After surviving his first assassinatiin attempt, Mr. Trump announced he has become “more spiritual.” His popularity stays strong, and his supporters now see him as “called by God,” to be God’s emissary to “fix” the United States. Assassination attempts, whether real or supposed, reinforce convictions that the “victim” is “God-chosen.” Many of Trump’s white evangelical supporters believe that “God has a hand on him,” meaning that, despite his moral flaws, God has chosen Trump to serve once again in the White House. This continually-stated pronouncement makes me think about the observation by Madeleine Albright (1937 – 2022) former U.S. Secretary of State: “This is the first rule of deception: repeated often enough, almost any statement, story, or smear can start to sound plausible.”
Authoritarian leaders have always found religion a wonderful convenience, which they manipulate to their advantage. It enables them to lord it over other people and allows them to punish their “enemies” guilt-free, since that punishment, they can proclaim, is what God wants. Their distorted religion enables them to bully and denigrate certain groups of people: women, LGBTQ people, non-whites, foreigners, and miscellaneous “losers.” Values like love, mercy, and compassion disappear. The key value is faithfulness and obedience to the authoritarian leader.
There are classic historical examples: The atheist and anti-clerical Benito Mussolini (1883 – 1945) needed backing by the Vatican to promote his National Fascist Party. He therefore married in the Catholic church and had his children baptized. In his first parliamentary speech in 1921, he announced that “the only universal values that radiate from Rome are those of the Vatican.”
Spain’s Generalissimo Franco (1892 – 1975) became a cruel and murderous dictator. Although Franco himself was known for not being very devout, he portrayed himself as a fervent Catholic and used religion to increase his power. He used the Guerrilleros de Christo Rey (the Warriors of Christ the King) to implement his policy of torture and executions.
And of course, as we are already commemorating the end of WWII in Europe, we know the story of Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945). Hitler ceased being a Catholic when a teenager. But Hitler and his Nazi party promoted their brand of “Positive Christianity.” He described Jesus as an “Aryan fighter” who struggled against the corrupt Pharisees. Joseph Goebbels (1897 – 1945), Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda and one of his closest and most devoted associates, wrote in April 1941 that although Hitler was “a fierce opponent” of the Vatican and Christianity, “he forbids me to leave the church, for tactical reasons.”
Getting back to the contemporary United States, I suspect we all remember that day in early June 2020 when, Bible in hand, then President Trump posed for photos in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. It was Trumpian political theater.
Dr. Mariann Bude, Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC since 2011, stressed that Trump had used the Bible at St. John’s “as if it were a prop or an extension of his military and authoritarian position.” Trump is now selling “God Bless the USA” Bibles for $59.99 as he faces mounting legal bills.
Ideally, healthy religion supports and gives meaning to our lives. It proclaims values about how we should live and how we should relate to one another. It can unite us and give us hope and courage for tomorrow. All the great religious traditions call for honesty, justice, respect, and compassion. When grossly distorted, however, religion can also be a source of violent division, destruction, and death.
Promoting a healthy Christian way of life may very well be our biggest Christian challenge in 2024 and at the start of a new presidential administration in 2025. We need to reflect and examine our beliefs and our behavior, encouraging and supporting other healthy religion people.
The United States should be a society with liberty and justice FOR ALL. Leadership counts. Character counts. Authentic Christianity, in collaboration with other religious traditions, helps make it happen.
We not only learn from historic people, but we can also be encouraged by them.
This week some reflections about Hildegard of Bingen whose feast day was September 17th. She was an amazingly prophetic woman who continues to motivate people and stimulate serious reflection. She was an abbess, an artist, an author, a composer, a mystic, a pharmacist, a poet, a preacher, and a theologian.
Hildegard, the youngest of ten children, was born in 1098 at Bermersheim near Mainz, Germany. Her parents were members of the nobility. When she was eight years old, her parents entrusted her to the care of a holy woman named Jutta. Then when she was fourteen years old, Hildegard, who was already having mystical experiences, entered the Frauenklause, a female hermitage associated with the Benedictine monastery at Disibodenberg, Germany. She was accompanied by Jutta who later became the superior of the small community of women. Hildegard remained under Jutta’s tutelage. When Jutta died in 1136, the members of the community elected Hildegard as their magistra (mother superior). Hildegard and her sisters soon afterwards left Disibodenberg because the nearby Benedictine monastery with strongly misogynist men made life difficult for them.
Hildegard then founded monasteries for women: Rupertsberg, near Bingen, in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. After her death on September 17, 1179, Hildegard was buried at the convent cemetery at Disibodenberg. In 1642, her remains were removed to the church of Eibingen. Pope Benedict XVI (1927 – 2022) canonized Hildegard on 10 May 2012, and on 7 October 2012 he proclaimed her a doctor of the church, one of only four women to have been so named. The others are Catherine of Siena (1347 – 1380), Teresa of Avila (1515 – 1582), and Therese of Lisieux (1873 – 1897).
Hildegard’s theology was intensely incarnational. She understood the material world as imbued with sacred significance and sacramental meaning. She considered the human body a microcosm of the cosmos, which Hildegard viewed as an ordered, harmonious whole. She emphatically affirmed that both women and men carry the image of God, which endows each sex with equal dignity before God and within humankind.
Philosophically, Hildegard stood far apart from her male predecessors in her ability to uphold the two principles of human difference and equal dignity. Plato had dissolved difference into masculine unity, while holding onto at least a basic equality. Aristotle had conceived of difference as hierarchical polarity. Hildegard’s complementarity, however, affirmed difference as a balanced, integrated harmony.
An esteemed advocate for scientific research, Hildegarde was one of the earliest promoters of the use of herbal medicine to treat ailments. She wrote many books but particularly two books related to healing. Physica was about how items in the physical world (plants, gemstones, fish, etc.) could be used in healing. Causes and Cures goes into personal health more directly, such as the importance of following a different diet in the winter than in the summer. During the Middle Ages, monasteries had their own infirmaries and were places that people might go to if they were ill. So, it was natural for Hildegard to have known about healing. She was really one of the first people to write in such detail about healing and health, and she was certainly the first woman to do so.
Hildegarde was also well-known as a composer. She combined all her music into a cycle called Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (“The Symphony of the Harmony of the Heavenly Revelations”), composed around 1152, which reflected her belief that music was the highest praise to God. Her works, including In Evangelium and O Viridissima Virga, are still released today, and her ethereal style continues to influence New Age music, defined more by the effect or feeling it produces rather than the instruments used in its creation. People studying the history of music before 1600 consider Hildegard the best-known example of a female composer during that period.
Hildegard refused to be defined by the patriarchal hierarchy of the church and pushed the established boundaries for women. She is perhaps best known for her spiritual concept of Viriditas – “greenness” – the cosmic life force infusing the natural world. For Hildegard, the Divine manifested itself and was apparent in nature. For her nature itself was not the Divine but the natural world gave proof of God and glorified God.
She is also known for her writings on the concept of Sapientia – Divine Wisdom – specifically immanent Divine Feminine DivWisdom which draws close to and nurtures the human soul. Scivias was Hildegard’s first major theological work and the only one of her writings that was both illuminated and copied by scribes from her monastery during her lifetime. Scivias was completed in 1151 or 1152 and described 26 religious visions she had experienced. It was the first of three works that she wrote describing her visions.
Hildegard corresponded with the great personalities of her time, including emperors, popes, and queens. Sometime between 1154 and 1171, she responded to a letter from Eleanor of Aquitaine (1124 – 1204), Queen of France from 1137 to 1152, asking for advice, with these words “Your mind is like a wall which is covered with clouds, and you look everywhere but have no rest. Flee this and attain stability with God and men, and God will help you in all your tribulations. May God give you blessing and help in all your works.”
Hildegarde of Bingen stands out as an extraordinary figure in women’s history. She was a courageous woman who found remarkable success by expressing her unique voice. She did not accept the traditional place for women in the world. She wrote her books, and, in a male-dominated church, she went on preaching tours at a time when women were not supposed to preach, especially in public. She refused to behave in “traditional” ways. She called for the recognition of the Divine Feminine to balance the traditional Sacred Masculine. She wrote at a time when, if the church authorities had not thought she was divinely inspired she could easily have been put to death as a heretic.
As a German Benedictine abbess, she was a no-nonsense person and certainly no stranger to controversy. She confronted Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1122 – 1190) for supporting at least three antipopes. Between 1152 and 1162, Hildegard often preached in the Rhineland. When she was 80 years old, her monastery in Bingen overlooking the river Rhine was placed under interdict because she had allowed the burial of a young man who had been excommunicated. She insisted that he had been reconciled with the church and had received its sacraments before dying. Nevertheless, the local diocesan canons authorized civil authorities to dig up the young man’s body. On the evening before the authorities arrived, Hildegard went to the grave, blessed it, and then, with the help of her nuns, removed all the cemetery markers and stones. She made certain the burial plot of the excommunicated man could not befound. The irate canons placed the abbey under interdict and forbade the celebration of or reception of the Eucharist at the Bingen monastery. This sanction was lifted only a few months before Hildegard’ death.
Hildegard of Bingen was truly an extraordinary woman and, I would say, the most fascinating and influential woman in medieval church history.
Polarization is pushing U.S. Americans across the country to divide themselves into distinct and mutually exclusive camps. All with closed minds. In Matthew 12:25, Jesus warned the closed-minded people in his days, saying “Every country divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”
Acknowledging other perspectives means recognizing and considering alternative viewpoints or opinions on a given topic. It involves being open-minded and willing to listen to different ideas without at once dismissing them. It involves realizing that we all have much to learn about life in all its dimensions. I would emphasize that being open-minded means being less judgmental and more inquisitive and considerate. Open-minded people consider multiple perspectives before reaching a decision.
Sometimes, being open-minded can be tough. It shakes a person loose from beliefs and values once so comforting. I once believed and felt secure in my belief that Jesus’ disciples were only men, and for that reason only men could be priests. I also pictured the historic Jesus ordaining the Apostles at the Last Supper. But then, thanks to a college professor who kept asking question and encouraged me to ask questions, I started asking my own questions. Very quickly I learned that some of my certainties had no historic foundation.
Today I know that Jesus’ disciples were men AND women. As an historian I have learned as well that women presided at Eucharistic liturgies in the early Christian communities. I also have also realized that Jesus did not ordain anyone because ordination did not exist during his lifetime. In fact, in the first three centuries of Christianity, we have no direct evidence of an ordination ceremony.
Now I realize very humbly that on this human life journey we do learn new things, by being open to the knowledge and insights of other people. Being open-minded, we need to continually adjust our understandings and beliefs.
Being an open-minded believer truly enriches a person’s life. I can think of seven ways, but I am sure there are more:
Open mindfulness enables one to explore and discover. Being an open minded person allows one to experience new ideas and fresh thoughts that stimulate personal growth as they challenge old visions, understandings, and beliefs. It can be a very liberating look at one’s contemporary world through an open mind. Remember Paul in First Corinthians: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”
Open mindfulness promotes personal change and transformation. Opening our minds to new ideas allows us the opportunity to change what we think as well as change our view of the world. This does not mean one will necessarily change basic beliefs. It does mean one has to be open and respectful to people with differing perspectives. We work together. We must work together.
Open mindfulness makes oneself vulnerable. This is scarier. In agreeing to have an open-minded view of the world, we acknowledge we do not know everything. We accept that there are possibilities we may not have considered. This vulnerability can be both terrifying and exhilarating. The jar is either half full or half empty. It depends on one’s perspective. I prefer to say that it is only half full.
Open mindfulness helps one see and acknowledge personal mistakes. With an open mind one begins to see things from others’ perspectives. One can recognize the mistakes one has made. From time to time, we all fail and fall. The challenge is to acknowledge it and then get back up again and continue the journey, anchored in the virtues of Christian humility and courage
Open mindfulness strengthens oneself and gives stability. It presents a platform upon which a person can build, putting one idea on top of another. With an open mind, one learns about new things; and one uses innovative ideas to build on old ideas. In my field we call this ongoing theological development. Dangerous stuff for the old guard ecclesiastics. Nevertheless, everything a woman or a man or a child experiences adds up. It strengthens who one is and what one believes. Note well: It is extremely hard to build on experiences without having an open mind.
Open mindfulness helps one gain confidence. When a person really lives with an open mind, he or she develops a stronger sense of self. One can respect and appreciate but is no longer confined by the beliefs of others. Then the respectful dialogue can and should begin….
Open mindfulness promotes self-honesty.Being open-minded means admitting that one is not all-knowing. Even if one is an older theologian! Whatever “truth” one holds, each person must realize that the underlying reality in its depth has more to it than anyone realizes. This understanding creates a sense of honesty that characterizes anyone who lives with an open mind.
For some people, being open-minded is easy. It seems to come as effortlessly as breathing. For others, having an open mind can be a challenge. But for anyone who wants to travel the road of life, it is essential. We remember the words of Jesus, in John 8:32, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
On a peaceful summer afternoon recently, the noise pollution really hit me. We had sunshine after what seemed like a month of rainy days. Then suddenly one neighbor began mowing his yard with a very noisy lawn mower. Another was in his backyard with the radio playing loudly. And another began to saw and pound boards in his backyard. I laughed and thought “oh for the rainy days of peace and quiet.”
Ubiquitous noise works insidiously. It not only raises our blood pressure but contributes to anxiety, stress, and nervousness. It closes our minds to contemplative experiences. But along with noise, hyperactive busyness characterizes much of our contemporary life. People today feel guilty if they are not rushing from place to place, working on projects at home, multitasking, and constantly connecting via cellphone, texting, and social media. If the power goes off, life becomes suddenly strange and disconnected.
A friend said we need a rediscovery of reflective contemplative moments. We need to control our noise pollution, clear our schedules for more free time, and reduce our cyber connectedness. The more receptive, contemplative, and inwardly quiet we become, the more open and attentive we become to the deeper vibrations in Reality. I would call that deeper contemplative awareness spirituality. I remember the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 book Strength to Love: “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
Contemplative moments open us to an experience of the Sacred which we describe in several words: our experience of the Transcendent, the Ground of Being, and of course our experience of God.
This week, therefore, a reflection about God from a master of contemplative wisdom whom I greatly respect: Richard Rohr (born 1943) a Franciscan friar in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He posted this on his website a few years ago but it rings true today. I have now known Richard since the early 1970s and have occasionally collaborated with him. On July 1, 2022, Pope Francis met with him and expressed support for his work. Later that year, Richard announced he would step back from public ministry following a lymphoma diagnosis. On May 9, 2023, he announced that he was now officially on the Core Faculty Emeritus at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque.
Richard’s Reflection:
“It takes a long time for us to allow God to be who God really is. Our natural egocentricity wants to make God into who we want or need God to be. It is the role of the prophet to keep people free for God. But at the same time, it is the responsibility of the prophet to keep God free for people. This is also the role of good theology, and why we still need good theology even though it sometimes gets heady. If God is always mystery, then God is always on some level the unfamiliar, beyond what we are used to, beyond our comfort zone, beyond what we can explain or understand….
“The First Commandment says that we are not supposed to make any images of God or to worship them. At first glance, we may think this deals only with handmade likenesses of God. But it mostly refers to images of God that we hold in our heads. God created human beings in God’s own image, and we have returned the compliment, so to speak creating God in our image. In the end we produced what was typically a tribal God. In America, God looks like Uncle Sam or Santa Claus, or in any case a white Anglo-Saxon male, even though it says in Genesis 1:27 that “God created humankind in God’s own image; male and female God created them.” That clearly says that God cannot be strictly or merely masculine.
“Normally we find it very difficult to let God be a God who is greater than our culture, our immediate needs, and our projections. The human ego wants to keep things firmly in its grasp; and so, we have created a God who fits into our small systems and our understanding of God.
“Thus, we have required a God who likes to play war just as much as we do, and a domineering God because we like to dominate.
“We have almost completely forgotten and ignored what Jesus revealed about the nature of the God he knew. If Jesus is the ‘image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 1:15) then God is nothing like we expected. Jesus is in no sense a potentate or a patriarch, but the very opposite, one whom John the Baptist calls ‘a lamb of a God.’ (John 1:29).”
Right now, of course, especially in the less than under 70 days until the next U.S. presidential election, people are watching political trends across the United States. I am as well. But today my Another Voice focus is about U.S. religious trends.
For many years, my academic and professional focus has been religion and values in U.S. society. As a contemporary U.S. American, I try to be very attentive to trends and developments. I pay especially close attention to publications from two research organizations: the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world; and the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), a U.S. nonpartisan research and education organization also in Washington, D.C., that provides information about religious, political, and social issues for all 50 states. And of course, I am in regular contact with many U.S. colleagues and researchers.
The Pew Research Center and PRRI point to the following contemporary U.S. religion and values trends.
(1) The religiously “unaffiliated” — also called “nones” – form the only major religious category experiencing growth in the United States. Around one-quarter of U.S. Americans (26%) identified as religiously unaffiliated in 2023.
(2) The U.S. Catholic loss in membership, continues to be the highest membership decline among major religious groups. Catholics continue to lose more members than they gain.
(3) White mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, however, also continue losing more members than they replace.
(4) Since 2023, white evangelical Protestants, on the other hand, have one of the highest retention rates of all U.S. religious groups (76%).
(5) Black Protestants (82%) and Jewish Americans (77%) enjoy the highest retention rates of all U.S. religious groups.
(6) Most unaffiliated U.S. adults today are not looking for a new religious or spiritual home. The vast majority of the religiously unaffiliated appear content to stay that way. Only 9% of religiously unaffiliated Americans say the statement “I am looking for a religion that would be right for me” currently describes them very or somewhat well.
(7) Currently 24% of U.S. Americans attended religious services, either virtually or in person, at least once a week, a 7-percentage point decline from 31% in 2013. Two decades ago, an average of 42% of U.S. adults attended religious services every week.
I have always been intrigued by generational differences. I am especially interested in the religious values and social views of Generation Z and their impact on Generation Alpha. But it would be helpful, first, to understand who belongs to the various generations and what characterizes them.
People laugh when I say I belong to the “Silent Generation,” but the generational categories look like this:
– Silent Generation – People born 1928 to 1945
– Baby Boom Generation – People born 1946 to 1964
– Generation X – People born 1965 to 1980
– Generation Y – People born 1981 to 1996
– Generation Z – People born 1997 to 2010
– Generation Alpha – People born 2010 to 2024
Now a bit of explanation…
THE SILENT GENERATION:
The Silent Generation were children of the Great Depression, whose parents had enjoyed living in the Roaring Twenties. But before reaching their teens, the Silent Generation shared with their parents the horrors of World War II. Many lost their fathers or older siblings who died in the war. They saw the fall of Nazism but also the catastrophic devastation made capable by nuclear bombs. The Silent Generation focused on “working within the system.” They did this by keeping their heads down and working hard, thus earning for themselves the “silent” label. Religion was especially important for the Silent Generation. Speaking extemporaneously on December 22, 1952, a month before his inauguration, President Dwight Eisenhower (1890 – 1969) said: “Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is.” In 1955, the Jewish theologian and sociologist Will Herberg (1906 – 1977) published Protestant, Catholic, Jew. He argued that the United States had become a “three religion country,” where religious commitments mattered more than ethnic ones, and that, despite irreconcilable religious differences, U.S. Americans together formed a kind of U.S. “common religion.” On July 30, 1956, the 84th Congress passed a joint resolution declaring ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ the national motto of the United States.
BABY BOOM GENERATION:
In Europe and North America, many boomers came of age in a time of increasing affluence and widespread government subsidies in postwar housing and education. They grew up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. The United States was in the midst of social, religious, and political upheaval when the Baby Boomers were reaching young adulthood. The Baby Boomers were the last generation to be routinely baptized, confirmed and taken regularly to mainstream religious activities.
GENERATION X:
As children in the 1970s and 1980s, a time of shifting societal values, Generation X has called the “latchkey generation” stemming from their returning as children from school to an empty home and needing to use a key to let themselves in. This was a result of what “free-range parenting,” plus increasing divorce rates, and increased maternal participation in the workforce. Video games were also a major part of juvenile entertainment for the first time. In their midlife during the early 21st century, research describes Generation X as active, happy, and achieving a productive work–life balance. According to Pew Research, 70% of Generation X identify as Christian. Only 7% are atheists/agnostics, but 23% identify as “nones.”
GENERATION Y:
Members of this demographic cohort are known as Millennials because the oldest became adults around the turn of the millennium. Generation Y has proven to be incredibly community-oriented and environmentally conscious. They are leading the movement in helping gender non-conforming kids to be happy with who they are. They are taking a freer approach to parenting, allowing their children to explore and create without constant structure or supervision. Generation Y, the “Millennials,” are the ‘spiritual but not religious’ generation. I recommend the fascinating 2019 book edited by Justine Afra Huxley Generation Y, Spirituality and Social Change. (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Philadelphia)
GENERATION Z:
Following Generation Y, Generation Z is the first social generation to have grown up with access to the Internet and portable digital technology from an early age. Generation Z teenagers are more concerned than older generations with academic performance and job prospects and are better at delaying gratification than their counterparts from the 1960s. Two-thirds of Generation Zers are somewhat religious, but this includes 10% who identify as white evangelical Protestants, followed by 9% Hispanic Catholic, 8% white mainline/non-evangelical Protestant, 7% Black Protestant, 7% white Catholic, and 6% Hispanic Protestant. They are the first generation in history in which the “nones” clearly outnumber the Christians. The parents of millennials and Generation Z young people did less to encourage regular participation in formal worship services and typical religious behaviors in their children than did earlier generations. Many religious activities that were once common, such as saying grace before meals, became more the exception than the norm.
GENERATION ALPHA:
Generation Alpha is the demographic cohort succeeding Generation Z. Named after alpha, the first letter in the Greek alphabet, Generation Alpha is the first to be born entirely in the 21st century and the third millennium. Generation Alpha people were born at a time of falling fertility rates across much of the world and experienced the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as young children.
When I think about Generation Alpha, I am not pessimistic but appreciate the observation of my favorite poet T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965): “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” For Christian pastoral leaders, Generation Alpha will be the great challenge to speak meaningfully about beliefs, values, and Christian life experience. More about that next week.
In the past few months, I have picked up several new readers. I am very happy about that of course. Many have asked me to explain my focus on “historical theology.” People who have been with me for a few years, please bear with me if I am repeating some earlier explanations. I do try to update even old explanations.
Describing myself I would say I am an “historical critical theologian.” To understand what I mean, one needs to think about what we call “historical criticism.”
HISTORICAL CRITICISM:
Historical criticism began in the 17th century and gained popular recognition in the 19th and 20th centuries. The primary goal of historical criticism has been to discover a text’s original meaning in its original historical context. This requires examining the historical context of the author and of those for whom the text was written.
When examining a text, questions arise. Is the text describing an actual historical event or using symbols and creative images to describe a mythological or presumed historic event? The account about Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, is a good example. Nearly every ancient culture told its own set of creation myths, and they share a remarkable number of similarities, including key elements of the Adam and Eve story: humans fashioned from clay, a trickster figure who subverts the gods’ plans for creation, and a woman taking the blame for sin and pain.
Another good example of creative biblical imagery about an actual historic person is found in the Infancy Narratives in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. The Catholic biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown (1928 – 1998), in his book The Birth of the Messiah, stresses that the Infancy Narratives are imaginative literary products, created by the early Christian community primarily to express its belief about the historic Jesus as “Son of God.”
HISTORICAL CRITICISM AND TRANSLATIONS
In historical criticism, a close examination of textual translations is important as well. Are translations faithful to the original text? In my professional development, I had to learn Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. I did alright in Hebrew but excelled in Greek and Latin. I learned very early, however, that translations from one language to another can sometimes be very problematic, especially when translators use a contemporary word to translate an ancient word. A good example – there are many actually — is the way biblical translators have translated Pontius Pilate’s inscription on Jesus’ cross.
The famous INRI is an abbreviation for the Latin words Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum. (The letter “J” did not exist back then. It wasn’t invented until 1524 thanks to Gian Giorgio Trissino, an Italian Renaissance grammarian.) The word Iudaeorum means “of the Judeans.” However, it has too often been incorrectly translated as “of the Jews.” And so, we have inherited the absolutely erroneous translation which has greatly contributed to ignorance and antisemitism. The word “Jew,” did not enter the English language until the twelfth century. There were no “Jews” in the first century. The religion was the Hebrew religion. In the Bible we find Hebrews, Israelites, and Judeans, but never “Jews.” The correct translation is “Jesus of Nazareth King of the Judeans.” The historical Jesus (Iēsous in Greek and Iesus in Latin) was a Hebrew. His Hebrew name was Yeshua, which is a derivative from the Hebrew verb meaning “to rescue” or “to deliver.”
FAITH IS AN EXPERIENCE:
Historical critical theologians focus on interpretations of faith. Faith is an experience. In the faith experience people have an experience of the Divine, often described under various names: God, Creator, Father, Mother, Allah, the Ground of Being, etc. To be open to the faith experience, we need quiet and reflective time. Faith and belief are not the same thing.
BELIEF:
Belief is the attempt to put into words the meaning of our faith experience. Belief is really theology which is “faith seeking understanding.” Theological understandings – statements of belief — can end up as official teachings (doctrines) when religious institutional leadership judges them useful guidelines for Christian life. But it is important to remember that all doctrinal statements are time-bound, because language and understandings are time-bound. All doctrinal statements therefore are provisional until a better expression comes along.
SUGGESTIONS FOR THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONTODAY:
(1) I suggest first of all that we think of “church” not as an institution but as a community of faith-experiencing believers. What is happening within your own community of believers? What are the key issues and concerns? What does it mean for you and for your friends to experience God today? Where do you and they find your support?
(2) In the first three centuries of Christianity, we have no direct evidence of what would later be called an ordination ceremony. The historical Jesus did not ordain anyone at the Last Supper. He probably had no understanding of ordination. By the end of the third century, however, Christianity had a clear organizational structure headed by presbyters, from the Greek word for “elder” presbyteros; supervisor-overseers, called epískopoi in Greek; and deacons. (In the tenth century, our English word “bishop” evolved from the Latin word episcopus.)
(3) Initiation into the three orders was accomplished through a rite of ordination that inducted a person into a local office in a particular community. Ordination was introduced as a kind of quality control to assure communities that the women and men who were their leaders were trustworthy and faith-filled leaders. As my theological mentor, Edward Schillebeeckx (1914 to 2009), often said, “You led the liturgy because you were the leader of the people. You didn’t lead the liturgy because you were ordained to have the power of consecration.” (Prof. Schillebeeckx had a big impact on my life. Unlike other theologians, he did not view this modern world, with its secularization, as a loss or threat. On the contrary, he saw in it as a new opportunity to live Christianity authentically, creatively, and meaningfully today.)
(4) Let’s scratch our heads about new forms of ministry and break out of the old patterns and paradigms. I have often thought over the years that many of my theology graduate students, regardless of sex or gender, would make excellent ministers in the university parish. Why not be creative with ordination. If ordination is desired, could it not be for say five years, with possibility of renewal for a few more years? Does it have to be life-long? Why not divide local parishes into neighborhood communities under several part-time ordained ministers, who are also professional people in the larger community, doctors, teachers, electricians, etc. How about electing bishops for a limited ministerial term office? Say five years and a renewal of a second five-year term possible after a positive performance appraisal.
(5) Healthy Christianity is rooted in being a healthy follower of the Way of Jesus. So, what does it really mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ today? Early Christians understood Jesus as the revelation of God’s graciousness and love. And they understood that Incarnation involves all of us. As Jesus says in Luke 10:16, “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” Our humanity is anchored in divinity, whether people realize it or not.
(6) We need to change our conversation. Changing the conversation means moving from lots of talk and talk to making lots of real changes. We need to be creative and courageous change agents, realizing that change rarely comes from the top. In my Catholic tradition, for example, change usually starts at the grassroots level. People see the need and make the change. The old pattern is proven historically: (1) change is made; (2) change is condemned by church leadership; (3) change endures; (4) leadership allows the change as a limited “experiment;” (5) change becomes more widespread; (6) and finally church leadership allows it as “part of our tradition.”
…
Creative and critical reflection is not a dangerous activity, and it can be a source of life, because it brings a new focus, a new conversation, a new change, and new life. That is the focus of historical theologians. At least the historical theologians I resonate with.
The relationship between religion and politics has been and continues to be a toxic and dangerous relationship. A key U.S. player in that relationship today is Kevin Roberts and his Heritage Foundation.
Kevin D. Roberts (born 1974) is the president of the Heritage Foundation, an activist conservative political think tank, based in Washington DC. Prior to assuming his current role, Roberts was the CEO of another conservative think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an influential think tank that opposes efforts to fight climate change and receives millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests.
Roberts is the architect of Project 2025, also known as the “2025 Presidential Transition Project,” an initiative of the Heritage Foundation. It aims to promote conservative and right-wing policies to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election. It calls for dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuels. It recommends abolishing the Department of Education and terminating its programs. Funding for climate research would be cut. The National Institutes of Health would be reformed along conservative principles and Medicare and Medicaid would be terminated.
The publication of a book written by Kevin D. Roberts, titled Dawn’s Early Light, and featuring a foreword by Senator JD Vance, has been delayed until after the presidential election. The book was scheduled to be published in September but will now be released in November. Roberts drew criticism recently for saying the country was in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that would “remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” A Heritage Foundation spokeswoman confirmed the publication delay of the book and provided an explanatory statement from Roberts, who said: “There’s a time for writing, reading and book tours, and a time to put down the books and go fight like hell to take back our country.”
Actually Project 2025 lays out what is essentially a very conservative “Christian nationalist vision” of the United States, one in which married heterosexuality is the only valid form of sexual expression and identity. It opposes what it calls “radical gender ideology” and advocates that the government “maintain a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family”. To achieve this, it proposes ending same-sex marriage and removing protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender identity.
Project 2025 also recommends the arrest, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants. It proposes employing the military for domestic law enforcement and calls for immediate capital punishment of convicted offenders.
What many observers don’t realize is that Kevin D. Roberts, the architect of Project 2025, has close ties to the Catholic organization Opus Dei (“Work of God”). Opus Dei has long attracted significant controversy. Criticism has centered on its secretiveness and support for authoritarian, right-wing governments. A still important book about Opus Dei is Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei by Robert A. Hutchison (St Martins Press, 1999). I would also recommend the still very important book by my friend Betty Clermont The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America (Clarity Press, 2009).
Kevin Roberts receives regular Opus Dei spiritual guidance at the Catholic Information Center, in Washington DC, headed by an Opus Dei priest. Another Opus Dei linked U.S. Catholic is Leonard Leo (born 1965), a self-declared Opus Dei operative. He is a lawyer, judicial activist, and co-chairman of the conservative legal think tank, the Federalist Society for Law and Policy. Leo has also emerged as a key architect and funder of Project 2025, backed by billions of dollars of slush fund dark money. Leo has actually created a network of influential conservative legal groups funded mostly by anonymous donors. He assisted Chief Justice Clarence Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991. Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States by a narrow Senate majority of 52 to 48. Leonard Leo also led campaigns to support the nominations of the conservative justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. All far-right Catholics except Gorsuch, who was raised Catholic but is now a member of the Episcopal Church.
Opus Dei was founded in Spain in 1928 by the Catholic priest Josemaría Escrivá (1902 – 1975). Popes Pius XII (1876 – 1958), John Paul II (1920 – 2005), and Benedict XVI (1927 – 2022) were strong supporters of Opus Dei. Josemaría Escrivá was declared a saint in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, who said Escrivá should be “counted among the great witnesses of Christianity.” Well, I find it significant that Escrivá was active in bolstering the support of Fascist regimes, including that of Francisco Franco (1936 – 1975) in Spain and Augusto Pinochet (1917 – 2006) in Chile.
Although controversial, Opus Dei remains influential within the Catholic Church. Lay people make up the majority of its membership. The remainder are secular priests under the governance of a prelate (leader) elected by specific members and appointed by the Pope. Fernando Ocáriz Braña a Catholic priest born in Paris in 1944, has been the head of Opus Dei since 2017 and he is the fourth person to head Opus Dei since its founding in 1928. Two of Opus Dei’s earlier prelates were bishops appointed by Pope John Paul II. Well known in the Vatican, Ocáriz has been an advisor to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), once known as the Holy Office, since 1986. In 2022, Pope Francis announced that the head of Opus Dei would no longer be a bishop, but he said he has very positive sentiments about Opus Dei.
As of 2023, there were 95,890 members of Opus Dei: 93,784 lay persons and 2,106 priests. The current Archbishop of Los Angeles, José Horacio Gómez (born 1951) was the first numerary member of Opus Dei to be consecrated a bishop in the United States. (A numerary member of Opus Dei is a member who takes a vow of celibacy.) Archbishop Gómez was President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2019 to 2022. Another Opus Dei bishop is John Barres (born 1960) the Bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York. He is a graduate of Opus Dei’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. He joined Opus Dei as priest. In general, Opus Dei bishops in the United States tend not identify as members of Opus Dei because bishops have only one superior, the pope.
The British journalist and Associate Editor at Thomson Reuters, Gareth Gore, has written a new book about Opus Dei, which comes out in early October 2024: Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, andRight-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Gore observed recently: “Like Project 2025, Opus Dei at its core is a reactionary stand against the progressive drift of society…. For decades now, the organization has thrown its resources at penetrating Washington’s political and legal elite and finally seems to have succeeded through its close association with men like Kevin Roberts and Leonard Leo.”
Well, a lot to think about. A lot of big issues underlie the 2024 U.S. presidential election, involving politics and religion. During this election year, a growing number of Catholic priests and bishops, for example, are talking politics from the pulpit. But there are positive developments as well. Bishops like John Stowe (born 1966), Bishop of the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, have criticized the Christian nationalist, un-Christlike actions of their right-wing bishop colleagues. It is hopeful as well that close to 29,000 Catholics and ecumenical allies have signed a petition from Faithful America, urging members of the U.S. bishops’ conference to refrain from involvement in the 2024 election and to withhold support for the former U.S. president now running for re-election.
I conclude this week’s reflection with a quote from Sandra Day O’Connor (1930 – 2023) who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. O’Connor was the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. She retired from the bench in 2006 to care for her husband, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
“Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?”
Jack
PS: Just to clarify, I am not anti-Catholic but a serious Catholic observer. All religious traditions, from time to time, have their positive as well as their negative movements. We need to be critical of the negative and promote the positive.
Researchers and writers in every discipline today are finding it increasingly difficult to effectively communicate in an environment in which findings are distorted or ignored to serve an ideological agenda. Arguments rage at school board meetings, for example, about what can and what cannot be discussed or taught, and a new report from PEN America confirms there were more than 4,000 instances of booking banning across the United States during the first half of the 2023-2024 school year.
Teachers in schools today hesitate to tackle topics like racism and socioeconomic or LGBTQ+ issues in their classrooms for fear of being targeted by conservative parents and losing their jobs.
Overwhelmingly, book banners continue to target stories by and about people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. But school boards today are also banning books with “uncomfortable” interpretations of reality, such as the Holocaust book Maus, the Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman. Surprisingly even Mark Twain’s classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has been banned for racial slurs and Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the novel about a white lawyer’s defense of a black man against a false rape charge by a white woman, has been repeatedly banned in schools.
In the current U.S. presidential election year, lying, especially for one particular candidate, seems to have become politically correct. Back in 2020, when the 45th president launched his most audacious lie yet about his “stolen election” many commentators cited Hannah Arendt’s observations about political lying. Hannah Arendt (1906 – 1975), the German historian and philosopher became interested in how the most outrageous lies get a political hold over people, ever since Nazi lies about the Jews, Communists, and intellectuals drove her from Berlin in 1933 after her arrest by the Gestapo. She wrote, “This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.”
Well, our contemporary world is experiencing a crisis in facts and truth, which also contributes to distrust in various political and religious institutions. Theologian John Dominic Crossan said it very well in his recent book Paul as Pharisee: A Vision of Post-civilization (Polebridge Press, 2024): “We now live—verbally and visually, nationally and internationally—in a world of smiling lies, alternative facts, fake news, aspirations masquerading as interpretations, and conspiracy theories where truth is at best a personal opinion or at worst an obsolete artifact.”
The key question is how do we know what is true and what is not true when watching the news, listening to elected officials, listening to religious leaders, or using social media? Conflicting messages bombard us every day. We saw that with the opening of the Paris Olympics on July 26th when one performance scene portraying Dionysus, Greek god of wine, pleasure, and festivity, was widely and incorrectly reported as a mockery of Jesus’ Last Supper. Catholic leaders along with a host of other Christian groups voiced outrage following the opening ceremony.
TRUTH IS MORE THAN FEELINGS. Rather than making decisions on what is true or not true in reality (the classic model), many people today make decisions on what they feel is true or most probable. Narrow feeling perspectives replace thoughtful examination of the actual reality. In an email, for example, I asked a far-right clergyman friend why he still supports the 2024 presidential candidacy of the U.S. Republican presidential candidate. His reply was polite and brief: “I just feel that God has blessed him, and he has been chosen by God to be president again. I trust my feelings.”
TRUTH AND REALITY: The traditional answer about truth-seeking is that we know something is true if it is in accordance with measurable reality. In medieval times, however, people knew something was true because the authorities and powerful institutions, like the Catholic Church, said it was true. No discussion. Case closed. This created problems of course. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) is a good example.
When Galileo looked through his homemade telescope and saw mountains on the moon, objects orbiting around Jupiter, and the variations of lighting on Venus — all sights not in line with authoritative teaching — he decided to speak out. He was condemned by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, narrowly escaped being executed as a heretic, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Galileo courageously argued for a new way of knowing, insisting that what mattered was not what the authorities said was true but what anyone with the right tools could discover and show was true, based on reality. He made the case for modern science.
Truth is found in the quest for facts not in dogmatic teaching.
TRUTH AND PERSONAL OPINION: One of my hobbies is genealogy. But I learned very quickly a few years ago that a lot of “family history” is undocumented folklore. I decided to not post anything on my family history website unless I had documentation. My paternal grandmother, for example, lived many years near our family home in SW Michigan. I was present when she died in 1960 in Michigan. I was present at her Michigan funeral. I posted the information about my grandmother’s death and funeral on my family history website. I got an immediate reaction from a distant “cousin” who disagreed with me. He told me he disagreed with my “opinion” about my grandmother because he was “certain” she had never lived in Michigan and had only lived in Indiana and had died there. I politely wrote back that I was there in Michigan when these events happened in Michigan, and I could document everything. He quickly wrote back: “Thanks again for your opinion.”
ACTUALLY, WE ARE ALL ON A TRUTH JOURNEY: Our destination is Ultimate Truth. In the meantime, we pursue smaller truths. We observe, we make educated judgments, and then we act and speak out, always open to new discoveries and insights.
Here, below, are my suggestions for truth-seeking and truth-speaking:
(1) A helpful tool today, when checking the accuracy of what one finds on social media and news websites is “Snopes.com.” Founded in 1994, Snopes is a reliable resource to research and debunk urban legends, fake pictures, etc. I use it to check Facebook observations. Another helpful website is “FactCheck.org.” It is very helpful checking news reports about the positions and statements of current political candidates. I use both to check the veracity of Facebook reports.
(2) We are not expected to have all the answers on our own. As we look for truth, we can turn to trusted sources for guidance. That may mean a trusted mentor, a well-informed friend, an insightful public figure respected for her or his integrity, or a respected book using primary source material. We need trustworthy speakers. They need our support and collaboration.
(3) When truth becomes simply a personal or a group fabrication, the understanding of reality is turned upside down. Discrimination and cruelty become the norm and compassion disappears. Extremist websites and groups gather more supporters. Self-advancement at any cost becomes the new virtue, and self-advancement today is politically very “in.”
(4) When truth becomes simply a personal or group fabrication, God can become part of that fabrication, becoming a religious figure who condones and blesses liars and tyrants. Far removed from Jesus of Nazareth who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)
(5) We have a responsibility to be not just truth-seekers but courageous truth-speakers.
Last week, in between articles about contemporary U.S. politics, I read a review of a new book Women and the Church: From Devil’s Gateway to Discipleship by Natalia Imperatori-Lee, professor of religious studies at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. In her most recent book, she examines the history of Christian feminism as a response to the ways in which women have been portrayed in Scripture and male theologians’ interpretations of Scripture.
Thanks to Women and the Church: From Devil’s Gateway to Discipleship, this week’s reflection is about Christian feminist theology.
Feminist theology is a movement found actually in several religious traditions. Its goals are to promote the role of women in religious leadership, to reinterpret patriarchal imagery and language about God, and to analyze the images of women in Scripture and religious tradition.
In the 1960s, more women began studying to become theologians, when the women’s rights movement opened doors to higher education for women. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, female theologians developed Christian feminist theology with a focus on women’s perspectives and experiences.
Christian feminist theologians realized rather quickly, however, the danger of being short-sighted in their focus and understanding. They realized they had to move beyond the perspectives of just white, American, and European middle-class women. They began to speak increasingly about being in solidarity with Second World women of Eastern Europe and Third World women of the southern hemisphere in their struggles against patriarchal oppression.
During the 1990s, Christian feminism expanded greatly and women from almost every location around the globe began to pursue education in theology and feminist theory. They thereby drew attention to how manifestations of patriarchy had affected Christian theology and ethics. They saw more clearly that church leaders and theologians often used the Bible to downplay and even denigrate women. Biblical texts were interpreted as “proof” that these practices were sanctioned by God. Simplistic interpretations of biblical texts like Genesis 2–3, resulted in male theologians depicting women as “the daughters of Eve” and therefore the temptresses of men.
Tertullian (ca. 160–225), for example, who has been called “the founder of Western theology,” characterized women as “the devil’s gateway.” Augustine the Bishop of Hippo (354–430) — “Saint Augustine” — argued that only a man can fully image God and that a woman can only image God through her husband. St. Ambrose (339-397 AD), the Bishop of Milan, imputed second-class status to women because a woman “was only a rib taken out of Adam’s body.” Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), the great Dominican Aristotelian philosopher and theologian, nevertheless, like Aristotle, spoke of women as “defective” and “misbegotten.”
Very significant in Christian tradition, the persistent narrative that Mary the Magdalene, the first witness of the Resurrection, was a prostitute thanks to Pope Gregory (540 – 604) is, as historians understand today, absolute misogynist fiction. On Easter Sunday in the year 591 during his sermon, Pope Gregory created this falsehood when he wrongly interpreted the New Testament and conflated Mary the Magdalene with the “unnamed sinner woman” who anointed Christ’s feet in the Gospel of Luke. In degrading Mary the Magdalene, Pope Gregory denigrated all women and significantly contributed to institutional misogyny.
Misinterpreting the Hebrew Scriptures has also led to misogyny. For example, ever since Adam blamed his wife Eve for what HE Adam did (Genesis 3:12), churchmen and artists began downgrading women by misinterpreting that account. During the Renaissance, for example, artists, including the Italians Michelangelo (1475 – 1564) and Masolino da Panicale (1383 – 1444) as well as the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes (1440 – 1482), painted the serpent in the Garden of Eden with a woman’s head.
Clearly, a Christian feminist theological perspective must examine androcentrism in biblical texts, church teachings, and their interpretations. Jews and Christians know that God has no gender. God does not have a bodily form. Nevertheless, the male writers of biblical texts used the male form of the Hebrew and Greek pronouns when referring to God. These continue to be literally translated into English. Thus, we have God consistently referred to as “he” and “him.” As theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether (1936 – 2022) often stressed: ” Christian theology has always recognized, theoretically, that all language for God is analogical or metaphorical, not literal…. To take one image drawn from one gender and in one sociological context as normative for God is to legitimate this gender and social group as the normative possessors of the image of God and the representatives of God on earth. This is idolatry.”
During Christianity’s two-thousand-year history, the concrete embodiments of Christ’s mission have taken many forms in communities gathered in Jesus’ name.
In 2017, Fortress Press published an important book about early Christian women: Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity by Sr. Christine Schenk. She is the co-founder and founding executive director of FutureChurch, an international group of Catholics affiliated with parishes focusing on full lay participation in the life of the Church. Discovering reliable information about women in early Christianity is a challenging enterprise. This book is magnificent. Brian McDermott, SJ, reviewing the book for America magazine said it has ample material to “radically transform our understanding of Christian women as authority figures in the early centuries.”
In her book IntroducingFeminist Theology (Orbis Books, 2000), theologian Anne M. Clifford, professor emerita from Iowa State University, stresses that a particular methodological concern for Christian feminist theology is language. “Through language,” she writes “humans create powerful symbols, and in turn, human attitudes and values are created and perpetuated by these symbols. Language conditions how we think and often what we think.”
We need to check our language today. When writing about God, for example, we need to drop the masculine pronouns. God does not send “his blessings” but “God’s blessings.” When it comes to the sign of the cross, in recent years I have heard a variety of inclusive versions. Here are three examples: “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier;” “In the name of God, who is both Mother and Father to us, and of Jesus the Only-Begotten, and of the Holy Spirit;”and “In the name of God, our mother and father, and of Jesus, our brother and healer, and of the Holy Spirit, our wisdom and guide.” This last one is my favorite.
Some non-inclusive language can be easily corrected. The Nicene Creed (381 CE) is a good example. Where we read “who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven,” just drop the word “men.”
When proclaiming the Scriptures, we need to be inclusive. In I Corinthians 1:10, where Paul writes: “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” one can easily be — and and correctly be — inclusive. Paul was not just writing to a group of men. For years, when I would read that passage in liturgies, I would simply say: “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters…” But today I have a bit more sensitivity and LBGBTQ awareness. I would say today: “My dear friends I appeal to all of you, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We move ahead.
Thinking about Christian feminism today, one of the most exciting and most hopeful developments, especially for Roman Catholics, is the women priests movement. It began dramatically with the ordination of seven women to the priesthood by a male Roman Catholic bishop on June 29, 2002. The ordinations took place at Passau in southeastern Germany, on the Danube River. The “Danube 7” as they were soon called, became the first priests of the movement. In 2003 two of the Danube 7 were ordained bishops, with a third woman from the group receiving episcopal ordination in 2005. Rome was not pleased, and excommunications followed. But the movement has grown tremendously.
Today, the women priests movement is operating worldwide with two groups formed in the United States and referred to as Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA (RCWP-USA) and the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP). Both of these organizations have international members. These women priests are ministering in over 34 USA states and are also present in Canada, Europe, South and Central America, South Africa, the Philippines and Taiwan.
I am happy to say that I know a few women priests and bishops. They are courageously prophetic in their life and ministry. They are a positive and hopeful sign for today and tomorrow.
– Jack
Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian
Email: john.dick@kuleuven.be
Were women by nature more prone to vice and evil than were men? This was a serious question in an era in which women were blamed for a spectrum of evils, from sterility to deadly illnesses. Another common question was, Were the female descendants of Eve, the evil temptress of Adam, capable of thinking clearly and acting ethically?
The major reason for any feminist movement is to end oppression, discrimination, and violence directed to women and to acquire full equality and human dignity for every woman.
Feminism is a worldwide phenomenon that has taken many forms and that means different things to different people. Feminism is a social vision, rooted in women’s experience of sexually based discrimination and oppression, a movement seeking the liberation of women from all forms of *sexism, and an academic method of analysis being used in virtually every discipline. Feminism is all of these things and more because it is a perspective on life that colors all of a person’s hopes, commitments, and actions. Feminism has been given a variety of broad and narrow definitions since the 1960s.
By way of introduction, I should say that this week’s post is written by a fellow who is still a U.S. Catholic. Born and baptized in SW Michigan, I attended Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, Catholic college, and Catholic universities. My career as teacher and professor has been in Catholic institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. But I am proud to say that I have always strived to be a constructive, thoughtful, and inquisitive Catholic. Asking questions is healthy and necessary. As the Greek philosopher, Socrates, who died in 399 BCE, reportedly said: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
The U.S. Catholic Church, today, is in a major transition. Catholics continue to lose more members than they gain, though the retention rate for Hispanic Catholics is somewhat higher than for white Catholics. According to the latest survey by the Pew Research Center, the nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C., 20% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Catholic. But in 2007, 24% of U.S. adults identified as Catholic. The Catholic population today is 57% White, 33% Hispanic, 4% Asian and 2% Black, while 3% are of another race.
Politically, from the mid-19th century up to the 1960s, U.S. Catholics were close to 90% solidly Democratic. In the 1960s and early 1970s, however, with the decline of unions and big city machines, and with their upward mobility into the middle classes, U.S. Catholics drifted away from the Democratic Party and began to support the conservatism of the Republican Party. This shift was apparent in the presidential elections of Richard Nixon. He received 33% of the Catholic vote in the 1968 election but 52% in 1972. Today, 61% of white Catholic registered voters say they identify with or lean toward the the Republican Party, compared with 35% of Hispanic Catholics.
In the 2020 presidential election, Catholic voters were split down the middle: 49% backed Donald Trump and 50% voted for Joe Biden. And so, what will happen in the 2024 U.S. presidential election? Big question. As of a few days ago, it appeared that the balance had shifted in favor of the Republicans, with 52 per cent of Catholics currently identifying with the Trump Republican party. Now of course it will be interesting to see what happens on November 5th with a far-right conservative Catholic Republican vice-presidential candidate, and the U.S. Catholic, Joe Biden, no longer a 2024 presidential candidate. Vice President Kamala Harris is now the presumed Democratic Party candidate and comes from an atmosphere of interfaith openness. She is a dedicated Baptist Christian. Her mother is Hindu. Her father is a Baptist. Her husband is Jewish.
There is no question that the U.S. Catholic bishops supported many former Trump administration policies, especially on abortion and gender issues. They wanted Catholic institutions to reject birth control provisions in their employees’ health insurance coverage. They wanted to fire staffers who did not support their teachings on gay marriage. They celebrated when Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices helped overturn Roe v. Wade.
New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan cozied up to Trump after his presidential election in 2016 and gave the invocation at his inauguration on January 20, 2017. In 2020, both Cardinal Dolan and the former bishop of Tyler, Texas, Bishop Joseph Strickland, used their positions of authority to essentially support the Trump administration. Jamie Manson, writing in the National Catholic Reporter on April 28, 2020, reported that New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, “…seems to like to boast about his relationship with Trump almost as much as Trump likes to boast about himself.”
Bishop Strickland served as Bishop of Tyler from 2012 until his removal by Pope Francis on November 11, 2023. In May 2023, Strickland had accused Pope Francis of having a “program of undermining the Deposit of Faith.” He also said President Joe Biden was an “evil president.” But that is not the reason Strickland was removed from the Diocese of Tyler. Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio, the Holy See ambassador to the United States since 2016, told Strickland that the most serious allegation against him was his “disrespect for Pope Francis.”
I don’t know if U.S. Catholics in general are really thinking theologically today. Their beliefs are out of sync with the hierarchy. Perhaps they have just become more secularly American. Nevertheless, while the Catholic Church officially holds that abortion is wrong and should not be legal, 6 in 10 adult U.S. Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to a profile of U.S. Catholicism by the Pew Research Center. In addition, Pew reports that many U.S. Catholics would welcome more changes, with 83% saying they want the church to allow the use of contraception, 69% saying priests should be allowed to get married, and 64% that women should be allowed to become priests. According to Gallup, a majority of U.S. Catholics have consistently supported same-sex marriage since 2011.
U.S. Catholic papal sentiments are interesting as well. Pope Francis’ approval rating of 75% is slightly higher than that for his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, but almost 20 points behind the U.S. Catholic approval rating for Pope John Paul II, at 93%. What is papal popularity based on? Papal PR packaging or objective reality?
Well, I now move on to another set of U.S. Catholic observations. As a professor of theology, I taught master’s level U.S. Catholic seminarians for more than thirty years. Many former students became priests, and a few became bishops. What I find most significant about young U.S. Catholic priests today, however, is that they are theologically, ethically, and liturgically extremely conservative. A great many are returning to Mass in Latin, to people receiving communion on the tongue, and moving girl altar-servers aside. Implications for the future? When one turns clocks backwards too much, they just stop working.
In an article in the New York Times on July 10, 2024, Ruth Grahm, describes today’s young Catholic priests as “Young, Confident and Conservative.” Ruth Grahm is a national reporter, based in Dallas, covering religion, faith and values for The New York Times. Her article is about new priests ordained by Milwaukee’s Archbishop Jerome Listecki (now over 75 and close to retirement) at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee. Grahm stressed that there is increasing unity among today’s young priests, writing: “They are overwhelmingly conservative in their theology, their liturgical tastes, and their politics.”
Dr. Brad Vermurlen, assistant professor of sociology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, has studied the rightward shift of U.S. Catholic priests for a number of years and reports in Sociological Spectrum (Volume 43, 2023) that priests ordained since 2010 are “the most conservative cohort of priests we’ve seen in a long time.”
So, why are there so many conservative young U.S. Catholic priests today?
As a participant and close observer of seminary formation programs, I would say, first of all, because conservative-leaning U.S. Catholic bishops were appointed over a 35-year period by Pope John Paul II (pope from 1978 to 2005) and his successor Pope Benedict XVI (pope from 2005 to 2013). They changed the theological focus of seminary education by removing progressive professors with an open-minded post-Vatican II theology and replacing them with conservative professors with a narrow-minded pre-Vatican II theology that romanticized “the good old days”
Today’s young Catholic priests are the products of that Pope John Paul/Pope Benedict theological throwback and fear of change. As my friend Dr. Patrick Sullivan, head of P&D Consulting in Montana City, wrote recently: “I think they long for simpler answers…. There is so much change happening around them that they seek some form of stability. They honestly believe that having the security of straightforward rules and answers will simplify their lives. We are going through a paradigmatic change. Young people are particularly sensitive to this. When someone comes along and shows them that things were much better when Catholics behaved, they are open to it.” Patrick, who also has a Master of Divinity degree from the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, CA, is the former president of ARCC, the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church.
I suppose if people try to live in the romanticized “good old days” they don’t have to think about contemporary issues. It is much easier to be obedient to conservative authority, sing the old songs, repeat the old lingo, and be happy. That is the fundamentalist journey. Unfortunately, it often ends in a dead end. We live in the present. The past is past.
Another Voice 