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Every priest, I have learned, is a unique creature with his own liturgical predilections that he inflicts on his congregation. As the years pass, I find I pay more attention to what priests bring in and throw out, keeping score and offering a running commentary.
When my long-time pastor retired, his successor began reforming us immediately. Some of it I liked. We began singing the Gloria every weekend. We began taking Communion under both kinds every weekend. Before then, the Easter Vigil was the only time you could depend on it.
Other developments I endured less amiably. Originally, if we as lectors and Eucharistic ministers ever had a dress code, it was limited to “neat” and “appropriate.” But now, if the unwary appeared in something other than slacks, or sported a pair of sneakers, they got a tongue-lashing from Father.
I thought often of Jesus’ words: “What did you go out to the desert to see?…Someone dressed in fine clothing? Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces. Then why did you go out?” (Matthew 11:7-9).
If you weren’t dressed up, you weren’t even supposed to minister as an emergency replacement. However, Father needed so many emergency replacements that this proved unenforceable. I took puckish enjoyment in filling in for AWOLs while dressed in my usual church outfit: hoodie, jeans, and New Balance sneakers.
Eventually, all parishioners were exhorted to upgrade their wardrobes. Before every Mass, the lector had to mount the ambo and proclaim: “Thank you for wearing clothes respectful of the Eucharist.” Father encouraged us to dress as if for a beloved relative; for example, one who died and was being waked. I did not like thinking of Mass as a wake.
A couple of years ago, Father decided the liturgical ministers did not properly bow to the altar as they processed in. So we attended a meeting where he showed us how to bow. He demonstrated with the aid of volunteers. We were emailed a worksheet about it.
After he recently moved on to another parish, his successor implemented his own list. He abruptly canceled the sung Gloria during his second week. Word came down that no one was to touch his personal chalice. He did not like the Eucharistic ministers flanking both sides of the altar when they came up to receive. He said we would be on one side only, like at his old church.
But we didn’t randomly line up on both sides. We had work-flow reasons, to make it easier for the priest. Parish council members explained this to Father. He said things were different now. We lined up on one side.
The purifying of the chalices, previously done after Mass in the sacristy, now entered the rite. Mass got longer with a new and awkward silent interlude as Father stood over the altar, slowly swishing water around the cups.
When Father left for World Youth Day, this new and awkward silent interlude temporarily expanded. For our substitute priest, taking Father even more literally than Father took himself, carefully rinsed and dried each bread dish before starting on the cups.
In a way I understand the fixations, or at least the idea behind having them. Liturgically I tend conservative. I occasionally pray in Latin, and I like bells and smells. I am fond of the gilded iconography of Russian Orthodoxy (my grandmother’s heritage) and the formal Divine Service of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (my dad’s faith). I feel clueless at evangelical/charismatic praise-and-worship, where swaying congregations sing with eyes closed and palms up and tears falling.
My tolerance for improvised, “kitchen-table” liturgies varies. About a month ago, I could barely conceal my astonishment when, during a free-form litany of the saints, congregants asked Roy Bourgeois and Barack Obama to pray for us. Since these men were still alive, I looked around to see if they were in church. Nope.
That said, I neither universalize my predilections nor aspire to micromanage the finer points. But I increasingly encounter priests who do, and who consult no one before implementing. Overall, it seems to be part of an attitude that not only can’t see the forest for the trees, but chatters incessantly about the leaves. Jesus warned that enthusiastically focusing on the externals, like (ahem) the correct ritual washing of cups and dishes, was a symptom of misplaced priorities (Matthew 23:25). He knew that when cultic observance waxes, justice and love can wane.
Sometimes I hear that Jesus wouldn’t recognize a thing if he physically walked into a church today, and that this is a problem. Actually, I think he’d recognize a lot if he walked into a church today, and that is the problem.
But we can wonder, and we do. Wondering about what God is doing makes me feel like I am the size of an ant in an expansive universe. Actually, I am, in a way.
Somehow, though, I am part of it all.
Paradigms of planet, church, religion and humanity are shifting all around us. Sometimes, these shifts are gradual and gentle, like water flowing silently downstream. Other times, though, the societal changes are so shocking we almost feel damaged. We collapse on crosswalks and sprint down the streets of tomorrow while the statues of our ancestors laugh at our blindness. Can we see the beauty that surrounds us today?
As we listen to the news and hold it up to what we’re working for, we can become discouraged and worried. What’s happening to our democracy? What’s going on in Christianity? Passions and power quake the church and government and we wonder what to have faith in.
Since I am a young woman religious I keep finding myself on the edge of great movements. Feeling the movements on the edges help me gain confidence in the goodness of God’s guidance.
Over a week ago I was a participant in a wonderfully strange conference. Giving Voice, a national organization for young women religious, sponsored an inter-generational conference in Chicago to discuss what is happening in this life of ours, religious life. We came with a sense that God is up to something new and different. Together we wondered what that was. The wondering was strange because we were talking about something that we didn’t know.
In Madeleine L’Engle‘s book A Wrinkle in Time, Mrs. Whatsit sighs and tries to answer the questions of children. “Explanations are not easy when they are about things for which your civilization still has no words.“ I desire to explain what I’ve experienced and sensed, but what is emerging seems to be beyond anything we have ever known.
I know it though, God is up to something. Paradigms are shifting; the world is changing right under our feet. When the earth moves, it can feel dangerous. We don’t know what will break around us. We grip to reactions based in fear and power and doubt survival. We crash and forget what we most need to move on: each other. As tumultuous as all the crashing and changing may feel, we can trust God and have hope. God is in control and shifts can be good.
At the “young nun” conference we sought to contemplate the goodness that vibrates through the groans. The process was deep and profound. We listened, prayed, shared, played, questioned, connected and organized. We learned too. We were blessed to be with Sandra Schneiders, who is a great historian and theologian. She’s pretty much the expert on religious life and what is has been, is, and could be. In other words, Schneiders is a woman who can speak quite well about how God has worked with people throughout time.
We pondered what it means to be religious women in this time of unknowing. We leaned in, all 150 women religious seemingly stuck in 2011. We felt connected to the deep roots of our ancient tradition and movements toward the future. In these moments, I pondered how our human minds limit understanding what time really is. Science agrees with what my spirit senses, too. Time, as we know it, is an illusion.
So, we’re a part of this illusive time and God needs us to work. Schneiders’ analysis of this Kairos was based in her insights that the signs of these times are globalization, secularization, pluralization, and de-traditionalization. We are called to respond to what’s going on and how it impacts spirituality, politics, service and poverty. We really need to be involved.
I keep wondering. How are we supposed to respond to God’s call? If the needs of this time are so great- and they are- then how are we supposed to be present to the suffering and bring life to the future? What actions do we need to take to birth a new paradigm and way of being?
As we ponder the power of Now, we get to listen to the whispers of the Spirit who always compels us to grow and change. At the end of the conference, consciousness brought forth the art of poetry. In peace, we walked through the shift and blessed the words of wonder. There was silence as we gazed at what the time had emerged.
In art there are answers. We need not worry about how to bring forth a new paradigm, after all. We can just focus on living the reign of God. After we do this for some time, then we’ll be able to look around and be awed that God has used us to help create something new. Thanks be to God!
Originally from Northeast Iowa, Sister Julia is a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, based in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Her love for God and God’s good world is manifested in her attempts to be an educator, a youth empower-er, an earth lover, and a peacemaker. She ministers at an inner-city Catholic high school in Chicago. Sister Julia also blogs at http://messyjesusbusiness.wordpress.com/.
For the past few weeks I’ve been engrossed in reading a find that I fortuitously happened upon at my school’s library – Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity by Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King. As I’ve explored and contemplated on its subject matter I’ve realized that the Gospel of Judas was not only a subversive and compelling narrative at the time of its composition but also has much wisdom to impart to Christians of the twenty-first century.
Today, the Gospel of Judas can be grouped into a category of early Christians works that have come to be referred to as “Gnostic.” In Greek “gnosis” translates as knowledge, and the various Christian communities who would now be classified as Gnostic saw salvation as being accomplished through delving into one’s soul and becoming enlightened spiritually. Gnostic Christians continued to view Jesus of Nazareth as the prime revelator of what the Reign of God in this world would be like. Yet, instead of believing in a physical resurrection of the body after death, Gnostics were convicted that the corporal body would deteriorate while the soul would remain alive forever with God.
In the Gospel of Judas (which was authored during the mid-second century C.E.) a theological agenda is presented rather than a historical analysis of the man Judas Iscariot. Although it would never make it into the canonical New Testament, it shared in common with the four Gospels the fact that its author was probably not the apostle whose name the work bore but rather a particular person or community invoking that disciple’s memory and authority in order to give credence to their words.
Its plot centers around the conviction that instead of the twelve apostles - who Jesus is traditionally depicted as choosing and commissioning to spread the Gospel - it is Judas alone who genuinely comprehended the meaning behind the words and example that Christ left as a testimony to mankind. Throughout the narrative, Jesus is shown to mock, dismiss, and even laugh at the twelve apostles in comparison to the fidelity of his chosen protegé, Judas. At one point, “the twelve” (as they are referred to with ignorance and condescension throughout the work) come before Jesus and describe to Him a horrific nightmare which they all experienced. They detail to Him of how they all were beholders of a contingent of priests arrayed before an altar in sacrifice. Next, the apostles relay to Jesus how they witness the priests proceed to sacrifice their own wives and children upon this altar and continue to carry out other sinful acts of debauchery. The response of Jesus to their account is a chilling one, He flatly states:
“You are the ones you saw receiving sacrifices at the altar…And the domestic animals you saw being brought for sacrifice are the multitude you are leading astray upon that altar.” -Judas 5:1,4
By the end of the Gospel, Jesus initiates His own demise by imploring Judas to hand Him over to be killed. Thus, the act that for a millenia has been depicted as the height of hypocrisy and betrayal is here painted as a final act of trust and discipleship. The ensuing passion account that makes up a key part of the four canonical Gospels is notably absent in the Gospel of Judas, nor is there a direct portrayal of the Resurrection of Jesus. This implies that the death of Jesus was the ultimate gateway that freed His Spirit from the prison of His body and allowed Him to return to God. Thus, in keeping with Gnostic theology, the Resurrection is a spiritual not a physical reality – Jesus passing from one stage of life, to the next.
The question begs to be answered: what do these intriguing themes and images mean?
It must be remembered that the time in which the Gospel of Judas was composed was an uncertain and tumultuous one for the early Church. During the second century C.E. the Roman empire carried out relentless persecutions against those who identified themselves as followers of Christ. Tragically, scores lost their lives for the sake of their devotion to the Good News. Many leaders of the Church, principally St. Irenaeus of Lyons, encouraged Christians to remain faithful to the end, indicating that God was pleased by the death of dedicated and brave individuals just as He was satisfied and desired the passion and death of Jesus upon the cross.
Modern scholarship now shows that this was not the only theological view that prevailed among Christians of the day. The Gospel of Judas is tangible proof of this fact. Instead of being of one “uniform faith” as the Catholic and Orthodox churches have maintained for centuries, the early Church was rather an intensely diverse and heterogenous organism. In fact, it could be said to more closely resemble how Christianity is expressed today – through numerous denominations and theological points of view – than with the monolithic, imperial institution it would later morph into during the Middle Ages. The Christian communities of the ancient world encompassed numerous and unique groups, usually, each with their own respective interpretation of the Gospel. Also, at this time there was no formalized canon that defined what Christians had to read, so the traditional four Gospels we know today that expound on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth were just four among numerous other reflections that attempted to put into words just what the life of this extraordinary man meant for the rest of humanity.
Whomever it was that authored the Gospel of Judas vehemently disagreed with the approach to the subject of martyrdom that St. Irenaeus and other leaders of the Church were taking – namely, that if the opportunity to offer one’s life for the sake of the Gospel was presented, they should take it, or risk eternal damnation. It made them ask the question: what kind of God would delight and desire in the death of those who loved Him? Moreover, a God that required the sacrifice of His own Son to placate His wrath and restore harmony to the universe seemed very much motivated by vengeance and hedonism rather than mercy and peace.
This violent approach to the exercise of one’s faith was blatantly evoked in the Gospel of Judas when the twelve apostles regaled the horrors of their dream to Jesus only to learn from His lips that it was themselves that they had witnessed committing such atrocious acts.
When the Gospel of Judas was written there was no universally defined ecclesiastical hierarchy as there is today in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and other Christian bodies. But the glimpses of such an establishment would begin to appear during the second half of the second century C.E. It was then that various leaders of the Church, who began to be styled as ‘bishops’, would invoke apostolic authority over whole jurisdictions and communities as ‘successors of the apostles’ claiming that Jesus had instituted the group of twelve apostles so that following His death and Resurrection, his Church on earth would always be guided and secured in the truth by the successors of His original first followers. Obviously, the authors of the Gospel of Judas held this opinion in grave contempt.
However, this theological trend would become the norm in the coming decades and in 325 C.E. Emperor Constantine would convene the Council of Nicaea (in modern day Turkey) to declare Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Yet, all the bishops that he invited to the Council were all leaders of wealthy and powerful churches throughout the Mediterranean. It was these bishops who would agree upon the terms laid out in what we know today as the Nicene Creed. Now that this was the officially endorsed version of the Christian faith that was to be practiced throughout the empire any other expressions of Christianity that deviated from the conditions enumerated in the Creed were condemned as “heresy” and nearly all of their churches, writings and communities were destroyed by those who were now in power who saw themselves as being the orthodox(adhering to ‘right belief’). In one of the most unjust and sad cases, it can be seen here that history is truly written by the victors.
It was only by chance that the Gospel of Judas was discovered, after countless centuries of dormancy, hidden in a jar, scrawled on fragmenting pieces of papyri in the sands of the Egyptian desert.
Now, a voice has been restored to a paradigm that history thought had been extinguished. Can Christians today, and all people of goodwill, continue to be edified and enlightened by the wisdom of its words?
The fundamental premise expressed in the Gospel of Judas has more poignancy today, than ever before.
Considering who won the theological dispute, the notion of sacrifice still has a profoundly central focal point throughout all of Christianity. The defiled, sinful nature of mankind is still used as the ultimate explanation to describe why Jesus of Nazareth was put to death on the cross. Now, within Catholicism – especially in the English-speaking world – with the advent of new, imposed translations of the Mass, it will be the sacrifice of Christ, above all else, that stands out as the overarching theme during the celebration of the Eucharist. It is not as if this theme should be relegated to the sidelines, as Christians throughout the centuries have seen the Eucharist as, mystically, uniting all the faithful to the final act of love that Christ performed through His death on the cross. But forgetting about the concept of the Eucharist as an intimate meal – as the Last Supper was – and a joyful act of worship that the entire Christian community participates in (not simply those who have been ordained) fails to live up to the legacy that the Second Vatican Council bequeathed to the entire universal Church.
Even today, it seems that the self-proclaimed ‘successors of the apostles’ continue to forcefully advocate for martyrdom among today’s Christians or risk being consigned to the realm of eternal hellfire. Instead of progressing and reflecting with society about the diversity and inherent worth of all humanity, many leaders of the Church continue to exhort lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons to sacrifice themselves on the altar of orthodoxy by stating equivocally that celibacy is the only path to holiness in this life they can hope to enjoy. Although not a physical act of martyrdom, it is indeed one of the mind, of the psyche, and ultimately of the soul.
Again, the Church must ask itself, “What kind of God is this?”
It may have been fate that allowed the Gospel of Judas to be discovered for the edification of the whole People of God throughout the world. Perhaps a persona that for centuries has represented betrayal, deceit, and hatred can be rehabilitated to offer the human race what Jesus of Nazareth originally intended to impress upon all those whom He met? “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly“ (John 10:10).
Last Sunday’s homily included railing against same-sex marriage (oh goodie!) using the good old reproduction argument. The priest’s exact words went something like this: “Only a man and a woman can join together to create life. The proper way to create life is within marriage. A man and a man cannot create life! A woman and a woman cannot create life! It is impossible! Ask any scientist, and he will tell you this is true!”
Of course, this “success” happened in a laboratory after many failed attempts, so one could certainly argue (rightly so) that such a thing is not “natural.” But we get into murky territory when we start using that argument against homosexuality, too. Because scientific research also shows that homosexuality is, in fact, natural. And while same-sex reproduction may not be “natural,” many anthropologists feel that the rearing of children by same-sex parents serves a biological function: namely, that there are “extra” parents around who are not diverting resources by having their own children but are still contributing to the well-being of a society’s next generation. This, they argue, is why homosexuality has not been eliminated from the gene pool — it serves an evolutionary function. And, oh dear, it’s OK for Catholicism to accept the scientific evidence of evolution. Do you see how quickly this issue gets sticky?
Look, where I fall on this issue has never been a big secret. I believe that homophobia, not homosexuality, is the true “sin” that plagues organized religion. When I write fiction with gay themes, a writer friend of mine whose Christianity leads her to believe differently than I do about this issue, often asks, “Are you trying to argue for the ‘rightness’ of homosexuality?”
And I say, “No. I’m trying to argue against the ‘wrongness’ of homophobia.”
And just so now, I’m not trying to argue for the “rightness” of same-sex reproduction, or the “rightness” of homosexuality in nature. I’m arguing against the “wrongness” of basing arguments against homosexuality on science when the science doesn’t actually back you up. If you want to use religion to justify your prejudices, that’s your own prerogative (just as it is mine to disagree with you.) But we need to be very careful when trying to twist science to support our prejudices. Because science is not easily twistable. Evidence is so inconvenient, isn’t it?
On the weekend of July 8-10, I was at a conference center in Washington, D.C. for the CTA 20/30 leadership training. To my understanding, this is the first one we’ve ever had.
We had a crash course in community organizing, the sine qua non of Church reform. We opened with the question, “How do you define ‘power’?” Idealists like us sometimes trust so much in the inevitability of peace and love that we do not understand the realities of power: how to discuss it, how to get it, how to use it.
We had media training. We got the thumbnail sketch of how to place an op-ed, how to conceive campaigns that stayed on message, how to parry tricky questions from sly interviewers.
But the underlying, unifying theme of the organizing and media workshops was this: stories. If you cannot compellingly articulate why you are here, you cannot motivate change. People will not organize with you. Your fifteen minutes in the public eye will only be so much ticking of the clock. Stories are all.
Thus our Saturday workshops flowed directly from our exercise on Friday night: namely, telling the whole group how we wound up with Call To Action in the first place.
I listened to story after story of how my fellow 20/30s directly and personally clashed with the Roman Catholic Church. I heard of trusts betrayed, self-righteousness shed, sexualities discovered, women disrespected. I learned of priests and bishops who knew exactly what power was, who knew how to get it and use it, and who used it to exclude honest, inquisitive young people who did not know how to play the game. And for not a few attendees, Call To Action was a safe harbor where they remembered they were not crazy.
I held my story almost until the end. Partly this was because I am often inarticulate as an extemporaneous speaker. Partly this was because I did not consider my story compelling compared to those I was hearing. But I realize now that if stories really do build a movement, then I am a prime case in point.
You see, I by myself am story-less. The Catholic Church, in its official, conventional form, provides a comfortable sense of self for people like me: white, male, straight, middle class, punctilious and obedient, untouched by tumultuous or transgressive love affairs, not subject to great misfortunes. And for years I partook of the comfortable sense of self provided.
But I began stumbling over the stories of my friends, stories as dramatic as those I absorbed two Friday nights ago. My friends were often not born into my great tripartite convenience of being white, male and straight. They wilted if they were always docile and orderly.
They spoke of trusts betrayed, self-righteousness shed, sexualities discovered, women disrespected. In stuffy study lounges, in car rides late at night, in the altered reality born from the haze of sangria and tobacco smoke, I listened with my mouth shut to struggles I’d never had and that no ecclesiastical imprimatur ever honored.
I wondered why they felt safe blurting out so much. My very bearing screamed of my insulation and inexperience. Sometimes it still does.
Because of the trust placed in me, I had to choose. I could prioritize the institutional Church, which, as I now understood, often spoke profusely of things it did not understand to people it never met. Or I could be loyal to the real, messy lives now intertwining with mine.
After fits and starts, I chose the messy lives. And, after debating what it meant for me as an individual to so choose, I volunteered at Call To Action’s national office. There, although on the surface I mostly upload computer files and play with the copier, I represent my people before the Church I still love and still think is somehow Christ’s body on earth.
Father Pat Twohy, S.J., writing of his vocation in Jesuits in Profile (Chicago: Loyola UP, 1992), uses words that could easily be mine: “I started to understand that this is where I was meant to be, somewhere between God and my friends; not completely with God and not completely with my friends….It was simply a journey I began as a young man and have continued to this day, no matter how confusing or how dark the path, no matter how difficult the climb up, beyond all friendships with the living and the dead.”
I, conservative by inclination, changed because other people dared to tell me who they were. The power of storytelling is the font of a just, inclusive Church. I hope all the other folks from D.C. remember that if they remember nothing more.
I’m in the midst of reading Xenocide by Orson Scott Card, who’s one of my favorite science fiction writers because he doesn’t shy away from questions of God. In this particular book, there’s a society in which a certain percentage of people display extreme OCD-like tendencies. But rather than being dismissed as “crazy,” they are revered as “God-spoken.” Why? Because they believe, as do the other people in their world, that the rituals they feel compelled to perform are direct instructions from their gods, intended for purification. Thus, when one of the God-spoken says or thinks something that she feels ashamed of, she finds it hard to resist the appropriate “purification” ritual — or compulsion.
When I was talking about the book with my fiance, I said, “And this is why I love science fiction — because it messes with your ideas about how the world could be.”
But this morning, I wondered if that world is really all that different from the one I inhabit after all. When I was growing up, my Catholicism had some decidedly OCD tendencies. My “ritual” of choice was the rosary. I used it as a talisman against dreadful things happening; I used it as proof of my devotion; I used it as penance when I felt guilty for a choice I’d made or a thought I’d had, usually related to sexuality, but sometimes related to thinking something unkind about someone else. Somehow, I felt that the rosary would serve as some sort of “intervention” between me and the “punishment” I deserved for whatever sin I may have committed; in fact, when I didn’t use the rosary, I would always find something “bad” that happened to me and directly tie it to the dreadful thought or act I’d convinced myself I’d performed. I had a rosary in my suitcase, a rosary in my pocket, and about three of them beside my bed. The need to use them could strike at any time.
Although I’ve moved away from this type of spirituality, I suspect I’m not the only Catholic whose religious rituals have resembled compulsions. What about the person who goes to confession twice a week because he needs to have that “clean” feeling again, or the one who sits out during communion because of a “sin” that was committed, in thought or deed, throughout the preceding week? Although I know this is in line with the teaching of the Church, I can’t help but notice that it’s not really in line with Jesus. At the last supper, did Jesus say, “This is my body, given up for those of you who haven’t sinned in the past week”? When did the Church decide that this must be what Jesus had actually meant?
In Xenocide, the rituals are used as a way, essentially, to keep the God-spoken down, to keep them too busy with their compulsions to enact any real change in the world. I can’t help but wonder if strict adherence to ritual in the Catholic Church is meant to perform the same function. Because it’s true: when you’re praying five rosaries a day, there’s not a lot of time left over for sinful thoughts, let alone sinful actions. But there’s not a lot of time left over to notice those who are hurting, or to reach out, or to explore what God might be calling you to do that doesn’t require you to stay stuck inside your own head. I realize now that there was a sort of self-centeredness to it all–I couldn’t see what others might need from me, because I was so busy examining my every thought and deed and practicing private acts of atonement accordingly.
I’m still introspective. I still find comfort in the rituals of Catholicism. But now that they no longer feel compulsory, I feel more love for myself and more love for everyone else. And that, ultimately, makes me a better person–more the person I feel God is calling me to be–than a thousand Hail Mary’s ever could.
Joseph Leopold Imesch, the retired bishop of Joliet, Illinois, turns eighty today. He was my bishop. This is a milestone birthday for a polarizing man. I know those who love him and those who hate him. Both sides have reasons.
Imesch was born into a Swiss-American family near Detroit on June 21, 1931. He studied for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained there in 1956. He became auxiliary bishop of Detroit in 1973.
In 1979, John Paul II appointed Imesch bishop of Joliet, southwest of Chicago, where he served until his retirement in 2006. He was one of the last “Jadot bishops.” Archbishop Jean Jadot, then the Vatican representative in Washington and as such a key player in bishop appointments, was known to favor pastorally-oriented candidates rather than doctrinal hard-liners.
Imesch generally conformed to Jadot’s bias. When I was a staffer for the annual diocesan youth leadership conference, our chaplain-trainer described the bishop’s own unpretentious leadership style: he went around checking in to make sure everybody was doing okay. If all seemed well, he would not micromanage you.
At my confirmation, Imesch had the Knights of Columbus pass around dozens of foil-wrapped chocolate bars. He had eaten one at a lunch he had attended that day and thought they were marvelous. On impulse he asked his hosts for a box so he could share the bounty with us.
Then he launched into his homily: eventually we would have to stand before God and “say something” about what we did with our lives, specifically about the people we loved. If we spent our lives responding to the gift of the Spirit, then we would be able to speak up simply and without shame. “Say something,” Imesch repeated at the end. “Say something.”
Like all important truths, it was simple. And because it was simple, it was memorable. I try to live by it. I also try to remember that sometimes you should randomly give out chocolate just because you can.
Imesch, mindful that the local church must engage the world, founded a diocesan medical mission in Sucre, Bolivia. In the 1980s and early 1990s, sitting on the U.S. bishops’ committee to write a pastoral letter about women in the church, he helped formulate their unusual guiding principle: women would define their own concerns, and the bishops would listen.
And so it happened. But then the Vatican intervened. They kept shooting down the drafts until the bishops junked the project in 1992.
From what I’ve heard, Imesch was until then a man on the make. But as the pastoral letter slowly imploded, it became understood that Rome had judged him, permanently hitting the pause button on his career. It was also understood that Imesch accepted this, that he had knowingly turned the gun on himself.
The last time Imesch and I were in the same room was for the funeral of my parish deacon, who dropped dead in front of his grandchildren on Mother’s Day 2010. In his remarks, Imesch faced the cold truth that in a way, there is no good death: “You’re either too young or too old. It’s either too fast or too slow.” It was the kind of stark yet sage observation you make when you’ve buried people for most of your life.
All this might have been his legacy, but Imesch had a split personality when it came to clergy sexual abuse. He shuffled several credibly-accused priests around the diocese. Imesch was also alleged to have hid one priest from the authorities, to have transferred abusers to other dioceses without informing the bishops of the allegations, and to have accepted an offender into Joliet although aware of his history.
When deposing Imesch for a civil suit, a lawyer asked the bishop if he would want his own children around an accused priest. Imesch’s horribly wince-inducing response: “I don’t have any children.”
He was very proud to support his priests. He would say so. Somewhere along the way, his support apparently went blind. He was willing to live with the blindness.
Joseph Imesch is an Everybishop, even a kind of synecdoche for the late-twentieth-century American Catholic Church. His keynote virtues were those of the Body, as were his colossal embarrassments. Future scholars who want to know what it was like to be Catholic in this time and place will be wise to haunt Joliet, Illinois.
I hope it is a thoughtful, reflective birthday. Most eighty-year-olds I’ve known didn’t live much longer. Thoughtfulness and reflection behoove you when you are eighty, especially when you were given much and much was expected from you.
I smirked when I read at Religion News Service that, according to a newly released (May 18) John Jay College of Criminal Justice study, the “social cataclysm of the sexual revolution” of the 1960s was a factor in the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis. Seriously? Seriously.
Let Karen Terry, the lead investigator, elaborate:
There’s a sexual revolution, there’s an increased amount of drug use, there’s an increase in crime, there’s an increase in things like premarital sex, in divorce. In a number of factors, there’s change. And the men who are in the priesthood are affected by these social factors.
I suspect the researchers were on firmer ground when, as David Gibson reported for RNS, they criticized “the clerical culture that fostered and concealed deviance by priests.” Priests in general are different from people in general.
But I will interpret this a bit differently than the John Jay researchers did. According to Gibson, they narrowed in on the “well-defined pattern of crisis management in large institutions” (i.e., denial and cover-up), the stress and isolation of priestly work, and the fact that the Church is a “hierarchical organization that operates in a decentralized way, with each department (or diocese) an authority unto itself and not inclined to open itself to oversight.”
Yes, those are issues. But let me tell you about a random, average parish—mine—and the priests who have staffed it over twenty years. The sheer profusion of their various problems suggests a priestly soul sickness, something beyond the reach of bureaucratic myopia, something deeper than bad working conditions as we usually think of them, something other than the Sixties.
My long-time pastor was deeply good, pastorally-minded, and sagacious. He was also an alcoholic and a champion chain-smoker. He overcame his addictions, but he spent his last years toting his oxygen tank everywhere he went.
An associate pastor, whom I vaguely remember from when I was around five years old, disappeared after a brief stay. He was accused of abusing minors. Another associate from around that time, a wan-faced, skeletal young man, also abruptly disappeared. He had died of AIDS. It was understood that “risky behavior” was involved.
Yet a third associate was a polished, urbane priest known for his fine singing voice, his intelligence, and his rapport with the young. He became vocations director. We expected him to become a bishop. Indeed he might have, had his gambling addiction not led him to steal two hundred thousand dollars.
During summers in college, I worked as a janitor at my church. The two head custodians told me about the previous pastor, who rarely went without a beer in hand. They also told me about a recent associate pastor who was well-known to one of their friends, a video store clerk, for renting porn tapes.
During my last summer, we janitors helped our then-associate move out. Until then, Father always forbade anyone, even the housekeeper, to enter his apartment. Once inside, we were astonished at the snack mix and mouse droppings on the floor, at the leaning towers of miscellaneous stuff, at the malodorous and yellowed carpet.
I scrubbed his bathroom. I used so much cleanser my fingertips developed a chemical tingle. When at last Father left, he dragged out giant bottles of cheap wine as gifts for all three of us. The combination of filth and abundant booze seemed ominous.
My pastor periodically brought in retired priests to help out. One, an excitable, perpetually sputtering Augustinian, served maybe weeks before vanishing. I later learned he was subject to nervous breakdowns.
One priest had a terrible temper. He got into such a heated dispute with a parishioner that he shoved her, grabbed her coat, and ripped out a pocket. Then he called the police on her.
I have known both balanced priests and messed-up laity. But overall, my priestly acquaintances have lived much more obviously dysfunctional lives. And I have restricted my stories to my parish; if I expanded to my college, or parishes my friends or coworkers have attended, I could tell you much more.
I think celibacy really is a factor. If you renounce sexual intimacy, which involves not only physical expression but also profound emotional growth and exchange, you had better do so as an experienced, worldly-wise adult. Otherwise you are likely to stunt yourself, and researchers like Richard Sipe argue that many sexually abusive priests are a subset of such stunted priests. So too, I think, are the priests I too often encountered: explosive priests, self-medicating priests, pig-sty priests.
More important is the priestly culture of power, separateness, and mystique. It maintains an idealized image of priests as Catholic Jedi. Not only selfless servants but insecure and damaged men are attracted to such an image, which promises to make their fractured selves whole.
Above all, whenever priests fall short of the ideal, their problems accumulate because they cannot be addressed openly. The divine-right exaltation of Catholic Jedi depends on the interplay between the power of their image and the imagery of their power. If you expose the man behind the curtain, clergy become the fallible among the fallible, fellow travelers rather than rulers, a prospect presumably appalling to many who are called Your Excellency or Your Eminence.
If some use the John Jay report to get stuck in the evil secular Sixties (and some will), we must keep them firmly anchored in inconvenient realities closer to home. If you are dubious about just how close to home, look at your own parish and get back to me.
No one who lived through it will ever be able to forget the stark terror or the all-encompassing uncertainty that pervaded the scope of that horrible day. Although I was only eleven years old at the time I can remember September 11th, 2001 clearly, as if it were yesterday – as I’m sure countless other Americans do with pertinent imminence. During my religion class a spontaneous interruption was made by another faculty member at my school. Moments later, the religion teacher paused the class and revealed to us that the World Trade Center in New York had been damaged from a “bomb.” At this point, misinformation seemed to be rampant, and for the first half of the day this is what was reported and circulated throughout our school instead of the actual details regarding the two hijacked planes that flew into the towers.
Later on – as news came of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon in Washington - more and more people became intensely alarmed, as the scope of this tragedy had moved increasingly closer to our own lives. As I watched the horrific pictures that streamed across the television screen that night I remember pondering, and wondering - who, or why would someone be behind such an atrocious action? As the whole nation and the world would learn that the mastermind behind these attacks was Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, I was filled with even more fear and insecurity at the notion that a person across the seas was filled with so much hatred and contempt for our way of life as Americans that they consciously plotted and wished about our very annihilation.
Overnight, the way in which we perceived ourselves in relation to the world had changed. Most Americans probably grasped this unsettling reality as those images of terror from New York, Washington D.C., and rural Pennsylvania would be broadcast unceasingly for the upcoming days and weeks following that tragic September morning.
However, to me, the response to these heinous attacks against the United States by other Americans was equally as stunning as the actions that were perpetrated by the terrorists a world away. The very next day in my sixth grade classes, as all of my teachers tried to eloquently and objectively proclaim what had happened and why to all of us, one declaration was issued forth from my fellow classmates. “Nuke ‘em!” Of course, this proposition mostly came from the mouths of all the boys in my class and might usually be perceived as the natural way in which a teenage boy, or any man for that matter, might react to such news. Yet, as the day went on it seemed that this call for retaliation was the shared view of most of my classmates – boys and girls - at the school.
The same feelings would materialize throughout the nation and coalesce into an outright call for war. Less than a month later, President George W. Bush launched a U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan with the intention of eradicating al-Qaeda and finding, killing or capturing Osama bin Laden. Only earlier this month was this core objective of that mission accomplished, ten years later.
Yet, the death of Osama bin Laden has reawakened probing questions about the real character of the values and underlying spirit that composes the makeup of the United States of America. As the death of the leader of al-Qaeda was announced it was met with jubilation and celebrations of vindication, even outside the doors of the White House. Understandably, this event brought a prevailing, and perhaps final, sense of reassurance to those whose lives were personally affected by September 11th as a result of having to endure the painful deaths of loved ones. To feel closure if one was so intimately involved with such a horrible tragedy would only be natural. Even for those who did not lose family members, friends or associates – simply as an American, to know that the mastermind behind the attacks no longer walked the earth, it would be understandable to perhaps breathe a subliminal sigh of relief.
But from the crowds that were celebrating outside of the White House the night the news was made public, to the ensuing atmosphere of exultation and joy that would characterize the nation’s response in its wake - it could be seen that a mere sense of closure and reassurance was not the reason a majority of Americans chose to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden.
In a statement issued on his website, Baptist minister and former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee stated,
“It is unusual to celebrate a death, but today Americans and decent people the world over cheer the news that madman, murderer and terrorist Osama Bin Laden is dead. It has taken a long time for this monster to be brought to justice. Welcome to hell, bin Laden.”
The same sentiment would be echoed throughout the country as t-shirts and countless assortments of memorabilia would be created celebrating the premise that Osama bin Laden was now, indeed, in Hell. A CNN survey conducted shortly after the news of bin Laden’s death broke showed that 6 in 10 Americans believed or knew for certain that he had been consigned by God to eternal damnation.
If anyone has been evil in the history of mankind it was certainly this man. But is responding to the death of an evil human being with jubilation justifiable? In the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States candy was passed out to children on the streets in towns throughout the Gaza strip in the Palestinian territories. The terrorist assault on America was portrayed as a righteous strike against a nation of “infidels” by Islamic fundamentalists. Thus a laudable event to be extolled.
How is the way many Americans responded to bin Laden’s demise any different?
It seems that in this context religion has been used to justify the self-righteousness of some and to contribute to the inflation of one’s holy ego through the assurance of the condemnation of others. While the image of God as a wrathful adjudicator might comfort some who seek recompense or closure of some sort, ultimately it only serves to stoke the insecurities and prejudices of those who need someone or something to reject and look upon with disdain. Usually, to make themselves feel better, even in the spiritual scheme of things. Yet, when the question of divine judgment is invoked, the only answer Scripture seems to offer is, “‘Vengeance is mine’, says the Lord” (Deuteronomy 32:35, Romans 12:19).
Jesus lays out an even starker picture, saying clearly that, “Your Father in heaven makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). If such a fundamental impartiality is divine in origin how can any human possess the knowledge of who has been gifted eternal salvation and who has merited everlasting damnation?
The question goes even further still, if God desires that “all men be saved” and that “none should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9) how can we be sure that any soul would be consigned for an eternity bereft of the love of God? This particular question is one that has been covered with great intensity in recent months throughout the theological field, but for convenience sake should serve as the topic of another post!
The Psalms speak of God’s mercy as being “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). If Christians have been called by Jesus of Nazareth to imitate God in all that we say and do, wouldn’t exercising such a profound expression of mercy and forgiveness be the primary way to start?
In Catholic theology, it has been greatly consoling to have recourse to the practice of prayer for the dead. Many great religions and spiritual traditions of the world have utilized this custom. It moves us all to understand that despite how much we may not have in common with a certain individual, nonetheless, we remain connected to them as a human being – made in the image of the living God. The Catholic tradition sees this prayerful act as aiding a soul that has passed beyond the confines of this life in the process of becoming pure and refined of all sinfulness, as complete union and beatitude with the divine Source of all is accomplished. A central facet of this deed is understanding that as humans we can never entirely know the fate of an individual who has departed this earth. Thus, we simply pray, in the hope that – through our own small collective spiritual efforts – we might help the departed in becoming purified of their faults and failings as mortal humans to glimpse the eternal Light of Love Eternal.
Thus, I do not rejoice in the death of Osama bin Laden – rather I pray for the repose of his soul in the hope that he might be purified of the ignorance, hatred, and unconscionable actions with which he filled his life. A nation that revels in the demise of one man but does not work and pray for the illumination and liberation of a future generation is not the America I was brought up to believe in. Nor should anyone else.
“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
This well-worn truism, keystone of so many commencement speeches this time of year, made its way into my meditations on Sunday, May 22 this year. Not that I’d actually expected the Rapture to happen the day before – Catholic theology has never dwelt too much on the end-times. We believe that someday everything will end, that we’ll all be called upon to give an accounting of our lives on this Earth, and that we won’t have any way of knowing when it might happen so there’s no point in worrying about it.
But apocalyptic predictions have a way of exciting the public imagination. In times like these, trusted institutions crumbling, society coming apart at the seams, our world broken beyond repair, it’s tempting to imagine a Great Cosmic Reset Button. It’s easier, more comforting, to believe that this world will be swept away and something better will magically take its place. It’s a spiritual death, really, a walking suicide.
“We’re waiting for the world to change,” says one recent popular song. It’s always irked me, that song and its attempt to put a positive spin on a defeatist attitude. As we wait for the world to change, or for a Deus ex machina to change it for us, our God-given talents lie buried in the ground. If we can’t be trusted to look after this world, can we really expect to be entrusted to the next? At the very least, maybe we can try and tidy up some before He gets here.
Looking ahead in our liturgical calendar, toward the end of the Easter season, I’m struck by the readings for the upcoming commemoration of Christ’s Ascension into Heaven (June second). As the Apostles stand in awe, staring at where they’d seen their friend and Lord disappear into the clouds, they are admonished by two angels; “Why are you standing around staring into the sky? Don’t you know he’s coming back?” It reminds me of that old bumper sticker, “Jesus is coming. Look busy.” It isn’t as though there’s any shortage of work to be done.
If anything, there’s too much work to be done. It might seem overwhelming, but that’s when I like to turn to a reflection attributed to the late Archbishop Romero. No one, it tells us, can do everything, but everyone can do something. And only then, through hundreds of thousands of somethings over the course of time, the work gets done. Changing the world is like planting a tree – we plant today what we will never see the fruits of, and future generations will carry on the work we started. Just as we cultivate what previous generations have planted. This wider perspective gives us the freedom – but also the responsibility – to do what we can.
