Reforming the Curia: Pope Francis Reaches Beyond the Vatican

Heading directly in the “eye of the storm,” Pope Francis announced an advisory group of cardinals to proposal reforms to the Curia, the government of the Church. Part of the Curia, the Vatican Bank has been involved in a number of scandals through the years. The office of Secretary of State, second only to the Pope’s office, has so much power that abuse of power has been a real temptation for the office holders through the years. With corruption and scandal in its governance, the Roman Catholic Church risks charges of hypocrisy. After all, Christ threw out the money-changers and instructed his disciples to go town to town without even carrying purses. The Vatican Bank is a far cry from Christ’s instructions. Pope Francis would be well advised to harken back to St. Francis’s view of wealth.

In the absence of radical reform, such as ending the Vatican Bank much like President Jackson of the U.S. put an end to the Second National Bank of the U.S., Pope Francis was smart to name a majority of Curia critics to his advisory council. According to the Wall Street Journal, “(n)early all of the cardinals advising Pope Francis on the administrative overhaul come from local archdioceses far from the insular world of Vatican politics. Only one member, Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, comes from inside Vatican City. But the office he currently runs, the Governerato in charge of administering the actual grounds of the world’s smallest state, isn’t considered part of the Curia.” Reaching from beyond Europe also has the benefit of going to where the Catholic Church is growing rather than shrinking. It also makes the Roman Church truer to its claim of being the universal church.

“It’s an epochal shift because it brings the Vatican closer to a more collegial governance,” said Paolo Rodari, a Vatican expert. He meant a greater sharing of power between Rome and local churches in governing the Catholic Church. According to the New York Times, this notion “was central to the liberalizing changes of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, but critics said both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI consolidated more control with the Vatican. Francis’ new advisory group reverses the trend. ‘For years, cardinals and others said that the Second Vatican Council sought a more horizontal government, that the pope should listen to bishops to resolve scandals,’ Mr. Rodari said. ‘The first big decision of this pope really is that, to convoke a governing board. It’s a revolution.’”

It may go a bit too far to say that the appointment of a group of advisors is “an epochal shift” on the scale of “a revolution.” At most, the move signals a shift back in the direction of Vatican II by not relying on the Vatican insiders to fix themselves from within. For epochal change to take place, the Pope would have to implement a governance form like federalism by amending the governance documents of the Curia. Crucially, the added authority of the regional councils of bishops would have to be protected in terms of canon law from encroachments from the Vatican. The Curia’s authority would essentially be split between two systems—that of the Vatican (i.e., centralized) and the councils (i.e., regional). The Pope could settle disputes between the two systems and act as figurehead for the Church.

Given the different cultural contexts in which the worldwide church increasingly finds itself, Francis’s council of cardinals could do worse than consider federalism as a possible form of governance for the Curia. Federalism has the virtue of being able to accommodate differences while allowing for unity, for which uniformity is not necessary. In fact, uniformity as in “one size fits all” can actually impede unity because the diversity of context is frustrated in its expression and solutions. One way federalism could manifest is by the return of authority to the regional bishop conferences. Those bodies could have a role in holding the Vatican Bank accountable, besides being able to address many of their particular problems.

In conclusion, while Pope Francis has opened the door to reform, too much should not be read into his initial move. An advisory council is just that. Even reform-oriented cardinals will doubtless find the status quo at the Vatican to be a difficult rock to move, even if it is the foundation of a worldwide Church.

 

For more, see Stacy Meichtry’s article, “Pope Begins Vatican Overhaul,” in the Wall Street Journal of April 13, 2013. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324240804578420710330497342.html?mod=WSJ_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

Also, Gaia Pianigiani and Rachel Donadio, “Pope Francis Names Advissory Panal at Vatican,” The New York times of April 14, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/world/europe/pope-francis-names-advisory-panel-at-vatican.html

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Pope Francis: A Narrow Reformer

Jorge Bergoglio had come in second behind Joe Ratzinger in 2005 at the conclave tasked with electing the next pope. Eight years later, Bergoglio himself was elected to the holy and powerful office. The American media, treading water as usual on the surface, proclaimed Pope Francis to be a reformer. After all, he was the first non-European to hold the office in more than a millennium. However, Francis is a reformer in a very narrow sense, and he is not as much of an outsider as one might suppose from the media reports. As with most matters in life, the truth is more nuanced.

I begin with the matter of the pope ostensibly being an outsider. Because Bergoglio had been born and raised in Argentina, his election quickly came to stand for or personify the increasing salience of Latin America in the contemporary Catholic Church. At the announcement habamus papam, Latino Catholics in the Vatican’s square and on a much larger scale in Argentina spontaneously rose in celebration. However, the assumption that Bergoglio is the first Latin American pope needs some qualification because his parents were Italian immigrants. Not surprisingly, he grew up speaking fluent Italian in addition to Spanish. Accordingly, he had no trouble giving the homily of his first papal Mass in Italian. Italian culture was doubtless a part of his upbringing as well. So it is not strictly true that a non-European was elected pope. More accurately, Pope Francis is a hybrid, or “third culture person,” consisting of Latin American and European elements.

Moreover, in having achieved the high office of cardinal, Pope Francis is not an outsider. His status as an outsider is relatively narrow, being that he has not worked in the Curia at the Vatican. However, even this respect could be moderated by the pope’s Italian upbringing. That is to say, he undoubtedly has the sense of being in the familia in virtue of his Italian roots. Italian cardinals and bishops in the Curia could thus expect to have some pull with him. I doubt this point was not lost on at least some of the Italian cardinals in the conclave. Of course, the fact that the pope appointed so many reformers to his advisory council on the Curia suggests that the term “reformer” applies to him in respect to dealing with the corruption in the Vatican, including its bank and senior officials. This does not mean that he is a reformer writ large—meaning in terms of doctrine, the hierarchy, and social issues.

Even though feminist groups dared to hope that the new pope might finally bring the Church into the twenty-first century on social issues, Bergoglio had been stanchly conservative on social issues such as abortion, gay marriage, women in the Church, and even contraception. Therefore, it is very unlikely the new pope would make any changes along the lines sought in the developed West.

Indeed, a month after becoming pope, Francis reaffirmed his predecessor’s rebuke of the Leadership Conference of the Women Religious (LCWR). The umbrella group of American nuns had been accused of excessive feminism and too much attention to social justice and the poor at the expense of preventing abortions. The affirmation is particularly astonishing because Bergoglio had emphasized social justice and the poor as an archbishop  in Argentina. That his reaffirmation of the previous pope’s rebuke pertains to a group that shares his own priorities on social justice and the poor suggests that his role as a reformer is narrow indeed. His reforms inside the Church are likely to be limited to reforming the Curia to get rid of its corruption and insularity. To be sure, that he had spoken out against unregulated markets and oppression could suggest that the pope might be a reformer in terms of human rights outside the Church. He might even urge governments to enhance financial regulation and fortify safety nets for the poor. Crucially for our purposes here, this would not make him a doctrinal or social-issue reformer in terms of Catholicism.

George Weigel, a traditionalist Catholic theologian, put the matter of the pope’s orientation very well. “He is a reformer, and making clear that the LCWR’s program in recent decades has been incompatible with Catholicism is part of the reform-by-purification that he is going to lead.” The term “purification” is key here, for it describes the traditionalist approach of the prior two popes wherein a traditionalist interpretation of doctrine (including on social issues) has been used to purge the marginal (i.e., moderate and liberal) Catholics on the way to restoring the true Church to the true believers. In a sense, the traditionalists had succeeded in using the “reform” label for their own purposes, but this does not mean that Pope Francis will open up the Church to women or married priests or relaxed positions on gay marriage, abortion and even contraception. Rather, a bishops’-led return to outward caring for the poor in place of insular infighting and corruption is the sort of “reform” that is perfectly consistent with the ecclesiastical traditionalism of the cardinals who elected the Italian-Argentinian cardinal.

 

 

For more, see Jaweed Kaleem’s article, “Pope Francis Gets Strong Ratings From U.S. Catholics in First Days,” in the Huffington Post on March 15, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/15/pope-francis-approval-us-catholics_n_2884494.html?utm_hp_ref=religion ; Cathy Grossman, “Pope Francis Keeps Tight Rein on U.S. Nuns,” USA Today, April 16, 2013; Laurie Goodstein, “Pope Upholds Reprimand of American Nuns’ Group,” in the New York Times on April 16, 2013

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Is Institutional Religion on the Decline in America?

In the 1940s and 1950s, only about five percent of adult Americans did not identify themselves with any institutional religion, according to the General Social Survey. That number rose to only eight percent in 1990. By 2013, however, the percentage of people who don’t consider themselves part of a religion had jumped to twenty percent. Interestingly, there was no discernible upward trend in the percentage of people who expressed atheist or agnostic beliefs. Several implications can be drawn.

One implication is that it cannot be assumed that a person does not believe in “God” just because he or she does not belong to an institutional religion. Indeed, “atheism” does not make sense without a “theism.”  Put another way, atheism is part of the religious paradigm, serving as the negation of a theist belief. People can be spiritual without being religious. This does not mean that they are “new age.” Nietzsche, for example, was accused of being an atheist just because he criticized the dominant conception of God (as, for example, being vengeful). A vice ascribed to the deity in how it is being conceptualized discredits the conceptualization itself. “God is dead.” This does not mean that the living God of experience is discredited, as it does not depend on the concepts that are ascribed to it.

Another implication is societal in nature. As the percentage of people not identifying themselves with a religious paradigm (i.e., basic framework, including of concepts and conduct such as ritual and prayer) increases in a society, the religious world-view itself becomes increasingly demarcated as delimited in nature. That is, the default in society turns to viewing the religious world-view as foreign rather than as a given. The disparate nature of the religious paradigm as being very different makes it easy for the non-religious to keep away from it, as well as to view it as foreign. The world of religion is perhaps inherently delimited because its concepts do not have currency outside of the religious paradigm. The historical hegemony or even universality of religions in societies may therefore have been artificial in nature, such as by means of being forced on people. If so, the declining salience of religion in modern society may be nature’s way of restoring to religion its rightful place, similar to how water finds its way eventually down the stream.

Another implication is that it may not be reasonable to assume that even a highly charismatic leader of a particular religion, or sect thereof, can bring people back to religion. The assumption that such a leader could accomplish such a feat presumes that 1) not belonging to an institutional religion is a problem and 2) the problem does not lie in the religions themselves, or in religion itself. Also assumed is the problematic assumption that a leader can make such a difference. It may be that religion itself puts too much emphasis on the religious leader or founder, attributing too much significance to him or her relative to the value of the teachings themselves. Such anthropomorphism may be one reason why not identifying with a religion is not a problem, but, rather, a sign of spiritual health instead. According to David Hume, the human mind has great trouble holding on to “pure” concepts of divine simplicity. We tend to add our own human characteristics to the divine, even to the point of constructing the god-man concept. If religion is incapable of being purged of error, it is right and fitting that people refuse to identify themselves as not belonging to a religious institution.

Besides the implications above, one question that “comes out of the data” regards whether people who do not belong to an institutional religion can sufficiently “exercise” their spirituality. A related question is whether spirituality can exist apart from the religions. One might also ask how well spirituality can do within a religion. To the extent that a given religion (or religion itself) is rigid, it may be that certain expressions or manifestations of spirituality are snuffed out or excluded outright. The trend of “none-religious” may provide more opportunities for spirituality to come into its own. We should not assume, in other words, that the trend is toward secularity if it is defined as the absence of spirituality in addition to religion.

 

See Katherine Bindley’s article, “Religion Among Americans Hits Low Point, As More People Say They Have No Religious Affiliation: Report,” at the Huffington Report on March 13, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/13/religion-america-decline-low-no-affiliation-report_n_2867626.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

 

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Picking a Pope

The new Pope must be “a truly spiritual man.” So said Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, a week or so before conclave to elect a pope in March 2013. O’Connor was already too old at 80 to attend, but he had a view of what the attending cardinals would likely discuss. Foremost on the agenda would be how the church governance could be reformed so as to deal better with the past and future sexual abuse scandals involving clergy. Relatedly, the question of clerical celibacy would likely come up.

That the unnatural practice of adult celibacy had been a factor in the errant priestly sexual practices is perhaps the implication. Giving things up for God is surely praiseworthy, but not perhaps at the expense of such a vital or engrained biological element as an organism’s sexuality. Try as we might to the contrary, we cannot cut ourselves off from our basic biology without risking aberrant dysfunction.

O’Connor stressed that the new pope would not be a saint, but that the world could count on the occupant being “of irreproachable character.” This is not to say that being “a truly spiritual” person reduces to virtue ethics; rather, the point is that a sensitivity to matters of conscience is a byproduct of an orientation to experiencing transcendence. How, it may be asked, can a group of Vatican insiders select such a man?

In his interview, O’Connor related how Joe Ratzinger first replied, “No, I can’t” before saying he accepts. As what name he would be called, Ratzinger quickly answered “Benedict.” O’Connor concludes that Ratzinger had already selected the name, making his first response something less than forthright. Such subterfuge does not belong to the sort of character that comes from being “a truly spiritual man.” The question therefore is how a good pope under this criterion can be picked.

O’Connor offers a hint by observing that the new pope may not be a cardinal. Reaching out beyond the Vatican’s walls to put a man unlike themselves at the apex would not be a bad idea. Ideally, the more political and bureaucratic men would be held to one who is not so inclined. The problem is that a basic pragmatism is often needed to see to it that reforms are actually being carried out. Even so, pragmatism in a sort of “trust but verify” sense can be a response to the distance between a truly spiritual person and those who are politically or bureaucratically inclined. Ideally, the Church should have such an arrangement, wherein the political and bureaucratic do not occupy the “soft” center. Direct access to that center would be vital though given the size of the organization such appeals can be difficult. The challenge would be that of transcending the political and bureaucratic for those outside the Vatican’s walls. If God is love, then the core of the governance should also be love, with the more practical impediments being like an egg shell rather than the yoke.

See Jessica Elgot, “Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor ‘Saddened’ By Cardinal O’Brien Scandal, Says New Pope ‘Will Not Be a Saint,” The Huffington Post, February 26, 2013.

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Ideological Litmus Test Perpetuating Corruption at the Vatican

According to The Washington Post, the leaked personal correspondence of the Pope, Joe Ratzinger, shows a “fractured Vatican,” filled with “tales of betrayal and rivalries, allegations of corruption and systemic dysfunction.” For example, the Pope’s appointment of Carlo Vigano as ambassador to the United States was a banishment of sorts perpetrated by forces in the Vatican hostile to reform. The Pope had intended that Vigano enact a series of reforms within the Vatican, but “some of Rome’s highest-ranking cardinals undercut the efforts and hastened Vigano’s exile to the United States,” according to the Post. Even the Pope’s own desire to reform the Vatican bank was undercut by “a culture that rejected even a modicum of transparency.” In a way, it was Ratzinger’s own insistence that his traditionalist/conservative ideology willow down the Church to the true flock that undercut his own reforms.

In 2006, the Pope had appointed Tarcisio Bertone as Secretary of State, the second most powerful position in the Vatican. It was no accident that Bertone had been the Pope’s “longtime doctrinal sidekick”—in other words, a partisan traditionalist ideologically. That Bertone had had no international experience was apparently not as much of a factor. That he used his position over the Vatican bank to eviscerate the Pope’s financial reforms oriented to transparency while keeping power for himself was apparently something in which the Pope himself had been kept in the dark. Put another way, being a fellow anti-Vatican II traditionalist was in Ratzinger’s mind all that counted for high-level appointees.

Vigano accused Bertone of obstructing the Pope’s reforms oriented to cleaning up “so many situations of corruption and abuse of power . . . rooted in the management of so many departments.” For example, the same firms habitually won contracts at almost double the cost charged outside the Vatican. As a result, the Pope’s very own butler felt compelled to take action. “Seeing evil and corruption everywhere in the church, I finally reached a point of degeneration, a point of no return, and could no longer control myself,” Gabriele explained to Vatican investigators. A shock, “perhaps through the media,” Gabriele continued, could “bring the church back on the right track.” Might the butler have been suffering from a bit of naivity, however? 

If the corruption and infighting, qualities that ought to have disqualified the Vatican from leading any Christian group, have been systemic in the Vatican, any “shock” would probably merely result in a defensive circling of the wagons by the insiders. Moreover, the shock was oriented to a symptom, rather than what undergirds the corruption. In particular, the ideological fixity or “litmus test” of the traditionalists could alternatively have been the target of the butler’s “shock and awe” campaign. Put another way, the dearth of “checks and balances” could be rooted not in the Secretary of State’s amassing of power, but, rather, in the hegemony of ideological identity. That is to say, the hypocrisy goes deeper than merely fighting in the name of the one who came to turn the other cheek and love his enemies. The underlying culprit is that of the selfish and intolerant insistence that one’s own ideological preference be the exclusive door through which everyone must pass.

 

For the article in The Washington Post, please see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/pope-benedict-xvis-leaked-documents-show-fractured-vatican-full-of-rivalries/2013/02/16/23ce0280-76c2-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.html   Jason Horowitz, “Pope Benedict XVI’s Leaked Documents Show Fractured Vatican Full of Rivalries,” February 17, 2013.

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Why Did the Pope Resign?

One can never know quite what is in another person’s mind. We cannot know, for example, precisely what led Joe Ratzinger to resign from the papacy—the first pope to do so in 600 years.  Even in Vatican-speak, that’s an awful long time. Perhaps the best we can do is keep from being too naïve, particularly when power is in the equation.

First, on the question of why the pope resigned, age and health-related concerns were doubtless at the forefront. According to Vatican sources, his decision was prompted in part by the fall he had suffered in 2012 during a trip to Mexico. “It unnerved him, as well as his doctors,” said the source. “It was a cause for alarm. By the time he went on his visit to Lebanon in September, he had taken the decision to resign. He is less well than he appears.” Indeed, unknown to even his flock, he had had a pacemaker  installed even before he was elected pope in 2005. The betrayal by his butler and the controversy over the transparency of the Vatican bank also “had an influence,” according to Jose Saraiva Martins, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.  Being an effective pope is more than simply personifying a message of faith; taxing chores of governance also attend to the occupant.

What is particularly interesting in the articles on the factors behind the pope’s resignation is the absence of one that should have been at the forefront in considerations of the office’s taxing demands. It does not appear that the matter of priests who have raped children, and the related enabling rather than accountability by the Vatican played much of a role in the pope’s concern that he no longer had sufficient strength for the job.

Also missing from the popular press is the thesis that the pope resigned not so much for the good of the Church, but, rather, so he would be able to see to it that his successor would be just as conservative ideologically, ecclesiastically, and politically. The notion that he would not have any influence just because he says so or is not in the conclave itself is naïve.  Indeed, being around for the election of his successor is a pretty astute and clever strategy, especially considering that he probably would not have long in the office anyway, given his ill-health. Being around for the next coronation is for a pope a bit like being able to be around for his own funeral. 

The concern that Ratzinger’s continued presence in the Vatican could prompt a power-struggle assumes that the cardinals, many of whom he had appointed, would all of a sudden turn him aside and elect a liberal or even a moderate. The only practical chance of such a surprise would be if none of the frontrunners secure enough votes to be elected.  This is precisely how the pope was elected who started the Second Vatican Council in 1962. Even if an eventual-reforming pope were elected, he would face a sea of conservative cardinals and bishops. Given his appointments, Ratzinger need not even be in the conclave to have a huge influence on the contours of the outcome.  He may want a little extra insurance through personal contacts prior to the conclave, but the pope’s influence had been largely established already, well before he announced his resignation.  The question, perhaps unanswerable even to the pope himself, is perhaps whether his motive was to see to it that the Church would be in “safe hands.”

 

See the related article, “Pope Benedict XVI Says He Has Reigned “For Good of the Church,” The Telegraph, February 13, 2013: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/9867148/Pope-Benedict-XVI-says-he-has-resigned-for-good-of-the-Church.html

 

 

 

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A Pope Resigns: A New Tradition?

On February 11, 2013, Joe Ratzinger announced that he would resign at the end of that month as pope of the Roman Catholic Church. “He emphasized that carrying out the duties of being pope — the leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide — requires ‘both strength of mind and body’.” The 85 year-old had come to the conclusion that his condition in his advanced age precluded him from being able to sufficiently perform the duties of his office. The fact that he had witnessed the debilitating end of John Paul II’s papacy was undoubtedly a factor.  It is ironic that a very conservative man would be the one to go against a custom that had been unceasingly observed since Gregory XII “stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.”

The custom of staying in office until death had gained the right of place in the status quo, and thus an obligatory sense had come to be associated with the practice.  In contrast, Ratzinger had argued, “If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.” In this case, the explicit obligation goes up against the implicit obligation that goes with maintaining a practice or custom in the status quo. The explicit obligation is superior to the implicit one because the latter is artificial in nature. That is to say, the duty to maintain a practice simply because it has been exercised for a long time suffers from a want of rationale or justification. In contrast, not being able to fulfill one’s vocational duties involves a duty to resign based on the deontological principle of fulfilling one’s obligations. Hence if in making a promise or contract, one is not able (or willing) to fulfill one’s part, one has the duty to make restitution to the other party.

The tragedy being possibly recognized in the wake of Ratzinger’s announcement is how much the office has needlessly been performed sub-optimally due to a pope’s infirm condition. In other words, the fact that the sky does not fall after all when a pope resigns suggests that there is nothing wrong with any pope resigning when he has come to the point in his life when he can no longer optimally fulfill the administrative/policy tasks of the office. In fact, resigning can be viewed as a good thing because the Roman Catholic Church depends on a fully-functioning system of church government. The papacy plays a very significant role even in the day to day operations, albeit at a high level of course. More than an omission of leadership is missing when the occupant of the office is too old to perform the office’s tasks.

The argument that simply being a living symbol of the Church and being a witness to suffering justify the tasks not being performed even for years at a time essentially privileges one part of the office and misconstrues the role of suffering in the Crucifixion. Such suffering is not suffering per se or needless suffering; it is suffering in a theological sense, and thus of added meaning from a context missing in suffering from simply having reached a ripe old age. Generally speaking, the tyranny of even a long-standing custom can give rise to mistaken rationales that themselves gain sacred status and so are presumably not to be questioned. The religious auspices get stretched too far, and thus presume too much for themselves. Religion itself becomes human, all too human, rather than divine.

For more, please read the following article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/pope-benedict-xvi-to-resi_n_2660670.html

 

 

 

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Catholic Traditionalists: A Hate Group?

The Family Research Council had already been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010. In late 2012, a petition was created at the White House’s online system to have the Catholic Church labeled as a hate group. The petition came on the heels of the Pope’s address to Vatican administrators in which he denounced gay marriage as a threat to Western civilization. The petition claims the Pope used “hateful language and discriminatory remarks” implying “that gay families are sub-human.” Closer to the truth, the objection was that the clergy viewed gays themselves as subhuman. Closer still, the reaction was to the hatred itself. Meanwhile, Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, was being criticized for having claimed that Jewish leaders are “enemies of the Church.” Here again, hatred is salient. Rather than being a “gay issue,” the hatred of Catholic traditionalist clergy is toward modernity itself, which the traditionalists assume is secularist in nature. The modern phenomenon of religious fundamentalism (including in evangelical Christianity) belies this assumption.

The hatred is really directed to those holding a very different ideological stance. Since the clergy dominating the Vatican as of 2012 was traditionalist in ideological orientation, it is natural to conclude that ideological differences pertain to modernists. Interestingly, even evangelical Christianity is marginalized, though not hated, within the Catholic Church. Both hatred and dismissiveness are easily manifested in the traditionalists’ demeanor toward those holding a very different opinion even on non-religious matters. This goes far beyond gay rights, feminism and the Jews.

The core of the pathology is in the very intensity of the hatred, the blind spot of which is furnished by the incredible allowance for hypocrisy. God is rationalized as essentially traditionalist, ideologically. That ideology is distinct from faith means that the traditionalist dominant coalition at the Vatican had gone off its terra firma onto alien fauna without any recognition of so doing. This over-reach by religious functionaries, plus the intensity of their hatred toward those with whom they disagree, is the issue. Put another way, hatred in the name of religion is a seething poison. Ironically, it can contaminate the very thing that religious purport to love.

 

For more, see “Bernard Fellay, Head of Traditionalist Catholic Sect”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/bernard-fellay-jews-enemies-of-the-church-radical-catholic-sect_n_2425711.html

“Catholic Hate Group?” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/catholic-hate-group-activists-mobilize-around-white-house-online-petition-system_n_2427266.html

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Gun Control as Religious

How far can clergy reasonably go in the name of religion? More to the point, are there any limits to what counts as religious? In the wake of the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, religious leaders “vowed to mobilize their congregants to push for gun control legislation and provide the ground support for politicians willing to take on the gun lobby.” According to the New York Times, the leaders had come to the conclusion that the time had come for “action beyond praying and comforting the families of those killed.” Jim Winkler, general secretary of the United Methodist Church’s public policy office—the General Board of Church and Society—sent out an “action alert” on gun control to bishops and other church leaders. “I could tell there was this real need, real hunger, at least in my denomination, for there to be some response that is not only prayers and expressions of sadness, but also a call to action. And it came from some who wouldn’t normally care that much about public policy action, but who would be more interested in spiritual responses.” I contend that Winkler missed an opportunity for a more intense or riveting spiritual response than merely praying or being sad (as though this were a religious response) as he moved off religion itself into the realm of political activism. It is possible that the clergy in general undercut their own religious credibility in becoming advocates for gun legislation.

To take sides on a political issue is to be partisan in nature. Even if many people in one’s congregation happen to take the same position, those who take the opposite stance would at the very least feel a slight discomfort in listening to a speech under the subterfuge of a sermon. The New York Times reported at the time that advocating limits on guns was controversial within many religious groups, and many evangelicals were opposed. A CBS News poll taken during the week following the massacre found that while 69 percent of Catholics wanted stricter laws on gun control, only 37 percent of white evangelical Christians agreed. Even in a Catholic homily, promoting gun control could distance or even offend nearly 30 percent of a congregation. The advocacy could be viewed as a manifestation of the priest’s own politics taking advantage of the pulpit.

Therefore, a cleric’s decision to weigh in on a political issue could potentially divide or even rupture a house of worship. At what cost to the worship? Indeed, partisanship itself may be inherently inconsistent with worship. Whereas the latter is transcendent in nature or orientation, political issues are “this worldly” and thus eclipse transcendence. Jim Winkler not only risked introducing division into Methodist churches; he also missed the opportunity for transcendence beyond that which comes with prayer. In other words, he was going off a false dichotomy.

Admittedly, there was something unifying, and thus holistic, in the gathering of clergy from the three Abrahamic religions (and various sects thereof) at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. exactly one week after the shooting. It might be tempting to conflate this unity with that which is presumed through faith to go along with transcendence (e.g., an attribute of God or of the experience itself). There is something “other worldly” about the church bells including on toll for the 20 year-old gunman who committed suicide after having killed 20 children and 8 adults at the school. That is to say, including him changes the perspective to one that is more holistic, even transcendent, because he is grouped in with the victims. Experiencing the toll for the shooter can be transcendent because the symbolic act goes beyond “the ways of this world” in treating humanity itself as a part rather than the whole. The unity of various religions taking part would have enhanced the significance of the transcendence were it, rather than gun control or even sadness for the victims, emphasized by the clergy. Had they been oriented to changing the perspective to one that is more transcendent, they would have remained within the religious domain.  In fact, they would have been promoting it! Using the occasion to lobby or organize for gun-control legislation, on the other hand, shifted attention away from the more transcendent perspective onto one that is divisive or at least all too familiar in terms of partisan divisions.

Generally speaking, a religious perspective that is transcendent via symbol, myth or ritual can situate a horrible situation that seems total. Including the two “sides” of a conflict in a way that erases sides altogether by adding a transcendent dimension—which relativizes the conflict itself—can demonstrate the utility of transcendent experience itself, and thus religion. The point is not forgiveness. That new moral implications can ensue is also not the point. Nor does it mean that religion is morality (or even is bound to moral principles). Drawing a moral lesson from a tragedy is not in itself religious. Worse still, taking a side and promoting it—which from a religious angle could be categorized under self-idolatry—treats the conflict or issue itself as the background or basis rather than as relative or partial. Perhaps in wanting to cover more ground, the clergy oriented to gun-control legislation may actually wind up with less from the standpoint of their own native fauna. In wanting more, maybe we betray ourselves and, in so doing, can actually wind up with less.

For more, please see Laurie Goodstein, “Religious Leaders Push Congregants on Gun Control, Sensing a Watershed Moment,” The New York Times, December 20, 2012.

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Anglican Women Excluded: Theology or Prejudice?

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, noted in 2012 just after his Church rejected legislation that would have allowed women to become bishops that a “lot of explaining” would be necessary. For the Church of England “undoubtedly” lost a “measure of credibility” societally as a result. “We have, to put it very bluntly, a lot of explaining to do,” he told the Church’s General Synod. “Whatever the motivation for voting yesterday whatever the theological principle on which people acted and spoke, the fact remains that a great deal of this discussion is not intelligible to our wider society. Worse than that, it seems as if we are willfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of that wider society.” As a result, “we have . . . undoubtedly lost a measure of credibility in our society.” Some commentators even suggested that the Christian sect known as the Anglican Church might lose appreciable membership as a result. While such a prediction may be exaggerated, Williams’ comments can be unpacked for greater insight.

 

First, whenever an organization breaches societal norms, it can be expected that the group suffers a loss of credibility, or reputational capital, as a result. This is true of entities in business and government as well as religion. When the breach is on a well-established norm, the loss of credibility can effectively relegate the organization in terms even of being taken seriously.

Second, Williams points to “theological principle” as a possible rationale behind the laity chamber’s rejection of the proposal. It is interesting that the theological point was not an obstacle in the clerical chamber, as the proposal passed there. It can be asked, however, whether the tradition passed down that Jesus had only male disciples is indeed a theological principle. If so, would a preference for bread at breakfast be a theological principle for a Christian were Jesus said to have only eaten bread in the morning? Theologically, if Jesus is “fully human, fully divine,” then would his particular habits while on earth necessarily be theological in nature if they are in regard to the “fully human” side? Jesus walking through a door after his resurrection can be taken as theological in nature, whereas absent any theological rationale on his part for having a bunch of guys as disciples, it could have been a reflection of the culture at the time. Were Mary Magdalene one of the disciples, the assumed theological principle would turn out to be wrong, which would have even greater implications for historical Christianity in that it will have been wrong on something it regarded as theological. In short, the “fact” that Jesus walked around historically introduces non-theological reasons for some of his decisions.

Third, the argument that a theological rationale should have priority over a well-established cultural norm introduces complexities. On the one hand, God’s omnipotence, or power, cannot by definition be limited to human mores or even ethical principles. The Book of Job bears this point out. God does not exactly allow Job to be treated ethically by the devil. On the other hand, the theological domain transcends a human’s grasp. To the extent that allowing a theological principle to trump a societal norm—even an ethical norm—implies a sort of omniscience or “all-knowing” regarding the principle, it could be that societal norms, at least with regard to what is believed to be fair, should constrain how far people go with their theological principles (even if such a limitation does not apply to God). In short, the vote may evince a certain theological arrogance. William’s reference to the vote not being “intelligible” to the wider society could imply a certain conceit, for it could be that the common-sense fairness regarding women was not “intelligible” to the Church’s laity represented in the chamber that voted down the proposal. If so, the proper response would not be one of a “lot of explaining to do,” but, rather, a lot of listening.

For more on this piece, please see: “Women Bishops: Rowan Williams Says Church Has ‘Lot Of Explaining To Do,” The Huffington Post, November 21, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/21/women-bishops-archbishop-_n_2169883.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

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