Reflections on Mary's "yes"...

New Year’s Day brings us a Marian Feast Day, a day upon which many clergy will extol the virtues of Mary’s “yes.”  Calling Mary’s response a “yes” implies there was a question with the possibility of answering “no.”  But, did Mary really have a choice?  

In Luke’s gospel the angel Gabriel didn’t seem to ask Mary a question when he announced her impending pregnancy.  He didn’t say, “Mary, what do you think about becoming pregnant before you get married?”  Or, “Mary, would you be willing to have the Holy Spirit impregnate you even though this could totally screw up the partially transacted business deal of your marriage to Joseph and get you stoned to death?”  He just said it was going to happen and that she shouldn’t worry.  Gabriel’s statements were declarative not interrogative.    

In Matthew’s gospel, the announcement didn’t even come to Mary; it came to Joseph - who according to Mosaic Law did have options…quietly end the betrothal, accuse Mary of being damaged goods or complete the betrothal process and marry her, likely for a lower bride price.   Mary’s religious, social and legal status largely depended upon what Joseph said and did, not what she said or did.      

The non-canonical gospel of James offers some insight into Mary’s early life, telling us Mary’s parents, Anna and Joachim, donated her to be a temple virgin when she was about three years old.  If I had done similarly with any of my daughters, I would probably be in prison for child neglect or human trafficking.   However, the church sings the praises of Anna and Joachim, calling them saints.

What is the likelihood a child donated at and conditioned since three possesses sufficient critical thinking skills to realize, assess and exercise any of her options, limited and unpalatable as they may be?   

Some might dismiss this with a hand-wave, saying that those were different times - and they were.  Children and women were considered property with zero to few rights.  They had very little legal voice to oppose authority.   Would she have even thought “no” was a possible response?

According to Luke’s infancy narrative, Mary’s response to Gabriel’s announcement was that things should be done unto her according to Gabriel’s word.  That seems predictable based upon her childhood experiences…pretty ho-hum given the context, some might say.  Personally, I would be more amazed if she had said, “Gabe, Thanks, but no.”  Please note, I’ve not found saying “no thanks” to God to be a consistently reliable technique for God sparing me from things I do not want to endure.  So even if Mary said “Gabe…not gonna lie on this one…not loving your tidings…please tell the Lord to favor someone else” would that have prevented her pregnancy according to her wishes?

More interesting to me than Mary’s “yes” was her referring to herself as a “handmaiden of the Lord.”  In ancient Hebrew culture, a handmaiden’s married female owner could order the handmaiden to sleep with her husband to conceive a child on her behalf if the wife was unable to conceive.  Sarah ordering her handmaiden, Haggar, to sleep with Abraham to bear a child is such an example. 

The husband could not order the handmaiden to be sexual proxy for his wife; only the wife could do this.  Therefore, I wonder if Mary carried feminine rather than masculine imagery of God…in that her response was to consider herself conceiving a child as proxy for God…something culturally she would only do for her female owner?

We actually know almost no facts about Mary.  Over the years, myths evolved adding details based upon supposition and imagination rather than fact.  Eventually some of the details within those myths were declared infallible doctrine by Popes Pius IX and Pius XII - her being conceived immaculately/free from original sin, and her being assumed into heaven - sucked up by a Holy Hoover vacuum cleaner into heaven rather than taking the standard route by dying.  As an aside, her perpetual virginity has never been declared infallible doctrine, although it is doctrine.

Though we know little about Mary, we know a little more about Mosaic Law and the status of women at the time.  In some respects it offered women a degree of financial security not offered in other cultures at the time.  But if you read the various details regarding women’s virginity and legal implications for tampering with it, you see that women get a pretty raw deal.  They are property; they are objects upon which to be acted; their punishments are more severe, etc…  The list of marginalizing aspects is long.

Fast forward through history to today and we see that though some women have progressed in financial and physical security, discriminatory and marginalizing attitudes ingrained over thousands of years are difficult to shed.  Attitudes depicting women as dependent objects lead to practices that make them dependent objects.  For example, many girls around the globe prostitute themselves just to get a secondary or university education because their families believe formal education for girls is frivolous - females are to depend upon their fathers until they depend upon a husband.  Practices like this have led to a disproportionately large percentage of adults in poverty being women.  I have read statistics as high as 70% of impoverished adults are women. 

Pope Francis says he’s an advocate for both the poor and women.  A true advocate for the poor must be an advocate for women because they are to a large extent “the poor.”  A sincere advocate for the poor would also try to help alter the circumstances leading to poverty.  With women, this includes offering education and eradicating attitudes and practices defining women as dependent upon men.  This includes eradicating attitudes and practices that artificially limit women’s chances based upon gender. 

Unfortunately, I have not yet heard Pope Francis acknowledge the connection between poverty and the marginalization of women.  With his supporting institutionalized sexist practices in the church that emerge from its gender-based ideology while at the same time declaring feminists’ efforts at empowering women as “demonic gender-based ideology”, he seems primarily to reinforce regressive attitudes about women – attitudes that jeopardize their financial and physical security – attitudes that place more women in poverty.   Furthermore, Francis can’t seem to speak about women without sexist drivel and/or sexist jokes escaping from his mouth.  It makes his statements about valuing women ring hollow.  Meanwhile, his actions to support his words take a long time to occur and have been underwhelming when they finally do – to the point that they seem largely to be token gestures.

Even in a developed nation with great progress towards women’s empowerment, I am experiencing the downstream effect of the rock-star popular Francis repeatedly making sexist jokes.  For example, Christmas Eve Mass the priest told us the highest ministry a woman could have was to make cookies for a priest…har-dee-har-har.  If an executive made such a sexist comment at my secular job, the executive would be reprimanded or possibly fired depending upon severity.  But there are few people willing to go against the grain and call Francis out for his sexist statements.  This gives a sense of normalcy or invincibility to downstream clergy.  They can make similar sexist comments without fear of repercussions.  This also works against empowering women and ultimately increases their poverty.

Another area causing severe poverty ties to women’s reproductive health – an area where the church increasingly tries to eliminate women’s options, making “yes” the only “answer” regarding conceiving children.  Perhaps this explains or mirrors the clergy’s fixation with Mary’s non-optional “yes.”  Is giving women actual options truly something to fear to the point of restricting them?

Rather than prattle on about Mary and her “yes,” I ask Francis and the clergy to shed the scales from their eyes that blind them from seeing the role church hierarchy’s centuries of gender-based ideology plays in determining women’s economic options.  I ask them to stop the disparagement of feminism and feminist theology that empower women by helping them actually address the causes of poverty via developing self-confidence and independence.  Such theology is not afraid to be surprised by what the Holy Spirit asks women to do as it places no limitations around what the Holy Spirit can or will do.  When I see marked progress in these areas, then I will believe that the rock-star pope is a sincere advocate for women and consequently the vast majority of the poor.

I acknowledge Francis has done some heart-warming gestures in support of giving comfort to the poor.  But, when is he going to address the core issues causing so many women to live with their children in poverty?

Why do Catholics leave the church?

Ever since my daughter’s copy of “The Rolling Stone” magazine arrived with Pope Francis’ smiling face on the cover, Dr. Hook’s 1970s song, “Cover of the Rolling Stone”, has been playing in my head.  I keep wondering if Francis “bought five copies for his mother.” 

According to the song’s lyrics, making the cover of “The Rolling Stone” epitomizes success, beyond any amount of money or other material goods.  Therefore, in today’s world of spirtu-tainment approaches to faith, I wondered if church attendance was sky-rocketing with a Francis “bump.” 

As luck would have it, that same week the local parish bulletin published the diocese’s October, 2013 Mass count numbers.   In 2013 6 of the 10 diocesan counties experienced their all-time lowest Mass attendance since the history of Mass-counting began.  Overall diocesan Mass attendance was down year to year in 2013.  These reflect similar findings of a Pew Research study which indicated 2013 U.S. Mass attendance dropped.  Furthermore, between 2000 and 2013 my diocese’s overall geographic population grew 3% yet diocesan Mass participation dropped 28%.  At my parish we rattle around like B-Bs in a shoebox.

Evidently Francis alone cannot reverse the multi-year downward participation spiral.  Why not? 

Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) conducted a survey about Mass attendance.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell an accurate story because CARA limited respondents’ choices for reasons they miss Mass to the following:

Busy schedule or lack of time

Family responsibilities

Health problems or a disability

I don’t believe missing Mass is a sin

Conflict with work

Inconvenient Mass schedule

I’m not a very religious person

There are glaring omissions from that list.  CARA’s survey provided more insight as to their sincerity for understanding the issue than on the issue itself.

The Pew Forum conducted a more insightful study entitled, “Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.” which inquired why people changed religions and to what religion they migrated.  This 2009 study indicated that former Catholics number as one of the largest religious demographic groups with an almost even split between ex-Catholics becoming unaffiliated versus joining another denomination.   Here’s a summary of the most common reasons for leaving the Catholic Church.

 

Responses from a 2013 Vatican survey about marriage, family and sexuality are also trickling into the public domain.  Regardless of country, common themes repeatedly appear that strongly align with the Pew Forum study’s top reasons for leaving the church.  Therefore, it would seem many remaining Catholics are “at risk” for departure since their frustrations mirror those of already departed Catholics.  It would also seem urgent to address these issues.

It’s been 5 years since the insightful Pew Forum study.  How are the departure reasons being addressed?

To slow or reverse the exodus, church leaders embarked on a “New Evangelization” campaign.  This seems to consist of telling people with whom they disagree that they are wrong and/or damned but delivering the message with a perky smile, modern lingo and perhaps a “friendly” handshake or over an adult beverage.  I suspect that just more regularly and stridently, or even more “kindly” and colloquially deriding people will only lose not regain members.  The statistics seem to support my assertion.

“New Evangelization” tactics seem based on incorrect assumptions that lapsed Catholics don’t know church dogma or scripture and just need these screamed or sung at them in bars, Jesus pep rallies, and other spiritu-tainment venues until the person wakes up and says, “Hallelujah, I’m going back to church.”  However, study after study reveals Catholics do know dogma and just disagree with, if not outright reject facets of it.  Church doctrine espouses this practice as a way of fostering the organization’s continual maturation but many church leaders reject it.  Furthermore, many Catholics left the church because of familiarity with gospel teachings and belief that the hierarchy strayed too far from those teachings.  Floating amongst all this is a lot of “us vs them” mentality.

Strongly fueling the “us vs them” mindset is the hierarchy’s belief that it has cornered the markets on truth and correctly interpreting scripture.  Insistence on supreme “listening-to-God” qualities creates an impasse perhaps beyond resolution.  It is impossible to be just “us” - one integrated Body of Christ - as long as any individuals or factions believe they serve a superior versus a different function within the body.   The Spirit is violated and faith in the Holy Trinity is replaced by worship of the organization itself via making adherence to “tradition” more sacred than truth or love.

If church leaders sincerely want lapsed Catholics back, it’s time to quit before getting farther behind in the infallibility game.  It already has pinned the institutional church into what the hierarchy perceives is an inescapable and what others perceive is an intolerant extremist corner on homosexuality, birth control, treatment of women, divorce and remarriage as well as abortion – the top reasons people leave the church.  In the past 5 years there have been increased political lobbying expenditures and activities, excommunications, threats of excommunications and job terminations pertaining to all those topics.  I suspect if the Pew Forum survey were taken now, the top departure reasons would be even more pronounced.    

Continuing down the list of departure reasons, we hit the sex abuse tragedy.  The institutional church refuses to address the clergy abuse scandal in an effective way that holds bishops accountable and works towards institutional reconciliation.  Instead it continually tries to downplay the scandal’s impact and existence despite scandal after scandal unfolding and the recent publication of a scathing U.N. report.   

Right after sex abuse we hit clergy celibacy.  A simple stroke of Francis’ pen reinstates the practice of married clergy because no theological reason prevents it.  Why hasn’t this happened? 

We finally arrive at topics associated with clergy’s personal charm and Mass quality.  The cardinals did select a personally charming pope, charming enough to make the cover of The Rolling Stone.  Aside from that, there’s a reversion to the Council – not the Second Vatican Council but the 1500s Council of Trent.  Seminarians seem dipped in heavy impenetrable wax coatings of Tridentine philosophy which features weak biblical scholarship, fears the God-created world, promotes misinformation about human biology, sexuality and psychology and further fosters an “us vs them” relationship with the laity.  Significant investments were made to re-translate the Mass but this was done to adopt more Tridentine-esque language and aura despite about 90% of former Catholics saying the church’s departure from old traditions had absolutely nothing to do with their departure from the church.

Help me understand how re-entrenching on things that caused people’s departures while “fixing” things that didn’t is going to bring people back?  Is there an ounce of sincerity in lamentations about missing those who’ve left if even the simplest reforms are not made?

Please note that Francis’ laudable favorite topic of poverty is pretty far down the list of reasons people leave the church.  Perhaps laypeople and religious sisters living Catholic Social Doctrine already defined the Catholic experience enough on this topic that finally having a pope aligned with it just doesn’t move the attendance needle.

Piecing this together makes sense.  Addressing Catholics’ lesser concerns by electing a more personable, poverty-minded pope does not negate ill effects from neglecting people’s most impacting concerns. 

Where do we go from here?  How do we work as “us” when groups continue to foster “us vs them” mentalities?  Is the Body of Christ – the church - really dismembered or just in diaspora?