Loose the hounds! The church of the emboldened spectator

We've all heard (and maybe generated!) the complaints coming out of Mass. "Lord, if only the guitarists tuned their instruments!" "The sound man must have asleep at his post today. I could hardly hear the homily!" "It was so cold in there I wanted to throw in an extra 5 bucks for the oil bill!" "If Father would just stop telling jokes at Mass, I might feel Jesus in the room!"

As accurate (or catty or snide or "helpful") as these comments might be, they show how much we don't see ourselves as integral to the worship service. Like a meal at a fancy restaurant, worship is provided to us, and we, the recipients, get to judge its quality.

This spectator mentality is one of the by-products of living in an age when we do so little for ourselves. We are fed TV and radio programs and served at drive-throughs and restaurants. Even our education is fed to us by teachers serving curricula we didn't choose or have a voice in designing. We are all output and no input. Sure, we can yell at the TV (my poor wife shoos me out of the room when I groan too loudly at the lovelorn blather of The Bachelorette) but we have next to no say about network programming decisions. Other than deciding which shows to watch, our voices don't matter much to the people who fill the airwaves (and our brainwaves) with tales of love, murder, shock and schlock.

The internet hasn't helped much. True, we now have the opportunity to respond to news stories and TV Shows via comments. But we too often respond with abuse and appalling ugliness. We respond at, rather than to, giving ourselves points for the wittiest or sharpest put-down. We gravitate to websites that promise slapdowns of our enemies. "Watch Jay Z Slap Down Admirer Trying to Flirt With Beyonce" cries one. "Watch a certain president slap down climate change deniers with one simple point" promises another.

But what happens when that spectator mentality is transferred to our worship lives?

Being a Catholic, I know that being a spectator has a long history. We have been preached at for millennia. And we have been taught at for centuries. You might say that Church has set us up to be passive recipients of information. Catchers mitts of salvation. We certainly have not been taught to be critical of our bishops or theologians or papal teachings. Our role -- to pay, pray and obey -- is deeply ingrained. We may not even be aware that we have bought into it. Even when we no longer have nuns hovering over us to enforce our acquiescence.

As spectators, we expect to be entertained constantly. The church's ministers exist solely to make our lives interesting for the 1 or 2 hours a week we deliver ourselves into our care. Church musicians are critiqued mercilessly for not providing CD quality music -- and only of the variety we personally enjoy. Church decorators are mentally graded on the beauty of the floral displays, banners and the tarnish on the gilded crucifix. Priests are evaluated on the quality, brevity and orthodoxy of their sermons, and on whether they use the microphone well. And on and on.

Not that I'm any better. Believe me, I have been on both sides of the equation. I have railed incessantly about terrible homilies and clueless priests and bishops. And as a musician, I have been regularly skewered and given backhanded compliments by those who didn't think my music, voice or hymn selections were up to snuff. There are times that I think I have been hit by the karma bus when I have a less-than stellar day on my guitar, only to get pointedly complimented for my voice.

People who serve the community are our neighbors and our friends -- co-journeyers in a religion of love for starters. They put the little time they have, and their limited talent, into the work they do. The Bersteins and the Michelangelos can write and paint for the centuries. But we are putting our meager gifts to work for the glory of God and the enjoyment of our friends. It's unkind in the extreme to constantly point our our supposed flaws, especially when our critics have less skill or time to contribute. Save your clever carping for the symphony or Broadway. But cut your local artists a little slack. Don't complain about the weak voices in the choir, join! Don't turn you nose up at a tasteless liturgical banner, volunteer to make one! Don't tsk-tsk your presider's lack of organization, help him organize!

Over time, a church full of spectators will erode the spirit and strength of a community. It demoralizes those giving their time and talent. It drives sensitive people away from service. It is self-indulgent. And it doesn't improve anything.Try to recognize the warning signs in your own community and steer it toward compassion, love and service. Ask the critics what they can bring to the service, aside from their critique. And maybe, slowly, the climate will change. Your presiders, musicians and other ministers will relax a little. And maybe give you the performance you have been looking for!

Love wins!

I would be remiss in missing this opportunity to mark the Supreme Court's historic  judgment on Obergefell vs Hodges, which allowed same-sex marriage to become the law of the land in all 50 United States. It was only 11 years ago that my state, the fabulous Commonwealth of Massachusetts, became the first to recognize that privileging only some citizens with the benefits of marriage could not be sustained by the state Constitution. Our Puritan forebears, peering into the future, would have been aghast, of course, But that's how moral change works -- insight by insight, opened heart by opened heart. We claw our way from  one moral paradigm to another only by the passage of time and the slow measurement of our actions against our ideals.

In many ways, the Puritans and we have a lot in common. They were desperate to flee an overweening church hierarchy that limited their freedoms.We do the same, fleeing (legally, if not geographically) from church structures that put limits on our ability to apply the gospel of Jesus Christ in it purest form: to love one another as we love ourselves. It was the brilliant moral framework that Jesus hinted at that allowed us finally to imagine a world in which the love of homosexual partners for each other could be seen as no different from to the love of heterosexuals for one another.

Love is love. And we have finally stopped trying to place various forms of love on a scale or worthiness.

I can only end with the lyrical words of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who said it so brilliantly:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered. 

God bless us. God bless our gay brothers and sisters who have been redeemed from lives of  exile, oppression and secrecy to a life of stability, mutuality and acceptance. Love wins!

Squaring the circle of life

The scene: the audience chamber at the Vatican. The papal chair is placed on a carpeted platform. Tall windows give out onto St/. Peter's Square. Enormous 18th-century painting of religious motifs -- ring the walls. A group of American business men is led into the chamber by the papal camarlengo, their sharp steps echoing in the cavernous room. Smiling, Pope Francis rises from his chair to greet them. In turn, they shake hands as the camarlengo introduces them -- captains of industry all. A few, Catholics, presumably, self-consciously kiss the papal ring.

Francis: My children! You have a come a long way and must be fatigued. Please, be seated!

As the others take seats, sitting uneasily at the edges of their seats, Rex Tapper, the spokesman for the group, keeps his feet and addresses the pontiff.

Tapper: Your grace, Thanks for the welcome, but we're busy men and don't have much time to spare.

Francis: Yes, my child.

Tapper: Thanks, your grace. I'll get right to the point. See, it's this encyclical of yours, this "Laudato Si." We think you're making a big mistake, her, your Holiness.

Francis: How so, my son? Is the translation not well done? My American bishops reviewed it and said that its message was clear and easily undertandable.

Tapper: Well, sir, your Holiness, well that's the trouble. It's a bit too clear, if you catch my meaning.

Francis: Go on, my son.

Tapper: Well, you see, we in this room (gestures) to the nervous men behind him) we have a lot riding on the way folks back home will take to that encyclical. Speaking plainly, it's going to be awfully bad for business if every Catholic in America, and some of their lunkhead atheistic enviro-nuts, start looking into every wee little drop of oil or wisp of smoke that gets into the wrong place. Completely by accident, of course.

Francis: Yet the encyclical does not address accidents, Senore Tapper. It addresses the wholesale deliberate destruction of God's Creation. Surely you have read Laudate Si, si?

Tapper: Well, sir, not as such. But we've heard enough to know what's it's about. And what it's about is just plain bad for business. You can't make an omelette with breaking eggs, you see, and you can't run a paper mill -- like the one that manufactured the paper your encyclical is printed on -- without clear-cutting a few forests and tainting a few rivers!

Francis: Yet Senore, the encyclical is quite clear that we need not choose between a love of modern comfort and the well-being of our environment. It is a false choice that goes against God's gift of Creation to Mankind. In the beginning, did He not create for Man a garden? And gave it into his care, and made him lord over all that He had created?

Tapper: Well, yes sir, he did. And we are doing just that -- taking God's very gifts of coal and oil and minerals and livestock -- and turning them into useful things that help Mankind -- like cars and warm houses and stores full of material goods.

Francis: This is true, and yet the manner in which these gifts are used leads to ruined waterways and oil-fouled birds and beaches and depletion of fish stocks and rising sea levels. Shouldn't those be calculated into the equation?

Tapper: Maybe so, But that's just the price of doing business. You won;t send us back into the caves, would you? Plenty of clean water and clean air when we lived in caves, you know. And not a lot of fancy buildings and clothes, like the one we are in or the ones your are wearing.

Francis: Ah, Signore Tapper, there is that binary, this-or-that thinking I warned about. We must use our God-given ingenuity to find ways to safeguard our forests and oceans while we make a living.

Tapper: Begging your pardon, Holiness, that's all very nice, but we don't have time to replace every blade of grass that gets disturbed when we bulldoze a mountain top to get the coal God hid under there. And what are the oceans for but as the perfect dumping ground for the waste products of our responsible use of the minerals in the earth? Why, God himself designed the perfect way to conceal the products of industry -- into the deep seas. What else in Gods name are they for? Seems perfect to us! (Here the assembly of business leaders nodded vigorously.)

Francis: My children, I'm afraid that I will not be able to retract even one word of my encyclical. It is based on the truth of science as well as the revealed truth of the sacred Scriptures.

Tapper: Well, your grace, at least you could try to make it your useful...

Francis: Useful? How so?

Tapper: Well, sir, your church's other teachings have been  very useful to us, I mean politically. I mean, if you could find a way to tone it down a bit, give us something to work with..

Francis: I am confused by your use of the word "useful,:" my child. How are the church;s traching useful?

Tapper: Well, sir, take your church's stance on abortion. That a mighty useful teaching.

Francis: How sir, Signore?

Tapper: Well, sir, between you, me and the lampost, sir, the people are awfully simple-minded. They need clear guidance to make the right decisions.

Francis: Si...

Tapper: And they do understand the righteousness of your church's  stance on the sanctity of human life. We just piggy back on that clear and righteous teaching to move them in the right direction.

Francis: Ah, I see. You link the church's teaching about the sanctity of human life to the pursuit of your business goals, is that right?

Tapper: Just so, Holiness! And a finer marriage of morality and commerce has never been concocted this side of Heaven, if I may borrow a bit of your palaver. And it has made us, the stewards of God's riches, ourselves rich in the process. And that's the righteous reward for our labor, as I believe St. Paul said, somewhere or other

(Here the Pope paused to collect his thoughts.)

Francis:I see that I have much to teach and you have little time to learn! I shall keep you no longer. We shall agree to disagree for now, but I pray that you consider my words and find them as "useful" as you have found our other teachings.

With that, the pope rose from his chair. The camerlengo made a small motion and the audience stood.

Francis: As you depart today, please take a token of our affection. A jar of Trappist jam, created by monks on using sustainable farming methods and a solar-powered fan. I find it quite refreshing in our hot Roman summers!

Cassocked assistants offered trays of jam and fans to the businessmen, but there were few takers. And those thought mostly of the resale value of the papal gifts, and they took an armful.

---

In the passenger cabin of the private jet, winging back to America after the audience, Tapper and a small group of cronies nursed their neat scotches-on-ice as they lounged in leather seats.

One dared to speak. " You know, we can't let this kind of thing catch on, don't you? If we lose the moral high ground to this eco-nut, we'll never sway our people to our agenda. What's that old saying -- "Who will rid me of this meddlesone priest"?

Tapper swirled his drink, letting the ice cubes clatter against the sides of the glass. "We don't need to get medieval, here. We are modern men,. Americans. We have other ways to deal with men like Francis. Hell, I'll bet not one bishop in ten gives a damn one way or the other about polar bears or melting ice shelves or any of that other claptrap.

He took a careful sip of his whiskey. "We have other ways of dealing with a Francis."

And so over the next months, Tapper's plan took shape. Fox News ignored the encyclical, or discussed it with critics who paired the encyclical's message with the Church's handling of the priest abuse crisis. Their message, "If you can't trust the Church with your kids, you can't trust them with your planet." Rush Limbaugh regularly attacked Francis on his radio show. Ann Coulter's new book, Talking to Popes and Other Leftist Cranks, If You Must" hit the bookstores. Evangelists across American receive Koch-funded brochures spelling out how the papacy's attempt to save the planet and rein in industry was a part of the ancient Catholic conspiracy to take over the world. A few American bishops were enlisted to cast subtle doubt on Francis's orthodoxy, saying that Man's Fall meant that he must suffer. And wasn't drought and pollution merely God's means of bringing about that suffering? Catholic politicians complained that then Pope's pro-planet agenda meant was an abandonment of his pro-life. They argued that pro-life mean pro-human life, and that the planet would heal itself anyway, as it had always done and would always do.

And so was set the great battle for the hearts and minds of the American people. The winning side would not be known for many years.