Building on the pope's thin foundation

I hate to say I was right, but I was right.

Various Catholic leadership groups are clarifying Pope Francis's recent supportive statement about gay priests, tamping down the enthusiasm that many media outlets expressed about a possible cataclysmic change in church doctrine.

 

Pope Francis's comments (“If [gays] accept the Lord and have good will, who am I to judge them? They shouldn’t be marginalized”) made many think that the pope as OKing the gay lifestyle. But inasmuch as his tone was less judgemental than we are used to seeing from the Vatican, nothing much has changed. Homosexuality, in the eyes of the Church, is still grave and disordered, and homosexual acts are sinful. But (and this is where the pope may have advanced the issue a few millimeters) as with all other sins (with the possible exception of abortion) you can be absolved of the sin of homosexual activity, assuming you are sincere and resolve not to sin again.

Of course, this is of little value to most gays, who don't see their own physical expressions of love as depraved. The pope's words doesn't end the church's stigmatizing gays as defective creations. The church's stance still tacitly encourages those who would treat gays differently than straights. I can't imagine any gay person who would feel the thrill of relief from the pope's words.

 

And yet, as we saw under Pope Benedict XVI, it can be worse. B16 had no words of forgiveness for gays, and sought to exclude them from the priesthood. Believe me, if you think there is a shortage of priests, wait till they kick out the gays!

 

But, I would like to keep an upbeat attitude and look at the positives. We have moved beyond a stance toward gays that saw them as a persecutable minority. And we have taken a first step down the track by seeing gays as worthy of being forgiven. But the race is long, and we are just off the starting block. What other steps could be taken to build on the foundation that Francis has given us?

 

One step would be to clear the air and explicitly welcome gay men to the priesthood. They are there anyway, so let's stop pretending they aren't.

 

Let's encourage gay priests to come out, allowing their flocks to deal with them as whole human beings, not as projection screens for the faithful's fantasies of priests as sexless beings.

 

Most importantly, let's open up a discussion on the decayed basis for the Church's teachings on sexuality: its biased and antiquated understanding of natural law. Back in the 13th century, before the advent of the scientific method, natural law was about the only way to understand God's creation. But science has taken us leagues further than that. The old notions, for instance that sex was for procreation only, have placed us into logical and moral conundra. Gay sex and even recreational straight married sex fall outside the bounds of this understanding of natural law. Let's take a closer look at the realities of living as incarnate sexual beings, and adjust our teaching using knowledge that is slightly less medieval. Let's bring the best of current anthropology, biology, psychology and ethics and develop teachings that address the realities of the human condition. Let's make the Church the leader in sexual ethics, rather than a retrograde embarrassment

 

Pope Francis might or might not intend to start a quiet revolution in our relationship with our gay brothers and sisters. If he is serious, he could begin the Church on the road toward regaining its moral leadership, and give gay men and women a reason to believe that they are worthy in its eyes.

Son of the beast

What do you do when your Dad is a monster?

Ariel Castro's son, Anthony Castro, has decided that his Dad belongs behind bars for the rest of his life. And that furthermore, he plans never to visit him.

The elder Castro is the Cleveland man who pleaded guilty to having imprisoned three women for 10 years. He is a sick, sick man. But my first reaction to Anthony was judgmental: OK, so your Dad did these horrible things, but can't he get a visit once in awhile? Isn't he still your father? Also, when asked what he would have thought had his Dad had received the death penalty, he responded, "It would've been tough to accept just because death penalty cases are ... you end up in court a lot ... and so they come back a lot more often." That sounded a little more utilitarian than I thought was appropriate. Kind of like: I'm glad he got life because it would have been such a pain to have to keep going back and forth to court if he had receive death.

But after reading the article, I thought better of my reaction. Anthony had visited his father at his home, and always came in through the back door. Though noting some weirdness -- the doors leading to the attic and cellar were locked and the windows nailed shut! -- he didn't think much of it. Perhaps his Dad's extreme strictness and violence (he beat his son with a belt and often "beat up" his mother as well, leaving her crumpled on the floor) made his current odd behavior seem normal, if not positively benign. Perhaps there is also a measure of guilt about not connecting the dots.

The revelation of the father's role in the crime seemed to hit Anthony hard. "I was shocked because of the magnitude of such a crime. I don't think I can imagine anyone doing that, let alone to find out it was my own flesh and blood, my father." He says that his family has endured a "nightmare" since May, but added, "nothing to compare to what the girls went through."

You might have caught a whiff of narcissism in Anthony's story -- a bit too much about how this tragedy affected him and his family, and not all that much about his father's victims. But I guess that's natural when you find out that a) a close relative committed a horrible crime and b) your own life and social standing have been irrevocably marred by the crime. We all expect that our lives will move on on trajectory of reasonable happiness. But being robbed suddenly of your future, and having your present imperiled by the courts, the media and vengeful champions of the victims might easily make it hard to care for others.

Should Anthony find a place for his father? If not today, then someday? Christians are called to forgive, and to love our enemies. But experience has taught that some people seem to be sinks of evil. Coming into contact with them can throw us off our stride for days for weeks. We lose our equilibrium. Our thoughts spin out of control. We become rude, nasty and ill-tempered. We come away exhausted.

We are caught between compassion and self-preservation. It's times like this that being a follower of Jesus is at its most challenging. Those who are graced with a personality that can endure the psychic bombardment of people whose minds and souls are sick are invaluable. They wear their own spiritual lead-shielded suits, capable of withstanding the gamma rays of the twisted. It would be unkind to expect everyone to have the same invulnerability to evil.

Let's pray that Anthony Castro and their family find the balance between caring for their Dad and caring for themselves. And, sadly, that might mean never seeing him again.

Francis loosens up?

During an airborne press conference as he returned from his papal visit to Brazil, Pope Francis raised the hopes of some when he said that he would not judge priests who were gay.

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis asked.

This is a bit of an improvement from his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who thought that homosexual men should not be priests at all. It's more in line with Christian charity and with science.

Other notable items from the presser:

Francis said he had investigates allegations that one of his monsignors was involved in a scandalous gay tryst a decade ago, but found nothing to back them up. I hope hope he looked really hard, and didn't just have the Curia "investigate."

The planned Dec. 8 canonizations of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII will likely be postponed — perhaps until the weekend after Easter — because road conditions in December would be dangerously icy for Poles traveling to the ceremony by bus. I still wish he wold wait 50 years to canonize JPII, but...

Francis said the Church would be “sterile” without women. He said that the church must develop a more profound role for women in the church, though he said “the door is closed” to ordaining women to the priesthood. This is not great news, but at least there is still a door. He hasn't bricked it up yet.

He beat up on a Vatican accountant accused of plotting to smuggle $26 million from Switzerland to Italy.“There are saints” in the Vatican bureaucracy, he said, but the accountant wasn’t among them. 

About closing the Vatican bank, accused of being used as an offshore tax haven to launder money, Francis said: “I don’t know how this story will end.” But he stressed that whatever the future of the institution -- be it "a bank, an aid fund or whatever it is," its characteristics will be "are transparency and honesty.”

I liken Francis to President Obama, who came into office on the pent-up hopes of millions of Americans for change. Obama found his grands plans hamstrung, by the realities of a faltering economy, from going after the crooks who crashed the economy in 2008. His first priority was to stabilize the system, get Americans working again, and get Wall Street settled. Only now, in his fifth year as president are we seeing a few charges against the most egregious hedge fund managers and their ilk. Likewise, Francis inherited a church in fiscal and moral free fall, with the pilots and passengers clutching their glutes in sheer terror. Whatever his intentions (and I don't suspect they are excessively progressive) he has to calm the crew, get the craft out of its nosedive and level its flight path. Only then, when naked survival has been assured, can he begin to address the myriad other problems that bedevil the church: shrinking numbers, an increasingly vicious and exclusionary right wing, and the issues that have the Church painted into a corner: sexual ethics, women and married priests, clericalism and the absolute bans on contraception and abortion.

Progress in the Roman church may be coming, but it will come slowly and fitfully: one-sixteenth of an inch at a time.

Francis in Brazil

Heard a terrific piece this week on Tom Ashbrook's "On Point" discussing the Pope's recent trip to Brazil. Some highlights:

• Brazil (like much of Latin America) has been hemorrhaging Catholics since the 1950s. Once with 80-90% Catholic population, Catholics now account for only 55% of Brazilians (though the country's bishops peg the number at 65%.
• New evangelical churches are picking up the former Catholic faithful, and are growing
• Reasons for the shift include everything from the Church's support for authoritarian regimes, to its decrees against birth control to the evangelicals' boots-on-the-ground work with drug addicts and other sufferers. Also, it sounds like the evangelicals are more fun: their services are more emotional. Plus, their "prosperity gospel" promise riches to the godly.

The speculation is that Pope Francis picked Brazil for his first papal visit because it has the largest number of Catholics in the world, but also to address the drop in membership. I have to applaud both reasons. But, to be perfectly cranky about it, I shake my head that past popes just watched, without raising a ruckus, as 25%-30% of their flock drifted away. It's nice to see that Francis may may some management instincts.

The Pope has been making some good moves during this trip -- humbly asking the Brazilians to allow him to visit, advocating for spiritual values as an antidote to alienation, visiting the the poor in the favelas, and so on. But will this be enough to stem the attraction to the evangelicals' prosperity gospel? When one group promises riches, and then other side promotes the virtues of poverty, bystanders might by forgiven for asking whether a third way is possible. Can't we respect the poor while trying to make the world a better place for them?

It will be a measure of Francis's genius to find a middle way between the longstanding Catholic acceptance of the existence of poverty (exacerbated by its embrace of rapacious right-wing dictators and its allergy to birth control) and the siren song of personal success and healing offered by the evangelicals.

Lefties ascendant?

My sour mood about the prospects for religious lefties took a decided upturn when I read this piece about religious progressives in Salon:

While politicians like Rick Perry and pundits like Bill O’Reilly may clog up a lot of media airtime, the proportion of religious conservatives in the United States is shrinking with each successive generation, and close to 20 percent of Americans today are religious progressives, according to a new survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution.

Here's the breakdown on age:

• Mean age: 44 – just under the mean age in the general population of 47 – while the mean age of religious conservatives is 53.
• 23% percent of Millennials (ages 18-33) are progressives, 17% are conservatives and 22% are nonreligious

Breakdown of progressives by faith community

• 29% -- Catholics (yay, us!)
• 19% -- White mainline Protestants
• 18% -- Religious, but unaffiliated with a religious tradition
• 13% -- Non-Christian religious Americans (Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims)
• 9% -- Black Protestants
• 4% -- White evangelical Protestants (figures)

Meanwhile, here's the breakdown of conservatives by faith community

• 43% --White evangelical Protestants
• 17% -- Catholics
• 15% -- White mainline Protestants
• 8% -- Black Protestants

Percentage that thinks being religious is primarily about doing the right thing:

• 79% -- progressives
• 38% -- conservatives

Percentage of each group that thinks being religious mostly involves having the right beliefs:

• 16% -- progressives
• 54% -- conservatives

While these figures pretty much sum up my understanding of the way the religious forces arrayed, I am buoyed by the fact that some many Christians see their faith as being more than sitting around waiting for heaven. But bottom line for Christians progressives? Speak up! We're getting shouted down by the righties!

Real bottom line: there is hope.

Father Schuller's big adventure

Father Helmut Schuller addresses a group of reform-minded Catholics in Dedham's First Church on July 17, 2013
 

Father Helmut Schuller is the founder of the Austrian Priests Initiative, a group of priests that is trying to open up the Church in line with their understanding of Vatican II, which I happen to share. They want priests and laity to share in the power of bishops. They support ordination for women and for married people.

 

Schuller is in the US on a 15-day tour, called "The Catholic Tipping Point," to share his views with Americans. The tour is being underwritten by a number of Catholic reform groups: Voice of the Faithful, Call to Action, Dignity USA and FutureChurch, among others. He is best known for a 2011 document, "The Call to Disobedience," which I have not been able to find yet on the web. In his talk, however, Schuller stressed the need for Catholics to base their actions first in the gospel, then on conscience, and only then on Church teaching. As you might imagine, this does not sit well with Catholic bishops, who see themselves as the sole arbiters of what is or is not Catholic teaching.

 

Today, I answered a Facebook call from the National Catholic Reporter for comments on Schuller's Boston-area talk, which occurred yesterday in Dedham. Here is what I shared with NCR's Kate Simmons.

Hi Kate,

Thanks for your request to share my experiences about Fr. Helmut Schüller's talk last night.

My wife and I attended the talk, held in sweltering weather at the First Church in Dedham Mass, just south of Boston. The church was about 90% full, worship space and balconies included, with many listeners choosing to stay outside where it was a slight breeze kept them cooler. As seems to be the rule in this kind of assembly, most in attendance were well north of fifty years old. A show of hands late in the evening confirmed this, with only a handful of people indicating their relative youth. Gray hair, canes and hearing aids were predominant, and many in the crowd used fans to cool themselves.

Schuller, founder of the Austrian Priests Initiative (API), received a standing ovation as he entered the space. After introductions of the leaders of Voice of the Faithful, Dignity USA and Call to Action, Schuller spoke for about half an hour before fielding questions from those attendees.

 The sound system did a poor job of conveying Schuller's Austrian accent, so some of his message was not audible to me, sitting in the balcony. There were frequent shouts of "Speak in to the mike!" as people struggled to hear clearly.

Schuller stood for what many in the mostly attentive and appreciative audience wanted to hear. The Church needs to open ordination to women and to married people. Bishops must share their power with priests and laity. His basis for this was Vatican II's revised understanding of the dignity of the People of God. He also called upon the need for the Church to be Eucharistic -- in terms of the importance of the sacrament as promoting "communio" -- communion between members of the Body of Christ. When bishops close or consolidate parishes, they disrupt this communio. When they tell parishioners to just go to the parish in the next town, they act as though Eucharist is a commodity -- to be obtained at the nearest "shop." Eucharist, Schuller said, is not just an object for adoration, but an activity. For the Church to withhold the Eucharist from Catholics -- by closing churches and refusing to consider options to beef up the priesthood -- it was acting against the interests and needs of Catholics.

To applause, Schuller underlined the importance of women in the Church, who do "90% of the work." Prompted by an audience member asking about Mary Magdalene -- known as "the Apostle to the Apostles," pointing to her as a model for the possibility of women becoming priests -- he reminded the audience that for a "few moments" on Easter Sunday -- between the time she witnessed the Resurrected Christ and reported his appearance to the disciples, Mary Magdalene was the Church. I found this to be the most powerful moment of the evening.

Schuller hit many other right notes in his speech-- the need for transparency and the need for priests to monitor their brothers for illicit activities. He hinted at one item that surprised me: a secret, two-tiered pose that priests are obligated to take . I private, they might counsel their flocks to act in ways that violated the letter of Church law. This was tolerated as long as these same priests gave lip service to Church law in public. This sounded like an explosive topic, but Schuller did not elaborate. He may also have disappointed some with his tame prescriptions for getting women into the priesthood. Asked about the validity of the ordination of women who had been ordained, he skirted the issue, stating that his group's position was to push the hierarchy to open the priesthood to women and married people. Whether the audience expected something more radical or more clever, the energy level in the room palpably sagged at that moment. Schuller similarly dodged a question about how he reconciled his views with Vatican statements about the priesthood, notably John Paul II's Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.

Asked about the API, he said that it was comprised of 430 (not sure if that is priests and/or deacons) and represented 15% of Austrian priests. 70-80% of Austrian priests, he said, were in sympathy with his group, but were afraid to make their views known. Asked whether he and his group had been sanctioned for their views, he cited cultural differences in Austria that tended to favor continued dialog over confrontation. He said that there had been no sanctions against the group, except that a member of the API was not allowed to head a deanery.

Overall, I was disappointed by the talk and ended up leaving as it was ending. There was little in the way of red meat that this sympathetic audience might crave. Schuller gave no plan for how to get a recalcitrant church hierarchy to share power, open dialog or change its views on women's ordination or any other issue. The venue (and his not-quite-complete command of English) made it hard for him to formulate and express nuanced or complex views or action plans. His immediate mission -- to gather red ribbons worn by some attendees and gather them up as he crossed the nation, then deliver them to Cardinal Tim Dolan in New York -- seemed naive bordering on pointless. If Tim Dolan ever bothered to meet with Schuller, would he be impressed with a couple thousand ribbons from a bunch of disaffected Catholics? Not likely.

I remain sympathetic to Schuller point of view and hopeful that some miracle will open the church to dialog and transparency. But left to the efforts of Schuller and those in attendance last might (myself and my wife included) it seemed apparent that all the hierarchy needs to do is to circle the wagons and starve us out until we die, lose interest, or go elsewhere.

Best Regards ,

I know I come across as a constant critic and a grouch, but that pose hides a hopeful heart. Yet I don't see how the Church can change in any significant way, at least not in the short term. The hierarchy has all the power, including the power to silence and to punish. The remaining faithful are becoming more and more conservative, less and less tolerant of liberals and apostates, as they see those who disagree with them. The youth are hardly flocking to the Church. Many parents with small children are interested only in a fairy-tale Catholicism, getting their kids the sacraments and leaving hot button issues alone.

I wish Father Schuller well, but have serious doubts that he will inspire an revolt among American priests, even those in sync with his views. The initial indications are not good. None of Schuller's speaking engagements is in a Catholic Church or school.

But, stranger things have happened. Pray for a strong driving wind and an empty upper room filled with the confused and hopeless.

So many ways to be an atheist

Salon recently had a great piece discussing researchers done at the University of Tennessee that discerned not one, but SIX types of atheists.

Here's a distillation:
 
1) Intellectual atheist/agnostic (38%) -- "Bemused Debaters"

• Enjoys intellectual discourse; very certain about their beliefs, but not belligerent about it
• Joins skeptic’s groups or other avenues to discuss non-belief with others
• Associates with fellow, well-read and scientifically-literate intellectuals regardless of the other’s position
• Not interested in chasing down believers to give them a hard time

 2) Activist (23%) -- "Better worlders"

• Strong sense of humanist values to change the world
• Supports issues like feminism, gay rights, or the environment, not simply advocating atheism
• Advocates for a better, more egalitarian atheist community

3) Seeker-agnostic (7.6%) -- "Not knowers"

• Not particularly critical of religion. Prioritizes not-knowingness
• Embraces uncertainty
• Routinely accused of intellectual cowardice by atheists

4) Anti-theist (15%) -- "Religion haters"

• Aggressive about arguing about religion. Seeks out religious people to disabuse them of their beliefs
• Ending religion is the real goal, not supporting a more secular society
• Many are recently deconverted from religious belief or socially displeased with the status quo, especially in high social tension-based geographies such as the Southeastern United States

5) Non-theist (4.4%) -- "Shruggies"

• Don’t believe in any gods, but don’t think about those who do very often.
• Simply does not concern him or herself with religion
• Called “shruggies” because they simply shrug when asked their opinion on religion.

 6) Ritual atheist (12.5%) -- "Pew Pal"

• Doesn’t believe in the supernatural, but likes participating in the community aspects of their religious tradition
• Participation may be related to an ethnic identity (e.g., Jewish, Catholic)
• May think participation makes them a better person
• Seen as the most alarming of atheists by some Christians, concerned that people in their own congregation may not actually believe in their God.

I'm not entirely convinced that you can draw such clear lines between atheists. Like most people who believer in one thing or another (even belief that there is nothing to believe in), atheists likely bounce around from  category to category. One day, they might not care about religion, the next they're spurred into action by something in the news.

I was most surprised about the last category -- the ritual atheists -- who might show up at worship, maybe mouth the words, but inwardly not believe in what is going on at the altar or ambo. Yet I do know a few of them in my own community. They are great people, sometimes even taking leadership roles in the community. It's the ritual that speaks to them -- the gathering around the altar; the distribution of bread and wine; the embraces at the sign of peace. They make my mad sometimes, because they are so allergic to religious language, which I am familiar with. They prefer to "meditate" rather than to "pray." They refer to "God" when the takes lead roles at worship services. But I wonder what they mean by it. Nature? The totality of the Cosmos? Fate? Evolutionary Fatalism? An unseen Force or Intelligence?

But, frustrating as they are, I have to recognize two things. One, that each person has a unique history of interactions with the divine and with the ministers of the divine. Those who have experienced the Church as parochial (in the worst sense), or small-minded or abusive might love the best parts of worship, while feeling disgusted and cramped by the rest.  Two, that each person brings their own gifts and flaws to the table. Those of us who are educated and "smart" are sometimes at a disadvantage. Too smart to believe the pious banalities of Christ's ministers and God's people (like, "God had different plans for him" or "God is in charge") they are not quite sophisticated enough to develop more palatable and comprehensible understanding of the divine. They live in a theological limbo.

Tough place to be. But my God still knows them and cares for them there.

A monumental step toward a secular society

It's a strange day when a believer like myself finds common cause with atheists, but in this polarized religious world, that strangeness is becoming typical.

These days, conservative believers are getting lots of media attention. They are pushing anti-abortion bills any which way they can. They are fighting gay marriage and the normalization of homosexuality. They are making a false equivalence between Christianity and a pro-American stance. They are working against the teaching of evolution. They are defending the biblical world's standard of male privilege.

But recently, a counter force is gathering strength. And it's not from mainline churches, liberal Christians or middle-of-the-road churchgoers. It's from out-and-out atheists, who are coming out of hiding and into the light of day. This was evident even at a recent college baccalaureate I attended. There were the de rigeur (and quite correct!) prayers aimed at Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus. But there was also an reading for atheists -- a passage from Carl Sagan basically lauding nature and actually saying, in so many words, that the preceding prayers were worthless. More on neo-atheistic overreach another time.

This burgeoning militancy of  atheists does not worry me. These folks are not quite ready to be up in arms about a fight "For No-God and No-Country." But their very presence is a witness against those whose idea of piety is shoving unwelcome beliefs down our throats.

The latest salvo in the battle against those wishing to establish a Christian America happened in Starke, Florida in the northeast corner of the state. There, a marble copy of the Ten Commandments had been erected in a so-called "free speech one" outside the Bradford County courthouse. Atheist groups had fought the placement of that monument on the grounds of separation of church and state -- and went nowhere. Until someone had the bright idea of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." That's when the group American Atheists decided to erect their own monument, one dedicated to their own principles, Rather than to celebrate the myth of how the country's laws are supposedly based on the Ten Commandments, the new monument publicizes actual quotes from some of our founders, who held vastly different beliefs than those generally ascribed to them by our conservative brethren and sisthren:

From Ben Franklin: "“Where a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, ‘tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

John Adams: “It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service [writing the Constitution] had interviews with the gods or were in any degree under the inspiration of Heaven."

From the Treaty of Tripoli: "The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

Tom Jefferson: “Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.”

While each of these worthies had more complicated relationships with religion than the quotes might suggest, it's nice to see some of their actual words in public.

One of item of note: one of the local people commenting about the monument just about gave away his side's intentions when interviewed. "Christians are praying...that these folks will realize that eternity is too long to be wrong." Ooh. Wrong approach! Shouldn't let the heathen think that we are pushing the Ten Commandments a religious symbol!!

Anyway.

While I do fault atheists for denigrating a paper tiger theism -- one that is simple-minded, fundamentalist, anti-science and anti-people -- I celebrate that the battle has finally been joined. America must remain a place where all religions are welcome and no religion gets a free ride. The only way to protect all religion is to give none the upper hand. So while I disagree with their world view, I love what they are trying to accomplish by confront the way some Christians have tried to force their views on others. And so I say...

You go atheists! Push 'em back! Push 'em back! Push 'em WAAAAAAYYYY back!

Trayvon, George and the need for context

A Trayvon Martin shooting target, available on the web.

When my kids were small, my younger son (whom I will call Junger) often complained about my older son (called Alden here).

"Dad! Alden hit me!" he would cry, sobbing.

"Alden!" I would discipline my older son. "Don't hit your Junger! He's smaller than you!"

But after a while, I realized that there was more to the story than Junger let on.

Finally, after one of Junger's complaints, I would ask, "Well what happened before Alden hit you?"

"I hit him."

Ah.

Context.

Last night's shocking acquittal in the Trayvon Martin meant many things. Perhaps that the facts of what happened that February 2012 night in Tampa was beyond the ability of the jury to nail down. Perhaps the points of law about second degree murder and of manslaughter did not neatly fit the evidence. Perhaps the defense clouded the jury's mind and raised atavistic fears by showing pictures of a bare-chested Trayvon.

But to me, the case hung upon the same issues with Alden and Junger: context.

There was more going Between Trayvon and George Zimmerman than what occurred in the last 60 seconds of the confrontation between them. Sure, if you close the brackets around that interval, you will see a young black teenager dominating an older Hispanic male in a fight. There are punches thrown, a nose broken, perhaps a head being banged on the pavement.

But if you widen your vision a bit, you will see the young man terrified by what might have been an attacker, following him around for no discernible purpose. You would have seen the older man sickened at the thought of losing the trail of another would-be burglar. You would have seen two men terrified of each other, locked in an embrace of social and personal expectations and the need to stand tall.

Confrontation was inevitable. Add a gun to the mix and it becomes lethal.

Widen your vision even further, to the climate of a nation that is slipping back into an acceptance of racial stereotypes and fears. Many whites have long been sick of perceived favoritism toward blacks. Those who favor affirmative action are now constantly on the defensive. The conservatives on the Supreme Court tell us that racism is no longer an issue, so protections like the Voting Rights Act and racial preferences in college admissions are no longer needed or can be limited.

But observe the way folks took sides in this case. I saw many whites automatically take the side of the person closest to their color. I saw that many cheered when "their guy" was acquitted. "Hallelujah!" tweeted one especially noxious political commentator.

As long as we root for one side or the other in these cases, we lose sight of the real objective of our justice system: the truth, and the whole truth. While there is truth that Trayvon Martin turned on his attacker, there is also truth that his attacker willingly, perhaps recklessly, set in motion a chain of events that lead to his target's death. Unfortunately, the jury, or perhaps the American system of justice, is unable to deal with complex truths, and so justice is left undone, or only partially done.

The truth is that had Trayvon Martin chosen the obsequious route, kowtowing to the threat of violence and intimidation that George Zimmerman represented, he might well have lived. Had he begged the light-skinned man to save his life, and acquiesced to his demands to tell him what he was doing in the neighborhood, he might be with us today. Humiliated and angry, but alive. But Trayvon acted like any cocky, self-respecting 17-year-old would: defiantly, even taking on his assailant. But in the context of America in 2013, defiance and acts of self-defense from a young black man raised the stakes too high. Trayvon's "sin" was to chose not to flee and not to beg. And it put him in the cross hairs of a culture that still panics at the prospects of black assertiveness.

George Zimmerman and his supporters are rejoicing today. They won the case. George gets to go free and to tell his story to the morning shows. maybe write a book. The racists among his backers will enjoy the latest rout of black pride and assertiveness. They have slain their monster. The slave revolt has been put down yet again.

The rest of us must renew our efforts to push back our own dark angels. And doing so, push back our society's level of paranoia and intolerance. Trayvon Martin died because it is still not OK in our land for the black man to fight back, no matter how righteous his cause. It is not OK for him to be angry or demanding, lest he trigger a backlash or be derided as "uppity." The non-violent path of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was not only righteous and scripture-based, but practical. Sadly, black men and women had to take the brunt of racial fears on their bodies in order to change their oppressors' hearts.
 
The acquittal of George Zimmerman, and the glee that it brought in some quarters, teaches us that we have not yet achieved the post-racial millennium. We have been lost ground on the achievements of the civil rights era due to our complacency and racism fatigue. It is up to us again to carry the torch of freedom and dignity. To brave the taunts and insults of those who still prefer a world where whites dominate via the power of their guns, courts and legislation. The task is not over. The fight for a just world is not won. The prize is not yet in hand.

Of fetuses and motorcycles

The hot season of 2013 is shaping up into the Summer of GOP Sneakers. First, there was the repeated attempts to shut down Wendy Davis's filibuster of the Texas lege. Any excuse would do to rack up the "three strikes" needed to stop her from continuing her speech: dinging her for getting help adjusting her back brace, and claiming that a discussion of mandatory ultrasound testing was not germane to her discussion of the bill at hand. Not happy to stop Wendy from Speaking, the Republicans actually faked the time of the vote on the bill to make it seem like the vote happened by the midnight deadline.

Just last week, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker waited until the middle of a holiday weekend to sign a bill restricting abortion:

Wisconsin’s new law requires doctors to obtain admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. A separate provision of the new law mandates ultrasounds, transvaginal or abdominal, for all women seeking abortions. 

The latest Republican legislative legerdemain happened in North Carolina, whose worthy representatives snuck anti-abortion legislation into a TWO bills:

Last week, just hours before the North Carolina Legislature recessed for a long holiday weekend, state Republicans inserted sweeping abortion restrictions into an “anti-Shariah Law” bill. The underhanded tactic was criticized by Democrats and Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who denounced the sneaky move and threatened to veto the bill unless significant changes were made.

On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers did it again, this time injecting language to severely restrict abortion into a completely unrelated measure — a motorcycle safety law — without public notice.

Worse still, the new language for the motorcycle bill was not even publicly announced:

Melissa Reed of Planned Parenthood Health Systems said in a statement. “Once again there was no public notice that this bill would be heard. The public and even many legislators on the committee only learned this was a possibility at 9:57 a.m. — three minutes before the committee was to meet — when a political reporter was tipped off and posted it on Twitter. This is outrageous and not how the people’s business should be conducted.”

A question, if I may.

If abortion is such a bad thing, and the people want to end it so badly, then why do Republicans have to resort to sneaking language into bills? What's wrong with allowing debate on the issue? Why not legislate the full light of day? Why not

The answer is likely that public support is not a strong as they think, even in the Bible Belt. The reps are likely terrified that a) women will see them fiddling with their ovaries once again, b) that both sides of the issues might get public coverage and c) that the legislators' efforts will be seen as being more about pushing their own religious views than in seeking the safety, welfare and participation of their citizens.

I look forward to the day that the grown-ups get back into the state houses.

Book Review: The God Box

 

The full title of Mary Lou Quinlan's latest book is "The God Box: Sharing My Mother's Gift of Faith, Love and Letting Go." It's a small book, one that you can rush through in an hour or two, but it is a sweet treasure of remembrances of a loving mother. Mary Lou's mother, also called Mary, was a practical Catholic of the old school. Her go-to people were Jesus, Mary, St. Joseph (for help with real estate) St. Jude (for lost causes), St Francis (or animal-related issues) and St Anthony (to find lost items). But her real cause was being humble enough to request divine assistance after human help had run its course.

For the last twenty years of her life, Mary would use scraps of paper --  to-do notes, post-its or even drink coasters -- to write her simple prayers for health and happiness for herself, for her kids and for her many friends. Once written, she would fold them up and consign them to her latest "God Box," any small, special box or basket, and let divinity take over. After her death, her kids and husband found her God boxes and slowly unfolded the prayers of two decades of worries, health crises, job issues and requests for faith (for her kids) that had gone into the box. Mary Lou pieces together her Mom's prayers while coming to understand the resilient woman of faith, worries and personal secrets that made her who she was.

The book is sweet, with color photos of Mary's actual prayers, few more than 10 words long. It's a work of love, discovery and an attempt to reconnect with a much-loved presence, whom death has made painfully absent. There is no deep theology here -- just ordinary people grappling with loss and remembrance. "The God Box" is beautiful book for someone mourning the loss of a mother or wishing to connect with one who means so much.

The two things you learn in heaven

Based in not much of anything, I figure that there are two things you learn when you first get to heaven:

1) You learn the answers to all the questions that have irritated you during your life, big and small. Like why you were so bad at math; where you lost that ring you grandmother gave you; why that first marriage went south; what person you nearly met who would have changed your life; the closest you came to getting killed in a car crash but didn't know it; where Jimmy Hoffa is buried; exactly what you were allergic to in 6th grade.

2) You learn that, in heaven, you don't care anymore. About any of it.

The things that matter to us on earth can't possibly be material (ha ha!) when we move on. Yet when we image heaven, into the very presence of God Holy and Almighty, we are anxious to retain our primate perceptions, our social connections and our personal quirks.

Some part of holiness must be to start that process ahead of time. To realize that  much of what holds our attention and captures our interest here is of little value in the next world. Can you imagine heavenly beings discussing their favorite episode of Seinfeld? Or watching ball games? Or gossiping about celebrities?

This might suggest where we put our attention this side of the pearly gates.

True virginity -- not about being anti-sex

 

  To refuse marriage --especially one that is forced on a woman by social convention, and that does not respect her as an agent and owner of her own person -- need not be a rejection of the value of sexuality. Instead, it might be the sign of a woman dedicated to a cause, from which no earthly force can dissuade her.
It's no secret that the Church has long placed a high premium on virginity. Avoidance of sexual expression sometimes seems to made into a virtue for its own sake -- making sexual abstinence holy, and sexual expression far less so. But there is another aspect to virginity -- that of retaining a person's interior dignity and integrity.

It can be argued that the virginity of Jesus is the model for this. Jesus did not disparage appropriate sexual expression, as such. He loved little children, that  ultimate expression of sexual love, for goodness sake! And he healed Peter's mother-in-law -- hardly a critique of marriage per se. Yet Jesus seems to have valued abstinence from marriage. As Matthew 19:12 records:

For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”

There may be a hint here of men chopping off their manly bits, but a better interpretation is that Jesus lauded those who gave up marriage in order to preach the imminent coming of the kingdom. For Jesus, it came down to getting your priorities straight. God is about to convulse creation in the next weeks or months. We need to get as many people to prepare for that change. Do you have other priorities -- getting hitched, raising a family, burying your Dad, kissing your Mom goodbye? -- then you are not committed enough.

Through the ages, men and women have given up marriage and children to follow their calling. Like Mother Cabrini, they founded hospitals and schools. Like Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brébeuf they brought the gospel to far off lands. Like Mother Theresa, they care for the numberless destitute in poor countries.

Abstinence is not what made these people saints -- I can tell you stories of absolutely vile, stupid and mean-spirited virgins. Rather, it is the way that these men and women dedicated themselves whole-heartedly to gospel service, made possible by abstinence and the lack of family responsibilities, that set them up for sainthood. To reduce their lives to a choice about sex is to demean sex and to put the wrong focus on their lives

Over the years, women have been forced to play a role as sexual pawns of men. They are traded for influence between families or nations. They are treated as sexual objects by men of little understanding and sensitivity, like Henry VIII, for whom women were disposable objects in his quest for a male heir. It is a testament to the inborn integrity of women who have resisted being treated as lesser creations. As little more than a vagina and womb on legs. Their resistance has been focused on a refusal to submit sexually to more powerful humans. They have resisted the desire of other to objectify and commercialize them. Their stand has been to honor the dignity of their whole personhood -- emotions, intellect, will and physicality. Reducing them to mere sexual non-objects is as harmful , I believe, then to treat them solely as sexual. It is a sort of anti-pornography that is as exploitative as its mirror image.

The decision to marry or not to marry, to express sexuality or not to, belongs to the individual, in context of their earthly calling.  Used as a means of announcing or advancing the kingdom, restrained sexuality is less a means in itself than a freeing to answer one's interior call to holiness.

Paula Deen, old people and the N-word

Paula Deen, via a leaked transcript of a deposition, recent revealed that she had used the N-word.

Q: Miss Deen, have you told racial jokes? Have you ever used the N word
A: Yes, of course.
Q: Okay.In what context?
A: Well, it was probably when a black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head.
Q: Okay.
Q: And what did you say?
A: Well, I don't remember, but the gun was dancing all around my temple.
Q: Okay.
A: I didn't -- I didn't feel real favorable towards him.
Q: Okay.Well, did you use the N word to him as he pointed a gun in your head at your face?
A: Absolutely not.
Q: Well, then, when did you use it?
A: Probably in telling my husband.
Q: Okay. Have you used it since then?
A: I'm sure I have, but it's been a very long time.
Q: Can you remember the context in which you have used the N word?
A: No.
Q: Has it occurred with sufficient frequency that you cannot recall all of the various
A: No, no.
Q: Well, then tell me the other context in which you've used the N word?
A: I don't know, maybe in repeating something that was said to me.
Q: Like a joke?
A: No, probably a conversation between blacks. I don't -- I don't know.
Q: Okay.
A: But that's just not a word that we use as time has gone on. Things have changed since the '60s in the south.
The transcript and Deen's subsequent apologies ended up with Deen's contract with the Food Network being cancelled. My first reaction is that this seemed like a tough penalty for admitting to using a racial word nearly thirty years ago, and maybe a few times since, in saucy banter with the kitchen staff.

Yet the N-word still has power to hurt, which is why the recent attempts at smearing Trayvon Martin for referring to neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman as a "cracker" have fallen flat. Calling a white (or light-skinned Hispanic) a "cracker" may be derogatory, but it does not carry the economic and social punch of calling a black person the N-word. Derogating blacks with slurs ends up making it harder for them to vote, or start businesses, or get mortgages, or send their kids to a good school. Derogating whites with slurs might make them mad or feel bad, but otherwise does them no real harm.

It's hard to know exactly what is going on in Deen's case. Is she a well-meaning, fairly unracist white who made unwarranted assumptions about the complex linguistic territory of post-civil rights America? If blacks refer to themselves with the N-word in her presence, is it OK to join in, or better to refrain? Is a white person a racist for using the word when people of color are tossing it around casually? Or does the word automatically and always bear more freight when uttered by a white?

The recent ruling by the Supreme Court that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act seems based on the dubious notion that racism is all gone, bye-bye. But a look into our hearts, especially for those of us over forty, might show that race is still a powerful factor in our thinking. Growing up, we heard racial, ethnic and gender jokes. We "got" what the jokes taught -- that the Polish and French-Canadians were stupid; Irish were clever drunks; blacks were disgusting, lazy and second-class; women were not smart and couldn't drive well. We may have covered over those old reactions with filters and revisions and workarounds. But they are still there and we have to remind ourselves not to laugh. Or to laugh socially -- as when a cousin told me a racist jokes after my mother's funeral. Like the Israelites wandering the desert with Moses, our generation will have to pass away before we can enter the promised land of post-racism.

Meanwhile, based only on what I know so far (which is that Deen herself did not discriminate based on racial or gender grounds) I would be liable to let her off with a stern warning. The post-racial millennium is not yet upon us. Our consciences are not yet clear. We have not yet done leveling the playing field for those kept out of the stadium for centuries. As long as the N-word has power to harm, and discrimination has the power to restrain the freedoms of a wide swath of our fellow citizens, it has no place in the lexicon of loving human beings. Even as a joke. Even in justifiable anger. Even as a throwaway historical reference.

Movie review: Zero Dark Thirty

Brilliant, historical and perhaps allegorical

ZDT is a director Kathryn Bigelow’s brilliant telling of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, starting in the sand-blown huts of various CIA dark sites and culminating in the raid on UBL’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Little is held back – depictions of torture and brutality, even the infamous practice of waterboarding – in the hunt for information about UBL’s whereabouts. The section of the film that details the operation by Seal Team Six is riveting. Shot alternatively in near darkness and via night-vision goggles worn by the troops, the operation is shown second by second, with its missteps (killing the unarmed wife of a resident, the crash of one of the copters) and successes (killing bin Laden, ransacking his computers and files). But while the film depicts America’s greatest success in the War on Terror, its mood is subdued -- not quite celebratory.

The film’s main character, Maya, a fictional female CIA agent played by Jessica Chastain (and who may represent a single person or the hundreds of analysts and agents who worked on the hunt) is a bit of a cipher. She is slight and freckled, is called a “killer,” and is inexplicably drawn to take down the Al Qaeda leader. Maya is hardened, or pretends to be, and unfazed by violence. But in spite of representing the desire of the American public for UBL’s scalp, she’s kind of hard to root for. She is taciturn, cold and driven by unknown motives. She unflinchingly watches a man beaten to provide evidence, then coolly tells him that the severity of his treatment is in his own hands. She has no backstory, though it would be easy (if clichéd) to give her one – say, that her Dad died in the Twin Towers or on Flight 93. But though the film begins with a series of desperate phone calls from 9/11, that attack seems almost beside the point to Maya -- as though her desire to take down UBL has taken on a life of its own, apart from any connection to the assault on the homeland.

There are strange inklings throughout the movie that we are watching the intersection of physical reality and its underlying shadow of meaning, For instance, the search for bin Laden’s courier and the raid on Abbottabad are told realistically and in detail. But the moment of UBL’s death is curiously concealed, and is just-so-slightly inconsistent with written accounts. (Caution: spoilers ahead!) Two SEALS creep toward Osama’s 3^rd floor hideout via a narrow stairway. They hear a noise and shoot through a curtained door. When they enter, UBL is on his back, dead or nearly so, with two of his wives screaming nearby. The SEALs pump two more rounds into bin Laden to ensure his demise. An AK-47 is seen in the room, but mounted on the wall above UBL’s bed, not even within arm’s reach. Viewers who might want to see him die a slow and painful death – face to face with his lethal visitors, perhaps, or menacing them with an automatic weapon -- will be disappointed. His death seems anti-climactic– intricately planned and executed, to be sure -- but hardly the cinematic climax that such films promise. Does Bigelow show us what really happened? Is there a message in this her restraint at the moment of triumph? Or is she exercising poetic license to make a point? If so, what point? That exterminating this world-menacing terrorist leader was the equivalent of killing a fly with a sledgehammer?  Osama bin Laden, the most-wanted terrorist kingpin, murderer of thousands, ends up being an unarmed medieval in a robe and turban, hiding with his wives and kids in a ramshackle concrete “fortress,” tracked down over 10 years and the cost of how much treasure, and eliminated by the world’s most disciplined, armed and technically advanced armed force of all time. If Kathryn Bigelow is trying to say something here, I can only wonder what it is.

For all its realism, great writing and fine acting, ZDT is hard to applaud whole-heartedly. Maybe we have just become nuanced about our place in the world. Openly hating a militant Muslim and cheering his death is perilously close to hating everyday Muslims – our workmates and neighbors. Better not to go there. Then there’s the whole speculative depiction of Operation Neptune Spear, the raid on UBL’s hideout. Given the secrecy of the raid, and the reluctance of most of the participants to talk about it, we aren’t completely sure what happened. We do know that Bigelow made some possibly unhistorical choices. The depictions of UBL’s nasty head wound are cleaned up here. Who knows what else was doctored to make the raid more palatable? Another issue with cheering for the film is the violence and self-propelling viciousness that we are asked to accept as the means for bringing bin Laden to justice. I am not naïve enough to think war and espionage are pretty. But I was unable to walk away from ZDT without a few thought about the morality of torture and “extraordinary rendition,” that sanitized term for sending suspects to countries where physical and mental abuse of prisoners is accepted.

At the end of the film, Maya is bundled, alone, into a cargo plane. Asked where she’d like to go, she does not answer. Instead, she weeps softly. This scene brings her character closest to that of Americans reacting to the death of their number one enemy. Which is: not much at all. Whether due to war weariness or lack of confirming video, most of us did not rush into the streets when we heard the news. A decade of searching had turned UBL into a dangerous, but fairly contained evil – a devil in a glass jar. His death had little influence on those who took to heart his call for jihad against the West. As the recent Boston Marathon bombings show us, the enemies of the West do not need a living UBL to inspire them. Self-radicalization may be bin Laden’s toxic legacy to the world.

Why Maya’s tears? Were they tears of relief at the end of a grueling, years-long effort to rid the world of an evildoer? Were they delayed tears of grief over friends who died trying to bring UBL to justice? Were they tears of lost innocence, mourning for a perhaps nonexistent time when Americans didn’t torture and were not put in a position where they had to? Did the death of bin Laden, the man whose death had overtaken her entire career, leave her with a sense of lost purpose? Or did she see the death of Osama bin Laden, after so much effort and expenditure,  as insignificant in relation to her expectations? We don’t know.

This ambiguity – not the detailed reconstruction of bin Laden’s hideout or the tactics of Seal Team 6 -- may be the film’s greatest achievement, depicting events hyper-realistically, while allowing their multifaceted sorrows and joys play out in the viewer’s mind long after the closing credits.