"...And there was no needy person among them"

I thought about going to Mass today because I’ve recently completed my COVID vaccination series but decided against it due to living in the worst outbreak hotspot currently in my country…something about not wanting to inadvertently act as a plague vector though not being able to attend Mass in over a year.  Side note: Unlike many folks, I actually enjoy attending Mass and before COVID was among the Catholic minority attending weekly Mass and the even smaller minority attending daily Mass.  I opted to write a blog article instead.  Hopefully I chose wisely.

 

This Sunday, the first after Easter, always features the “doubting Thomas” gospel.  I’ve written twice before in 2011 and  in 2013 about how countless clergy over the centuries spin this narrative towards painting  the fearful herd sitting in a locked room, avoiding the dreaded “other” (in this case the Jews) as being more virtuous than Thomas, who was out actually imitating Christ without fear of his fellow humans.  My experience is today’s clergy’s behavior increasingly parallels that of the petrified pious pack featured in today’s gospel reading.  So perhaps clergy’s message spinning is their self-exoneration reflex for the power they wield, largely due to fanning flames of fear - of God’s created world and humans.

 

However, rather than exclusively comment on the gospel reading, let's also look at the second reading, Acts 4:32-35 which reads thusly:

 

The community of believers was of one heart and mind,

and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own,

but they had everything in common.

With great power the apostles bore witness

to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,

and great favor was accorded them all.

There was no needy person among them,

for those who owned property or houses would sell them,

bring the proceeds of the sale,

and put them at the feet of the apostles,

and they were distributed to each according to need.

 

This passage counts among those that most influence my daily lived faith.  I sometimes quote from it without offering the citation.  Specifically, I’ll say something like, “…they had everything in common…there was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them…and the proceeds were distributed to each according to need.”  The more pious the Catholic and/or the more Republican the hearer, the more likely the other person incorrectly guesses Karl Marx rather than St. Luke as the quote’s source.

 

Let's look at the gospel and Acts passages together now.  By painting the nervous, judgmental and withdrawn crowd as the most virtuous, and having the present-day apostles subsequently imitate that isolation and apprehension, it makes for an en masse perversion of living that passage from Acts.  Church leaders’ power is derived from fearmongering rather than from fearlessly bearing witness to the resurrected Christ via care for the needs of all people.  They mostly fear for their self-preservation.

 

 

Lots of folks donate to their church as their way of living this passage from Acts, believing the clergy will funnel their donations to help other humans.  A group called Charity Navigator rates the health and transparency of charitable organizations.  They do not rate churches, but we can look at their assessment criteria to help us evaluate churches as effective charities, as perhaps, effectively living Acts chapter 4. 

 

Based upon Acts 4, the gospels, and also by reputation, we should be able to categorize churches as human services charities.  According to Charity Navigator’s rating table on finances, human services charities getting the highest rating direct 92% or more towards human services programs and spend only 0-3% of income on administrative overhead.  

 

But what do church leaders, fearful about self-preservation, actually do with that donated money?  In many parishes, most if not all of that donated money goes to the church institution itself – self-preservation: salaries, buildings, schools, etc…  Though the parish may have something like a St. Vincent de Paul society offering food, clothing or financial support, those organizations are not funded by the parish.   For example, a few years ago, I was an officer of a local St. Vincent de Paul chapter and people approaching the local parish seeking financial assistance were invariably sent to us.  However, exactly $0 in funding was sent to us from the parish coffers. 

 

My current parish does actually give to charity, towards “distributing to each according to need.”  Based on my experience being a Catholic for more than half a century, this parish is in the minority.  But, since it is an example, let’s examine their annual report.  It spends 2.2% not on overhead but on human services.  It spends the vast majority on itself, its administration, its buildings, etc… Were churches rated by Charity Navigator as human services organizations, they might find themselves as the topic of an advisory bulletin issued by the organization, warning people that their money does not get used as assumed.

 

This is not unique to Catholic parishes.  Look at the skew of monies your congregation spends on the organization itself versus on caring for other humans, regardless of your faith tradition or denomination.  If monies are primarily spent perpetuating the organization itself, then people’s donations are funding a spiritual country club, designed for members to feel better about themselves rather than to see that “there was no needy person among them.”

 

Donating to a church offers a lazy outlet to pat oneself on the back while claiming imitation of Christ, when in fact, it pretty much moves money from a person’s left pocket to their right pocket.  It’s all about benefiting the donor through institutional self-preservation. 

 

Worshiping Jesus by attending church or praise services is much easier than imitating Jesus because Jesus wasn’t about self-preservation.  Imitation involves completely letting go of one’s money to feed, house, clothe and provide dignity to people regardless of how they came to be in their financial situation.  It requires examining and fixing systems that consistently produce disparate outcomes based upon skin color, religious affiliation or gender.  How are you imitating Jesus to ensure there is no needy person in your midst?

 

What do you think?  Should I have foregone writing today and made myself a possible plague vector or did I choose ok?

Marriage and the Hierarchy

How about we do a marriage assessment today?  Don’t worry single people; you can participate too because you won’t assess your marriage to someone with whom you exchanged rings and vows.  Rather, you will assess your marriage to the Roman Catholic clergy. 

In case you’re unaware that you’re married to the clergy, here’s a quick summary of the church’s teaching.  The clergy believe they wed the church because they think this is required for them to imitate Christ whom they believe married the church.  You might be wondering, “Isn’t it polygamy when multiple men marry the spouse of the person they’re imitating?”   However, the answer to that is either “it’s a mystery” or “twice the square root of the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin simultaneously.”  I forget which.

You also might wonder, “Do they really believe they’re married to the church?”  I think the answer is, “yes” based upon doctrinal writings and hierarchical utterances.  For example, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said in his November, 2011 General Assembly address to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), “I look out at 300 brothers each of whom has a ring on his finger, because we're spoken for, we're married.”  Tim definitely thinks he and his brother bishops are married; just look at their rings.

Since the church is the people of God, that means they are married to you and me.  When did this marriage take place?  Well, that is not clear but from the time you are baptized, you’re kind of “in” so let’s say you entered this marriage at your baptism. 

If you’re like me, baptized as a newborn, you probably pulled out your copy of Canon Law and started rattling off all the Canons that are broken by an infant entering this marriage.  However, just in case your life is too interesting to read Canon Law, let me share a few highlights with you here. 

• Canon 1063: both parties must understand the holy state of matrimony before entering it
• Canon 1065: both parties need to have been confirmed
• Canon 1083: minimum valid marrying age is 16 for a boy and 14 for a girl. 
• Canon 1095: marriage is invalid if either party in the marriage lacked reason, or consent
• Canon 1096: both parties must understand marriage’s permanency
• Canon 1103: marriage is invalid if either party is forced or coerced into marriage

Violation of any of these establishes grounds to annul a marriage. Yet, all of them are violated by pulling an infant into this mystical marriage with the clergy by baptizing them as members of the clergy’s spouse, the church.      

Even if the hierarchy thinks the faithful enter this mystical union at Confirmation, it violates several Canons.  Regardless, let’s not get caught up in Canon Law.  After all, we all know how forgiving the hierarchy is when it comes to rules that don’t suit their interests. 

Let’s just play along and say we are validly married to the clergy because if we don’t, how can we take this nifty quiz the USCCB has called “Grade Your Marriage.”  What fun!  We can grade the hierarchy as our spouse…using the hierarchy’s very own standards for good marriages!  I’m sure they’d love for us to do this because they are huge advocates for strengthening marriages.  Therefore, I’m confident they want to strengthen their marriage with you, the people of God so as to set a good example.

The quiz asks each spouse to rate their partner on a scale of 1 to 10 in 15 areas.  I’ll relax the rules and permit a 0 to 10 scale, but please, no negative numbers no matter how tempted you may be.  The specific assessment areas are listed below.  Remember, you are to rate the church hierarchy as your spouse.  Therefore, I added some contextual description associated with the clergy / church marriage. 

1. Shared Values: How well do your and the clergy’s values and priorities align?
2. Commitment: How committed are the clergy to you?
3. Communication: How well does the hierarchy communicate with you?
4. Conflict Resolution: How skilled are clergy members at resolving conflicts with you?
5. Intimacy/Sexuality: Let’s ignore the sexual dimension on this one.  How much interpersonal intimacy do you have with the clergy?
6. Spirituality/Faith: How well do the hierarchy’s faith and spirituality align with and support yours?
7. Money Management: How satisfied are you with the clergy’s management of money?
8. Appreciation/Affection: How well does the clergy express appreciation towards you?
9. Lifestyle: How compatible is the clergy’s lifestyle with supporting your lifestyle needs?
10. Recreation: How satisfied are you with the leisure time you spend with clergy?
11. Decision Making: How satisfied are you with the hierarchy’s decision making practices?
12. Parenthood: How satisfied are you with the clergy’s parenting skills and support for raising your children?
13. Household chores / gender differences: Remember, no matter your gender, in this marriage, you are the female church.  How satisfied are you with the gender roles and division of labor between you and the hierarchy?
14. Careers: Is there adequate support from the clergy for your career?
15. Balancing Time: How well do the clergy balance time when it comes to their relationship with you?

The instructions say any assessment area rated at 8 or above is in good shape while anything in the 4-7 range is considered to be in a danger zone.  The instructions then say to total scores for all 15 assessment areas and declare any total score higher than 100 as being an “A” for the marriage overall. 

I can’t help noticing that if you scored your spouse an average of 6.66 out of 10 (66.66% or a “D” on most grading scales) on every single question (solidly in the “danger zone” for every question), that results in a total of 100 and an “A” for your marriage overall on the hierarchy’s scale.  Evidently in “bishop math” fifteen “D”s = one “A", a phenomenon closely related to Jesus’ loaves and fishes gig.

I will not influence your assessment by providing mine here.  I do hope you take the survey and discuss it with your hierarchical leaders.  If people send me their responses, I can tally them and provide stats in a subsequent blog article or send them to the USCCB.  However, based upon listening to people, I think the results will indicate the hierarchy needs some serious marriage counseling with their spouse.

Survey aside, I have a few other thoughts regarding the clergy’s marriage to the people of God.  What’s up with excommunication?  The hierarchy should never set aside their spouse via excommunication.  The official viewpoint is that excommunication is “medicinal” versus a “divorce” but, how many of you stop feeding your spouse if they disagree with you?  “…You don’t want my mother visiting???? I think you can bloody well go without any food until you change your mind.”  And how many of you consider withholding nourishment as an acceptable form of “medicine?”  “…You’re sick, dear?  No food for you until you’re healthy…it’s for your own good, honey.”  

Canon 1135 says there’s equality between marriage partners, but that isn’t the case when it comes to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, is it?  In a healthy marriage, both parties make amends and forgive, recognizing they both err.  However, with the hierarchy, those of us constituting their wife are always the erring party, always the ones needing to confess, always the ones receiving penance, always the ones needing forgiveness…and from them.  “We’re equal, sweetie, it’s just that you’re always the one to screw up.  But don’t worry because I’m here to forgive you for all these screw ups.”  There are marriages like this where the husband is always right but they are typically categorized by one word, “abusive.”

Finally, what’s up with Canon Law calling me a “subject” if I’m married to the hierarchy?  Have you ever heard a wedding end with, “I now pronounce you man and subject?”  If Christ is king, then his bride is queen, not “subject.”  If the clergy fancy themselves princes, then we’re their princesses, not their “subjects.” 

Do you think the hierarchy is married to the people of God?  Do you think the marriage is healthy?  If not, do you think it can be saved?  What kind of marriage therapy might work?

"Do you love me?"

A scene keeps playing in my mind similar to when Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof” asks his wife of 25 years whom he first met on their wedding day, “Do you love me?”  However, instead of Tevye asking his wife this question, in my daydream it is me asking it of Pope Francis, the bishops and clergy.  And, instead of the touchingly awkward but sincere affirmative response Tevye gets from Golde, his wife, I just get dropped jaws accompanied by terrified looks with eyes darting wildly about in search of an escape route.  This daydream evidently is a musical because at this very moment I hear Earth, Wind and Fire singing the lyric from the song “Can’t Hide Love” that goes, “You turn down love like it’s really bad; you can’t give away what you never had.”

What’s wrong with this picture?  The clergy say they are married to me as a member of the Church yet I cannot imagine one bishop, including Pope Francis, looking me or most of their flock squarely in the eye and saying, “I love you” with any degree of depth or sincerity.  I think even my own bishop, with whom I have very amicable relations, would be very, very, very uncomfortable telling me he loved me if, in fact, he does.  And regardless of if he thinks he loves me, I think he’d turn on me in a heartbeat if preserving his esteem with the hierarchy called for it.

I ask you to imagine yourself standing before your bishop, eye-to-eye, asking that question.  What do you envision as the response?  Am I wrong to surmise that most people imagine scenes like the one I do…where men who claim to be the world’s greatest experts on and advocates for love dance around in nervous evasion of it, seemingly incapable of imitating Christ’s passionate sincere expression of it...especially towards women?

The bishops these days sound a little like Dire Straits wistfully singing the line, “so far away from me…” as though their children have abandoned them.  But, they seem to lack the self-awareness to realize that the majority of members are actually singing the same line right back to them, “You’re so far away from me – so far I just can’t see.” 

I wonder if subconsciously we know that if like Tevye we asked of our bishops, “Do you love me,” we would hear thunderous silence – a response which would speak louder than their words.  And again borrowing from Earth, Wind and Fire, “Ain’t it funny how the way you feel shows on your face?  And no matter how hard you try to hide it states your case?”  I am tempted to ask my bishop this question just to weigh his facial expression.  Without saying a word, it will state his case no matter how hard he tries to hide it.

My daydream continues with me standing in calm serenity waiting for the bishops’ responses when I suddenly hear Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons sing a compelling question at me, “Who loves you pretty baby?  Who’s gonna help you through the night?  Who loves you pretty momma?  Who’s always there to make it right?” 

Rather than seeing bishops “always making it right”, scenes dance through my head of bishops paying lobbyists and lawyers to defeat child protection legislation and abuse lawsuits so that they always make things right for church monies instead of church members.  Similarly I recall them paying lobbyists to enact legislation that denies women’s rights as well as their traditional condescending metaphorical pats on women’s heads trying to usher them back into subservient roles.  And I hear myself answering the question, "Who loves you?" with flat, unemotional, realism in my response, “Evidently, not them.”

For the bishops to express their love for me with any credibility, I would need to see them capable of healing abuse victims by doing as Jackson Browne sings, “reaching into the heart of the darkness from a tenderness within…” or mimic the passionate devotion and care expressed by the Proclaimers in the song, “I’m Gonna Be”, “I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door…”  Rather than spend money on their trinkets, buildings, and bling as well as initiatives that harm me and my loved ones, I’d see them live the lyric, “and when the money comes in for the work I do I will pass almost every penny on to you.” Instead of owning one or more mansions, they’d be helping house, clothe and feed those without.  And, before someone sings the praises of Catholic Charities, please note that the vast majority of that money comes from governmental agencies – not the bishops.  And what money does get routed from church coffers to Catholic Charities is a sad, small fraction…far from “almost every penny.”

So here we are with many if not most people disheartened because they feel they pour their love into the Church without receiving reciprocal love from those who claim to lead the Church.  It’s as Dire Straits sings, they’re “tired of being in love and being all alone.” Similarly, they see Pope Francis omit Fr. Tom Doyle from this new child abuse commission despite Tom being one of the strongest if not the strongest advocate for child abuse victims and they hear Big Country singing, “another promise fallen through – another season passes by you.”

We see a couple of reactions by the disheartened masses, one being akin to Aaron Neville singing, “I’m gonna love you even if my heart would break.”  These folks try to show the hierarchy a bridge to the future, wincing through their shortcomings.  But others feel taking that approach would cause them to teeter too close to co-dependent behavior, working hard in a grossly imbalanced relationship trying to receive the love of men who seem afraid of it or incapable of giving it.  I envision those folks singing along with “Big Country”, “I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered but you can’t stay here when every single hope you had shattered.”  Those folks are already crossing the bridge into the future.  They see the bishops as having strayed too far away from them to pursue them anymore.

Yet, I find myself responding to the disheartened by singing another lyric from Big Country, “So take that look off you; it doesn’t fit you.  Because this happened doesn’t mean you’ve been discarded.  Pull up your head off the floor; come out screaming.  Cry out for everything you ever fought for.”  Pat Benatar reminds us, “We’ve got a right to be angry…We can’t afford to be innocent; stand up and face the enemy…”

So, who is the enemy?  Is it our apathy ignoring abuse victims’ healing needs?  Is it our desire to downplay the abuse crisis because we are too tired to deal with it and want it to be over? Is it our “go along to get along” mentality that sometimes enables injustice or disables love?  Is it our ability to rationalize funding the institutional church despite seeing its many corrupt practices?  Is it our willingness to let men who seem incapable of deep love co-opt authority and declare themselves the supreme discerners and defenders of it?

Let’s return to Tevye for a moment.  He asked his wife, “Do you love me?” because he saw bit by bit that the “Tradition” he once heralded as a life-stabilizing force is incompatible with love.  He realized that to love sincerely he had to depart from Tradition.

The two great commandments are to love God and love God’s people.  If our Catholic traditions are incompatible with loving others, then they must be dropped.  Maybe this is why Jesus asks, “and why do you break God’s commandments for the sake of your tradition?”  And maybe this is why we must never tire of calmly and steadily asking it of the bishops.

By the way, Jesus also asked Peter, “Do you love me?”  Unlike today’s bishops, Peter was able to express his love credibly.  And when he did, Jesus told him to feed (not fire….not excommunicate…not starve…) his sheep (John 21:15-17).

And so to my bishops and Pope Francis I ask, “Do you love me?”  If the answer is “yes,” how would I know based upon your track records?  If the answer is “no” then what are you doing in your positions?

But, on the flip side, are the laity able to love the bishops and pope despite their many shortcomings and knowing full well that this love probably won't be reciprocated?

By the way, this blog post is brought to you courtesy of the shuffle mode on my iPod.

Some "theology of women" from a woman

Today is my mom’s birthday and were she alive we’d be having some sort of combined St. Patrick’s Day / birthday celebration.  Since she has started the eternal chapter of her life, I’ll instead honor the day by offering some “theology of women” thoughts based upon witnessing her faith for over 40 years.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy seems to assert that Jesus’ sexual organs are his most important body parts.  Why do I say this?  The hierarchy asserts that a priest must “naturally” remind people of Jesus’ physical body and only other men can do this.   The most differentiating physical attributes between a male and a female are sexual organs.  So, it’s easy to surmise that the hierarchy believes Jesus’ most important physical attributes are his sexual organs if they are required to evoke recollection of the man. 

This is curious in its own right because the hierarchy further asserts that Jesus never used his sexual organs for their natural intended purpose so why are they so all-fired important…but I digress.  Regardless of the hierarchy’s generous willingness to tell me what my thoughts and feelings should be, I know what they are.   The person who most reminds me of Jesus’ physical person is my mom. 

No, I wasn’t raised by a “mom” who was really just a man dressing in drag.  I wasn’t raised by a woman who later had a sex change operation either.  I was raised by my natural mother who was female all her life.  Yet, she reminded me physically of Jesus more than any other person I’ve encountered.  You might ask, “Why?”

Even if you don’t ask, “why”, I will elaborate because that …and maybe a little jetlag following my return from Southeast Asia find me awake in the wee hours of her birthday.

Jesus fed his flock, not by knocking out 80 hour weeks and turning over his paycheck to his wife so she could buy groceries that she would later cook and serve as meals to the flock.  Rather, he fed the world by offering himself, his own body.  No man I know does this but mothers do it all the time. 

My mother fed me and my numerous siblings from her very body. She fed us when we were in utero, where a mother’s body sacrifices nutrients to her child even to the detriment of her own body.  After we were born, she continued to feed us from her body, nursing us each for several months post-partum.

Jesus also welcomes us to enter into his Body.  Thus, we become part of the Body of Christ.  I think maybe this is Jesus’ way of saying, “I love you so much that I will make myself vulnerable so you can enter my body…”  This is a profoundly deep expression of love.  Women as wives and mothers welcome others to enter their bodies also, through sexual intercourse or through pregnancy.  My mother welcomed me into her body via her pregnancy carrying me.  She made herself vulnerable to allow me to enter her body and be a part of her body, even when I was no longer a physical resident of her body.

Thus, I readily see Jesus, not only in my mother but in many mothers whose greatest joy comes from making themselves vulnerable to allow others to share their body so that they may have life.

People say Jesus is our “brother” but my brothers never permitted me nor did I ever want to enter their bodies.  There’s nothing that poured forth from my brothers’ bodies that I found suitable for consumption or nourishment.  There is no part of their flesh that fed me.  Yet, there was from my mom as there is from Jesus.

Since the hierarchy asserts that physical recollection of Jesus is required of the person leading a Eucharistic celebration of the Mass lest we sacrifice sacramental validity, then it would seem that hierarchy would need to also assert that this person must be a mother.  No other type of person has sacrificed their body to give life to others.  No one else intimately knows what is involved in feeding others from their own flesh.  How curious that only one man did what many women do, and how comical to say only ordained men understand and portray it.  Donning effeminate garb does not fool me into thinking a male priest has the slightest clue about sacrificing his body to feed me like my mother did or Jesus does.  It was not the superficiality of my mother’s clothes that fed me.  It was the fiber of her physical being.  When I became a mother myself, I better understood the profound life-giving, sacrificial, deep love my mother expressed.  It became my inspiration to try to imitate her and Christ as best I could.

The experience of feeding another from one’s own body is beyond the experience of every man in history except Jesus.  At best, other men can observe others literally feeding others from their own body, but they cannot do it themselves.  Maybe because men are incapable of this primary life-giving experience, they suppress or discredit the expressions of those who do.  Maybe this is why women’s voices are so often ignored in the church unless they echo the experiences of men. 

The bottom line is that I didn’t live in the time of Jesus so didn’t see his physical body and thus, I have never seen his sexual organs.  Believe it or not, even if I had met Jesus face-to-face in his time, I sincerely doubt his sexual organs would have been my focal point because it’s not my focal point when meeting men today.  I just don’t say, “There’s a guy; he sure reminds me of Jesus because they have the same standard sexual equipment package.” 

I can imagine that this fixation on a priest having the same sexual organs as Jesus might be especially offensive to survivors of clergy sexual abuse; it is to me and I was never sexually assaulted by a priest.  If Jesus’ sexual organs are so important to remind us of Jesus, how dare they be used for sexual violence?  How dare anyone tolerate that, enable that or minimize that?  Quite frankly, this is a no-brainer: people who use their flesh to violate others or who minimize another’s use of flesh to violate others do not remind me of Jesus.

Conversely, it’s just a no-brainer that my mom’s or any mom’s holy, joyous sacrifice feeding her flock from her own flesh physically reminds me of Jesus.  Active use of her body parts to feed others reminds me of Jesus far more than the male clergy's passive non-use of body parts.