Jesuit School Theologian Proposes "Civil Same-Sex Marriage: A Catholic Affirmation"

Lisa Fullam, Th.D. (Harvard Divinity School), has been Associate Professor of Moral Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley since August 2003.

Last April she wrote an academic treatise entitled "Civil Same-Sex Marriage:  A Catholic Affirmation."  It was published approvingly in Bondings 2.0, the blog of New Ways Ministry, whose mission is "Building Bridges Between the LGBT Community and the Catholic Church."

Professor Fullam's analysis is significant because it argues -- in my view, successfully -- that the Catholic moral tradition on civil law should prompt Catholics and church leaders to affirm civil same-sex marriage, even though what is normative for marriage within the Catholic church may not change.

Given that "there has been considerable development in authoritative sexual teaching over the centuries," Professor Fullam at one point questions if "sexual teaching as we have it now has reached perfection."  And she is particularly adept at documenting how official teaching on the ends of marriage changed dramatically from what the bishops gathered at Vatican II said in Gaudium et Spes (1965) to what Pope John Paul II said in a series of weekly lectures from 1979 to 1984.  Her analysis shows that John Paul II's position was a step backward in the development of church teaching on human sexuality and on marriage.  Yet it has dominated all official teaching since.

But her primary interest is to show that the Catholic church has never insisted that civil law incorporate every position of official Catholic moral theology -- and that forcing civil law to reflect official Catholic teaching on same-sex marriage does real violence to human beings and to the common good which civil law exists to promote.

When I first read this strategy, I had reservations.  My personal preference is to attack deficient theology head on and try to show how it can be corrected.  But the genius of Fullam's approach is that it uses very traditional Catholic positions on civil law to show why it is counter-productive -- and destructive -- to insist on enshrining the official Catholic teaching on same-sex marriage there.  Outlawing same-sex marriage within Catholicism has one set of consequences.  But trying to outlaw it in civil society as a whole escalates those consequences in a manner that imperils individuals and the common good.

It would not surprise me if Professor Fullam was influenced to adopt this strategy by her contacts with Rev. Charles E. Curran, with whom she co-edited the two most recent books in the Paulist Press "Readings in Moral Theology" series (volume #s 16 and 17).  It is, at any rate, the practical kind of tactic Curran would pursue when he saw an opening:  we may not be able to change what is being taught within the church, but when those teachings have negative impacts on human welfare and human society, we are responsible for reversing those impacts.

Fullam begins with the traditional Catholic concept of the natural law, "best understood as the use of human reason in line with first principles, aimed at the common good... To see how the natural law guides us in a given situation is to think deeply about how the question before us is best resolved for the flourishing of ourselves and our societies."

Civil law, she says, is a narrower category.  It cannot contradict the natural law, but "civil law does not prohibit all vices or prescribe all acts of virtue.  The end of civil law is to uphold the common good, either directly or indirectly.  She quotes Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae:

"[H]uman laws do not forbid all vices...but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained:  thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like."

Pausing her analysis of civil law, Fullam then addresses why same-sex marriage is disallowed in official Catholic teaching.  She traces the current specific prohibition first to the Theology of the Body articulated by Pope John Paul II in the early 1980s and and second to its application to same-sex marriage 19 years later by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Fullam argues that the prohibition would not have been so absolute had official teaching stuck with the ends of marriage as described in 1965 by the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes.  That document "eliminated the long-held idea that procreation was seen as the primary end of marriage while the union of the partners was deemed secondary or instrumental to that primary end."  Significantly, the council refused to make either end of marriage primary.

It is important to note that the bishops had prior official teaching on which to base their stance.  In his encyclical Casti Cannubii in 1930, Pope Pius XI had written:  "This mutual molding of [spouses,] this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof."

Had Casti Cannubii and Gaudium et Spes not been amended by later official pronouncements, clearly there was an opening to argue that the unitive end of marriage could be open even to partners of the same sex.

But Pope John Paul II took a gigantic step backward and essentially obliterated the unitive end of marriage.

In his Theology of the Body lectures (1979-1984), the pope subsumed the unitive end of marriage into the procreative end, by insisting (as Fullam summarizes his thought) that "a sexual partner MUST be reproductively complementary, or we misunderstand the meaning of sexuality itself.  Because of this, there can be no truly human union except in heterosexual pairs."  Thus for John Paul II, it is decreed biologically and ontologically that only heterosexuals are capable of participating in the unitive end of marriage (so re-defined).

In 2003, as demands for same-sex marriage became more widespread in Europe and the Americas, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith weighed in with "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons."

As Fullam summarizes it:  "This document follows John Paul's schema, conflating the two criteria of reproductive capacity and complementarity into reproductive capacity, asserting that 'genuine' complementarity is impossible for same-sex couples."

Then  -- and this is what gives Fullam the opening to pursue her strategy -- the CDF applied this teaching to civil law.  The argument:  (1) reproduction is essential to marriage, same-sex unions cannot contribute to procreation "in a proper way;" (2) same-sex pairs lack the intrinsic masculine and feminine traits that characterize a real marriage; (3) same-sex couples cannot produce or rear children as nature intends, in a union with masculine and feminine traits; (4) homosexual unions merit no institutional recognition because they cannot exercise reproductive capacity for the common good.

But is it productive, or even valid, to impose John Paul's schema on civil law?

Fullam counters with a discussion of same-sex marriage "in light of the common good... Even a cursory glance at the history of marriage reveals that the institution has a broad range of social purposes and effects."  Among them she notes "the orderly inheritance of property, the establishment of stable and legally-recognized partnerships for raising children, the merging of clans, the forging of dynasties, and St. Paul's acknowledgement that 'it is better to marry than to burn' with sexual desire."

Other purposes of marriage include public health, financial stability, a secure environment for dependent children, a partnership of life and love, and a societal marker of adult intimacy, responsibility and commitment.

She also distinguishes whether reproductive capacity is a good or a necessary good.  For example, even the church does not require that "all marriages be potentially reproductive.  For example, post-menopausal women may marry in the Church."

Moreover, "Civil marriage is available to the fertile, the infertile, the post-fertile, the sexually uninterested and the impotent alike."

And so Fullam asks, "Why would Catholics deny to same-sex couples the goods of marriage we recognize in infertile marriages within our own flock?"  Or again, "Why would we deny to same-sex couples the advantage we implicitly affirm by tolerating heterosexual civil marriages that would not pass magisterial muster inside the Church?"

Consideration must also be given to the value of adoptive parents who have not been able to produce children of their own:  "Those who raise children not biologically their own are reaching beyond a reproductive imperative to a spiritually-resonant act of profound devotion.  They make a great contribution to the common good.  To base the social value of marriage on the potential for biological procreation would be to ignore the generosity of adoptive parents and to render their families somehow unnatural or second-class."

Preventing same-sex couples from adopting children demeans the single-sex religious communities who have run orphanages throughout church history, as well as the children of people who are widowed or abandoned by their spouses.

Denying legal civil status to same-sex marriages makes the children raised by them "vulnerable to potential instability," putting the kids "at unnecessary risk."

Such outcomes suggest that "the idea that ontological complementarity is revealed only in heterogenital relationships seems to argue from gender stereotypes."  In the words of theologians Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, "the magisterium's account...entails an incomplete, if not distorted, vision of gender and neglects an adequate consideration of the experiential and relational dimensions of human sexuality."

Attempting to graft this understanding onto civil law also seems to violate an important principle upheld by Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Populorum Progressio:  "government is to see to it that equality of citizens before the law, which is itself an element of the common good, is never violated, whether openly or covertly, for religious reasons."

Fullam argues:  "John Paul's Theology of the Body is a fundamentally religious doctrine, and so to impose its reading of human nature on others in society would seem to violate Paul VI's insistence on equal treatment of all before the law."

She adds that Populorum Progressio speaks of marriage as an inalienable right, that, when violated, violates human dignity:  "...denying marriage to people who cannot form deep affective, personal and sexual ties with people of the opposite sex would seem, according to Pope Paul VI, to violate their human dignity.

Doing this, she says, "denies their equal human dignity in life and love, making them outcast from the social institution that defines maturity and celebrates intimacy.  It makes them second-class citizens, a situation that should be intolerable to any person of good will."

On the contrary, same-sex couples actually want to reaffirm the importance of marriage, in a world where nearly half of all heterosexual marriages fail.  Faced with this widespread trivialization of marriage, the church needs all the allies it can find who treasure the institution.

And finally there is the matter of reducing violence directed against gay people simply because of who they are.  "Advocating for the civil recognition of same-sex marriages, even if the Church rejects such couples at its own altars, reaffirms the Church's demand that all people in our society be treated with equal respect... But as it is, the denial of same-sex civil marriage gives the appearance of unreasonable bias, which is too often translated into personal abuse and toleration of systematic harassment, which the Church rejects."

Fullam's analysis gives church leaders a way out of the morass they create when they try to impose John Paul II's Theology of the Body on civil law.  Would that the Synod of Bishops would realize that affirming same-sex civil marriage gives society a path forward on this vexing controversy -- a path that would free up civil law to serve the common good.

Yes, following this path could ultimately undermine the official teaching on human sexuality -- by enabling same-sex couples to show in practice that John Paul II's Theology of the Body only works within limits, and that his specific conclusions exceeded them.  But if John Paul was right, church leaders have nothing to fear.

If, on the other hand, John Paul II was wrong, shouldn't his magisterial successors get on with the business of correcting him?

You Must Remember This: A Kiss Is Just a Kiss, Unless It's the Kiss of Peace

National Catholic Reporter Senior Analyst Rev. Thomas Reese, S.J., comments on the recent decision by the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW) to leave the contentious Kiss of Peace where it is in the Eucharistic Liturgy.

If the CDW would read Reese's piece, they would learn that their refusal to follow the request of the 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist -- to move the Kiss of Peace to the end of the Liturgy of the Word -- further corrupts what the kiss meant in the most ancient of Christian liturgical texts that liturgical scholars have found.

Not only are Reese's comments educational; they are also very entertaining.  And for my purposes, the history of the Kiss of Peace is another great example of how the creativity of church teaching sometimes moves forward only after church leaders turn into cul-de-sacs.  More on that in a moment.

Reece's wry comments include:

"Only in the Catholic church is a kiss never just a kiss."

And, the CDW's letter "shows why liturgical scholars have been praying for a new prefect of the congregation."

And, "Kissing at the conclusion of prayers appears to have been a common Christian custom."

And finally, "The Catholic community, no matter what the Vatican may want, has made the kiss of peace in its current place a joyous symbol, and no amount of catechesis will change that."

What is less entertaining -- and more ironic, really -- is that on one of those rare occasions when the Synod of Bishops actually got something right, the Vatican's response is to ignore them, and the very decent theology that Reece finds their request at least implied (whether or not they fully appreciated it).

Reece documents that in the most ancient text known to liturgical scholars, the first Apology of Saint Justin in the mid-second century, "the kiss occurred immediately after the prayers that concluded the liturgy of the Word.  Today this would mean placing the kiss of peace after the prayer of the faithful."

It is mistaken, Reece says, to see the Kiss of Peace as "a preparation for the Eucharistic sacrifice..."  Rather, he says, "The kiss at the end of the Liturgy of the Word symbolizes the community acceptance of the message they have just heard.  They are 'shaking on a deal.'  They are agreeing to a covenant."

Of course, the message the community has just heard in one way or another always involves reconciliation with one another and communion with each other.  So as the conclusion of the Liturgy of the Word, that process is a sine qua non for the communion with the Risen Lord brought about in the actions of the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Reece says "Liturgical historians believe that the kiss moved to its current location when the Lord's Prayer was moved from the end of the prayer of the faithful to its current location prior to Communion."  An unintended consequence of moving the kiss with the Lord's Prayer was that the meaning of the kiss became confused.  And it has remained open to confusion for centuries since.

The history of the Kiss of Peace is another excellent instance of how the creativity of church teaching -- the subject of my doctoral dissertation -- works over time.  New developments in theology are not often straight-forward, upward progressions in the quest for accuracy and truth.  Sometimes progress is erratic and messy.  Sometimes the church must take a wrong turn, discover after a time (sometimes a very long time) that it has lost its way, then go back to earlier practice to learn where the wrong turn was made and what better alternative was possible.

In this case, liturgical scholarship has identified the wrong turn and, at least in 2005, convinced the Synod of Bishops to call for a correction.  (Of course, the bishops may have been more concerned with the community's serenity leading up to Communion than with the actual history of the Kiss of Peace.  But their request in fact would restore a better appreciation for the kiss than current practice allows.)  Because their request is theologically sound and makes good sense, it will likely be adopted before much longer -- perhaps even in some of our lifetimes.

Meanwhile, we can be disappointed that Pope Francis, Reece's fellow Jesuit and generally on top of things that are authentic and make good sense, signed off on this CDW pronouncement.  And we can join the prayers for a new prefect for the CDW -- one who pays attention to good liturgical scholarship and local liturgical instincts, and uses them to improve global liturgical practice.  And we can try to educate Catholics about what the Kiss of Peace is supposed to signify and how it will make more sense when it is eventually restored to its original place in the liturgy.

Mary "Monster Monstrance" Posting from 2008 Gets Its Eighth Comment in Six Years

This blog has been silent for the last three months, waiting to see if Pope Francis will actually deliver on his promising start as Bishop of Rome.  His revival of a liberation-theology approach to Catholic evangelization remains strong.  But for me the ultimate test is whether the upcoming Synod on the Family will actually produce much needed changes to official teaching on human sexuality, same-sex marriage, birth control, divorce and remarriage, and the church's stance on the civil treatment of these issues.  Or will the synod focus solely on the tactic that the teachings are sound but mercy should be shown to those who are incapable of living them?

The global invitation for people to comment on the issues raised the hope that the lived experience of real human beings might finally be taken seriously -- and respectfully.  However, the bland discussion document generated by Vatican officials to summarize that vast input was disappointing:  rather than considering that any of those teachings could be improved or updated, the officials dug in their heels and suggested that the problem was not deficient doctrines but inadequate communication of teachings that were not only sound but unsurpassable.  Once the bishops assemble for the synod, they may dismiss the document as the poppycock it is and actually debate the real issues -- as the bishops did at the Second Vatican Council when they were offered other reactionary drivel as discussion starting points.  But until the synod starts, it's impossible to know if that will happen, unless Francis plays some other card(s) in the intervening months.

Meanwhile, since life goes on in the months before the synod, my concrete discussion of specific church teachings probably needs to resume.  Among the first postings will be one on an academic paper by a theologian at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley (one of my almae matres) about the church's position on civil same-sex marriage.  The paper offers a way that the church could accept civil same-sex marriage without changing how it treats marriage internally.

But the immediate occasion for today's posting is a new development on a previous one from June 12, 2008, Mary Quite Contrary:  Monster Monstrance Promotes Mariolatry and Wafer Madness.  That posting commented on the public unveiling, with huge fanfare, of a 700-pound, nine-foot monstrance in the shape of the Virgin Mary at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Chicago.  More or less in the area of the statue's uterus was a 12-inch consecrated host.  The point of my comments was two-fold:  the monster monstrance was bad theology of Mary and bad theology of the eucharist.

The new development is that the 2008 posting has just received its eighth comment in six years.  When I made the comments, I did not expect them to garner more feedback than any other posting since I started the blog (in 2006).  The feedback has been positive and negative and often quite heartfelt.

In response to some of the more negative feedback, I have said more than once that I would do a more elaborate blog posting on the subject of eucharistic adoration.  But as I have re-read my original analysis and my responses to many of the comments, I don't think there is really too much to add.

The eucharistic theology I was taught in graduate school correctly emphasized that the Real Presence of the Risen Lord during the liturgy came about through actions (blessing, breaking, sharing, eating, drinking), and not through the kind of metaphysical change envisioned by theories such as transubstantiation.  I believe that Real Presence based on liturgical actions remains a sound theology, and that any theory that implies change to the bread and wine at an elemental (or even physical) level is a dead end.  Some who have read the original posting get that, and some deny that.  But saying more on the subject will probably convince no more readers than have been convinced already.

The theology of Mary and of the eucharist are not unimportant matters, and I am glad that my posting has caused readers to comment more and at greater length than on anything else that I have written.  However, I have done postings on many other church teachings that I think are more important than those embodied in the monster monstrance.  So I remain amazed that the monstrance post struck so many nerves, when issues that get my adrenaline pumping more have aroused nary a peep.

As W.H. Auden lamented on the eve of World War II, "All I have is a voice..."  I can wish that others will listen to it.  But whether they actually do, or provide feedback that tells me they are listening, ultimately is not for me to say.

Why John Paul II Does Not Deserve Symbiotic Sainthood with John XXIII

Religious and public media are abuzz with tomorrow's planned joint canonization of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II in Rome -- a first in the history of the Catholic Church and also the first time the current pope will celebrate the ritual with his retired immediate predecessor among the concelebrants.

There is also much discussion of which pope is the real saint being recognized and which one is enjoying a sort of symbiotic sainthood.

The most popular coverage would have it that world-stage extrovert John Paul II, the first of the two to be fast-tracked heaven-ward, is the big fisherman in this tale, with Pope John XXIII as a jolly afterthought -- even though it was John XXIII who convoked the revolutionary Second Vatican Council, pushed it toward aggiornamento with the modern world, and (among other things) made a non-Italian pope a real possibility for the first time in centuries.

Count me part of a less visible but more vocal crowd who finds this thinking entirely backwards.  Not only is John XXIII the real saint, with Vatican II the only miracle anyone should need for proof.  More than that, John Paul II does not deserve to be called a saint at all -- and it is demeaning to the memory and accomplishments of John XXIII to attach John Paul II symbiotically to the real sanctity of Good Pope John.

The primary reason this symbiosis is so irrational and unjustified is that John Paul II dedicated his entire papacy to trying to undo what John XXIII and Vatican II accomplished.  Until the election of Pope Francis, I feared that John Paul II had largely succeeded.  Francis, fortunately, put the breaks on many of John Paul's reactionary moves, including neo-clericalism, neo-ritualism, and above all, the Vatican opposition to liberation theology.

It's nice of Francis to placate the John Paulistas with canonization, and to provide cover for John Paul's apostasy toward Vatican II by letting him bask in the long-deserved glorification of John XXIII.  But let's be clear:  it's John XXIII, whose style and substance Francis reflects so genuinely, who deserves to be called a saint -- not the pope who tried to scuttle John XXIII's reforms.

In the case of John Paul II, what should have been the straw that broke sainthood's back was his failure to stop the priestly pedophilia crisis, which he knew about as far back as 1984.  If trying to destroy Vatican II was not enough, surely punishing sex abuse victims and their families with disinformation campaigns and legal stonewalling should have been more than sufficient to derail his train to glory.

In this regard, Father Thomas Doyle has a commentary just posted by the National Catholic Reporter, in which he gives his own first-hand account of what John Paul II knew about the crisis and when he knew it.  Doyle, a canon lawyer who has represented priest abuse victims for thirty years, knows what he's talking about:  he was on the staff of the papal nuncio at that time and was the staffer who prepared briefings, incident reports and in-person orientations for the highest ranking Vatican officials.  John Paul II had direct knowledge of the scope of the problem and did nothing about it for years -- except to make the scope and the duration of the problem worse.

Of John Paul II's canonization, Doyle has this to say:

"The past 30 years have led me to the opinion that his sainthood is a profound insult to the countless victims of sexual assault by Catholic clergy the world over. It is an insult to the decent, well-intentioned men and women who were persecuted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during his reign, and it is an insult to the memory of Pope John XXIII, who has the misfortune being a canonization classmate."
 
Father Doyle takes on "some of the bizarre statements John Paul's two main cheerleaders have been making..." -- referring to long-time John Paul American apologist George Weigel, who has slithered his way into the title of NBC News Senior Vatican Analyst, and to Joaquín Navarro-Valls, John Paul's press officer.

Anyone who values Vatican II and Pope John XXIII who called it should read in grim detail the evidence that Father Doyle hurls against the record of John Paul II and Doyle's forceful skewering of the cheerleaders' attempts to distract us from that evidence.

Doyle shows undeniably that making John Paul II an official saint is a colossal mistake.  Perhaps official Catholicism won't rectify it any time soon.  But history has already convicted John Paul II, and there is nothing in history to redeem the evil that he did.

Sr. Joan Chittister Lambasts "Religious Freedom" Pretext for Shunning Gays

Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister writes a regular column for The National Catholic Reporter called "From Where I Stand."  In the latest column, New 'religious' group just as deadly as the ones that preceded it, she likens those who would deny services to gay people on the grounds of a bogus "religious freedom" to those who previously excluded -- and killed -- blacks, Jews and women.

She notes that the effort recently defeated in Arizona has also been proposed in several other states.

The column follows in full.

Here's the problem with religion. You never know which religion you're going to meet: the "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" kind or the "Get thee behind me, Satan" kind.

You have to be very careful not to confuse one with the other. Your very life could depend on it.

The golden-rule types take people into the center of the community; the get-out-of-my-sight kind keep people out of it. One kind of religion embraces those who are different from themselves; the other excludes those who are different, the ones who are not like them: blacks if they're white; Jews if they're Christian; women if they're men.

Some people have lived restricted lives and even died at the hands of those who sought to restrict them -- some for trying to eat at white lunch counters or sitting down on buses; some for having ancestors in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago; some for serving soup that was cold or not ironing the shirts right.

The important thing to remember is that it doesn't really matter how the transgressions were defined. What matters is that the arguments in defense of doing it were always the same: God didn't want mixed races, or God wanted women to obey men, or God wanted Jews punished because the Romans crucified Jesus. Go figure.

And we forswore them all and thought we had learned something.

Until, lo and behold, we now discover that we have a new group developing, just as deadly, just as "religious" as the ones that preceded it. This new group made its first great public move in Arizona last month, just after the country in a great sweeping gesture of goodwill voted against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Most disconcerting, perhaps, is the fact that this group's power grab was as bold and shocking as the exclusionists before them. It was done as if we never learned anything from all our previous attempts to exclude multiple other groups before this -- Native Americans, women, the Irish, Eastern Europeans, anyone who fell outside the pale in the past.

This time, they wanted to discriminate against people in the name of "religious freedom" -- read lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. They wanted public businesses that had been formed under the auspices of state law for the sake of public commerce to have the legal right to refuse to serve patrons who seek the services promised to the public under those same laws.

It was a matter of "religious freedom," they said. A business owner could refuse service to those whose lives offended his/her religious beliefs. It was a personal matter, they argued, a matter of private conscience.

But the argument is not all that simple.

The state that gives businesses tax breaks and public security protections and requires quality control of goods and services for the sake of the public good has the right to require that those services be available to the public. Or forget the tax breaks and the public police and fire protection and the legal recourse to protection of that business under the law.

After more than a century of segregation, people across the country stood up to refuse another century of shunnings in the name of God.

We have all watched our gay children committing suicide to avoid the bullying and social discrimination that dogged their lives. This time, Arizona said, "Enough of that."

We all see young gay women and men doomed to lives of rejection and ridicule for choices not their own, and people everywhere are beginning to say no to that.

We all remember Matthew Shepard's beaten and bloodied body hanging cruciform on a farm fence in the name of the one whose own crucifixion was due to his defiance of exclusion. And courageous people are now saying "Never again" to that.

So now, the exclusionists whose "religion" defies the very principles of the God who created the others as well as themselves are working again to sequester and silence those who are other than themselves. And all for simply wanting to share the services the rest of us take for granted in the public square.

So if they get the right to do those things, what will the future look like for the rest of us?

Well, if this new kind of exclusion becomes standard, beware of your own social fragility. If your Mormon grocer finds out that you drink, you may never be allowed in the store again. Or your Jewish restaurant owner finds out you eat pork. Or your Muslim gas station owner does not approve of women drivers. Or your Catholic pharmacist figures out that you take birth control pills. (Don't worry, Viagra will apparently be allowed.)

Just a thought.

"Oh, nonsense," do I hear you saying? "Those things couldn't possibly happen."

I hope you're right. I just want to remind you that people have been killed because they were Jewish, or black, or women -- or gay. So why not again? Why not here? Why not, if it's all legal?

From where I stand, I would caution against complacency about this issue. After all, there are already other states with movements to write "moral" discrimination into law under the guise of "religious freedom," among them, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah.

After all, the next time, you may be what someone considers "morally offensive to their deeply held religious convictions." Just as were Jews, Catholics and blacks to the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. Or gypsies to the Nazis. Or now, homosexuals in Uganda. All of them by very religious people, they tell us. The other kind.

With Francis, "The Message of Those in the Margin Has Been Heard in the Halls of Power"

Jeff Dietrich, who has been a member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker for over forty years, has published in the National Catholic Reporter a commentary hailing Pope Francis that I find just excellent.

Dietrich praises Francis for speaking with the authority of the Roman Catholic Church itself what the Catholic Worker people have been living and proclaiming from the margins for decades.

Below is the entirety of Dietrich's piece, including the following picture that NCR posted with it.

Pope Francis leads a meeting with the poor in the archbishop's residence Oct. 4 in Assisi, Italy. The meeting was in the famous "stripping room," where St. Francis stripped off his rich clothes, gave them to his father and began a life of poverty dedicated to Christ. (CNS/Paul Haring)

I have never expected to be affirmed for the work that I do. So it was shocking and a little disorienting to receive affirmation for my often-less-than-appreciated efforts from the very last place I would expect: the highest authority of the Roman Catholic church.

I have been working at the Catholic Worker soup kitchen on Los Angeles' Skid Row for over 40 years. I have published articles and books that have criticized prelates and politicians. I have occupied the cardinal's bell tower and his bulldozer to protest the exorbitant expense of a new cathedral. I have blockaded the mayor's bathroom, calling for porta-potties for the homeless. I have laid my body under city dump trucks to protect the personal property of the homeless from confiscation by city officials. I have gone to jail twice with the Occupy folks, protesting the excesses of Wall Street. I have always taken the part of marginal people, suffered the ire of the powerful, and felt the sting of being on the margins myself.

So I was thrilled to read Pope Francis' manifesto sharply criticizing the excesses of capitalism, calling for "a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets." This is not the church I have known since my days at St. Mary's Grammar School. It sounded a bit like what I have been doing for the last 40 years. I felt like the spy who came in from the cold, the voice in the wilderness suddenly propelled from the margins to the center of the very church I have spent my entire adult life criticizing.

Now for the first time in my life, I could hear a voice within the institutional church that echoed my own. Pope Francis' two fundamental issues are the same as mine: "the inclusion of the poor in society and ... peace and social dialogue." His is a strident voice calling for priests to leave the confines of their cozy rectories and secure sanctuaries and head out to care for and defend the victims of unmerciful financial markets. It is a voice that is not afraid to attack the only true "religion" of our era: capitalism. He tells us that "everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless."

While I do not agree with every papal utterance, especially those regarding women and sexuality, this may be a revolution in rhetoric only with no official policies to make structural changes within ossified church structures. For instance, I don't expect the pope to sell off the treasures of the Vatican and give it to the poor anytime soon or to fire all of the conservative prelates appointed by his predecessor. But in the meantime, I don't care.

This is a pope who cooks his own food and refuses to fly first class, live in a papal palace, ride in a limousine or wear the royal trappings of his office. This is a pope who is the solitary world figure with institutional authority that has the temerity to speak out against the idolatry and misanthropic nature of the world capitalist system. This is the only world figure to speak out boldly against the systematic starvation of the poor.

This is a pope who occupies the bulliest of all bully pulpits in the world and has radically moved the discussion of Catholic theology from what happens below the waistline to what happens in the streets. And if nothing else happens, he has removed theological justification from every parish priest or bishop who wants to build an extravagant, unnecessary church or purchase sumptuous satin vestments. He has prevented Catholic legislators like John Boehner and Paul Ryan from wrapping Ayn Rand capitalism in the mantle of Catholic social teachings. He has ripped the mask of rectitude from the leaders of the developed world who can no longer preach trickle-down capitalism as if it were the gospel of salvation.

But most of all, he has given hope to the poor as well as to the lone voices in the wilderness, "bruised, hurting and dirty" from their thankless work for justice on the streets. They can now speak not only with the authority of Jesus and the Gospels, but with the authority of the Roman Catholic church itself. Finally, the message of those in the margin has been heard in the halls of power. As one of my favorite poets once said: "The times, they are a-changin'."

If Pope Francis Puts People First, They Will Reform Deficient Doctrines

In an important new article in the National Catholic Reporter, Hans Kung -- the theological nemesis of every pope since Vatican II -- suggests that (1) the current head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has not bought into the pastoral outreach which Pope Francis has emphasized pretty much daily since his election, and (2) that, on the pope's specific outreach to divorced and remarried Catholics, the CDF has already taken steps that aim to prevent it.

Because Joseph Ratzinger headed the CDF under John Paul II and then incorporated CDF's conservative positions into his own papacy as Benedict XVI, Kung used to find himself criticizing the CDF and the pope simultaneously.  But with the election of Francis, a pope he clearly treasures and finds much more agreeable, Kung now gets to champion the pope against the CDF.

Beyond divorce and remarriage, Kung lists several issues on which Pope Francis and the CDF now seem to be pulling in opposite directions.

The significance of this cannot be exaggerated:  although this pope's instinct is to tackle pastoral outreach and pay as little attention as possible to "settled" church teachings, the CDF is not inclined to let him do that.

But in that stance, the CDF may actually be doing Francis and lay people a huge favor:  because the insistence of Vatican II, especially in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, is that the signs of the times and above all the lived experience of ordinary people must be allowed to reveal deficiencies in church doctrines and ways those deficiencies can be corrected.

So if he continues the inspired course he has followed since his election on March 13, 2013, Francis sooner or later will have to face the fact that pastoral outreach -- which means taking lay people seriously -- will lead inexorably to new teachings that will put new limits on the teachings they replace.

As my doctoral dissertation argues, this process is precisely the way church teachings change over time.  If the pastoral outreach does not lead to better teachings, then lay people will not have been taken seriously and the pastoral outreach will be regarded as bogus.

Francis has given every indication that in fact he does take lay people seriously.  Let us pray that he understands where this conviction must lead, and that he will have the strength and courage to lead us there.

Theologians Call Catholic Sexual Teachings "Incomprehensible," Urge Lay Input

The National Catholic Reporter has also posted an important article noting that over fifty Catholic academics in a dozen countries have signed a statement calling "the church's teachings on marriage and sexuality 'incomprehensible' and . . . asking bishops around the world to take seriously the expertise of lay people in their preparations for a global meeting of the prelates at the Vatican next year."

The signers urge the synod bishops to listen carefully to the experience of ordinary people who find unlivable the traditional church teachings on divorce and remarriage, cohabitation before marriage, same-sex marriage and contraception -- and they also urge all Catholics to take every opportunity to voice their experience by participating in the pre-synod questionnaire.

What is gratifying to me in particular is that the academics' critique of church teachings on human sexuality is sometimes a verbatim statement of the comments I made when I completed the church reform groups' survey.

National Catholic Reporter Offers More Ways to Give Input to Family Synod

The National Catholic Reporter has run several more articles on the questionnaire issued to prepare for the 2014-2015 Synod on the Family.

Among the most helpful was Lay Groups Launch Surveys to Answer Vatican Questionnaire, posted on Nov. 16, 2013.  It announces two surveys posted online for Catholics to communicate their input.

One of them, posted by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good on Nov. 1st at http://papalsurvey.com/, is not as helpful as some, because in allows for feedback only in narrative form.

However, the other is better:  it allows for multiple choice answers to many of the questions, followed by narrative comments if desired.  Launched by a coalition of 15 church reform groups, it's open for input through Dec. 15th. at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SynodOnFamilyUS.

The church reform groups, primarily members of Catholic Organizations for Renewal, include Call to Action, Voice of the Faithful, FutureChurch, DignityUSA, the Women's Ordination Conference, and CORPUS (which originated as the Congress of Resigned Priests United States, but now dubs itself simply as "a ministerial community").

I completed the church reform groups' survey and found it very helpful in providing my input.  Being able to use the comment fields after the multiple choice questions allowed me to give the rationale for several of my answers.  I highly recommend it to anyone who would like their input heard.

There Are Ways for Catholics to Participate in the Vatican Survey on Family Synod Issues

There has been quite a buzz over the announcement November 5th that, in preparation for a 2014-2015 Synod on the Family, Pope Francis has asked for input from Catholics around the world on several controversial issues impacting family life today.

The controverted issues include divorce and remarriage, contraception, cohabitation without marriage, same-sex marriage, as well as how to provide pastoral care and inclusiveness to people who find themselves in such "irregular" situations (as the Vatican document describes them).

There is disagreement regarding the significance of the Vatican initiative (does it go beyond previous pre-synod practice, for example?) and whether the Vatican expects national bishops' conferences to get actual input from the people in the pews, or even perhaps the unchurched (the Bishops of England and Wales turned the questionnaire into a web link where anyone can give their opinions; still digging in their heels against "the Francis effect," the U.S. Bishops seem determined to avoid the laity at all costs).

But as the New York Times reported, this particular Vatican pre-synod initiative seems to go well beyond previous ones in the scope of its outreach and in unusually detailed content -- and to be unique because it seems to be in preparation for two back-to-back synod gatherings in 2014 and 2015.

Regardless of the U.S. Bishops' ultimate strategy on the questionnaire, there are ways for individual U.S. Catholics to participate in giving their personal opinions on the questions asked.

The National Catholic Reporter provides links not only to the questionnaire itself, but also to various cover letters that distributed it and contain physical addresses where written responses may be sent.

The Bishops of England and Wales are also open to survey answers on their website from Catholics in other countries (and apparently anyone who cares to join in).    But they have set a November 30th deadline for completing their survey online.

Progressive Catholics who have lobbied fifty years for more input from the baptized and more collegial decision-making in updating church teachings should not miss out on this historic opportunity:  Tell church leaders what we think and how they ought to extend pastoral outreach, care and inclusion to those who object conscientiously to church teachings grown out of touch with the deepest longings of the human heart.

From Free-Market Icon to Unperson: Alas, Milton Friedman, They Hardly Know You

This blog has repeatedly referred readers to columns by Paul Krugman, Nobel prize-winning economist in 2008 and, since 1999, op-ed columnist for the New York Times.  Sometimes this is not entirely productive, since Krugman tends to harp repeatedly on a few key themes.  Chief among them:  the failure of conservative economists to learn the lessons of the Great Depression and how mistakes by the federal government inadvertently extended it.

So it is not surprising that Krugman returns to this theme in his criticism of the economic ideas of the two politicians most highly regarded by Tea Party Republicans:  Sen. (Ayn) Rand Paul and Congressman Paul (Ayn Rand) Ryan.  (Did I mention both worship Ayn Rand?)

What is noteworthy about Krugman's latest foray, though, is that he commends the late Federal Reserve Chairman Milton Friedman, "who used to be the ultimate avatar of conservative economics," for making concessions to reality in an effort "to save free-market ideology from itself," and then shows how far Paul/Ryan have devalued Friedman -- and Friedman's humility and wisdom.

His point is that Friedman could be swayed by reality and modify his theories to deal with it, while "the modern right...rejects reality" -- which, Krugman says snidely, "has a well-known liberal bias."

Krugman's column shoots down Paul/Ryan's flight from reality so brilliantly that I could not resist sharing it in full below:

Recently Senator Rand Paul, potential presidential candidate and self-proclaimed expert on monetary issues, sat down for an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. It didn’t go too well. For example, Mr. Paul talked about America running “a trillion-dollar deficit every year”; actually, the deficit is projected to be only $642 billion in 2013, and it’s falling fast.

But the most interesting moment may have been when Mr. Paul was asked whom he would choose, ideally, to head the Federal Reserve and he suggested Milton Friedman — “he’s not an Austrian, but he would be better than what we have.” The interviewer then gently informed him that Friedman — who would have been 101 years old if he were still alive — is, in fact, dead. O.K., said Mr. Paul, “Let’s just go with dead, because then you probably really wouldn’t have much of a functioning Federal Reserve.”

Which suggests an interesting question: What ever happened to Friedman’s role as a free-market icon? The answer to that question says a lot about what has happened to modern conservatism.

For Friedman, who used to be the ultimate avatar of conservative economics, has essentially disappeared from right-wing discourse. Oh, he gets name-checked now and then — but only for his political polemics, never for his monetary theories. Instead, Rand Paul turns to the “Austrian” view of thinkers like Friedrich Hayek — a view Friedman once described as an “atrophied and rigid caricature” — while Paul Ryan, the G.O.P.’s de facto intellectual leader, gets his monetary economics from Ayn Rand, or more precisely from fictional characters in “Atlas Shrugged.”

How did that happen? Friedman, it turns out, was too nuanced and realist a figure for the modern right, which doesn’t do nuance and rejects reality, which has a well-known liberal bias.

One way to think about Friedman is that he was the man who tried to save free-market ideology from itself, by offering an answer to the obvious question: “If free markets are so great, how come we have depressions?”

Until he came along, the answer of most conservative economists was basically that depressions served a necessary function and should simply be endured. Hayek, for example, argued that “we may perhaps prevent a crisis by checking expansion in time,” but “we can do nothing to get out of it before its natural end, once it has come.” Such dismal answers drove many economists into the arms of John Maynard Keynes.

Friedman, however, gave a different answer. He was willing to give a little ground, and admit that government action was indeed necessary to prevent depressions. But the required government action, he insisted, was of a very narrow kind: all you needed was an appropriately active Federal Reserve. In particular, he argued that the Fed could have prevented the Great Depression — with no need for new government programs — if only it had acted to save failing banks and pumped enough reserves into the banking system to prevent a sharp decline in the money supply.

This was, as I said, a move toward realism (although it looks wrong in the light of recent experience). But realism has no place in today’s Republican Party: both Mr. Paul and Mr. Ryan have furiously attacked Ben Bernanke for responding to the 2008 financial crisis by doing exactly what Friedman said the Fed should have done in the 1930s — advice he repeated to the Bank of Japan in 2000. “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens,” Mr. Ryan lectured Mr. Bernanke, “than debase its currency.”

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of debasing currencies: one of Friedman’s most enduring pieces of straight economic analysis was his 1953 argument in favor of flexible exchange rates, in which he argued that countries finding themselves with excessively high wages and prices relative to their trading partners — like the nations of southern Europe today — would be better served by devaluing their currencies than by enduring years of high unemployment “until the deflation has run its sorry course.” Again, there’s no room for that kind of pragmatism in a party in which many members hanker for a return to the gold standard.

Now, I don’t want to put Friedman on a pedestal. In fact, I’d argue that the experience of the past 15 years, first in Japan and now across the Western world, shows that Keynes was right and Friedman was wrong about the ability of unaided monetary policy to fight depressions. The truth is that we need a more activist government than Friedman was willing to countenance.

The point, however, is that modern conservatism has moved so far to the right that it no longer has room for even small concessions to reality. Friedman tried to save free-market conservatism from itself — but the ideologues who now dominate the G.O.P. are beyond saving.

Jesuit at 80: "I Defrock Myself...to Serve God More Faithfully, Truly, and Universally"

The National Catholic Reporter posted an article July 15, 2013, about Bert Thelen, a Jesuit priest almost 80 years old who is resigning from the order and the priesthood after 45 years of service -- to protest the official church's "world view that structures reality into higher and lower, superior and inferior, dominant and subordinate, which puts God over Humanity, humans over the rest of the world, men over women, the ordained over the laity."

Father Thelen sees himself drawn to a new calling:  "It is time for the Church to turn her attention from saving face to saving the earth, from saving souls to saving the planet. It is time to focus on the sacred bond that exists between us and the earth. It is time to join the Cosmic Christ in the Great Work of mending, repairing, nurturing, and protecting our evolving creation."

While he says he is de-frocking himself to return to his original baptismal state, what Thelen is really doing is calling attention to the priesthood of all believers and attempting in his remaining years to embody how that priesthood might be lived.

His letter to his friends and colleagues explaining his decision follows.

May the Grace of Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Peace of the Holy Spirit be with you! I am writing to tell you about what may be the most important decision of my life since entering the Jesuits. With God's help, at the behest of my religious superiors and the patient support and wise encouragement of my CLC group and closest friends, I have decided to leave ordained Jesuit ministry and return to the lay state, the priesthood of the faithful bestowed on me by my Baptism nearly 80 years ago. I do this with confidence and humility, clarity and wonder, gratitude and hope, joy and sorrow. No bitterness, no recrimination, no guilt, no regrets.

It has been a wonderful journey, a surprising adventure, an exploration into the God Who dwells mysteriously in all of our hearts. I will always be deeply grateful to the Society of Jesus for the formation, education, companionship, and ministry it has provided, and to my family for their constant support. I can never thank God enough for the loving and loyal presence in my life of each and every one of you.
 

 Why am I doing this? How did I reach this decision? I will try to tell you now. That is the purpose of this letter. For about 15 years now, as many of you have noticed, I have had a "Lover's Quarrel" with the Catholic Church. I am a cradle Catholic and grew up as Catholic as anyone can, with Priests and even Bishops in our household, and 17 years of Catholic education at St. Monica's Grade School, Milwaukee Messmer High School, and Marquette University. I took First Vows at Oshkosh in the Society of Jesus at age 25 and was ordained at Gesu Church to the priesthood ten years later in 1968. I have served the Church as a Jesuit priest in Milwaukee, Omaha, and Pine Ridge for 45 years, including 18 years on the Province Staff culminating in my being the Wisconsin Provincial for six years and attending the 34th General Congregation in Rome.
 

My last 14 years at Creighton and St. John's have been the best years of my life. I have truly enjoyed and flourished serving as pastor of St. John's. I cannot even put into words how graced and loved and supported I have been by the parishioners, parish staff, campus ministry, Ignatian Associates, and CLC members! It is you who have freed, inspired, and encouraged me to the New Life to which I am now saying a strong and joyful "Yes." You have done this by challenging me to be my best self as a disciple of Jesus, to proclaim boldly His Gospel of Love, and to widen the horizons of my heart to embrace the One New World we are called to serve in partnership with each other and our Triune God. It is the Risen Christ Who beckons me now toward a more universal connection with the Cosmos, the infinitely large eco-system we are all part of, the abundance and vastness of what Jesus called "the Reign of God."
 

Why does this "YES" to embrace the call of our cosmic inter-connectedness mean saying "NO" to ordained ministry? My answer is simple but true. All mystical traditions, as well as modern science, teach us that we humans cannot be fully ourselves without being in communion with all that exists. Lasting justice for Earth and all her inhabitants is only possible within this sacred communion of being. We need conversion – conversion from the prevailing consciousness that views reality in terms of separateness, dualism, and even hierarchy, to a new awareness of ourselves as inter-dependent partners , sharing in one Earth-Human community. In plainer words, we need to end the world view that structures reality into higher and lower, superior and inferior, dominant and subordinate, which puts God over Humanity, humans over the rest of the world, men over women, the ordained over the laity. As Jesus commanded so succinctly, "Don't Lord it over anyone … serve one another in love." As an institution, the Church is not even close to that idea; its leadership works through domination, control, and punishment. So, following my call to serve this One World requires me to stop benefiting from the privilege, security, and prestige ordination has given me. I am doing this primarily out of the necessity and consequence of my new call, but, secondarily, as a protest against the social injustices and sinful exclusions perpetrated by a patriarchal church that refuses to consider ordination for women and marriage for same- sex couples.
 

I have become convinced that the Catholic Church will never give up its clerical privilege until and unless we priests (and bishops) willingly step down from our pedestals. Doing this would also put me in solidarity with my friend, Roy Bourgeois, my fellow Jesuit, Fr. Bill Brennan, the late Bernard Cooke, and many other men who have been "de-frocked" by the reigning hierarchy. It will also support the religious and lay women, former Catholics, and gay and lesbian couples marginalized by our church. I want to stand with and for them. I am, if you will, choosing to de-frock myself in order to serve God more faithfully, truly, and universally.
 

But why leave the Jesuits? Make no mistake about it: the Society of Jesus shares in and benefits from this patriarchal and clerical way of proceeding. We still regard ourselves as the shepherds and those to whom and with whom we minister as sheep. I discovered this painfully when the Society of Jesus decided against having Associate members. We are not prepared for co-membership or even, it seems at times, for collaboration, though we pay lip service to it.  "Father knows best" remains the hallmark of our way of proceeding. I can no longer, in conscience, do that. But I still honor and love my fellow Jesuits who work from that model of power over. It is still where we all are as a company, a Society, a community of vowed religious in the Roman Catholic church. Leaving behind that companionship is not easy for me, but it is the right thing for me to do at this time in my life. When I went through a formal discernment process with my CLC group, one member whose brilliance and integrity I have always admired and whose love and loyalty to the Jesuits is beyond question, said of my decision, "You cannot NOT do this!" He had recognized God's call in me.
 

A few other considerations may help clarify my path. The Church is in transition – actually in exile. In the Biblical tradition, the Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian captivities led to great religious reforms and the creation of renewed covenants. Think of Moses, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. I think a similar reform is happening in our Catholic faith (as well as other traditions). We have come through far-reaching, earth-shaking evolutionary changes, and a new (Universal) Church as well as a new (One) World is emerging. My decision is a baby step in that Great Emergence, a step God is asking me to take.
 

Consider this. Being a Lay Catholic has sometimes been caricatured as "Pray, pay, and obey." Of course, that is a caricature, an exaggeration, a jibe. But it does point to a real problem. Recently, the hierarchical church mandated the so-called revision of the Roman Missal without consulting the People of God. It was both a foolish and a self-serving effort to increase the authority of Ordained men, damaging and even in some ways taking away the "Pray" part of "Pray, pay, and obey." No wonder more and more Catholics are worshipping elsewhere, and some enlightened priests feel compromised in their roles. I, for one, feel that this so-called renewal , though licit, is not valid. It is not pleasing to God, and I feel compromised in trying to do it.
 

Now, consider this. All of this liturgical, ecclesial, and religious change is located in and strongly influenced by what both science and spirituality have revealed as happening to our world, our planet, our universe. The very earth we are rooted and grounded in, as well as the air we breathe and the water we drink, are being damaged and destroyed even beyond (some say) our capacity to survive. And, as Fr. John Surette, S.J., has so wisely observed, "Injustice for the human and destruction of Earth's ecosystem are not two separate injustices. They are one." Biocide is even more devastating than genocide, because it also kills future inhabitants of our precious Earth.
 

It is time. It is time to abandon our refusal to see that our very environment is central to the survival and well being of ALL earthlings. It is time for the Church to turn her attention from saving face to saving the earth, from saving souls to saving the planet. It is time to focus on the sacred bond that exists between us and the earth. It is time to join the Cosmic Christ in the Great Work of mending, repairing, nurturing, and protecting our evolving creation. It is time for a new vision of a universal Church whose all-inclusive justice and unconditional love, an expression of Christ consciousness and the work of the Holy Spirit, empowers ALL and can lead to a future that preserves the true right to life of all of God's creatures. This includes future generations who will bless us for allowing them to live, evolve, and flourish. Can't you hear them crying out, "I want to live, I want to grow, I want to be, I want to know?"
 

In light of all this, how can I not respond to the call both Isaiah and Jesus heard, the call of our Baptism? "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me and sent me to bring Good News to the oppressed." All creation will be freed, and all people will know the freedom and glory of the Children of God. Yes, Lord, I will go. Please send me.
 

And that is why I am leaving Jesuit priesthood. Since first vows I have always thought and hoped and prayed that I would live and die in this least Society of Jesus. But now, something unexpected! A real surprise! I HAVE lived and died in the Society of Jesus, but, now, nearly 80, I have been raised to new life. I am born again – into a much larger world, a much newer creation. I have greatly benefited from the spiritual freedom given in and by the Society of Jesus. I feel no longer chained, limited, bound, by the shackles of a judicial, institutional, clerical, hierarchical system. As St. Paul once reminded the early Christians, "It is for freedom that you have been set free." And as St. Peter, the first Pope, learned when he said to Jesus, "You know that I love you," love is all about surrender and servanthood.
 

Thank you for your attention to this self presentation. I am grateful that you have followed me in the journey described here, and I am sorry for whatever sadness, disappointment, or hurt this may have caused you. But what I have written here is my truth, and I can't not do it! If you want to discuss this with me, ask questions, or give me feedback, I welcome your response, either by letter, e-mail or phone. Please pray for me, as I do for all of you, the beloved of my heart and soul.
 

Yours in the Risen Christ, Bert Thelen

Pope Francis: We Have Not Done "Everything the Holy Spirit Was Asking" at Vatican II

An article posted this morning in the National Catholic Reporter by publisher Thomas C. Fox says Vatican Radio reports that in a homily today at the communal residence where he lives, Pope Francis called the Second Vatican Council "a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit."  Francis lamented that fifty years after Vatican II, some Catholics were still resisting implementing it.

This, of course, is music to the ears of progressive Catholics around the globe.

The NCR article follows:

Pope Francis on Tuesday offered his most explicit support in his young papacy to the work of the Second Vatican Council, saying it was "a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit." He made his remarks in a homily at a Mass celebrated at the Santa Marta residence inside the Vatican.

He criticized those who resist change and "wish to turn back the clock" and "to tame the Holy Spirit," asking if, 50 years after the council, "we have we done everything the Holy Spirit was asking us to do during the Council?"

The answer is "no," Francis said, according to a Vatican radio report.

"We celebrate this anniversary, we put up a monument but we don't want it to upset us. We don't want to change and what's more there are those who wish to turn the clock back." This, he went on, "is called stubbornness and wanting to tame the Holy Spirit."

Francis' homily was centered on the theme of the Holy Spirit and our resistance to it. It took its inspiration from the first reading of the day, which was the story of the martyrdom of St. Stephen who described his accusers as stubborn people who were always resisting the Holy Spirit.

He said: "The Holy Spirit upsets us because it moves us, it makes us walk, it pushes the church forward." He said it's wrong to try to tame the Spirit, adding, "the Holy Spirit is the strength of God, it's what gives us the strength to go forward, but many find this upsetting and prefer the comfort of the familiar."

Nowadays, he went on, "everybody seems happy about the presence of the Holy Spirit but it's not really the case and there is still that temptation to resist it."

He concluded his homily by urging we not resist the pull of the Holy Spirit. "Submit to the Holy Spirit," he said, "which comes from within us and makes go forward along the path of holiness."

What If God Were...Just a Stranger on the Bus, Trying to Find His Way Home?

In this 2008 photo, Argentina's Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, second from left, travels on the subway in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Bergoglio, was known for taking the subway and mingling with the poor of Buenos Aires while archbishop. (Pablo Leguizamon/Associated Press)

It has been thirty days since Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope on March 13, 2013.  And thirty days since he stunned everyone by announcing he would be called Pope Francis.

Not only the first to be so named in the history of Roman Catholicism, but also the first to say that his name was inspired by St. Francis of Assisi and the saint's lifelong commitment to the poor, the marginalized and the innate sanctity of all God's creatures.

And for thirty days, I have held my breath -- and my tongue! -- hoping ... against hope ... that the most promising new pope since John XXIII would not disappoint, would actually turn out to be the genuine breath of fresh air that the church has needed desperately, for too many decades.

After railing for years against the relentless reversal of Vatican II -- by Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI -- I think it's time for me to say that the election of Pope Francis has good chance of being an achievement that I never expected the current College of Cardinals to deliver:  it opens up opportunities for the Catholic church that I feared I would not see in my lifetime.

As I watched TV in the moments leading up to Bergoglio's election, I thought to myself, half-joking, that the seagull perched stubbornly atop the Sistine Chapel smokestack might mean that the Holy Spirit was watching over the proceedings inside.  Maybe that thought wasn't as whimsical as it seemed.

Of course, the story of Pope Francis will be whether he can capitalize on those opportunities and bring them to fruition.  But the first thirty days have been an impressive beginning -- impressive enough that I dare to hope for more.

The most moving first impression was on the balcony, right after Francis was introduced to the waiting world.  When he asked the crowd in St. Peter's square to bless him, before he would bless them, I dissolved into tears.  It was exactly the right thing for him to do -- and a telling departure from the self-important, imperial papacies of the last fifty years.

And the hits just kept on coming.  His insistence on not lording it over his fellow cardinals.  His refusal of elaborate liturgical brocade for his first papal blessing.  Paying his own bill at the place he lodged during the conclave.  Declining, so far at least, to live in the elaborate papal apartment or use the papal limo or ride in the bulletproof popemobile.  Insisting that he be able to touch actual human beings physically, even if it causes his security staff conniptions.

The simple attire for the first papal blessing was only the beginning of a liturgical modesty and warmth that contrasted sharply from the pomp of his predecessors -- and from the totalitarian worship of rubrics that they tried to impose on Catholic churches everywhere.  Might we actually be witnessing a return to the style of worship that Vatican II proclaimed as the baptismal birthright of every Christian?

This Franciscan style of liturgizing reached its most poignant expression to date on Holy Thursday, when the new pope washed the feet of two young women (leaving the rubricists aghast) and a Muslim (leaving the ecclesial traditionalists aghast).  If Pope Francis keeps this up, he may well repeal the suppression of liturgy begun by John Paul II and pursued to extreme by Benedict XVI.

As several commentators remind us, it is way too soon to know if Francis will recontextualize any of the rigid dogmatism that has characterized the Roman church in the decades since Vatican II.  As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he reportedly preached the narrow moral strictures that his predecessors declared official church positions.  So progress in any of those areas would be a pleasant surprise.

But on at least one controversial topic, Pope Francis does promise to be his own man:  in contrast to the last two popes, who condemned Latin American liberation theology, he appears to be a fan of it and of its preferential option for the poor.  If that continues through his papacy, the quest for justice and equality will at least set the church on a much better path than it's been on for a long time.  And that has the potential to at least diminish the preponderance of narrow moral strictures in what the church preaches to the world.

Given what we have learned about Bergoglio in Argentina, along with his choice of the name Francis, we have reason to hope that a commitment to the poor, the ordinary, the marginalized are at the core of who Pope Francis is.

Among the many stories and images of Jorge Bergoglio in the years before he was elected as Pope Francis, few are as enduring and endearing as his penchant for mingling with the poor, which included hanging out in slums and getting around Buenos Aires using its public transit system.

I don't know where the photo above first appeared, but it was featured in coverage of Bergolio shortly after the College of Cardinals elected him -- suggesting it was one of the things they found so attractive about him.

I notice something about the photo that apparently no one else has: What is striking about it is how much the scene was anticipated by the lyrics of "One of Us," a song released by singer Joan Osborne in 1995.  (A version is available on You Tube.)  Some of the lyrics bear an uncanny relationship to this part of Pope Francis's history:

What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

The point is not, let me hasten to say, that Pope Francis (then or now) should be considered "God...on the bus."

It is, rather, that one of the ways Bergoglio has experienced God's presence most intensely was by sharing space with the strangers on the buses and subways of Buenos Aires.  Doing that was his quiet but poignant way of personifying and proclaiming the message of Jesus, "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to me."

That clearly is a central tenet of liberation theology -- a teaching that the church needs to hear and take to heart on every continent.  If Francis succeeds in taking that spirit global, he will have moved the Catholic church in the direction of St. Francis of Assisi more than any pope before.

If Francis prevails in that, the result may not be precisely the church that Vatican II envisioned.  But it will embody a significant part of that vision.  And a church that goes there will be more open to the present and to God's lure into the future -- and less likely to worship what it was in the past.

Let's just say that this is my personal prayer for Pope Francis.  And from what I have seen and heard over the last thirty days, I'm sure I'm not alone.  That's a very rewarding feeling.  For fifty years we have wandered in a desert made by derelict, deficient popes.  It would be so refreshing to see the church back on fertile ground.

One final irony about the lyrics to "One of Us."  The last verse reads:

What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
Just trying to make his way home
Like a holy rolling stone
Back up to heaven all alone
Just trying to make his way home
Nobody calling on the phone
'cept for the pope maybe in Rome

If things go well with Pope Francis, God will not be lonely up in heaven, waiting for the pope to phone from Rome.  Because God will find new companions on every bus and every subway and in every gathering of human beings.  Because those who gather will realize that God is in them and with them and among them.  And "Thy kingdom come" will be not just a prayer, but a lived experience.