Young Adult Catholics

I had an incredible Tuesday. And in reality, it had little to do with the outcome of the night.

I (along with some of my Spanish-speaking classmates) had the great opportunity to have dinner with Chema Tojeira, the rector of the Jesuit university in San Salvador. In 1989, when six members of the UCA community (along with their housekeeper and her daughter) were slaughtered in cold blood by the Salvadoran military, Chema was the Central American provincial. He’s amazing. He talked about the history of his adopted country, about the current political and economic problems and hopes of El Salvador, and how much the notes of condolence from all over the world the poured in that day in November still mean to him. I had the chance to sit and talk with him for a few minutes and I was able to have him sign my copy of his book, an incredible book on the history and reality of martyrdom that is absolutely brilliant (but only available in Spanish…if you read Spanish…READ THIS BOOK!).

My experience with Chema was heartening. I was reminded of the great men and women I know who are working all over the world for social change, for the rights of people, to give voice to the voiceless. And to sit in a room full of others who are committed to the same thing…it was just beautiful. And, on a quasi-unrelated note, it was a great joy to be in a Spanish-speaking environment, surrounded by classmates from all over Latin America (with a few Europeans and Americans thrown in). My heart, which so misses El Salvador and Bolivia, felt at home.

And then I went from that gathering, where I had been reminded about the inteconnectedness of all the world (the economic crisis here has MAJOR implications for countries like El Salvador which require remittances from folks living abroad in order to keep on going and for people’s very survival), to a gathering with other classmates to watch the election returns. To walk into a room of a couple dozen people who are all under the age of 40…and to know that everyone had voted and felt like they had a true stake in the outcome of the election…it was amazing.

Regardless of how you feel about our President Elect, the American people won a major victory on Tuesday. More people voted than ever. One of my greatest hopes for the evening (apart from which candidates I wanted to win, which I’m not going to get into here) was that my generation, the Millennial Generation, would finally disprove the stereotype of youth being apathetic. And as that party showed, and as the returns showed, we did just that. People voted. They participated. And they cared. And to me, that’s the ultimate victory. It turns out that hope feels pretty good when it’s realized. There’s a lot of work to do, but at least we voted! And that makes us the real winners.

I was really hoping I could find something to write about besides the election.  But I just voted today (I live in Wisconsin so we can pull that kind of thing off), and much of what I have been absorbed with for 24 months comes down to tomorrow!  So I decided I’m not good enough to find something else to write about.

I’m curious how people are dealing spiritually with the election season?  I mean, commentaries are everywhere: blogs, late night tv, early morning tv, magazines, mailings, radio (even music radio DJs are getting into the season!).  I have found it hard not to think about the candidates, the issues, the attacks, the satirical renderings, etc.

Tomorrow, I plan on going to an Irish bar in Madison with my wife to either toast or commiserate.  I’m not sure that my day-to-day life will change no matter who wins - either way, I’ll still have to go to work, the Packers will still be 4-4, and spring weather can’t come soon enough (even though it’s oddly 70 degrees in Madison today).

My questions for all of you:

1)  Where do you plan on being when we receive the announcement for who will be our next President?

2)  What will remain the same in life for you no matter which candidate wins?  (I ask that, because it’s really unclear what will change until we are a few weeks/months removed from this - so let’s look at what we can know and predict and what gives us stable ground!)

Tomorrow, America is faced with perhaps the most pivotal, political decision of the 21st century. With the economic recession’s all-encompassing effects, with fuel having reached paralyzing proportions during the summer months, and major companies declaring bankruptcy from airlines like Frontier, banks like Washington Mutual, and Wall Street giants like Merrill-Lynch, it seems that no one is immune.
How an Obama-Biden administration or a McCain-Palin White House might affect the future U.S. foreign and economic policy, and with it, shape the face of the globe, should be a grave question plaguing the mind of every American. And of course, voting being our access to the system and our means of affecting change, hopefully all those of voting age and registered have given it thoughtful consideration.
This question should plague American Catholics no less than any other citizens because of the many possible ramifications. However, much like in 2004, there are groups that try to reduce the issues to the exclusion of all but life, namely to end abortion.
In 2004, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reaffirmed their five “non-negotiable” issues, one being abortion, and another of course being gay marriage. While the USCCB has since issued a new voter guide where “non-negotiable” issues are noticeably not present, many individual bishops still tout single-issue voting agendas.
As Senator John Kerry was both a self-proclaimed Catholic and choice supporter, the backlash he experienced from the institutional Church hierarchy was a factor of import in the election. The issue divided Catholics, almost down the middle, with 53% approximately in favor of George W. Bush, and 47% in favor of Senator Kerry.
Now, the economic tides have turned, the candidate faces are different, and the single-issue agenda has once again reared its head in the wake of a real national crisis. One such example would be CatholicVote.com.
On the homepage of the aforementioned website is a clip that presents our choices of candidates, and brief bytes of issues, such as the price of fuel at the pump, and an unborn fetus. During the clip of the fetus, the subtitles state, “Some issues are more important…” Then shifts to the gas stations and continues, “…than others.”
In summation, the website clearly directs Catholics to vote for “life” and “family”. However, the single-issue agenda is flawed, as voting in favor of just one issue does not mean supporting life as a whole. After all, capital punishment (to be used in the rarest of circumstances, according to the Vatican) is often overlooked. And the conflict in Iraq has resulted in the deaths of not only American soldiers and Iraqi insurgents, but also many innocent civilians. Another issue brushed aside by the single-issue, so-called “life” supporters.
If life and family are really the paramount values espoused by CatholicVote.com, they are contradicted by an outright ignorance of issues that directly affect both. Domestic policy concerning education, healthcare, and the economy will influence lives and families greatly. The next administration will have an impact for positive or for negative in this arena.
Whether there is work, food, medicine, and knowledge, will affect the very survival of the American people, and the family. An economic recession has a greater propensity to destroy a family than gay marriage. A recession will affect if the mortgage has been foreclosed, if there is a college fund, if there is food on the table, if there is a choice between utilities or rent. These choices have physically deep impacts on families… And gay marriage does the same how?
If the value of life from conception to natural death is really the moral, then the concern needs to go from beyond just the womb and the obsession with Roe vs. Wade. The concern needs to continue on how to support the families of those newborn children… How to educate them, feed them, clothe them, shelter them, and care for them factors into the vote for life.
No statement from Barack Obama or John McCain has indicated that either will appoint judges to the Supreme Court that will outright overturn Roe vs. Wade. It would therefore appear, that abortion will remain legal one way or the other. But how either of these gentlemen will affect life in other ways should be an issue of salience to all Catholics, and all Americans.
The CatholicVote.com clip, while well made, exhorts that Catholics vote their conscience, while clearly steering Catholics down a very narrow path… not necessarily down the path of one’s own God-given conscience.
Life should be given the highest consideration when Catholics vote. But Catholics must ensure that they are looking at the whole picture, and are comprehensively supporting life from conception to natural death. And that has to do with a lot more than Roe vs. Wade. The voting booth is a place where a Catholic should vote his or her own conscience, not a confessional where they must vote their guilt.

What makes someone Catholic?

If I had to answer this question a year ago, I probably would have had an answer that came easily. Or I would have just felt more comfortable thinking about the question.

A year ago, my parish still existed. We knew that our diocese was uncomfortable with us, but no action had yet been taken. I spent my mass-going time between the two services at my parish: one that met in the Church and was more traditional, but with important deviations, and one that met in the gym and was more radical. The Church service featured prayers—even for the Eucharist—that parish members had written and lay homilists. The wording for all readings and prayers was carefully chosen. The goal was not just to be inclusive, but also to eliminate overtones of patriarchy. While it felt funny to say things like the “kin-dom” of God, I grew to love the imagery and the meaning conveyed by thinking of us all, around the world, as part of the same kin group.

The Gym service was always a little challenging for me. It was noisier and freer flowing in structure. We all gathered around the altar for the communion prayer, and we all could say parts of it as the Spirit moved us. Moments of each service always touched my heart and soul, but the service never felt completely comfortable to me. In a dark corner of my mind, I was probably always expecting a thunderbolt to come down as a sign of God’s (or the Pope’s) displeasure.

The thunderbolt did come, but not quite as I expected. The diocese and a newly appointed priest just said that the services needed to conform to the updated General Instruction for the Roman Mass (GIRM). And we mainly just gave in and let them make it a reality. Almost all of the parishioners from the two masses I attended have left. Some have gone on to other parishes and denominations, but many have gone off-site to continue worshipping in the style of the Gym service. Many of us have talked about our grief at having to leave the church and our former parish. Others have rallied, saying that we are that church, no matter where we are.

In early August, the priest sent us a letter saying that we weren’t in agreement with the Church if we continued worshipping at the off-site service. He said we should come back, but that he saw no need to change the mass to make the laity more a part of it. I know that the Roman Catholic church has been re-asserting the primacy of the priest and has made steps to “bring back dignity,” but it made me sad to see the expendability of the laity so clearly and matter-of-factly stated.

So, if I still believe that the laity has an important place in the mass, and I want to hear these voices in the prayers, readings and homilies at my church, am I no longer Catholic? If I choose to go to a service that honors the decades of theological discourse on the feminine in our God—and changes prayers to reflect that—am I no longer Catholic?

I have often questioned my faith, and I have, over the course of years, determined what I believe and where I differ with the Catholic hierarchy. I thought I would be the kind of person who held on and worked for change from within the structure. But the events of the past year leave me questioning what is left within that structure and leave me heart-broken at the loss. It’s not just that my community has been broken apart. It is also the almost daily evidence from parishes and our Roman Catholic leadership that the things I thought were important about Catholicism—the social justice teachings, standing with the outcast, building the peaceable kingdom—are not the most important issues in to our leaders right now. All of this makes me wonder if the Roman Catholic church has room for me. And if it doesn’t, then what am I?

I am reminded this time of year about loss and memory. “October has a lot of anniversaries,” I’ve said before. On All Saints and All Souls, we celebrate collective and individual loss. Grief is very individual, very selfish, but grief also opens you up to a community of people who have also experienced loss. And I can’t help thinking about bodies and what belonged to them. A body of a dead son, a dead father, sister. My grandmother. Her pillow. St. Lucy’s eyes. John the Baptist’s head. The ashes of Joan of Arc. Husayn’s body. Fatimah’s sorrow. The sword that pierced Mary’s heart. The actual heart.

Grief is not limited to loss. As my therapist says, any change is grief. And people get connected to objects in ways that tie them to specific periods in their life; to specific losses. I’ve been tutoring people in a medieval and renaissance studies class who have been writing about the difference between images and relics. One girl took the words right out of my mouth: “Images,” she said, “are two-dimensional – a portrait that is staring at you. It tells you the story. With relics, you get to hold them and put your memory into them. It’s like an urn. It’s a tactile memory of the dead.”

May the remembrances of the dead and the living this week/weekend bring us what we need. May some of us this week/weekend light candles for collective losses of memory, people, history, and space.

Hey, do you guys get those Faithful Citizenship inserts in your bulletins after Mass?  Or are bulletins only a small town America thing any more?  And by small town America, I of course mean Real America.  (Sorry, my cynicism runs deep.  When I see a flag outside a house my first thought is, “Those people hate immigrants.”  That can’t be a good reaction.)

Anyway, the Faithful Citizenship inserts were put together by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and they act as guidelines for the election.  I was very pleased to see that they don’t tell you who to vote for, and in most cases it’s pretty clear that they severely criticize both parties for not doing enough work on the actual important issues of poverty, abortion, climate change, etc.  They urge voters to replace taxes and other personal and often selfish issues with these issues when voting, and I applaud them for this.

Now time for more cynicism.  How many voters will actually vote this way?  My guess is very few.  So does this mean real change within important problems, like poverty for example, has to be tackled without the help of the government?  With poverty, I suppose the right economic policies will help our nation’s poor, but I highly doubt that very much help will be given to the poor of the rest of the world.  We then have to rely on the organizations already spread too thin.  They do the best they can, but in many cases they are only able to treat the effect, when what is really needed is work on the cause.

The government really is needed therefore and has to be willing to sacrifice for the well being of all earth’s inhabitants.  And like everything else, this will probably only get done when we put our representatives on speed dial and lobby the hell out of the government.  (Cynicism) 

This dilemma is evident in almost all the major important problems in the world, besides just poverty.  Right now, the political candidates are feeling a lot of pressure, but I believe it’s after the election when they should feel it the most.  Because that is when we should start hammering them on working for those who need the most help.

I once mentioned to one of my friends that God helps me pick out my clothes in the morning. She said, “I wish God would do that for me–especially when it comes to socks.”

Before you think I’m a bit crazy (or shallow) for elevating what I wear every day to a status so great that God must be consulted, let me say that clothes matter very little to me. In fact, 95% of my wardrobe is comprised of “hand-me-downs” of some sort, from people who care about clothes more than I do, from friends and sisters, from second-hand stores. I spend very little time thinking about clothes (but quite a lot of time wearing them). One of the reasons I spend so little time thinking about them is that, as soon as I open my closet every morning, the choice for what I will wear that day is immediately apparent without any forethought; I see the item, and it feels “right” and off the hanger and on to me it goes. This is similar to the certainty I feel in other moments — much bigger moments, with much bigger decisions — when I feel as if God is guiding my path.

I could make an argument that what I wear is indeed a crucial decision, as it determines the message I’m projecting to the rest of the world on that day. Using this line of reasoning, it might be vitally important to my life’s path to wear a certain thing on a certain day; perhaps a parent of one of the girls I work with wouldn’t feel comfortable approaching me if I wasn’t dressed conservatively; perhaps a closeted teenager needs to see my “Gay? Fine by me,” shirt to get through the day. There are also days when I feel immensely grateful for what I happen to be wearing, days when I dressed up a bit more than usual and ended up meeting unexpectedly with someone who I’d want to have a good first impression of me, such as a potential employee. I don’t discount that little things can make a difference. But even though I can make the argument, ultimately I don’t think what I wear each day is really important enough to warrant Godly intervention.

The parental metaphor has been used often for God throughout time and culture. And one thing parenting experts say is that a parent must be receptive to their child’s conversation about “inconsequential” topics (what she saw on TV, who she played with at school) so that the child later feels comfortable bringing bigger issues to that parent. Similarly, parents are advised to allow their children to have decision-making power over small decisions that eventually grow to bigger decisions to instill a sense of independence and empowerment when the child is faced, as we all are at some point, with a big decision.

Perhaps God works the same way. Perhaps the running commentary with God over inconsequential things has prepared me to remember that God is there when I’m faced with much bigger things. Perhaps all those years of listening to God’s input on what I’ll wear each day has prepared me to recognize God’s voice when I’m making much bigger decisions, such as the one I’ve made recently to leave my full-time job to pursue freelance work full-time. It’s terrifying and sometimes I think I’m crazy for doing it, especially since I really like my full-time job. But deep within me, I feel that same “rightness,” that reassurance that I have come to recognize as God, saying, “It’s OK. You’ll be OK. I’m with you. This is right.” And in moments like this, I feel glad I’ve had so much practice responding to what I can only describe as divine suggestion.

This love affair is a flat mirror. My spiritual process calls for you, God and just when I get goosebumps from prayer, you’re emotionally unavailable. Which you say is MY flaw, because you’re manifest and non-manifest and you can just go waltzing around – through nearness far, through farness near. You’ve drummed all that into my head – and when you’re gone from my life, it’s like you’re not gone. And it’s because I’m not appreciating the long-distance relationship thing. Of course, you’re always right, but often you’re receptive to my concerns.

Still, I want to know where you were when I was openly angry. And when I was openly sad. And I know, darling, that I look forward to meeting you when I die, and that’s when this relationship is lifted up, but what if for an instant I feel those in the Nation of Islam and go, totally pie in the sky theology there? What if I’m not ready, or if others are not ready? Harmonious God, it’s glib to just reassure me that everything will be o.k. so long as I get to Heaven.

But now I have that lump in my throat and my breast that tells me, yes, I believe in an afterlife, yes, please reassure me, please – you were a Hidden Treasure and I know you, I love you. After I raise my voice in a why?, oh Lord I have to offer a bit of praise. Because you abandoned me, yes, you did, but you came back. And in that moment of abandon, I felt a stronger need. And I can still use my rights to stand up to you and say – no, you haven’t always been there – but then you counter and said if I had just been paying attention on Tuesday or when I was off trying to do the spiritual, but not-religious thing, I would have noticed something, so I have to tune myself to notice you. And it’s o.k. for people to be comfortable and at peace when they die, you say. So that’s why we talk about it. Now I want religion, you say, and you don’t want the pain, tcchhhhhh. But where were you when Jesus said you abandoned him? I asked. And Job, yeah? It was hard with Job, you say. I love him, you said. And shouldn’t you be picking on people, not me? But don’t you get it, I told you, I’m giving you anger and love – that makes this relationship complete, man. You don’t even know me, you said, go be less of a Raskolnikov and get out of the house. I know your heart leaps, you say.

There is something to learn from the movements of the Right – the anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, anti-LGBT, etc. movements.   The people heading these movements are masters of messaging.  They are able to distill their message, craft brilliant sound bytes and play them repeatedly until they are ingrained in people’s minds.  The other side of these debates, for the most part, has not been able to produce the same kind of messaging.  Somehow, it is harder to explain comprehensive immigration reform in three to five words.  However, in trying to maintain integrity and take holistic approaches to different issues, those speaking out against the Right are losing these debates.  We need to learn how to speak in sound bytes at times and explain the larger vision at other times.  

After these masterminds have crafted their messages, they have managed gotten their message into the pews of many Christian churches. They have managed to convince churchgoers that you can’t be a Christian and be pro-choice, pro-LGBT rights, pro-immigrant, etc. In some cases, there is not even any logic - or they really have to stretch to find logic - to make this connection.  Nevertheless, they do and people believe them.  One can even hear irregular churchgoers stating, “The Bible denounces homosexuality and therefore it is wrong.”  They may not be able to tell you where it says that in the Bible, but they believe it is there.  And now, even if a preacher tries to focus on other issues such as global warming or war, the emotive response pales in comparison to that of the anti-abortion or anti-LGBT response.  We need to learn how to glean that emotive response from the pews.

Finally, they use Dr. Seuss to back them up.  Every time I see “A person’s a person, no matter how small” on a bumper sticker, I question whether Dr.Seuss, a progressive thinker, would have liked to see his work used to support such a cause.  In fact, Dr.Suess’ widow, Audrey Giesel is said to be against the anti-abortion movement using this message as well.  Dr. Seuss’ books contain other messages that other movements could capatalize on.  The Butter Battle Book pronounces the destruction of the nuclear arms race.  The Sneetches is a call to end racism and discrimination.  Yertle the Turtle is about the danger of the quest for power.  The list goes on.  We need to get the true messages of folks like Dr. Seuss out there and not let the Right co-opt and twist these messages.

So, there is something to learn from the Right.  While they may not always maintain integrity when getting out their message, they are successful in disseminating their message to every level of society. One can even hear these messages on playgrounds when one third grader tells another to “learn to speak English” or to “stop being so gay.”  Wouldn’t it be grand to hear a third grader spout the message of the other side of these debates so easily?  All we need are the messages.  

* Everyone looking for some interesting online reading should check out www.religiondispatches.org. A. Because it is a great online magazine with fantastic articles and B. Because I blog for them twice a week!