What newspapers are church leaders reading?

Jesus, “the Word made flesh” arrived amidst the geo-political and daily personal strife of ordinary people.  He was born into poverty in a nation enduring military occupation rather than into privilege or as the child of religious or political leaders. 

God sent Jesus to regular parents to dwell amongst ordinary folk for a reason.  God met God’s creation where they were, experienced what they experienced, and brought them love and mercy amidst their reality.  As Jesus dwelled amongst common folk he cured people, rendered dignity to outcasts, cared for the poor, chastised religious leaders for hypocrisy, and brought God’s love and mercy to people amidst persecutions imposed by their religious and political leaders.  For this reason, theologian Karl Barth used to suggest clergy preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. 

How do today’s religious leaders walk with and experience regular folks’ struggles and deliver them love and mercy?  The answer to that varies based upon individuals but I thought the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ published priorities might offer insight into the group’s general mindset and approach.

The USCCB’s website lists the following priorities for 2011 with supporting goals or focus areas:

1.  “Strengthening marriage” with goals to have Catholics see marriage as a “natural institution founded by God” and to work for laws and public policies that define marriage as one man and one woman.

2.  “Faith formation focused on sacramental practice” with goals focused on Sunday Eucharist and introducing the new English translation of the Roman Missal.

3.  “Priestly and religious vocations” with goals to get more people into these vocations and to get lay people to encourage people to enter these vocations.

4.  “Life and dignity of the human person” focused on mobilizing Catholics to influence elections and public policy regarding abortion.

5.  Recognition of cultural diversity with an emphasis on Hispanic ministry.

In lay person’s terms, I summarized their priorities as:

1.  Return to dated gender stereotypes and lobby for legislation that marginalizes homosexuals and their children.

2. Pray Mass using English more resembling that spoken during the 16^th century Council of Trent.

3.  Get more priests.

4.  Elect the bishops’ favored politicians using abortion as the litmus test for candidate suitability.

5.  Celebrate diversity as long as it doesn’t include gay people or women in certain roles.

Financial activities also tend to indicate priorities.  So, I looked at my diocese’s annual report.  It has $108Million in net assets, with the largest asset holdings in property ($17.7 Million), investments ($25.2 Million) and loans to parishes, typically for parish building projects ($58.8 Million). 

My diocese projects $14 Million in annual operating expenses, $6.7 Million of which will go towards “central services ministries”.  Of that, approximately $1.3 Million actually goes to Catholic Charities to work with the poor and marginalized.  The other central services ministries listed in the order of their funding allotments include:

$1.5 Million for Diocesan Financial and Administrative activities

$1.2 Million for Formation mostly focused on ordaining men

$1.1 Million for Education and Catechesis

$1.0 Million for the Chancery (the Bishop’s immediate office and staff)

$0.5 Million for Communications

$0.2 Million for Pastoral Planning

I then looked at the newspapers and saw what people face on a daily basis: poverty, foreclosures, joblessness caused by a weak economy, loss of jobless benefits, war, drugs, drug wars, and consumerism. Of its millions of dollars, my diocese will use just barely over $1 Million to help people in their actual daily struggles.  

Therefore, I’m struggling to see how fostering more June Cleavers, marginalizing homosexuals, praying the Mass using out-of-date English idioms, or electing pro-birth politicians who ignore the needs of the poor are going to help people feed their families, keep their homes and deal with the world’s violence.  If the USCCB’s priorities represent clergy’s understanding of the human condition, I also struggle to see how having more clergy will help.

Additionally, Catholics struggle with the pain of betrayal by religious leaders having been wounded by clergy abuse and bishops’ lack of accountability.  Yet the bishops do not list reconciliation, atonement, or reestablishing credibility with the people of God as a priority.

What newspapers are church leaders reading?

"...and upon this rock I will build my church..."

Church leaders base papal authority largely upon the statement in MT 16:18, “…you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church…”   The original Greek text of Matthew’s gospel actually uses two forms of the word “rock”, one masculine (petros) and one feminine (petra).  Re-inserting just the Greek words used for “rock”, the statement would read something like, “…you are Petros and upon this petra I will build my church…”

In Greek, the masculine and feminine forms of this word vary somewhat in meaning.  “Petros” means a rock as in a stone whereas “petra” means a rock that is a massive foundational formation.  Some biblical scholars debate over the shift in gender and meaning, mostly to question papal authority.  These scholars suggest that this verse means that Peter is a small fragment of the foundational rock or perhaps that the verse doesn’t refer directly to Peter at all.

Church leaders refute such arguments by explaining that Jesus would have spoken Aramaic, not Greek.  The Aramaic word of "kephas" has no gender and is the same word for stone, rock or foundational slab.  So if we insert Aramaic for “rock”, it would be, “…you are Kephas, and upon this kephas I will build my church…” In Aramaic, the rock's magnitude is either irrelevant or inferred.  

Though the Aramaic word doesn't really distinguish magnitude, the author chose the Greek word referring to a massive foundational structure for the word's second appearance.  Church leaders explain that proper speech would not permit using a feminine noun as a man’s name in the first instance.  Thus, it would have been improper speech to say, “…you are Petra, and upon this petra I will build my church…”

Church leaders explain why the Greek author didn’t use the all feminine Petra/petra combination.  The mixed gender Petros/petra combination is one alternative and the one that was used.  However, why didn’t the author of Matthew write it as, “…you are Petros, and upon this petros I will build my church…”?  This would have preserved the general meaning and maintained consistent masculine gender usage, “….you are a male rock, and upon this male rock I will build my church…”

Instead the author chose to change genders, “…you are a male rock, and upon this female rock I will build my church…”  I just wonder if there is any significance to referring to Peter as a female rock upon which to build the church.  In my research, I’ve not found anyone who explores this question.  Since church leaders give tremendous attention to gender in other passages about apostles, I just wonder why it has not been explored here.  It would seem to me that if the preservation of an all-male leadership team were important to early church leaders, they would have preferred using the masculine petros/petros combination rather than what the gospel author chose, the mixed gender "petros/petra" combination.

Is the error of structural violence over the interpretation of scripture occurring again?

The Catholic Church teaches that people are not bound to any particular scripture interpretation.  God speaks to people individually through scripture.  This is expressed in documents such as Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943 Pius XII) and Dei Verbum (1965 Second Vatican Council).  Thus, Catholics are not required to interpret everything in the Bible literally.

However, Dei Verbum also asserts that, “the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church”.  This teaching office of the church is called the Magisterium. 

These two somewhat divergent concepts coexist by the Magisterium reserving the right to definitively interpret parts of scripture but rarely doing so.  Even when sparsely applied, does this exclusive authority for scripture interpretation enable structural violence?  The church says, “No” because it believes it always interprets God’s intentions correctly.  However, what has history shown?

Galileo Galilei, through scientific study believed in heliocentrism, the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun rather than the Sun circling Earth.  Galileo was correct.

Despite being correct, Galileo was called before the Magisterium’s Inquisition twice.  Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Ecclesiastes 1:5 and 1 Chronicles 16:30 contain verbiage about the Earth being immovable or the Sun rising and setting about the Earth.  Literally interpreting those passages, the Magisterium felt Galileo contradicted scriptural truths.  Galileo felt he didn’t, citing 4^th century bishop St. Augustine’s theological writings pertaining to non-literal scripture interpretation.  However, the Magisterium’s power outranked Galileo, a layman.

Defending his thoughts, Galileo experienced both physical and emotional violence at the hands of the Catholic Church.  In 1616, the Inquisition cleared him of all charges but condemned his theory as “false and contrary to Scripture”.  He was told to stop promoting the idea.  He initially promised to do this, likely to avoid further physical violence.   Regardless, the emotional violence of asking him to turn off his God-given brain must have been extremely painful and likely inhibited achieving his potential.   

Compelled by pursuit of truth, he later wrote his most famous work, “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” (1632) that defended his theory.  In his second trial by the Inquisition, he was found, “vehemently suspect of heresy”, required to recant his theory and placed under house arrest the remainder of his life.  Thus, he endured physical violence of imprisonment in addition to emotional violence of invalidating his thoughts and opinions for the last six years of his life.

Because reading books written by a heretic or on heretical topics are grounds for excommunication, the church imposed structural violence upon all humanity threatening them with excommunication if they read Galileo’s works or works on heliocentrism.  In its attempt to control truth, the church violated truth.

The church lifted its ban on books discussing heliocentrism in 1835, almost 200 years after Galileo’s death.  In 1939 Pope Pius XII, who authored Divino Afflante Spiritu, called Galileo one of the "most audacious heroes of research ... not afraid of the stumbling blocks and the risks on the way…”  In 1992 the church finally admitted it erred in dealing with Galileo and his thoughts. 

Could Galileo and other intimidated scientists have contributed more to the world if they had not experienced structural violence?  We will never know the extent of damage caused by the church because of the impossibility measuring unrealized potential, hidden or buried by fear.

Could the Magisterium again be misinterpreting scripture?    The church insists upon a literal interpretation of Jesus selecting twelve men for the original apostles and infers Jesus’ intention that this dictates clergy gender for all eternity.  The Magisterium insists upon an interpretation that denies Jesus also sent Mary Magdalene as an apostle.  It threatens excommunication to anyone pursuing or enabling female ordinations. Is the error of structural violence over the interpretation of scripture occurring again?  Should we act with the same courage as Galileo in pursuing truth regardless of Magisterial threats?

Does the church need to remove the wooden beam of structural violence from its own eye?

Johan Galtung coined the term “structural violence” in his 1969 journal article on peace and violence.  This article became a cornerstone in modern peace and justice work.  The article describes structural versus personal violence and their correlation.  It also differentiates between physical and emotional violence.  Social justice is the work to eliminate structural and personal violence whether physical or emotional.

Previously I mentioned that structural violence occurs when the institution threatens a broad set of people to control behavior.  The threat can be for physical or emotional violence but the threat itself is emotionally violent.  Threats of excommunication’s eternal damnation might be an example of this.

Another characteristic of structural violence is power imbalance.  An elite ruling class holds institutional power and decides who gets to enter the power circle.  The ruling elite determine the distribution of resources and opportunities, or determine who determines their distribution.  Because the ruling elite benefit from maintaining the status quo and also control institutional policy, structurally violent systems are characterized by very high degrees of stability as well. 

The Catholic Church has a strong history supporting social justice.  Twenty papal encyclicals beginning with Rerum Novarum, written in 1891, outline many aspects of human rights.  Dozens of documents written by popes, councils and bishops dating from as long ago as 1226 supplement the encyclicals.  For the full anthology, click here.   Catholic social justice teachings include statements such as:

1.  “…the measure of every institution is whether it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person”. (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops)

2.  “a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected” (USCCB)

3.  “…if you want peace, work for justice.” (Pope Paul VI)

The church primarily focuses on social justice in secular institutions.  However, since Jesus tells religious leaders to first remove the wooden beam from their own eye before trying to remove a splinter from another’s eye (MT 7:5, LK 6:41), it is fitting to question if structural violence exists within the church.

Let’s look at the church’s governing model first.  The power circle in the church excludes laymen and all women.  Somewhere Jesus’ directive for the apostles to heal and preach morphed into them becoming an exclusive class of governors.  Only those in the power circle of ordained men choose who may enter the power circle as well as hierarchical appointments within the power circle.  Women daring to consider entering the power circle are threatened with the structural violence of ex-communication’s eternal damnation. 

The ruling elite attribute their choices selecting power circle members to the Holy Spirit but only as it works through them.  Church rulers dismiss and disregard the Spirit’s work within women and laymen on this matter.  Rulers say women and laymen should not feel this violates their human dignity despite many laity expressing they feel it does. Invalidating another person’s opinions or emotions, in itself, violates human dignity.

The ruling elite set their policy based upon interpreting scripture but they also decreed that they alone decide if they interpret correctly.  They disregard any working of the Holy Spirit through laymen or women on this matter as well.  Again, they tell women and laymen they should not feel dehumanized.

They believe so strongly in their correctness that they declare their practices as “sacred tradition” and their policies on certain matters as “infallible”.  Furthermore, they believe so strongly in their infallibility that they created a policy preventing the overturn of “infallible” policies.  These policies and “sacred traditions” create an excruciatingly stable governing structure that maintains an exclusive ruling class of ordained men while dehumanizing women and laymen.

Does the church need to remove the wooden beam of structural violence from its own eye?  In a large part, this was the effort undertaken by the Second Vatican Council.  Are recent attempts to reverse and redirect Vatican II efforts examples of the ruling elite shaping policy to maintain their power and power circle?

Is it time for Holy Mother Church to update her parenting skills?

As a parent, Holy Mother Church’s parenting technique of excommunication greatly confuses me.  My confusion stems from my experiences as an actual versus mystical mother: watching what does or doesn’t work in correcting real children’s behavior, what is or isn’t a socially acceptable technique, what harms or hurts a child.  Perhaps a real parent’s reflections have a valid place guiding and informing the pope and his entourage of other single childless fathers who determine Holy Mother Church’s parenting techniques?

Excommunication is supposed to correct inappropriate behavior and thought.  It involves withholding the Eucharist from and social isolation of the transgressor.  Sometimes it is dispensed using public shaming tactics as well.

A mother, who withholds food from her child until she approves of the child’s behavior, at best, would be considered a poor parent.  Sociologists would consider the mother committing an act of personal physical violence against the child by denying it sustenance based upon behavior (Galtung).  Likely, the mother would be arrested, prosecuted and convicted of child abuse for negligence and cruelty.  Not only would secular courts denounce such behavior, the church would consider it sinful. 

The church teaches that the Eucharist is the “bread of life”, nourishment required for eternal life.  Furthermore, it teaches that the faithful should be more concerned with eternal life than life on earth.  Thus the Eucharist becomes more important than normal food to believers because it sustains eternal versus mortal life.  However the church withholds or threatens to withhold this essential food from people unless their beliefs and behaviors align with Mother Church’s.  Noted sociologist Johan Galtung speaks of “structural violence” occurring when something is used to “threaten people into subordination”.  Is it then reasonable to infer that real and threatened excommunications are acts of structural violence?

Perhaps some consider excommunication an externally imposed fast that leads to spiritual growth.  How does indefinitely withholding food encourage growth in a child?  Starving children in impoverished parts of the world eat dirt to fill their stomachs with something.  Why would the church expect starving her children would inspire different responses?  For every child reformed through excommunication, how many instead find something else to countermand their gnawing hunger?

Some parents reward appropriate behavior with edible treats.  “If you behave at school, I’ll give you a cookie after school” is an example of this technique.  For various reasons, parents do not agree universally that this is a healthy, effective parenting technique.   Nonetheless this parenting tactic is at least not considered violently abusive. 

Regardless, I have difficulty drawing an analogy between excommunication and the “reward” oriented parenting technique because I cannot denigrate the Eucharist to being analogously similar to a candy bar or cookie.   It’s not a treat; it is the bread of life.  Therefore, it would be sacrilegious for someone to try justifying excommunication as analogous to reward-based parenting tactics.

Another parenting tactic that came into fashion over the last 20-30 years is a “timeout” wherein the misbehaving child is socially excluded for a period of time.  The guide is one minute of “timeout” per year of the child’s age.  Anything beyond that is considered abusive.   The idea is to give the child a moment to step outside the situation and re-collect and then re-enter the social setting with another chance.  This parenting tactic is accepted pretty much universally as non-abusive and fairly to highly effective.

I cannot liken excommunication to a “timeout”, though, for a couple of reasons: its duration, its tie to exclusion from other activities and organizations within the church’s social setting including the Eucharist, and its being dispensed with humiliation sometimes.  A prolonged, indefinite “timeout” would be considered child abuse.  A prolonged, indefinite “timeout” that included indefinitely withholding food would be considered extremely abusive.  An indefinite “timeout” that indefinitely withheld food and was dispensed using public humiliation would be considered abhorrent.

Maybe excommunication is supposed to parallel the very rare situation when a mother expels her child from the home.  That tactic is only used on adult children because a parent would not expel children incapable of providing for themselves.  Since Mother Church's children are not capable of obtaining the life sustaining Eucharist for themselves outside the church is it ever valid for her to kick her kids out of the house?  Occasionally differences between adult children and parents become so strained that children exclude themselves from family.  If excommunication is supposed to parallel those situations, then shouldn't the person rather than Mother Church get to say when the person severs ties?

I just wonder what the logic is behind Holy Mother Church using excommunication as a parenting technique.  What sociological and theological evidence suggests it produces more good than harm?  Is it time for Holy Mother Church to update her parenting skills?  Is it time for some real parents to help Holy Mother Church discern effective discipline approaches?

(Thanks to Nita and Aimee for the posting idea!)