture so gross that it can't redeem itself, whether it's our American culture of greed or the Catholic hierarchy of silence. Redemption will come when we, like controversial raisins in the stuffing, carry challenging ideas from one setting into another. (Tired of the metaphor yet? Tough!)

Early free speech advocate.

This Thanksgiving, may you find ample room for gratitude free from complacency. Give thanks for our freedom which, though flawed in execution, encourages us to speak for ourselves. If it's your faith that guides your speaking, give thanks for that gift, and for the fact that nothing on Earth can completely silence the voice of the Spirit. And whether you're blessed in company this Thanksgiving or finding richness in solitude, may you feast richly on the Turkey of Love--the only thing worthy of casting faith and freedom in the roles of sides.

Rumors on gay priests document get louder

2005-11-22T22:54:00.000-06:00

An Italian newspaper leaked what could be the final version of the Vatican document on admitting gay men to the priesthood (In Strong Terms, Rome Is to Ban Gays as Priests - New York Times.) Previous rumors had the document sounding less severe than it does now, but on the other hand, I don't trust the Times to give the most nuanced perspective on anything the Vatican tries to do. They've been delivering the same alarms for a few months now, which explains why my one priest professor's getting progressively more pissy. But can you blame him? Indeed, pity the poor persecuted prelates. And pray for peacemaking. Sorry, I'll stop.

St. Radbod, Virgin and Martyr.

The Times says the doc will drop November 29, which I couldn't help noting is the feast day of St. Radbod. You really have to read these things with a jeweler's eye, so let's wait and see what it says. A few words could make the difference between a thoughtfully pastoral message and, well, what everyone's expecting.

Christmas 1, Wal-Mart 0

2005-11-21T23:45:00.000-06:00

Blogger Daithí Mac alerted me to a battle between two titans of dubiousness: the Catholic League and Wal-Mart (Shame on You, Catholic League!). It seems that while Wal-Mart made it possible to search for Hanukkah and Kwanzaa stuff on its website, a religious freak who tried to search the word "Christmas" was directed to an aggregation of "holiday" items. The Catholic League, whose goal is to defend the First Amendment rights of Catholics and to call the secular media to account on their portrayal of Catholics, took some time out from blurring the distinction between being gay and molesting children to denounce this unbalanced secularism.

Well, it gives me the heebie-jeebies agreeing with these guys, but in this case, they're absolutely right. It'd be one thing, as the League's initial press release said, if December holidays for all backgrounds were filed under "holiday," but to treat only Christmas this way denies that Christians, unlike observers of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, see, well, meaning in the "holiday" season. The Catholic League eventually yanked their boycott because Wal-Mart got their act together and started calling Christmas Christmas, though I recently noticed they continue to icky up the season with a special blend of non-values, introducing "a much more aggressive approach to the holidays", which certainly does warm the heart.

Seriously, though, eliminating the word "Christmas" is just boneheaded. How many people do we think search retail websites for a "holiday tree?" Is it seriously news to anyone that not all the folks with trees in their living rooms show up at Christmas Mass? Lots of Americans observe different Christmas traditions because they were once religiously observant or just because they enjoy them, but I've never heard anyone pretending that what they do is something called "holiday." Meaningful acts that make the winter sparkle, whether they're religious or not, should be celebrated for all their diversity, not lumped into one pernicious retail juggernaut. The most recently ridiculous? A woman where I work went around wishing everyone a "good holiday" last week. Apparently it's no longer PC to assume that people you know all celebrate Thanksgiving.

2005-11-21T17:42:00.000-06:00

National Catholic Reporter broke the news today that the Brazilian church may be about to discover patterns of sex abuse like those in the U.S. (Sex abuse in Brazil, NCR.) You might have heard me critique NCR's reporter, John Allen Jr., in this space for focusing too much on Rome's "Latin" culture of deliberation and for showing too little anger around the areas where the Church needs to change (although I admit the fault could be in those who look for editorializing from a journalist.) At any rate, Rome has a culture of deliberation, John Allen Jr. says. Hear this: I hereby predict that Rome will jump on the problems in Brazil like a Black Friday shopper on a discount TiVo. The church of the Global South is providing much of the energy for Catholicism in this moment in terms of vocations and new members, while concurrently Catholicism in Latin America is losing ground to charismatic evangelical Protestant movements. And while Brazil has been home to some troublesome signs of progressive Catholic thought--birthing Catholics for a Free Choice and advocating condoms at Carnival, for example--they're still the world's largest Catholic country, and emotionally and culturally closer to Rome than we godless Americans, who expect to have our crises of faith in the clergy handled in a hot minute, for pete's sake. Stay tuned, and pray for the church in Brazil, and especially for those whom the church in Brazil has most horribly failed.

Penn Jillette: The hope in atheism

2005-11-20T20:57:00.000-06:00

Thinking person's clown Penn Jillette on why he finds hope in believing there is no God. He has an unusual approach that I respect: believing there is no God forces him to focus on now: on finding transcendence in the love of his family, on doing right because there is no alternative of forgiveness. But I would observe that while atheists and agnostics frequently, and rightly, reference fundamentalist-type believers as deterrents to faith, I can't think of one account from a nonbeliever who addresses the faith of openminded believing sorts, like Thomas Merton, Jillette's colleague Kathy Dahlen, or many of us. Jillette says "Believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something." Plenty of believers allow their God to challenge them, to prove them wrong, again and again. I wonder if Jillette knows any of these.

P.S. I'm extremely amused that the slug at the top of that page says "NPR : There is No God." Godless liberals broadcasting again!

Not Mutually Exclusive After All

2005-11-19T00:29:00.000-06:00

This is a blog about sex in the media, and they have two quotes about God. Good quotes, too.

It's The End of the World: How We Know It

2005-11-17T22:46:00.000-06:00

I am a post-Vatican II Catholic raised to focus on social justice and God's love. When we talk about being prepared for the Final Coming, we mean bringing good, Godlike souls to our own death, not dressing nice each day in case God should happen to choose to start the Apocalypse. My best concept of the rapture involves dessert, or maybe a five-hour train ride and a bunch of trashy magazines. But even apocalypostates like me can appreciate The Rapture Index, a daily assessment of the likelihood of the Final Coming. Far more significant than watching the stock ticker, if you think about it. The author says his complex criteria are based on the Book of Revelation, but I'm fairly certain Revelation did not in so many words associate the Antichrist with the Pope: Rapture Index wants you to know that this isn't anti-Catholicism, though, just simple logic: "Because the Pope heads an organization of one billion followers, it is very logical to conclude that the Pontiff will someday fulfill a major the role in the Antichrist’s false church." Ah.

The Antichrist?

The Rapture Index features apocalypse criteria even more mystifying, such as "inflation," "the economy," and "interest rates." The mark of the beast, a sure sign of the end, is tied to universal and compulsory identification systems. I think he's trying to tell us the Apostle John was a Libertarian.

Bet My St. Catherine Beats Your Augustine

2005-11-15T22:21:00.000-06:00

Ekklesia: The Congregating.

Originally uploaded by The Disseminary.

There are no words. No, there are too many. It's a Magic- or DND-style card game, but with early saints. You flip a card to "battle", and winning's guided by arcane hierarchies to gladden the heart of any bishop: "The degrees of Orthodoxy are: Heresiarch, Heretic, Heterodox, Ambiguous, Orthodox, Theologian, and Doctor." The site that created this wonder, Disseminary.org, is itself a true delight. They're trying to collect theological resources and scholarship online where they can be freely available to any seeker. This is how big a theology nerd I am: I fantasize about starting a petition to get the New Catholic Encyclopedia online for free. Never mind the obvious benefit to Theologiennes and -enos doing research: what about curious non-Catholics, like poor innocent Muslim bloggers who just want to fact-check and inadvertently cite a racist and outdated Catholic encyclopedia that claims to be a trustworthy source? Snarl. Disseminary doesn't have an encyclopedia yet, but they've got great stuff, and I am so very, very excited they exist. Besides, who can resist the name? All together now: "Which seminary? DISseminary!"

News Item: Diocesan Press Lacks Journalistic Heft

2005-11-14T13:14:00.000-06:00

In their November issue, U.S. Catholic did a study (not yet published on the website) on the quality of the Catholic diocesan press. I was almost touched by the righteous disappointment of the author, Raymond A. Schroth, a Jesuit professor, at the irrelevance, clericalism and, well, parochial sensibility everywhere present. I mean, what can Schroth possibly have expected? We're talking about an in-house publication. If you could only access the New York Times through Mayor Bloomberg's website, you wouldn't expect it to really set the standard for municipal watchdoggery.

I shared a rueful laugh at Schroth's gentle sendup of the dribblingly weak columns that come off Catholic newswire and are pasted into diocesan back pages. In my youth, which is recent enough to be relevant to the discussion, we were for a time required to read the "Kids' Corner" out loud in the car on the way to church. It was like, "Do you ever feel sad? Sometimes when we hit our brother we feel sad. Sometimes Jesus felt sad, too, like in the garden at Gethsemane." My brother and I got so used to protesting this ritual that we were surprised when our parents, probably sickened by the steady drip, drip of treacle, sprung us from it. We were promoted to reading the "grown-up" column, only somewhat less insulting to the intelligence of all.

You ask if your diocesean paper covered the sex abuse catastrophe? A lot of diocesan papers won't even let dissenting groups like Voice of the Faithful and Call to Action print letters to the editor. But the mainstream press, willing to create at least the appearance of a dialogue, will make a call to Dignity on gay Catholics or WOC on women priests, putting the diocesan organs in the position of depicting something as newsworthy that appears to have no controversy surrounding it.

It's not an enviable position. (And Schroth does laud a few papers that buck the trend with relevant news and smart commentary.) I'd like to see diocesan editors taking pride in their role as press, and bishops (here as always) acting as though strength came from surviving dissent, not quashing it.

Certainly, Catholic readers have a responsibility to demand better quality. But on the other hand, so much good stuff is already out there: America, NCR, U.S Catholic itself. You can grab a Catholic Worker for your social justice fix, or Sojourners for a more broadly Christian take. Beliefnet's a good ecumenical tool and the blogosphere, though weak in radical Catholic voices, forever inventive. The secular press of late, though I will always hound them for selective reporting that verges on anti-Catholic, has done a good job of ferreting out the icky in our own dioceses. And since the secular press can't rely on piety to keep up their subscriber base, they respond to readers as well as publishers. Chicago magazine did a special issue on Chicago Catholics that conveyed better than any bishops' statement the diversity of people and thought in the American Catholic church.

If you've got enough good Catholic reading to get through without paging through the diocesan paper, I can't say I entirely blame you. Because sometimes Catholics feel sad--and sometimes that merits honest, uncensored attention.

People in ministry should cultivate a sense of irony. And maybe consume some pop culture from time to time.

2005-11-11T01:13:00.000-06:00

Otherwise you end up with a gay Catholic chastity outfit advertising a (click; scroll) lesbian pajama party.

Honoring the creative God with a rave

2005-11-10T23:56:00.000-06:00

Matthew Fox is a longtime priest who now ministers in the Episcopal Church after being kicked out of ours because of his radical teachings on cosmology: he's the creator of Creation Spirituality, which holds that God, through creative force, is present in all creation (panentheism.) He is a theologian who expends energy both on calling the Church to greater holiness and on studying and teaching those elements of theology that have very little to do with transitory issues of church reform. Some thoughts of his I gleaned from (and yes, I am still on this) the Call to Action conference:

Christianity flies on two wings: the historical Jesus (not to be confused with Paul) and the cosmic Christ.

The doctrine of original sin traps people in guilt. "What the hell are we doing building a church on original sin when Jesus never heard of it?" [I don't agree that the doctrine is wrong but readily agree that it, like many doctrines, gets misinterpreted in unhealthy ways; more after I finish my philosophy paper, which will be on sin ; ) ] Fox prefers the notion of an original wound, of our yearning to return to face-to-face communion with God.

Scientists are mystics who "make themselves vulnerable to the wonder of creation, more so than some bishops we know." [And hey, check this out: Sacred starry night, about a physics professor and mystic.]

At the Call to Action conference where I heard him speak, Matthew Fox (dancing at right) showed a news item from Canadian TV about the Cosmic Mass. an ecumenical, media-fueled new style of worship he's involved in. Something like the Mass we're used to, the Cosmic Mass features segments of joy, sorrow, Communion and incitement to service. Unlike the Mass we're used to, it's set to techno and involves lots of dancing. What a cool way to think about not only the elemental components and messages of the Mass, but also the ways in which our current liturgical practice affects our bodies and emotions, even if we don't normally acknowledge the ways in which it affects us.

Aarti in the Mass: the battle for inculturation

2005-11-09T23:13:00.000-06:00

One of the gifts of the Vatican Ii liturgical reforms--affirmed by the Pope and everybody at the recent Eucharistic synod, you'll remember--was a new openness to inculturation, including cultural symbols and practices in the Mass within certain parameters and as bishops (and, as we know the way this often happens, the people) deem it appropriate. A group of Indian priests and bishops recently announced their plan to "Indianize" Catholic traditions there, involving cultural signifiers such as aarti (a ritual of respect for God using lights), dance at Mass, and ascetisim through the ashram tradition. Interestingly, some practitioners of Dalit theology--India's theology of liberation--are deeply suspicious of these changes, which they say will inscribe the patterns and practices of Hindu oppressors of the lower castes.

Anyway, I mention this because I didn't know what aarti was when I read this, and it sounds so beautiful. I hope the reforms go through.

More from Call to Action 2005

2005-11-08T22:21:00.000-06:00

More input from the always brilliant Call to Action conference this past weekend. Technological issues delayed my posting till now: fie on a conference center without working wireless.

James M. Lawson, Jr., an activist who taught nonviolence with Dr. King, opened the conference with his plenary address on Friday night. I dashed in from work for the second half. Rev. Lawson spoke about the legacy of Rosa Parks and offered suggestions for uniting religious and community activism for justice. "Don't be afraid," was one of his primary messages to activists, and "cultivate your network" of support and reinforcement. He urged us to create a list of those who support and sustain us and deadpanned "Maybe add to your list one or two people whom you consider to be outrageous sinners." This is not to challenge our moral worldview, but rather to give us opportunities to "become ignition points of God" to one another, sinners and pious ones alike.

Rev. Lawson's delivery ranges--and sometimes veers--between thrilling solemnity and crackling, hollering energy. Although I think he deployed it better at CTA in 2003, both medium and message worked to wake up the crowd. "We've done enough talking to each other," Lawson said, initiating a frustration with the inward spiral of progressive movements that I'd hear echoed throughout the conference. He urged us to focus our energies outward to reform the church, recommending classic nonviolence as a tool for channeling our righteous anger. Anger, he said, drives us through protracted struggle, and it is this that leads to change.

I stayed with some friends at a triumphantly social justice-minded parish in Milwaukee. Like real ascetic pilgrims we slept in the religious education rooms, surrounded by toys, tiny chairs and a huge print of the Dali crucifixion. Because this is the Internet, and because things are the way they are in the Church, I'm withholding the parish name so I can tell you the following story about our host. Brother Dave is a tall Midwesterner who palbably embodies that spirit that religious sometimes do of finding good everywhere in the world, of never being less than happy. He frequently evokes the phrase "wreathed in smiles," especially when talking about Call to Action and its missions. Quoth Brother Dave, with heavy sarcasm: "You're studying theology? Well, now, that's not fair. You're a woman! Does the Curia know about this?" Once he bid me goodbye with a cheery "Get ordained real soon, okay?" I told him we were working on it.

Peace sermon risks gov't sanction for Episcopal church

2005-11-07T09:46:00.000-06:00

This, as the French would say, is arrogance from the arrogance house. Rich, unctuous gourmet arrogance off the hottest burner on the kitchen stove in the most important room of the house of arrogance. A justice-minded Episcopal church has been threatened with losing its tax-exempt status(Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning, Chicago Tribune, today) because--get this--the pastor preached, right before the election, that Jesus would oppose war. What a subversive message, right? Look how those liberals twist the Gospel for their own ends! Jesus, who preached and lived peace, Who gave himself up to be killed, though he could have saved himself, because the integrity of his radical teachings inevitably called down capital sanction. Truly an inappropriately political message in a Christian church.

And the arrogance of targeting this innocent act by a peace-minded pastor. I mean, doesn't anyone remember how Bush's reelection campaign sought evangelical church directories to broaden their base?(Evangelicals Say They Led Charge for the GOP, Washington Post, Nov. 8, 2004.) Maybe Bush's detractors were too busy crawling into bed and sobbing when this article came out (check the date) to make the appropriate hue and cry. I hope, emboldened by the last year and a half--in which our president has abandoned America's poor to death by bombs, waves and deprivation--we will all find voice now to call out this latest outrage.

I have more conference updates coming, but had to get this out first.

First dispatch: Richard McBrien on our new pope

2005-11-05T10:30:00.000-06:00

This is a crowd that likes to clap. Exhorted to dance, interact or do other things speakers use to whip up their audience, they’ll do so gamely, but spontaneous applause is where they really shine—they wait expectantly for each winning line. Richard McBrien, a Notre Dame theologian with a vaudeville man’s infectious grin, realized this, and warned us he’d be stepping on his best lines to save time. But the irrepressibly loquacious Fr. McBrien had a good topic—an early look at Benedict XVI’s papacy—and so he held forth, and we clapped a lot despite our warning.

Father McBrien read us a rich variety of comments published in America, pre-emptive hopes of influential Catholics for the new Pope’s approach. He pointed out that Benedict, in meeting with Hans Kung, has already moved toward an atmosphere of collegiality that John Paul II did not foster. McBrien impugned John Paul II for permitting an atmosphere of “viciousness” between Catholics on the left and the right, saying that the new Pope should live up to his title of pontifex, bridge-builder, and encourage centrism and dialogue by meeting with representatives of both sides.

McBrien’s conclusion: “I have observed nothing troubling” in the early months of Benedict’s papacy. Negative changes, he said, such as the firing of America editor Thomas Reese, had been building before the conclave and gave the wrong early impression of Benedict’s intentions. However, in contrast to John Paul II, who refused to meet with Hans Kung for 25 years, Benedict accepted the invitation immediately, extended the interview to a substantive length and wrote a statement which he asked Kung to approve before its publication. McBrien also praised Benedict’s addition of the hour of dialogue to the Eucharistic synod, drawing a big laugh by adding, “Not that the dialogue was necessarily productive, but they have to get used to it!” I think he tempered the opinions of many of us who worry about Benedict’s past as the CDF’s Rottweiler. There are indeed hopeful visions of a future marked by collaboration and dialogue moving both up and down the church ladder of power.

Off to Call to Action!

2005-11-04T16:56:00.000-06:00

In true pilgrim fashion, I'm seeking sanctuary in a church with a few friends. Last time we attended we camped in an upstairs room used for religious ed, and piously spread our sleeping bags on what looked very much like an erstwhile chapel altar. It reminded me of sleeping under the lit Christmas tree when I was little: Take your shoes off, this is holy ground! Check back for conference updates, and pray the Midwest Center has wireless.

Crawling up the Devil's Backbone

2005-11-03T20:59:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry I was absent for a couple days. As luck would have it, I was on an extremely blessed and relaxing work trip to southern Illinois. I had enough time between duties to sneak away--caught my first sight of the Mississippi and climbed up a bizarre land formation called the Devil's Backbone. (There's also a big rock they call the Devil's Bake Oven--nice to see some gender-role parity in language for the Evil One. I'm kidding.)

Look what else I got to do:

The labyrinth is a meditative bodily practice of walking a gradual path until you come to the center, then spiraling back out until you resume your place in the real world. Though it's not just for Christians, it can function as a metaphor for drawing closer to Jesus, then moving gradually back to the real world, hopefully with new spiritual insight. In Carbondale, there's a labyrinth painted on the ground, next to a Wendy's and close to one of the main streets. The would-be mystic becomes a public witness to the spiritual life as she moves rather portentously through the geometry of the walk. The cars go by, and people look at you curiously, but isn't that how it always is, trying to live as if God mattered? It almost makes no difference if no one notices that what you're doing is not what's done by everyone.

The Catholic take on Halloween

2005-10-31T09:06:00.000-06:00

I am so proud of those Franciscans! Now they're making web buttons.

I learned that the custom of trick-or-treating started with American Irish Catholics. Booya!

Come to think of it, I saw a Franciscan out at a bar this weekend. He was hanging out with Charlie Chaplin and Mr. Incredible.

Happy Halloween!