Progressives Differ

"CORPUSis a ministerial faith community, rooted in a strong Eucharistic commitment, promoting an expanded and renewed priesthood of married and single men and women in the Catholic Church.  Celebrating thirty-five years of service to the people of God, CORPUS is one of the oldest reform groups in the Catholic Church, and is active in reform movements both in the U.S. and abroad." [http://www.corpus.org/index.cfm]

David Gawlik is the editor of both CORPUS REPORTS, its bi-monthly journal, and MIRABILE DICTU, its thrice-weekly email newsletter. The following material appeared there this week.

+++++

We Get Letters
Wednesday, February 04, 2009

FROM: George . . .
RE: Quod Scripsi Scripsi

I have been mulling over this communication to MD editor David Gawlik for quite some time.  For openers, I don't want these words to discourage him in any way for continuing to publish – three times a week – one of the most interesting blogs (if we can call it that) on the Internet.  I find the diversity of views stimulating and the spiritual tone of much of what is disseminated as inspirational.
 
What I would like to see David do is stop publishing any more stories about the church hierarchy and concentrate on the Body of Christ.  Focus not on what silly things the Vatican and the bishops are doing but rather on the spiritual acts of folks who could not care less who the next archbishop of New York will be.  I read Mirabile Dictu not to keep up with religion or the church itself, but rather to find God in the universe and in the day-to-day actions of Her people.
 
For example, I think there are others like me who find it both hilarious and a bit sad that Womenpriests, who defied church authority to ordain themselves, now want the Vatican to lift what they think is an automatic excommunication.  Or that the ARCC, one of many useless "reform" organizations that the hierarchy regularly ignores, is trying to organize a Catholic "congress" to presumably start the American church down the road toward democracy.  There are lots of other examples, from nutty bishops denying the Holocaust to Rome flopping from one PR disaster to the next.
 
Three years ago I wrote a series of articles for CORPUS REPORTS.  The first, and probably most controversial, was "Ordination Itself May Be The Real Problem" in which I argued that clericalism is responsible for most of today's church problems and that ordination itself is the root cause of clericalism because the men being ordained are trained to believe that they alone are the link to God.
 
In that article, I also wrote that "the Catholic church is dysfunctional beyond repair" and – having gone back to re-read what was published 36 months ago -- nothing that has happened since has changed my mind.  The guys in charge who think only they know what God wants are continuing to do things their way, and the rest of us should keep quiet.
 
Yes, most of David Gawlik's MD readers probably have long ties to the Catholic tradition, just as I do.  But the time has come, my friends, to realize that (a) religion itself can be a barrier to peace and justice and (b) the Catholic church specifically can be a very effective barrier to people trying to find God in their lives.

+++++

Friday, February 06, 2009

FROM: Paul Kelly
RE: RESPONSE to letter of George -- Quod scripsi, scripsi

Nodding assent came easily while reading George . . . "Quod scripsi, scripsi," for we were in tune.  Whistling "Tip toe through the tulips", it sounds like we have both tippytoed away from Roman Catholicism and the "silly things the Vatican and the bishops are doing," while keeping God's hand in our own on the path which might or might not be "Catholic" but is absolutely, definitely not "Roman."

Garry Wills, eminent scholar, historian, Pulitzer Prize winner for a book on Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, former Jesuit, Catholic writer -- Papal Sins, What Jesus Meant -- announced a few weeks ago that he would no longer write on Roman Catholic Church matters and was turning to other pursuits. He said, "I am 'Poped' out."  

I wanted to follow Garry, my idol, but not as a mere imitator. So my statement had nothing to do with being pooped out or just plain, old-fashioned worn out from the shenanigans of trying to be Catholic in America since 2002.  

I wrote, "No more 'churchy' stuff." The pursuits are grandchildren, college football and poetry.  My spiritual life is mine, not Rome's, and is shared with friends who support, do not condemn. At times, when I think poetic, it's like a Mystical Body of all the people like me all over the world, now and in the past and yet to come. We call ourselves The People of God.

This response is not "churchy" stuff; it's "Mirabile" stuff. Nor is it a cantankerous rebuttal of George. I don't tell him what to do, as George doesn't tell NCR how to edit, request the Commonweal to alter its tone, urge First Things to copy ARCC's press releases. As far as I can see, Mirabile Dictu is unique: it is thrice weekly, covers an awful lot of stuff, is fair and reasonable, and offers us a chance to live the way we talk and think. Its editor is indefatigable. I do not know of another editor or outlet that can match Mirabile Dictu in its breadth and depth and obvious caring for its readers.

Like George, I became sick and nauseous and topsy turvy in both head and soul about The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, those curial Cardinals in top hat and tails of scarlet hue, hop scotching around Rome to the tunes plucked out by the elegant fop and dandy current Pope, Benedict XVI, playing lead guitar like a Gregorian chant plucker.

He used to be the mad dog of the CDF, snarling and spitting at everyone who tried to pet him with "Nice doggy, wanna bone?" He chewed on the theologians he disliked, most everyone, and banned and barred them from their life's work of study, writing and teaching, without a hearing or a trial, just his barked command.

He does the same thing now as Pope, except it is more elegant in language as a laying down or lifting off excommunications -- fancy top dollar word for "banning and barring."  

George is wrong: Rome is not "silly." It is hilarious.  In the third century BCE, two thousand three hundred years ago, Plautus and Terrence were the leaders in Roman Comedy. The Oscar winners for the Roman Comedy of our times are Benny 16 and Bobbsy Twin Hierarchs, gushy, gushy, hand-holding like brainwashed teenagers around a bandstand.

Oh! Sure! That's right! No respect, no reverence for the Pope and Cardinals and Archbishops and Bishops of our Church. Correct. I have little. I like to laugh at clowns and respect them as professionals. But amateur clowns? No way.

It is very hard to respect sex abusers of children, for they deserve pity as well as punishment. Harder, too, to respect those who helped them sexually abuse more and more and more all over the diocese, hiding them from stunned angry parents and police. Hardest still to respect begowned and bejewelled princes clinging so to their institution that they dare not be held accountable, despite the great millstones awaiting them down by the shore.

And hardest of all, where respect no longer exists, to suffer under the absolute corruption of the abuse of absolute power. Denounce. Degrade. Demand. Denigrate. Discipline. Divide. The hallmarks of hierarchs, almost every single one of them a celibate male in lockstep on a ladder of ambition, convinced that they and they alone are the Good Old Boys, the Church.

I said in 2002 and say it again: The issue is not sexual abuse of children by some priests, nor is it the cover-up by bishops. It is the abuse of power by The Vatican and its hierarchs. Lord Acton said during Vatican I, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Proof? Ecclesial history over the second thousand years and current actions in the third by The Vatican.

But, but, but, it is so easy to laugh and ridicule the men in gowns and Rome's way of proceeding. All that does is relieve a bit of the pressure in the bile. Doesn't change Rome. Doesn't destroy our Church, either. For that is the important thing. Not Rome. Not our disgust with "silly" little clowns, nor our tippy toeing along on our own way. But the Church. the Church itself. The one begun by the Apostles after Jesus left.  

George thinks it is something other than the contents of Mirabile Dictu's daily reminders of who and what we are, a fairly well-balanced editing of the news, good as well as bad, traditional as well as progressive, what helps us and what hurts us in current events. Mirabile Dictu is no lollypop sweetener of the "news." It tells us what is, not what we would like it to be.

As hard as it is to say this, face it:

1.    We are the Church.
2.   We are the Universal, Catholic Church.
3.   We are what used to be called "Roman."
4.   We are what we were and what we hope to be.
5.   We cannot go forward by abandoning our past.
6.   We cannot go forward by ignoring our present.

Our past is our tradition. Jaroslav Pelikan said: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."

I prefer tradition as the living faith of the dead. Rome prefers tradition as the dead faith of the living. That's where Pope Benedict XVI and I differ. Enormously. Just look at our clothing. His wardrobe differs from mine. Enormously. In light jacket and jeans, I drive a RAV-4. Enwrapped in blazing red silk, with sparkling white ermine, he stands in a bullet-proof-glassed Popemobile. He kneels on a magnificent carved antique to pray. I sit on a black cushion, legs crossed, hands together. We both believe in God.

George, though, and I feel the same, but with this little difference. I want Mirabile Dictu as is. He wants it as he thinks it should be. George thinks he himself is the sole subscriber. I think David Gawlik is the sole editor.

George wants no references at all to "traditionalism as the dead faith of the living," as exemplified by the Roman Catholic Church under the curial hierarchy of The Vatican, but thinks he can carry forward the "tradition as the living faith of the dead" his way. That means, though -- doesn't it? -- that he has to walk on with the Pope by excluding others. In his way of thinking, that means dump Rome, its silliness and its comedy, along with the tragedy of its shock and awe-filled abuse of power.

I wish to continue as a Catholic, hope to stay under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and be awake and aware of the antics of those who would burn me at the stake, or its modern equivalent. I don't feel like dying needlessly and am very much aware of the power of Rome.  They may be stupid. But they are strong. I'd like to know what they are up to, where they are coming from, what they intend to do. An aficionado of college football, I think there is both an offense and a defense on a team. And two teams play on a level field. Just one part of one team doesn't put on a show on Saturday afternoons, running through drills all by itself, even with the band playing. That might be ballet. It's not football.

George wants censorship, a carry-over of Ratzingerism as developed in the CDF, direct descendant of The Holy Inquisition which used burning non-believers alive at the stake, rather than a wimpy excommunication. "Notification" it is politely called. "Shut up! And Sit Down!" is what it means.

I want freedom. Of scholarship. Of thought and speaking and writing like a human being, using the faculties God gave us. Of contributing to the Sensus Fidelium itself, a poor joke in the minds of the clerks in the CDF and their former cubicle master Ratzinger. I don't want to be a censor of others, because God made them and gave them their hearts for their religions and ways of saying thanks or asking for help. I want to be a Catholic and use Zen practices in my daily rounds. I trust God will give me the common sense -- and the faith, hope and love -- to see perfidy through the incense and hymns and blazing color of the medieval pageantry of days gone by, long gone by.

It is February 4, 2009 today. The third millennium since the Incarnation.

The first one, according to a new book by two women theologians, fostered a culture and an art of paradise here now. Their searches of ancient ruins, churches, museums, libraries, uncovered no paintings or sculptures about pain and suffering and martyrdom's dyings, including the crucifixion itself. There were, of course, biblical images, set in the paradise and beauty of this world  Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, 2008.

The art of the second millennium is dominated by images of the passion and death of Jesus, particularly in gory, frightening crucifixes showing a dead Lord. The culmination is, of course, Mel Gibson's movie, "Passion of Christ." And that millennium was one of dogma, decrees and discipline. Paradise was for later, after death, up above somewhere with angels and sweetness. Modernism, anything to do with what had been paradise in the first thousand years, was heresy, to be punished with death at the stake, interdict, excommunication.

We are in a third millennium now. Which will it be? Rome's way for the last thousand years. The pilgrim church's way for the first thousand years? Or our way for this thousand years: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in our country; environment and its greening; global warming and our planet; other cultures and religions; globalization and peace, rather than isolation and war. Love of, for, and from God as we all grow up out of our traditions, in our present maturing as the People of God, and into a future on this earth, in this world, together with all the others around us, no matter who or what they are. Jesus Christ is risen and has been since the first half of the first century. He is not dead. He is alive.

All the above, of course, is not a denial of George's opinions, for they are just my own. And yet and yet, it seems to me that George's fundamental criticism is with neither Mirabile Dictu, nor its editor, but with Religion and its editor, God.