At a dinner party a couple nights ago, a good friend commented that, with Pope Francis, Catholics could now stop arguing about church reform, stop criticizing recalcitrant bishops, and let the “Francis effect” do its work. I respectfully disagreed…. 

The issue is far more complex than just wanting Francis to reform the church.
First of all, if one wants to speak of the “Francis effect” as a positive solution for a number of contemporary church problems, there is still much unfinished work. And the Vatican is a good place to start.

The clerical sexual abuse crisis is not over and the Pope Francis Vatican remains sexual-abuse-schizophrenic. It refuses to remove abuse-cover-up bishops, like Bishop Juan Barros, defended by Pope Francis and assigned last year to Osorno, Chile, despite allegations that he covered up clergy sex abuse by a priest in the 1980s and 1990s. Victim testimony also indicated that Barros was present and witnessed sexual abuse by the abusive priest Fernando Karadima. 

Perhaps the self-defensive old boys club mentality still prevails behind Vatican walls? In February 2016, at an instructional presentation for newly appointed bishops, Tony Anatrella, a psychtherapist and consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, stressed that bishops DO NOT have a duty to report clerical sexual abuse to civil authorities, because going to the police is the responsibility of victims and their families. 

More recently, as we consider contemporary Vatican behavior, there is the strange case of Father Joseph Jeyapaul, a priest from India who admitted to raping two adolescent girls in Minnesota, when he served in the Crookston diocese from 2004 to 2005. 

After being charged with sexual abuse, which included rape and forcing one of the girls to perform fellatio on him, Jeyapaul fled to India, where he was arrested. Extradited back to Minnesota, he admitted his crimes. The man was then suspended from the priesthood and served a year and a day in prison in Minnesota. After his release in July, he was deported back to India. Then came an interesting turn of events.

In February, the Vatican approved lifting Father Jeyapaul’s suspension from the priesthood and agreed that he could be reassigned to a new parish in India. Later he was even appointed head of a diocesan education commission.
Pope Francis has focused appropriate attention on caring for the environment and continues to get positive acclamations for his encyclical Laudatio si. Perhaps, however, one could suggest that he has been less attentive to the spiritual and ministerial environment in our Catholic parishes. The priesthood is in crisis. Morale is low and priests are getting older and older. Calls for dropping clerical celibacy are routinely ignored; and bishops continue to shut down parishes. Not a very positive scenario. 

Contributing to the ordained ministry problem is an antiquated priestly formation process in our seminaries that, sorry to say, no longer attracts some of our best and brightest young people. Even the pope has complained about a new group of overly conservative young presets; but there has been no major overhaul of the seminary structure. It is time to stop closing parishes and start ordaining zealous and pastorally-minded young men, who are or would like to be married. We need more — not fewer — sacramental communities in our church. We need to re-think and re-make creative structures for pastoral ministry. A major complaint from millennial believers is that the church is out of touch, impersonal, and out of date. To date, 33 million Americans have dropped out of the Catholic Church.

And there is nothing positive about the still enshrined, hard-nosed old boys club structural mysogynism in our church. It is wrong; and there are absolutely no valid theological or historical reasons why women cannot be ordained as deacons and priests. For your summer reading I strongly recommend an excellent study: Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future by Gary Macy, William Ditewig, and Phyllis Zagano.

Looking at Catholic belief and practice these days, too many church leaders, including the Bishop of Rome, continue to bemoan the “tyranny of relativism.” They miss a nuanced understanding of what is happening. As theologians Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler noted, in their April 19th article in the National Catholic Reporter: “Concern about relativism is undoubtedly warranted in the 21st century, but the magisterium fails to discern the difference between relativism, which rejects objective, universal moral truth, and what we shall call perspectivism, which acknowledges objective, universal moral truth, but also insists that truth is partial and always in need of further clarification.”

Yes contemporary church leadership needs help comprehending that truth is developmental; and a good place to benign remedial education would be the entire range of issues involving human sexuality and gender. A lot of our bishops need to go back to school. It might help as well if some of them would just get married, and others come out of the closet. 

In this week’s reflection, I have no desire to denigrate Pope Francis. I am not ready to pre-canonize him either. The old gentleman can only do so much. He only wants to do so much. Frankly (no pun intended) I think Francis knows exactly what he is doing with his warm remarks followed by minimal institutional change. But do we know what we are doing? Perhaps there is too much focus on the pope? After all, it is Jesus Christ — not the Pope of Rome — who is “the way, the truth, and the life.”

It is time for all of us to realize that when it comes to church reform, in the days of the “Francis effect,” the major task belongs to you and me.

Church history is clear. Church reform is always from the bottom-up and only secondarily from the top-down. The voice of the people is where it begins and gets its energy. Popes come and go, but the institutional church remains…..continually in need of reform.

Let’s start to really think, talk, organize, and get on with the project.

Directly after the March 22, 2016 terrorist bombings at the Brussels International Airport and in downtown Brussels, an American friend sent me an urgent email. “Now,” he wrote, “I hope you understand why we must restrict and diminish the Muslim presence in the United States…..Those people are evil.”

I am a committed Christian and an historical theologian. I have worked for decades, promoting inter-religious dialogue and understanding, especially with men and women belonging to one of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Nevertheless, Islamophobia is hard to combat. It is often true that if one calls for a factual and well-researched understanding of Islam in our contemporary world, that person is often labeled “unChristian” or “unpatriotic,” or simply “dangerous.”  

“Islamophobia” warns Georgetown University researcher Nathan Lean. “is sort of like the ocean. It is working, it is churning, it is ebbing, it is flowing, even when we are asleep. There are larger systems of power and structures of power in place.” I recommend his most recent book: The Islamophobia Industry. 

According to a 2016 estimate, there are about 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States, and most see no contradiction between being American and being Muslim. About 1% of Americans, therefore, are Muslim, compared to 70.6% who are Christian, 22.8% unaffiliated, 1.9% Jewish, 0.7% Buddhist, and 0.7% Hindu. 

Interestingly, in this election year, 63% of Muslim Americans identify as Democrats or say they lean Democratic. About one-in-ten (11%) identify as Republican or lean Republican, and 26% say they are unaffiliated. 

Given the recent “Islamic terrorism,” it is not surprising that Muslims have become the target of attacks by people who feel anxious and insecure in a world of tremendous cultural change. It reminds me of nineteenth century anti-Catholic discrimination in the United States, when Catholics were perceived as foreign infiltrators and the pope was seen as an evil emperor out to destroy “Christian” America. 

After seeing and reading a lot of anti-Muslim political rhetoric, I started thinking: just what are the truths and the falsehoods behind entrenched beliefs that Muslims simply do not belong in the United States; and that they threaten U.S. security? 

1. The first falsehood is that American Muslims are not truly Americans. 
In fact, Islam was in America even before there was a United States; and Muslims didn’t peaceably emigrate to America. Slave-traders brought them to the New World. 

Historians now estimate that up to 30% of enslaved blacks were Muslims. The West African prince Abdul Rahman, liberated by President John Quincy Adams in 1828 after 40 years in captivity, was only one of many African Muslims kidnapped and sold into servitude in the New World. Muslim runaway slaves were among the pro-USA soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Muslims later fought to preserve U.S. independence in the War of 1812; and they fought for the Union in the Civil War. There are currently two Muslim members of Congress and thousands of Muslims on active duty in our USA armed forces. 

2. The second misunderstanding is that American Muslims are ethnically, culturally, and politically one solid block, who all think and act the same way. 
Actually, the American Muslim community may very well he the most diverse Muslim community in the world. U.S. Muslims believe and witness to their faith in different ways. A great many American Muslims, for example, have absolutely no problem with an historical-critical understanding of their sacred scriptures. Contrary to a popular misconception, the majority of Muslims in the United States are not Arabs. At least one-quarter, for example, are African American.  

Muslim Americans are also diverse in their beliefs and religious affiliation. They range from highly conservative, to moderate, and to secular in their religious beliefs and practices — just like members of other American religious traditions. 

With above-average median household incomes, American Muslims are also an integral and important part of the U.S. economy.  

3. One still hears the false claim that American Muslims oppress women. 
According a Gallup study, American Muslim women are more educated than Muslim women in Western Europe, and also more educated than the average American woman. More U.S. Muslim women report incomes closer to their male counterparts than do American women, belonging to other religious traditions. American Muslim women hold key leadership positions in religious and civic organizations, such as the Arab-American Family Support Center, the Islamic Networks Group, and the American Society for Muslim Advancement. 

4. A fourth major falsehood is that American Muslims often become “homegrown” terrorists. 
Many American Christians condemn Islam as an evil religion. Why are those Christians so silent when confronted with terrorism in the name of their own religion? Why can’t they acknowledge that parts of their religion are used for evil, just like any other religion? In fact, most of the terrorist activity in the U.S. in recent years has come not from Muslims, but from radical Christians, white supremacists, and far-right militia groups. 

According to the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, more non-Muslims than Muslims have been involved in terrorist plots on U.S. soil.  

In 2011, for example, analyst Daryl Johnson of the United States Department of Homeland Security said that the Hutaree Christian militia movement possessed more weapons than the combined weapons holdings of all Islamic terror defendants charged in the US since the September 11 attacks. In 2015, Robert Doggart, a member of a private militia group, informed an FBI source (and was later indicted) that he intended to gather weapons for an attack on a Muslim enclave in Delaware County, New York. In November 2015, Robert Lewis Dear, a member of the Army of God, killed three and injured nine at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. Dear had often expressed his support for radical Christian views and interpretations of the Bible, saying he was doing “God’s work.”  

Feisal Abdul Rauf, a Kuwaiti American Sufi imam, who worked with FBI agents on countering extremism right after September 11, 2001, has expressed strong fears that identifying Muslims with terrorism threatens American Muslims’ civil liberties and promotes the perception that Islam is a terrorist religion.  

5. American Muslims do not want to impose Sharia law on the United States. 
In the contemporary United States there is a strongly-promoted “Sharia Scare.” It is part of a larger Islamophobic campaign sponsored by an organized network of conservative foundations, religious leaders, media outlets, and politicians. 

Sharia is the Muslim ideal of justice and compassion, similar to the concept of natural law in the Western tradition. Sharia is characterized by flexibility depending on the context and the people interpreting it. Yes radicals exist on the fringes of Islam, as they do in every religion. Most Muslim jurists, however, agree that the principal objectives of Sharia are the protection and promotion of life, religion, intellect, property, family, and dignity. None of this includes turning the United States into a caliphate.  

For centuries, Muslim scholars around the world have agreed that Muslims must follow the laws of the land in which they live. American Muslims have no scriptural, historical or political grounds to oppose the U.S. Constitution. Muslims already practice Sharia in the United States, as they worship freely and follow U.S. laws. Muslims in the United States follow Sharia in the same way that Americans of other religions (Jews, Catholics, Mormons, etc.) follow their sacred laws and traditions. The First Amendment allows complete freedom of belief and freedom of religious practice, so long as believers respect other people’s rights. 

Today some people falsely equate Sharia with criminal or hudud laws, which are centuries-old specific punishments for major crimes such as killing, adultery, or theft, which are generally not applicable in a modern context. (One can find similar archaic laws in the Old Testament.) Unfortunately, contemporary Muslim fanatics in the Taliban and ISIS generally contradict both the letter and spirit of Sharia and have given it a bad name. In their ignorance, some American politicians and religious leaders continue as well to give it a bad name. 

6. Historically, people wishing to exercise authoritarian control over other people have misused their religions.  
One cannot defend the religious fanatic misuse of Muslim belief or Muslim scriptures to justify killing or torturing other human beings. Christians of course have to humbly acknowledge what fanatic Christians have done over the centuries in the name of Christ. 

A couple weeks ago I was in the South of France, doing some research on French Protestantism and my paternal grandmother’s family. In 1562 “Riots of Toulouse” Roman Catholics battled members of the Reformed Church of France (the Huguenots). The violence, taking place in about a week, ended with the deaths of at least 3,000 (some researchers say 5,000) citizens of the French city of Toulouse. About three hundred years earlier, in 1209 in the nearby town of Béziers, 7,000 Cathar heretics were killed on orders from the pope in Rome. The Papal Legate, Arnaud-Amaury, wrote to Pope Innocent III: “Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex.” 

7. Yes we need to combat terrorism and fanatic religion.  
It is a complex issue; and it will take time to effectively deal with issues of economics, politics, group identity, cultural change, religious and ethical values, and feelings of lost self-worth or inferiority. Here religiously healthy Muslims need to work to combat Muslim fanaticism. And all of us, coming from a variety of religions and humanist perspectives, need to think, probe, research, and work together. 

So very close to the end of the Second World War, on 9 April 1945, Lutheran minister and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, aged 39, was executed by hanging at the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Nazi Germany. After the start of WWII, Bonhoeffer had joined the underground resistance movement in opposition to Hitler. He believed that true
discipleship demanded political resistance against a criminal state. He staunchly resisted Hitler’s Nazi dictatorship and Jewish persecution and genocide.

Bonhoeffer remains one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century.

Bonhoeffer’s writings on being a Christian in the secular world were widely influential and have had a major impact on my life, especially his books The Cost of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison. I first encountered Bonhoeffer’s thought in my early twenties when I was a seminarian at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. There I read and re-read Letters and Papers from Prison.

In a letter written from his Nazi prison cell on April 30, 1944, Bonhoeffer described his thoughts about contemporary Christian life: “You would be surprised,” he wrote, “and perhaps even worried, by my theological thoughts and the conclusions that they lead to… What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, for us today.” He continued: “Even those who honestly describe themselves as ‘religious’ do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by ‘religious’…. how is it, for example, that this war, in contrast to all previous ones, is not calling forth any ‘religious’ reaction? What does that mean for ‘Christianity’?”

When he was a young seminarian in his twenties, Bonhoeffer travelled to the United States for postgraduate study at New York’s Union Theological Seminary. There he encountered life-changing experiences and friendships. He studied under Reinhold Niebuhr and met Frank Fisher, a black fellow seminarian who introduced him to the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Bonhoeffer began to see things “from below.” He said he “turned from phraseology to reality.” What was happening to Bonhoeffer was a personal conversion from being a theologian primarily attracted to the intellectual side of Christianity to being a dedicated man of faith.

Travel helps one better see oneself and to see bigger realities. Today I write about D. Bonhoeffer not J. Dick; but when I was a seminarian in my twenties I travelled to Europe for postgraduate theological study. My life for a while was turned upside down. Bonhoeffer’s thought was a strong spiritual guide as I started to really think about my own reality. My father use to chuckle and say “after Louvain, Jack was never the same.”

Today, 71 years after his death, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life and writings challenge us all to pursue justice even when it’s not popular, to care for and defend the persecuted, and to relentlessly ponder and follow the Gospel.

A concluding reflection: Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed that someday, a time would come when Christians would once again powerfully proclaim the word of God so that the world could be transformed and renewed by it.

“It will be a new language,” Bonhoeffer wrote, “perhaps quite non-religious, but liberating and redeeming — as was Jesus’ language. It will shock people and yet overcome them by its power. It will be the language of a new righteousness and truth….”

And that was my inspiration for Another Voice. I hope I can meet the challenge.

Authoritarianism is hardly a new phenomenon. In the early twentieth century we saw repressive authoritarian regimes in countries like Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, and the Croatian fascist ustasha movement. While some researchers debate the causes of authoritarianism, the public and institutional behavior of authoritarian leaders and authoritarian followers is rather clear-cut.

Just like drug dealers and their “clients,” authoritarian leaders and authoritarian followers sell and promote authoritarian addiction. It happens when followers stop thinking for themselves and submit to the emotional rhetoric of narcissistic authoritarian leaders. We now see a classic example in our daily news. His primary focus is himself and he uses and manipulates people to achieve his goals. His campaign message is emotionally-charged bully-talk, with very little serious socio-political commentary.

Authoritarian followers are highly submissive to authoritarian leaders and aggressively insist that everyone should behave as dictated by the authority. They are fearful about a changing world and a changing society which they neither understand nor want to understand. They would rather turn the clock back to some imagined golden era.

Easily incited, easily led, and reluctant to think for themselves, authoritarian followers don’t question. They obey. They are attracted to and follow strong leaders, who, in often theatrical style, appeal to their feelings of fear and anxiety. And they respond aggressively toward “outsiders.” Blind faith is substituted for critical reason. The unknown and the different become the enemy.

What authoritarian leaders want to implement is undemocratic, tyrannical, and often brutal. Authoritarianism becomes even more sinister, when authoritarian leaders begin to proclaim their message in the name of Christianity. Then, in reality, it becomes an anti-Christian social cancer starting to metastasize across the country. Blurred vision and bizarre rhetoric are the result.

Authoritarian Morphology:

(1) In their self-righteous efforts to re-shape society in their own image and likeness, authoritarians feel empowered and compelled to isolate, to segregate, to humiliate, to persecute, to beat, and even to kill.

(2) If an authoritarian leader has a narcissistic personality disorder, he or she may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. That person belittles or looks down on people he or she perceives as inferior.

(3) Authoritarian followers need to conform and belong to their barrel-vision-group. Loyalty to their group ranks among their highest virtues. Members of the group who question group leaders or group beliefs are quickly seen as traitors.

(4) All authoritarians go through life with impaired reasoning. Their thinking is sloppy and they are slaves to a ferocious dogmatism that blinds them to evidence and logic. As Adolf Hitler reportedly said, “What good fortune for those in power that people do not think.”

[I still remember the example of faulty-thinking, given many years ago by my college logic professor: “All fish live in the sea. Sharks live in the sea. Therefore, sharks are fish.” Today of course one hears faulty-thinking authoritarian politicians and supportive religious leaders asserting: “All Mexicans are criminals” …… “All Muslims are terrorists” ….. “African Americans are lazy”….. “The Jews did kill Jesus Christ”…. “Feminists are undermining male and female identity”….. “And gays are destroying marriage and family life in America.”]

(5) Authoritarians are extremely resistant to change. It is difficult to communicate with people who are ferociously aggressive and fiercely defensive. One is not likely to get anywhere by arguing with authoritarians.

(6) Authoritarians are surprisingly uninformed about the things they say they believe in; and deep, deep down inside, many of them have secret doubts about their own core beliefs. (In somewhat the same way that publicly outspoken critics of homosexuality are often men unwilling to acknowledge their own same-sex inclinations and arrested sexual development.)

Authoritarian Confrontation:

We do need to confront authoritarianism, because it is a malignancy that threatens and polarizes American society.

We need to speak-out now or forever hold our silence.

Too many people are simply standing on the sidewalk, quietly staring at the authoritarian parade as it marches on.

Even if it appears that you are the only person who grasps what’s happening, you have to take courageous leadership to inform and organize others.

Ignorance is neither civic nor religious bliss; and prejudice is based on ignorance.

Critical thinking is an adult skill. Unthinkingly following the big bully is unhealthy child’s play.

Unquestioned loyalty and obedience force authoritarian followers into servitude.

Empathy and compassion are Christ-like; but hatred and denigration of other people are tokens of the anti-Christ.

As we begin Holy Week 2016, my very best wishes for the Easter season. I will be offline for a couple weeks. Taking time for my own deeper reflection about the signs of our time.

Dear Holy Father,

Dear Brother Francis,

In just about two weeks, we will again celebrate Our Lord’s victory over death. For me it is a special kind of personal celebration, because this year I will celebrate my seventy-third birthday on Easter Sunday.

In two years, if all goes as planned (although as you will see I have some doubts about that) I will be sending you, or your successor, my “reached-the-age-of-seventy-five” letter of resignation.

Lent 2016 has been particularly poignant for me. It is not just that I realize that I am now an old man, with all the normal old-age infirmities. I also look at our church and see not the animated and life-giving institution to which I have given my entire life; but a church that has lost credibility and continues to live with an antiquated view of human reality. It is a church that is collapsing.

I often think about Jesus’ words about bread in the Gospel of Matthew. People are turning to us, asking for bread, and we continue to give them old stones.

In my little diocese, the median age of our priests is sixty-eight. Each year I am now burying more priests than I am ordaining. Yet, I will refuse to close parishes. There has to be a better way.

Another part of my Lenten reflection has been about today’s young priests. Not just in my diocese but across the country. They don’t inspire me. They frighten and discourage me. So many of them are arrogant young clerics more anchored in the ethos of 1950 than that of the third millennium. Our seminaries used to be vibrant centers of contemporary life and enlightenment. What happened?

Holy Father, I respect you. I enjoy your well-publicized inspirational words. Nevertheless, Holy Father, we need to do something more than make wonderful statements that make headline news.

When I last met you in Rome for my ad limina visit, you complimented me on my excellent theological formation. I chuckled and said “yes I am a Louvain-trained theologian and some of my professors were the formative theologians of Vatican II.” I told you I was concerned about the shortage of priests and that we should start ordaining young married men with proven ministry skills. We once called them “viri probati.” I told you that I probably have fifteen such young men in my diocese. They are bright, idealistic, well-educated, and burning with zeal for the Gospel. You smiled and said “the time is not yet ripe for such a change.”

You are a very busy man so I will keep this short. A few days ago, when I was sitting on a city bus, as you once did when a humble diocesan bishop like me, I looked at the faces of the young and old people around me. They looked so hungry for God’s bread, not hard old stones. I said to myself “it is time for a new Resurrection in our church.”

Hold on to your zucchetto Holy Father…..By the time you read this letter I will have ordained six young married men as Roman Catholic priests and six wonderful women as Roman Catholic deacons. They will join me and preside with me in our cathedral for Easter Sunday Eucharist. Twelve contemporary apostles, Holy Father! It fills me with great joy and consolation; and I see this as just the beginning.

On Pentecost (if I survive that long) I plan to ordain twelve women – some married, some single, representing all age groups – as Roman Catholic women priests. Wonderful pastoral women. One of them in fact is married to a fine young lady, who teaches social studies in a public school. (I told her, when I met her at their wedding reception, that she is probably lucky she teaches in a public school rather than a parochial school. Who knows what kind of bishop will follow me?)

We need to move forward with faith, hope, and courage Holy Father. Contrary to what is daily proclaimed in some contemporary political rhetoric, truth is stronger than fiction, love is stronger than hatred; and life is stronger than death. We need to practice what we preach.

You know as well as I that we do talk about many progressive ideas, but still behind closed doors. It is now time to move out of our theological closets (of all kinds) and walk proudly and courageously in the sunshine. As Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew: “What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light. What you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.…” The message of Jesus is indeed our way, our truth, and our life.

I send my fraternal affection and every good wish for Holy Week and abundant Easter joy. Alleluia is still our song…..

Your brother bishop,

+ John W. Greenleaf

On Tuesday, March 8, we celebrate International Women’s Day. Another and far more important Super Tuesday than the one that (temporarily?) highlighted US presidential contender Donald Trump.
Perhaps the March 8th day should be circled on calendars as “Beware-of-Patriarchy-Super-Tuesday.”  
Patriarchy is pernicious: an old authoritarian ecclesiastical vice that denigrates just about everyone in the name of Christian virtue. It is very much alive, if not well, in today’s world. 
Patriarchy proclaims male superiority over women. It also destroys children; and in the past week we have seen three big examples of patriarchal child abuse: (1) SPOTLIGHT the Oscar-winning film about the widespread and systemic sexual abuse of children in the Boston area by Roman Catholic ordained ministers (priests), as the National Catholic Reporter editorialized a great humiliation for the Catholic Church. (2) The Vatican’s treasurer Cardinal George Pell’s testimony from Rome to the Royal Commission in Australia about Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse. Pell is at the tip and top of a sordid clerical abuse iceberg. One wonders how Pope Francis can keep Pell in his Vatican position. (3) And then, on March 1st came the grand jury report that two Roman Catholic bishops in the Pennsylvania Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown covered up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 ordained ministers and other religious leaders over a 40-year period. Commenting about the victims, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane observed: “Their souls were killed as children. They weren’t out playing baseball; they were trying to avoid priests.” 
Patriarchy over women  
Attributes of power, control, non-emotional rationality, and extreme competitiveness are often praised as traditional male qualities and used to explain why men should be “in control.” Women are often subordinated due to – as a bishop friend likes to stress — their “emotional expressiveness.”  
Reflecting about Christian life and ministry – past and present – I count six anti-woman heresies that need to be condemned as un-Christ-like. Even, today, in all Christian churches, they are often proclaimed as virtues: 

(1) Women are called to affirm “godly masculinity.” Based of course on the false understanding that God is male. 

(2) Women must honor the God-ordained authority of their husbands and pastors. A very strong theme among many evangelical Christians but hardly unknown in Roman Catholic circles.

(3) By submitting to male leadership, women reflect Jesus’ submission to God.

(4) When women focus on their personal rights, they are behaving contrary to Christ’s spirit of submission.

(5) Having a lot of children is a woman’s chief mission in life and God’s blessed gift to women.

(6) If they are truly Christian women, they must teach the next generation of women how to submit to male leadership in church and home.

Preserving patriarchal hegemony: 
Sometimes ecclesiastics seek to preserve their patriarchal hegemony by ignoring or dismissing on-going research and new information. In 1994 Pope John Paul II formally declared that the church does not have the power to ordain women. He stated, “Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church’s faithful.” (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4) 
Saint Pope John Paul II was apparently ignorant of the fact that there is a growing consensus among biblical scholars and historians that women – as leaders of house churches –did indeed preside at Eucharist in the early church. A number of women served as leaders of the house churches that sprang up in the cities of the Roman Empire.  
Successors of the apostles: 
An often-repeated historical error is the insistence that only men were Jesus’ apostles. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament speaks contrary to this belief.  The consensus among a number of respected contemporary New Testament scholars, for example, is that Junia was a woman apostle. Paul wrote in the Romans 16:7: “Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.”  
Reading through the Pauline literature one finds many women who were key leaders in the early church: Phoebe, a leader from the church at Cenchreae, a port city near Corinth; Chloe, a prominent woman in Corinth; When Paul refers to Priscilla and Aquila, Priscilla is listed first two out of three times. She and her husband were missionary partners with the Apostle Paul. 
Are bishops successors of the apostles? Of course they are, BECAUSE ALL MEN AND WOMEN who go forth and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ are apostles. You and I are successors of the apostles.

Counteracting patriarchy:  
How do we counteract patriarchy and promote women in today’s church? 

(1) We need to promote continuing education about biblical scholarship and church history; and insist that church leadership take seriously the need for in-service updating. Perhaps bishops and other church leaders need to be re-certified every five years? No certification – no leadership position.

(2) We need to insist on using inclusive language in liturgical prayer, scripture readings, hymn texts, and publications. It is correct, for instance, to drop the word “men“ when the creed reads “For us men and for our salvation…” We don’t need to ask anyone’s permission to do this.

(3) One does not need permission to be inclusive. It should be understood as the normal and healthy way to live and act. Exclusive language is simply wrong and not acceptable.

(4) Just as one doesn’t laugh at racist or anti-Semitic jokes (unless one is a certain much-in-the-news presidential candidate), it is not acceptable to laugh at making-fun-of-women jokes, dumb-blond jokes, etc.

(5) At all levels in the church and civil society we need to proclaim that is not OK when women are paid less than men, when women, because they are women, are given menial or secondary responsibilities.

(6) Again – as I have stressed in the past — we need to acknowledge and support those women who are already ordained. Women’s ordination should be understood and accepted as just as normal as men’s ordination….

(7) And of course we need to encourage and support young women in the church. Whether altar servers, lectors, or Eucharistic ministers. Even as girl scouts! (Even as girl scouts in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, where Archbishop Robert Carlson said the behavior and views of America’s Girl Scouts are at odds with the teachings of the Catholic church — in particular, the Girl Scouts’ support for transgender rights and homosexuality.)

 

Religion has had a strong impact on USA society and culture. The American colonies were the new promised land and its citizens the new chosen people.

  
(President George Washington, in an early nineteenth century paining, being carried up to heaven. Painter unknown.)

The first US president, George Washington, was seen as a Moses-like leader. Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine were considered prophets. Many saw John Adams and Benjamin Franklin as American apostles. And of course we have holy days, like the Fourth of July; and our holy scriptures are The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Right from the beginning, the American character was a unique blend of nationalism and Christianity; and still is – for a while yet — even for people belonging to a religious tradition other than Christianity.

Looking toward Super Tuesday with great interest and fascination, and curious about how religious preferences might impact the elections, I decided to review some US religious data from the Pew Research Center.

In general Republicans tend to place more importance on religion than do Democrats. This also appears to be true across the twelve Super Tuesday states. Roughly 66% of Republicans, and those who lean toward the Republican Party, in these states say religion is very important to them. Only 53% of Democrats feel that way; but there are some big variations. In Vermont, 21% of Democrats say religion is very important to them. In Alabama 84% of Democrats say the same.

Evangelical Protestants make up huge shares of Republicans in most Super Tuesday states, including majorities in Tennessee (67%), Alabama (63%), Arkansas (61%) and Georgia (57%). Evangelicals also make up 56% of Republicans in Oklahoma and nearly half (46%) in Texas — the biggest prize of Super Tuesday, with 155 Republican Party delegates at stake.

Massachusetts, one of the five states outside the South to vote on Super Tuesday, is the biggest exception to this trend. Just 10% of Massachusetts Republicans are evangelicals, while fully half (50%) are Catholics. But even though 79% of Massachusetts Republicans identify with a religious group, only a third (33%) say religion is very important in their lives.

In several other Super Tuesday states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia – two-thirds or more of Republicans say religion is very important to them.

Going to church, reiterating that one is indeed a Christian – regardless what Pope Francis says or thinks – and convincing voters that one is a Christian is essential for Super Tuesday Republican success.

Looking beyond Super Tuesday, the religious affiliation of US voters is sure to impact the campaign strategy of the “official” Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

In the United States today, for instance, Mormons are the most heavily Republican-leaning religious group, with 70% support for the GOP. The two major historically black Protestant denominations, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church (with 92% Democratic support) and the National Baptist Convention (with 87% support), are two of the most reliably Democratic-leaning groups. And in a third group, the Church of God in Christ (another historically black denomination), 75% identify as Democrats.

So this week, some background information……..More information is found in this Pew Center chart:
  
 

In general I decided long ago that Another Voice would not get involved in partisan politics. While I have some strong feelings about the candidates and their qualifications, I don’t care to get involved in a discussion about US presidential candidates. I will stick to Christianity and religion..

Religion has always fascinated me. As a young boy I often played priest and my sister was the congregation. I remember very clearly when, in 1954, “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag and then again, in 1956, when “In God We Trust” was adopted as the official motto of the United States. I understood that a flag belonged next to the cross.

As a young adult I became especially interested in the use of religion as a shaper of national identity. God, I learned, supported both sides in the Civil War. Union soldiers witnessed to “the glory of the coming of the Lord.” My relatives in Virginia saw things differently. Their song was “God save the South!” The pope in Rome wanted God to save the South as well. Pope Pius IX (“Pio Nono”) sent a letter to Confederate President Jefferson Davis assuring him of his prayers and his papal support for the cause of the Confederacy. Southern Catholic bishops were in agreement with Pio Nono: religion and nationalism. I still teach a university course titled “The American Way of Religion.”

One of my big interests these days is religion in post-communist European countries. The political and historical conditions of post-communist countries have created a specific and unique environment for looking at the role of religion in politics, nationalism, and domestic stability.

In a number of ways, religion can be seen as a potentially unifying force in post-communist society. An important question that arises, however, is whether or not the newly important religion is a sign of a newly important faith.

Between 1991 and 2008, for instance, the number of Russians who consider themselves members of the Russian Orthodox Church went from 32% to 72%; and the number of Russians indicating they did not belong to any religion dropped to 18%. Those figures are more or less accurate today. Russians remain, however, terribly ignorant about the meaning of Russian Orthodoxy, leading one to suspect that religion for them is more a matter of newly-important national identity than a lifestyle grounded in Christian spirituality.

Just over a year ago, I was invited to Moscow to give a lecture about religious fundamentalism and to participate in a conference about the growing power and importance of Russian Orthodoxy. Carefully phrased (everything at the conference was being secretly recorded and watched) there was a lot of conversation about Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

The patriarch is a powerful fellow and leading, much to the delight of President Putin, a broad based Russian nationalistic and fundamentalist Orthodox movement. The alliance between Putin and Kirill is strong and close. Kirill not only supports Russia’s invasion of the Crimea and Ukraine but also Russia’s military actions supporting Syria’s President Assad.

Two years prior to my Moscow adventure, I was a speaker at a conference on Religion in Post-Soviet Countries in the little country of Moldova. There an Orthodox priest acquaintance told me that the Patriarch of Moscow was actively working to undermine the independence of the Republic of Moldova and wanted the citizens of Moldova to cease being “disobedient” and return to Mother Russia. Church and state in real time.

In Azerbaijan, by way of another example, 93% of the population claim Muslim identity, with 60% to 75% connected to Shiite traditions. Their religious and spiritual knowledge, however, is rather poor; and a recent survey puts the number of active believers at between 4% and 6%.

After the collapse of communism in Poland, one of the significant features of Polish Catholicism has been a discrepancy between those who say they belong to the church yet have a remarkable ignorance about Catholic life and teaching. Poland seems to be yet another example of “belonging without believing.” Various studies indicate that about 90% of the society claims membership in the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, only about 50% say they believe in God and eternal life.

Last year one of my MA students, a young woman from Poland, got into a discussion about Roman Catholic holidays. She said her favorite holyday/holiday was Assumption (August 15). When a Muslim classmate asked her what the Assumption celebrated, she replied that it was “the day when the Angel Gabriel came down from heaven and made the Virgin Mary pregnant with baby Jesus.” I chuckled and said that was quite an assumption!

Well what is the point of all of this?

The point is that we need to remember what we are about. Examples of religion in post-communist countries are invitations for deep reflection about religion, national identity, and public life everywhere. Religion is not the same thing as faith. (Some religious people actually contradict faith.)

Faith is our relationship with the Divine: our relationship with God who is intimately connected to us and at the heart of all reality. Religion is a systematic institutional approach to interpreting our faith experiences and expressing them in symbol, ritual, and creeds. Healthy religion is always in process, always seeking better ways of expressing what cannot be completely captured in word or symbol; and it must always be open to critical evaluation and reform.

From time to time – if there are no prophetic reformers — institutional religion can assume an existence and importance all its own. Then religion begins to exist for its own sake. Criticism of religious leaders becomes disobedient and disloyal.

Then interpreting the faith experience becomes secondary and institutional influence, power, arrogant self-protection, and maintaining the socio-cultural status quo become the real religious mission. God becomes a convenient tool for promoting particular socio-cultural agendas and specific political or national priorities. “God bless America” becomes simply a bit of political rhetoric…..

Then….“In God we trust” invites a follow-up question: “Does God trust us?”

++++

For further reading: Greg SIMONS and David WESTERLUND, eds. Religion, Politics and Nation-Building in Post-Communist Countries. Surrey and Burlington: Ashgate, 2015.

Some accidents of history distort Christian behavior for a very long time. The only way to resolve the problem is to enact a program of serious institutional enlightenment and structural change.

Even in these days of the “Francis effect,” the institutional church is still very much a vertical management pyramid. People at the top protect themselves, protect their friends, make decisions with little or no consultation, and fear and denigrate change-makers. It happens each day of every week. Much of it often goes unreported. A lot of people don’t want to rock the boat, especially when the captain gets positive international press reviews.

We inherited the vertical management church from Imperial Rome. Certainly not from Jesus of Nazareth. Christianity is not about power over people but about empowering people.

First a bit of personal managerial history: A long time ago, in the 1970s, when I was thin and had hair, I was director of a parish catechetics /religious education team in Michigan. We were two women and three men. We were creative and loved our ministry. The parish was happy with us.

The local bishop became very concerned that our team was moving the parish toward “extreme theological liberalism.” To safeguard the faith, he imported and imposed a conservative tyrant as our pastor. Shortly after the new pastor’s arrival, we were called together, by Father X, for the first “parish staff” meeting. He had arrived in the conference room ahead of us, that day. Sitting on a big chair with a row of smaller chairs in front of him, he welcomed us, asked us to sit down, said a brief prayer; and then pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and read his agenda for the meeting. That happened twice.

At our third “staff” meeting, a young woman, our youth minister, and I arrived early. We arranged the chairs in a circle and I invited her to sit in the big chair. Then everyone arrived. The pastor was grumpy that the youth minister wouldn’t leave the big chair. She then invited the pastor to say a prayer and each person to add a petition. The pastor then pulled out his little paper with his agenda. At the same time (it was perfect timing!) everyone else pulled out his or her little piece of paper with agenda items. The pastor now had a grumpy red face. The youth minister smiled and calmly said to him: “Father, in this parish we practice Vatican II collegiality.”

And that is how the horizontal church should work…. empowering everyone. Not overpowering them.

The early Christians understood the horizontal ministry and leadership style very well. They were an ekklesia, correctly translated not as “institutional church” but as “an assembly of citizens”: a community of faith, inspired by Jesus Christ and animated by his spirit. They gathered often in house churches, under the leadership of the man or woman in charge of the household. These men and women presided at Eucharist as well. It all seemed so normal. One faith, one life on Christ, shared by all, with differing gifts, differing roles, and a variety of responsibilities. It was not a uniform nor monolithic reality. It was charismatic and creative.

Jesus, we know today, gave his followers no institutional blueprint and no institutional structure for a “church.” His followers created and adapted appropriate structures, as needed. It made good sense. By around the year 100, there were: presbyteroi, the elders or pastors in charge of the local communities of faith; episkopoi, the “overseers” or supervisors. Today we call them bishops. And then, entrusted with a variety of concrete outreach ministries, there were diakonoi, the deacons.

In the fourth century, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire; and the institutional church began to pick up the language, public style, and ritual elements found in the older imperial religion. Ordained ministers became “priests.” Christians began worshiping around “altars” rather than the table of the Lord. Women were moved to the periphery.

In the fifth century, the Roman Empire in the West collapsed and the Christian Church took over and filled the imperial administrative void. Bishops became regional civil judges…even ordering the execution of criminals. Altars were pushed against the front wall, facing East if possible. Priests, with their backs to the people, celebrated the “sacred mysteries.” Women were no longer welcome in the “sanctuary” except for washing altar linens and scrubbing the floor. The Bishop of Rome (the pope) took over the emperor’s dress, titles, ritual, and pageantry. The emperor had been pontifex maximus and now the pope was given that title and position: the man at the top of the pyramid and the greatest bridge-builder between God and humanity, the Vicar of Christ on earth. The old Roman administrative pyramid was crowned with a cross.

Authoritarianism became a church virtue: there was no need to study or inquire because the authorities possessed the truth; far too often church management became blind to its own hypocrisy and shortcomings; and unchanging dogmatism became the unquestionable rule for belief and moral behavior.

“Yes” you can say “’thanks for the history lesson but times have changed.”

Times have changed but the old management style is still there. Really, I am not anti-church. I have spent my entire professional career working for and within church-connected educational institutions; but I am an old guy who has truly seen and understands how the system works.

There is still too much of the old vertical management imperialism in today’s church:

(1) There is not just a reluctance but a refusal to examine and take to heart the findings of biblical scholars and historians who know our tradition. Many church leaders are convinced they have a unique kind of grace and they know it all. A year ago, by way of a small ample, I was amazed when, while chatting at JFK airport with a bishop, who like me was on his way to Baltimore, the bishop told me he had read “some of that contemporary biblical stuff” but he was still convinced that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament.

I wanted to ask him what his thoughts were about contemporary research into women’s ordination and women deacons. When I said the words “women in ministry,” he rather nervously stood up, and said he had to make a phone call before getting on the plane. He was up and away, before one could say “woman priest.”

(2) There is still today in the church not just a reluctance but a refusal to deal in depth and effectively with clerical sexual abuse. The problem is not over. There is much talk – even from Pope Francis — but little action. There are bishops and priests who are deviant criminals. They should be defrocked and put in prison.

(3) Our institutional leaders are very good at critiquing personal immorality – usually focusing on sexual and genital issues – but are far too blind to institutional immorality: institutional immorality when it comes to allowing sexual abuse (rape) of children and young people to continue, institutional immorality that discriminates against and denigrates women as well as gay, lesbian, bi, and transgender people. Institutional immorality that even tolerates, in some parts of the globe, the use of women religious as sexual playmates for the male clergy. Celibacy after all is a special gift to the church….

(4) There is a great reluctance to acknowledge and confront institutional immorality when it’s comes to church finances and investments. Here financial transparency is often praised but remains a fantasy.

(5) Earlier I mentioned the great need for institutional enlightenment. Sorry to say, far too many of our leaders are grossly ignorant about human development, human sexuality, an historical understanding of natural law, and (of course) the necessity of a horizontal understanding and approach to church leadership.

If there is to be life for the Christian church tomorrow, and I hope there will be, a number of transformations must be implemented. We need to say goodbye to Imperial Rome. We need decentralization, shared decision-making, and putting all the old regalia in a museum where it belongs.

In a vertical church one speaks about granting mercy. In the horizontal church, people demonstrate compassion for each other.

In a vertical church, a bishop or a pastor is the boss, and gives directives.

In a horizontal church, the bishop or pastor is a leader; who says: I trust you. Thank you. What do you think? How can I help? And….I am proud of you!

Some see the Millennials as a challenge. Others see them as a sign of hope. They are certain to have a big impact on the US presidential election of 2016. 
Some of the most significant changes to our world are going on right now and will continue as Millennials become our future leaders. 
This week an advertisement/announcement. As Vice-Pressident of ARCC, and coordinator of the event, I am happy to report that……
  

ARCC  Announces a Special Conference for October 2016 in the Baltimore / Washington DC area
“Changing the Conversation — The Millennial Generation: Their Values, Belief, and Thoughts about Church.”

October 29, 2016 — 1:00 to 3:00 PM

Location: Best Western at BWI — 6755 Dorsey Rd, Elkridge, Maryland
Our Presenter is Todd Salzman — Professor of Theology at Creighton
University

Todd has a PhD in Theology from the Catholic University of Leuven. He completed his dissertation in 1994, taught at the University of San Diego from 1995-1997, and came to Creighton in 1997. He has published six books and over 50 scholarly articles, and presented numerous papers at national and international conferences.

One of his special interests is the belief and ethical values of the Millennial generation.

He is married to Katy Salzman, and they have identical twin boys and a daughter.

For conference information:

arcc.millennial@gmail.com

For more information about ARCC

http://arcc-catholic-rights.net/