In this weekend’s liturgical readings, we have the account of the Transfiguration as written in the Gospel According to Matthew (17:1-9).

”

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!’

When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, ‘Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’

When telling a friend yesterday that I would be writing about Jesus’ Transfiguration, he chided me a bit and hoped I would reaffirm and stress it was an historic event. “Actually,” I said “when considering biblical belief, biblical events, and historical events we need to make some important distinctions….” He then muttered something about the “dangers of liberal theology.”

In any event, here, as a contemporary believer, is how I understand the Transfiguration…..

In the accounts of the Transfiguration, Jesus is suddenly changed and becomes a radiantly divinized Son of God, up on a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels describe it (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28–36) and 2 Peter 1:16–18 refers to it.

The content of the narrative is richly symbolic with people and imagery from the Hebrew Scriptures, as we saw last week, when John baptized Jesus. Once again the three-level universe with God up in heaven, and speaking in a cloud. Jesus takes three key disciples up high in the mountains — getting as close as possible to God’s heavenly dwelling place. Moses you recall did the same thing when God gave him the Ten Commandments.

Then the wondrous vision occurs. Moses appears. He brought God’s people the law and led them up to the Promised Land. Now in this visionary experience, the radiant Jesus, standing with the old Moses, becomes the New Moses. God says: “This is my son. Listen to him.” Jesus is the new law-giver. And then of course we have an appearance of Elijah. Last week we saw that John the Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord, was an Elijah figure. Now we have the old Elijah, standing next to the Lord who has come at last. For Moses and Elijah, standing with Jesus, the great day has arrived. Up on the mountain of the Transfiguration, all messianic expectations of the Hebrew Scriptures are summed up and completed with the radiant Jesus.

As recorded in the Gospels, the Transfiguration becomes a deeply symbolic preview and a powerful faith affirmation of the Post-Resurrection Jesus. An important piece of Resurrection catechesis.

When editing their final versions of the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel writers felt their audiences needed some support and moral encouragement, as they began to contemplate Jesus’ sufferings and death. Yes I call it a catechetical moment: a reaffirmation of faith in Jesus raised from the dead….before the Gospel accounts become so heavily laden with suffering, rejection, pain, and death. (It is like saying: “don’t worry, in the end it will all come out OK for Jesus.”) A deeply symbolic visionary experience and a powerful re-affirmation of the Easter faith of historic people back then….as well as for us today.

So my friend asked me yesterday: “was it an historic event?” Actually I reminded him that in the Hebrew biblical tradition there was little interest in the fact of an historic situation. Those early believers were concerned about the meaning behind what happened. Their tradition — passed on of course to early Christian believers — is one of story telling. They combined history, allegory, and symbols to communicate their experiences. Asking “did it really happen?” is the kind of question that comes from a Western mind-set, not the Ancient Near East culture of Jesus and his followers. For that biblical faith culture, the main question was “what is the meaning in these things.”

I would suggest the Transfiguration is a powerfully symbolic testimony to the faith experiences of Jesus’ early followers. And they were really historic men and women.

As contemporary believers, we need to appreciate that biblical language (in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the Christian Scriptures) is not the same thing as our scientific factual language. We are at times too empirical. We need to understand that faith truths are expressed in a variety of ways.

We will see later this Lent that the details of Jesus’ passion are not strictly-speaking literal history. We must ask: “what is the meaning of these things?” They are devout interpretations of the end of Jesus’ life. Testimonies of faith: showing evidence of creative growth and development over the years, as biblical authors began to fill in the blanks, in imaginative ways, and with a judicious use of the Hebrew Scriptures.

My belief? Yes. I believe we are on a journey with Jesus-raised-from-the-dead. He reveals God to us. He reveals authentic humanity to us. He is “Lord,” “Son of God,” and our brother.

As I told my old friend, our faith has nothing to do with being a progressive or a conservative Catholic. And it is not some kind of sugar-coated piety. It is anchored in real life, with all its ups and downs…..

Perhaps during these forty days, we can best read a narrative like that of the Transfiguration and then calmly reflect what it means to be a traveller with Jesus in 2014.

I often think about the faith experience of the disciples, on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t recognize the Lord at first. When he disappeared, they commented: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us and opening the Scriptures to us?”

We continue on our Lenten journey.

Dear Friends

I am doing some technical updating with the domain name for my blog……

It may take a few days but I have not disappeared!

Jack

PS: You can always contact me at   jadleuven@gmail.com

What are you giving up for Lent?

For Lent 2014, I am giving up writing here about contemporary church events and people. I may come back to that, but right now I want to spend more time thinking about Jesus.

Back to the source!

This Lent I will offer my own historical and contemporary theological reflections on seven themes in our Christian tradition: Jesus’ Baptism, the Transfiguration, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, and Being an Apostle. In no way will I simply rehash old stuff.

I intend to explore and explain who Jesus is for me today: the personal thoughts of a believer and an older historical theologian…..and I invite you to journey with me in your own exploration.

Jesus of Nazareth

Nearly all contemporary scholars agree that Jesus of Nazareth (7-2 BCE to 30-33 CE) was an historic person. There are questions about how closely the biblical Jesus reflects the historical Jesus; but general agreement that Jesus was a first century Jewish teacher, was baptized by John the Baptist; and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate. Believers of course have a much fuller faith-picture of the man from Nazareth.

Baptized by John the Baptist

In the first chapter of the Gospel According to Mark — which most contemporary scholars now regard as the earliest of our existing gospels, written around 66-70 CE, during Nero’s persecution of the Christians in Rome — we read about Jesus coming to John the Baptist to be baptized. There is no birth story and nothing about Jesus’ childhood. We are told that Jesus was believed to be the fulfillment of the hopes and the writings of the prophets.

Then Mark gives a description of John the Baptist that identifies him with the prophet Elijah.

According to the Books of Kings, Elijah (in the 9th century BCE) defended the Israelite worship of Yahweh over that of the Canaanite god Baal. At the end of his life, he was taken up to the heavens in a whirlwind with fiery horses and chariot. In the Book of Malachi, Elijah’s return is prophesied “before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.”

John the Baptist was well known for calling people to conversion and marking their conversion with baptism, a ritual purification. Jesus, and probably some of his young friends (in their late teens or early twenties), felt a call from God to lead a more devout life of faith. In the beginning they were all followers of John.

John the Baptist, in Mark, wears the clothing of the prophet Elijah and is a man from the desert. He lives on Elijah’s diet of locusts and wild honey. By portraying John the Baptist as an Elijah-figure, Mark directs his readers’ attention to the messianic images that suggested that Elijah must come first to prepare the way for the messiah.

John the Baptist is used by the author of Mark to play this role in our oldest existing gospel. This is not strict history. This is interpretive theological painting; and the audience for whom the evangelist was writing could immediately understand the symbols being used.

Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River. Jesus is pictured simply as an adult, a fully human male. Following the custom of the day, Mark introduces Jesus, by name, followed by his home town: “Jesus of Nazareth.” And then we see Mark’s first reference to something supernatural.

Mark says the heavens opened. Biblical authors pictured the earth as a flat disk floating in water, with the heavens above and the underworld beneath the earth. The firmament was a solid inverted bowl above the earth, which kept the waters from flooding the world. (When there was a need for water down below, God could open little windows and let the rains water the fields.) The realm of God was in the heavens above. The realm of humans was on earth down below.(On Ascension day a cloud comes down to get Jesus and take him up to the heavens; but we will explore that a bit later.)

Mark says the heavens opened, God’s Spirit came down and settled over Jesus like a dove; and a voice calls out from the heavens proclaiming Jesus to be God’s “beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Once again Mark draws from the Hebrew Scriptures. In Isaiah 42 we read: “here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights.” In Psalm 2 we read: “You are my son, today I have become your father.”

God’s Spirit does not come down on Jesus just for a short time. It dwells in Jesus permanently: Jesus of Nazareth becomes a God-infused human person. This was Mark’s way of explaining the source of the divine presence that was found in Jesus. (The later developing supernatural story of Jesus’ miraculous birth had apparently not yet been thought of or composed by anyone.)

Very quickly in the Gospel According to Mark, we see that John the Baptist and Jesus have a very different perspective on how God deals with the world. When John is arrested, we see Jesus and his followers, called by God, taking off in a new direction.

John the Baptist was rooted in Elijah’s vision of “the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.” John was a fire and brimstone kind of preacher. When he looked at all the evil in the world, he saw a problem so radical that it would take some radical action from God to solve it. For John the Baptist, the coming of the Kingdom of God would have to be some sort of a divine catastrophic event to cleanse the world: “the great and terrible day of the Lord.”

We see something very different in Jesus. In the perspective of Jesus, the coming of the Kingdom of God is not what God will do to us in some great and fearful day but what God expects us to do right here and right now. And this is “Good News.”

God is waiting for us. That is what Jesus is talking about in the Kingdom of God. We are called to do something in conjunction with God, because we live in the Kingdom of God. And it becomes very clear, as Jesus, after baptism, so quickly begins his public ministry. Living in conjunction with God —being a person of faith — is much more than being simply an observant religious person. “The Sabbath was made for humans,” Jesus tells his critics, and “humans were not made for the Sabbath…”

Throughout his public ministry, Jesus, the God-infused, continually reminds his followers and reminds us about what God is waiting for us to do. The words of Isaiah, a prophet close to the heart of Jesus, become the words of faith.

We see it already in Isaiah chapter one: “What are your endless sacrifices to me?’ says the Lord. ‘I am sick of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of calves. I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats….Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Take your wrong-doing out of my sight. Cease doing evil. Learn to do good. Search for justice. Discipline the violent. Be just to the orphan. Plead for the widow….”

Good News indeed!

Pope Francis stressed on Thursday (February 27, 2014) in his address to the Congregation for Bishops that the church needs better bishops. “Genuine pastors,” the pope said. Amen.

The National Catholic Reporter stressed on Thursday (February 27, 2014) in its editorial that Pope Francis must act faster on the clerical sexual abuse issue: “When it comes to sex abuse, church officials continue to cloak themselves in secrecy, deceive the faithful, and act with impunity.” Amen.

Indeed, we continue being confronted with the age-old Catholic irony: an appeal for pastoral bishops and selective Vatican barrel vision.

I am still amazed, for instance, how the Vatican can so quickly dump priests and bishops who are open to new forms of ministry and not discipline those bishops who knowingly condone and allow the sexual abuse of children.

By way of example, I have very good recollections of what the Vatican did to a wonderfully pastoral bishop, Bill Morris, from the Diocese of Toowoomba in Australia.

In November 2006, Bishop Morris issued an Advent pastoral letter addressed to priests and pastoral leaders in Toowoomba. He predicted that by 2014 the diocese would have only 19 active priests left, including the bishop. He considered possible future options: ordaining married, single or widowed men; welcoming former priests, married or single, back to active ministry; ordaining women; and even the possibility of recognizing the validity of Anglican and Lutheran orders.

Three very angry Vatican cardinals began to call for his removal. Heated discussions followed. Finally in May 2011, in a face-to-face meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, he was sacked. Morris relates what happened: “Benedict says to me, ‘You are very gifted, you are very practical, you’ve got a role to play in the life of the Church, and it’s God’s will that you should resign.’” Morris was removed as Bishop of Toowoomba on the grounds of “defective pastoral leadership.” (A key instigator responsible for his removal was fellow Australian George Pell, the Australian cardinal recently appointed by Pope Francis to one of the Vatican’s most senior roles: Prefect for the Economy of the Holy See.)

In February 2012, Fr.Tony Flannery, a Redemptorist and founder member of the Associ­ation of Catholic Priests in Ireland, bestselling author and regular columnist with Reality magazine, was informed that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), was unhappy with some of his writings relating to priestly ministry in the church. In April 2012, he was suspended by the Vatican and was told that he would be allowed to return to ministry only if he agreed to write, sign, and publish a statement agreeing, among other things, that women should never be ordained as priests and that he would adhere to church orthodoxy on matters like contraception and homosexuality. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith pointed out that Flannery’s views could be construed as “heresy” under church law, and threatened “canonical penalties,” including excommunication, if he did not change his views.

On March 18, 2011, Fr. Roy Bourgeois was given a letter from Fr. Edward M. Dougherty, Maryknoll’s Superior General, and Edward J. McGovern, its Secretary General, warning Bourgeois that he had 15 days to recant his support for women’s ordination or he would face expulsion from the society. Bourgeois responded in a letter dated April 8, 2011, stating that he could not recant without betraying his conscience.

On July 22, 2011, 157 Catholic priests signed a letter, addressed to Dougherty, in support of Bourgeois’s priesthood and work, and his right to conscience.

On November 19, 2012, the Maryknoll Society’s Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers issued an official statement indicating that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had ruled, on October 4, 2012, that Bourgeois had been canonically dismissed from both the Maryknolls, and the Roman Catholic priesthood.

Pope Francis, as well, has been quick to sack “pastorally defective” priests. In September 2013 Francis excommunicated the Australian priest, Greg Reynolds. According to Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, Reynolds’s excommunication was “because of his public teaching on the ordination of women,” which are grounds for automatic excommunication.

Nevertheless, encouraged by the public persona of the new Bishop of Rome, on January 14, 2014 Roy Bourgeois wrote to Pope Francis: “My pain at having been kicked out of the priesthood has allowed me to glimpse the exclusion and discrimination that people of color, women, and gay people in our Church have experienced for centuries. I will never forget how Blacks were restricted to the back pews of my childhood church in Louisiana. While the Church has made great gains in valuing and respecting Catholics of all races, we continue – with flawed theology and dogma – to make God our unwilling partner in discriminating against women and gays.”

No response yet from Pope Francis about Roy Bourgeois……nor about, pastorally defective bishops.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, Nigeria’s president has signed a new law criminalizing homosexuality. Arrests, physical abuse, and the victimization of gay people have increased tremendously in Nigeria. Key members of the Nigerian Roman Catholic hierarchy, however, have fully supported the country’s new law. In a January 2014 letter on behalf of the Catholic hierarchy of Nigeria, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama praised Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan for his leadership in signing the new legislation.

The anti gay witch-hunt in Uganda is also now in full-force, since Uganda President Yoweri Museveni signed a new an anti-homosexuality bill into law on February 24, 2014. Uganda’s Catholic bishops have reaffirmed their opposition to homosexuality, but reserved judgment on the recently ratified bill imposing harsh punishment for homosexual acts in the East African nation.A spokesperson for the Uganda Episcopal Conference, Msgr John Baptist Kauta, said Uganda’s bishops were on retreat and would not be available for comments about the new law until March. “We normally don’t want to overreact,” he said.

Support for women’s ordination get a quick response from Rome. Why is there mo quick response — a reprimand or disciplinary sanction — for the African bishops whose support for anti-gay legislation has launched a reign of terror and cruelty against gay and lesbian people? Why no quick response from the man who so famously said, in July 3013 when asked about gay people: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?”

Closer to home in the United States, there are ongoing concerns about bishops who should have been sanctioned by the Vatican for their complicity in the sexual abuse of children. So far these men are still comfortably in place on their episcopal thrones. NCR, of course and other major papers have covered their cases in great detail.

In Los Angeles, thousands of pages of documents have been made public that clearly show that retired Archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony, and his diocesan collaborators clearly shielded abusive priests from public scrutiny and law enforcement. Where is the Vatican outrage about Mahoney’s defective pastoral ministry?

Minnesota Public Radio reported earlier, in February 2014, that despite official archdiocesan reports that the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese’s list of “credibly accused priests” numbered 33, the existing list is closer to 70. Minnesota Public Radio further reported: “There were handwritten lists and emailed lists and memos about lists stored on computers and in filing cabinets at the chancery in St. Paul. Some men appeared on every list, others on one or two. All of the lists obtained by MPR News contain information that police have never seen. Chancery officials later stopped writing lists for fear they could be obtained in lawsuits, former chancellor for canonical affairs Jennifer Haselberger told MPR News.”

And of course…….the Oscar for delinquent diocesan bishops has to go to — envelope please — Bishop Robert Finn from Kansas City, Mo.

Robert Finn, Bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City – St. joseph, was convicted in 2012 of a criminal misdemeanor for failing to report suspected clerical child abuse. Nevertheless, Finn remains a bishop in good standing, while serving two years’ probation in Jackson County, Mo.

Finn is also a strong defender of Catholic orthodoxy and has warned the National Catholic Reporter (editorial office in Kansas City) that it is on Catholic thin ice.

In a January 25, 2014 column in the diocesan paper, The Catholic Key, Bishop Finn wrote: “In the last months I have been deluged with emails and other correspondence from Catholics concerned about the editorial stances of the Reporter: officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.”

Meanwhile, a group of Roman Catholics in Kansas City has taken the responsible step of petitioning Pope Francis to discipline Bishop Finn. The formal request was sent to the Vatican along with an online petition signed by more than 113,000 people worldwide asking for Bishop Robert Finn’s removal.

So what does it really mean to be “pastorally defective”?

………..

A very short post script: Due to his very positive PR image, a few of my friends have begun to really chide me for any critical remarks about Pope Francis. All I can say is that, as I have been for most of my life, I am a believer and a Catholic convinced that critical thinking and questioning is a virtue and not a vice. It also alarms me when I read people, like New York’s Cardinal Tim Dolan, asserting that people who question church authority are basically secularists with an anti-Catholic agenda.

Annie Selak is a Roman Catholic lay minister who is Rector of Walsh Hall at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. A year ago on Valentine’s Day, her reflections about the kind of church young people really want were published in the Washington Post. She had four main points. Sorting through my files, I came across her article and it remains as timely as ever. And of course: what young people want from the church is what a lot of older people want as well!

Annie wrote about a church that: (1) takes people seriously, (2) that is inclusive, (3) that embraces God everywhere, and (4) that struggles with big questions and is open to dialogue.

Annie’s four points launch my reflection for this week.

******

Pope Francis is certainly changing the media’s perception of the Roman Catholic Church. Nevertheless the Catholic exodus continues. Francis is aware of the problem and focused on it this past July in Rio. “I would like all of us to ask ourselves today,” he said, “are we still a Church capable of warming hearts?”

If someone told you that only 20% of the students that graduated from a particular university could find employment, I suspect you would say that university really needs some shaping up.

This in fact, however, is exactly what’s happening in our American Catholic Church.

Yes. Only 20% of American Catholics, who pass through “our system,” are still with us by the time they reach 23. The other 80% drops out. A bishop friend told me recently that parish closings across the country are due to population shifts and not decreased numbers of Catholics. I agreed that he had a point, but I also suggested that when his gas gauge says empty and his car stalls on the expressway, he is probably out of gas.

The Bishop of Rome is great, when it comes to positive papal PR. Too many of his brother bishops, however, just don’t seem to get the point. Former Speaker of the U.S. House Tip O’Neill said famously that all politics is local. I would like to stress that all church is local; and that is where Annie Selak’s four points do or do not become real.

What about, for instance, the local church in Newark, New Jersey? The local archbishop there, known for his steadfast orthodoxy, is adding an addition to his “retirement home.” Archbishop John Myers’ currently inadequate 4,500-square-foot retirement home has five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a three-car garage, and a big outdoor pool. The new wing on the archbishop’s humble residence (which he currently only uses on weekends), will include an indoor exercise pool, a hot tub, three fireplaces, a library, and an elevator. Perhaps someone should put a plaque in the front yard: “The poor you will always have with you.”

(   

(1) At all levels in the church, I want a church that takes seriously the life experiences of contemporary men and women. When it comes to the shortage of ordained ministers, the closing of parishes, exclusion of divorced and remarried, the firing of gays and lesbians from Catholic schools, or the firing of single parent mothers (to mention just a few recent church events and  issues) the local church seems terribly distant from what is actually going on in people’s lives. The church can recover from institutional sin and mistakes. It cannot, however, recover from being irrelevant.

(2) At all levels in the church, I want a church that embodies the inclusive kind of ministry we see in the life of Jesus. He consistently reached out to the marginalized. Nowhere in the Gospels do we see Jesus banning or excluding people from the community because they are women, or divorced, or have gay or divorced parents. He did say, once upon a time: “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury.” (Were he speaking today he might have added: “…and he had a three-car garage, two swimming pools, and three fireplaces.”) At the rich man in purple’s gate lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores.  As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores……The story about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) is an exhortation about living a new kind of life. It is an exhortation that the local church be a home (a church capable of warming hearts) for people who have no home: physically, psychologically, financially, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. All church is local.

(3) At all levels of the church, I want a church alert to the Divine presence in other Christian churches and in other religions. The pope emeritus warned about relativism; but diversity and unity are two concepts that go together. Younger Catholics especially, have grown up living with and alongside people from different churches and different religions, or no religion; and they see holiness and signs of the Sacred there. And they ask what the big God picture is really all about.

(4) At all levels of the church I want a church that struggles with the big ethical and religious questions and is genuinely open to dialogue. The hierarchy does not have all the answers to life’s big questions. It doesn’t even hear many of the big questions. And there will be new ones tomorrow. In all of our contemporary “relativism” and “secularity” we meet the living God. All of us in the church – and all of us in dialogue with each other — need to wrestle with the hard life questions. And, with one foot in Scripture and Tradition and the other in contemporary life, we need to engage the world. We don’t need to be spoon-fed static old theology. We need to wrestle with and grapple. We need to use our minds and engage our hearts. We need to debate, to think, and to pray. And we need to do all of this in parishes, schools, and chanceries across the country.

Annie Selak is a Roman Catholic lay minister who is Rector of Walsh Hall at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. A year ago on Valentine’s Day, her reflections about the kind of church young people really want were published in the Washington Post. She had four main points. Sorting through my files, I came across her article and it remains as timely as ever. And of course: what young people want from the church is what a lot of older people want as well!

Annie wrote about a church that: (1) takes people seriously, (2) that is inclusive, (3) that embraces God everywhere, and (4) that struggles with big questions and is open to dialogue.

Annie’s four points launch my reflection for this week.

******

Pope Francis is certainly changing the media’s perception of the Roman Catholic Church. Nevertheless the Catholic exodus continues. Francis is aware of the problem and focused on it this past July in Rio. “I would like all of us to ask ourselves today,” he said, “are we still a Church capable of warming hearts?”

If someone told you that only 20% of the students that graduated from a particular university could find employment, I suspect you would say that university really needs some shaping up.

This in fact, however, is exactly what’s happening in our American Catholic Church.

Yes. Only 20% of American Catholics, who pass through “our system,” are still with us by the time they reach 23. The other 80% drops out. A bishop friend told me recently that parish closings across the country are due to population shifts and not decreased numbers of Catholics. I agreed that he had a point, but I also suggested that when his gas gauge says empty and his car stalls on the expressway, he is probably out of gas.

The Bishop of Rome is great, when it comes to positive papal PR. Too many of his brother bishops, however, just don’t seem to get the point. Former Speaker of the U.S. House Tip O’Neill said famously that all politics is local. I would like to stress that all church is local; and that is where Annie Selak’s four points do or do not become real.

What about, for instance, the local church in Newark, New Jersey? The local archbishop there, known for his steadfast orthodoxy, is adding an addition to his “retirement home.” Archbishop John Myers’ currently inadequate 4,500-square-foot retirement home has five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a three-car garage, and a big outdoor pool. The new wing on the archbishop’s humble residence (which he currently only uses on weekends), will include an indoor exercise pool, a hot tub, three fireplaces, a library, and an elevator. Perhaps someone should put a plaque in the front yard: “The poor you will always have with you.”

(   

(1) At all levels in the church, I want a church that takes seriously the life experiences of contemporary men and women. When it comes to the shortage of ordained ministers, the closing of parishes, exclusion of divorced and remarried, the firing of gays and lesbians from Catholic schools, or the firing of single parent mothers (to mention just a few recent church events and  issues) the local church seems terribly distant from what is actually going on in people’s lives. The church can recover from institutional sin and mistakes. It cannot, however, recover from being irrelevant.

(2) At all levels in the church, I want a church that embodies the inclusive kind of ministry we see in the life of Jesus. He consistently reached out to the marginalized. Nowhere in the Gospels do we see Jesus banning or excluding people from the community because they are women, or divorced, or have gay or divorced parents. He did say, once upon a time: “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury.” (Were he speaking today he might have added: “…and he had a three-car garage, two swimming pools, and three fireplaces.”) At the rich man in purple’s gate lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores.  As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores……The story about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) is an exhortation about living a new kind of life. It is an exhortation that the local church be a home (a church capable of warming hearts) for people who have no home: physically, psychologically, financially, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. All church is local.

(3) At all levels of the church, I want a church alert to the Divine presence in other Christian churches and in other religions. The pope emeritus warned about relativism; but diversity and unity are two concepts that go together. Younger Catholics especially, have grown up living with and alongside people from different churches and different religions, or no religion; and they see holiness and signs of the Sacred there. And they ask what the big God picture is really all about.

(4) At all levels of the church I want a church that struggles with the big ethical and religious questions and is genuinely open to dialogue. The hierarchy does not have all the answers to life’s big questions. It doesn’t even hear many of the big questions. And there will be new ones tomorrow. In all of our contemporary “relativism” and “secularity” we meet the living God. All of us in the church – and all of us in dialogue with each other — need to wrestle with the hard life questions. And, with one foot in Scripture and Tradition and the other in contemporary life, we need to engage the world. We don’t need to be spoon-fed static old theology. We need to wrestle with and grapple. We need to use our minds and engage our hearts. We need to debate, to think, and to pray. And we need to do all of this in parishes, schools, and chanceries across the country.

On January 7, 2014, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan signed into law new draconian anti-gay legislation.

The new Nigerian legislation mandates: a 14-year prison sentence for anyone entering a same-sex union, and a 10-year prison term for “a person or group of persons who supports the registration, operation and sustenance of gay clubs, societies, organizations, processions or meetings.” Public displays of affection between gay men and lesbians are also criminalized.

Despite the fact that Pope Francis, has struck a charitable tone toward gays and lesbians, the Roman Catholic bishops of Nigeria appear to be socio-sexually tone deaf and blind to contemporary understandings of human sexuality.

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country. About 48% of its more than 170 million people are Muslims and close to 50% Christians, out of whom about 24% are Roman Catholics. The country has 9 archdioceses and 43 dioceses. The head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria is Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, 55 years old, and a strong supporter of Goodluck Jonathan’s repressive anti-gay legislation.

As the New York Times reports, since Nigeria’s president signed the harsh law criminalizing homosexuality, arrests of gay people have multiplied, advocates have been forced to go underground, some people fearful of the law have sought asylum overseas, and news media demands for a crackdown have flourished.

Key members of the Nigerian Roman Catholic hierarchy, however, have fully supported the country’s new law. In a January 2014 letter on behalf of the Catholic hierarchy of Nigeria, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama praised Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan for his leadership in signing the new legislation.

“We commend you for this courageous and wise decision,” the archbishop’s letter states, “and pray that God will continue to bless, guide and protect you and your administration against the conspiracy of the developed world to make our country and continent, the dumping ground for the promotion of all immoral practices, that have continued to debase the purpose of God for man in the area of creation and morality, in their own countries.”

Fortunately not all African bishops side with the narrow-minded Nigerians. A few days after Archbishop Kaigama’s pastoral letter, a strongly worded editorial in the The Southern Cross, a newspaper run jointly by the bishops of South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland, took aim at the new Nigerian law, calling on the Catholic Church in Africa “to stand with the powerless” and “sound the alarm at the advance throughout Africa of draconian legislation aimed at criminalizing homosexuals.” The Southern Cross, however, speaks for the minority.

In South Africa gay marriage and same-sex adoption are legal (and Mozambique and Botswana have outlawed forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation) but harassment and attacks against gays in Africa have surged over the past decade. Gay men and woman say discrimination and danger persist throughout Africa. They have trouble getting housing, jobs, and even medical care. They continually face extortion and abuse from police.

Same-sex acts are illegal in 31 sub-Saharan countries, and punishment ranges from years in prison to the death penalty.

The push for tougher anti-gay legislation and policing across Africa in recent years has been accompanied by mob violence, the murders of activists, and street protests.

Defenders of anti-gay legislation in Africa, like Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, emphasize that homosexuality is a threat to society; and that anti-gay laws are about upholding fundamental religious and cultural values.

For further reflection:

“In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”

Joseph Ratzinger, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons, July 31, 2003

Archbishop Kaigama

Shaela Evenson, an unmarried teacher at a Roman Catholic middle school in Montana, has been fired after getting pregnant. According to the middle school Principal Kerrie Hellyer, she was an “excellent teacher” and taught sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade literature and physical education for just over eight years.

Wonderfully pro-life that Catholic school. What a strong and lasting teaching moment for those young boys and girls. I wonder what they would have done with a pregnant and unwed Virgin Mary.

Patrick Haggarty, the superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Helena, fired Evenson on January 10, after learning about her pregnancy. It takes years to dismiss a sexually abusive priest, with a history of raping boys and girls. But just a matter of days to dump an exemplary teacher because she is unmarried and pregnant.

It is a strange kind of Catholic conscience. The children at that school and their parents will long remember this.

A couple weeks after the firing of Shaela Evenson, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an effort to resolve more than 350 sexual-abuse claims.

Bankruptcy, of course, comes in two styles: financial and moral.

While Bishop George Thomas up in Montana was working on his bankruptcy papers, down in the Midwest, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City was finishing his diocesan newspaper column condemning the National Catholic Reporter.

Bishop Finn noted in his column,”The Bishop’s Role In Fostering The Mission Of The Catholic Media,” that, as Bishop of Kansas City – St. Joseph, he has the canonical duty to “call the media to fidelity.” Fidelity is an important Catholic word…..Specifically, the Missouri bishop condemns NCR for editorial positions “officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.”

In September 2012, please recall, Bishop Robert W. Finn became the first American prelate convicted of failing to report a pedophile priest; and priests, lay people, and victims’ advocates have repeatedly called for his resignation.

As the New York Times reported, at that time, the Bishop Finn case began when Shawn Ratigan, a charismatic parish priest, who had previously been known for inappropriate behavior with children, took his laptop computer in for repairs. A technician reported to church authorities that the laptop contained pornographic photos of young girls’ genitals, naked, and clothed.

Ratigan attempted suicide. He survived and was sent for treatment. Bishop Finn assigned him to a convent and ordered him to stay away from children. But Father Ratigan continued to attend church events and take lewd pictures of girls for five more months, until church officials reported him in May 2011, without Bishop Finn’s approval. A silent Bishop Finn….

Another case of a strange Catholic conscience. Why is Robert Finn still the Bishop of Kansas City -St. Joseph? And what about all the other Bishop Finns scattered around the country and across the globe?

Robert Mickens, the respected Catholic journalist, observed recently: “The Holy See has never removed a bishop – not one – for covering up clergy sex abuse. Cardinal Law was removed, not to punish him, but to protect him. And arguably the worst priest offender, Marcial Maciel, was never laicised. He was merely sent away in his old age in order to protect his Legion of Christ, not his victims.”

For conscience sake, we need to re-examine the very strange case of contemporary Catholic conscience. Otherwise — the last person out of the church, please turn off the lights.

PS I do suspect the UN report on the Vatican and sex abuse may indeed hurt the reform cause. It raises questions.

The Bishop of Rome is condemning the tyranny of capitalism and the idolatry of money. The bishops of Poland are condemning the tyranny of gender theory.

Over the Christmas holidays, a strongly-worded pastoral letter, issued by the bishops of Poland, was read in parishes across their country. The bishops have branded gender theory a mortal danger to families, child sexual orientation, and humanity. Inspired by Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks in late 2012 about the “falseness” of gender theory, the Polish bishops are campaigning about a host of contemporary evils created by and falling under the umbrella of gender theory: homosexuality, pedophilia, feminism, marital breakdown, and sex ed programs for children and youth that promote masturbation, pornography, eroticism, birth control, and abortion.

Posters have appeared in Polish schools proclaiming: “Protect Your Child Against Gender.”

The Polish bishops cite Marxism, feminist movements, and the sexual revolution as having inspired the theory, which they say is “contrary to the traditional view of man.” That means against natural law.

Last summer one of Poland’s best-known bishops, Tadeusz Pieronek, gave an indication of Polish episcopal thought when he argued during a cultural festival on the Baltic coast that “the ideology of gender presents a threat worse than Nazism and Communism combined.” He is really heated up about this.

Perhaps the bishops and others in the church need a refresher course and some updating about natural law. They will have to study and scratch their heads because it obviously doesn’t come to them naturally.

When thinking about natural law, I suspect many people would say that is a God-given body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct. As a general perspective it is helpful and makes sense. Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. The issue becomes more complex, however, when we get down to concrete specifics.

If, for instance, the natural purpose of sex is procreation, any use of or enjoyment of sex that is not procreative is unnatural. All those things problematic for the Polish bishops are unnatural: masturbation, birth control, and homosexuality. But what if procreation is not the primary purpose of sex? What if human sexuality is also about intimacy, affection, bonding and pleasure?

What then is natural or unnatural?

Thomas Aquinas (1224 – 1274 CE) was convinced that a pyramid social structure was the natural order for human societies: on top emperors, kings, and the pope, then dukes and bishops, then knights, priests, and religious men and women. Down at the bottom: the serfs. If every person would respect and adhere to his or her natural rung in society, there would be peace and tranquility. In varying degrees I suspect many churchmen and some church women still believe that. Although, with the current pope they have to put some of their colorful threads and golden trinkets back in the closet.

Aquinas also taught that women are, by nature, incomplete human beings and inferior to men. For Thomas it was a matter of natural law and natural “heat” or, as far as women were concerned, insufficient male heat.

A fetus Thomas asserted, develops its full potential (meaning its maleness) if it collects sufficient “heat” or “vital spirit” in the early stages of development. Femaleness results from insufficient heat being absorbed by the fetus. Thomas himself says: “A female is deficient and unintentionally caused. For the active power of the semen always seeks to produce a thing completely like itself, something male. So if a female is produced, this must be because the semen is weak or because the material [provided by the mother] is unsuitable, or because of the action of some external factor such as the winds from the south which make the atmosphere humid.” Thomas saw a woman’s deficiency confirmed by her inferior intellectual powers; and therefore a woman could not fully be an image of God. Only males could do that.

Thomas believed, therefore, that a woman could not represent Christ because women are incomplete males. He therefore was convinced women could never be priests, because the priest in the Eucharist is a sign of Christ: “Since it is not possible in the female sex to signify eminence of degree, it follows that she cannot receive the sacrament of Holy Orders.”

Shades of the old Thomistic viewpoint still cloud the minds of more than a few higher-placed ecclesiastics. Many, like the Bishop of Rome, are fine and pastoral people but still theologically time-bound in an old anthropology.

Any understanding of natural law must take into account the fact that we are all progressing and evolving: in who we are and in our understanding of who we are.

Truth is not relative, but our truth statements and doctrines cannot be forever chiseled in stone. Maybe on an iPad with a continually updating screen….

As we gear up for the 2014 Super Bowl on Sunday February 2nd., a new survey reveals that 50% of American sports fans see supernatural forces at play in the games. According to the January 2014 Religion and Politics Tracking Survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, contemporary Americans either pray for God to help their favorite team, believe their team has been cursed, or believe God plays a role in determining the outcome of major sporting events.

The Super Bowl has become an American civil religion ritual. According to sociologist Robert Bellah (who died last year), Americans embrace a common “civil religion” with certain fundamental values, holidays, and rituals, parallel to, but independent of, their chosen traditional religion. They believe the nation is under God’s benevolent protection; and the nation provides semi-religious honors to its martyrs and athletic and political heroes. We are a nation of Halls of Fame and Super Bowl football is the liturgy that captures it all.

Former President Richard Nixon (who was very fond of football as well as tape-recording Oval Office conversations) expressed it perfectly, when commenting about the Super Bowl: “What does this mean, this common interest in football of Presidents, of leaders, of people generally? It means a competitive spirit. It means, also, to me, the ability and the determination to be able to lose and then come back and try again, to sit on the bench and then come back• It means basically the character, the drive, the pride, the teamwork, the feeling of being in a cause bigger than yourself. All of these great factors are essential if a nation is to maintain character and greatness for that nation.”

Supernatural involvement in major sporting events, is an old tradition of course. In ancient Greece, for example, the Olympics were just one set of athletic contests which were performed in honor of the gods. Among the Mayans in Central America, the stadium was attached to an important temple; and the stands were adorned with images of the gods and sacred animals.

Contemporary Americans also believe that being-a-believer greatly enhances an athlete’s performance on the field. Close to 65% of U.S. Protestants believe that God rewards athletes who have faith with good health and athletic success. Catholics are a bit less credulous. Only 50% believe that God rewards athletes who have faith. Perhaps they have forgotten the “Hail Mary Pass:” a very long forward pass in American football, made in desperation with only a small chance of success. The expression originated in the 1930s at Notre Dame; but its use became more widespread, after Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach (a Roman Catholic) said about his game-winning touchdown pass in a December 28, 1975 playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings: “I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.”

That American sports is a religion and professional football its leading ritual expression is not a new notion, but one that has achieved growing currency among American scholars and cultural observers. Sports have become the sacramental expression for the American way of life at a time when “traditional” religion is waning.

Over the past ten years, research surveys show a gradual decline in traditional religious commitment in the U.S. public as a whole. The number of Americans who do not identify with any organized religion has also grown significantly. One-fifth of the overall public — and one third of adults under age 30 – are religiously unaffiliated. A third of U.S. adults say they do not consider themselves a “religious person.” Two-thirds of Americans – affiliated and unaffiliated alike – say organized religion is losing its influence in Americans’ lives. The Super Bowl Sunday observance, however, is more popular than ever.

While about 12% of Americans think Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, more importantly on a personal level, more Americans admit that they are wrestling with how to navigate a culture increasingly comfortable with violence. Here of course one must see the Super Bowl as sacred violence in controlled and acceptable form: as heads clash, bodies collide, tendons rip, and bones break.

In any event, when the Denver Broncos meet the Seattle Seahawks on Super Bowl Sunday, we know God will smile on and reward the better team. After-all: In God We Trust.