Unholy Alliances

On October 28, 1789, the French National Assembly abolished the taking of religious vows. That was just one of many destructive moves made in quick succession by the French Revolution in creating the model of the modern State. That infamous year also saw the confiscation of Church property by the State. In short order, the inherent logic of the revolutionary agenda would work itself out - first, in the creation of a national Church with a "Civil Constitution in 1790; then, before too long, in the official dechristianization of the country, culminating in the adoption of the republican calendar in 1793. In far less time than most historical transformations take, France went from a regime that saw itself as Charlemagne's successor to emulating Nero. In the process, it provided a critical interpretive key to comprehending so much about modern societies.
Power struggles between Emperors and Popes, between Kings and Bishops, cluttered medieval history. For the most part, however, they were just that - competitions for both spiritual and worldly power fought within an overarching soci-religious framework ("Christendom"), which was largely taken for granted. Its disappearance would have been barely imaginable. Yet the modern model of the State - the model bequeathed us by its bloodthirsty parent, the French Revolution, has not only imagined it but largely brought it about.
In practice, of course, no Ancien Regime really lived up to the ideal of Charlemagne; and most modern States hesitate to emulate Nero too totally. Still the ambition to subordinate the Church continues to animate much of the modern political project.
I can't remember where I heard or read it, but I recall a commentary a few years back analyzing the policies of Spains recently elected (and thankfullky more recently replaced)Socialist government. Trying to explain that government's preoccupation with pushing a "social" - as opposed to a more traditonal "economic" - agenda, the commentator suggested that, in our post-cold War world (and before, obviously, more recent collapse of the capitalist economic order), everyone basically was following the same market-oriented, economic line. With so very little substance remaining from the traditonal policies that had historically defined the European "Left," practically all that remained was traditional anti-clericalism. Hence an emphais on minimizing or ending compul;sory religious education and the legalization of divorce, abortion, etc. 
That analysis may oversimplify somewhat. And, of course, the current economic mess has re-injected some new energy into an older economic agenda - for example, in France's election of a Socialst President (although he too has embraced a radical "social" agenda, something probalby easier to impose than anything resembling socialism!) Still, I think it makes a worthwhile point,
It certainly seems striking to me how, even in this time of economic "downturn" when the reigning economic ideology's falures have been dramatically on display, so much energy is being expended to institutionalize a militantly secularist worldview and to push forcefully for some of its most morally problematic policies. So, for example, in our own society we see the secularist side willing to forfeit the Church's decades-long support for universal health care in order to use universal health care to trample on the autonomy of religious institutions which provide social services.
But the response on the relgiious side can become comparably myopic and enter into unholy alterantive alliances. Throughout the modern period the temptation has always been to ally with social forces which oppose this direction on the part of the modern State but for reasons which are not in harmony with a Catholic moral vision for society and which may even be directly opposed to it. It is no accident, for example, that Ayn Rand and Friedrich von Hayek were such strong atheists!

Pure and Undefiled

The statutes and decrees [Deuteronomy 4:1] which Moses taught the people to observe were God’s gift to his people, a sign of God’s special closeness to them in the regular routine of their daily lives. The Torah challenged the people to become wise and intelligent enough to observe it, and so serve as a witness to the nations. In contrast to superficial “spiritualities,” that demand relatively little (and accordingly give little in return over the long-term), the conscientious observance of God’s Law was intended to enable one to go the distance, so to speak, to transform every aspect of daily life into an experience of God’s presence – giving meaning and purpose and structure to the regular routines of daily life. In the words of ancient Jewish scholars, “We must come out of Egypt every day.” In other words, life is one long Exodus experience, through which God guides us by his commandments.

For this reason, for centuries before Jesus – and for centuries since, down to our own troubled time – faithful Jews have observed not only the 613 laws explicitly listed in the Bible, but a host of other observances designed to shore up the fundamentals of the Law. In times of persecution, this so-called “Fence around the Law” could call forth great heroism – as in the case of a Rabbi, imprisoned by the Romans, who used his limited supply of drinking water to observe the rules regarding hand-washing, even at the risk of dying of thirst.

So why the big battle over hand-washing in today’s Gospel [Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23]?

Nowadays, we are encouraged to wash our hands all the time. The ancients were not indifferent to hygiene, but our uniquely modern, secular obsession with physical health was emphatically not their issue.

The Pharisees, let us remember, were the faction in 1^st-century Judaism that aspired to the most intense degree of religious observance, while combining that with life in society – unlike, for example, others who went off to live an ascetic life in the desert. The Pharisees in Jesus' time promoted a day-to-day spirituality. They sought to make the Law come alive in daily experience, by relating its commandments to various spheres of life – living an active, involved life but remaining (as St. James says in today’s 2^nd reading) unstained by the world .

In Jesus’ time, the Pharisees were revered for their zeal and dedication. It’s likely that Jesus and the Pharisees agreed on much more than they disagreed. Jesus obviously received - and accepted - dinner invitations to Pharisees’ homes. Yet, the Gospel reports that Jesus also had some very harsh words for the Pharisees.

At Mount Sinai, according to the book of Exodus, God had instructed Moses to tell the Israelites: “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” In their desire to build a “Fence around the Law,” the Pharisees (who, like Jesus himself, were, of course, laymen, not Temple priests) had apparently adopted the stricter rules of ritual purification that applied primarily to the priests - thus taking seriously the OT’s image of all Israel as in some special sense a priestly people. The evangelist, trying to explain all this to his 1^st-century Gentile Christian audience, emphasized that this tradition of the elders represented a human addition to God’s commandments. One reason why this story was told may have been because of ongoing concern about how to assimilate Gentile converts into the originally all-Jewish Christian community. The account clearly portrays Jesus as a higher authority than the Pharisees when it comes to the interpretation and application of what God commands as opposed to merely human custom.

Identifying what is essential to living an authentic Christian moral life, sorting that out from the human and cultural envelope within which we inevitably receive it, is – always has been, and will always remain – a constant challenge for as long as the good news of Jesus brings new people from every nation, culture, and language into his Church.

On the other hand, creating and maintaining a cultural envelope within which one can live a moral life also remains essential. Ultimately, what we do does matter, lest we delude ourselves, as James warned us against in today’s 2^nd reading [James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27]. Neither Jesus nor his disciples would have lived the lives they lived or died the deaths they did, if they had believed that anything goes. If anything, Jesus actually challenged his hearers to an even more demanding moral standard. Listen to the list of sins Jesus warned against: evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. (That last one is my favorite. Imagine if we all gave up folly!)

The Pharisees’ problem was that, while the Law was supposed to be a special sign of God’s closeness, here was God himself present in Jesus, but the experts in the law were just not getting it, were completely missing the point.

In Jesus, God has become present to transform us into the priestly people which the Law was meant to signal, to turn us around, to turn our entire lives around, to authentic, life-long, day-in, day-out discipleship – or, as James more poetically expressed it, that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Homily for the 22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, September 2, 2012.

 

Labor Day Weekend

When I was a graduate student back in the mid 1970s, I actually dreaded the Labor Day weekend because that was when the University library would close for 3 days for its annual sprucing up before the start of the school year. In those days, when so little was air-conditioned, that meant not only no access to our preferred place to read, study, and socialize, but also no place to keep cool and to breathe pollen-free air. 

Labor Day, a federal holiday since 1894, long ago joined most of our other national holidays in losing much of its original civic significance to become just a "holiday weekend" – an opportunity for shopping and other diversions. Even when I was a child and the American labor movement was still strong and the traditional Labor Day Parade still defined New York’s Union Square, Labor Day was already becoming more about the end of summer vacation, the last day for women to wear their white shoes and men their straw hats, and the return to school and normal activities - and less of a serious civic celebration of American workers (and the affluence their astounding productivity had helped to produce).

That great post-World War II quarter century or so of unprecedented, nation-wide prosperity and a strong labor movement seems such a distant memory now in the present era of increasing economic inequality. Today, as the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops 2012 Labor Day Statement notes, “Millions of Americans suffer from unemployment, underemployment or are living in poverty as their basic needs too often go unmet” – a situation the Bishops’ Statement suggests “represents a serious economic and moral failure for our nation.” Certainly one dimension of this failure is a diminished appreciation of the centrality of productive work for a fulfilling human life and a flourishing economy. “Work is more than a paycheck,” the Bishops’ Statement reminds us; “it helps raise our families, develop our potential, share in God’s creation, and contribute to the common good.”

Solving our society’s complicated social and economic problems has been made even more problematic by the globalization of economic activity, which has rendered obsolete so much that used to be taken for granted. That challenge, however, only makes it that much more urgent to recover an authentic understanding of human nature and human solidarity – and of fulfilling human labor as an essential component of a productive economy and a good society.

Two Americans

Convention week lends itself to a certain amount of political nostalgia - and not just about political conventions (an acquired taste at best).   So I've devoted of the late-night time I might otherwise have spent convention-watching to read William Lee Miller's, Two Americans: Truman, Eisenhower, and a Dangerous World (Knopf, 2012) - an inspiring escape from our current uninspiring politics.

Harry S Truman (1884-1972) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) were respectively the 33^rd and 34^th presidents of the United States, occupying the White House from April 12, 1945 to January 20, 1961, years of enormous importance in modern American and world history. While each man would occupy a place at the pinnacle of world events (Eisenhower as Allied Supreme Commander in World War II as well as President later), both came from modest, small-town American backgrounds - the kind of backgrounds our political culture easily romanticizes but which in this case really did pay off for the country in making them the men they were. Bookended in the White House by old-money aristocrat FDR and new money aristocrat JFK, Truman and Eisenhower really did represent the American "common man." Truman was the last president never to have attended college (which I well remember was part of his appeal to my father). Neither owned his own house until after his presidency. Truman was probably the poorest 20^th century president. Eishenhower did better but would hardly have counted as rich - something to think about, now that we just routinely take it for granted that our presidents will be millionares. Both had what Miller calls "a straightforward, uncomplicated patriotism." Both enormously admired General George Marshall, and both saw through General Douglas Mac Arthur. Both got to the top by combinations of circumstances harldy anyone would have earlier predicted, and both made the most of their prominence through the double firestorm of war and Cold War, helping to create a framework for peace and unparalleled prosperity.

Miller treats their separate life paths from obscurity to pre-eminence, how their paths unexpectedly intersected at the close of World War II, how they collaborated in creating the post-war world, and their subsequent political rivalry. Unfortunately, the book does have a few factual errors. The Soviet Union did not enter the war against Japan on August 15. The 1960 summit was not in Geneva. JFK's funeral was not at Washington's National Cahtedral. At best, whenever in a book I encounter those kinds of errors concerning facts I know about, it's an unnecessary distraction. at worst, it makes me wonder what other errors there may be in matters I don't know about and am relying on the author to inform me of! That said, all in all, the book combines engaging biography and genuine historical insight about a fascinating time and the pivotal part these two true leaders played.

Of course, as with all real people, there was more to each man's story than his genuine down-to-earth American modesty and his high moral stature. Each had his limitations and faults. And no account could fail to record their famous 1950s feud. Miller quotes an observation by British MP Roy Jenkins, commenting on the (in)famous January 20, 1953, transition from Truman to Eisenhower. Jenkins remarked on "the unfortunate picture of two gnetlemen in their sixties, both outstanding servants of the greatest democracy in the world, behaving in a way which would have been discreditable to two small boys of eight."

Did their feud and petulant behavior toward each other stand out all the more because our standards were higher then? Would one's reaction be the same today, when, on the one hand, boorish behavior in public is increasingly the norm, and, on the other, comparably "outstanding servants of the greatest democracy in the world" would be hard, if not impossible, to locate? 
Truman and Ike famously reconciled at JFK's funeral. Something about being confronted by our common mortality maybe? 

The Keynote

I studiously avoided tuning in to the antics in Tampa until about 10:30 last night, when I turned on my TV to hear NJ Governor Chris Christie's keynote. In so doing, I was probably motivated in part by a certain degree of fat solidarity. After all, the two main bigotries that are currently still fashionable in our enlightened society are those against fat people and against Christians, and I obviously identify myself with both groups. In any event, keynote speeches are, generally speaking, more likely to be interesting than most other convention blather, and the chosen speaker is very often seen as someone with a serious future, someone worth taking a look at.

For what it was, I thought the speech was fairly good. The fact that he spoke so much about himself and his family story confirmed that the speech was more about him than about his party's standard-bearer - more about future elections than the current campaign.

As a fellow Sicilian, I could certainly appreciate and relish his family story. I can still remember and relate to a world which, as Christie recalled, couldn't afford foolishness and valued truth-telling - "bluntly, directly, and without much varnish." 

And I also appreciated the lesson Christie says he got form his mother that, if the choice is between being loved and being respected, go with being respected and don't let yourself get paralyzed (as Christie believes we have become) by the desire to be loved. That's a message anyone in public life should be able to relate to and should seriously take to heart.

There are problems with that message, however.

Some of the news coverage seems to suggest that Christie may have inadvertently stepped on Anne Romney's message, which was apparently all about love. I didn't watch her speech, but surely one would expect a candidate's wife to love her husband and talk about him that way. Maybe we should be less obsessed with our politicians' domestic lives and how lovable they actually are. but it's really hard to fault a spouse to speaking that way.

No, the real problem as I see it is that Christie's candidate's campaign has hardly been characterized by the qualities Christie chose last night to extol. According to Christie, "we must lead the way our citizens live. To lead as my mother inisted I live, not by avoiding truths, especially the hard ones, but by facing up to them and being the better for it." That sounds more like Christie's own understanding of himself and his personal take on how he has governed NJ. It's hard to imagine, however, in what parallel universe that could begin to describe his party's candidate's quest for the presidency - a campaign in which he has disowned his own greatest political accomplishments and previous beliefs, in the process pandering to those who hold totally opposite positions. And that's not even to mention his ads about welfare and work and his pandering to birtherism!

And what about his belief "in telling hard working families the truth about our country's fiscal realities. Telling them what they already know - the math of federal spending doesn't add up"? How about telling them who it was the busted the budget and blew away the surplus Bill Clinton left his successor? How about adding up the math of the Vice Presidential candidate's supposedly bold budget plan?

All in all, it is really hard to escape the impression that this speech was probably a lot more about the next campaign than about this one - about some other candidate than about the present one.