When all else fails…
Facing a shortage of money, a shortage of parishioners attending mass each week, a shortage of priests, a shortage of priests for whom English is their first language, a shortage of trust in what few priests are currently working in parishes, it is somewhat unsettling to learn that American cardinals and bishops anticipate that Catholicism in the U.S. will somehow experience a spiritual resurgence in their parishes as a direct result of the significant changes in wording of the English-language missal that are being introduced to the worshipping faithful across the United States. Such unrealistic expectations reflect a similar track record of arrogance, denial, and elitism that has actually caused many of those current challenges.
“The people of God . . . when they get to know and hear the new translation, I think it’s going to grab them a little bit — and it should,” Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre was quoted as saying. “My prayer is that’s going to be a moment in which the people who are shepherds, the people who come every Sunday and do all those good things in our parish, they will be energized to become evangelizers.”
The obsession to put forth such anachronistic language revisions at a time of crisis in church history reminds me of a college fraternity–whose members were all about to be expelled–deciding that the best action to take was to schedule a “toga party.”
I also question Bishop Murphy’s perpetuation of the metaphorical image of worshippers being “sheep” and church leaders being “shepherds.” It is my impression that sheep are not among the most mentally gifted animals ever to have walked the earth, and they seem capable of being led anywhere to do most anything.
Back in the 1960’s, Pope John XXIII thought it was important enough to gather bishops and cardinals from around the globe to take an introspective look at the Catholic religion and to try to update and to simplify it for a more meaningful position as a “church in the modern world.”
Thousands of ordained participants in the Second Vatican Council overwhelmingly approved changes in church attitudes, liturgy, ritual, and theology, to demonstrate its sincere attempts at relevance in a rapidly changing global society. In addition to the modernization of liturgical language, Vatican II documents added humility to the church’s relationship with other religions, and the role of the priest in Sunday worship became much more egalitarian with the other “people of God” present during the celebration of the mass.
Today, ruling members of the magisterium apparently have short memories. Over the several decades that have passed since Vatican II, a large preponderance of church leaders continue their obsessions with what is going on in the bedrooms of their followers, have repeatedly denied the priesthood to married men and gifted women, and have tried to push the toothpaste back into the tube in regard to some of the refinements that were applauded and endorsed by those church leaders who attended the Second Vatican Council.
While unwinding some of the spirit and substance of the reforms that were put forth by Vatican II, American bishops have taken their followers on an archeological scavenger hunt that provides answers to questions that no one was really asking. The recent liturgical changes that resulted from deconstructing and re-translating ancient Latin scripture are currently being spun by clergy like a campaign created by Madison Avenue, offering parishioners a “new and improved liturgy, coming to a church near you.”
Ultimately these and other associated reactionary attempts to negate Vatican II reforms will most likely only prove to frustrate the faithful and continue to deflect attention away from the real challenges that threaten to leave the future of Catholicism as little more than an historical footnote. A volatile 21st century civilization could have benefited from some of the inherent compassion and benevolence that lives on deep within the Catholic religion despite the misdeeds of its aging leaders.
“Please insert the square peg into the round hole…”
From time to time we all get unsolicited gifts in the mail from various religious organizations in their attempts to raise funds. The gift could be as simple as personalized mailing labels, rosary beads, a miraculous medal, bingo chips, pope soap-on-a-roap, etc.
I recently received in the mail something from a Catholic religious order that still has me a bit puzzled. It was a crucifix but it appeared to have been made by Furn-A-Kit or Bush or Sauder because it required some assembly.
Included in the envelope was a finished wood crucifix that bore a relatively ornate plastic body of Jesus, along with a separate wood stand. Sauder would have labeled the crucifix “A” and the stand “B” and the directions would have read, “Insert crucifix A into stand B.”
Seems simple enough, except for the fact that the part of the crucifix that is supposed to fit into the stand is square. The hole in the stand is round. Literally a square peg into a round hole.
I didn’t save any of the literature that came along with my gift, although I did say a prayer of thanks for their generosity, hoping that they didn’t actually expect me to send them a donation.
Without knowing the source of the crucifix, I guess I’ll never truly understand whether the square peg/round hole was someone’s mistake; someone’s idea of a joke; a divinely inspired parable; or punishment for my venial sin of accepting the gift without sending back a donation.
Regardless of the intent, I can’t help but regard that gift as a profound statement about religion in the modern world.
An Atheist’s Guide to Prayer (or God as Santa Claus)
During my first day of class in the masters program at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, Father Catania sauntered into the classroom, said hello and then with increased passion, asked:
“Is there anyone in this room who believes that the Bible is God’s verbatim word to man, all true, chronicled events, God-said-it/I believe-it? If so, please raise your hand.” We were a bit too shocked to respond so there were no raised hands.
“Good. Anyone who thinks that way doesn’t belong in graduate school.”
And so began my formal journey into the world of theology. Having a mixed background in Christian, Quaker, and Jewish cultures, I had dabbled in religious theory, both in some independent study classes prior to my work at the Seminary as well as while covering some God-related stories for the NY Times. In actuality, it was via an assignment for the Times that I stumbled upon the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in the first place.
My theological view of the world did not really coincide with any one formal religious doctrine and, back then, if I had to point to any one religious mentor it would probably have been Dennis Miller or George Carlin. I loved Carlin’s line (similar to something Andy Rooney once said) that we may not know the answers to life’s mysteries, but why do we have to make up stories and fairy tales so that we might sleep at night? The energy should instead be expended toward uncovering truths, the absolutes, the science of what we see or believe. But, despite George’s wisdom, we still have an allegorical rather than historical Bible, a Church run by a bunch of celibate old men, and people killing other people in the name of God.
The Old Testament (or the more politically correct term “Hebrew Scriptures”) seems to consist of page after page of Jewish suffering—weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth—worse than anything you hear around any Long Island shopping mall as housewives and/or house husbands desperately fight for a parking space. Because they made the mistake of believing in one God instead of multiple gods or any one ruling king, Jews in their early history were exiled, enslaved, demeaned, and persecuted. So much so, the prophet Jeremiah predicted that things had to take a turn for the better for the Jews (because things couldn’t get much worse,) that a messiah who would lead the Jews to the Promised Land would replace the covenant of Moses and the suffering would end. Some of the less patient Jews decided that this interesting looking guy (somewhere between Willem Dafoe and James Caviezel,) who hung around with some interesting women, spoke in riddles, got himself into some trouble with the Feds, got himself executed, was indeed the Messiah.
Someone, something, some force probably moved the rock, and then moved the corpse. Jesus is alleged to have reappeared to a chosen few (none of whom were reported to be using any of the little known state-of-the-art hallucinogens) and, in the early part of the first century, at least one small enclave on our planet had found its savior. The curse of the Garden of Eden had been lifted; the Jews would no longer be enslaved and forced to build pyramids; and death had been replaced by eternal life. Those who believed that Christ was the savior became Christians and those who said that this guy who came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey just couldn’t possibly be the Son of God remained Jewish, still hoping that some other descendant of David might yet happen along soon and fulfill Scriptural prognostications.
That was a bit of a prelude to 5000 years of religious history that I did NOT learn in the Seminary What do I believe? Pretty much what I did as I entered the Seminary in 1992: the Bible is historical anecdotes organized to present some religious themes that may or may not be supported by context or fact. I believe that some of what is written can provide a smattering of relief to some who are troubled by life as much as they are by the prospects of their death.
The New Testament is very much a book of persuasion, “rhetoric” as we were taught in class, written by first-century theologians hell-bent on selling Christianity and displacing Judaism. To support their case that Jesus did indeed fulfill some of the prophesies offered in the Hebrew Scriptures, evangelists placed on the lips of Jesus some of the words put forth by the earliest Biblical scholars. One of the first recorded cases of lip-synching.
As an alleged theologian, the biggest problem that I’ve observed over the years has been the confusion between the concepts of God and Santa Claus. I’m sure that you learned growing up that God was watching all, knew when you were doing something wrong, had a list, was checking it twice, and was going to find out who was naughty or nice. This same God/Santa Claus could be “petitioned” (yes, Jim Morrison, the concept of “Petitioning the Lord with prayer!”) and asked that we be forgiven our sins and our hairy palms, and that he intercede and help the Mets win another world series, that I pass the test I never studied for, and that I win the lottery.
I don’t see God as Santa, although most people who believe in God do envision him that way, an old guy with a white beard, sitting on a cloud with a clipboard and a medium point Bic pen. And to those who say that God will answer all prayers, let them be aware that some of His answers may include: “No, not now, or figure it out yourself.”
I recently heard of a survey that indicated that nuns who used the word “joy” and “happiness” were shown to live ten years longer than those who did not. Although I am not a nun and the word “joy” is not often in my vocabulary, I decided to change the ring on my cell phone to “Ode to Joy.” My point (yes, I do have a point) is that, apart from all the superstition and mindless ritual associated with religion, there may be some benefits to certain aspects of spirituality and prayer. Some of those benefits may be due to the power of suggestion, the undoing of psychosomatic trauma, or some ion transfer or shifts in magnetic fields that we may not yet fully comprehend.
I took a course in Church doctrine that was taught by the rector of the Seminary who was about to leave his post and go back to running a parish. He was a brilliant scholar, having studied in Rome about the time of Vatican II, and it was his last class before he left; so his interaction with the class was a bit less formal than it might have normally been. I asked him about intercessory prayer and he said that it primarily benefits those who are doing the praying, giving them some form of inner strength, some sense of purpose when things are looking on the glum side. This acquired inner strength can by itself work miracles, but he agreed with my non-Santa theory.
I see ancient religion as more than occasionally trying to find some primitive–almost childlike– explanations for life forces and phenomena that people didn’t understand then nor may not fully understand now. Modern religion seems to be perpetually trying to catch up with modern science and culture and, by all measurements, seems to be losing that race. Speaking of magnetic fields, going into the Seminary, I harbored a theory that, if humans had a soul, it very likely was in the form of a magnetic field. And my final course in Christology seemed to espouse a theory from noted Catholic theologian Karl Rahner who basically stated something along the same lines. Hence, the concept of an enduring soul may be wishful thinking or science fiction. Or maybe this theory or others like it just haven’t been figured out yet.
The benefits of prayer may very well take on more characteristics of science that we just don’t yet understand, e.g., more similar to sonic or electronic wave transfer than anything having to do with intercession from a heavenly source. Similarly, the healing miracles attributed to Christ in the Bible may very well have just been mere foreshadowing of the medical miracles we read about today, where science helps the blind to see, helps the lame to walk, or a patient with cancer to miraculously heal with the help of medicine or inner strength or forces unknown.
When I pray, I try to forget any preconceived notions that I may have brought along with me to adulthood from childhood. No Santa, no clipboard, no magic wand, no clicking of my heels, no man behind the curtain. I appeal to the inner workings of me, the nebulous life force that somehow started and keeps ticking in ways and for reasons that aren’t truly clear to me. I also am sometimes hopeful that, through prayer, some positive vibes or some mini ion-storm might somehow affect someone I care about in some productive ways.
I don’t know whether changing the ring on my cell phone will make me more joyous and consequently live longer. I don’t know if a focused, inward, prayerful appeal on your part or by those around you will have any affect on whatever you’re going through. But it probably can’t hurt.
Postscript: I originally wrote this essay in the form of a letter to an old friend who was dying of cancer. I was suggesting to her that praying might ease some of her pain if not bring about some divine insight to her disease. I’ve always known my friend to be stubborn and that her 12 years of parochial school had turned her off to organized religion and to that God that Josiah Bartlett calls a “feckless thug.” Indeed, she had become an agnostic, perhaps an atheist, most certainly a lapsed Catholic. I wrote the aforementioned with tongue partially in cheek to try to assuage her concerns that I might evangelically try to reconnect her with her estranged deity. My primary goal was to use some reverse psychology to get my friend to pray, if only to bring her some inner peace. In the eight months that followed, as death drew nearer with each passing day, she seemed to be doing just that.
FrThom
Claudia’s Haunted Eyes
Van Allen’s Belt is falling,
To surround the city’s haze.
The calendar’s growing smaller,
As months turn into days.
Vitamins smelling rancid,
While the town clerk sits and cries.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s beautiful eyes.
The pencil point is broken,
As snow melts in July.
The novice knows his job too well,
While the lifeguard soon may die.
It’s plain to see that Hector
Fails much more than he tries.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s saddened eyes.
The gin-mill’s selling candy,
To Chinese garbage-men.
The captain cannot spare the time,
To look where he has been.
The dresser drawer is leaking,
The closet’s full of spies.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s puzzled eyes.
A lug wrench fits the back door lock,
A blind man cuts the grass.
The wet-nurse chews tobacco,
Before and after class.
The sunset starts a new day,
As we chase away green flies.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s frightened eyes.
A baseball sheds its cover,
A grave-digger cracks a smile.
His Uncle Edmond rose at dawn,
Just to spit on the Miracle Mile.
The Venetian Blind is rusted,
Since the Bishop told those lies.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s tired eyes.
The gypsy black-man dances,
For a Canadian dime or two.
Edsel hides in De-troit town,
At the sight of an unarmed Jew.
Bi-focals made of isinglass,
Worn by a drunken narc who sighs.
Nobody knows the love that sleeps
In Claudia’s haunted eyes.
The end of the world is over,
As love can’t win this war.
A hooded queen shoots basketballs,
To mourn a son who raped once more.
I find that just can’t mean too much,
Beyond what he denies.
Until they see the love that sleeps,
In Claudia’s weeping eyes.
FrThom
Celibacy and the Catholic Priest
By clicking the link at the conclusion of this blog, you will find a thesis that I wrote in 1992. The paper about celibacy and the Catholic priesthood was part of an independent study project that I had worked on with the guidance of a priest that I had met while reporting a story about the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Lloyd Harbor, NY for the New York Times in 1985.
At the time that I wrote the Times article, the priest was a scripture professor of note at the Seminary, a columnist for the Long Island Catholic weekly newspaper, and was serving weekend masses at a parish in Centerport. He had just completed his doctoral thesis about the proportionately large number of sexually conflicted men who became priests. Subsequent to the publication of his thesis, the priest was summarily removed from his teaching position at the Seminary and was reassigned to a parish.
In context with today’s perspective on priestly sexual dysfunction, the priest probably would have been viewed as a whistle-blower, who had been punished by a diocese with its own very serious personnel problems. He resigned the priesthood a short time after his reassignment, he got married, raised kids, and became a practicing psychologist in Suffolk County on Long Island.
Although my own thesis on celibacy is imperfect in many ways and is certainly somewhat dated–having been written years prior to the more recent furor over the abuse of children by Catholic priests– it may nonetheless provide some insight into the pathology within the Church infrastructure and a foreshadowing of what was to come.
Some individuals may question the direct relevance of clerical abstinence to the issue of sexual abuse of children by priests. However, at the time I wrote the paper and still today, I placed a great deal of faith in statistics which suggest that the celibacy requirement dramatically limits the potential diversity of the priesthood and seems to attract an overwhelming number of immature men who seem somewhat confused about their sexuality. While the number of priests being accused of sexual abuse is a relatively small percentage, there does seem to be a preponderance of closeted homosexuality, secrecy, cover-ups, and human resource mismanagement in far too many parishes and dioceses across the U.S. Such conditions create an atmosphere that permeates the true essence of priestly function and renders many clerics incapable of following Christ’s edicts grounded with honesty and integrity.
An aging priesthood and the influx of foreign priests–who barely speak English let alone grasp the culture of the people they are supposed to be inspiring–are causing further estrangement between the church and American parishioners. I am still convinced that the Catholic Church in the U.S. can heal many of it present wounds by welcoming back as deacons previously excommunicated priests (as well as those having been laicized) who gave up the priesthood to marry and to raise children. The concept of allowing women to become Catholic priests is, of course, another if not more direct solution; but one that is much too much to expect from the incumbent papacy and its selective embrace of John Paul II’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Meanwhile, the celibacy issue may continue to drive more nails into the coffin of a stolid and sinful church infrastructure that Jesus never envisioned nor would he ever have condoned.
FrThom
There’s Something About Mary
In all four gospels of the New Testament, as Jesus’ fate is secured and his passion begins, a woman comes to him and annoints him with a precious ointment, an act of great significance in Old and New Testament times. Those are the only consistent specifics that we have about that event because it varies significantly in each gospel.
We do not know for certain who the woman was and what was her specific intent. We do not know for certain whether it was Christ’s feet or his head that was annointed because it happens both ways in the different gospels. And, much to the chagrin of feminists, we do not know why the act did not receive the kind of recognition or import that Jesus gave it in Mark (14:9) when he said, “And truly I say to you, whenever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Matthew’s Gospel portrays the anointing in similar fashion to Mark, while Luke paints a portrait, not of a prophet but a sinful, wicked female, groveling in her search for forgiveness. It is in John’s Gospel that the woman is finally given a name, Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus and Martha.
Down through the centuries, hundreds, perhaps thousands of books have been written about women in the New Testament, with special attention paid to Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Mary Magdalene, a special woman in Jesus’ life, debated to be either saint or sinner or a bit of both. Little has been directed toward Mary of Bethany who may have been most representative of the woman around Jesus in the New Testament.
It is Mary of Bethany who anoints Jesus, quietly assuming the role of a prophet in the first vivid foreshadowing of his fate. It is she who demonstrates the proper spiritual perspective in reference to the man who, for many, will become the savior of the human race, and revealed in subsequent theology as the Son of God. It is she who is thought by some to have become Jesus’ most effective evangelist.
The lack of attention paid to Mary of Bethany aggravates University of Notre Dame professor Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza in her book–seen from a feminist perspective, In Memory of Her. Dr. Fiorenza says that male chroniclers and interpreters of New Testament events cannot bring themselves to admit the important roles that women played as disciples, as proclaimers of Jesus’ miraculous resurrection, or, in the case of Mark’s unidentified woman, the highly honored role of the prophetic annointer of a King.
“In the passion account of Mark’s Gospel, three disciples figure prominently: on one hand, Judas who betrays Jesus, and Peter who denies him and on the other hand, the unnamed woman who annoints Jesus,” said Dr. Fiorenza. “While the stories of Judas and Peter are engraved in the memory of Christians, the story of this woman is virtually forgotten.”
FrThom
Who Killed Evelyn Battel?
I made my way south along Broadway Greenlawn on that muggy August morning in 1984. I drove conservatively because I probably could have been cited for driving while comatose if pulled over by police. The sun had barely found its way above the horizon. No one in his or her right mind could voluntarily be up and attempting to function that early on a Saturday, or so I thought.
I had decided to work a few early hours to try to lighten the load of paper on my desk. At 5:30 AM, I was surprised to see any sign of life let alone a contingent of Suffolk County Police sector cars diverting traffic off Broadway. That much police activity and what was obviously a crime-scene investigation shocked me out of my mid-summer funk and my self-imposed somnambulism.
I read in the next day’s newspaper that the bloodied, battered, body of a young woman had been found on Broadway Greenlawn, close to the intersection of Milton Place. She was identified as Evelyn Battel, a 24-year old waitress who was living on Wall Street in Huntington Village. The fact that I am still thinking about this gruesome crime so many years later should serve as an indication as to profound effect that her death had upon me. Raising two pre-teenaged daughters at the time, I was overwhelmed by the horrific, senseless loss of life.
Years passed and little was heard about the case. A reporter made an off-the-record inquiry as to the status of the investigation. An off-the-record answer came back that, thus far, no arrests had been made and one was not imminent. The cops had a suspect but were taking their time putting together a case. Finally, three years after the crime, a local man was arrested. He was released prior to a trial because prosecutors lacked irrefutable evidence linking him with the woman. The accused persistently maintained that it was all a case of mistaken identity, and inconclusive DNA testing subsequently cleared him.
We hear a great deal about the unpleasant by-products of the bar scenes in our towns, villages, and hamlets: under-aged drinking, the altercations, the traffic accidents, the drug and alcohol overdoses. Yet, not enough emphasis is placed upon the dangers lurking in the corners of the clubs, the guys with too much booze, too much smoke, or too much blow or smack or Ecstasy or steroids in them, looking to prove yet unresolved manhood, to perhaps compensate for an underdeveloped or abused psyche, or to satiate restless hormonal surges.
And then there are the young ladies with their own growing pains, looking for companionship, looking for male approval, or maybe just looking for a dance partner. Parents caution kids so often about so much that we are more than likely “yessed” to the heights of condescension while the listening mode has actually been shut down. They often don’t hear us when we tell them that a drink or two, or a tablet or a toke or three can ease self-consciousness, can relax them into a calm, courageous state of vulnerability, which can transform that pretty young package of potential into a victim waiting to happen.
For every five young women sitting wistfully at a table sipping a drink, there is probably at least one guy coming out of the men’s room who’s not in touch with his manhood, whose brain is just toasted enough to snap at an implied rejection or the word “no.”
Is there an answer to all this? I have none. Cracking down on underage drinking, more counseling about the poison that is readily available in bottles and cans, closer monitoring of the over-crowded bars and early-morning drinking hours don’t seem to provide an easy answer.
There is a disturbing bottom line here. A woman gets off work, goes to a local pub, leaves with a man, and is found the next morning discarded in the middle of the road, beaten, raped, strangled, and dead. The killer could still very well be walking down local streets, frequenting the stores, the restaurants, the jogging paths, with your wife, your daughter, maybe mine. He’s aged since he murdered Evelyn Battel. But he’s killed before and is capable of doing it again.
I would like to be able to ask Evelyn Battel for her opinion on these matters, but unfortunately, she’s not available at this time. More than two decades have passed, we still don’t know why she never had the chance to celebrate her 25th birthday.
FrThom
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