For the Fun Of It: Nancy Pelosi and Jesus Christ

1)Christ, to his followers,  over 2000 years ago:"You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth."    (Matthew 5:13)

2)Nancy Pelosi, to the press,  in 2012
                     a) when reporters asked her position regarding the Church's teaching on contraception:
"I do my religion on Sundays, in church, and I try to go other days of the week: I don't do it at this press conference!"
                     b) when the same reporters asked about the lawsuits the bishops are bringing against the HHS mandate: "I don't think that's the entire Catholic Church. Those people have a right to sue. But I don't think they're speaking ex cathedra for the Catholic Church."

Some questions for Nancy:
a) Why don't you "do it" at the press conference?
b)Why is okay to "do it" in church if you can't "do it" in public for the press?
c)Why is not okay to "do it" with the press if it is okay to" do it" in church?

d) Whom do "those people" represent?
e) Are they suing in behalf of themselves as individuals?
f) What's the difference between their constituency and yours?

g) Did Jesus Christ limit his words and deeds to the churches of his day, the temple and the local synagogues?
h) Why did he feel free to preach and work miracles in the marketplace, the wading pool at the temple, the village well, city gates, highways and byways, and foreign territory?
i) Whom did he think he represented?

Clericalism Part Two: Lay and Clerical Codepdence

                                                     Idealize or Demonize ?

            One way the laity indulges in Clericalism is by ascribing God’s presence and activity exclusively to clergy. Lay Catholics can fall into the habit of treating the priest as a member of a special class, making more of him than what he is because of his higher social standing or because of the sacrament of orders. In times past, the majority of the Catholic population was composed of immigrants coming to America to seek a better life.  People understandably overdid their respect for the clergy, since as a class the clergy were better educated than the people who needed their assistance in many areas of life, especially employment and politics. “Father” was also better connected than the parishioner who went to him for jobs or counsel. Today, most people don’t look to the clergy for that kind of assistance.  We have therapists, social workers and gurus of all sorts to take care of our problems.  Even without the sexual abuse scandal, it is obvious the clergy’s social status has declined.

     As a result of the sexual abuse scandal, the laity may also feel the contrary urge to make less of the clergy, i.e. to disparage or even demonize the priest. They may imagine his capacity for sin to be the full realization of who he is.  Can you conjure the interior conflict people feel when they experience the urge toward admiration and revulsion at the same time?  

Of course it is wrong to idolize the clergy, and assume they can do no wrong; it is equally incorrect   to suspect they are always up to no good.  What’s so bad about idolizing? Instead of admiring and imitating the goodness we find attractive, idolization idealizes the priest into a false god.  Instead of winning people to Christ, the priest becomes the object of adoration. What’s the evil of demonizing? Instead of recognizing the imperfect vehicle the priest is, and praying for him, demonization sees him as the incarnation of evil.

 Idolizing the priest enables the people to excuse themselves from the obligation of spiritual growth. After all, “we people are only human”, and “nobody could be holy like Father”.  This exaggerated reverence also gives people an “out” if the priest they idolize falls short and scandalizes them by sinful behavior. Then they are able to say, “This is shocking!  If he sinned, we can hardly be expected to be holy”.  Thus people can have it both ways, and always excuse themselves from the call to conversion and spiritual growth.  Since he, the priest, is called to a higher life of holiness, and is unable to achieve it, what can possibly be expected of us laity who are so much less than he is? Also, if he cannot do it, why should we even try? Demonizing him because of his failure excuses one from conversion and growth. “He obviously doesn’t believe and live this stuff, so why should we?” His failure justifies and excuses my sins.

                                                Dominate or Democratize ?

 The clergy could also assume the honors, privileges and superiority conferred on him were his natural right because of ordination. The sacrament made the priest an “Alter Christus”. Since he was now a priest, he was automatically a spiritual superman! Didn’t theology (or his misunderstanding of it) back up this exaggeration with the teaching that the sacrament of orders had forever marked his soul and brought about an ontological change in him?  “God’s Anointed” could do no wrong. (But of course he could, he did, and would continue to do precisely that.) Assuming the false superiority of class distinction, or divinization by sacrament, clergy can easily condescend and treat lay people as inferiors.

We priests can also go to the other extreme of leveling the playing field.  We can misunderstand the spiritual equality and dignity which both priests and people share as a result of our creation and Baptism. We can treat laity as if they were exactly the same as clergy. This counterfeit solidarity results in a false democratization of the priesthood, and a dummying down of the call. This reduction can increase to the point where the priest no longer responds to his calling because he no longer hears or sees it as real.   Just as class superiority and an idealized spiritual identity are an inadequate foundation for relationship with the laity, so are counterfeit solidarity and a false equality.

  As a priest, I can become two separate persons, with an artificial split between my natural and supernatural self. The result  is that I act before others as if my supernatural identity were my whole being, and I can only be my natural self in private or with colluding partners. Privilege enables me to blind myself to my faults, weaknesses, and sins. The longer I do this, the worse my situation becomes. Eventually the sins and blindness became a more permanent feature of my character. Any priest, (like any human being) can live out of his idealized image of himself, and not out of his real self.  By blinding himself to his faults, the priest also binds himself to them.  Whoever sins is the slave of sin, our Lord says. (John 8:34) Blindness and arrogance mutually reinforce and feed off each other in clergy as they do in anyone else.

    When when idolization of priests is part of the cultural landscape, it is not recognized as such but seen as a positive social value, namely as respect for men of the cloth. When demonization  prevails, anti-clericalism is seen as a positive social value.  In both instances, the codependence keeps the dysfunction functioning.

  

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Clericalism, American Style

Like everything else, Clericalism began working on me before I knew it was there.   By the time I was ordained, I was already enjoying the clerical state and therefore blind to an objective perception of it.   Since Clericalism feeds the ego, a taste for it was easy for me to acquire and keep on nourishing. Today I see Clericalism as an unfortunate, inevitable evil; unfortunate because of the suffering it spawns, and   inevitable because it is hardwired into human nature.  Clericalism is an evil parasite. It eats up and lives off of the souls it inhabits. Ultimately, it makes priests and people dead branches instead part of the living vine.

Most people today, if they think of Clericalism at all, would say it means a priest or minister abusing his position of trust in society for personal pleasure of a sexual nature, or for gain by taking advantage the perks which are part and parcel of his profession. That impression, while accurate in many regards is inadequate because it is incomplete. Clericalism isn’t reducible to sexual abuse, or enjoying perks. It is a relationship, a social reality, a way people regard men of the cloth, and a way men of the cloth regard people. Clericalism is a systemic codependent relationship in which both priests and people deal with one another not on the basis of their humanity, their real selves, but their imaginary selves, idealized and/or demonized to various degrees. This reflection attempts to relate the unfortunate yet inevitable reality of Clericalism to its broader dimensions, the most important of which is Christ Himself and the priest’s sacramental configuration to Him.

To set the groundwork, let me offer some seminal experiences from my past which help awaken me to the problem:

1.) I remember walking into a department store when I was newly ordained back in 1968, and getting a discount of 20 % on something I purchased.  It came as a surprise to me.  I thought the clerk had made a mistake.  So in my in my “Boy Scout” honesty I spoke up.  The clerk told me that it was store policy to give a discount to “men of the cloth”. I certainly didn’t mind. That night I shared my experience at the supper table with my first pastor, and he told me that the same discount applied pretty much across the board, with Airlines, trains, and busses as well as stores.  He gave me some information on how I could get a Clergy Pass, so the discount would be applied automatically whenever I travelled.  That certainly was fine with me.  Priest salaries were not high at that time, and I didn’t mind getting a break because I wore the Collar. It was a nice perk. Within a few years, however, the discounts had disappeared, and our salaries had risen considerably.  I loved the increased in salary, but I was not very happy that clergy discounts had disappeared. The times had changed, just after I had developed a sense of entitlement.

 2.) In those early days of my priesthood, it did not take me long to discover that clergy also got a pass on misbehavior.  In 1968, it was overlooked if Father drank too much, or did poor job preaching, or had a nasty temper.  Back then, Father even had the right to get angry and go on a rant! The Collar put him above reproach.  In legal matters where a complaint had been lodged, the Collar also got him a warning to get out of town before the posse arrived. I saw this happen at my first assignment, although it took a few weeks to put the pieces of the puzzle together and figure out what was going on. The details are blurred today, but I still remember the specifics that matter.

 I was in the backyard of the rectory. I had parked my new Plymouth Valiant in the garage, and was on my way to the backdoor porch, when a State Police car pulled in to yard and parked by the garage. The Hartford police parked in the church yard and school yard all the time, so I no longer noticed their cars. But a state police cruiser was an unusual sight. I stopped and stood there to see what was going on.  A trooper got out of the car, tipped his hat to me, (again, remember this was in 1968) and asked if the Pastor was in. I was about to say “I’m not sure because I’m just arriving myself”, when out of the door back door walked the Pastor. So, instead of saying “I’m not sure….,”my words to the trooper became “There he is now.”  With that, I headed into the rectory. Although I wanted to hang around, I somehow knew I should not.

At supper that night the three of us, (the Pastor, myself and the other assistant) sat at the table, but a fourth chair was empty. For the past couple of weeks, it had been filled by a visiting priest who was staying in the guest room upstairs. I remember asking if I should go call him, or if he was going to be in for supper, or some such thing. And the reply came that he had left. The tone of the pastor’s voice did not invite question or comment. I have no memory as to what we spoke of next, but I do know we did not talk about his leaving. The pastor’s tone of voice made me sense that I was not supposed to raise the subject.  I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I was part of a conspiracy of silence around his departure. In truth, the silence was not consciously a conspiracy, but a general unawareness and unfamiliarity with the complexities of sexuality. Since I did not even know the meaning of the term pedophilia in those days, no pings or dots appeared on my mental radar screen for me to ignore.

What do I recall about our visitor? I remember him as a pleasant dinner companion, affable, easy to be with, who came from a diocese down South, and spoke with a slight drawl. He was on vacation, had people he wanted to see in the area, and was staying with us for a while.  Slowly but surely my mind began to doubt this information was accurate and complete. Little by little I began to put the arrival of the state trooper in the back yard with the priest’s unexpected departure.  Did the trooper arrive with some kind of complaint about the priest? Was he asking the Pastor if the priest was staying with us? Or did he come to warn the Pastor so that the Pastor could warn the priest?  It could have been any of the above.  Did the Pastor lie to the trooper about the priest’s presence and then tell the priest about the trooper’s visit?  Who knows? Maybe there was no connection between the trooper’s appearance and the priest’s disappearance, but the time-line led me to associate the two and look for a link even though I had no proof of one. I may be doing the priest, the trooper, and my Pastor an injustice, but I had the suspicion the Pastor warned our visitor, (with or without the trooper’s okay), to get out of Dodge before the posse grabbed him.

 3.)  Some months later, the Pastor asked me if I would like to be Principal of the school. I agreed, without giving the matter any thought at all. I was in the habit of visiting the classrooms, giving short talks to the kids, and interested in education. Why not be principal? The reason was very simple: because I was in no way qualified for the position.  They fact that I was a priest gave me no automatic right to be a principal. Any of the nuns who taught in the grammar school would have been better qualified than I was.  It amazed me how much more educated most nuns were than most priests.  The reason why was simple: we stopped our formal education once we got out of the seminary, whereas they continued theirs. Every summer while parish life went into low gear, the sisters, dressed in black, in the steaming summer heat, went and took courses at St. Joseph College, continuing their education.  It was laughable that I was their principal; even more laughable was that they all accepted my appointment as a matter of course.  The school secretary had more knowledge about running a school than I did. I feel sure that much of the drive for women’s ordination to the priesthood today has its historical roots in the unjust discrimination nuns and women in general endured in the not too distant past.

What did those three examples teach me about Clericalism?  Privilege and perks, a behavioral pass, confusion of competence with status, and exaggerated respect, all these elements were part of the package that would foster future resentment. But they are far from the complete package.

To Be Continued...

Cardinal Ratzinger on The Christ Event

                 "Christianity is neither theory, nor moralism, nor ritualism. Rather it is an event - an encounter with a presence - with a God who entered and continues to enter history." 

He Is If He Changes, Luigi Giussani, pp 89+90


Not a theory? Not reducible to ideas, doctrines, dogmas, or teaching. Not moralism? Not reducible to rules and regulations, to norms, commandments or values. Not ritualism? Not reducible to automatic rites,  empty forms and gestures, nor parroted slogans.  But when we Christians lose our awareness of the presence of Christ, theory, moralism, and ritualism are all that's left.

Peguy on Grace

      "Grace is even more mysterious and more profound than beauty. Grace is even more arbitrary, more free, more sovereign, more perfectly illogical (outside the realm of logic, without reasons, beyond the scope of every calculation); it is also disturbing,  as is everything that is given gratuitously, (that which is given gratuitously is disturbing because it calls our attention to something we had not thought of, that we would never think of, that above all we would not want to think of). The powerfulness of grace.  The eternal powerfulness of the eternal Blood, of an eternal Blood, the Blood of Jesus Christ."  

quoted by Luigi Giussani, in He is if He Changes,  pp.31,32

Amazing! Wonderful! Could never have been written by the hand of man except under the inspiration of grace!

Truth That Lasts

         "The truth, as it emerges, leaves an everlasting impression. It is only when man's memory, that great faculty by which all things are embraced and explored, becomes its own undertaker, that it seems possible to hide the truth we have sensed in the event of an encounter under shovelfuls of earth (the shovelfuls of distraction).  Luigi Giussani,  He is if He Changes, p. 29        

Shovelfuls of earth, millions of distractions, suffocate the minds and hearts of  people who speak and listen, listen and speak, all the time: teachers and students, parents and children, husbands and wives, candidates and voters, bosses and employees, etc.. It is a wonderful miracle, a miracle beyond words, beyond understanding, that any truth gets communicated any time, even more so that it leave an impression that remains forever. Yet, by God's grace. it happens.