Advice for the archbishop
Over at the Huffington Post’s religion page, Jim O’Grady has some ideas on how Archbishop Dolan might contribute to the Islamic cultural center debate. O’Grady writes that the archbishop is “uniquely qualified to…promote understanding and help tamp down an incendiary issue by telling the story of Irish Catholics in America.” He recommends in particular the example of the nineteenth-century archbishop of New York John Hughes, who fought back against the claim that Catholicism was an enemy of democracy by proclaiming, “I am an American by choice, not by chance…. I know the value of that civil and religious liberty which our happy government secures for all.” O’Grady:
Since I’m scripting Archbishop Dolan’s press conference, I would also have him look into the cameras and say solemnly: “I’m confident that those principles espoused by Bishop Hughes are today held by an overwhelming majority of Muslim Americans. And that is why, when this cultural center and house of worship is built, I will travel downtown to pay my respects to my fellow Americans, Imam Faisel Rauf and Daisy Kahn.”
Of course, it could be dangerous to start quoting Hughes under the circumstances. He wasn’t exactly the “sensitive” type. On the question of Catholics’ threat to the American project, he announced in 1850 that Roman Catholicism
will convert all Pagan nations, and all Protestant nations, even England with her proud Parliament…. Everybody should know that we have our mission to convert the world — including the inhabitants of the United States — the people of the cities, and the people of the country, the officers of the navy and the Marines, commander of the Army, the legislatures, the Senate, the Cabinet, the president and all.
O’Grady also brings a new analogy into this discussion in recalling Cardinal John O’Connor’s reaction to the outcry against Salman Rushdie.
Meanwhile, another situation ripe for analogy has presented itself in Northern Ireland. The BBC reports that, according to a new police-department probe, in 1972 “the police, the Catholic Church and the state conspired to cover up a priest’s suspected role” in an IRA bombing that killed nine people. On one level, it’s the same dynamic we’ve seen revealed in the sex-abuse scandal applied to a different crime. But it’s also the real-life illustration we didn’t know we were looking for on the question of how much responsibility ordinary believers ought to take for the worst atrocities committed in the name of their religion. After all, the Catholic church wouldn’t tolerate, let alone harbor, terrorists. Certainly not terrorists implicated in the death of eight-year-old girls. Would it?
Wait, I thought the big problem with bishops was how arrogant they were in speaking about matters that were outside of their strict competence.
Apparently, what is to be done with a piece of property in lower Manhattan falls under their strict competence.
Or is it just a matter of whose oxe is being gored?
or perhaps the bishop could respond, “I know the value of that civil and religious liberty which our (happy) government secures for all” and I am confident that all those who worship The God of Love (with the capital G) and not the god of coercion, denounce and condemn terrorism and terrorist groups like hamas because those who worship The God of Love believe one cannot be seeking Peace while refusing to condemn terrorism, simultaneously.
I agree with O’Grady. If I could add to the script – Archbishop Dolan could also lift a couple of pertinent quotes from VII’s Declaration on Religious Freedom.
Gosh, Nancy, there’s a lot of condemnation of people in your loving screed. I’ll be happy to leave that to God, Thank You.
That last point illustrates what I think is a middle ground — are all of us Catholics reponsible for the sexual abuse crisis? No. But can we behave as if it never happened? No, we can’t do that either. Can people’s wariness of priests and Catholics these days be dismissed as bigotry? I suppose, but I don’t suspect that will win us many fans.
Ms. Danielson, a problem for us American Catholics in taking the stance you suggest is the numerous times we Catholics have not lived up to that stance.
There are the obvious examples from European history—the Crusades and the Inquisition most prominent among them.
There are also more recent examples—among them the open support for NORAID and the IRA throughout Irish Catholic neighborhoods on the East Coast in the 1970s and 80s. In fact, it took a generation for leaders like John Hume to (a great personal risk) create a political and economic climate that allowed for the end of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
There’s a similar story to be told about the ending of apartheid and the peaceful transfer of power in South Africa.
“But it’s also the real-life illustration we didn’t know we were looking for on the question of how much responsibility ordinary believers ought to take for the worst atrocities committed in the name of their religion. After all, the Catholic church wouldn’t tolerate, let alone harbor, terrorists. Certainly not terrorists implicated in the death of eight-year-old girls. Would it?”
Did a priest participate in the bombing? It appears that he was never convicted or charged with the crime, but that he was a suspect.
Did a bishop collude in moving him out of the reach of law enforcement? It appears that he did.
Is that an unjust outcome? It seems so, although I don’t have enough information to say that with certainty. I don’t know what the outcome would have been for a Catholic priest brought before a judge in Northern Ireland and charged with a heinous crime in 1972. It’s difficult to think of an outcome, though, that would be worse than the terrorist bombing. But I’d defer to folks who are more knowledgeable about the situation in that time and place.
Does the church condone terrorist bombings? Of course not. We know what the church thinks about these things because of its tradition and structure of magisterial teaching.
Do members of the church, even high-ranking members, fall short of what the church asks its members? Yes. People sin, and the consequences of those sins can be far-reaching.
There’s a lolt of attention being paid (here) to the Archbishop and as head of theChurch in New York, I guess his voice matters in not only Catholic circles but beyond.
I don’t think it will settle, though, the ‘sensitivities” question in New York.
But what needs (desperate) attention is the ugly paintbrushing of a major religion by political leaders and pundits for whatever advantage ideologically they can gain.
As the NPR report today noted and as many feel, it is counterproductive to how the American Muslim community sees our country and puts us at greter risk.
But division by manipulating prejudice sems much the order of the day (e.g the “birthers”) and a strong and united voice across the Jdaeo christian American world is what I think is really needed.
Before the manipulation by Fox, Rush, Newt eyt alosque (or ini mosque in a huge building at 51 Park) was hardly an issue.
Would it be reasonable if after the incident in the last paragraph of the post, British authorities treated the statements of Catholic officials with more suspicion? And if so, would a proper Catholic response be to complain about the “collective guilt” and “bigotry” of holding the entire religion accountable for the actions of a few? Or, would it be proper for the Church to take a hard look at itself and work to ensure this never happens again?
We all know how we feel about Church officials accusing members of the press of “anti-Catholicism” when they report on the sexual abuse scandals. Get our own house in order, right? If we didn’t do anything wrong, they wouldn’t have anything to report, right?
I suppose we can say both/and, and this is does not represent a reason for opposing the building of the mosque. But it does seem to me that there are a lot of folks who seem more interested in calling people bigots than in truly addressing their concerns. We don’t like it when our Church does it.
“Does the church condone terrorist bombings? Of course not. We know what the church thinks about these things because of its tradition and structure of magisterial teaching.”
I wonder if “modern magisterial teaching” might not be more accurate. Although technically not a terrorist “bombing,” the massacre of French Huguenots in 1572 (St. Bartholemew’s Day) was certainly condoned, not only by the church in France, but in Rome as well. And if you want a real terrorist bomb (does gunpowder count?), I wonder when, if ever, the church condemned the plot, worked out by Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators, to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.
But then perhaps I missed a broadcast of Fawkes News which would explain it all.
Hi, Nicholas, those are interesting questions (and timely, as today is St. Bartholomew’s day!), but if we’ve learned anything from the Park51 contretemps, it is that religious groups needn’t apologize for the misdeeds of their co-religionists. I for one am relieved that the Catholic Church can now exit the apology business and still look at itself in the shaving mirror each morning.
When I was a wee Catholic boy in England, our PP thought that we boys should not be celebrating Guy Fawkes day, because Fawkes was a Catholic, Never mind that he was undoubtedly carrying out a terrorist plot.
As far as the New York mosque is concerned, I am amazed that so few people have made the connection between the way Catholics were treated in NYNY in the 1840s and the way Muslims are being treated now. What we have now is a resurgence of Nativism, everywhere it seems except Manhattan, where the residents seem quite happy to have the Mosque. It is the rest of the NY Boroughs where public opinion is against.
Dolan should be taking a lead in this.
I was involved in quite a long conversation Sunday on the USCCB Facebook page about this on Sunday. I repeat two of my comments from that discussion:
“The most relevant paragraph to the mosque controversy seems to be this one, from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine:
“422. Freedom of conscience and religion “concerns man both individually and socially”.[861] The right to religious freed…om must be recognized in the juridical order and sanctioned as a civil right; [862] nonetheless, it is not of itself an unlimited right. The just limits of the exercise of religious freedom must be determined in each social situation with political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority through legal norms consistent with the objective moral order. Such norms are required by “the need for the effective safeguarding of the rights of all citizens and for the peaceful settlement of conflicts of rights, also by the need for an adequate care of genuine public peace, which comes about when men live together in good order and in true justice, and finally by the need for a proper guardianship of public morality”.[863]”
“I’d like to apologize to HE Dolan, since apparently he has spoken publicly on the issue and seems to have publicly disagreed with the mayor? (see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/nyregion/19dolan.html?_r=2&ref=nyregion) I must admit, though, that I’m heartily surprised that an Irish-American Catholic, whose own ancestors were subjected to this same kind of harassment as were my own Italian-American and German-American Catholic forbears, would tiptoe around the issue in this way.”
Building the Muslim equivalent of a YMCA several blocks away and completely out of sight of the WTC is only a problem for those who have adopted a racist Islamophobia that confuses a Kuwaiti Sufi with criminal Saudis of completely different sect. I guess ‘they all look alike’? Hmnnn…where have I heard that before?
AND, by the way, WHY HAVEN’T ANY OF THE BISHOPS TAKEN OUR NEW CONVERT, NEWT GINGRICH, ASIDE TO SCHOOL HIM ABOUT THE DUTIES OF CATHOLIC POLITICIANS IN PUBLIC LIFE? Had he been a Democrat, the papers would have been full of blogs about why he should be denied communion for spreading such lies about an Abrahamic faith!
AND, by the way, WHY HAVEN’T ANY OF THE BISHOPS TAKEN OUR NEW CONVERT, NEWT GINGRICH, ASIDE TO SCHOOL HIM ABOUT THE DUTIES OF CATHOLIC POLITICIANS IN PUBLIC LIFE?
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Perhaps they are gravely concerned that such an action would be interpreted as endorsing a political party.
Or, they are exercising humility on an issue (the use of land in lower Manhattan) that does not fall within their competence as bishops.
Or do those not apply when the ox being gored has an “R” next to his name?
Less cheekily, the standard for public episcopal correction of Catholic politicians seems to be when they make a public statement misrepresenting Catholic teaching. The prominent examples I recall were Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Biden going on Meet the Press, and saying that the pro-choice position was consistent with Catholic teaching.
Which is why the Commonweal editorial expressing concerns about this by drawing a a parallel to nuclear war was off base. No Catholic politician had maded a statement that nuclear war was consistent with public teaching.
As far as I know, Gingrich has not made a public effort to reconcile his views on the Cordoba Project with his Catholic faith.
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[quote] I guess ‘they all look alike’? Hmnnn…where have I heard that before? [/quote]
Not from the mainstream opposition to the mosque. Isn’t some of it bad enough? Is it necessary to make stuff up?
“As far as I know, Gingrich has not made a public effort to reconcile his views on the Cordoba Project with his Catholic faith.”
Silly boy. The Newt is just exercising his “prudential judgement” that our theocon neocon tighty righty Catholics love to crow and crow about. If it isn’t official church doctrine, infallibly declared and blessed with associated indulgences, then it is up for grabs.
Tell Newt and the AB to watch the Stewart clip[ above.
Here’s the Irish Times story on the priest mentioned above by Jim P.:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0824/1224277443101.html
What about the”empty tomb” reported by Austin Ivereigh over at America?
No doubt, a Catholic would not tolerate nor harbor terrorists, but someone feigning to be a Catholic might.
No doubt, a Catholic would not tolerate nor harbor terrorists, but someone feigning to be a Catholic might.
Nancy,
Show a little compassion the the millions and millions of your fellow Catholics who cannot achieve your state of perfection. Some Catholics do terrible things. Some cheat, and steal, and murder. Some don’t believe everything the Church teaches. Some of them have been terrorists themselves (for example, the Irish Republican Army).
If you had been around 2000 years ago, we would have had only 11 Apostles, because an Apostle would not deny Jesus three times, but someone feigning to be an Apostle might.
According to your logic David, only someone who has achieved the state of perfection is capable of denouncing terrorism.
It’s true that the anti-Muslim sentiments expressed today, especially in Murdoch-controlled media, are very much like the anti-Catholic claims made in the New York Times and other newspapers throughout the 19th century. I’ve been reading some of these papers for a project I am working on, and it certainly jumps out. It’s also true that in both cases, Republican politicians stirred up fear for political advantage. (I’m thinking in particular of New York’s 1880 mayoral race, the first in which an Irish Catholic was elected mayor. The major issue was whether the Democrat, W.R. Grace, would follow the pope’s bidding and seek to destroy American democracy. The Times opposed Grace on grounds that New York was “an American Protestant city.”)
But I think that Archbishop Dolan and his counterpart across the river, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, and the clergy and Catholic media in both dioceses would do well to enunciate more clearly Catholic Church teachings on how to relate to Muslims. The starting point could be the 2nd Vatican Council’s `Nostra Aetate’ and some of Pope John Paul II’s writings.
Certainly not, “Glaube, Vernunft und Universität — Erinnerungen und Reflexionen”
I agree that the mosque fiasco recipe includes Nativism
and the fear of a ‘strange’ religion, ingredients of
anti-Catholicism of the past. Here are two examples: one of personal bigotry and one eerily like the Tea Party movement. In 19th century Boston my grandmother, Gertrude Lomasney, and her classmates were asked by their teacher each Monday morning, “to stand if they had gone to St. Mary’s church” on Sunday. Catholic students had a choice: deny the Faith or have your hand whacked by the teacher’s ruler. As children, we all learned about “no Catholics need apply.”
As for Nativism, here in Somerville (Boston). Where. I sit, a founder of the Know Nothing Party led a mob which terrified nuns and students and looted and burned to the ground an Ursuline Convent and girls’ school.
@Susan,
I agree those are terrible stories.
Has anyone opposed to the Park51 project advocated anything like the chilling anecdotes you pass along? Has “the Tea Party movement” lotted and burned any schools?
This is as ridiculous as someone saying that health care reform smacks of socialism, and then listing some horrible atrocities committed by socialist regimes.
The premise of the supporters of the Park51 project is that peaceful Muslims should not be held responsible for 9/11. I agree with that. But that message will have greater moral force if those in favor of it also eschew guilt by association games. And this “your position sounds like religous bigotry, and look how bad religious bigotry is” strikes me as little better than, “you’re religion is the same religion as those who committed 9/11, and look wjhat they did.”
How about Christianity’s toleration for killing children suspected of being witches?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/08/25/nigeria.child.witches/?hpt=C2