"...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?

The results are in...

Remember that brief 39 essay question survey the Vatican issued a few months back? You know… the one soliciting opinions about the church’s teachings on human sexuality and marriage to act as input to this October’s Synod on the Family.  Well, the Vatican has compiled and released its preliminary findings from the survey in a document called an instrumentum laboris.  Literally translated from Latin as…and we know the Vatican is all about literal Latin translations… granting us, O Lord, we pray, to hear about impoverished Jesus having an oblation in a gallant chalice held by his holy and venerable hands on a regular basis…  But, I digress.  Literally translated, instrumentum laboris means “instrument of labor”, basically a tool.

If you don’t want me to spoil your pleasure reading the 85 page report yourself, then stop reading now.  However, if you don’t want to invest numerous irretrievable hours of your life reading a report that could have been written without surveying a single person, you might prefer reading this summary instead.

When it was first issued, I wrote this about the survey in a November 2, 2013 blog article, “…do not place too much hope that the Vatican seeking your opinion means the Vatican will actually heed your advice.  It might again just inspire the Vatican to write another really long document in Latin explaining why you are wrong.”

It turns out that statement was prescient other than the Vatican crowd did disappoint by writing the original report in Italian rather than Latin.  Don’t despair.  We can still hope that some dreadfully long academic admonition in Latin emerges from the Synod itself.

To be fair, amidst the 85 pages of “We are right so how do we get these stubborn, misguided idiots to follow us…”, there were 2 entire sentences acknowledging the hierarchy’s lack of credibility as a moral authority since its culture enables criminal sexual abuse of children (paragraph 75).  And there was a half sentence which came dangerously close to acknowledging cultural sexism, “In some places characterized by a somewhat sexist cultural tradition, there exists a certain lack of respect towards women…”  (paragraph 55)

Don’t fret though.  The guys in Rome were not speaking of their own overt institutional sexist culture but the “somewhat” sexist secular culture in certain geographical regions only.  Vatican-originated sexism seems to be getting brasher as the idolized pope Francis recently boldly evaded Italian journalist Franca Giansoldati’s compelling questions about women by making sexist jokes.  For example, Giansoldati was trying to get Francis to be specific about these greater church roles for women he often touts by asking if Frank might appoint women to lead any Vatican departments.  Francis felt that serious question merited this response, “Well, priests often end up under the sway of their housekeepers.” 

Help me understand, Francis.  What message were you trying to convey about women and why did you think evoking the image of a stereotype rooted in both sexism and clericalism would convey it?

Anyway, here’s a summary of the report.  Brace yourself for the insightful void of insight:

1. Unmarried, childless, clerical men, often lacking healthy intimate relationships, who like to parade in bejeweled gowns, know more about relationships, marriage, and child rearing than people who are actually married or have children.
2. Said men are right, were right and will always be right.
3. If you disagree with the hierarchy, you must be ignorant, stubborn or misguided and will be labeled “lost” even if you have a better grasp of the gospel messages than hierarchical leaders and consider them lost.  Please see item (2).
4. Any information you provided through the survey was just to help them help you by “enlightening” you about your sinful ignorance in more “loving” and effective ways.  See item (2).
5. If people have difficulty accepting what the hierarchy teaches, it must either be a problem of how the hierarchy expresses its teachings or how you receive it because the teachings themselves are, did I mention this yet….”right.”  See item (2).
6. Gender studies that unmask the hierarchy’s sexism and misogyny are evil due to them inspiring people to question item (2).
7. Information and facts are your enemy unless they are filtered through Vatican approved spin-doctors.  They cause you to realize when the hierarchy is wrong and again, please see item (2).
8. If anything inspires you to question item (2), it is evil.
9. By studying science and nature, people have figured out that the hierarchy’s invented “natural law” notion is, much like this term, qui fabricati (fabricated..made up).  Since this is confounding the hierarchy’s ability to confound nature, rather than correct themselves…because please see item (2) above…they might need to consider inventing a new slogan.
10. Life situations that do not align with the hierarchy’s romanticized, academic, theological musings must be miserable because if they aren’t, it might lead to contradicting the immovable premises set forth in item (2) above.
11. Model your marriage after the Holy Family….you know, the family that procreated without having sex.
12. If the hierarchy feels you are unworthy to receive communion because of your marital and/or sexual practices, you need to just accept that they do this for your own good and overlook the hypocrisy of the sexual escapades and/or crimes of the men consecrating the hosts and ordaining the men who consecrate the hosts.
13. Despite the gospel indicating Jesus came for the sinner, the hierarchy perpetuates the notion that communion is only for the worthy, and hierarchical leaders will, of course, define who is worthy…please see item (2). 

I offer this as food for thought.  The morning my mom died I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and she responded, “I want…I want…oh, what is that thing called…I WANT THE CHILD THAT IS MEDICINE!!!”  That woman could barely breathe or think clearly but she about blew my hair back barking with fierce certainty that she wanted the Eucharist…the child that is medicine.

Gentlemen of Rome, please take note from my dying mother.   Communion is medicine for the misbehaving (that is all of us) not a treat for the well-behaved.  Who then that desires communion should be denied it?

By the way, I’m not surprised by the report; I could have written it last November before the first response was submitted.  I would call it a vastate labore (wasted effort) rather than instrumentum laboris (instrument of labor).

As I mentioned in my previous blog article, the hierarchy thinks it is married to the church (the people of God).  With this example of the hierarchy’s unhealthy marital relationship “dialogue” practices…asking questions for the sole purpose of gaining ammunition to prove your spouse is wrong…should the hierarchy  perhaps gaze in the mirror or at theology and Canon Law more than at T.V.s, newspapers, the internet, gender studies, secular governments, science or smartphones when pondering the underlying causes of strained interpersonal relationships? 

Marriage isn’t about who is right and who is wrong.  It is not a True/False quiz.  It is about learning, sharing, bending and being together in love.  My dear brothers in the hierarchy, as long as you set yourself above and apart, how can you be credible examples of or proponents for marital love?

Pope Francis, priests and monsters...

Stop the presses!  What is this I hear Pope Francis said?  Did he really say that some priests behave like “little monsters?”  Why, yes, yes he did say that and even more!  He said this monster-esque behavior emerges from “clericalism”, something he called “one of the worst evils” and something he attributes to poor seminary formation.  “We must form their hearts. Otherwise we are creating little monsters.  And then these little monsters mold the people of God. This really gives me goose bumps.”  - Pope Francis

Hey, those are pretty stiff accusations against clerics there, Mr. Chief Clerical Officer of the Roman Catholic Church.  Are they warranted or substantiated?

The definition of a monster is “a powerful person or thing that cannot be controlled and that causes many problems.”  Let’s also review the definition of “clericalism”: “a policy of supporting the influence and power of the clergy.” 

Well, let’s rummage through the mountain of church writings to see if we can find any evidence of clericalism and/or monster-making… Ah, yes, here we go.  Found something! 

An ancient writing dating from all the way back to 2009 – a report issued after a Vatican visitation of American seminaries - might help substantiate Francis’ assertion.  Here’s some contextual background on the report.  It resulted from a Vatican visitation (read that “investigation”) into the role seminaries might have played in the sex abuse scandal.  When the visitation occurred, the Vatican was still trying to portray sex abuse as an American-only phenomenon.  As an aside, since that visitation, sexual abuse scandals rivaling the U.S.’s magnitude or worse have erupted in over a dozen countries so I guess that whole “made in America” thing wasn’t accurate.  Anyway, the report was generally favorable towards U.S. seminaries but highlighted a few negative findings in need of correction that they thought contributed to the sexual abuse issue.  Here’s one:

“The students have an idea of priestly service, but teachings such as on the character impressed by the Sacrament of Orders, on the nature of sacra potestas (sacred powers), on the tria munera (three offices), etc., are not so well known.”   In other words, the Vatican felt it was problematic for seminaries to focus too much on priests doing service … you know that crazy stuff that Jesus did…and not enough on the “sacred powers” of the three-fold office, namely the teaching (munus docendi), sanctifying (munus sanctificandi) and ruling (munus regendi) offices.  One might simplify that message from the Vatican as telling priests to ease-up on helping people and focus more on controlling them.  Let’s see…”institutionalized clericalism with foundations in seminary?”  Check!  …as per Vatican directives.

Here’s another one from that same report:

“In a few seminaries, the clear distinction between the common priesthood and the ministerial, hierarchical priesthood needs to be emphasized more. “  This statement reveals Vatican officials believe the hierarchical superiority of clericalism needs to increase not decrease.  Again, I think we can safely place a checkmark in the “institutionalized clericalism” column for seminaries.

So there you have it. Along with blaming homosexuals, criticizing seminarians’ behavior outside of the seminary walls and faulting dioceses for not exalting seminarians and seminaries enough, the Vatican as of 2009 felt that the sex abuse scandal resulted from priests not being hierarchical enough, not exerting their “sacred powers” enough and offering too much service.  I will pause a moment for you to stop banging your head against a hard, flat surface and also to finish your primal scream therapy.

Done?  Ready to continue now?  O.K. back to our topic. 

I guess I must cede Francis his “clericalism” point about clergy power fascinations, but “monster?”  Isn’t that a bit severe?  I mean a monster is a powerful person that cannot be controlled and that causes many problems.  And yeah, the Vatican report on clergy formation said to focus more on clerical powers… but does that really create priests who “cannot be controlled?” 

Again I dive into the steaming mountain of church writings and dig all the way down to the 1983 section to find the latest revision of Canon Law.  Rather than quote lengthy sections from it, let me summarize its power governance laws using this analogy.  Think “dogs peeing on trees to mark territory.”  The church truly has evolved little further than that in some aspects of church governance.  The world is divided into geographical territories over which a bishop presides and the bishop subdivides his territory into parishes over which a pastor presides.  Only one alpha dog is permitted per marked territory.   

“But doesn’t the bishop reign over all the parish pastors?” you might ask.

Here the plot thickens a bit.  A parish pastor, once appointed by the bishop, can only be removed under a few very obtusely defined circumstances.  As long as the pastor avoids those issues, he can do whatever he darn well pleases and the bishop has no, zip, nada, the null-set, recourse. 

Even if the pastor violates one of the lawful reasons for removal, the complex legal processes under Canon Law tilt toward protecting him and often eventually require approval from the Vatican Curia - an organization reputed for corruption, inefficiency and sloth-paced movement in addition to siding with pastors over their bishops.  Therefore, most bishops only bother pursuing priest situations that involve “slam-dunk” transgressions in the eyes of the Vatican Curia – really treacherous things like pastors who want to talk about female ordinations.  And, no, a pastor raping a child is NOT a slam-dunk with the Vatican Curia.  Thus, many bishops avoid the confrontation, expense and hassle, and just let pastors do pretty much whatever they want.  Oooooh, so that whole “cannot be controlled” thing is for-real!

I’m sure Francis knows that clericalism is written into Canon Law and further enabled by bishops unwilling to navigate the legislative processes that most likely would conclude with the Vatican Curia affirming the “little monster” anyway.  Therefore, I don’t totally agree with Francis.  He asserts these clericalism-generated “little monsters” are the fault of poor seminary training.  I think that is only part of it.  Seminaries plant the seeds of clericalism but Canon Law feeds and waters it by bestowing minimally governed, nearly unchecked powers to pastors (and popes).  Furthermore, bishops and the Curia further cultivate clericalism every time they permissively turn their heads for those few powers that Canon Law does try to hold in check.

Let’s quickly review the power path.  Popes have the right to appoint every single Curia leadership position.  They also appoint every single bishop.  Bishops appoint every single seminary rector and together they determine seminary curriculum.  Bishops ordain every single priest and then appoint every single pastor.    

Once the pastor is appointed, if he is a monster or monster-in-the-making, it is too late.  Unfortunately with the reduced number of clergy, more and more bishops are appointing less and less experienced men as pastors and their immaturity and inexperience seem to be creating more “little monsters.” 

My dear brother Francis, let’s face it.  Much of the power to correct clericalism lies in your hands as pope via your Curia appointments, bishops you choose and indeed even the Canon Laws you do or do not enact. 

Keep in mind what’s required to alter Canon Law.  The pope can just decree something into Canon Law using something called a “motu propio” (literally means “own motion”).  And the beauty of the pope's absolute monarchy is that all of his motions carry.  Yes, current church governance has strayed so far from the laypeople-elected bishops of the early church that it has devolved into placing the power in the pope’s hand to just decree things…no lobbying required by the pope to gain mindshare from a single other elected official because there are none.

Francis has made some new Curia leadership appointments including in the Congregation for Clergy and the Congregation for Bishops.  However, he has left in place Pope Benedict’s head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith – a key office in the bureaucracy of governing priests.  Also, I am unaware of him issuing any motu proprios to adapt the bishop and pastor selection processes, their sweeping powers, or clergy governance processes. 

Things the pope controls could affect existing clergy immediately.  But, starting with seminary reform instead means effects will not be felt until the people wait for the bureaucracy of curriculum reform to occur (or not…), and then for the 4+ years of formation for seedling seminarians after the reforms take place, and then another 2 or so years before those priests become pastors. 

Though I appreciate Francis might be trying to minimize his own clericalism, the result is years if not decades more of suffering by the people.  And regardless, all the “formation of heart” in the world will not properly govern human priests acting like humans and especially human priests when they act inhuman.

How do we contribute to the “worst of evils” called “clericalism?”  What is our responsibility to eliminate this evil from our church?  Is it possible to eliminate clericalism ("the worst of evils") without eliminating the absolute monarchy of the pope? 

As background, here are Canon Law’s published reasons for removing a parish pastor:

• "A manner of acting which causes grave harm or disturbance to ecclesiastical communion"
• "Ineptitude or permanent illness of mind or body, which makes the parish priest unequal to the task of fulfilling his duties satisfactorily"
• "The loss of the parish priest’s good name among upright and serious-minded parishioners or aversion to him, when it can be foreseen that these factors will not quickly come to an end"
• "Grave neglect or violation of parochial duties which persists after a warning"
• "Bad administration of temporal good s with grave harm to the church when no other remedy can be found to eliminate this harm"

Here’s a quick summary of the removal process:

• Bishop must become aware of the inappropriate behavior
• Bishop must agree that the behavior is inappropriate.  These two steps alone can take years and many valid issues never even reach this point.  But if they do:
• The bishop conducts an investigation
• If concerns are founded, then the bishop discusses the matter with two other priests
• If they believe there is cause to proceed, then the bishop communicates the reasons to the priest and tries to persuade him to resign within 15 days
• If the pastor doesn’t reply within 15 days, the bishop renews his invitation to resign
• If the pastor doesn’t reply to the second notice then the bishop issues a decree
• If the priest opposes the case, the bishop invites him to review the case against him and provide his objections in writing
• This might need to be reviewed with the same two priests from the previous step
• If they decide the removal is still substantiated then there is another decree issued
• The priest can be removed from the parish at this point but the new pastor cannot be assigned until the matter is resolved with the Vatican Curia and in the meantime the priest must be provided financial support
• By this time, the bishop may have moved to his next job or died, the priest may have retired or died, but, most likely, more people will have left the church.