Catholics Gone Wild

So the 2013 papal conclave is well under way. First day: black smoke, no pope.

And the news-making folks are on top of it like a fly on honey (or poop--take your pick). "We are just so taken with the ritual and the majesty of it all," gushed one wide-eyed correspondent in front of a sun-drenched St. Peter's Basilica. "It's one of those events that happens once in a generation. And the pomp and circumstance has been phenomenal!"

I am watching some of this coverage too, I confess -- with a queasy mixture of hope, trepidation, and embarrassment. I recognize that this monarchical, pageant-filled aspect of Catholicism is a part of what the church is, and that the spectacle appeals to many. But it is also the element of the institutional church that I feel most distanced from. When I stepped back into my native faith more than a decade ago, it had nothing at all to do with the papacy, or the pageantry, or the dogmas, or even the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I was beckoned back by a wild and magnaminous Mystery that streams deep in the heart of all that lives and dies. Church is simply one of its collectively sculpted vessels, a chipped and cracked receptacle that has drawn me back into its hold against all my good sense.

And, truth be told, these are my favorite Cardinals:

But I have to admit that this past church year -- though replete with heartbreaking scandal and new disappointments, as always -- has been like a wild breeze a-blowin'. Here's a heretic's-eye-view of some highlights:

2012 is the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of Vatican II, a series of formal meetings among bishops that resulted in various modern reforms to the church. Benedict XVI -- who, as theological expert Joseph Ratzinger was (interestingly) a fairly progressive voice during V-II-- declares a Year of Faith for all Catholics, inviting us to "study and reflect on the documents of Vatican II and the catechism." (And, um, I haven't done this. Yet.)

On February 11, 2013, just before the beginning of Lent, Pope B announces that he will resign. The reactions vary widely. Rumors and speculations fly. Does Pope B want to secure protection in perpetuity against indictment or arrest for whatever role he played, by design or by neglect, in crimes of the Church? Is some twisted new conspiracy at play? Are a cadre of Vatican priests really engaging in all-night sex romps at Roman saunas?

Or can it be that -- wait for it ... wait for it -- B is simply old, frail, and recognizing that he needs to hand over the car keys????

At any rate, just hours after the pope announces his resignation, Nature, always the diva, lends a dramatic touch. 

Three days after his resignation, an earthquake rattles the pope-emeritus's temporary new abode in Castel Gandolfo:

Some people want to find significance in this -- especially after that lightning strike at the Vatican -- and the "three days later" thing tends to tug at the Christian heart. But folks: it was a mild earthquake, and Italy is earthquake country. (The lightning and quake would make great fodder for a Cecil B. DeMille movie, though.)

Anyway, one Italian priest was apparently pretty pissed about the pope's abdication: He burned a photo of B in the middle of a Sunday Mass. The "Old-popes-don't-quit, they-simply-keep-aging-and-getting-more-frail-until God-calls-em-home" school of pastoral care.

But the reaction in my neck of the woods was more along these lines:

In a word: ebullient. A friend of mine who is active in Call to Action sent out an e-mail and sounded downright breathless: "I've been singing all day -- 'this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!' I am so full of new hope and never-ceasing trust in our Creator Spirit .... I feel totally convinced that this step will be the beginning of healing in our ailing Church....For all of us reformers, our ardent prayers for reform and renewal have been heard .... Therefore we must continue with our positive work of rebuilding our Church...!"

(I won't go into details here in this post: Suffice it to say that a fair number of American Catholics -- lay and clergy-- were not too thrilled when B, aka God's Rottweiler in the days of John Paul II, became pope...)

A few shenanigans occurred as the cardinals began streaming into Rome from around the world. One dude donned a black cassock, tied a fuchsia scarf around his waist, and almost passed as a Red Hat. Except, well, he wore a black fedora.

He could have taken some tips from the "Cardinal Fashion Show: The Do's and Don'ts of Vatican Wear This Fashion Season."  (Bless him, though -- he told reporters he was there to deliver a message about the hierarchy's protection of abusive priests.)

In the meantime, historian and author Garry Wills appeared on The Colbert Report -- two devout Catholics tongue-in-cheekedly chewing the fat -- to discuss Wills' new book Why Priests? A Failed Tradition. His basic argument, as quoted from his New York Times editorial, is: "Jesus ... said to Peter, 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.' But Peter was addressed as a faithful disciple, not as a priest or a pope. There were no priests in Peter's time, and no popes. Paul never called himself or any of his co-workers priests. He did not offer sacrifice. Those ideas came in later, through weird arguments contained in the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews. The claim of priests and popes to be the sole conduits of grace is a remnant of the era of papal monarchy. We are watching that era fade."

I love when Christian and Jewish and Muslim scholars say that the Bible contains weird arguments. Puts a spring in my step.

Adding to the spirit of levity are some cute "campaign jingles" created by fans of some of the papabile. A Facebook connection pointed out this video singing the praises of Cardinal Tagle, a young, moderate, and net-savvy candidate from the Philippines (and one who has also called for a "humbler, quieter church."):

In other news, my parish hosted a visiting priest who gave a well-attended talk on Vatican II -- specifically its "spirit of openness about the role of the laity." During the question-and-answer period, a curmudgeonly, more traditionally-minded gentleman said: "I'm very disturbed by all the divisions in the church. I watch EWTN (a largely conservative Catholic TV and radio station) and it upsets me very much to see how many people are talking about gay marriage and women priests." (Ballsy guy, I have to admit, in a gathering that was 70 percent female). I felt the room bristling.

Although he skirted things somewhat, I was grateful for the visiting priest's quiet response: "I don't know what's ahead for us as a church. Yes, we have factions and disagreements, and the challenges we face are daunting. But I do know that gay people are our brothers and sisters, and they are deserving of God's love and our love." The room erupted in applause. "Thank you -- but I'm not saying that for applause. I'm saying that because that is actually what our church teaches." And then he reiterated his main point of the evening: "As Lumen Gentium [a principal document of Vatican II] says, all people are called to be holy, and all honorable walks of life are the means of growing in holiness."

And -- wait for it ... wait for it -- the visiting Father suggested, with a respectful smile, that folks who are feeling anxious might want to watch a little less EWTN.

Truly, a day that the Lord has made.

Pope Hopes

I haven't thought that much about who might be the next pope (and frankly I kinda dig being popelessly devoted) but I was surprised to read in Peter Daly's National Catholic Reporter column that there is nothing in canon law that requires a pope to first be a cardinal. Since popes are elected by the College of Cardinals  -- and since it seems (in my lifetime, at least) that they always choose one of their own -- I just figured that only a cardinal could be pope. But alas, my presumption was wrong, and I'm loving it. I'm savoring living in this brief popeless moment, dreaming and musing wildly about who it could be: Sister Simone Campbell? Bryan Massingale? Yoda? Stephen Colbert? Vaticat?

James Martin, S.J.

I got to hear the Jesuit James Martin speak at the Religious Education Congress in L.A. this past weekend. (The REC, which was awesome as usual, is an annual gathering of about 40,000 Catholics and sundry other faithful folks who come to experience the wisdom, music, and art of some of the church's best teachers, liturgists, poets, artists, philosophers, and rabblerousers). Martin, in great form, officially announced his candidacy for pope. "Why not?" he quipped. "I'm half-Italian. I speak several languages -- perhaps not all that well, but who does? I'm very organized -- for example, I never walk around looking for my eyeglasses only to discover that they've been on my head the whole time. And I'm very humble. Now: My campaigning for pope may make me seem a tad less humble than you might hope for. But isn't the fact that I'm willing to campaign a sign of my humility? A less humble guy would assume that everyone already knows that he'd be a good candidate and so wouldn't say anything out of his pride. Kind of counterintuitive, huh? Ergo: Since I'm campaigning, I'm tops when it comes to humility." (Check out Martin's blog for a longer list of  reasons why he should be pope). 

I also say amen to much of what Fr. Peter Daly wrote in his column, "A Parish Priest's Hopes for the Next Pope." Here's an excerpt:

 Peter Daly

"I hope we get somebody who has not lived exclusively in the world of chancery offices where people give him deference and obedience all the time. I hope we get someone who has dialogued with evangelicals, Muslims and atheists as equals. It would be nice if he has a few friends who are Protestant clergy and he has come to respect them as intelligent and sincere Christians....

I hope he has a lot of nieces and nephews who have challenged him around the dinner table and in family gatherings. Maybe some of them have married outside the church or have left the church to join other religions. He has attended their weddings only as a family member. Perhaps one of those nieces and nephews has come out to him as gay and he has had to love them still.

I hope he has several strong-willed and outspoken biological sisters who have more than a streak of feminism. Maybe they have told their brother that they use birth control. Maybe they have responsible and substantial careers outside the home where women are the boss....

I hope we get somebody who is in touch with his own humanity. It would be nice if he was a man who admits that he, too, is a sexual being who has struggled with human desires and impulses like everybody else.

I hope we get a man with a sense of humor. It would be nice if he was not too much of a ninny. He might even be able to tell a joke once in a while and laugh at himself.

Vaticat, aka Lorenzo the Cat

I hope we get somebody who puts on his pants one leg at a time. In fact, it would be nice if he would wear pants. Clerics should leave behind the silly affectation of dressing like they are still living in some Renaissance villa or a Baroque painting.

I hope we get a man who knows what it is like to be poor. It would be nice if he has dealt with the homeless and drug addicts and the sick for a few years of his life. It would be good if he has had to struggle like the rest of humanity for his daily bread. It would be nice if he has held a job and had to pay his own bills..."

Make it so, cardinals! 

Click here for the rest of Daly's column.   

So Why in the Hell Am I Still Catholic?

If I am to believe most of the respondents to one Washington Post editorial on the sins of Cardinal Roger Mahony (whose decades-old cover-ups have absolutely broken my heart), I am, at best, weak and sheep-like and at worst, sick, evil, and depraved because I am still a Catholic – remaining part of an institution led by a global cabal of pedophiles and pedophile protectors. Any time I tithe to the church or to a church-affiliated group, many claim, my money somehow shoots straight into a huge Vatican treasury that supports organized pedophilia. I am not just complicit; I am part of the cover-up and part of the system that sanctions child sexual abuse and soul-murder:

 --“Whenever a Catholic gives money to the church, it helps cover up sex crimes against children. I wonder how such a person lives with himself.”

 --“I could never associate myself with an institution as corrupt, misogynistic and perverted as the Catholic church.”

 --“The Catholic Church has degenerated into an international cabal perpetrating or abetting child molestation… How can any well-meaning, thoughtful individual remain associated with such an organization?”

 --“I love how Catholics are so concerned for the unborn but clearly could care less about the children who were molested.”

--“For the absolute life of me, I cannot fathom how any practicing Roman Catholic could have put so much as a thin dime into a weekly collection plate these past 10 years for all that these proven moral reprobates have done. They are not to be trusted with either money or children.”

--“Can there be any doubt that the sheep-minded Catholic faithful are the fundamental co-enablers of those princely pedophile co-enablers whom the faithful look bovinely up to as their shepherds? Primeval and disgusting.”

And on and on . . . (There are also a lot of “gays are pedophiles” posts, but I won’t get into those. I do recognize that a lot of people enjoy being mean on public forums, and that they don’t speak for everyone.)

A couple of kinder responses emerged too, which many a Catholic could have written. Here’s one:

“No one in the Church denies that there are grave problems to address, and no one supports protecting pedophiles. We love the Church, and are heartsick over these awful crimes. The Church is far more than a few deviant priests and bishops, I wish that Catholic bashers could see that. Most priests are good, decent and devout men. I know a lot of them and respect them. I've never known a single priest to do anything like this. It's only a small fraction of priests that have committed these atrocious acts, but unfortunately, it only takes a small number of people to do a lot of damage in any institution. I would not expect Muslims to leave their faith simply because a small number of Muslims (and their leaders) are terrorists or support terrorism. They love their faith and remain true to it. It's the same with Catholics. We love our Church, consider it a Holy gift, and hope to purge it of those who would cause it damage. If you knew some Catholics and actually met a few priests and talked to them honestly, you might change your view just a little. There's no question that terrible things have happened in the Church, we understand that. We hope that critics of the Church understand that we are all not wicked and evil people blindly ignoring the situation.”

I have not gone on to read all 595 responses, but you get the picture.

First, let me say something about churchgoers’ complicity and culpability. I’m going to offer an imperfect analogy that might be a little overused and obvious: that of living and paying taxes in a country headed by a government that has frequently made horrible, murderous choices. In the year 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court – just five out of nine people – decided that George W. Bush would be the president despite major electoral shenanigans and Al Gore winning the popular vote. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., Bush’s response was to invade Afghanistan and Iraq – a disastrous turn of events, in my opinion. My husband and I never supported these wars. Instead, we protested them by participating in dozens of anti-war demonstrations in our city and region and by contributing funds to groups advocating for peaceful solutions and international dialogue. My husband became a long-term volunteer with GI Rights, an organization offering alternatives for troops who questioned these wars, including those who sought conscientious objector status and others who sought honorable discharges after suffering injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.

During all of this, we still remained United States citizens, and we still paid taxes. Why? Because this is our home, and we love our country. Even during that sickening wave of rabid nationalism and anti-Arab / anti-Muslim hysteria in the wake of 9/11, when it seemed we were the only ones on our street who did not sport huge American flags and “United We Stand” bumperstickers, the U.S. was still our home, and we loved it. (There was a point, however, after Bush’s second inauguration, when we considered leaving. One of our friends actually did leave and now lives in an ex-pat community in Mexico, although she still retains her U.S. citizenship). But the fact is: there is still a lot of good in this country and in the people here. U.S. history is both beautiful and horrible, but what makes it beautiful is what makes it worth staying here and fighting the good fight. For every Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, we’ve got a Martin Luther King Jr. or an Elizabeth Warren. We’ve got the Klan and Birchers and White Citizens’ councils, but the abolitionists and desegregationists and civil rights activists ultimately held sway – even though things on that front were looking really bad in, say, 1890 or so…

I can only imagine how “Americans” must have appeared to Europeans or Egyptians or New Zealanders or Argentinians after Bush/Cheney et al’s invasion of Iraq. We must have looked really whack. So this is something to keep in mind: If you’re looking at a country -- or an institution or any large system – from the outside, its regular folks start to seem whack when their leaders commit crimes or act deplorably. And of course, at least some of the people ARE whack! But the whack ones are not necessarily representative. And what you are able to see from a distance reveals just a sliver of the story.

Let’s say my husband and I had chosen to leave the U.S. back in 2003, like our friend did. What if we had left? Or stopped paying taxes? Or renounced our citizenship? A decent argument could be made for those alternatives. It might have been a deeply commendable and admirable choice, to stop lending ourselves in any way to a system responsible for more than 173,000 deaths (according to Iraq Body Count Project), including at least 67,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (according to Wikileaks) and 4500 U.S. troop deaths. (Not to mention the tortured and the hundreds of thousands still living with deep physical, mental, and spiritual wounds…)  But had we left, I suspect that we would still think of the U.S. as home. I suspect that our country, our homeland, would remain embedded in our hearts, coloring our outlook and choices for the rest of our lives. Certainly the culture of our new residence would eventually take root too. But I don’t think home would ever completely leave us.

I have wandered a bit from my main point, so let me get to it: Ordinary Catholics are not complicit in the church hierarchy’s protection of pedophiles any more (or less) than a regular U.S. citizen is complicit in the dangerously misguided choices some of its leaders make. When our hearts are broken, when we struggle with doubt, when we lovingly dissent, when we challenge the powers-that-be, when we pray and work for justice, when we do not turn away from the wounded, and when we walk with Christ, we are not complying with criminal decisions and high-level cover-ups.

One more thing, for those who question tithing: There many different ways to tithe to the Catholic church (or any denomination). Folks can contribute to church-affiliated (and non-proselytizing) organizations that work with and for the poor (Catholic Relief Services and Mercy Volunteer Corps are two examples), to reform-minded groups such as SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests), Call to Action, Dignity (supporting LGBT Catholics), NETWORK (a Catholic social justice lobby), Pax Christi (a Catholic peace and justice organization) or Women’s Ordination Conference, just to name a few (and, yes, revealing some of my preferences). People can also tithe in non-monetary ways by offering their time, energy, and love to soup kitchens, homeless shelters, safe houses for those escaping domestic violence or human trafficking, hospices, prisons, groups like ICWJ (Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice), Just Faith, and the like. There is even “protest tithing”: when parishioners send a penny (or a wooden nickel) to their local diocese’s annual appeal for funds, along with a note of explanation.

Okay. Thank you for hearing me vent, if you have read this far. And let me say: this is mostly a rebuttal to the Catholic-bashing I saw in the responses to the Washington Post’s editorial – but it’s also a reply to friends who wonder why I stay in the church. It’s an incomplete reply, because my reasons for staying involve rich complexities that cannot be conveyed in a few paragraphs. For now, I’m just inviting people to step back from the hyperbole and wild presumptions being tossed about. I am not trying to make any apologies or excuses for the crushingly sad choices the hierarchy and some of the clergy have made. Those choices are devastating and will reverberate far beyond this troubling moment. Yet today’s hierarchy – though powerful -- is a small part of a wide and diverse Christian body. This church is comprised mostly of ordinary folks seeking to live the Gospel and Christ’s call to loving engagement in day-to-day life. We are everyday people, we care about children, and we are hurt and deeply distressed by our leaders’ abuses and cover-ups.

I get that the Catholic church is not everyone's cup of tea (and I do understand that some people have had terrible experiences with pathological manifestations of Catholicism and that their best, sanest choice is to leave the church); nor is Christianity the one and only true sacred path. (Thank God.) Yet at its deeper and truer levels it can be an authentic path – a path of heart, community, self-emptying surrender, and Mystery. And, in more ways than one, Catholicism (in its healthier expression) brought me into the world. It is my spiritual home, my wide and numinous country. Even within these terrible times, I still love it.

Ash Thursday's Poem

United Methodist minister, writer, and artist Jan Richardson wrote this beautiful poem below as a blessing for Ash Wednesday. But I didn't come across it until "Ash Thursday" (the day after Ash Wednesday). The blessing still holds. 

"Blessing the Dust"

All those days

you felt like dust,

like dirt,

as if all you had to do

was turn your face

toward the wind

and be scattered

toward the four corners.

or swept away

by the smallest breath

as insubstantial--

Did you not know

what the Holy One

can do with dust?

This is the day

we freely say

we are scorched.

This is the hour

we are marked

by what has made it

through the burning.

This is the moment

we ask for the blessing

that lives within

the ancient ashes,

that makes its home

inside the soil of

this sacred earth.

So let us be marked

not for sorrow.

And let us be marked

not for shame.

Let us be marked

not for false humility

or for thinking

we are less

than we are

but for claiming

what God can do

within the dust

within the dirt

within the stuff

of which the world

is made

and the stars that blaze

in our bones,

and the galaxies that spiral

inside the smudge

we bear.

~Jan Richardson

Catnip: Egress to Oblivion?

Here Cat must share something catty every now and then. A friend on Google-Plus hipped me to this short film. Make sure to share it with your cats, especially if they are nipsters.

A Prayer for the New Year

Included in an e-mail from Catholic Relief Services --

There's a prayer on my lips that the world cannot hear.
     Lord, hear our prayer.
There's a prayer in my mind that my lips cannot speak.
     Lord, hear our prayer.
There's a prayer in my heart that my mind cannot form.
     Lord, hear our prayer.

You, who know our hearts' deepest longing,
You, who lit the flame of love within us,
You, who long to share of yourself.
     Lord, hear our prayer.

There's a sin on my soul that my heart cannot shed.
     Lord, hear our prayer.
There's a man in the night and my eyes looked away.
     Lord, hear our prayer.
There's a child shedding tears that my love couldn't stop.
     Lord, hear our prayer.

You, who know our hearts' deepest longing,
You, who lit the flame of love within us,
You, who long to share of yourself.
     Lord, hear our prayer.

There's a cry in a land that my feet have never walked.
     Lord, hear our prayer.
There is pain in a place that my hands cannot touch.
     Lord, hear our prayer.
There is arming for war and the innocent are threatened.
     Lord, hear our prayer.

You, who know our hearts' deepest longing,
You, who lit the flame of love within us,
You, who long to share of yourself.
     Lord, hear our prayer.

So I give you my feet that they may walk upon your pathways.
     Lord, hear our prayer.
And I give you my hands that you might touch the world around me.
     Lord, hear our prayer.
And I give you my tongue that it may sing your songs of gladness.
And I give you my mind that it may dream a dream of newness.
And I give you my soul that it may burn to see your justice.
And I give you my heart that it may burst upon creation.

You, who know our hearts' deepest longing,
You, who lit the flame of love within us,
You, who long to share of yourself.
     Lord, hear our prayer.

Ordain a Lady

Hello folks. Yes, although I had several thoughts I wanted to get down in words here, I posted nothing during the Advent-Christmas season in 2012 because I got buried in BUSY-ness. Why is it that we often find ourselves at our busiest during winter, when the rest of nature is hunkering down and hibernating?

At any rate, today is New Year's, and I wanted to share this new video I just received in my in-box from Women's Ordination Conference. Favorite image: a woman holding a baby wearing a shirt that says "Mommy for Pope." Favorite You-Tube comment: "The age demographics of those in the video sort of disarms the argument that this is just a movement of aging people stuck in the 1960s."

Cheers, and Happy 2013!