We Have a Dream

In January, while walking under the sun before the arrival of a 10 to 12 inches winter snow storm for Martin Luther King Day, everything started spinning in my head and my eyes could not focus. I thought it was another message for posting here, but my fingers were still and stiff. The spinning shifted into what must go on inside cyclotrons, and without even having a chance to blink my eyes, I was gone. It could have been a dream, but the sensation was being lifted up and out of myself. And, I was alone in that space Brian Greene talks about, the one with 10 space dimensions and one time dimension for a bunch of strings in a theory plus an M-theory making everything in reality a superstring theory which weaves the fabric of our cosmos. I guessed that I was on my way to heaven through a space/time dimension so compressed that light years were but as instants and the Hubble telescope disappeared before my brain registered I had just passed it.

Saint Peter was there to greet me, along with my provincial from Japan, Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, and good old Mom pushing her way to the front, dragging good old Dad right along with her. Some things are indeed eternal. Obviously aware that somebody pulled some strings, theoretical or otherwise, to get me into a place where I surely did not fit too well, I looked kind of stupidly at St. Peter, who, knowing I yapped a lot, quietly raised his hand to hold me off, "You're right, you shouldn't be here for a while, so, look on this as a stop along the way."

Wondering what might be the rest of the way, I heard Fr. Arrupe's voice, "Say hello, Paul, to your folks, then come along with me. God wants to meet with you and he's thinking of declassifying the Magisterium so you can take a quick look at it. After all it's only one page long."

I was not surprised, having quickly gotten accustomed in my rather fast trip from earth to heaven to the unified simple theory which brought Einstein and quantum physics together without leaving Newton out of the picture. Nor was I surprised to watch Mom take command, even though she was the youngest resident of the group welcoming me, not after Dad's quiet reminder that there is no space/time dimension in the Eternal Now. No string theories either.

After promising my folks I'd try to get back for a long session of swapping tales, I went off with my hero, obeying his , "Call me Pedro." After some warm-ups about the Jesuits in Japan and his being elected Father General, only to be ungeneraled by Pope John Paul II, to which I asked "Why?" generating a Basque response, "Well, he's a downhill skier who thinks he's a poet." After chatting on about Robert Blair Kaiser and his Just Good Company, in which Pedro took delightful pride, we got onto the topic which had lifted me up before the snow came: the state of the Catholic Church in America and on earth for that matter. Pedro disliked the understanding that the Church was no longer Catholic but Roman, or, if you thought in larger swirls, Eurocentric. He noted that the Church was so horribly entwined in the black hole of absolute power that the gravitational force was too strong for anyone in Rome or elsewhere to overcome it. We went on about papal primacy and episcopal collegiality for some time as we walked towards God's place, a simple one room shack on the edge of town.

As we got near, we could hear Jesus shouting, "But I am your son, in whom you were well pleased." And God, overshouting him, "But you blew it in an impulsive and emotional moment. Why did you ever call him Rock and let those clowns make him a Pope a couple of hundred years after he was crucified upside down?"

"Abba, I did no such thing. All I did was give him a nickname. He was built like a brick and just as dense as one. He was wavering so much he needed coaching up, not down. I thought a little teasing with a new name would lighten things up a bit and prove to the rest of them that we aren't hardliners."

"Ah, Son, didn't you see then that those who lust for power would make a big thing out of a little joke to erect the most exclusive autocratic and dictatorial form of government any institution has ever seen in the history of earthly civilization? Look at what those nuts are doing now with those new Instructions on the Eucharist and the orders they are giving to candidates for public office and even to sitting Governors. They're so convoluted and confusing that I don't even know how to go to Communion myself. Good Lord, I couldn't even run for a State Legislature in America. None of us can keep up with the constantly changing "official teachings of the Church" wherever they keep hard copies of it on file. You should go back down there and have another Supper, only this time call it The First Supper. We will have to interfere with those little toy dictators. Whatever happened to freedom? This current bunch are worse than Jesuits with their Obedience vows. How in my name did that Opus Dei crowd get a personal prelature? What is such a thing, anyway?"

That's when the Holy Spirit piped up, "I thought that was my assignment, Abba. I'm the Paraclete, but I must confess that I'm scared to death that my people are going to make irreparable mistakes that will push them outside the "official teachings of the Church", especially if they pay any attention to those bishops. Where on earth did they come from?"

Jesus turned to the Paraclete and asked, "Why do you always put "the official teachings of the Church" in quotation marks?"

The Holy Spirit brightened with inspiration, "Well, there really is no such thing. Even our Catholic Church is not official, no matter what Emperor Constantine tried to do to it. It is only one of many. I've noticed that theologians down there now have coined a new word, "Pluralism" which is translated up here as "Religion". Everything needed is in the New Testament and all the other scriptures, some of which we have saved in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi stuff, the Baghavad Gita, the Koran, and the books that were never written in Zen Buddhism, but are all over the place now in paperback. Besides, we just cannot find The Magisterium on earth where all the "official stuff" is to be written down and filed. Our copy up here is only one page."

Jesus, realizing that his Father was very upset, became mournful. "Father, I am so sorry, but look it's only been going on for two thousand years. We started turning things around with John XXIII and Vatican II, but those rightwingers and traditionalists sneaked in while we weren't looking and, well, Abba, things just got out of hand. I'd like to say a favorite line – Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. – but in what they call "modern times" down there, they know exactly what they're doing."

Pedro, after knocking on the door, called out, "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we're here." And we walked in.

That's how I got the Beatific Vision. Temporarily. In Eternity. I also noticed that space/time just doesn't exist there, where there really is a there there.

Before I had a chance to believe it all, the Trinity began throwing questions at me as they were a Congressional Committee and I was the culprit in the cabinet responsible for the Apocalypse. They wanted to know if I had met Archbishop Burke of St. Louis personally and whether he was in his right mind. Did people really think that the African Cardinal Arinze was papabile? Had any American hierarchs owned up to their accountability in the sex abuse scandal? What in heaven is Bishop Gregory doing with that apostatic, if not heretical USCCB, and its pompous pronouncements and broken promises, while he is being held in contempt of court himself? Jesus jumped in with, "Did any on them remember what I said about great millstones around their necks?" And the Holy Spirit's amazement, "They didn't?"

God was particularly angry about the treatment of Fr. Tom Doyle, the Dominican Air Force Chaplain who was abruptly and brutally terminated as a chaplain by a revenge-driven Archbishop O'Brien of the Military Services. Jesus spoke up, "I wanted him as the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He's the only one with any common sense and decency in the whole bunch. My God, forgive me for taking our name in vain, but they really are a brood of vipers, aren't they? Is that O'Brien in charge of those prisons in Iraq, too?"

I tried to explain the politics of the Balthassarians and the Rahners every since Vatican II, and how Hans Küng got kicked out of Tübingen, only to recoil from the Holy Spirit's fierce one liner, "Hans Küng, of course, is the Church's leading theologian of the "official teachings of the Church." And all of a sudden the light came on: God is a lay person. So is Jesus. And the Holy Spirit proceeds from them, so that all are One. Pedro, still holding my hand, whispered, "You catch on fast, my son." I tried to respond that we were told a lot would come clear once we made it all the way, but in my awe I was, for once, speechless.

What I saw right there in front of me in Heaven is that God is not clergy or hierarchy. Those are human inventions that were brought about 70 to 100 years after the Resurrection. The whole power structure of the Catholic Church is man-made, man-contrived, man-handled and man-perpetuated for two thousand years. A control freak here and a control freak there stood up and said something and the people fell for it. Little by little, the power-lusting among our predecessors added more and more until they came up with absolute power and, to their own surprise, everybody else obeyed. The fullness and culmination of that power was finally reached in the papacy of John Paul II and his Curia. The Church in my times has lost its luster and looks more like a fortress on fire within and from without, with all those terrified hardnosed ones up on the parapets waving croziers, their pointy-headed mitres popping up and down just like those bobblehead dolls currently on sale down there. What struck me is that the Church no longer looked like Chartres, Notre Dame, St. Peter's Basilica, or St. Mehitabelle of the Holy Smoke, my old parish, the one always making an ash of herself; it now looked like the Alamo.

While all this realization was flooding my heavenly mind, I was not aware that the Holy Trinity was quietly staring at me. A little smile was crinkling at the corners of Pedro's lips. I stopped thinking. There was a crash of the loudest boom of silence I had ever heard anywhere. I stood there in my bare feet, wishing that I had never bashed a bishop nor called a cardinal a coocoo. The Blessed Mother was just off to the right, holding her forefinger in a "Hush" over her lips, her eyes beaming with her mother's love for the whole human race, as well as for her Son. I thought of the day we call Mother's Day, when we all honor all women, not merely those who experienced motherhood, for a woman does not have to be a mother to be a woman, nor a man a father to be a man. For once in my life I kept quiet and waited to listen to God. Silence.

After a while, Jesus spoke, "We want you to go back and write to leaders of the hardworking lay movements: ARCC, SNAP, CTA, VOTF, and all the others who care for the marginalized and urge them to come together to reform and renew the Catholic Church, just one of our many churches on earth. Let them know that this is the time of the laity and it is up to our laity to take over the care, custody and control of the church. The entire church, the people of God, may decide how the new structure of church governance is to be composed, but one thing is certain: there will be no absolute power in any one person any where. Power is to be shared with checks and balances in whatever way the people decide. As for the wealth of the Church, make it known that they must sell what they have and come, follow me. I will say nothing new now. The New Testament contains my teachings when I was with you. Become familiar with them. Live them. Pray the Our Father." God added, "That's always my favorite prayer. It is after all, what I am all about."

The Holy Spirit need to say something, too. "We aren't really as vindictive as the Old Testament fictionalizes, but we do not look kindly upon the sexual abuse of minors by some bad priests and, like you lay people on earth, we are still waiting for those so-called bishops and archbishops and cardinals, and that strange pope, to stand and be held accountable for the inhuman and ungodly way they have been behaving. As the Paraclete, I think they have lost their consciences. They have certainly lost whatever authority they claim and are far more to be censured than pitied. It will be a long, long time, as that dimension is measured in the fabric of the cosmos, before anyone of that crowd lands up here."

God spoke again, "Were I to ask My Beloved Son to return to an incarnate life, there is definitely one change I would make and I direct it to those current crowd of vipers masquerading as hierarchs, "You are not my beloved sons. In you I am not well pleased. You will be held accountable in your present time on earth, or We will hold you accountable at the time of your judgment. Your choice."

Pedro and I turned to leave, then stopped as the Triune God spoke the final blessing, "Please go out of your way to remember us to our Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, American Indians, Hindus, all other formal and informal religious groups, and especially to the Agnostics and Atheists. We love them all and are pleased with their religions and spiritualities, the obvious manifestation of our most prized gift to humanity, great intelligence and free will. We bless them all."

The Holy Spirit, unable to repress her loving feminine nature, smiled, "Remember us to the women of the world, the greatest hope you people have on earth now that celibate men are no longer in power. Celibacy returns to its original characteristic of being voluntary. The Priesthood is open to all "in capite et in membris – from the top down." She just couldn't forget that Latin, could she, I thought, and Pedro laughed out loud with a huge "Ad majorem Dei gloriam", waving goodbye as we walked out the open door into the applauding crowd of the whole of human civilization which had been saved and redeemed by the life, teachings, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's beloved son in whom he was well pleased.

Pleased beyond being pleased that I could be a lay messenger and tickled pink that my computer already had all the addresses and names needed, but saddened beyond words that I had to give up the Beatific Vision, I looked for Mom and Dad in the crowd, but couldn't spot them. I remember seeing that beaming smile on good Pope John XXIII and thought I saw Einstein talking with Galileo, with Luther listening in.

Leaving was impossibly difficult and required a miracle to help me reach for Pedro's hand. My free will was still intact and it was urging me to stay put. As we headed for the exit, I saw so many familiar people, from the dawn of history down the thousands of years to our war-torn modern civilizations, that I had to ask Pedro whether there were any people at all in Hell.

His answer was not surprising, "Oh! Paul, that's an old wive's tale. Everybody's here, but not everybody gets to see the Beatific Vision automatically upon arrival. We don't run prisons of humiliations and torture and we admit it was kind of a silly mistake to think that scaring people would motivate them to do better. That's when people stop acting like human beings, the ones we made in God's image, and become beasts of terror. We took a big chance on giving humans free will, but that's what we all have here in Heaven, in its fullest extent. Most of us prefer to stay. It's kind of nice here after that so-called Hell on Earth."

My objection, a natural knee-jerk reaction in my character, was, "But what about Lucifer? Hitler? Pope Alexander VI?"

Pedro answered me, "Oh!, you'll find out later, should you come back." Taking that as sort of a Jesuit distinction, I started to kneel for his blessing, but he laughed, gave me a big hug and kicked me out.

On the way back, I also lost all my understanding of the superstring theory and knew I needed more physics than I could humanly lay claim to, in order to understand science's search for who we are and what is around us. I also knew I had lost all memory of my glance into reality up there, along with the chance to sit and chat with the Brian Greenes and the Stephen Hawkins, just as I passed the Hubble Telescope, realizing how obsolete it had become.

As I got closer, I saw Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and I shuddered. And then, I saw Haiti. And then, Chile.

I could feel the waves of devastation smoking up from most of the planet, which looked as if it were surrounded by black clouds, with a whole bunch of smaller black clouds forming and floating into space. Everything else was darkness, except for a light in a corner apartment above St . Peter's in Rome, where, I assumed, Pope Benedict XVI was at his prayers. I began to wonder how we the laity could ever get through the bureaucracy to get to him, until I began to imagine, "You know, I think he knows, he knows."

One thing I did know, on landing on the ground, was that we human beings had done a lot of damage to our world and our Church, and it is up to us to fix both. It is, after all, our responsibility and not merely an invitation. The only way to do that is to gather as many good and decent people together as we can, clergy and lay alike, and figure out what we can do, with the aid of God's grace, to reform and renew our Catholic Church and make it relevant for our 21^st century.

We have no choice. We must, we have to, we will drag it out of the Dark and Middle Ages, where it has been anchored for so many centuries. The Church started off pretty good, but it obviously got lost along the way, when our leaders began imitating pagan civilians and made pomp and circumstance part of "the official teachings of the Church." Maybe the hierarchs got the idea of absolute power by getting too cozy with emperors and the divine right of kings. They sure ignored Our Lord's words about rendering unto Caesar the things of Caesar and to God the things of God, the real declaration of the separation of Church and state. We certainly believe that we have a Paraclete, an incarnate Son of God, and Abba, watching over us and hoping that this time we get it right. Could be our last chance, after the soul-murder of our children.

Today, we all get to work and begin with writing letters to all the leaders of all the lay groups throughout the entire world, starting right here at home in the United States of America. Courtesy requires that we copy all the clergy, including the hierarchs in every diocese in the country. God has asked for our help. The rest is up to the People of God. Us.

We have a dream.