Eggs with the dead

My wife asked me to make a hard boiled egg for her this morning. I put a pot of water on stove and opened the refrigerator door. I couldn't find the eggs right off, so the door swung wide open. The eggs were out of place, under some tupperwared leftovers on a bottom shelf, the door still open. I brought the egg carton to the stove, and opened it, to select an egg. That's when Memere started up.

"Close the door!" she admonished in her Yankee accent. "You're letting all the cold out!"

And Memere was right. After a fashion.

When she grew up, refrigeration came from the ice box. Literally, an insulated box cooled by ice, cut months before from a local pond. Ice being ice, the temps in the ice box never got below 32. There was no such thing as a freezer, which required electricity to plunge the temps below the freezing point of water.

So, cold was a precious commodity, impossible to replenish. Once lost, it was gone. It wasn't just a matter of waiting for the kitchen's magic cooling machine to get back to work.

Since that one rebuke from my grandmother 50 years ago, I have been arguing with her in my head. Sometimes, the argument is historical and technological: the days of the icebox are gone! Our technology is far superior! Sometime, the argument is scientific: But Memere, it's not just the air that is cold, but everything in the fridge. Even letting the cold air out is but a fraction of the "cold" stored in there. Sometimes the argument is economic and social: Memere, it costs pennies at most to recool whatever air might have been lost. Is it worth it to get us both upset over a few pennies?

There are so many voices like my Memere's rattling around in my head, and so many internal debates with those voices. They come from arguments that could not be formulated by a young mind. From comebacks that coalesced too late to be used in a fight. From responses that were too raw and cruel to voice, and needed a lifetime of reflection and wisdom to make with the necessary tenderness.

How much of our internal dialog is with people long dead? Is it good to keep our loved ones (not to mention our detested enemies!) so close to us? Can we find ever find peace with them? Or must we wait for that day when we meet face to face? Will the first business of Heaven be to reconcile with those whose voices inhabited our heads?

Star Light, star bright

It's Christmastime, and people are debating the Star of Bethlehem yet again. Neil DeGrasse Tyson skimmed over some of the theories about it on his StarTalk radio podcast. He mentioned Halley's Comet, which swung by our neighborhood in 12BC. But it was probably too early to herald Jesus's birth. Maybe it was a nova recorded by the Chinese around 5BC. Maybe not.

Conjunctions of planets have been used as candidates. Saturn and Jupiter had a triple conjunction in 7BC. But conjunctions are pretty common in the night sky.

But any astronomical candidate has to account for the strange behavior of the star of Bethlehem in Matthew's account, the only gospel that mentions the star.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.

Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance.

And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother.

As others have pointed out, this was a weird star. It is both strange and ordinray, appearing out of nowhere, then "rising" as the celestial sphere turns. But after the magi's audience with Herod, the star moves oddly, leading the magi until it unmistakeably stops over Jesus's birthplace.

Was the star,then, directly overhead when the magi approached the stable? If so, how did the magi know precisely what location was directly under the star? Go outside on a starry night, look straight up and tell me (without a computerized star map) which house is directly beneath any star overhead. Is it your own house? The neighbor's? Or someone ten miles down the road? And if the star was not an actual celestial body, but hovered beneath the heavens -- maybe a hundred feet up, when why would highly-sophisticated magi call it a star?

Short of divinely-arranged discernment, it's hard to square Matthew's story with any thing in the natural world.

Which leaves us with few options. Either Matthew picked up a story, created by others, about Jesus's birth that was circulating in 85AD. Or, as many theologians like to think, he invented a highly symbolic story about the birth of Christ and its deeper meaning. Or he just made up a story to make Jesus seem important -- even from the day of his birth. He even threw in a few special celestial touches to tart up the story.

My sense? I am unconvinced by the astronomical possibilities. No one else in the world saw what the magi saw, as told by Matthew. But it seems equally unlikely that Matthew would have concocted a story with such meaning, peril and symbolic connections to the Scriptures. This was not just about crafting a better Hercules story. There are layers of depth and meaning to Matthew's account that suggest, at the least, that he wished to situate the nativity of Jesus into a cosmic, political and (most importantly) a moral context. So while I don't wonder anymore about what the Star of Bethlehem was, I am more transported by what it might mean.

Like the magi, we are strangers in a strange land, guided by forces we don't fully comprehend. We risk being trapped by the fears and selfish agendas of our fellow, weak human beings. And we carry gifts with us, which (when moved be the wisdom of the heart) we share with those in need. Our joy and gift is to have encountered the divine, even when disguised in poverty and humility. And made wiser by our encounter with divine strength in human weakness, we return home by another way, to tell our story to those who lacked the grace to have seen the star at its rising.

Another one bites the dust

I was catching up with an old family friend -- one of my mom's high school classmates, actually -- who told me that her younger son was an atheist. "Ethan," we'll call him, has worked in the aerospace industry for many years. I'm not surprised that a person with his talents at scientific thinking would find it hard to fit his logic-driven personality into what the Church has to offer.

But what, frankly, have we got to offer to those who (like me, to a great extent) buy into the scientific worldview?

Frankly, little, And of that, much that is debatable.

Take the Bible. To believers, it is the literal word of God, correct in all aspects. But to those taking an outsider's perspective, it is (at best) a record of what certain people in a certain place at a certain time thought about God and the Universe. Unfortunately, that "certain people" was a small group of disorganized and unruly nomads, kicked around by the world's larger and more advanced powers. The "certain place" was Israel and Judea -- not the great centers of learning and commerce like Rome, Alexandria and Athens. And the "certain time" was the Bronze and Iron Ages -- long before the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution. As our own age speeds past the Industrial Revolution, the Space Age and the Digital Age -- and our heroes are scientific and technical geniuses like Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Watson, Crick, Gates and Jobs-- it's not surprising that the older heroes -- Jesus, Moses and David -- seem inconsequential and ineffective by comparison.

And take our theology -- sprung from the values and worldview of the blood-soaked, demon-haunted world. If Christ were to become incarnate today, would we be obsessed by the spilling of his blood as were the early Christians? To us, blood is a mess to clean; not a relic to fetishize.

So I get how moderns would find it hard to find meaning in the old stories.

But I fear that  my fiend Ethan, like many of his contemporaries, has cut himself off from the human story, which contains many of the same hardships and questions as it did in previous Ages. And it does so with beings whose world is still grasped with the feeble power of the 3-pounds of wetware between our ears. Scientifically and technologically, we are light years ahead of our Bronze Age counterparts. But emotionally (and dare I say spiritually) we are just about as advanced (or retarded) as they were. Our wars are no less brutal, and our grasp of our own motivations no more clear than they have ever been. We can simplify our view by excluding God, but that makes it no less painful to experience the death of a loved one, nor any more clear to guide a child through the hazards of young adulthood.

Neither a fundamentalist approach to the Bible nor a commitment to the Bronze Age ethics that undergird Church teaching will speak to those who worldview is so different from those who came before us. But by rejecting all that the Church teaches, including its Creator and Author, folks like Ethan are losing a chance to reinvent the great story of humanity. They may leave little behind for the soul-seeking children than a world full of technical gadgets and marvels without meaning.

Duck, duck, goose

Phil Robertson, pater familias of the Duck Dynasty reality series on A&E, got everyone's feathers ruffled with his comments in GQ magazine. For starters, Phil just can't understand the attraction of homosexuals for non-female body parts.

“It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”a

Well, spoken Bearded Heterosexual Male! To Phil, it's not a biological preference that determines what a person finds attractive, but sin, or its absence. A normal, unsinful person, one like Phil, I guess, will crave the genitalia of the opposite sex. But when sin gets hold of you, all bets are off!

 

 But it's when he was asked what behavior is sinful, that Phil really got rolling.

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

The left-wing blogs and magazines had apoplexy over this one. Good God, Dobson, Robertson has equated homosexuality with bestiality! Perhaps. But Robertson has simply paraphrased what is stated in 1 Corinthians 6:

Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

But for all his skill at quoting Paul, Phil leaves out the context of the statement -- which was Paul's admonition against Christians suing fellow Christians. Seems the Corinthians were a litigious bunch. Paul was upset because in the Kingdom, Christians will be set up as judged over non-Christians. We are supposed to judge them, not ourselves!

But Paul goes on:

That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.^d

Interesting. Paul knows that some of his own flock have been mighty sinners!
What disappointed me about the media reaction to the Robertson's interview was the focus on homosexual sins. Too bad. We lefties might have made common cause with Phil when it came to beating up on the thieves, slanderers and robbers. Very much in line with the rhetoric of the Occupy movement. But no one would know with all the focus being put on non-financial sins.

So what do we make of this?

First, that that Phil's mindset is hardly different than that of most fundamentalist Christians. He reads a bible verse, and runs with it, usually without regard to its context.

Second, that it is dangerous to allow uneducated people to speak on topics they barely understand. There's far more to even seemingly straightforward scriptures like the one Phil quotes. Like, what was Paul's understanding of sodomy and homosexuality? Did it match ours? And where does our modern understanding of biology fit into the way we might filter biblical verses? Paul had no idea about DNA, genetics or chromosomes. He did not have any knowledge of germs, viruses or prions. To him, there were two "facts" about human beings. They were created perfect by God. And any problems they might have -- from painful childbirth to illness to death -- were caused by sin. That is Paul's worldview, and it's sad (in the light of so many scientific advances) that many Christians still hold to it today. I guess it makes it easier for them to blame the sufferer for their problems.

But let's give Paul (and maybe Phil) some credit. While most educated people no longer see homosexuality as a disease or as a choice, no one believes the greed, slander and theft are biologically determined or a matter of viral influence. Ripping off your neighbor or your workplace or your national economy are still wholly under the influence of the will. By putting our focus on moral issues we can all agree on, we might be able to move beyond the current silliness with Duck Dynasty.

God bless the Satanists -- defenders of the Constitution

Chalk one up for the separation of church and state:

Once the Oklahoma Lege approved putting the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the State Capitol, that opened the door big and wide for other “religions” to have tributes to their beliefs.

The first to apply?

The New York based Satanic Temple, of course.They are submitting a plan for a $20,000 designs. The Ten Commandments tribute was only $10,000, the but Satanic one will include “an interactive display for children.”

The interactive display for kids was a nice touch, I have to admit. That's guaranteed to give some fundie heart failure.

This is why I am a more-or-less absolutist on keeping religion out of the government. Once you give one sect special privileges, it's next to impossible to keep out the rest. Letting "In God We Trust" on our coinage and "Under God" in our pledge, and it's just a matter of time when some will want to pledge "under Lord Satan" or demand nickels engraved with "In the Triple Goddess" We Trust."

If it were up to me, we would keep nativity scenes off the public square, chaplains out of Congress, and prayers out of the public classroom. There are so many other places to express religion without forcing other-believers or non-believers into participating in religion against their will or against their faith. Letting mangers onto the public square just invites a sense of superiority feelings from Christians and a sense of exclusion from everyone else. Pitting citizens against one another is a curious way to foster civic-mindedness.

As for our lawmakers, by what power of heaven or hell do they have to anoint themselves in holy armor before rushing off to start wars, rob the poor, torment the sick and enrich the wealthy? Seem to me that the best way they can express their religion is by taking care of their fellow citizens. After all, some version of the Golden Rule is common to all peoples.

Even Satanists.

Poles apart

We are such a polarized society -- rich versus poor, Democrat versus Republican, white versus black/brown/red/yellow; believers versus atheists. If you're not one, you must be the other right?

But polarization is at least as much of a habit of mind as it is a description of reality.

In the world of religion, we see this habit in the way we approach topics like the Bible, abortion and creation. I often see it on Facebook on posts from friends who are science-minded or deeply religious. If you believe in evolution, natural selection, the mutability of genes, the randomness of genetic change, the seeming fact that weather and natural disasters are not sent to punish the wicked, then you must be anti-religion. If you believe in God or that fetal life is sacred, then you must be a fundamentalist. If you think that the Bible reflects the truths and biases of the writers, then you can't belong to a Church.

Weirdly, this reflect reality, since many people have difficulty holding beliefs that fall into two political categories. They seem to find the one or two issues that matter to them, gravitate to that pole, then accept whatever other beliefs are associated with that pole -- whether they cared about them before or not. In the book "What's the Matter with Kansas," Thomas Frank argues that this need to aggregate at poles is what has driven the popularity of conservative politics in America, even when tenets of that belief may harm the economic interests of its supporters. The formula goes like this: identify a wedge issue -- abortions, gay marriage, illegal aliens, whatever -- that a segment of the voting population cares about. Label that view "conservative." Then, watch as people cluster to that pole of the political spectrum and adopt other "conservative" beliefs -- like trickle-down economics, or union-busting, or lowering taxes. Voila, instant "conservatives," who will vote their social conscience, while getting robbed on the economic issues.

The true work of democracy lies in helping citizens to recognize that their beliefs are getting in the way of their well-being. It is in helping them to recognize the flimsy barriers that separate "us" from "them." As John Kennedy said, at the height of then Cold War, in relation to Soviet citizens, our enemies:

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.

Speech at The American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963

Finding the common ground that unites us, that makes us communio,  should be the goal of the our leaders -- whether government or religious. It's what leads to peace, amity and cooperation. Splitting the community into self-interested factions is the work of diabolo, the Splitter, the Divider, who constantly whispers in our ears that the other guy is getting a better deal, that we are being screwed, victimized, robbed -- even when we might enjoy the lion's share of our  community's resources.

The first step must be to remove the blinders that Diabolo invites us to wear, and they we don willingly. The blinders to others' pain, to others' value, to others' dignity.  The blinders to our own entrapment in the illogic that allows us to condemn the breaks that others get without admitting to the breaks that we have enjoyed.

Saying "no" to the accepted wisdom of our culture is hard. In this Advent season, it makes us a voice that cries out in the wilderness. But if the stories of the prophets, culminating in John the Baptist, are indicative, even the lonely voice crying truth will bear fruit, pointing to the birth of what will free.

No voice, no sacrifice, no freedom.

 

Be that voice.

Give it up

I created this poster today, both as an Advent exhortation, but also as a rejoinder to those who see Christianity as a means to further demoralize and disenfranchise the poor. Yay me. Then I got nervous. What if that last sentence -- "Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages" -- was taken the wrong way? What if some readers understood John the Baptist as telling the poor to stop agitating for a living wage? Would J the B oppose raising the minimum wage?

I hope that people see John as telling soldiers that their wages should be sufficient for them -- that they didn't have to supplement them with blackmail and extortion, alienating and impoverishing the very people they were supposed to protect. What's not clear to me is whether the soldiers that Luke talks about were Roman soldiers, or Jewish officers like those who protected the temple. It's more likely to be the latter, since Roman soldiers or their mercenaries would likely not have spoken Aramaic, the local language. Not to mention, Roman soldiers would not have understood "foreign" concepts like repentance and the end of the age.

 

But I probably have nothing to worry about. John's words are about sharing clothing and food with those in need. He links those words with advice to two sets of cheats -- tax collectors and the military. Perhaps in John's mind, these three groups were similar. Each keeps what is justly belongs to the poor.

 

What a Christmas it would be if we modeled ourselves more on John the Baptist than on the Magi. We might spend the day giving freely from our surplus rather than expecting to expand it!

Lord, we are hard of heart and unwilling to relinquish our grasp on our treasure. Teach us to be more openhanded and freer with the excess bounty that clogs our closets, attics and basements. Amen.

Nelson Mandela -- the very, very bad man

His body had barely started to cool when the attacks on Nelson Mandela's remarkable life began to circulate. His supposed communist associations were raised. Bill O'Reilly said, “He was a communist, this man. He was a communist, all right? But he was a great man! What he did for his people was stunning!… He was a great man! But he was a communist!”  Thanks, Bill, for another bit of your patented idiocy.

Why idiotic? Didn't Mandela write a book called "How to be a Good Communist?" Weren't some of his supporters South Africans communists? Might he have held a position in the SACP, or South African Communist Party? True, true and maybe true. Mandela apparently penned the book around 1961. He formed the ANC's militant arm, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) with help from the SACP. And he may have held some position in the SACP, though he denied it later.

Although initially committed to non-violent protest, he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in 1961 in association with the South African Communist Party, leading a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government. (Source: wikipedia)

So what are we to make of this. If a man ever shows interest in communism, does that forever make him a communist? Has communism then become an indelible part of his character? Or can a moan move on from earlier associations and remake himself?

I call this the Jean Valjean syndrome. If a man is starving and steals a loaf of bread, can he be then forever labeled a thief? This was the view of Jalvert, the antagonist in "Les Miserables," a police official so impervious to the idea of human conversion that he hounded Valjean, even after he had clearly amended his life and transcended his past. Given the number of Les Miz fans worldwide, it's amazing how the views of Jalvert still hold sway.

Consider Mandela's position in the early 1960s. He desperately wants to free his people from the tyranny of the apartheid white regime. He is unable to free them on his own. Western powers, including the US and Britain, show little interest in condemning the brutality of the white supremacist government. With nowhere to turn, he was two choice: accept that his people will have to suffer, probably indefinitely, or to turn to the one model of liberation at his disposal: communist liberation movements.

What would you do?

But the communist label is usefully toxic. To have had any relationship with communism is to choose to be permanently blemished in the eyes of those wishing to discredit you. Those who ignored your pleas for humane treatment can now besmirch your aspirations, and attempt to diminish your legacy.

But Mandela was larger than that. Regardless of to whom he turned for help in liberating his people 50 years ago, he helped to establish a democratic state in which bloodshed between former white oppressors and former black victims was nearly completely avoided. He overcame the bitterness in his own heart and invited his former Robben Island guard to attend his inauguration as the country's first black president.

Those who need to smear Mandela as a communist must do so by ignoring his actual achievements. It's a special kind of white arrogance that allows a person to negate a lifetime of achievements by a black man who suffered personally and who transformed that suffering into a chance or millions of his countrymen to succeed on the world stage. To call Mandela a communist for a past association with the only group interested in advancing the aspirations of his people is to diminish the aspirations of all people to live in freedom, peace and prosperity.

Rest in peace Madiba. Your achievements will outlive the hatred of your detractors.

Who's got your back, Francis?

It's been fun watching the reaction of the plutocrats to Pope Francis's calling out of unrestrained capitalism as "Marxism "(Rush Limbaugh), "kind of Liberal"  (Sarah Palin) and "neo-socialism" ( Stuart Varney of Fox News).

These folks have made their careers over the last 30 years of persuading the American public that there is only one legitimate economic theory, unregulated capitalism, and that all other economies are the devil's own creation. How else to understand why ordinary people, made to scrape and suffer under a system that funnels 40% of its wealth to the top 1% of income earners, can support the system that impoverishes them and reduces opportunities for their children? When called upon to help the unfortunate, the only response of our wealth-idolizing class is to double down on their beliefs, swearing that the rich need to be taxed less than ever before and the poor need to be bled more deeply. So deep is their faith in the system that even its complete collapse would hardly dent their fervor.

I have been worried about the pope's well being since just after his election. He has clearly signaled that the Church needs to be true to its call for justice and its option for the poor. Disciplining the Bishop of Bling was one of Francis's first shots across the bow of the Church of Luxury. Washing the feet of women (a Muslim woman, to boot) signaled an end to the exclusive boys-only club that the Church has become. Embracing a man with facial tumors called us all to see beyond the externals to a person's soul. And Evangelii Gaudium placed the pontiff squarely on the side of those disadvantaged by the soul-sucking refusal of western capitalism to deal with the ever-widening gap between the super-rich and the rest of us. At what point will the pope's openness and accessibility become a liability? Will someone take a shot at him? Arrange a convenient accident?

We should probably enjoy this season of the Church's openness to the poor while it lasts. In myth, based on John's timeline, Jesus preached for three years. More likely, if you look at the Synoptics, he preached for less than one. Brutal military/economic systems don't tolerate rule breakers for long.

The Devil may be fated to lose the war in the long run, but he sure can rack up many small, heartbreaking victories along the way, along with body count. Pray for the pope's safety. Pray to thwart the plans of those with an interest to silence his message of joy and hope.

Black Friday, Holy Friday

Chances are that your Black Friday shopping trip didn't devolve into anything like the chair throwing melée at the Dallas Texas Town East Mall (right). As far as I know, no one died this year. Maybe the media is doing its typical job of illustrating a common misconception - unruly crowds rush to get Christmas sales -- and thereby actually giving it life.  But there's something a bit dispiriting about the idea that our big box stores -- Walmart, Sears, KMart and the rest -- can't wait until the drumsticks are baggied and the liquor capped before opening their doors to the mania of Christmas shoppers. The Puritans may have been prescient in their dislike for Christmas, the holiday that brings out our collective drunken reveler and greed head more than it does our sober pietist. Meanwhile, our friends on the right of the political spectrum are wheeling out their perennial pro-Christmas poses, wailing about our society's supposed war on Christmas, while the left bewails the loss of the real meaning of Christmas. All the while, the real battle lines are being drawn in Aisle 9, where a few battered boxes of flat screen TVs are being skirmished over like scraps of meat at a dog fight. We may have been created a lower than the angels, but there's a long way to go before we hit the bottom. Every year, we strap on the lead weights to see if we can sink a little lower than the year before.

 

Occasionally, the Christmas message finds hearing over the carnage, like a synthetic Carols of the Bells over the mall sound system. Judea was a miserable place in BC whatever. The Bethlehem inns were as crowded as a $6 dollar video carousel. Like mall cops, the Temple guards were breaking up brawls at the money changing tables. Oblivious to good sense, tax collectors were skimming their usual profits. Pickpockets and cut purses roamed the lanes. Cutthroats stalked the lonely roads. The wealthy schemed to extend their holdings. The poor squabbled over a bedraggled pair of doves. The gaming tables were crammed with those with the coin to gamble.

 

It was into this filth and madness that the Son of God came to us -- still comes to us. Into our our unsilent nights, our uncalm and our unbright lives. His light is not the glitter of neon off tinsel and plastic, but a light of peace. Of seeing through and beyond the foolishness of our petty bargains and shallow bargain basement victories. Of embracing the pain that seeks its solace in deals. Of soothing the sorrow that searches for its quenching in battles over video game consoles. Of pointing to a joy that comes not from shunning the stinking mess of our distractions but from loving it into something worthy of the divine gaze that wishes it to be worthy of the name attached to the frayed name tag dangling from a frazzled thread.

 

Child of God.

William and the Savage

There's no better truth-teller than a furious former Catholic. That fact was on full review on Bill Maher's recent show with gay author and sexpert Dan Savage. Dan, for those who aren't familiar with him, wrote the column "Savage Love" since 1991. It is a column full of VERY frank how-to advice for those who, let's say, desire to explore the full range of human sexuality, albeit safely. He is also behind the "It Gets Better" campaign which attempted to slow the suicide rate of gay teens.

So, Dan was on "Real Time with Bill Maher," commenting on the recent exorcism performed by  Springfield, Illinois Bishop Thomas John Paprocki after that state's decision to allow same-sex marriage. The bishop, certain that the devil was in the legislative details (or just angling for a church promotion) decided that driving Satan out of Illinois was the appropriate way to handle the "crisis."

As GayStarNews relates Dan's appearance:

During an appearance on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher last week, he was asked to comment on a Catholic bishop who opposes marriage equality in Hawaii alleging children with same sex parents were at a greater risk of suicide. 'That’s total bullsh*t,' Savage told Maher. 'He’s confusing children with gay parents with children who are raped by Catholic priests. Sorry, I am just done being lectured about children and their safety by Catholic-f*cking bishops, priests, cardinals.'

Tough (and rough) language! Predictably, The Catholic League's Bill Donohue, self-style scourge of anti-Catholicism, erupted:

The board of directors at Time Warner cannot distance themselves from Bill Maher any longer. On Friday night, Maher teed up Dan Savage, another anti-Catholic bigot. What happened was particularly vicious.

We are sending to every member of Time Warner’s board of directors a copy of 54 anti-Catholic statements made by Bill Maher on TV [click here to read the report]. Friday’s show concluded the season. The time has come to close this show once and for all.

Poor Bully (excuse, me Billy) D. He can't tell the difference between anti-Catholicism and a moral disgust at the action of Catholic prelates -- those who protected child molesters and are now distracting from that abysmal record with calls to prevent loving gay couples to marry.

The sad thing is not that some people are mad at the Church, but that we need to rely on those who have left the Church to provide it with prophetic calls to morality. In my more radical moments, I would love for men like Maher and Savage to be bishops, overseeing the modern moral landscape and calling us to conversion. For now, I ask only that our ordained bishops take a message from our comedy shows, which have become one of the few dependable sources of perspective, conscience and well-aimed moral outrage.

The Joy of the Gospel: Francis's JFK moment?

Today's release of Pope Francis's apostolic letter, Evangelii Gaudium, or the Joy of the Gospel, has many people in a tizzy. In a good way. Some of excerpts from the letter have all the hallmarks of a pope setting a course against many of our world's (and the Church's) most noxious nostrums:

From the official Vatican news network:

To “recover the original freshness of the Gospel”, as he puts it, through a thorough renewal of the Church’s structures and vision. Including what he calls “a conversion of the papacy” to make it better able to serve the mission of evangelization in the modern world. The Church, he says, should not be afraid to re-examine “customs not directly connected to the heart of the Gospel” even if they may have deep historical roots.

In strikingly direct and personal language, the Pope appeals to all Christians to bring about a “revolution of tenderness” by opening their hearts each day to God’s unfailing love and forgiveness. The great danger in today’s consumer society, he says, is “the desolation and anguish” that comes from a “covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience.” Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests , he warns, “there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor.”As we open our hearts, the Pope goes on, so the doors of our churches must always be open and the sacraments available to all. The Eucharist, he says pointedly, “is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak” And he repeats his ideal of a Church that is “bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets” rather than a Church that is caught up in a slavish preoccupation with liturgy and doctrine, procedure and prestige. “God save us,” he exclaims, “from a worldly Church with superficial spiritual and pastoral trappings!” Urging a greater role for the laity, the Pope warns of “excessive clericalism” and calls for “a more incisive female presence in the Church”, especially “where important decisions are made.”

Even taken out of context, these quotes are startling. The pope, in stark and clear language, slams trickle-down economic theory, that hoary justification for continuing to enrich the already wealthy. Just as Christmas shopping mania is about to infest the land, he challenges consumer culture, with its self-indulgence and ignoring of the poor. He flings open the doors of the churches and of the sacraments -- a long overdue corrective to the sanctioned practice of withholding Christ from those who need him the most. He signals a desire to re-examine old customs that are not rooted in the gospel -- the celibate priesthood maybe? And he seems interested in finding a larger role for women in the church's decision-making offices.

For a progressive like myself, this letter is an extraordinary declaration of Pope Francis's radical departure from recent popes, who have turned their back on the world as through it has nothing to teach them. It also is a shift away from the self-congratulatory pose of many conservative Catholics who seems happy to hunker down within a church that is small, colder and "purer."

But before we go screaming joyfully into the streets, its good to be cautious. Francis's statements are open to interpretation.  And, he has thrown a few bones to the conservatives. For all the talk about women having more decision-making power, the pope is not opening the Church to a female priesthood. Neither is he backing away for the church's absolute ban on abortion. Indeed, when taking off the rosy glasses of progressive hopefulness, it's hard to understand how the pope's letter will affect local parishes. One could even take each of his points and interpret it to mean that nothing will change. For instance, without a change to canon law, will divorced and remarried Catholics be able to receive sacraments? Will the Eucharist be open to non-Catholics? Or will we still have to endure priests making inhospitable announcements at weddings and funerals that only Catholics may receive? And with an all-male and female-unfriendly priesthood still in charge, will "Father" really cede significant leadership authority to women?

Still, the pope has signaled that the gospel is meant to be a joyful experience-- truly good news -- and not an experience that continues to alienate the faithful while irritating non-Catholics. It's been so long since I, for one, have considered the Gospel to be joyful, that for all its shortcomings and ambiguities, Francis has lit a fire of fulfilled hope in this crank of a Catholic.

And for that, we should be glad.

Gruesome Beauty -- book review of "Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs"

There's a good chance that your average Catholic might have run into relics --the stray skull, vertebrae or finger bones of some long-dead saint. But complete human skeletons? And dressed up in gold and silver thread, precious gems, bejeweled armor and sumptuous robes?  And displayed in public for all to see?

Not so much.

In what might be a spectacle worthy of a horror movie, many of these relics, on display in churches throughout southern Germany, are documented by Paul Koudounaris in his extraordinary book, "Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs ." With dozens of full-page, beautifully-composed photographs as well as accessible, well-researched prose, Koudounaris tells the story of the Katakombenheiligen or Catacomb Saints . These were the supposed skeletons of Christians martyrs spirited out of Rome's catacombs from the 1600s to the 1800s, and destined to replace precious relics destroyed during the Reformation. Whether the bones could be proven to be martyrs or even Christians mattered little; the fact that they were Roman was enough to merit a trip beyond the Alps. After their "translation," or travel from Rome, they were cleaned, assembled, dressed, bejeweled, posed and displayed in churches in the German speaking world. Since in many cases the bones came without provenance, they were often named by their new owners -- either after a popular patron of a local monastery, for some virtue (St. Fortunatus, St. Clemens) or their lack of a name (St. Incognito). These town patrons were regularly removed from their niches and paraded through town for veneration, a few even in modern times.

Koudounaris brings alive a time when gruesome displays of the dead were an aid to faith. Whether you believe in the power of relics or not, the work done to them was startling. There's nothing like seeing a skull, with jewels placed in its eye sockets, staring back at you. Koudounaris also traces the history of the Catacomb Saints into the modern era, starting in the 1800s, when such displays were increasingly deemed tasteless, even to Catholics sensibilities. Indeed, many of the Catacomb Saints now languish behind discrete covers, or in dusty backrooms under broken furniture and other liturgical detritus.

I found the text of "Heavenly Bodies" stark, honest and unsparing but never dismissive. And that even tone helped me to inhabit the mind of those who once found such treasures to be -- not off-putting and tasteless -- but a moving testament to faith in the resurrection.

For more of Paul Koudounaris' images of  catacomb saints, check this link:

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/10/the-beauty-of-death-catacomb-saints-photographed-by-paul-koudounaris

Growing up on the death of a president

I was in second grade on November 22, 1963, one in a pod of 30 young French Catholics at Manchester’s St. Georges School, being taught by a young nun who had recently traded her dark, heavy robes and sunrise-shaped headpiece for a modish knee-length black skirt and a light black veil. Over in Rome, Vatican II was breaking up the heavy clouds of a gloomy Catholicism, and we were feeling it even in the dark halls of our century-old grammar school.

 We were so young, so sheltered from harsh reality. TV cowboys died in bloodless battles, smooth-shaven and clutching their laundered shirt fronts as they fell noiselessly onto clean sands. Songs and movies were free of foul language. News shows were sanitized to ensure that nothing would spoil the family dinner, eaten from TV trays.

 When a sister came streaking into our classroom around 12:45pm on that day, though we didn't realize it, our cozy and predictable world had already come to an end. Sticking her veiled head into the class, she yelled, "The president has been shot!" before streaking off to announce the news to other classrooms. Our young teacher, Sister Judy, bade us all to get on our knees. Together, we prayed  Hail Marys--a good, short prayer accessible to 7-years-olds and, with its plea to the Virgin to "pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,"  apt.  Not long after 1pm, the same nun stuck her head through the door again. This time, her message was stark and short. "The president is dead." Sister Judy had us take our seats again, intercessory prayer for the president's life now being useless.

 I don’t I remember much else from that awful weekend, when my dad said he cried like a baby. The interviews with the alleged gunman, his own shocking murder on live TV, the new widow kissing her husband's coffin, the cortege through Washington's stunned and silent streets, a little boy's playful salute, the drums, the burial. My memories, too, are buried -- not beneath Arlington soil, but under layers of later reading and viewing: full-color Life magazine spreads of the president's head exploding in an orange halo, the Warren Report's gruesome testimony and illustrations, and 50 years of watching a black Lincoln convertible, flags fluttering in the warm Texas breeze, gliding again and again into the killing zone.

 Not long after the assassination, Treasure Chest, the magazine for Catholic kids, published a comic book telling of JFK's death, including Jackie's "No, No, No!" as she cradled her husband's wounded body (to we Catholics, a 20th-century Pieta), the doctors at Parkland Hospital trying to save the president’s life, and the last rites of the Catholic Church being administered (we all fervently hoped) just in time before the president died.

 Kennedy's death, for us in 1963, was more than the tragic loss of a young, handsome and inspiring leader. It marked the beginning of tortuous lifelong journey with many "firsts." Of the twisted mentality that drives small men to murder the great. Of the damage that bullets wreak on bone and flesh. Of guards who cannot protect and of police who are unwise. Of autopsy pictures. Of conspiracies theories. Of knowing that for some, tragedy means profit.

 The wounds of November 22, 1963 went deep. For many, JFK's death meant the loss of innocence, dreams and optimism. Where mistrust of leaders and government was once the purview of a few on the fringe, it exploded into the mainstream with the Vietnam generation, settled in during Watergate, and has now metastasized into a million cable channels, blogs and news sites.

 John Kennedy was perhaps the last American president who could challenge the country to do great things--a country naïve enough to answer his summons. The bullets that cut him down 50 years ago seem to have dragged our own dreams into the grave with him.

 But if this anniversary of John Kennedy’s death is to have meaning, let it be that a man’s life not be measured by his ability to destroy another’s, but by his ability to inspire, to build and to know that “here on earth God's work must truly be our own.” After 50 years, it is time again to reject the dark call of cynicism, apathy and suspicion, to take up the torch that John Kennedy lit for us, and to carry it forward into a future that is bright with optimism, hope and progress.

Francis and the leper -- redux

Without a doubt, the papacy is a grand stage, the pope its lead actor, and every action of the pope is theater. Some popes, like John Paul II, excel at using their time in the  limelight to push forward their agendas. Some, like poor, hapless Benedict XVI, never get their lines right or their cues down.

But Pope Francis might just outshine them all. He has become extraordinary to many, not because of the brilliance of his words or the sweep of his movements, but by the evident largeness of his heart and depth of his soul. Recently, while touring St. Peter's square in an open car, he saw a man in the crowd whose face was severely disfigured by tumors and growths. This sort of disfigurement is rare in our age of advanced medicine. And it is all the more repellent because it is so far from our daily experience.

But Francis stepped out of his  car, embraced the man, kissed his forehead, and prayed with him. He saw Christ in a man whom disease had turned ugly. He singled him out for affection and a display of grace. And he taught the world a lesson in compassion and Christian love.

For too long, Christianity has fought on the muddy ground of the culture wars. By allying itself so directly with partisan politics, the Church has alienated many and stunted the spiritual growth of the rest. But the gospel is not a partisan weapon, to be used to destroy one's political enemies. The gospel is a tool meant to deliver compassion. The gospel rewards those who show compassion, and thereby teaches it to those who merely watch.

The culture wars, in which a person's stance on a single issue (like abortion) can define their sense of self-righteousness, pale by comparison with the actions of the gospel's servants. To fight in the Wars of Culture makes one hard, unyielding, unforgiving and distant from people's lived reality. To fight for the gospel makes one vulnerable, involved at an intimate level with the lives of people, tolerant and loving.

Thank you, Pope Francis, for showing us again the way out of coldhearted irrelevance, and into the warm and life-giving  embrace of the Son.

After the summit

I was musing on the lives of two of the earlier visionaries of the Blessed Virgin -- Melanie and Maximin, the two cowherds to whom Our Lady appeared in La Salette in 1846.

The two kids (she was close to 15 and he was 11) had a close encounter of the divine kind after a nap on an alpine hillside. Waking, they freaked out because the cows they were tending were nowhere to be found. They encountered a brilliant light, in which sat a beautiful lady, weeping. She spoke of spoiled wheat and potato blights and a populace that had turned away from her Son.

In 20 minutes, the whole event was over, and the boy and girl led the cows down to the town where they reported their encounter.

What captured the attention of my heart, though, was the aftermath of the heavenly visit. Maximin and Melanie became superstars of a sort, but their celebrity cut both ways. Sure, they were considered especially blessed. But they were just as destitute, dirty, unlettered and ignorant after the visit as before. But now, they were also the targets of every unscrupulous political or religious group with an axe to grind.

Maximim seems to have held fast to his original story. Not that it made helped him any. Trying to trade on his famous name, he agreed to help a liquor distributor use him in its advertising. I can just image -- "Drink Eau de Maximin! Heaven help me, it's delicious!" The venture flopped. Maximin died before he was 40, never able to use the apparition to his earthly advantage. His last speech, given on the 25th anniversary of the event, ended with him recounting the experience, ending wistfully with, "And then she was gone. And she left without us. And she left us without us."

But it was Melanie, in a sense, who got the worst of it, ending up making bedfellows with apocalyptic groups that were keen on trading on the secret that the Virgin had entrusted to her. Some of the "prophecies" attributed to her came not from the Virgin's lips, but from a woman who was manipulated by others (and perhaps by her own sense of self-importance) to make more of the message than was transmitted in 1846.

Believe it or not, the perils of their post-apparition lives made me love the visionaries all the more. They were not stained-glass saints, but fallible human beings entrusted with a dangerous heavenly message. They (literally) had had their summit experience. And they fouled it up. They were ensnared by weird currents of power politics and religiosity which, being unsophisticated, they failed to navigate.They came very close to subverting the message entrusted to them. Yet, in spite of everything, they held onto their original experience. Maximin and Melanie both stuck to their stories until the end.

They are a lot like us, sans the lit-from-within Weeping Lady. We have heard a message -- be it from a gospel story, a parental warning or an inner calling. We try to live out the message in our own ways -- sometimes running from it, and sometimes implementing it in ways that seem acceptable within our cultural context but that betray our actual calling. We struggle to right ourselves, to overcome our narrowness and to enlarge our souls.

We often fail, even to the end of our lifetimes. But in our feeble attempts, perhaps, comes our salvation.

Maximin and Melianie, pray for us, the seeking Church. Place our feet on their right path as we seek to bring heaven's light to our shifting lives.

Is Francis a leftie?

The short answer is "No."  He has yet to change any Church teaching on abortion, homosexuality. contraception or divorce.

But he says interest things like this, spoken at Mass on October 17:

“In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements. The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people. But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh?”

This sounds to me like a loving rebuke to the "Shiite" wing of the Catholic Church, which has being in the ascendancy for the last 30 years. You know who I mean: the mean-spirited, one-issue Catholics who judge everyone (but themselves) as to whether they are sufficiently Catholic. They have no love, no perspective and no mercy. The kind of folks proud to be Catholic but uninterested in being Christian.

Now, the pope has issues them a major challenge: stop being idolators to ideology that prevents your from seeing your fellow human beings as neighbors worthy of love, respect and care. By itself, the pope's stance is a signal change to the way the Church has been run.You can already see some of the worst offenders, like Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, scurrying to show fealty to the Holy Father and to claim they have always been opposed to single-issue Catholic groups.

So much for the good news.

But what does a Church look like that is nicer about presenting its teachings, but doesn't change them? Are we to expect more dialog? Perhaps a chance to explore contentious issues more fully? It's a little like visiting Uncle Buddy who used to be a violent alcoholic and a racist. He just came home from rehab. Is it safe to visit again? And what happens when we decide to discuss Obamacare?

But, first steps are important, as long as they are followed by second and third steps. The first step was to ratchet down the rage. It's possible that this alone will encourage Catholics to start dialoguing with each other. I hope this is so. But I tend to doubt that openness and dialog will happen by themselves. There is still too much room for prelates to hide their true feelings in order to advance in the system, or merely to keep their place in it. As long as priests and bishops are afraid to speak their minds (or even to have a mind of their own) there is little chance for honest dialog.As long as Catholics can stroke their sense of religious superiority by holding this belief or that, without regard to the harm they are doing to the Church, there will be little opportunity for progress.

Pray that the seed of peace that Francis has planted will throw out roots strong enough to break up the rigid pavement of ideological thinking!

The Good Purge

I was chatting with a once-Catholic-now-Protestant friend about a Catholic funeral he had attended. "It was just a Mass!" he exclaimed, as through that was a problem. What it came down to was that he had expected a eulogy -- for this to be more of a memorial service than "just" a Mass. I explained that in Catholic way of death, there are many moments of interaction with the deceased and with the process of death -- starting when death approaches, through the death itself, to preparations for the funeral, the wake, the funeral Mass and finally, to the committal, the collation dinner and beyond. Some Catholic death rites don't have a eulogy, some do, and many place it it various locations -- the wake, the Mass, the committal or even the collation.

But I surprised myself when I heard myself talking about our view of the time after death. Maybe the Spirit was speaking through me to my friend and to myself.

Catholics don't see our relationship with the dead as severed completely by death. We (as do many other religious people and, I suspect, even atheists) continue to think our our departed loved ones as part of our lives. They are in our memories, of course. But that's the least of it. They are also the ones to whom we speak or to whom we pray for guidance and support. And, perhaps uniquely among religions, we pray for them.

The Catholic teaching about Purgatory has come in for its share of dings in the last few decades. But there is one sense, at least, that makes it useful. It is that the departed soul's journey toward holiness is not over. That there is more left to do. That there is more that can be done.

In the old days, we would pray for the soul's quick departure from Purgatory, as though only our prayers could push souls closer to God and into Heaven. This is problematic for a few reasons. Does a popular, beloved or well-known person get pushed out of Purgatory faster than one with few or no friends? Is Purgatory populated with crusty, unloved old timers who have no hope of getting on the fast track to Paradise? Seems not to accord with a God who is All Good, does it? And doesn't the soul have to do the work (with the help of God's grace) of approaching holiness -- just as we do one earth?

So if we pray for them, then why? One reason might be an opportunity for us to meditate on the true nature of God. For Catholics can see God as a being whose mercy and solicitude extends beyond death. Where others worry that a person's earthly deeds are all that matter, and that the home run derby of holiness ends at the moment of death, we see it extending indefinitely. The God of boundless love continues to work with souls -- even with the most twisted and recalcitrant, I'd wager -- far beyond the time when he should (by human standards) stop caring. But how can an All Loving God and Father ever stop caring? Why should death stop his care? Can human being top God in their love for the departed?

When we pray for the dead, it is to support and encourage them in their journey home toward God. To help them see what must be shed -- hatred, jealousy, pettiness -- that was not shed in life. And to take on what was not or could not have been taken on in life -- kindness, courage and largeness of heart.

Pilate's really good question

What is truth?


Why are Christians so allergic to it?

Do the ends justify the means?

Can you break one commandment in order to fulfill another?

The ongoing furor over the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has highlighted for me the tenuous relationship that some Christians have with the truth. I've noticed that many of those who are the most fervent in their opposition to the new health care law are conservative Christians. Aside from the US bishops, who opposed the law because it would "force" them to pay for contraceptive care, many of the law's opponents (at least those of my acquaintance) are aligned with fundamentalist and conservative Christian groups.

Which is fine. If you don't like Obamacare, that's your business.  But where I have been bewildered is the degree to which these people are willing to pass along the most absurd and outlandish claims about the effects of the bill.

The latest has been the story that the computer sites responsible for signing people up for care are costing the taxpayer over $660 million! The precise figure, taken from theHotAir, is a whopping $634,320,919! Now, I work in IT. And you could buy an awful lot of servers, and get a helluva lotta coding and networking done for $600 mill! If this figure were correct, the conservatives' wrath would be justified. Talk about wasteful spending!

But a little sleuthing would several things:

1. The only news outlets speaking about this figure are far-right, government hating  conspiracy sites
2. The Republican congressional leadership, which could use all the ammunition it can get to fight O-Care, has not used this figure
3. No major news outlets  -- CBS, CNN, NPR, etc. -- have run stories on this
4. Many of the news outlets carrying the story use very similar titles: "WE PAID $634 MILLION FOR THE OBAMACARE SITES AND ALL WE GOT WAS THIS LOUSY 404," basically meaning that "concerned citizens" were linking over and over to the original story 

This doesn't mean that the story is wrong, of course. You'd have to find out more about the way the ACA's IT work is being funded. But it certainly raises any number of red flags about the veracity of the story.

Yet right wing Christians continue to flog the story as though it was, um, gospel. And I suspect that the most work they did was to copy the link and paste it into their news site.

What is this all about? Do conservative Christians really feel it's OK to lie in the pursuit of their agenda? Or do they just get really overexcited when they find the perfect rejoinder to those pesky skeptics and lukewarm Christians who dog them so much for pesky facts?

No doubt there are some Christians who feel their lies are a form of civil disobedience to the forces of evil. If Hitler (sorry Mr. Godwin) were to ask you where the Jews were hiding, wouldn't you lie and say "I don't know"? I would.  But Der Fuehrer aside,  are there other people or groups that Christians would feel honor-bound to mislead? Given the hatred that some of these have for Democrats and for Obama in particular, I wonder.

But maybe these Christians are just so convinced of the rightness of their arguments that they don't look too closely when a news story comes along that fits their preconceptions. Did pro-choice protesters bring jars of feces into the Texas Lege? That sounds like the work of monsters who would kill babies. It must be so! Is Obama planning to shoot millions of US citizens as Glenn Beck recently claimed? Sure -- the Antichrist would stoop to any evil! But shouldn't the first red flag about a news story be whether it confirms what you already believe? I have seen folks on the right and the left fall for this one. Anyone looking for the truth ought to worry when a story is just too good to be true. It's a form of moral negligence to pass along stories that paint yourself as good and your enemies as ungodly.

There's sadness about this situation on several fronts. First of all, Christians, at least as much as anyone else, should cherish the truth. After all, they follow the one who claimed to be "The Way, the Truth and the Life, " and who said "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Except under unusual circumstances,  wouldn't honesty be the best policy for his followers? The other sad aspect of Christians flirtation with dishonesty is that it makes them pawns in a political game that does not have their interests at heart. No politician is impervious to manipulating the masses, But at this point in history, it's the Republican party that has painted itself as the party of virtue, good stewardship and patriotism --however much the facts might belie that self-assessment.

Christians have a duty to find the truth, to protect the truth and the honor the truth. Anything less puts them in league with the Father of Lies, who has drawn many to destruction in the supposed pursuit of the good and the holy.

Poper Scooper

I was reading a HuffPost article noting that the Onion, the satirical journal, scooped the AP by three months.

The Onion from July...

..and the AP from today:

All laughter aside, poor Pope Francis is beset by those who wish that he would just shut up and read from the catechism--in Latin, preferably. If I were him, frankly, I would tire of these busybodies and fire a couple to bring the rest into line.

Anyway.

All this got me thinking about gays, their detractors and church law. Church Law states pretty clearly that:

"tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. CCC 2357 

Ouch.

But I wondered tonight about those who are quick to adopt this teaching of the Church. Did the teaching come first, and then they ordered their opinions to fit it? Or did their opinions come first, and they use the teaching as cover?

Imagine I was a human being who loved gays but desired to obey all Church teaching. A transcript of my brain's subspace chatter might read like this: "Wow! Gays are great! And they say that gay sex is awesome! I have attended so many gay weddings and had a great time with all my gay friends. And they are such wonderful parents. Also, gays have made so many important contributions to culture. They make everything awesome! But, what's this? Church calls homosexuality "disordered"? Oh well. I guess I'll have to change everything I believe about gays. From now on, I will disapprove of their lifestyle and behavior."

Or, is this more like it? "Gays are sick sodomites and gay sex is disgusting! They have no business getting married -- or worse, raising kids! They're perverts and are hell bound! What's this? The Church says I'm right! They are "intrinsically disordered." Thank goodness! I'm going off to Church right now to thank God for making me right. And straight!"

I don't know ANY Catholic or Christian of any kind who was positively inclined toward gays and who changed his or her mind because the Church said so. Folks like these either stay in the Church and fight, or leave the Church entirely. But I know more than my share of Catholics who are relieved that the Church can be a cover for their gay-hatred.

Pope Francis's tolerance toward all "sinners" (which to me does not automatically include gays) is a welcome first step of many that are needed to bring the Church into line with the modern world and with Christ's gospel of love and forgiveness. It's no surprise that some in the Vatican want to pull him in a more comfortable direction. I can only pray that his way of love prevails and that the Church finally has a grown-up conversation about gay love, natural law and the good news of the gospel. Church law should never be a cover for hatred and intolerance, an excuse for people to avoid dealing with their own evil.

Rewriting Matthew 25

'Come, you who are blessed by my Father.

Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you cut my food stamps;

I was thirsty and you gave me a fracked aquifer;

A stranger and you erected a fence against me;

Naked and you gave me your dirty castoffs;

Ill and you defunded my health care;

In prison and you profited from me.

With apologies to St. Mathew

 

I don't know what has come across my country.

We have always had a thread of selfishness about us, but we also had the sense that we should help each other as well. Maybe it's because we haven't had a world war or economic depression to remind us that we are all vulnerable to the same threats to our lives and well-being. But we certainly have come a long way from the days of social cohesion born of necessity.

In my hometown, the first credit union in the country was opened by immigrants who didn't trust their money to the institutional banks run by the "English." They contributed their nickels, quarters and dollars into a common fund, then lent to each other at affordable rates. Don't pay your bills and you had the community to answer to. The loan payments were fed back into the common fund, strengthening the community rather than profiting some high-falutin' executive at a faceless bank with no ties to the community, nor any interest in the community's health.

We have come a long way from the days when people banded together for the common good. Today, we are more likely to advocate for our sacred rights to stand apart and alone -- to do what we want with our properties, to fire our guns at anything that moves, and to be vulnerable to the concerted efforts of corporate and political interests that only have their own interests at heart. We clamor to dispossess those at the bottom of the economic ladder, while congratulating the vultures perched at the top for their great perspicacity and good sense to have inherited wealth from their grandparents.

But where the irony really hits the fan is that many of the rapacious at the top and self-destructive at the bottom claim to be representing Christianity. There's no better indication that my countrymen have confused American-style capitalism with the faith of Jesus Christ than the recent imbroglio about the ACA --  a bill that would halt the predatory insurance practices that have bankrupted thousands of American families unable to afford healthcare, and have led to the premature deaths of many others who have exceeded their lifetime caps.

Now I don't think that being Christian means Americans have to martyr themselves economically to pay for medical care for all. If covering all Americans was a budget-busting guarantee of economic insolvency for the nation, then we would need to think twice about whether we were being wise. But the ACA is not a budget-buster, and was been crafted to have minimal impact on the deficit.  There is no martyrdom or threat to our way of life if another 30 million people are covered. Quite the contrary.

At the end of the day--at the end of the age--we will be asked simple questions. Not how many times we attended Mass, nor our score at the firing range, nor how many votes we got or how many dollars we raised for our political party, nor how many square feet were in our second homes. We will be asked whether we did what we could to help the hungry, thirsty, alien, naked, sick and imprisoned.

The degree to which Americans  can align their answers to those questions with their political passions is the degree to which the nationalism that burns in their breasts is in line with the tenets of our Savior, whose ethics cross class, social, national, political, and economic barriers.

Mary wept

My little Catholic community has a special connection to one of the famous Marian apparitions. We even had a feast day for her recently, at which I played an important part. Yet the night of the feast, when the nice little old Congregationalist neighbor lady came by and asked what I had been up to, I told her about the feast and went into scoffing mode. "You know us Catholics," I said, "seeing Mary everywhere." I downplayed as somewhat embarrassing the apparition that had been the founding vision of my community. But instead of joining in with my hilarity, she let me prattle on. I think she felt bad for me.

Then, I felt bad for me too.

I guess that I am of two minds - or one mind and one heart -- about apparitions of the Virgin. My heart can tell you about the rocky-soiled hillsides and poverty-stricken people who are graced with the presence of Our Lady. But my mind is filled with the possibility of scheming prelates, mentally unbalanced kids and the desperate sick eager for any miracle that might take away their pain. The Church itself is divided about many apparitions, not preventing the faithful from attending, but holding back on wholehearted support. In the 1970s, Garabandal, Portugal was a problem site, never accepted by the Church. Medugorje in Serbia, in spite of the throngs of Catholics who have trod its hills, has yet to receive official ecclesiastical approbation.

So it's no wonder that I, science-minded and suspicious of simplistic evocations of the numinous, am doubly doubtful of the veracity of claims that the Blessed Mother of  Jesus Christ visits earth to solace and scold her children -- the Roman Catholic ones, almost exclusively.

I admit that Mary has a nice habit of popping in on the kinds of people you'd expect a heavenly mother to visit. Juan Diego (maybe a mythical figure) was an Indian peasant, a man whose race had been recently brutally conquered by the Conquistadors. Mary visited him and not his conquerors. Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes--a lice-ridden, poor daughter of a deadbeat father, a girl who didn't even speak proper French--received a visit from a lady who spoke her mountain patois. The children of Fatima were poor shepherd children, yet saw a healing vision that still draws crowds of hopeful invalids.

But there's also the dark side of Marian sightings. The weird threats to wipe out crops unless people turn back to Jesus (La Salette). The terrifying visions of Hell (Fatima) . The stories of the sun falling out of the sky (curious echoes of a pre-Copernican cosmology!) that were not see anywhere else on earth (Fatima again). The predictions of a televised end of the world (Garabandal). The enigmatic secrets withheld for decades by the Vatican (Fatima again, again). The threats to women who wear short skirts (Flushing, NY). You'd think that the gentle virgin mother of a loving God-man would be less apocalyptic, less scary and less selective about appearing only to Catholics.

Hence, my ambivalence toward apparitions.

Yet, I need to acknowledge my shame at making fun of them to an "outsider." Is it possible to have an open heart toward the possibility that the Virgin Mary could appear to her children on earth? Could she be warning us of the folly of our ways -- not just of failing to say the rosary, but of treating each other like animals, denying justice and dignity and of ruining her Son's creation? At the end of the day, I am not looking for a politically correct Mary, but one whose concerns fall outside the parochial scope of prelates and the pious.