All Saints Day

In November 1887, the founder of the Paullist Fathers, Servant of God Isaac Hecker, wrote in the Paulist magazine, The Catholic World: “When, in 1843, I first read in the Catechism of the Council of Trent the doctrine of the communion of saints, it went right home.” The doctrine of the communion of saints had a decisive impact upon young Isaac Hecker’s spiritual search, leading him into the Catholic Church a year later.

The communion of saints unites past and present, permeates the Church’s worship, and punctuates the Church’s calendar with so many feasts and memorials of saints, culminating today in this great annual celebration in honor of all the saints. All Saints Day celebrates in particular that part of the communion of saints known as the “Church Triumphant” – not just the thousands of saints officially recognized as such by the Church, but all the holy men and women, known and unknown, who have attained the goal for which we all aim. Living now for ever with God and praising him for ever in heaven, the saints – that great multitude from every nation, race, people, and tongue of whom we heard in today’s 1^st reading [Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14] – helps us by interceding on our behalf, uniting their prayers with ours.

The regular reference to and invocation of the angels and the saints, not just today but in every Mass everyday, signifies our union, as the still struggling Church on earth, with the triumphant Church in heaven, and reminds us that the Church’s mission in this world is to mirror that heavenly community of angels and saints – and so transform the world according to the hope that is Jesus Christ’s great gift to his Church and the Church’s gift to the world.

Deliberately celebrated on the day after Halloween, All Saints Day celebrates the hope that replaces fear, exemplified in the lives of the saints and experienced by us in our continued relationship with them – a communion which challenges that great opponent of human hope, death, by connecting us not only with the saints already in heaven but with all who have gone before us with the sign of faith.

Homily for All Saints Day, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, October 31-November 1, 2011.

Should I Vote?

There are, broadly speaking, two normative theories about voting. There is the classical view that only those with a certain stake in society should be the ones who vote. Historically, this theory has been the basis for age and property qualifications, for example. An alternative “modern” view favors as broad a suffrage as possible, and that is the view that became dominant in the 20^th century in most democratic societies. In the U.S., the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution (1920) guaranteed women the right to vote; the 23^rd Amendment (1961) allowed DC residents to vote for President; the 24^th Amendment (1964) outlawed the poll tax; the 26^th Amendment (1971) extended the right to vote to 18-year olds; and the Voting Rights Act (1965) finally enforced the15^th Amendment (1870) guaranteeing the right to vote to descendants of former slaves. Even so, younger people and poorer people still tend to vote less than older and more affluent citizens - suggesting that the old norm connecting voting with an actual stake in society is still somewhat operative, although no longer at the normative but now only on the behavioral level.

Low voter turnout is, of course, endemic in American elections and is generally an occasion for considerable hand-wringing and lamentation. Those who lament our low-voter turnout seem to combine a “classical” concern with the moral and communitarian value of political participation with a “modern” desire to maximize such participation. A lot of us certainly were brought up to think of voting as a sort of civic obligation. Rarely does one’s individual vote make the decisive difference, after all. And nowadays most districts are “safe” districts for one party or another; and, even in hotly contested presidential elections, I’ve usually had little doubt who would win my state’s electoral votes, with or without my vote. For me voting, while certainly an important way to express my personal political preferences, has always been primarily a privileged civic ritual, which signifies a connection with and participation in the larger society, both national and local. Hence my reservations, which I expressed here last year at this time about “early voting,” which seems to reduce voting to something like a convenience-store transaction, by realigning what should be a communitarian civic ritual with people’s indiviudal timetables rather than a common civic calendar.

As it happens, I will be out of town on Election Day. So, to vote at all, I must either have filed for an absentee ballot (a somewhat cumbersome process) or (much more conveniently) have voted early. So, to exercise my franchise, I must already have decided not just whom to vote for but whether to vote at all.

Whether to vote at all? That’s not a question I was brought up to ask myself. Apart from the years when I was serving in Canada, I have generally been faithful to the participatory ideology that holds up voting as a civic obligation, regardless of whether one’s vote is likely to “matter.” But I didn’t vote in this year’s city primary. (I wasn’t alone in that apparently. The turnout was incredibly low). The fact is that I just didn’t know enough to make any kind of meaningful choice among the various candidates. Traditionally, that was one of the functions of political parties and why one voted for a political party (which presumably stood for something one agreed with or promised benefits one wanted) and not primarily for an individual (about whom one typically knew next to nothing). There may still be an argument for voting that way (by party loyalty), although parties admittedly are not what they used to be. In any event, what happens when party identification is not highlighted in elections – as is often the case in certain “nonpartisan” local elections?

There remain, it seems to me, two compelling arguments for voting - even in local elections where, generally speaking, one has so much less information to base one’s vote on. The first is simply that voting keeps one in the habit of voting, whereas not voting breaks the habit and so contributes over time to even more progressive disengagement from civic life – a problem increasingly endemic in our society (and particuarly problematic among “emerging adults”). The fact that many non-voters are less rooted and engaged in society may in fact make them poorer voters, more susceptible to the fads of the moment, Voting may not necessarily cure them of that, but non-voting certainy won’t and may instead deepen their disengagement. A second argument for voting is that today’s typical non-voters really do have a serious stake in society, inasmuch as so much of our present predicament is rooted in public policies that have been redistributing wealth from the poorer to the richer and from the younger to the older. It may be fun to fulminate in Zucotti Park, but it is a poor substitute for serious engagment in the real political process. (And, of all people, those Baby Boomers who are waxing so nostalgically for the 60s right now, should really know better from our generation’s own experience!). The fact is that disengagement from the real poltiical process always increases the effective power of those who already have plenty of power (perhaps too much of it).

"You Have But One Master"

When I was a graduate student, getting my doctorate in political philosophy, more years ago than I care to remember, dinner most days was in the Graduate College Dining Hall, a grand Gothic structure dominated by a stained glass window featuring the “Seven Liberal Arts,” beneath which was inscribed a quote from today’s Gospel [Matthew 23:1-12], Nec vocemini magistri, sed magister vester unus es Christus (“Do not be called teachers, for your one teacher is Christ”). I remember, even then, thinking that rather odd in a grad school setting, since most of those eating there fully expected to end up as university professors somewhere.

In the almost 4 decades since, I have had the privilege of answering to two of the titles treated by Jesus as problematic in today’s gospel – first, as a teacher in a university and then as a priest, on whom Catholic tradition bestows the honorable and affectionate title of “Father.” (I just celebrated my 16^th ordination anniversary two days ago – the feast of the Apostle Jude, the same St. Jude so commonly invoked as the patron of hopeless cases and lost causes).

Today’s gospel gives us some of what are sometimes called Jesus’ “hard sayings,” in which Jesus challenges us when we would rather be affirmed and draws a line in the sand when we would rather he were more inclusive. In today’s gospel, he harshly criticizes the behavior of the scribes and the Pharisees (whose authority he tells us to respect, but whose behavior we are not to imitate).

In 1^st-century Israel, the scribes (some of whom were also Pharisees) were legal experts. The Pharisees themselves were pious laypeople trying to live lives of faithful observance of both the written law and the oral traditions that surrounded and were intended to protect it. In Jesus’ time, they were just one of several significant Jewish factions.

Later, however, after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, they would emerge as the dominant element, that would eventually evolve into what we have since come to call “rabbinic” or “orthodox” Judaism. In the memory of Jesus’ occasional quarrels with the scribes and the Pharisees, the early Christians no doubt saw their own conflict (as a breakaway Jewish group) with the new Jewish establishment that opposed the early Church. Hence the gospels’ recurrent emphasis on stories that portray Jesus in conflict with the scribes and the Pharisees.

In the process, the scribes and the Pharisees became kind of anti-models of what was expected of disciples. Jesus’ words were addressed to all his disciples – not just to those destined for positions of authority and leadership. But it is an easy leap to treat the scribes and the Pharisees as anti-models for how leaders in particular are to behave.

Certainly the prophet Malachi’s outburst against Israel’s priests in today’s 1^st reading [Malachi 1:14b – 2:2b, 8-10] rather reinforces such an interpretation. If nothing else, it shows that criticism is one of the constants of human society. We live in an age right now in which it is exceptionally challenging to be any kind of public figure. The media love to build people up and then tear them down – particularly presidents and presidential candidates, but not just them.

Often, of course, we criticize our leaders as a way of excusing ourselves.

Thus we criticize politicians as if we weren’t the ones who had elected them! Church life is also – all too often – a fractious arena of rancorous factional bickering. In a world where everyone is a critic, laypeople complain about their priests, and priests complain about their bishops – much too much, of course, and (as often as not) as a way of excusing ourselves for our own failings. Perhaps, it was ever thus. The early Church certainly saw its share of factional in-fighting. Maybe they highlighted these sayings of Jesus in the gospel precisely in the hope that its hearers would take Jesus’ words more to heart in their own cases.

Still, being accountable goes with the territory – as it should. Back in the 4^th century, St. Augustine famously said: “With you I am a Christian; for you I am a bishop.” All of us are accountable – individually and collectively – for how we live our lives and what kind of disciples we are. Those of us in positions of leadership are also accountable in a special way to and for those we have been appointed to lead.

But the fundamental focus of Jesus’ challenge to his disciples in the gospel is that it’s ultimately not about us. It’s about God, our one Father in heaven and our one teacher and one master, Jesus Christ, who has made it possible for the word of God to be, as St. Paul [1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13] said, at work in us now – even in spite of ourselves.

Homily for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, October 30, 2011.

125 Years

One day, more than 25 years ago, when we were both in seminary, my best friend was teasing me about something or other. Having provoked me sufficiently, he then tried to run away. Being a good seminarian, he ran right into the chapel, where he claimed sanctuary. When I caught him there, he said: “I’m safe here. We’re in a church!”
What is a church? Churches are special places – very special places. From the earliest human history, people have set apart special places for worship. In virtually every civilization, temples and shrines of various sorts have been among the major public buildings – and typically the most beautiful.
Today we celebrate the 125th anniversary of the dedication, on September 19, 1886, of our own “Church on Summit Hill,” Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN.
It is no accident that one and the same name, “church,” is used for both the people who continue Christ’s presence in the world and the place where we assemble to experience his presence most directly, by proclaiming his word and celebrating his sacraments.
When we celebrate the dedication of a church, we celebrate a place, a very special and sacred place unlike any other. We also celebrate a parish, the people this sacred place represents and to whom it means so much. And we celebrate a relationship, the relationship that binds a parish together across space and time. Our unity across space and time as Christ’s Church in the world in turn fosters our future hope for both space and time when the church reaches its final perfection in the heavenly temple.
On the anniversary of the dedication of a church, the community, whose church it is, prays: We thank you now for this house of prayer in which you bless your family as we come to you on pilgrimage. Here you reveal your presence by sacramental signs, and make us one with you through the unseen bond of grace. Here you build your temple of precious stones, and bring the Church to its full stature as the body of Christ throughout the world.
We remember with gratitude today those faithful 19th century Catholics who decided to build a church here on this particular hill to meet the needs of the growing Catholic community in Knoxville. We give thanks for everything that has happened in this beautiful building – for Christian lives begun at its font, fed from its altar, and commended to God from its door, for 125 years of Masses and confessions, of first communions, confirmations, and weddings, of preaching and teaching, of silent prayer and lighted candles. We pray that this sacred space may long continue to witness to God’s presence and action in our world, here in Downtown Knoxville, sanctifying the lives and labors of all who live or work of visit within site of its steeple.

"ObamaCare"

One of the recurrent sillinesses of our current political shouting match (in which everyone shouts as shrilly as possible, and no one really listens to anyone else) is the recurrent use of the term “ObamaCare” to refer to the health care reform proposed by President Obama and enacted into law by Congress a couple of years ago ("The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" of 2009). By analogy, the equally silly term “RomneyCare” is used to refer to the health care reform enacted in Massachusetts in 2006 during the governorship of Mitt Romney.
Reminiscent of the silly Republican custom of referring to the opposition as the “Democrat” party (instead of the Democratic party), “Obamacare” is obviously yet another example of the nearly universal tendency to resort to name-calling and sloganeering as an alternative to intelligent discussion and debate. But it is really even more than that. What it is also is a (so far fairly successful) attempt to obfuscate the bi-partisan background of President Obama’s healthcare plan – in particular, its most controversial element, the individual insurance mandate.
The legal controversy over the constitutionality of the mandate will presumably be resolved by the Supreme Court sooner or later – and probably sooner rather than later. My knowledge of constitutional law is too limited for me to anticipate the outcome of that case. This appears to be new constitutional terrain. Thus the Court will likely (to keep the analogy) break new constitutional ground when it finally rules. Philosophically, on issues on which the constitution provides no particular answer, I tend to favor judicial deference to the democratic branches of government. (The point of the constitution, after all, was to create a government that can actually govern, that is, solve the pressing problems confronting the country). Pragmatically, there is also a very good practical reason for the Court to follow this course. If the Act is declared unconstitutional, then the number of uninsured will likely continue to grow as health-care costs continue to increase. The result eventually (in politics, eventually need not be that far off) will be another outcry for health-care reform. Absent an individual mandate, it is hard to imagine how the problem can be resolved primarily through private insurance. Forbidding an individual mandate might paradoxically make some form of single-payer, public plan (“socialized medicine”) that much more likely.
It was to avoid that outcome (so unpalatable in our American political culture) that the individual mandate was adopted. Recall that candidate Obama opposed the individual mandate when it was proposed by candidate Clinton. The idea of the individual mandate, however, goes back much farther than the 2008 Clinton campaign.
It goes back at least as far as 1989, when it was advocated by thinkers at the conservative think-tank, the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation’s 1991 "Responsible National Health Insurance" plan incorporated the idea, which was also endorsed by another influential conservative think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute in 1992. During the debate occasioned by the Clinton Administration’s 1993 health care plan, some congressional Republicans introduced a proposal requiring the purchase of insurance coverage for emergency care. At the time it was seen for what it really is - a "free-market" alternative to a single-payer plan.
For this reason, despite his earlier campaign opposition to the individual insurance mandate, President Obama eventually accepted and incorporated the idea in his plan as the only realistic way to keep private insurance affordable for all.
So, whatever the substantive merits or demerits of "ObamaCare," calling it “ObamaCare” is more than just immature silliness. It represents a real effort to rewrite the history of how we got to where we are – something which is always deplorable and dangerous.