E. J. Dionne Jr.: I’m not quitting the church.
From Dionne’s latest column, just posted to our homepage:
Recently, a group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation ran a full-page ad in the Washington Post cast as an “open letter to ‘liberal’ and ‘nominal’ Catholics.” Its headline commanded: “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church.”
The ad included the usual criticism of Catholicism, but I was most struck by this paragraph: “If you think you can change the church from within — get it to lighten up on birth control, gay rights, marriage equality, embryonic stem-cell research — you’re deluding yourself. By remaining a ‘good Catholic,’ you are doing ‘bad’ to women’s rights. You are an enabler. And it’s got to stop.”
My, my. Putting aside the group’s love for unnecessary quotation marks, it was shocking to learn that I’m an “enabler” doing “bad” to women’s rights. But Catholic liberals get used to these kinds of things. Secularists, who never liked Catholicism in the first place, want us to leave the church, but so do Catholic conservatives who want the church all to themselves.
I’m sorry to inform the FFRF that I am declining its invitation to quit. They may not see the Gospel as a liberating document, but I do, and I can’t ignore the good done in the name of Christ by the sisters, priests, brothers and laypeople who have devoted their lives to the poor and the marginalized.
And on women’s rights, I take as my guide that early feminist, Pope John XXIII. In Pacem in Terris, his encyclical issued in 1963, the same year Betty Friedan published “The Feminine Mystique,” Pope John spoke of women’s “natural dignity.”
Read the whole thing right here.
An outstanding column.
What is with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, anyway? Why on earth would they spend all that money on an ad like that?
Funny how those who have nothing substantive to say in response to an article, comment, ad., etc., they dislike, resort to criticizing quotation marks. (And then proceed to use “unnecessary quotation marks” themselves.) )
Poor Dionne. After he RUSHed to the barricades (along with various other “liberal” editors, columnists, commentators, etc.), he thinks he deserves better from the bishops who have failed to “notice how often those of us who regularly defend the church” regularly defend the church.
Limp.
It’s his call, so if E.J. Dionne wants to stay in the Roman Catholic Church, let him stay in it.
However, I want to argue against his claim that the Vatican’s critique of the LCWR was a way for the Catholic bishops to revenge themselves against certain women religious who did not support the bishops’ opposition to the health-care act.
Granted, it may have been a contributing factor. But there’s more to the story than that one event.
However, along the way of presenting his argument, Dionne states that the Catholic bishops in the United States are unaccustomed to having their views challenged. But this claim seems to overlook the fact that many non-Catholic Americans have disagreed with the Catholic bishops in the United States, as have many Catholics.
So if the Catholic bishops in the United States are still unaccustomed to having their views challenged, one has to wonder what it might take for them to become accustomed to this kind of thing.
I suppose that Dionne could revise his statement to say that the Catholic bishops in the United States are unaccustomed to having their views challenged publicly by Catholic women religious.
But I digress from my main argument with Dionne. My main argument is that the CDF’s critique of the LCWR contains points that had been brought to the attention of the CDF over a period of years. So the CDF was building a file of materials about the LCWR long before certain women religious got involved in the health-care debate, taking a position that was different from the position taken by the Catholic bishops.
I have stated elsewhere that I see the CDF’s criticisms of the LCWR as small potatoes.
Because I see the CDF’s criticisms, which Pope Benedict XVI approved in January 2011, as small potatoes, I see Pope Benedict and Cardinal Levada and the other Vatican officials in the CDF in a rather negative light.
But my main point is that the CDF had been building a file on the LCWR for years. Sooner or later, the CDF was going to act.
I think it’s not so much that the bishops are unaccustomed to having their views challenged as that they are unaccustomed to replying to the challenges in any form other than semi-dogmatic pronouncements (which they confuse with their role as teachers). In short, they simply ignore what they don’t want to deal with (a rather common human failing, after all). The best answer is to look the other way and give no answer, it seems.
Example: when did you last hear from a bishop (or, for that matter, from the pulpit) any attempt to help Catholics deal with the waves of scandal that have swept over the universal church for at least the last several decades? Pro forma apologies, and the eternal repetition of the stupid phrase, “the Church is not a democracy” won’t do it.
Example: why precisely is the SSPX wrong when it says Vatican II and what followed has gone against centuries of church teachings (on religious freedom, say). Would it be so dreadful to admit that many of those earlier church teachings were wrong, and needed to be righted?
I am a former Catholic, I left last year after 56 years of being a Catholic.
I can no longer support the Catholic church. I spent years, with good people, who told me, ignore what the church is doing, this is about Christ, helping people and being with others.
Well, I thought long and hard and could not be part of a church, and I mean the hierarchy, the pope, the bishops, who continually say one thing, yet do the other. How could the moral authority of the church, act this way for years about the sexual assault of it’s children?
How could I accept that damaged moral authority?
How could it say that women are to be revered, yet, they have no part in the decision making in the church? One only has to look at the civil rights struggle to see that if you have no part in the decision making, then you are not equal. Look at the way the female religious are being chastised by their “betters’ the bishops and the pope.
These are the women that are doing Christ’s work on earth and yet they are being harassed, by the bishops.
I felt strongly to remain within the church, while having no power to change the wrongs, was saying that I condoned what the church is doing.
I don’t and can’t.
I live my life according to the teachings of Jesus Christ. In my mind, that is incompatible with the current Catholic church.
Gee, with all the media coverage of CDF and LWCR, I don’t see that as small potoes.
And the involvement of Law, Sheehan et al in the that situation makes a real issue of the continuing poltical/religious intertwine that wil continue not only in the media but in many many individual’s homes and hearts.
The issue, I thought, Dionne raised is that Catholic rightists want Catholics on the left to either knuckle under or move on.
There is some truth in that as the culture wars procede apace.
Gay marriage is a biggie in that -se the America blog ‘In All Things” today.
The problem is that we are supposed to be a Church that exemplifies “see how these Christians love one another.”
But look at how in fact polarized we are and how the center envisioned some time back, say by Bernadin, has been so diminished and voices of moderation quashed or ignored….
by Temple ;police who helped create the dossier on the nuns, or the inquiry into the Girl Scouts etc….
And who are abetted by those who want to put a best face on what many of us look on as so terribly one sided by saying “se,e maybe they’ll find something there.”
A major fault line that will continue to polarize and widen this dividei s the perception of how the promise of VII was kept or not in this anniversary year.
Dionne, I think. still sees that promise carried out in may lives -and he’s right. That he and many who carry them out are under attack is the cause of his plaint,
But, as the beat and divide go on, many will not keep committing themselves to a Church where they don’t see Christians who love one another – in fact, the opposite.
Staying or leaving? Accepting or fighting? Are these always the only options… I “stay” beacuse my pastorand this pariosh (and only one other really) would be places where I am nourished and able to contribute in all senses in good faith… If these were to be suppressed or radically changed, I’m not sure how it would go since the Congregational Church that we’re also part of is ging through its own retrenchment and its future is uncertain… The Eucharist remains, but I don’t know how I would be clebrating that. Others have only half-jokingly asked me to consider developing a community, but that’s not where I am.
So, I stick around llike Dionne and appreciate his insights…
I acknowledge that Dionne is right to be disappointed that his voice and his contributions not only have no influence, but are dismissed outright. It’s his choice to stay and complain, but my choice, like Diane, was to move on because I could no longer — and did not wish to — defend the institutional Church’s most important doctrines as expressed by its hierarchy. All the shared history of first communions and Catholic school will not change what the path forward will actually be, and that is, devoid of anything like the closely knit fabric of a shared social background, embedded with nuns and priests who were largely of the people they served. It’s over E.J.
I am still pondering the homily I heard at Mass yesterday — very much along the lines of Dionne’s post. The question was posed: “What do you do when the Church disappoints you?” The answer drew on the analogy of the family. You don’t quit your family when a member or members of it disappoint you. The development moved to whatever happens in the Church at large we have a nurturing parish community that is the Church too, so why not expend your energies in sharing in the life of the parish.
We have a great parish and are very fortunate in that regard. I agree with the basic thrust of the homily, but I wonder if focusing one’s energies on the local parish isn’t a form of denial. After all we are not going to bag the dreadful English translation and start ordaining women and married men tomorrow. There are things deeply wrong with the RCC that won’t go away by turning to the local parish.
Members of the parish can support one another in our disappointments but even together we cannot right the wrongs in the Church. I suppose we have to remain conflicted.
Barbara, Diane, you could play a role by supporting church reform from the outside, if that’s where you have to be. For example, if you worship elsewhere, you might be in a natural place to work on supporting ecumenism.
LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE!
Writing last week in NCR, Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, clinical psychologist and consultant on USCCB’s so-called “Dallas Charter,” captures the true zeitgeist of the Catholic Church in the early 21st century:
Catholics have yet to figure out how best to mourn, conduct a funeral and burial for the hierarchal structure of the Catholic Church – strange because Catholics should do death and resurrection better than most other groups.
This will be painful and sad work. We don’t use phrases like “Holy Mother Church,” “Rome, the Eternal City,” and “Upon this Rock” for nothing. Many of the emotional and spiritual anchors most of us have relied on for most of our lives will shift – many will be challenged.
But, if Jesus taught us anything, it is that death is the portal to freedom and new life. Hierarchal, or monarchial Catholicism, is dead: Long live the People of God!
If we as Catholic People are to just even survive, then we must adopt a strategic plan that envisions:
1. Separating the MINISTRY from the MONEY.
2. Reforming the way Catholics do priesthood from parish to pope.
3. Valuing and celebrating the gender and sexuality of all humanity.
No easy task for sure. As my sainted sixth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Adelaide would often remind us after our daily reading from the Lives of the Saints: “Christianity is not for sissies.”
An inexorable evolution toward a Church of the People of God has been underway for a long, long time. The evidence surrounds us – chief among them is the pews emptying-out around us.
This historic endeavor will not be achieved by politics or diplomacy alone, but mostly by “Cor ad cor loquitor”: Heart speaks to Heart! It may take us years, decades, even centuries. But we will get there. And, all of us must help!
The best path for us to follow was blazed by all those American religious women whom the Vatican is now trying to label heretics: Continue to teach. Pass on the Gospel and Beatitudes to new generations. Work for the day when new ideas can be spoken aloud and celebrated in our own church.
LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE!
I stay because I believe it is the Church that Jesus Christ founded. That means a lot to me.
A couple of people have noted their nourishing parishes.
I thought of the folks in Morlino’s diocese on the other hadn, threatened with interdict because of how their parish was transformed.
IMO the future will hold less and less”nourishing” parishes as more JPII priests come along.
What then?????
The hallmark of Christian living is supposed to be compassionate love. Even if love sometimes has to be “tough,” it never has to be devoid of compassion. We’ve all seen examples of that in good parenting, good policing, good enforcing of criminal law.
With Dionne, I see no reason to leave the Church. I do see a need for me to be much more compassionate. Fortunately, there are fine examples around, e.g., Pope John xiii, some bishops, some priests and deacons, a flock of nuns, and, yes, a wide assortment of lay people.
Nonetheless, I think it remains true that, even though most American bishops may indeed be compassionate, the public face that they so often present is that of the self-righteous authoritarian who insists on unquestioning obedience and deference, who is entitled to command without listening.
But whatever is the state of the hierarchy, there is nothing that prevents me, or anyone, from finding in the Church any number of models and guides. N. T. Wright’s “Simply Jesus” has helped me to see this.
Many years ago, a Presbyterian minister who was teaching my collegiate humanties course of “New Testament Study” cautioned his class never to “judge a religion by the moral failures of those who claim membership to it.” As a young student, I was skeptical of this statement believing in all cases that actions speak louder than words.
But after 50 years later in life (and with a little more wisdom), I can appreciate this statement greatly. The Catholic Church is, and always has been, a universal cloak under which many can seek warmth. Its tent is big–or at least should be. Nonetheless, there are always those sanctimonious elements within the church who wish to pare the membership to a purely orthodox and ultra-conservative few. I could have “left” the Church many times if I allowed every disappointment and scandal to send me packing.
But like Peter who responded “Where shall we go, Lord?,” I also choose to stay, just like Mr. Dionne. An overwhelming number of clerics and laity hear the true message of the gospel as one of inclusion and hope and work in earnest to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth according to those tenets.
Their steadfast example, which is rooted in the Gospel, and not the shrill polemics of a few bishops, provide ample reason to stay.
As a postscript: Three items on the “America” blogsite, by the Keane and Clooney and and O’Laughlin, together say what I’ve tried to say better than I have been able to put it.
Very interesting ad beneath the opening post to this thread for a Dean of the Divinity School at Vanderbilt.
(Would a Catholic be permitted by her/his bishop to take the job? Some of the attributes expected by the search committee seem a little iffy by today’s standards.)
Why stay? Yesterday’s Gospel of John 15 tells us that Christ ‘remains’ in us and we ‘remain’ in Him.
I think the word ‘remain’ is weak word as our pastor pointed out. In Spanish he says the translated word is stronger, more active.
My blue collar Irish Bronx clan had a better word too. “stick’ When you returned from a strike, a war, a fight they asked , not if you won or lost… they asked “did you stick?”.
I stay in the Faith [not remain] because I stick. The quibblers can’t throw me out. Re-read John 15 and substitute “stick’ for ‘remain’..Also the apostles ran… the women stuck.. In a very short time the CDF cardinal will condo-izing and the LCRW will still be sticking.
I get what the FFRF folks are on about, but of course, things are more complicated. Similarly, however, I think that reasons for staying are also more complicated than Dionne outlines. I don’t think it’s very convincing to cite a few lines on the dignity of women from John XXIII, the liberating potential of the Gospel, and the presence of a few good Catholics to counterbalance the structural violence that the current, severely hierarchical structure of the Church seems incapable of adequately addressing.
First, John XXIII’s statement seems more than a little dated. I think we’re well past pointing out the now obvious fact that women deserve “the rights and duties which belong to them as human persons.” So, that anyone would offer this as proof that the Catholic Church is a champion of women’s rights, only serves to prove the opposite by radically understating the point. Second, there are, of course, other ways to live the liberating power of the Gospel, outside of the Catholic Church. Just ask Luther. Lastly, that there are decent, even saintly, individuals in the Church is not what is at issue, when the reasons for criticizing the Church have more to do with its institutional power structure. Put another way, the issue seems to be whether the Church can effectively identify and discipline the corrupt elements within, rather than whether it provides motive and opportunity for its better angels.
So, none of these reasons are sufficient to answering the challenges of FFRF-type objections. On the other hand, I also find it difficult to leave. This, I think, has to do with the fact that my bonds to the Church and its people are more like being part of a dysfunctional family, which does not allow for these kinds of clear reasons for staying or leaving. Of course, some families and family members can be so dysfunctional that you must keep your distance for a while, but one always hopes and prays for reconciliation. So, I stay, but as with most things, God only knows why.
I believe the Freedom From Religion Foundation, to whose ad Dionne is responding, encourages people to leave all religious bodies, not just the Catholic Church. Their view is that all the reforms throughout history have not resulted in a purer church and any hope that the future might bring a new improved religion is groundless.
The views of FFRF members may be closer to the views of the Catholic Church than is at first apparent. That is, both reject Protestantism as qualitatively superior to Catholicism.
“I think the word ‘remain’ is weak word as our pastor pointed out. In Spanish he says the translated word is stronger, more active.”
Ed – thanks for calling this out. It struck me as a little weak, too. FWIW, for the passage from yesterday’s Gospel (John 15:9-17), the Revised Standard Version uses “abide” in vs 9, 10 and 16, where our RNAB uses “remain”. The New RSV uses “abide” (vs 9 and 10) and “last” (v16). The New International Version uses “remain” (vs 9 and 10) and “last” (v16). The King James uses “continue” (v9), “abide” (v10) and “remain” (v16). The Douay-Rheims uses “abide” (vs 9 and 10) and “remain” (v16).
FWIW, the Vulgate seems to use “manete” (v9), “manebitis” (v10) and “maneat” (v16). I suppose these words are the root for the English “remain”, although I’m not certain to what extent that’s a guiding principle for the RNAB NT translation.
I have no opinion on whether any of these are better or worse from a technical, what-does-the-source-passage mean perspective. My literary judgment, such as it is, is that “abide” would be a fine choice.
Irene Baldwin offers the best reason for remaining a Catholic or becoming one. Once you accept that the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Jesus Christ, leaving is never really an option. (And I think that the evidence supporting that belief is overwhelming).
You are correct Patrick; the FFRF advocates doing away with or ignoring All religions, not just Catholicism.
They tarket Catholics most likely because while they (FFRF and all similar groups) revel in bashing Christians (and Jews for that matter), none of them have nerve enough to send such disrespectiful nonsense out to any decent Muslim.
That’s well said, Eric. Quite honest.
After it’s all said and done, I also stay, but maybe out of an unspoken fear that I would eventually confront a similar dysfunctional family somewhere else. Even the apostles themselves quibbled and argued who should be at the head of table.
Perhaps all that can be said with any conviction about who “puts up with whom” is that God tolerates us and all our schisms. But for that grace….
It is very bad manners to tell people with whom you are not associated what to do. To me the ad reflects and reinforces the arrogance of American culture and reeks of propaganda. They are not part of the community and they are out of line
Nobody, including Dionne, needs to explain their choices to anyone except God.
I agree with Eric; the reasons that Dionne gives are not sufficient. Lately I have begun to think about membership in the church in terms of material cooperation; membership in the church in fact involves me in a certain amount of sin, as so many people (women and those who love them, people of non-normative sexuality and those who love them, victims of sexual and theological and bureaucratic violence — and those who love *them*) are being prevented from flourishing by the church’s structures. When I support the church either financially or by my public presence as a Catholic, I *do* participate in that oppression, whether I want to or not. (Note: I’m aware that this is a pretty daring theological statement to make — I’m pointing out only what I’ve been thinking about personally, and I’m not even done working that out yet; I’m not sure I’m wording it in a way that I would really stand behind.)
But I also agree with Eric that there is a way in which it is almost impossible to envision what it would look like to leave. I’m involved in all sorts of structures that are not exactly promoting the full flourishing of all human beings — at work, as a citizen, and so on — and one of the things about structural sin is that it’s impossible to escape, human beings being what they are. And I *am* a Catholic, by birth and by free choice as an adult, but more importantly by formation. I don’t even know what it would look like not to be Catholic.
These testimonies are difficult, and I appreciate those who have had the courage to share them publicly.
For those who are struggling, I’d ask you to consider this, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart:
If you are a good person, with gifts to share, and you share them, then you are making a difference. It may not be a revamp-the-entire-structure-of-the-church kind of difference. But mostly, Christianity doesn’t operate on that level, and most of us aren’t put in a place to do something that grand. But if your presence, and the sharing of your gifts, makes a difference to three or two or even one other person in the church, then you are contributing something good, holy and vital to the life of the church.
“They target Catholics most likely because while they (FFRF and all similar groups) revel in bashing Christians (and Jews for that matter), none of them have nerve enough to send such disrespectiful nonsense out to any decent Muslim.”
Ken will never let truth get in the way fo a good argument.
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=atheist+muslim+billboards
Second link down. And drop the fatwa envy, it’s not becoming.
Fr. Z got greatly worked up over E. J. Dionne’s post. Red comments all over the place.
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/05/the-most-recent-rubbish-from-the-wapos-e-j-dionne-fr-z-responds/
Fr. Z’s post has disappeared.
Now reposted:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/05/the-most-recent-rubbish-from-the-wapos-e-j-dionne-fr-z-responds/
EJ has got to learn that it isn’t he who would quit the church; they have already “quit” a very large number of people. If you don’t play ball the way they want, they just kick you off of the team.
A nice old bromide has always been: “Home is the place, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” (Robert Frost)
Too bad one can’t say the same about this Catholic Church that gives lie to the “universal” part of its title.
“IMO the future will hold less and less ”nourishing” parishes as more JPII priests come along.
What then?????” Well, how about schizophrenia for those who still expect what isn’t going to happen?
There are certain denominations that rely on ex-Romans to keep their numbers up and growing and the ranks of their clergy full.
“ — “judge a religion by the moral failures of those who claim membership to it.” —- “The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.” John Locke, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Book I, Chapter II, paragraph 3
EJ has got to learn that it isn’t he who would quit the church; they have already “quit” a very large number of people. If you don’t play ball the way they want, they just kick you off of the team.
It’s like being a natural-born U.S. citizen – if you’ve been baptized in the Catholic Church, the church can’t kick you out. You can renounce your U. S. citizenship but, since 2009, you can’t “formally defect” from the Catholic Church.
Here’s Ed Peters explaining why Fr. Guarnizo wasn’t entitled to withold the Eucharist from Ms. Johnson even if he knew she now considered herself a Buddhist:
John Hayes: there is a major difference between formal excommunication and practical disenfranchisement. The former is totally irrelevant in this day and age. The latter is the part that hurts people the most and causes them/us to take a walk.
Irene and Thorin –
I agree with you all. I believe that the RCC was given to us by Christ, so where else would I go? Yes, therezare sister flocks, but this one seems to be the original
I have never “believed in” the popes or the bishops. And I never expected them or other Catholics to be better people than anyone else — and I’Ve known two horrid power-grabbing nuns. Neither do I think that the laity are superior to the clergy and religious. I’ve known some horrid powerful laymen too. I do think the current structure of the hierarchy lends itself to manipulAtion and so it attracts some awful men, though not all the bishops are awful no doubt. But their culture needs drastic, fundamentAl change.
The Church is where I find the Lord. So the neighborhood ain’t so hot. I ain’t no lily either:-)
People who retire from companies never visit for the leaders but rather for the people. So the People of God is the core within and outside the RCC.
One problem is “leaving the church.”
A bigger one is : young people entering the church.
Had a conversation with two smart 8yr old girls a few days ago. They had just
had their first Holy Communion.
In the course of talking it emerged that Catholic priests cannot have families (in the literal sense,
which for them is the actual sense).
Immediate reaction: that’s not fair!
Then I recalled that the priest who baptized them back in 2005 had actually had children. How was that possible they wondered. It was possible, I told them, because his wife had died.
You can imagine the impression. One other child suggested that catholic priests, in order to
have families, must do away with their wives.
I also recalled that eastern rite priests can have wives. (Whatever eastern rite is)
It makes no sense. We have not even gotten to the question why girls cannot become priests in the RC church. There is no way to communicate that to a young girl. Not in 2012 in the USA.
Sometimes I wonder if some of the Catholic-infighting isn’t a middle class luxury. I’ve been lucky to live and work in poor communities at different times and, while they certainly have their own problems, you never heard about people being refused Communion for this or that reason, or people starting letter-writing campaigns to complain about Catholic Charities and so on.
While a great may problems with our Church are real and serious, a few of them sound like people just trying to find something to fight about.
I think I stay because of the Eucharist. In some ways it is the center of my life, not because I do much that is related to it, but because, underneath the daily routine, it is what gives direction to my life. It is where we are closest to Christ as we receive communion, and it is where we can look at the people around us and reflect on the community that is the Church outside time and space (for example, some of the saints of the past). When the congregation is prayerful, it brings out the sense of being Church. When it isn’t, I trust that the presiding priest, at least, must be engaged most of the time, and surely also a few other people, so I am not alone in prayer. It is the privileged place and time for the transcendent.
Probably, those who have a richer private prayer are less dependent on the Mass, but for me, without it I would be like a whale that stops periodically going to the surface for a breath of air: without it I do not know how to live a life that has meaning. So, of course I am not leaving. If the air around me is polluted, should I stop breathing? Of course not.
Compared to that, what difference does it make when this or that prelate behaves like a lunatic? It’s upsetting in our lives, of course, and it is distressing that they provide a counter-witness that is a turn off for my children. But in the larger scheme of things, it is almost irrelevant. Those problems play out in a different dimension: they do not alter the relationship between God and us and one another through the Eucharist.
I saw the link Joe – it is as wrong (foul) as the invitation from FFRF.
Lovely post Claire, thanks.
I like Irene’s reply and would also like to add that I believe very strongly in the Body of Christ, and as part of the Body I need to make the effort to know others and be known in turn. For many years while I was in a workaholic bottom, my church involvement was strictly Sunday Mass + (most) holy days of obligation. As part of a recovery from workaholism and a process of coming out in a much broader way, I realized I’d been letting my gay-ness keep me anonymous in the church, and my feelings about conservative people (Catholics particularly) were getting progressively fearful and angry as a result. So, I joined the church choir and made it my mission to be myself and neither defensively hide anything OR “push” anything, to just be, let be and be open to what presented itself. It was the best decision I have made, as I have found both tremendous support from the staff of the parish who now know me, my fellow choir members and their families. Many of these people I’ve met would probably disagree with my views on various things, but to a person they were all very welcoming to me and have been wondrously supportive these last few years as I’ve simultaneously dealt with the loss of both my parents and my partner’s ongoing struggles with cancer. It has definitely softened my heart, eased my anger and made it easier to stay attached to the church.
Again, how nourished and accepted people feel is an important element in the discussion.
And not just gays, but women also!
Those are major fault lines in the church today at the macro and often micro level.
(I don’t see the “new evagelization” or apologetic doing much tpo help people with this.)
I have to say that I don’t get all this talk and ruminations about “Quitting the Catholic Church???”
Why should anyone quit? What kind of defeatist attitude is that just at the time when the aging hierarchy is really beginning to loose its grip on reality? As long as being a “Catholic” expresses that ineffable spiritual connection between mysticism and [peace and justice] for any woman or man, why would you have to leave?
Never have the hierarchy been so vulnerable, so exposed. Has anyone noticed that this bunch of old men is now about the business of attacking and labeling American religious women as “heretics?” If the hierarchs could get away with bringing back witch burnings, they do it. The hierarchs are in their death throes.
For Catholics to abandon the church now would only ensure that the most reactionary elements of the church (a.k.a., the all-male feudal oligarchy, and their obedient sheep) have an even more entrenched political hegemony over the rest of us.
Besides, the hierarchs left, abandoned, and/or betrayed the rest of us long, long ago. For decades now, they have been sitting in the Vatican planning to ignite a schism so they can retreat behind Vatican walls, free from progressive, rational and intellectual thinking, for a century or two until the world is safe again from anyone who remembers how corrupt they are [or is it, were?].
If anything, the hierarchs have “excommunicated” themselves from the rest of us. Such is the price for their irrelevance and alienation from the lived experience of most Catholics.
All Catholics have to do is just wait the hierarchs out. They’re not going anywhere. They can’t reproduce themselves biologically without the support and cooperation of Catholics.
If Catholics don’t like the way the priesthood and the present feudal governance is being practiced, don’t encourage or approve your sons’ participation until the priesthood is reformed from parish to pope.
Simply, the hierarchs are about to get a very hard lesson in evolutionary extinction.
Catholics have to be in this game for the long haul. And consequently, Catholics need to take the long view: In the meantime, find ingenious ways on the LOCAL LEVEL to separate the MONEY from the MINISTRY. Eventually the hierarchy’s investment portfolios will deplete over time, and then, in that moment of epiphany the Holy Spirit may have a chance.
If the hierarchs didn’t have unlimited and unaccountable access to literally $billions salted away in investments, most of their outrageous behavior would dissipate because there would be no money to fund and underwrite their crazy ideology. [For example, the bishops current foray into presidential politics.]
Catholics have to RESIST, not leave: LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE!
Like primitive Christians in the first and second centuries, 21st century Catholics must struggle toward a new enlightenment, a new Peoples’ Church.
To paraphrase the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 3:6): I planted the seed, [John 23rd] watered it, but God makes it grow.
It may take years, decades, even centuries. But we will get there.
Ann said on 5/14 @ 8:35: “Yes, there are sister flocks, but this one seems to be the original.”
I suspect that the Orthodox churches will disagree quite strongly with that statement. Until 1054 when the formal split took place between the Eastern Churches and the Latin Rite Church, there was no Roman Catholic Church per se. In fact, Constantine moved the primary location of the church from Rome to then-Byzantium, soon to be consecrated Constantinople in 330. Having restored the unity of the Empire and sponsored the consolidation of the Christian Church, he was well aware that Rome was an indefensible capital. When the political seat was moved, so also was moved a major focus of the church. Constantine’s foundation gave prestige to the Bishop of Constantinople, who eventually came to be known as the Ecumenical Patriarch, vying for honor with the pope, which ultimately contributed to the Great Schism that divided Latin (Western) Christianity from Eastern Orthodoxy from 1054 on.
I recommend – yet again – Philip Jenkins’ opus “The Lost History of Christianity” in which he details the history of what are now known as the Oriental churches which split with the rest of the church over differences in Christological terminology. This split took place after the Councils of Nicaea (321), Ephesus (431) and ultimately Chalcedon(451). There were also Nestorian (beginning in the 5th century) and Jacobite churches in flourishing existence throughout much of the Middle East, Africa and Asia long before the Latin churches were, at best, tenuously established in Europe.
The Roman Catholic Church is better described as the largest survivor of the original churches as opposed to being the original. To quote Jenkin’s work (page 25): “The uprooting (of the Asian Churches between 1200 & 1500 by Islam) created the Christianity that we commonly think of today as the true historical norm, but which, in reality was the product of the elimination of alternative realities. Christianity did indeed become ‘European’, but about a millennium later than most people think.”
Is this survival of what is now called Roman Catholicism proof that it is “Christ’s church?” I think it more an accident of history as opposed to any Divine Imprimatur.
Claire –
Fine post. Thanks.
Jimmy Mac–
I can’t helP but think that Christ intended that his Church have a leader such as a pope. Human nature seems to require it even though theoretically committees have certain advantages. And the Eastern Churches from their beginning (begging tge questiion there :-) have identified too much with political entities, which I doubt was Jesus’ intention.
While I am definitely not supporting a group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation, it is often salutary to examine the criticisms of one’s opponents. I find the tension between unambiguous support for equality between women and men and membership in today’s Roman Catholic church far stronger than Dionne apparently does. Is there not some measure of truth in the ad’s question: Do you choose women and their rights or the bishops and their wrongs?
On a further point: I am by no means sure that it is accurate to describe John XXIII as a clear supporter of women’s rights. That is a historical question I have not researched. I know, because I have read the key documents, that John Paul II — who once described himself as a feminist — was a feminst in a specific sense. He put women on a pedestal linked to their central vocation to motherhood and their unique maternal capacity for nurture and compassion. In my opinion, it is convenient for men when [some] women are on a pedestal, because it is not necessary consistently to deal with them as (mere?) equals in all aspects of human life.
Catherine O asks an insightful question about material cooperation with evil — the evil here being the denial of women’s full human rights. Are supporters of women’s rights who make parish contributions, presuming that a mandatory share goes to the diocese, guilty of immediate material cooperation with evil in a way that parallels the bishops’ moral concern about remote material cooperation with contraception through paying health care premiums?
Ann said: “And the Eastern Churches from their beginning (begging tge questiion there :-) have identified too much with political entities, which I doubt was Jesus’ intention.”
I think that even a cursory glance at the history of the RCC will reveal an identification with political entities that is equal to if not even more pervasive than the “Eastern Churches.”
Think almost any European country over the past 200 years and, of course, Latin America.
As far as Jesus intending something like a pope, I hesitate to speculate on Jesus’ intentions about anything. All we have to go by is what he is reported to have said, not why or why he did or didn’t say something.
I’m going to add to a Bestiary I’m gathering from Augustine Claire’s wonderful comparison of her needing the Mass as much as the whale needs to surface in order to breathe.
I am flattered!
Jimmy Mac —
I could easily be wrong, but as I see the official RCc it consolidated its power at different tmes with different countries or kings or whatever, while the Greek Church has remained Greek, the Russian one Russian, etc.
As to what Jesus said or didn’t say or mean or not mean, for nigh on 2K years the Bible has been the primary source for His intentions. It is where Christiianity has mainly begun. To recognize that its writers were sometimes wrong still leaves us at the mercy of the text, so to speak. If we can’t somehow find His intentions there, where can we find them better?
And the Roman church remains Roman, no matter what claims they have to universality. It’s universal so long as thevarious arms are subject to Roman shaking and slapping.
The difference between it and the Eastern churches? Size.
” — where can we find them better?” That is the purpose of the journey of faith, the end of which will be the understanding that we are seeking.
Jim Jenkins — your 1:38 post makes it perfectly clear that you don’t care about faith or truth, but about power and money.
Sru, before you attack anyone for not caring about the truth, remember people in glass houses….