Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. Visit

Reflections on Pope Benedict’s Visit to the United States, April 2008: Questions of Social Ethics

By Thomas Massaro, S.J.

In moments of honesty, social ethicists like me have to admit that we don’t have much to add to the fevered discourse about papal travels, such as the recently concluded visit of Pope Benedict to the United States. Catholic ethicists concerned about social justice issues are more attuned these days to rumors of a soon-to-be-released social encyclical, which some Vatican watchers expect as soon as this summer. Encyclicals stand as the highest level of ordinary teaching documents that popes publish, and this would be the first encyclical devoted primarily to social justice issues since John Paul II released Centesimus Annus, upon the hundredth anniversary of the original social encyclical Rerum Novarum, in 1991. I, for one, am most eager to see what this encyclical will contain, and I hope for ample treatment of globalization, the environment, the response to terrorism and the peaceful resolution of international conflicts.

Just a few comments, then, on the most interesting aspect of Benedict’s appearance here, at least from a social ethics perspective. On April 18, the Pontiff visited the United Nations in New York City, where he delivered an address, half in French and half in English, to the General Assembly. This fine tradition of papal addresses to that august body began with Paul VI in 1965. John Paul II followed suit in 1979 and 1995, and now Benedict in 2008. Notice the gaps of 13, 16 and now 13 years. Given Benedict’s advanced age (he turned 81 while in Washington, DC on this trip), it is unlikely that he would return to the U.N. if form holds. These realities perhaps conspired to lead Benedict to choose his words carefully and underline several key points in this, possibly the only address to the General Assembly he will ever make.

To the casual listener or reader, much of the pope’s speech might sound like boilerplate, a mere string of bromides without much bite. But we would do well to notice the way Benedict weaved together a set of specific concerns in the course of his address. Early on in his speech, he listed the following items of international import: “questions of security, the development goals, the reduction of inequalities, the protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate.” This constitutes a pretty good list of distinctive social justice concerns for our new millennium. Note the reference to the Millennium Development Goals adopted by many international agencies, as well as the invocation of ecological concern, a touchstone of a remarkable “greening of the Vatican” in word and deed in recent months.

The pope moved on to further themes that, while in definite continuity with previous Vatican social teachings, add up to more than just stale platitudes. The theme of “option for the poor” was invoked when Benedict expressed special concern for “the most fragile regions of the planet, especially those countries in Africa and on other continents which are still excluded from authentic integral development and therefore at risk of experiencing only the negative effects of globalization.” Sounds to me like a solid hint regarding the content of that upcoming social encyclical. In the same paragraph, the pope moved on to appeal for “a correlation between rights and responsibilities” and “a rational use of technology and science,” each of which are reminiscent of the personalist spin that his predecessor John Paul II placed upon venerable themes of Catholic social teaching.

Then a few surprises crept in during the course of the next paragraph. The pope placed front and center “the principle of the responsibility to protect,” an international relations principle that does not often find its way into papal diplomatic addresses. Benedict called attention to the obligations of states to protect both their own domestic populations as well as other members of the international community, from “grave and sustained violations of human rights, as well as from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether natural or man-made.” His emphasis on collective security actions in subsequent sentences indicates what he probably had in mind: this is not a call for unilateralism, but international cooperation. In the wake of horrors like genocide in Rwanda and Darfur and numerous similar crises, a moral appeal for such responsibility on the part of those who have the power to act constructively is an important reminder from a respected voice. That the paragraph ends with a further appeal for managing international conflicts “by exploring every possible diplomatic avenue” underlines the pope’s preference for reconciliation through dialogue rather than through the precipitous use of force.

The remainder of the address contains further advice and analysis of world problems. A most appropriate celebration of the upcoming 60th anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is followed by an acknowledgement of the need to balance individual human rights and concern for the life of the community. This reminder of the theme of solidarity is characteristic of recent decades of Catholic social thought, a tradition in which the common good emerges as a “master concept” dominating the whole terrain of church teachings on social relations. In those cultures (such as here in the U.S.A.) where crass individualism is a deep temptation, the Catholic community often constitutes the single strongest voice for communitarianism and high regard for the poor and vulnerable.

The final paragraphs contain one more “meaty” dollop of analysis, this time regarding the meaning of the right to religious freedom. A key sentence in this regard finds the pope affirming: “The full guarantee of religious liberty cannot be limited to free exercise of worship, but has to give due consideration to the public dimension of religion.” While this insight will seem blatantly obvious to most observers, those familiar with Benedict’s very first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est from 2006, will find the selection of words and concepts presented here most intriguing. In that encyclical, the Pope addressed the relationship between justice and charity, and certain sentences he included in the final text led some readers to conclude that he favored a rather sharp separation of private and public action, so that believers qua believers would bear practically no responsibility for the public order. Theologians at the time wondered precisely how the words of Benedict squared with previous Vatican calls for public engagement, such as those found in Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes. So it is intriguing to note here the way Benedict insists on keeping open at least the “possibility of believers playing their part in building the social order” as one face of the right to religious freedom. While Deus Caritas Est itself had already insisted that “the Church not remain on the sidelines in the struggle for social justice,” those who are particularly enthusiastic about church involvement in shaping a more just society (I hasten to place myself in that category) are encouraged by Benedict’s choosing this auspicious occasion to make this particular point.

The address concludes with several paragraphs devoted to saying the obvious: that the Catholic Church supports the goals and principles of the United Nations. Benedict says, “My presence at this Assembly is a sign of esteem for the United Nations,” and then “The United Nations remains a privileged setting.” Very much in line with his predecessors, particularly John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II, Benedict is eager to signal support for the many operations of international agencies in general, and the U.N. in particular, for promoting peace and economic development. On a personal level, both as a social ethicist and as a Catholic priest, I found it particularly edifying to witness on April 18 a “joint appearance,” as it were, of the two agents that inspire (at least in my heart) the most hope for a more peaceful world in the coming decades.

Thomas Massaro, S.J., author of Living Justice: Catholic Social Teaching In Action; The Classroom Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) is Professor of Moral Theology at Weston Jesuit School of Theology.

A Note to Benedict XVI– What is different about American Catholics

[delayed posting; my apologies.—Ross Miller, Editorial Director, Sheed & Ward Catholic Books.]

By William V. D’Antonio

In spring 1987, anticipating the second visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States, the National Catholic Reporter asked me to lead a team of sociologists in studying the attitudes beliefs and practices of U.S. Catholics, to help the bishops explain to the Pope where the laity stood at that historical moment. 

Four surveys and 21 years later, the first visit of Pope Benedict XVI provides an opportunity to examine subsequent changes in the way the Catholic laity see their faith and their Church.  Our studies show there have been significant changes in the beliefs, practices and attitudes of Catholics and that the church of today is different in some important ways from the one that greeted John Paul II.  The number of active priests has declined dramatically, as Richard Schoenheer predicted in Full Pews and Empty Altars; Catholic churches are being closed in ever-increasing numbers (one way to avoid empty altars); there appears to be a growing gap between the aging clergy who were the change agents of Vatican II,  and the more cultic newer clergy; the Church is still reeling from the scandal of sexual abuse and its cover up by bishops, over a billion dollars was paid out. Catholics continue to find themselves divided along political party lines about whose vision of the good society more closely approaches the church's social teachings. 

While Schoenheer was accurate about emptying altars, he was optimistic about the full pews.  Yes, there are many masses throughout the country that are well attended; that may not mean much more than Catholics have many, many more large parishes and church buildings serving 2,000 to 5,000 families than do the Protestants.

Another significant change since John Paul II’s second visit is in the makeup of the laity.

In 1987, one third of all adult Catholics were the Pre Vatican II Catholics, those born 1940 or earlier, who came of age in the Latin Mass Church. Those born between 1941 and 1960 constituted almost half of all adult Catholics in 1987; they came of age just before and during Vatican II, thus have a foot in both the Latin and the new Church of the vernacular.  Those adults born after 1961 constituted only 1 in 4 of all Catholics and are known to us as the Post Vatican II generation, often called the Gen X generation.

When Benedict XVI arrives in the spring of 2008, he will find that there has been a great change in the population. Pre-Vatican II Catholics are now only 17% of the total; Vatican II Catholics are now down to 35% of the total, while the Gen X Post Vatican II Catholics are now the largest single generation, having peaked near 40%.  A new generation has entered the ranks of the faithful: we call them the Millennials, born from 1979 on.  That generation was only 9% of the total in 2005, but will be growing for the next five to ten years or until some unexpected event helps create a new generation.

Our four surveys allow us to begin to understand how different the generations are.  Let us list some of the ways, and then consider the consequences for the Church to come:

1. Over the 18 years of the four surveys, Pre-Vatican II Catholics maintained a Mass attendance rate of 60%.

2. The Mass attendance rate of Vatican II Catholics was steady at around 40 % but declined to 35% in 2005; (could this decline be related to the sex abuse scandal? This is the generation that included both victims and the parents of victims.).

3. The Post Vatican II Mass attendance rate was steady around 27%.

4. The first reading of the Millennials finds them at a 15% rate.

Dispelling myths (a-c, below):

1. As people approach death they go to Mass in increasing numbers.  In fact, Pre-Vatican II Catholics went to Mass at a rate closer to 75% if we go back to the findings from the 1950s.

2. That when couples are married and have children they will return to Church; this also does not hold. Vatican II rates did not go up; in fact, they went down, and the Post Vatican II Catholics now presumably in their child bearing and rearing years, have held steady at 27%.

3. There is nothing from the experience of the three older generations to suggest that the Millennials will begin to flock to Mass much beyond the current level. With the Millennials at 15%, the most logical expectation is a continuing decline in Mass attendance as death takes its toll on the older two generations.

It is clearer today than it was in 1987 that personal autonomy is important to Catholics across generations; the era of pray, pay, and obey has been replaced by reliance on their own reasoning to their lived experience.  No generation sees church leaders as the proper locus of moral authority on any of the five vexing sexual issues that we have studied over time.   They either look to their own conscience or say that there should be a dialogue between the laity and church leaders on these issues.  Why might this be so?  Let us consider only two issues: divorce and remarriage without an annulment, and the morality of homosexual behavior.

Divorce and remarriage: Pre-Vatican II Catholics remember the shame and scandal that came to a family that suffered a divorce.  Today, who does not know a family with divorces and remarriages.  Those remarrieds who want to remain in full communion find support from older and younger family members.  They find it difficult to see the reasoning of the official teaching.

Active homosexuality: For Pre-Vatican II Catholics, homosexuals were derided and in the closet.  Now we find nephews and nieces, friends and co-workers who are gay/lesbian, and again reason and lived experience seem more persuasive than the Vatican's teaching.

Our findings suggest why this may be the case. While Catholics in all the generations have shifted more and more to relying on their own conscience rather than giving automatic obedience to Vatican teachings, the Millennials embrace personal autonomy as part of their core identity. And this autonomy has led them to question, disagree with and ignore the array of teachings on human sexuality.  It is difficult to imagine them not having relatives and friends who are children of divorce, or are divorced and remarried.  It is not difficult to imagine that they accept these people and reject the notion that divorce and remarriage should keep them from communion   Nor is it difficult to imagine them not knowing people who are gay or lesbian; research findings show Millennials across religious lines accepting homosexual unions as a normal part of their world. So it was not surprising to learn that such a large majority said it was more important how a person lived than that he or she be a Catholic.  Nor was it then surprising that not a single Millennial scored high in commitment to the Institutional Church.   In contrast, 17% of the currently largest generation, the Post Vatican II Catholics, scored high in commitment.

On the positive side, the four generations all agree on core features of their Catholic faith: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the centrality of service to the poor; the sacraments; and Mary as the mother of God.  And in these core beliefs we find an opening for Bendedict to relate to the Millennials.   John Paul II arrived when Vatican II Catholics were at their peak in numbers and drive for change.  Benedict XVI arrives at a time when Post Vatican II Catholics are the largest in numbers, but still struggling to overcome the individualism and self-actualization orientation that characterized so much of their coming of age years.   The Millennials, Catholic and not Catholic) have embraced the idea of service to the poor as a key sign of their times. They have not only embraced the idea, but also the practice.   Benedict has shown in his essays on poverty and hope, and his Encyclical on Love  signs that he may be able to reach out to these young people with a message they can embrace.

Pope Benedict may also find that there is a broader audience awaiting him if he is ready to preach a gospel of civility in the public arena.  He arrives when the two political parties may be near the point of selecting their candidates for the Fall election.  He should be made aware that in November 2007, a group of Catholics including former U.S. ambassadors, college and university presidents, and Republican and Democratic Party leaders had made a plea to “Observe Civility in Political Debate.” Another group, who identified themselves as faithful Catholics, said there could be no civility in discourse which deals with the sanctity of life.  The bishops have continued to give special attention to abortion as the major threat to that sanctity.  The question facing the electorate is whether it is possible for a position taken on religious faith to also be argued as a matter of moral reasoning without leading to a situation in which said moral reasoning can lead only to one conclusion, essentially making it impossible for a civil law to not conform to a particular religious teaching.

 

Pope Benedict is a world leader; he is well aware that in Muslim countries like Malaysia and Afghanistan, many Islamic leaders insist that there should be no civil law that does not conform to Sharia Law.  Benedict is the loudest and strongest voice of the Christian world, and he is well aware of the impact of the Enlightenment on that world. Vatican II finally embraced the enlightenment when it acknowledged the right to primacy of conscience to freedom of religion.   Bishop Blase Cupich of South Dakota recognized this in 2006 when the state faced a referendum that if passed would prohibit all abortions. He asked for a dialogue and debate that would be based on a civility that would yield more light than heat. Were Benedict to add strength to that statement during his visit, he would do much to recover the credibility that has been lost to the teaching hierarchy since 1968. Catholics would not be the only ones hearing that message; it would have worldwide impact.   If he fails to take advantage of the signs of the times, that too will be a sign of our time for the future direction of the Catholic Church in the U.S.A.

Signs of the times (a-m, below):

                        a. the call for civility; the response from the right;

b. the ties that bind people to social institutions– for Catholics the parish, with its parochial school system, all the way through college;

c. the system was built by a laity that was essentially poor; and now, when the laity and the Church are supposedly wealth (annual collections, land holdings, and other indicators of wealth, it is closing schools, and paying out more than a billion dollars to pay for the sex abuse and cover up scandal.

Our study of Voice of the Faithful reveals many things about Catholic education: the leaders and those who have signed on as members (some 30,000 +) are Catholic-school educated (70% primary, more than 60% high school, and more than 54% with undergraduate degrees from Catholic Colleges).  They are the Eucharistic Ministers, the Lectors, the CCD teachers, parish council and finance council members, they know and have read the literature of Vatican Council II.  The bishops of 1884 who committed themselves to building this system would be thrilled; the bishops of 2008 seem dismayed at the reality that some of their graduates want to change the Church.

        d.  Some positive offshoots: small Christian communities.  RENEW and its offshoots

         e.  The ordination of women to the priesthood

         f.   Percentage of highly committed Catholics, declined from 27% in 1987 to 21% in 2005; the percent who might leave the church remained stable overall at about 17%, but with the Millennials, it is one in 4; most Catholics continue to have a moderate degree of commitment to the Church; they don’t demand much, and neither does the Church.

         g.  Back to civility, and the American political scene: the issue of abortion will not go away as long as hierarchy makes it a non-negotiable issue, while making issues like health care, housing for the poor, nuclear arms, money for the military, and the like as matters of prudential judgment.

         h.  The fear of dialogue: Papal Birth Control Commission as a case in point: the pope’s own appointees came to the conclusion that the teaching was not infallible, that it could be changed.

            

Question: might abortion position suffer the same fate?  Or the prohibition against divorce and remarriage without an annulment?  Or even homosexuality?  Recall the effort of the American Catholic Theological Society, and their book Human Sexuality, a first effort. Forced off the shelves.

         i. Education remains the great enemy of ignorance and authority based on “tradition,” or “God has told us, there is no need for dialogue.”

         j. Lumen Gentium: Chapter 12 is still relevant.

         k.  The Millennials: Mass, not very often; service to the poor– a high priority.  The source of this new commitment? Commitment of the high schools some 25-30 years ago.  More than charity, they see the need for social justice inn legal matters, like the environment.  And the word Millennnials includes more than just Catholics; it is the new youth movement, emerging as part of the new times.  Does Benedict have a message of encouragement for them? Will he provide the message without tying it to a non-negotiable “fertilized egg”?

         l.  Islamic extremists, and even not extremists, push for Sharia Law to be above civil law. In Malaysia, the woman who would convert from Islam to Christianity, must get approval from the Mullahs, while the Mullahs insist taht there should be no law that is contrary to Sharia Law.  Is that not what the American bishops are saying, when it comes to conception, stem cell research and the like?

         m. And then there is the new world of the Internet, the blogs, Chat rooms, etc.  room for all positions.

William V. D’Antonio is the author (with Dean Hoge, Mary Gautier, and James Davidson) of American Catholics Today:  New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church (A Sheed & Ward Book, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007).  D’Antonio has been interviewed extensively during the recent papal visit, including appearing on CBS Television, and was quoted in recent issues of The New York Times, Newsweek, and National Catholic Reporter.

Pope Benedict XVI and Catholic Education: Enduring Themes

[delayed posting; my apologies.—Ross Miller, Editorial Director, Sheed & Ward Catholic Books.]

By Rev. John J. Piderit, S.J. and Melanie Morey

On Thursday, April 17, Pope Benedict XVI will address the presidents of Catholic colleges and universities in the United States as well as the 195 superintendents of education (each diocese has one) who oversee the operations of most primary and secondary Catholic schools in the United States.

The pope will say whatever he wants and we will be very interested in whatever he says.  However, it might be helpful for readers to be alert to a few themes he will likely address.  These are a priori themes we will be looking for.

1.  American Culture is Powerful The United States has a powerful, dynamic, influential culture.  It also has a pre-eminent system of higher education.  The goal is to have Catholic higher education flourish as something distinctly Catholic within the larger, nonsectarian culture of higher education.

2.  Wealth in the Catholic intellectual tradition  The Catholic intellectual tradition offers valuable insights and traditions to specific academic disciplines.  This is a tradition which should be passed on to the younger generation.

3.  Catholic Theology Should be Central  Catholic institutions of higher education should be true centers of inquiry and transmitters of knowledge and wisdom.  They do this best by according Catholic theology a place of pre-eminence.  Catholic theology should have an impact on most, if not all, the other academic disciplines taught at the university.

4.  Unity of Knowledge  The 19^th and 20^th centuries have seen a proliferation of disciplines.  Specialization of this type has had some very good benefits.  The difficulty with specialization, however, is it makes it more difficult for students and faculty to appreciate the unity of knowledge.  Catholic theology and philosophy can make a genuine contribution here.

5.  Responsible Living  Catholic universities should have a positive impact not only on what students learn but also on who they lead their personal and public lives.  In particular, Catholic colleges and universities should offer guidance to students about how to conform their lives to the teachings of the natural law.  Natural law thinking has been a mainstay of the Catholic approach to morality for two millennia.  Natural law thinking is also the bedrock on which the constitution of the U.S. stands.  Catholic colleges and universities should help students understand the requirements of the natural law and help them to abide by the norms of natural law.

Rev. John J. Piderit, S.J. and Melanie Morey have published widely on themes and issues of Catholic higher education, and are the authors of Renewing Parish Culture: Building for a Catholic Future (A Sheed & Ward Book, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).  Melanie Morey was among four experts interviewed recently in the Chronicle of Higher Education in advance of Pope Benedict’s visit to the United States.

TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT...from his national column, Amazing Grace

By David Yount

   Nothing so epitomized the pope's recent visit to America than the stirring hymn that concluded his White House appearance. It was Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," recalling our nation's tragic Civil War.

   The pope smiled at the verse: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord," then beamed when he heard the words of the chorus:

   "Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!... His truth is marching on."

   Little wonder: If the Catholic Church is sure of anything, it is that it marches with the truth of Christ.

   In an attempt to reconcile peoples of different religious faiths, it has become fashionable in polite company to disregard the perennial Catholic claim to be the one true church. Over the centuries Rome has expressed that claim in formulas that appear arrogant and high-handed. For example:

   "Outside the church there is no salvation." "In matters of religion error has no rights." And, quoting Jesus, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

   Before he was raised to the chair of St. Peter, Benedict himself publicly pronounced the faith of other Christian denominations to be "defective." His church has always been militant in detecting and condemning heresies.

   Occasionally they have back-tracked. Pope John Paul II himself confessed that the Protestant principle of "justification by faith, not works" was condemned as heretical because its meaning was misunderstood by Catholics at the time of the Reformation.

   Still, despite its involvement in the worldwide ecumenical quest for Christian unity, the Catholic Church persists in its claim to be the one true church.

   In their remarks during the White House ceremony, the pope and the president independently decried relativism. Later that day, he told the American bishops, "Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted," because it rests on revealed truth that binds the human family as the people of God.

   He condemned not only flavor-of-the-month faiths, but religion that is sentimental, tentative, or speculative. Predictably, his Catholic claim to the whole truth will be dismissed by many as naive and arrogant, but that truth could not be more hopeful.

   Our nation's founding father actually claimed some truths to be self-evident -- that we are all endowed with inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By contrast, the pope does not claim any truths to be self-evident, but only that they are revealed to all of us by the same God.

          Although the pope came to America specifically to encourage Catholics to grow in their faith, we can all join him in song:

   "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

   With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:

   As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

   His truth is marching on."

     Permission to reprint from Scripps Howard News Service.   

David Yount is the author of several Rowman & Littlefield titles, including How The Quakers Invented America and is also the author of Growing in Faith: A Guide for the Reluctant Christian (Seabury) is in a new edition. He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount@erols.com.

Shatter, from Take Heart

By Brian Doyle

The most extraordinary moment of my Catholic lifetime was when little Angelo Roncalli politely grabbed the Church he loved by its ancient hoary arrogant throat and shook it until the dust fell like snow.

But that was forty years ago, and that twenty-third John died before he could bend the biggest corporation on earth back toward its original incredible idea, relentless love, and away from its addiction to control, and since then the hierarchy, up to and including the remarkable man who now steers the ship, has maybe been more interested in conserving power than in correcting pride.

The priesthood, including the late public relations genius of a pope, has in general wished to protect the cherished idea of a paternal and pastoral Church that led and taught its flock, even as the flock, at least in the Americas, increasingly found many of the men who vow to be their servants uninterested in and dismissive of what they thought and how they lived.

Which is why in my lifetime millions of American Catholics, including me, have saluted the hierarchy with respect and often affection even as they steeled their resolve to make their own moral decisions.

And then came revelations of rape, and more rapes, rapes beyond counting.

But none of us, not even cowards like the bishops and cardinals who with their lies let children be raped and ruined in their parishes, knew the true horror – how many twisted troubled priests there were and are, how many cruel inept bishops, how deep the squirming evil in the corporation expressly designed to fight evil. “The smoke of Satan,” as the American bishops themselves have said.

I have three small children; I am enraged; I am afraid; I am bitter. The organization into which I was born, in which I was schooled, to which I have devoted much of my professional life, is caught with its pants down, revealed to be a place where men at the highest levels shut their eyes to the screams of children in the next room.

Yet this acid bath may heal the church, may force it back into the clean future little Angelo Roncalli dreamed for it.

From these crimes may come a new Church – one that will, I pray quietly, be what it has always had the extraordinary potential to be: a stunning voice against poverty and hunger and greed and violence, a force beyond national and political and ethnic snarling, a clan of brothers and sisters bound by the insane faith that love will conquer blood.

A clan, an idea, a force, an energy, a prayerful verb that reaches for its brothers and sisters among other faiths and creeds; that reunites with other Christian faiths and with its parent and root, Judaism; that links arms with the other faiths that sense the One under all; that joins hands with the faiths that chase the holy miracle of life and call it many names; and together, the motley clan now comprising most of the people in the world, dream a new planet.

Probable? No. I am no fool.

Possible. Yes. I believe.

The Catholic hierarchy isn’t the Catholic Church. The men and women who take vows as priests and nuns, and the ones who are elevated to authority, like the many dozens of admirable cardinals and bishops in America and around the wild green bruised planet, are overwhelmingly brave and graceful and honest and unbelievably selfless – but they are a tiny percentage of the Catholic world.

So “the Church” will not be shattered by this horrific unveiling of rape and twisted sex and cowardly mismanagement, because the Church is us – mothers, fathers, children, single people, gay and divorced and separated men and women, all the people in the fifteenth pew and very many who never sit in pews at all but savor Christ’s words in their hearts.

What will shatter, what I pray will shatter, is a culture of paranoid power in the Catholic Church – a culture the Church has wrestled with for many centuries, because the Church is a human construct draped on an incredible idea, and human constructs, as you and I know all too well, are utterly liable to violence and greed, craven cupidity, arrogance, lies.

I do not forget the early Church, that band of brothers and sisters who grew up around the ludicrous idea that a young skinny intense devout poetic confusing dazzling Jew preaching love love love was Himself the distilled essence of the unimaginable Force that created all that is. A crazy idea, and they were crazy men and women, addicted to His stunning idea that love would conquer blood.

But they persisted – against the enmity of their Jewish brethren, against the enmity of the world’s greatest empire then, against the enmity of time. They did so in the early years by communal love: they chose their own priests from among themselves, they did not fetishize celibacy, they elected their own bishops, they met in fields and forests, they steered clear as best they could from power and money, and tried to stay focused on the young Jew’s message, and the carrying of that love to the ends of the earth, the forging of that wild message into a wild new peace, a new way of being, a revolution of the heart.

Inevitably it took an organization to carry that message, and no organization can persist for two thousand years without being subject to all the million sins and vices of the human engine: lust, greed, violence. And the Catholic Church has suffered them all in spades, being nothing more and nothing less, ultimately, than a corporation to house and protect the original crazy idea.

The corporation is brave and extraordinary and flawed and cruel. It has been responsible, perhaps, for more blood and death than any other corporation in the history of the world. It is, in its modern incarnation, egregiously mismanaged. It has far too few managers for its workforce – remember, this is a clan and corporation numbering more than a billion people – and those managers are all male, all unmarried, and almost all elderly. It is, despite its worldwide scope and influence, headquartered in a single vast ancient Italian castle where a cadre of mostly Italian men persist in trying to control the lives and loves of people around the planet. It is, despite its own very public cry for openness – aggiornamento! – forty years ago, in real ways closed to women, closed to gay people, closed to divorced people, closed to the very same scattered democracy of the first days after Christ, when a handful of men and women dispersed from Jerusalem to carry the news of a love that did not die.

But I suggest that this closed corporation, which I have loved and hated, which enrages me and has immensely enlivened and enlightened my life, which has fueled a million memoirs and movies, which has harbored the most amazing grace and genius and the most savage rape and sin, is dying and being reborn before our eyes. It is crumbling and shattering and turning to ash and roiling and churning and something in its hammered and flinty heart is struggling to be born anew.

I suggest that these days are the first blinking mewling days of the new Church.

I suggest that the Vatican as imperial corporate headquarters may someday become Buckingham Palace, a beloved and respected and necessary and nutritious element of Catholicism, but not at all crucial, and certainly not in charge.

I suggest that the pope will someday be elected not by cardinals but by worldwide acclamation of his people every bit as inspired by the Holy Spirit as their cardinals locked in a room together have been in the past.

I suggest that the Curia will someday be vastly expanded and vastly diluted.

I suggest that synods of bishops around the world will someday really be the leaders of the faithful in their nations, beholden not to Rome but to the people they have sworn to serve.

I suggest that dioceses and archdioceses may someday again elect their own priests and bishops.

I suggest that women will someday take their rightful place in the first rank of teachers and pastors in the church.

I suggest that the financial status of churches and schools and parishes and dioceses and archdioceses, already teetering, will change utterly into entities designed not as outposts of the diocese but as independent spiritual villages in large part devoted once again to what built the American Catholic Church in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, schools.

I suggest that my church will soon welcome and celebrate its gay members with all its heart, not in the current way of public speech and private disdain.

I suggest that my church will welcome and celebrate its divorced and remarried members without the clownish and Byzantine apparatus of annulment.

I suggest that the legacy of John Paul II will eventually be not his continued marginalization of women and insistence on corporate control, but his ferocious insistence that Christ’s message can destroy totalitarian governments without smart bombs, that wars are inarguably failures of the imagination, and that we are brothers and sisters with all people who pursue holiness.

I suggest that my church will slowly but eventually turn itself over, as it were; that its leaders in the future will be lay men and women, and the hierarchy, a brave and creative and committed and admirable tiny minority, will be celebrated for the extraordinary choice of life they have made, not feared for the crimes they may commit.

I suggest that my church will always be a struggle and a mess, will always be a human yearning and failure, will always be striving and falling, will always be a house for wonder and woe, will never be what it wishes to be; but will be closer to the spirit of its astounding and miraculous birth, in the years to come, than it has been in two millennia. And that, my friends, is a miracle.

The Catholic idea, all these years after Christ died and rose and his friends scattered around the world on their incredible public relations mission, remains stunning and unbelievable – and crucial. And the church which eventually enfleshed that idea, the church which has meant so much to so many, which has meant so much to Western civilization, which has in the most real sense imaginable saved so many souls and so many lives from despair, stands now at a crossroads the like of which it has not faced since the Emperor Constantine saw a sword of fire in the sky and reconsidered the whole idea of massacre of Christians. It will, in the years to come, fall into dusty insignificance, or be reborn and resurrected in a wild motley creative roiling singing form we can only dimly see; but I hope and pray with all my heart that before I die I see clear a church that matters more than it has since the skinny dusty confusing mysterious gaunt testy riveting devout Jew Yesuah ben Joseph selected his first team and so birthed an idea that might heal the bruised and wondrous world.

Amen and then again amen.

From Brian Doyle, “Shatter,” in TAKE HEART, Ben Birnbaum, ed. (c) 2007.

Used with permission of The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Brian Doyle (bdoyle@up.edu) is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland, in Oregon. He is the author of seven books, including Epiphanies and Elegies (Sheed & Ward, 2007), and most recently The Wet Engine, about hearts, and The Grail, about a year in an Oregon vineyard. His work appears in the Best American Essays collections of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005.

What the Pope Hopes to Accomplish, from his national column, Amazing Grace

By David Yount

   The first visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States this month will not be a purely social occasion. As the octogenarian leader of a 2,000-year-old church that commands the allegiance of 1.1 billion people world-wide, he can be expected to take a  hopeful view of history, and the longest view of all -- eternity.

   Unlike purely political leaders the pope does not expect immediate change. Then again, unlike politicians, he has no need to court the electorate and sample public opinion before acting.

   At the United Nations he will do more than appeal for world peace. He will press the leaders of all nations to grant religious freedom to their citizens.

   In meetings with American Jewish leaders, he will celebrate the Passover with them, affirming the Old Testament heritage of the Christian faith.

   Honoring his own national heritage, Benedict will meet in New York with Americans of German ancestry, and join in a prayer service with leaders of other Christian denominations.

   When he confers with American Catholic educators, he can be expected to insist that every Catholic school and college,

welcome students without prejudice to their religious faith, but also clearly incorporate Catholic values in their education.

   In his meetings with our nation's Catholic bishops, the pope can be expected to seek assurances that the scandals of abusive priests are at an end, and that seminary education in the U.S. will ensure American Catholics of a moral and celibate clergy.

   As a cardinal in the Vatican before his election as pope, Benedict XVI was the man charged with defending Catholic faith,

teachings, and practices. He is, in short, a traditionalist who brooks no compromise with secularism. Do not expect him to allow priests to marry or permit women to be ordained. Nor will he soften his church's condemnation of abortion and opposition to artificial contraception.

   Unlike his Polish predecessor, John Paul II, this German pope does not preach in memorable sound bytes but in structured paragraphs. Catholic commentators caution that his words may require not only attention but interpretation. Benedict speaks the language of faith, which can strike our ears as either quaint or steeped in scholarship. This pope is, after all, a Catholic theologian.

   We can expect a great surge of emotion during the pope's public events in Washington and New York. It will stem less from his eloquence than from the hearts of his followers.

   Today in America, one in every four citizens is Catholic, and most Americans think kindly of this pope. In turn, he is

impressed by the overwhelming religious faith of the American people -- Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims alike.

    It's true that American Catholics are inclined to think for themselves. By and large, they have made peace with contraception, tolerate abortion, and accept divorce and remarriage. But they are not secularists. This pope will applaud them for their faith, hope and constancy.

Permission to reprint from Scripps Howard News Service.                     

David Yount is the author of several Rowman & Littlefield titles, including How The Quakers Invented America and is also the author of Growing in Faith: A Guide for the Reluctant Christian (Seabury), now in its second edition. He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount@erols.com.

A Papal Primer, from his national column, Amazing Grace

By David Yount

   Following her conversion to the Catholic faith, the celebrated playwright and congresswoman Clare Booth Luce was granted a private audience with Pope Pius XII. Not satisfied with polite conversation with the Holy Father, she proceeded at length to persuade His Holiness of the truth of her new-found faith.

   Exasperated, the pontiff finally interrupted. "Yes, yes, I know, Mrs. Luce," he said. "I'm a Catholic too."

   Around my house, we honor that reply. Whenever anyone states something obvious, we answer, "Is the pope a Catholic?"

   Well, the pope who is paying a visit to America this month surely passes that test. From 1981 until his election, Benedict XVI was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, charged with defining and safeguarding the Catholic faith. He is a traditionalist, who earned the reputation as a hardliner under John Paul II.

   Benedict, elected pope in 2005, will celebrate his 81st birthday during his U.S. visit to Washington and New York. He is the first German-born pontiff in more than a thousand years. Although he the Vatican's head of state, his visit to America is not a political event, but a religious one.

  Strictly speaking, he is coming at the behest of 350 American Catholic bishops and the 65 million baptized Americans who are Roman Catholic. Many offical visitors to the United States come with their palms extended, seeking favors. The pope will be pleased simply to stoke the fires of faith among all Americans.

   His appearances will be extraordinary media events. Tickets to his public appearances vanished as soon as they were offered. Such was the media demand that within hours press credentials had to be curtailed. Most reporters and commentators will have to cover the events as you and I do, watching television.

   The power of the papacy is chronically underestimated, because it does not consist of wealth or arms, but of morality. The only other world figure who can be compared to the pope is the Dalai Lama. Their power consists of their appeal to our better angels.

   Most Americans inherited their legacy of religious faith from Protestant forebears. For them, Catholic rites and customs can seem as impenetrable as those of Jews and Mormons. To be sure, when Pope Benedict preaches, it will not resemble the sermons of familiar evangelists like Billy Graham, who appeal to the need for personal salvation.

   Rather, the pope will seek to deepen the faith of those who already accept Jesus as their personal savior but are inclined to take their faith for granted. Benedict's is a more subtle appeal, but can be just as powerful.

       There is an expression, "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic," which attempts to explain why those who fall away from that faith cannot conceive of embracing another. Today, nearly one-third of Americans who were raised Catholic no longer practice the faith of their childhood. They are the sheep that this Good Shepherd will be seeking to rejoin the flock.

*Permission to reprint courtesy of Scripps Howard News Service.

David Yount is the author of How the Quakers Invented America, What Are We to Do? Living the Sermon on the Mount, and Be Strong and Courageous: Letters to My Children About Being Christian.  He has also authored Growing in Faith: A Guide for the Reluctant Christian, 2^nd edition (Seabury). A nationally-syndicated columnist with Scripps Howard News Service, Yount answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount@erols.com.

                     

Getting to Know and Appreciate Pope Benedict

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

One of the best things to come from Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States, April 15-20, will be that people will get to know him.

There’s a lack of awareness of who is for three reasons:

1.                  He follows Pope John Paul II who made headlines as he revolutionized the papacy. Before his election, the papacy had basically been a stay-at-home job. When John Paul with his fine stage presence set out globe-trotting, he captured the world’s imagination. With telecommunications, John Paul took the office public as no one before him. His is a hard act to follow.

2.                  Pope Benedict’s 24 years in his previous job, typecast him. He was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church’s faith and morals watchdog. He was arbiter of what was acceptable for theologians to write and teach. His statements were heard worldwide and often drew controversy. When he spoke of revealed truth, he was painted as a man wedded to the past. Despite his kindly nature, he was typecast as stern. Many made up their mind about him even before his election.

3.                  He is a scholar and introvert, not given to encourage a cult of the papacy around himself. He comes from the world of academia and of scholarship, where study, writing and thought are prized. He does not feel called to the stage, though he goes there when he must.

Those who know him, think many Americans will come to appreciate him when he journeys across the Atlantic. A recent survey reports he has an 80 percent approval rate. It will be even higher after his visit.

Pope Benedict, when he was elected, quickly told the cardinals inviting him to the United States that he wasn’t much into travel anymore. Doctor’s orders, he said, and his age. He was 79 then. Nevertheless, when he accepted the papacy he accepted all that comes with it, including his position as a world leader. When the United Nations Secretary General invited him to speak to the UN General Assembly, he accepted and prepared to bring his frequent call for peace, especially in the Middle East, beyond St. Peter’s Square, where he’s raised the subject many times. With his UN forum, people will see a man with a vision for peace rooted in respect for the intrinsic value of the individual. They will hear of the significance of faith and reason and his concern that often modern society is “deaf to the divine.” One can expect similar conversation when Pope Benedict visits the White House, the second pope to do so. John Paul visited there in 1979.

His only other civic engagement, so to speak, will be his visit to Ground Zero. The trip to what has become a national civic shrine expresses the pope efforts to touch and comfort the soul of America, which changed forever on 9/11. He will walk alone there, without crowds, an expression of oneness with the sense of inner loneliness sparked by the tragedy. True to his pastoral nature, he also will meet privately, one-on-one, for a few moments with those who know this loneliness most: first responders whose colleagues died and families mourning loved ones slain in the attack. The visit will reveal the deep caring and kindness of the man seeking to comfort both individuals and a nation.

Pope Benedict knew that he could not visit only the United Nations and its delegates. Having come so far, he knew he had to visit the 63 million Catholics as well as all the other people of the United States. With the aid of mass media, he will do that with trips to the Archdioceses of Washington and New York. In these archdioceses he will see people of every nation, in some ways, glimpse a picture of the entire world, and certainly of the entire United States.

After his visit to the White House, his first visit with the Catholic community will be at his meeting with the U.S. bishops at the Basilica of the National Shine of the Immaculate Conception. As chief shepherd of the church he can empathize with the bishops’ efforts to be spiritual leaders in a secular society. One can expect him to embolden the bishops in their efforts to bring religious values into what is more and more becoming an irreligious world.

The pope, a former university professor, will meet with heads of Catholic colleges and universities and diocesan education departments at The Catholic University of America in Washington. One expects he’ll feel at home with this primarily academic audience that is challenged not only to pass on secular knowledge but a Catholic vision imbuing it. This is second time a pope has invited Catholic higher education leaders to meet him at the university. Catholic university and college presidents were invited to his 1979 address at CUA.

That evening, the pope will meet with leaders of other religions, representatives of the Jewish, Buddhists, Islamic, Hindu and Jain communities. With concern for peace, especially in the Middle East paramount in his mind, the meeting will be one more opportunity to stress the role of religion in bridging the cultural divide at the root of many world conflicts. The following day, in New York City, the pope will meet with leaders of other Christian groups, an effort to shore up ecumenical efforts and to recognize the contribution that Christian groups have made in the shaping and serving the United States. Thanks to them, the United States boasts of a non-governmental educational, health care and social service systems second to none.

Among other meetings with the Catholic family will be a meeting with priests and religious at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In some ways, these are his troops, the men and women collaborators he relies on most to meet the needs of the Catholic community.     

As a pastor Pope Benedict also will meet with young people. They will be of all kinds, handicapped young people in the small setting of the chapel at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers; seminarians and young men and women in formation for religious communities; and young Catholics in general at a youth rally in the seminary grounds.  The former professor will be at home here and can be expected, like his predecessor, to challenge the youth to seek God’s will for them and strive to accomplish all they can with the talents God gave them.

Two stadium liturgies will be centerpieces of the visit – one at Nationals Park in Washington the other at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The pope, as any celebrant, will draw from the Scriptural texts of the Masses.  He is, of course, first of all a priest, albeit one with a worldwide parish, and he will offer words his people need to hear.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh is the editor of John Paul II: A Light for the World and From Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI: An Inside Look at the End of an Era, the Beginning of a New One, and the Future of the Church and is frequent commentator on church affairs. She is director for media relations for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and an award-winning writer, whose work has appeared in both secular and religious publications.