For a number of readers, last week’s reflection about authoritarianism raised questions about cults. Cults are dangerous.
They are closely related of course.
According to Hebrew tradition, when the legendary Moses went up into Mount Sinai, in the 13th century BCE, to receive the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:12-18), he left the Israelites for forty days and forty nights. The Israelites became restless and fearful in his absence. Turning away from God, and led by Aaron the brother of Moses, they directed their devotion to worshiping the Golden Calf. It was immediate, provided simple answers, and required no thinking. An early cult.
There are of course more contemporary examples, where people become fearful, want immediate and simple answers to life’s big issues and problems. They stop thinking. Their critical faculties decline and they surrender to the simple but phony propaganda of cultic leaders. And they are usually supported by far-right movements with strong racial supremacy.
Quite often the line between conventional religion and a cult is not so clearly defined. Cults are exclusive, highly secretive, and authoritarian. Some cults even proclaim Christianity, but bear no resemblance to anything truly and authentically Christian. There are as well political cults, which attract and control because they act like captivating religions, whose only demands are obedience and unquestioned loyalty.
A typical cult has a somewhat theatrical and unaccountable leader, who persuades by coercion and exploits the cult’s members economically, sexually, or in some other way. Cult leaders shun and ostracize people who don’t accept the cult’s exclusive claims to truth. When it comes to truth, cult leaders gradually turn fantasy and fiction into accepted truths by continually repeating false statements in rhetoric, propaganda, and the media. Cult leaders are false prophets.
The American psychiatrist, Robert Jay Lifton (born 1926), known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of political violence, delineates three common features of destructive cults:
(1) A living leader, who has no meaningful accountability and who becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority.
(2) A process of indoctrination, persuasion or thought reform, commonly called “brainwashing.” In this process, members of the group often do things that are not in their own best interest, but in the best interest of the group and its leader.
(3) Economic, sexual, social, and political exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie.
The warning signs of cultic development are clear:
• It advocates authoritarianism without meaningful accountability. Leaders, if not downright evil are self-centered, mediocre, crass, and juvenile.
• No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry. Dissent and criticism are not permitted. Those who dissent are marginalized, excluded from decision-making, and labeled “troublemakers” or “dangerous,” or even demonic.
• The leader promotes exaggerated and misguided fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophes, evil conspiracies, and persecutions.
• Members of the cult believe their leader was sent by God to change the world; and all must therefore be obedient and loyal to the leader.
We all need to be alert to cultic leaders and groups. They are unhealthy and pernicious. We need to have the courage to speak out. They are people who thrive on fear and fear of social change; and they take advantage of people by controlling information and promoting fear. In the process, they support a very unhealthy kind of religion.
Around the globe today, authoritarian regimes have become more effective at circumventing the norms and institutions meant to support basic human liberties. Even in countries with long-established democracies, authoritarian forces have exploited the shortcomings in their systems. They are distorting national politics to promote hatred, violence, and unbridled power.
According to a recent report from Freedom House in Washington DC, countries that have been struggling between democracy and authoritarianism are increasingly turning toward authoritarianism. (Freedom House is a U.S. American organization devoted to the support and defense of democracy around the world. It was formally established in New York in 1941 to promote the struggle against fascism. Currently, Freedom House publishes an annual report on new media freedom, Freedom on the Net, which reaches critical audiences in the tech world and in policy circles. Freedom House analysts regularly issue interpretive assessments on repressive techniques employed by leading autocracies, including China, Turkey, and Russia.)
Authoritarianism uses and abuses people. It destroys human freedom to think, to act, and tolive. It manipulates people and often destroys the “undesirables.”
The historical Jesus stressed that human greatness is based on compassion and service. His authority was used to motivate and guide people, to heal, support, and call to conversion. Some “Christian leaders” still don’t get the message.
In the United States, “Trumpism” has become an authoritarian cult based on DJT’s persona. Contemporary Republican extremists have paralyzed the government in the midst of an unusually dangerous time. The 2024 U.S. presidential election will be significant to the the least.
Contemporary cultural change and human migration make some observers anxious and fearful. They feel threatened. They neither hear nor understand the words of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Instead they prefer to circle their wagons, or build their walls, to protect “us against them.” In ignorance, fear, and anxiety they surrender to the exaggerated rhetoric and growing influence of authoritarian leaders. This is becoming a contemporary leadership problem. “Leaders” who should be be trusted for wisdom, intelligence, and humanitarian service are becoming hard-nosed autocrats, surrendering to the psychological and mental disorder of authoritarianism.
Honesty and integrity are replaced by self-promoting deceit and dishonesty. Self-centered authoritarians are self-stroking and need to feel good. Life for them boils down to what one can get and what one can get away with. Life is jungle warfare in a world of lazy and evil “losers.”
Creeping authoritarianism is becoming a destructive and sinister social virus that shows itself in increased racial violence, increased anti-Semitism, extreme political and social polarization, and the rise of militant Neo-Nazi groups.
Authoritarian “leaders” can only succeed because because authoritarian followers applaud and support them.
Much more so than the average person, authoritarian followers go through life with impaired thinking. Their reasoning is often sloppy and based on prejudiced beliefs and a fierce dogmatism, that rejects evidence and logic.
Cognitive defects in authoritarian followers enable them to follow any would-be dictator. As Hitler reportedly said,“What good fortune for those in power that people do not think.”
So what does one do?
Well, we must first of all acknowledge that authoritarian followers are extremely resistant to change. The more one learns about authoritarianism, the more one realizes how difficult it will be to reach people who are so ferociously aggressive and fiercely defensive. Polarization is now extreme and deeply rooted.
We need to educate and promote, starting at home with little children, a balanced education: (1) handing on authentic information, (2) teaching people where to find correct information, and (3) giving people the skills to be well-informed critical thinkers.
Our Christian communities, more than ever, must become, in the Spirit of Christ, compassionate gatherings of multicultural, multi-ethnic, and all-gender, supportive friends.
We need to courageously speak out and we need to help other people courageously speak out.
If something is wrong or something is untrue, people need to strongly and clearly state that it is wrong or untrue.
Those who courageously speak out need the strong support of friends gathered around them. Going alone is increasingly difficult if not impossible in our cyber-linked world.
We need to be on guard, as well, that we do not become promoters of polarization and vicious partisanship. We need to learn how to work together for the common good.
As Jesus said in Matthew (chapter 12): “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”
Jack
PS A helpful book is The Global Rise of Authoritarianism in the 21st Century, edited by Berch Berberoglu, Copyright 2021.
Last week I was thinking about aggiornamento the Italian word meaning “bringing up to date.” It was made famous by Pope John XXIII (1881 – 1963) and was one of the key words at the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965).
As we go through life, we adjust our vision and beliefs. We re-shape our Christian faith understandings as we go along life’s road and as our world changes. And of course,as we confront our own ups and downs.
There is much to be learned and appreciated from opening the doors to one’s mind and “bringing up to date” by letting new ideas and beliefs come in. St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” Religiously, it took me a long time to become an adult. Growing up I always had lots of questions but falsely believed it was wrong to ask questions about church teachings. (Some “conservative” bishops and their followers still think that way.)
Fortunately, in my case, one of my college philosophy professors, a priest, helped me grow up. He reminded me that Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE) — the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought — had famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
By questioning and keeping a sense of wonder alive, my philosophy teacher – my trustworthy guide – said we remain engaged in the search for truth and the pursuit of what makes life worth living. Over the years I have tried to help my students become informed and open-minded critical believers, hoping to be a trustworthy guide for them.I have always stressed that being an open-minded critical believer greatly enriches a person’s life.
I see seven important elements in being an open-minded critical believer:
(1) Being an open-minded critical believer enables one to experience new ideas and fresh thoughts that stimulate personal growth as they challenge old visions, old understandings, and old beliefs. It can be very liberating to look at one’s contemporary world through an open mind. I once thought that only Catholics had “the truth.” But then I began to observe and question and came to realization that ALL Christian churches are moving toward the truth and no single church has all the truth.
(2) Being an open-minded critical believer promotes personal change, growth, and transformation. Opening up our minds to new ideas enables us to change what we think as well as expand our view of the world. It enables one to adjust beliefs, as one begins to think with a more open mind. I once thought it impossible for women to be ordained. I once thought that Jesus’ disciples were all only men. Now I know that both understandings are pure nonsense. Historical reality is broader and richer than I originally thought. Today I understand, as well, that all official church teachings and dogmas – even those proclaimed “infallible” – are time-bound, culture-bound, and provisional. Perhaps they made sense yesterday but just don’t work today. Institutions need to grow and change as well. Of course, institutions don’t change unless the leaders change.
(3) Being an open-minded critical believer also makes a person vulnerable. In agreeing to have an open-minded view of the world, we acknowledge we don’t know everything. We are open to criticism. We accept that there are possibilities we may not have considered. For some this vulnerability can be terrifying. But it can also be tremendously exhilarating. The jar is half full or half empty. It depends on one’s perspective. Here I would stress as well that we need to be supportive of those people who now think that all the things they had ever believed have turned out to be wrong and that they have nothing to take their place. We need to be compassionate guides, like my college professor mentioned above.
(4) Being an open-minded critical believer helps one see and acknowledge personal shortcomings and mistakes. With an open mind one begins to see things from other people’s perspectives; and one can recognize the mistakes one has made. From time to time, we all fail and fall. The challenge is to acknowledge it and then get back up again and continue the journey. That is the virtue of Christian humility and courage!
(5) Being an open-minded critical believer strengthens oneself and gives stability. Open-mindedness presents a platform upon which a person can build, putting one idea on top of another. With an open mind, one learns about new things; and one uses new ideas to build on old ideas. In my field we call this “ongoing theological development.” Dangerous stuff for fundamentalists, who are more comfortable living in the past.
(6) Being an open-minded critical believer helps one gain confidence. When a person really lives with an open mind, one develops a stronger sense of self. One can respect and appreciate, but is no longer confined by the beliefs of others. Then the respectful and humble dialogue can and should begin.
(7) Being an open-minded critical believer promotes self-honesty. Being open-minded means admitting that one is not all-knowing. Even if one is an older theologian! Whatever “truth” one holds, each person must realize that the underlying reality in its depth has more to it than anyone realizes. This understanding creates a sense of honesty that characterizes anyone who lives with an open mind.
For anyone who wants to safely travel the road of life, being an open-minded critical believer isabsolutely essential. As Jesus reminds us in the Gospel According to John: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I wrote a few weeks ago about the synodality movement. This week the Synod on Synodality is getting started in Rome. This is a major and very significant event in the contemporary Roman Catholic Church. I hope it will be successful, which means that it will lead to a genuine transformation of Roman Catholic structure and pastoral practice.
Certainly, as journalist Robert Mickens observed, last week, in La Croix International:“Both fans and foes of the Synod are campaigning and lobbying hard to pressure the assembly’s participants and Church officials to adopt their respective views. A number of Catholic reform groups, almost entirely made up of lay people, have even come to Rome to push for changes such as the ordination of women to the diaconate and priesthood, Church blessings for same-sex couples, a greater lay participation in the exercise of ecclesial governance, and a whole-scale reform of the way candidates are selected and prepared for ministry, as well as how bishops are chosen… The list goes on.”
I am not a pessimist but a cautiously optimistic realist. I remember my great excitement about the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region, held in Rome in October 2019.
The Amazon Synod’s agenda, expressing the feelings and desires of many representatives of the Amazon people, had called for ordained married clergy, a reexamination of the role of women in the church, and a number of liturgical and pastoral change’s reflecting the local culture of indigenous peoples rather than the traditional Roman Catholic Western European culture. In the end, it was mostly a lot of nice talk. It is often easier to be talking about change than to be making change happpen.
If this October 2023 Synod on Synodality follows the path of the Amazon Synod, with minimal pastoral implementation, I suspect it will lead to widespread Catholic dissatisfaction. And more people will be leaving the Catholic Church. I truly hope the current Synod succeeds. We need a Roman Catholic restructuring and an energetic pastoral transformation.
As Robert Mickens observed, people pro and con the Synod have been streaming to Rome. Two significant former Vatican “leaders” who are now highly critical of the Synod on Synodality are the German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller and the U.S. American Cardinal Raymond Burke.
Müller was appointed head of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 and held that position until 2017, when he was removed by Pope Francis. During an interview on the conservative Catholic news network EWTN in October last year, he warned that the current synodal process could result in a “hostile takeover of the Catholic Church.” He had called the proposed introduction of indigenous culture elements into the liturgy at the Amazon Synod held in 2019: “The paganization of the Catholic liturgy.”
Cardinal Burke sees the synod process underway around the world inflicting “evident and grave harm” on the Catholic Church, as he wrote in the foreword to a book published in August The Synodal Process Is a Pandora’s Box, by José Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo de Izcu. Burke is considered the voice of Catholic traditionalism and is a major proponent of the Tridentine Mass: the traditional Latin Mass, going back to 1570 CE and celebrated with the priest’s back to the congregation. Cardinal Burke is the former head of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church.
In the United States, a bishop who is a major critic of the Synod is Bishop Joseph Strickland, Bishop of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas. As the New York Times reported on October 2nd, Bishop Strickland has accused Pope Francis of undermining the Catholic faith. Strickland has suggested that other Vatican officials, as well, have veered so far from church teaching that they are no longer Catholic, and has warned that the global Synodal gathering that opens this week at the Vatican could threaten “basic truths” of Catholic doctrine. Bishop Strickland has great popularity among conservative U.S. Catholics. He has has a weekly radio show, and more than 145,000 followers on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
In any event, a good friend asked what I think a successful post-synodal implementation of changes would mean.
I want to see a church that is not a strongly doctrinaire, authoritarian institutionbut a truly supportive community of friends: people truly striving to live in the spirit of Christ. The innate danger in all institutions is that, if left unchecked, they cease being service-oriented structures and become hard-nosed self-serving institutions demanding unquestioned loyalty. That leads to a kind of institutional idolatry.
I want to see a church that affirms the dignity and equality of ALL people — regardless of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. I don’t want to read just a lot of official institutional rhetoric. I want to see changed institutional behavior. Talk is easy. We need male and female ordained ministers. IGBTQ+ people should be accepted and welcomed in church ministries and employment. For too long church leaders have patronized, insulted, or simply removed people who do not fit their mold. And it still happens.
I want to see an honest and humble church that realizes it does not possess all the truth and that it has to collaborate with a variety of people in pursuit of the truth. It has to acknowledge as well that all church doctrines are time and culture bound. Official doctrines are provisional and changeable. Some doctrines may have been meaningful in the past but just don’t work today. Others have evolved more from religious fantasy and folklore. Like, as I wrote a few weeks ago, that Peter was the first pope. That he was the first pope is pure fantasy from the fifth century. He was never a bishop of Rome.
I want to see a church that asks questions and welcomes the questioner. Asking questions brings greater self-knowledge and a more realistic life understanding. All the great advances in human knowledge have come from people who dared to ask questions. Isaac Newton asked: “Why does an apple fall from a tree?” and “Why does the moon not fall into the Earth?” Charles Darwin asked: “Why do the Galápagos Islands have so many species not found elsewhere?” Albert Einstein asked: “What would the universe look like if I rode through it on a beam of light?” And of course, Jesus of Nazareth asks in the synoptic gospels: “Who do people say that I am?” In John 7:19, Jesus asks: “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”
I want a church in which the higher-up ordained leaders dress and act like normal contemporary leadership people not museum-piece Renaissance princes. I often think about Jesus’ observation in Mark 12:38: “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes…”
I want a church in which leadership people are elected by the community for set terms of office, like five or ten years. This applies to the bishop of Rome as well.
Last but certainly not least, I want a church that promotes personal and community spirituality and encourages and promotes their growth in the stages of faith development.
We live in the present. Godis alive and closely with us right now. Not as a controlling authority but as a loving companion. But for many people today the old anthropomorphisms just don’t work. God is just as much Mother as Father, but much more than that. Why don’t Christian religious leaders sit down with, pray, and meditate with leaders of non-Christian religions? Jesus was not a Christian and God is much more than a Christian. As a very good priest friend wrote to me last week: “Jesus didn’t start an institution or teach law, he formed a small community and taught the Gospel.”
We are on a journey. We have not yet arrived. The Spirit us with us. And a healthy Christian community is our GPS.
Jack
PS — I will now refrain from comments about the October Synod until it is over.
Religious, social, and political antisemitism has a long history. Even many well-known historic Christian leaders were antisemitic. St. Augustine (354 – 430), the Bishop of Hippo who gave us the belief in Original Sin, argued that Jewish people should be left alive and suffering as a perpetual reminder of their murder of Jesus Christ. Augustine’s anti-Jewish teacher, St. Ambrose of Milan (c. 339 – 397, described Jewish people as a special subset of those people damned to hell.
The Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) was also fiercely antisemitic. “Set fire to their synagogues or schools,” Luther recommended in his 1543 treatise On the Jews and Their Lies. Jewish houses, he said, should “be razed and destroyed,” and Jewish “prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, [should] be taken from them.” In addition, Luther said that rabbis should be forbidden to teach “on pain of loss of life and limb.”
Much antisemitism has continued because people who could do something about it either simply ignored it or refused to take action against it.
Over the past ten years, there has been considerable criticism of Pope Pius XII (1876 – 1958) and his stance on Nazi antisemitism and Jewish genocide. In 2019, Pope Francis ordered the archives of Pope Pius XII opened, saying “The church is not afraid of history.” Pius XII was pope from from March 2, 1939, until his death on October 9, 1958, thus throughout the duration of WWII.
Since, the Vatican opened its sealed archives on Pope Pius XII’s pontificate in March 2020, research about Pius XII’s role during World War II has intensified. Most recently, according to Nicole Winfield the Vatican correspondent for the Associated Press in Rome, reporting on September 16, 2023, newly discovered correspondence in Vatican archives suggests that Pius XII actually had detailed information from a trusted German Jesuit that up to 6,000 Jews and Poles were being gassed each day in German occupied Poland. The letter from the priest, Lothar Koenig, to Pius XII’s secretary, a fellow German Jesuit named Robert Leiber, is dated 14 December 1942.
This revelation undercuts the Holy See’s earlier-stated position that it could not denounce Nazi atrocities when Pius XII was pope because it couldn’t verify any diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities during his papacy.
It should also come as no surprise that procedures leading up to Pius XII’s canonization have now been halted. There will be more very serious study about Pius XII for sure, but right now we need to confront contemporary antisemitism.
Antisemitism, the hatred of Jews as a group or a concept, has existed in different forms throughout history. During the Middle Ages, antisemitism was religion-based and centered on inaccurate myths about Jews and Judaism.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this hatred evolved into a non-religious form, as the world became obsessed with nationalism and perceived racial differences. During the Holocaust, Jews were persecuted and murdered because of Nazi ideology about racial superiority.
I grew up in a community where people used the word “jew” to mean cheap, stingy, and a cheater. But antisemitism continues to persist to this day.
Antisemitism in the United States:
Over the past five years antisemitic violence has greatly increased in the United States, and there has been a sharp rise in harassment, vandalism, and assaults aimed at Jewish men, women and children.
The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting on October 27, 2018, was an antisemitic terrorist attack in the form of a mass shooting, which took place at the Tree of Life synagogue. The perpetrator killed eleven people and wounded six, including several Holocaust survivors. It was the deadliest attack ever on the Jewish community in the United States.
The Poway synagogue shooting occurred on April 27, 2019, at Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, California on the last day of the Jewish Passover holiday. Armed with an AR-15 style rifle, the shooter fatally shot one woman and injured three other persons, including the synagogue’s rabbi.
On December 10, 2019, a shooting took place at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey. Three people were killed at the store by two assailants,
On the night of December 28, 2019, the seventh night of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, a masked man wielding a large knife invaded the home of a Hasidic rabbi in Monsey, New York and began stabbing the guests.
On January 15, 2022, a 44-year-old British Pakistani armed with a pistol, took four people as hostages in the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas.
In February 2023, two Jewish men were shot when they were leaving religious services at two separate synagogues in the same predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.
Most recently, as reported by Media Matters for America (September 12, 2023), since Elon Musk, took over the company in 2023, X Corp — formerly known as Twitter — has placed numerous advertisements on pro-Hitler, Holocaust denial, white nationalist, and neo-Nazi accounts. X Corp advertisements have also appeared next to unhinged conspiracy theories that Jewish people were responsible for 9/11. [Media Matters for America is a nonprofit liberal organization and media watchdog group.]
The number of antisemitic incidents in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League, increased by more than 35% in 2022, from 2,721 in 2021 to 3,697. Antisemitic hate crimes rose in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, homes to the country’s three largest Jewish populations.
What to do about antisemitism:
We need to combat religious antisemitism by clearing-up problematic and incorrect biblical interpretations.
For far too long too many Christians have promoted a false understanding of God in the Hebrew Scriptures (the “Old Testament”) as a God of wrath, stressing that the “correct” understanding of God in the New Testament is the Christian God of love.
Our biblical translations and religious language need, as well, a corrective and thorough updating. This is particularly important when we realize how New Testament mistranslations have supported antisemitism. In most New Testament translations there is still a major translation problem. The historical Jesus, “Yeshua” as he was known, belonged to the Hebrew religious tradition. He was a Galilean from Nazareth. His home territory, Galilee, was part of the province of Judaea.
There were no “Jews” in the days of Jesus. The word “Jew” came into existence centuries after Jesus. The inscription on Jesus’ cross, often abbreviated as “INRI,” stood for Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum. Itmeant “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Judeans.” NOT “King of the Jews.” Pontius Pilate, responsible for the jeering inscription, was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judea.
The Gospel of Matthew has been interpreted, in many Christian traditions, in an antisemitic way because the Greek and Latin words ioudaios and iudaeus have not been translated as “Judean” but incorrectly as “Jew.” The Gospel of Matthew has often been regarded as a great contributor to the development of antisemitism, particularly because of the charge of Matthew 27:25. This so-called “blood guilt” text has been interpreted to mean that the Hebrew people of Jesus’ time and afterwards the “Jewish” people bear responsibility for the death of Jesus.
I clearly remember the Roman Catholic Good Friday prayer, as it existed before 1959: “Let us pray also for the faithless Jews, that Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord.” [A note regarding the spelling of Iesus and Iudaeorum, the letter “J” did not exist until the sixteenth century.]
Recent popes and the Second Vatican Council held October 11, 1962 – December 8, 1965) have endeavored to improve Jewish-Christian relations. In 1964, Pope Paul VI (pope from 1963 to 1978) became the first pope to visit Israel, and in 1965, the Second Vatican Council issued the Latin document “Nostra Aetate,” (“In Our Times”) which denounced antisemitism and said Jewish people could not collectively be blamed for the death of Jesus. The promulgation, on October 28, 1965, of Nostra Aetate may be the most important moment is post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian relations. Memorable lines are these: “Since Christians and Jews have such a common spiritual heritage, this sacred council wishes to encourage and further mutual understanding and appreciation. This can be achieved, especially, by way of biblical and theological enquiry and through friendly discussions. Even though the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ (see Jn 19:6), neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his passion.”
We need to combat religious antisemitism by denouncing faulty history and improving historical education.
There is, for example, considerable falsehood being taught about the Holocaust.
One of the newer forms of antisemitism is the denial of the Holocaust by revisionist historians and neo-Nazis. Austin App (1902-1984) professor of medieval English literature who taught at the University of Scranton and La Salle University is considered the first major U.S. American Holocaust denier. App wrote extensively in newspapers and periodicals, and he also wrote a couple of books which detailed his defense of Nazi Germany and Holocaust denial. App’s work inspired the Institute for Historical Review, a California center which was founded in 1978 with the sole purpose of denying the Holocaust.
On September 16, 2020, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany announced the release of the U.S. Millennial Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Survey. In the survey, one in ten young U.S. Americans believed that the Holocaust never happened, while 23 per cent thought it’s a myth or that the number of those killed has been exaggerated. Nationally, 63 % of the survey respondents did not know that six million Jews were murdered, and 36 % thought that “two million or fewer Jews” were killed during the Holocaust. Additionally, although there were more than 40,000 camps and ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust, 48 percent of national survey respondents could not name a single one.
Unlike many other bigotries, antisemitism is not merely a social prejudice. It is a dangerous conspiracy theory about how the world operates.
People who embrace conspiracy theories to explain their problems lose the ability to rationally solve them. And so, Jews, who make up just 0.2 % of the world’s population, become the scapegoats with people believing that “the Jews” run the banks, that “the Jews” dominate business, and that “the Jews” dominate politics and are threat to the world security.
Scapegoats of course get used and abused. As early as August 1920, Adolf Hitler blamed “the Jews” for everything that was wrong with the world. Germany was weak and in decline due to the “’Jewish influence.” According to Hitler, “the Jews” were after world dominance. And they would not hesitate to use all possible means. In this way, Hitler took advantage of the existing prejudice that linked Jewish people to monetary power and financial gain.
Well, we can learn a lot from our understanding of contemporary and historic realities…
Certainly, one of the most important – and most positive – developments in the Catholic Church since the 1960s is the synodality movement. Very frankly, if synodality does not work, I suspect the current Catholic exodus will accelerate.
The Catholic synodality movement is a series of high-level conferences of bishops, lay, and religious people to discuss a broad range of contemporary theological and organizational questions concerning the Catholic Church. Catholics in many countries have already had a series of national synodal gatherings.
The next big Synod will be held at the Vatican on 4 to 9 October 2023. There there will be an even mix of participants from six different continents. In total, 363 people will be able to vote in the October Synod, according to the Holy See Press Office. Among them, 54 of the voting delegates are women. But only 54. In addition to the voting members, 75 other participants have been invited to the synod assembly to act as facilitators, experts, or assistants. Curiously, as historical theologian Massimo Faggioli (born 1970) observed in La Croix International (13 July 2023), “Representatives of academic Catholic theology from the United States and Germany are almost completely absent. Comparatively speaking, theologians from the UK, Ireland, Canada, and Australia are more present.” Why? Yes, that is an important question.
The final Synod at the Vatican will be in October 2024. A final synodal advisory document will be voted on by synod assembly participants in 2024 and then presented to Pope Francis. The pope can decide, if he wishes, to adopt the text as a papal document or to write his own at the conclusion of the synod.
The contemporary synodal movement, with its theme of “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission”, will go down as an historic event – positive or negative — in the life of Pope Francis who is close to eighty-seven years old and has now been pope for ten years. Just before the October Synod, Francis, on 30 September, will appoint 21 new cardinals, bringing the total number of cardinals with the right to vote in a conclave to 137.
Right now, opposition to the October Vatican Synod is growing within far-right Catholic groups. Last month, the Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, or TFP, and its sister organizations released The Synodal Process is a Pandora’s Box, a book by two political activists, Chilean José Antonio Ureta and Peruvian Julio Loredo de Izcue. In the United States retired Cardinal Raymond Burke (born 1948) has praised the Ureta and Loredo de Izcue book. He stressed, as reported in the National Catholic Register (23 August 2023), that Catholics have always professed the church to be “one, holy, and apostolic.” But now, Burke observed it is “to be defined by synodality, a term which has no history in the doctrine of the church and for which there is no reasonable definition.”
Describing the German Catholic Church’s “Synodal Path” as a process that sowed confusion, “error” and division, Cardinal Burke said that with the upcoming synod assembly at the Vatican, “it is rightly to be feared that the same confusion and error and division will be visited upon the universal church. In fact, it has already begun to happen through the preparation of the synod at the local level.” Cardinal Burke was once the head of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura (Latin: Supremum Tribunal Signaturae Apostolicae) – from 2008 to 2014 — the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church.
Both U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke and U.S. Archbishop Joseph Cordileone of San Francisco (born 1956) and well known for his outspoken opposition to same-sex marriage have strongly criticized the German Synodal Way.
The German Synodal Way, I suggest, was actually very clear about the direction the Catholic Church should take. Called Der Synodale Weg, it was a series of conferences that began on 1 December 2019, and finished on 11 March 2023. It brought together 230 members, made up of bishops as well as an equal number of lay members from the Central Committee of German Catholics.
The majority of the assembly endorsed that:
Women’s ordination should be allowed by the Vatican.
The laity should have more influence on the election of bishops.
Homosexual partnerships/unions should get a public blessing ceremony.
The Roman Catholic catechism’s teachings on sexual ethics should be reformed.
Homosexual sexual acts within same-sex unions/partnerships should be theologically accepted and not classified as sinful behavior.
Married priests should be allowed.
There should be changes to the labor laws of the German church to prohibit the firing or refusal to hire people based on marital status.
On 10 March 2023, Bishop Georg Bätzing (born 1961) who is chairman of the German Bishop’s conference, expressed satisfaction at the end of the synodal assembly. As reported on the Pillar Catholic website, he said: “The synodal way is a concretization of what Pope Francis means by synodality. Above all, it is an expression of a lively, colorful, and diverse Church.”
Pope Francis was actually a bit more critical. As reported in Crux on 26 January 2023, during an interview with the Associated Press, Pope Francis warned that the German Synodal Way is both “elitist” and “ideological.” He also said that it is neither helpful nor serious, and contrasted it with the Vatican’s Synod on Synodality. He urged that Catholic Church members to be patient, to dialogue and to accompany these people “on the real synodal path” and to “help this more elitist [German] path so that it does not end badly in some way, but so is also integrated into the Church.”
The 4 to 9 October 2023 Vatican Synod, like its predecessors, it will be held behind closed doors with carefully tailored information fed to reporters concerning what’s happening. Russell Shaw, veteran journalist, writing in the National Catholic Register (12 September 2023) asked a key question about the Vatican Synod starting next month: “If the synodal Church that Pope Francis wants is to be the open, transparent affair he speaks of, is a closed-door synod, with tight controls on the information flow, the best way of launching it?”
And so, we remain observant and alert. This synodal story is hardly over. The Catholic Church may not be a democracy, but for too long the organizational structure of the Church emulated the structure and style of Constantine’s fourth century Roman Empire. Early Christian communities, however, were not that way. They belonged to communities of equals. Their leadership was anchored in solidarity with the community not above the community but part of it, walking and discerning together.
This week I return with some contemporary reflections about fundamentalism. People have asked me if U.S. Catholics have now become fundamentalists. Hardly. But some of course. Many U.S. Catholic bishops, however, shaped and influenced by the theology of Popes John Paul II (pope from 1978 to 2005) and Benedict XVI (pope from 2005 to 2013) show signs of ardent fundamentalism. Their fundamentalist responses are a reaction to their fears about social change, which they cannot understand, and the continuing decline of the Catholic Church in the United States over which they are losing control. Catholics now make up about 20% of the U.S. population – down from close to 24% in 1965.
Ever since the Catholic, Joseph Biden, entered the White House in 2021, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been wrangling and wringing its hands about his position on legalized abortion, same-sex marriage, and gender issues. Much to the added consternation of many U.S. bishops, according to the Pew Research Center, 63% of U.S. Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. A June 2022 report by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, raised that to 64% of U.S. Catholics, 40% of them Republicans. This is almost identical to the 65% of all adult Americans who hold that view.
The poll also found that 77% of U.S. Catholics said Communion should not be denied to someone who identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. That should not be surprising, as more than two-thirds of U.S. Catholics now support same-sex marriage, in opposition to church teaching. Gallup, curiously, has found that, over the past 20 years support for same-sex marriage has consistently been stronger among Catholics than among the American population as a whole. And more than 90% of U.S. Catholics now back Transgender Rights
In terms of U.S. Catholic decline, the data are not positive:
More than two dozen U.S. dioceses have now entered into bankruptcy proceedings, the vast majority in the past decade. Of those dioceses, 12 are in the midst of the proceedings as of July 2023, while 17 have completed the process.
Ongoing revelations of clerical sexual abuse and lost credibility in episcopal leadership have led many Catholics to simply walk out the door. Many who temporarily left due to Covid have now made their exodus permanent.
And the exodus has clearly not stopped.
Researchers at Georgetown University have found the number of Catholic priests in the U.S. has dropped by more than half over the last five decades.
Seminarian enrollment in the United States has been on a decades-long decline as fewer young men seek out the priesthood and the number of active priests in the U.S. continues to dwindle. Those who do become priests today tend to be right of center or far right of center.
As of 2022, 43% of Latino adults identify as Catholic, down from 67% in 2010.
In 2021, the Archbishop of Cincinnati announced that 70% of Catholic churches would be closing there in the next several years. In May 2023, the Archbishop of St. Louis announced the closing of 35 parishes. Already in November 2015 the Archdiocese of New York announced that it would consolidate 368 parishes into 294, reflecting a national trend of parish closures in the United States caused by low attendance, a shortage of priests and financial troubles.
Nationally, Catholic school enrollment has declined by more than 430,000 students since 2008.
The word “fundamentalist” was first used in print in the United States, in 1920, by Curtis Lee Laws, editor of The Watchman Examiner, a national Baptist newspaper. But the term “fundamentalism” was extended to other religious traditions around the time of the Iranian Revolution in 1978-79.
In general, all fundamentalist movements arise when people are confronted with an unsettling disruption of their “normal” way of life. Sensing societal chaos, they develop strong feelings of anxiety and fear about losing control over their lives and losing personal and group identity. Fundamentalists are uncomfortable with and reject the realities of changing anthropological, sociological, and theological understandings.
Regardless of the religious tradition to which they belong, all fundamentalists follow certain patterns: (1) Religious ideology is the basis for their personal and communal identity. (2) They insist upon one statement of truth that is inerrant, revealed, unchangeable, and to be adhered to without question. (3) They see themselves as part of a cosmic struggle between good and evil. (4) They seize on historical moments and reinterpret them in the light of this cosmic struggle. (5) They demonize their opposition. (6) They are selective in what parts of the religious tradition and heritage they will stress.
Religious fundamentalists place such a high priority on doctrinal conformity and obedience to doctrinaire spokespersons that they end up sacrificing values basic to all the great religious traditions: love, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and caring.
When Christian belief becomes highly fundamentalized, churches start to become repositories not of grace but of grievances. They become places where something like tribal identity is reinforced, fears are nurtured, and aggression and nastiness become part of a holy cause. In their overwhelming seriousness about “their” religion, fundamentalists do not hesitate to intervene in political and social processes to ensure that society conforms to the values and behaviors required by their fundamentalist worldview. Fundamentalists become their own justification.
What does one do about fundamentalism?
The best way to confront the narrow vision of fundamentalism is through broad-based education that emphasizes critical, analytical thinking skills.
We need to establish channels for dialogue and support those institutions that promote multi-cultural knowledge and understanding.
We need to courageously work against ignorance and speak-out about dishonest or faulty information, especially on the Internet. And speak-out about those who advocate and publish it.
*****
“Truth is always complicated by the human envelope in which it is enclosed. It’s not only an intellectual problem, but one at the heart of the gospel itself. It was not sinners who turned Jesus off. It was the righteous religious types who felt they had all the answers.” Rev. Raymond E. Brown (1928 – 1998), Catholic biblical scholar
Last week, I told a friend I wanted to write about transgender issues, because it has become such a conflictual contemporary issue, especially in my own Roman Catholic Christian tradition. He immediately replied that it would be a waste of my time because, as he said: “That transgender nonsense is unnatural and immoral.”
Contemporary transgender issues do indeed raise questions about what is “natural” and “moral.” Determining contemporary moral values and behavior, I suggest, requires an historically conscious perspective, because human understanding evolves and develops over time. We certainly see this when it comes to medical science and archaic medical treatments like using leeches and bloodletting. Leech therapy was once recommended for diseases of the nervous system and eyes. Former U.S. president George Washington died on December 14, 1799, at Mount Vernon, when doctors drained out 40% of his blood trying to cure his throat infection.
When people derive moral obligations from “nature,” they are actually deriving them from a very human interpretation of “nature.” The challenge with “natural law,” “human nature,” and issues of human sexuality and transgender is that our understandings of what it means to be “natural” have changed, developed, continue to develop. Women, for example, were once considered “naturally” inferior to men. We are always learning. And there will always be new questions.
Changed understandings do not always come easily. Across the United States, today far-right anti-LGBTQ+ extremists have targeted transgender people and are pushing legislation to remove their rights. So far this year more than 550 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation have been introduced in U.S. states. More than 80 have now become law.
In January of this year, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon U.S.A. issued an archdiocesan policy titled “A Catholic Response to Gender Identity Theory.” Like policies in other U.S. dioceses, the Portland Archdiocese mandates that all people be treated according to their sex as assigned at birth. It condemns any endorsement of gender identity theory or “any form of gender transition, whether social or medical.” The Portland policy describes gender affirming care as a “totalitarian program that only causes more suffering and lasting damage.”
At least 30 U.S. Catholic dioceses have now released policies about LGBTQ+ people in schools, with the Archdiocese of Portland being one of the latest. These policies reinforce a strict gender binary understanding, such as requiring the use of names and pronouns according to a person’s sex assigned at birth, rather than the person’s gender. Many Catholic leaders follow the old dictum, often attributed to Mahatma Ghandi, “hate the sin, love the sinner” in their approaches to LGBTQ+ people. They encourage kindness toward LGBTQ+ people but still condemn their actions as immoral and intrinsically disordered.
In March 2023, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued guidelines to stop Catholic hospitals from providing gender transition care. The 14-page document, titled “Moral Limits to the Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” sets guidelines about changing a person’s gender, specifically with youth. The document says Catholic hospitals “must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex or take part in the development of such procedures.” Currently, the Catholic Health Association comprises more than 600 hospitals and 1,400 long-term care and other health facilities in the United States. (It will be very interesting to see which candidate the U.S. bishops support in the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign. But that is a point for a future reflection.)
Nevertheless, this past August 2023 two Catholic colleges in Minnesota courageously announced that due to the “evolving understanding of gender and gender identity” they are welcoming transgender students. The College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University, say on their joint website that they support people who do not identify as binary, including “transgender, nonbinary, gender-fluid, and gender-nonconforming individuals.” The website announcement affirms that all LGBTQ+ people have a place in their academic institutions.
There are no doubts that transgender people have gained greater visibility in recent years. I can think immediately of celebrities like actress Laverne Cox, the former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete Caitlyn Jenner, and the Canadian actor Elliot Page. They have all spoken very openly about their gender transitions. A very interesting book, in this regard is Transgender History by Susan Stryker. It provides a concise history of transgender people in the United States from the middle of the 19th century to the 2000s. Stryker is Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona.
On March 31, 2023, the White House issued a proclamation recognizing Transgender Day of Visibility. President Joseph Biden stressed: “On Transgender Day of Visibility, we celebrate the strength, joy, and absolute courage of some of the bravest people I know. Transgender Americans deserve to be safe and supported in every community – but today, across our country, MAGA extremists are advancing hundreds of hateful and extreme state laws that target transgender kids and their families. No one should have to be brave just to be themselves.”
Transgender is an umbrella term describing people whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to what is typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. Gender refers to the social roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. Gender influences the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves. While aspects of biological sex are similar across different cultures, aspects of gender are often quite different.
According to the Pew Research Center, about 5% of young adults in the United States say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth. About a quarter of U.S. adults say they have a trans friend (27%), while 13% say they have a co-worker who is trans and 10% say they have a transgender family member.
Many transgender people do not experience their gender as distressing or disabling. It is extremely difficult, however, for teenagers. More than 50% of trans and non-binary youth in the United States considered suicide last year. For these individuals, significant problems are finding the social support necessary to freely express their gender identity and getting hormone therapy and sex-change medical procedures.
Transgender people are more common than one might think. According to a 2022 report from UCLA’s School of Law Williams Institute, 1.6 million people ages 13 years and up identify as transgender in the United States. This means that approximately 1.4% of the U.S. population is transgender.
The term “transgender” was coined in the 1960s but didn’t become widespread until the 1990s. Historically, transgender people have been documented in many indigenous, Western, and Eastern cultures as well as societies from antiquity up to and including the present day.
The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, best known as Elagabalus, who ruled from 218 to 222 CE, reportedly wore makeup and wigs, preferred to be called a lady and not a lord, and reportedly offered vast sums to any physician who could provide him with a vagina. Shunned and stigmatized by the Praetorian Guard, Elagabalus was assassinated, and his body was thrown into the Tiber River.
Nevertheless, transgender behavior existed in Rome before and after Elagabalus. Transgender practice was tolerated and even respected by the Roman populace when it was practiced by the male-born women priestesses of Cybele, known as the Gallae.
In the Indian subcontinent hijra is the generic term for trans women and may include eunuchs and intersex people who live in communities. Going back to the thirteenth century, hijras are officially recognized as a third gender neither completely male nor female. Today in general hijras have been born male. Some hijras undergo an initiation rite into the hijra third gender community called nirvaan, which involves the removal of the male genitalia.
The United States Armed Forces have a long history of transgender service personnel. Albert Cashier served bravely in over 40 battles as a Union Army soldier in the U.S. Civil War (1861 – 1865). He was one of at least 250 transgender soldiers who, though assigned a female at birth, fought in the war as men. In more recent years, openly transgender people have served or sought to serve in the military. As of 2021, transgender individuals are expressly permitted to serve openly in the United States Armed Forces as their identified gender.
Transgender Christians in medieval hagiography? The book Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography by historians Alicia Spencer-hall (Queen Mary University of London) and Blake Gutt (University of Michigan) explains that from the fifth to the ninth century, a number of Christians considered “saintly men” across the Greek-speaking Mediterranean world, though assigned female at birth, chose to live out their adult lives as men in monasteries.
There is no single explanation for why some people are transgender. The diversity of transgender expression and experiences argues against any simple explanation. Many experts believe that early experiences as well as experiences later in adolescence or adulthood may all contribute to the discovery of transgender identities. Transgender people may be naturally straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or asexual, just as naturally non-transgender people can be.
The historical Jesus did not directly discuss issues of sex and gender. Jesus did stress the fundamental moral principle of loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. That really covers ALL people.
I suspect most of us remember the quote by George Santayana (1863 – 1952) the Spanish-American philosopher and writer: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Thinking about Santayana’s observation, if someone asked me WHY history is important, I wound add: “Those who cannot UNDERSTAND the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Understanding history is far more important than just knowing history. It is not enough, for example, to know about the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s but to understand how and why Nazism had so much popular support.
And unfortunately, as with Nazism, popular fanaticism is often more important than truth. Presumed or fabricated historical facts can be misleading, deceptive, and destructive.
As an historian, who has been observing for more than a couple years, I have a few observations about history and reality:
Genuine history should be based on factual information. That can be problematic when one is not using factual information, but interpretations presumed to be historical.
No one knows, for example, what the historical Jesus looked like. He most probably had the brown eyes, brown skin, and black hair common to first-century Hebrews from Galilee. Nevertheless, some of the best-known depictions of Jesus, from Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” to Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, have depicted Jesus as a white European male. And many popular images of Jesus have portrayed him with brown or blond hair, blue eyes, and often looking rather androgynous.
Another historical problem arises when historical interpretation is done from the perspective of just one gender. Problems arise when, for example, only male historians are looking at and interpreting historic events.
Throughout most of its history, the institutional church has been highly patriarchal. Its anthropology defined the male as superior and the female as inferior and subordinate. For too long male historical theologians interpreted reality that way, stating incorrectly for example that only men presided at Eucharist in the early church, because only men were heads of households.
Today, we know that the “only men” perspective is not true. In early Christianity women took leadership roles in house churches. Paul tells of women who were the leaders of such house churches: Apphia in Philemon 2 and Prisca in I Corinthians 16:19, for example. This practice is confirmed by other texts that also mention women who headed churches in their homes, such as Lydia of Thyatira in Acts 16:15 and Nympha of Laodicea in Colossians 4:15. As heads of households, these women were also presiders at Eucharist.
Paul also mentions Junia as a woman apostle in Romans 16:7. Unfortunately, male theologians, starting in the fourth century and into the Middle Ages changed the woman “Junia” into the man “Junias” in their biblical commentaries. Misogyny has a long history.
Fortunately, modern feminist history and theology emerged in the 1960s, rooted primarily in Christian women’s experiences of living under the pressure of patriarchal ideology and structures. Today we have better and more accurate historical perspectives thanks to women theologians and women historians. Since 1969 at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), for example, a growing number of women have received their doctorates in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies; and the current dean is a woman.
For a good perspective on women in early Christian history, I strongly recommend Christine Schenk’s book: Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity.
History becomes narrow and deceptive when certain books or authors are banned. We see that happening a lot today, especially in schools. In the first half of the 2022-2023 school year in the United States, almost 1,500 books were banned.
Book bans continue to target books featuring LGBTQ+ themes or characters, characters of color, as well as books on race and racism. Book banning, of course, began centuries ago when, for example, certain books were put on the Roman Catholic Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“List of Prohibited Books”) which started in 1560. The writings of Nicolaus Copernicus in 1616 and of Galileo Galilei in 1634 were not removed from the Index until 1822. The very final edition of the Index appeared in 1948. But the Index was not formally abolished until 1966 by Pope Paul VI. History of course is filled with abundant and frightening examples that banning and burning books has often led to banning and burning people.
Historical ignorance can also lead to faulty interpretations of historic events. Contrary to what one still hears, for example, Jesus did not ordain anyone at the Last Supper with his disciples.
Jesus certainly did not ordain “male apostles” as the first bishops. Ordination did not exist in Jesus’ lifetime. Ordination began much later and not as a way to pass on “sacred power to consecrate the Eucharist” but as a form of quality control – a way to assure communities that their leaders were competent and trustworthy.
The first complete description of the Christian ceremony of ordination appears at the beginning of the third century and is found in the Apostolic Tradition, a work attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (ca. 170 ‒ ca. 235 CE). By the end of the third century, however, Christianity had a clear organizational structure headed by presbyters, supervisor-overseers (bishops), and deacons.
History becomes deceptive as well when myths, legends, and folklore are reported as actual historic events. Adam and Eve in the Hebrew Scriptures belong to biblical mythology, along with Noah and his Ark.
A few years ago, my sister – always somewhat fearful that I was becoming a heretic — emailed me a photo and an article about the discovery of an ancient chunk of wood in the Judean Hills. That old piece of wood, the article said, had been a piece of Noah’s Ark. My sister said: “Isn’t this wonderful!” Well, I replied that obviously someone had discovered an old chunk of wood, but that Noah and his famous boat were mythological, just like the old chopped-down cherry tree myth about young George Washington, or the myth about Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack who shaped the landscape with his axe and Babe his blue ox.
Historical understandings can and do change. For example, did Jesus of Nazareth have brothers and sisters?
Most contemporary scripture scholars would agree that the historical Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua) had brothers and sisters and that they were the sons and daughters of Mary and Joseph. The brothers of Jesus (the adelphoi in Greek, meaning “from the same womb”) are named in the New Testament, in Mark and Matthew, as James, Joses (a form of Joseph), Simon, Jude, and unnamed sisters’ are mentioned in Mark and Matthew.
By the 3rd century, however, the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary had become well established. That of course raised problems with what one reads in Mark and Matthew. Other explanations were found. The traditional Roman Catholic explanation for the reference to Jesus’ brothers and sisters became that they were really cousins or children of Joseph before he married Mary.
Better historical information often requires changed institutional and personal understandings and behavior as well. Today we know, for instance, that profits from slavery helped fund some of the most prestigious universities in the United States, including Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, and Yale.
Reparations and acknowledgements are being made. Ongoing efforts and calls to address historical connections to slavery and enduring racism at American universities have been renewed, especially in the wake of demonstrations protesting the murder of the African American man George Floyd Jr. by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020.
U.S Catholics need to review their history as well. By the time the Jesuit priests of Maryland founded Georgetown College in 1789, the Jesuits were among the biggest slave owners in the colony. They had several tobacco plantations scattered across Maryland and used the income from their slaves’ labor to create Georgetown. Then in 1838 the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus sold 272 slaves. Proceeds from that sale were used to satisfy Georgetown’s debts.
Following broad publicity regarding the 1838 transaction, the university moved in 2017 to rename two buildings that bore the names of Jesuits at Georgetown who had played significant roles in the 1838 sale of slaves. The two buildings were rededicated in the names of Isaac, the first slave listed in the 1838 sale document, and Anne Marie Becraft, who established a school in Georgetown for black girls.
The slave issue has touched me personally as well. For many years I have been doing historical genealogical research into my paternal family history. I discovered, when reviewing the wills and other documents of some of my ancestral grandparents in Virginia that they were slave owners. That was a humbling shock. Then, corresponding with a researcher in Virginia I made another discovery. She told me that she and I have the same distant grandfather and sent a photo of her and her family. They are very dark African Americans. I immediately emailed my favorite cousin in Virginia and asked him about this. He replied: “Yes, we don’t talk about this but some of our slave-owning grandfathers back then had black ‘girlfriends’.”
Not everything on the Internet is historical, truthful, and honest. I wonder what will happen to the online information environment in the coming decade.
Certainly, as we see for example in the dishonest political rhetoric of DJT and his supporters, the Internet today makes the production and dissemination of untruths much easier and faster. We used to say: “Pictures don’t lie” but on Internet photoshopped images are not truthful and make people believe their falsehood is reality. An example: President Joseph Biden made a surprise trip to Ukraine on February 20th this year. He was photographed walking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy outside of a monastery in Kyiv. Multiple news outlets have published the picture. But an altered version of the photo is spreading on social media, showing Biden and Zelenskyy holding hands, their fingers entwined.
As we move into the next U.S. presidential campaign, I fear we will see a lot of Internet dishonesty.
Concluding observations: History is not about imaginative conjectures but about reality. We grow – or we can grow — in our discoveries about reality. And we can always be learners.
A good friend reminded me recently: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
Another Voice 