The President's Religion

Amazingly, 18% of Americans apparently believe that President Obama is a Muslim. So reports the Pew Research Center's poll done in late July-early August. That's up from 11% in March 2009 - and before the current controversy erupted about the Mosque near Ground Zero. According to an even more recent Time magazine poll, 24% believe the President is a Muslim, 47% believe he is a Christian, and 24% say they don't know!

Now one of the features of contemporary life is an ideological disdain for facts. Perhaps the most blatant example of this is the absurd belief, which some people insist on maintaining without any evidence, that the President is not a natural-born American citizen. In the current climate, people on either extreme of the political-cultural divide increasingly get their information exclusively from fellow true-believers and accept as facts only whatever confirms their pre-existing ideological stance - however counter-factual such supposed "facts" may be. (This is not a totally new phenomenon. Remember all those lefties who refused to believe that Oswald alone killed JFK. But a way of thinking that used to be recognized as extreme and marginal has become much more common and mainstream).

So maybe one shouldn't be so surprised that opponents of the President choose to believe that he is a Muslim. Much more significant, however, is the surprising fact that almost a quarter of the population may say that they do not know what the President's religion is!

To the perpetual dismay of our secularist elite, the United Sates remains the Western world's most religious country. Americans seem to prefer that their presidents practice some religion. Like their fellow citizens, our presidents have been all over the map of religious belief and observance - from fervent Evangelical (Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush) to virtual Deist (Thomas Jefferson). With one Roman Catholic exception, however, all our presidents have been at least nominally Protestant, and most of them seem to have acted more or less according to expectations. Although only baptized after his election, President Dwight D. Eisenhower attended church regularly and even invited Soviet ruler Nikita Kruschev to accompany him to church during the latter's 1959 state visit. (He didn't.) Among recent presidents prior to Obama, Ronald Reagan was conspicuous for not being a regular churchgoer. He got away with it, I suspect, because his claim to be a Christian was nonetheless seen as sincere (and perhaps not unlike that of many other non-churchgoing Americans), and also because Reagan so successfully identified himself with core American values.

Despite his upbringing, President Obama definitely has identified as a Christian. In Chicago, he attended church and was affiliated with the United Church of Christ denomination. Since becoming president, however, he has not affiliated with any church. Nor does he employ Christian religious rhetoric as frequently and fervently as many of his predecessors (including Reagan). The latter may be even more relevant than the lack of church attendance. Under different circumstances, that might not matter for there to be a widespread popular perception of Obama as a Christian. In the present situation, however, it apparently does.

The Mosque at Ground Zero

Practically everybody, so it seems, has an opinion about the proposed mosque to be located in New York near the site of the 9/11 attack by Muslim terrorists in 2001. Even the President has weighed in on the issue (and has been duly criticized by both sides). Sometimes being criticized by both sides suggests that one has embraced some rational middle ground, offensive to extremists at both ends of the spectrum. On the other hand, being criticized by both sides can also be a consequence of an unimpressive attempt to have it both ways, which seems more likely the case in this instance. Yet, while the President’s defense of our American tradition of religious freedom followed soon after by an awkward attempt to distance himself from any endorsement of this particular mosque in that particular place seemed like just some politician’s attempt to have it both ways, it could conceivably have been presented instead as a principled argument trying to take into account the competing values involved in this controversy and allowing a greater role for common sense than ideologues on either side generally admit.

It is, of course, true that freedom of religion is a core American value, and that certainly includes the right of any religious group to worship publicly in buildings they have built or bought, on property they have purchased or otherwise legitimately acquired. It even includes the right to conduct acts of public worship (e.g., processions) in public streets, subject always to ordinary regulations in the interest of public order. No one seriously disputes any of this. Churches, synagogues, and more recently mosques have been built and religious services conducted throughout this land subject to those general restrictions and limitations that are reasonably and generally accepted as rightfully imposed by governments to promote public safety and health and maintain public order.

So, quite apart from whether or not one likes mosques or thinks they are good things, one can certainly accept that our system entitles Muslims to erect a mosque in Manhattan, while at the same time recognizing the possibility that there may be legitimate arguments against its erection in a particular place. Reasonable people can and will disagree about whether those objections represent legitimate public concerns or irrational prejudice.

When the original Immaculate Conception Church was built in Knoxville, TN, in the mid-1850s – on a prominent hilltop overlooking what were then the northern limits of the city – some local people did object. The March 10, 1855 Knoxville Whig warned that Catholics “are a dangerous population much to be dreaded.” The Knoxville Protestant community, however, did not universally share this view. The Mayor, a Presbyterian, even donated an adjacent plot of land to the new parish. Had there been a more rational basis to the allegation that Catholics posed a danger and should be dreaded, perhaps the outcome might have been different.

Thomas Jefferson famously saw Roman Catholicism as inimical to American liberty. History has contradicted Jefferson, and his views now appear as typical Enlightenment prejudice. If Jefferson were around today, with his same Enlightenment views, he probably would have similar reservations about Islam. As with Catholicism, the question of whether or not a particular religious belief or practice is compatible with American values is in part a question of fact and in part a matter of judgment.

Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., famously characterized anti-Catholicism as "the deepest bias in the history of the American people." In 1960, Peter Viereck said that "Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals." Yet the reality is that Catholicism never really posed a significant threat to American democracy. All the allegations to the contrary ultimately could not compete with the plain fact, evident to unbiased observers, that Roman Catholics embraced the American way of life as eagerly as other immigrants. Whatever their theoretical beliefs, American Catholic practice was tame enough to fit into American culture.

Mormonism, though native to the United States, had a harder time because of its very counter-cultural practice of polygamy. In 1862, Congress outlawed polygamy in all US territories. The unanimous 1878 Supreme Court decision Reynolds v. United States declared that polygamy was not protected by the Constitution, based on the longstanding legal principle that "laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices." The official Mormon Church eventually abandoned and proscribed polygamy, rendering mainstream Mormon religious practice likewise tame enough to fit into American culture.

Since its creation in the 7th century, Islam has often been at war with the Christian societies of the West - probably for more years than it has been at peace. As Diarmaid MacCulloch has recalled, for example, in his magisterial history of the Reformation, historians estimate that Islamic raiders enslaved some one million Western European Christians between 1530 and 1640. The decline of Ottoman power after the decisive 1683 battle of Vienna ushered in a period in which Islam no longer posed a significant threat to Western ways of life. To what extent the events of the 20th and 21st centuries have decisively changed that involves an assessment of fact and an interpretive judgment, about both of which there can be – and obviously is – considerable disagreement in the post-9/11 world.

It should not be necessary, however, to resolve all such disagreement in order to appreciate the strong feelings raised by the possible location of this particular mosque in that particular place. In some respects, the controversy reminds me of the 1980s controversy about the Carmelite Convent at Auschwitz in Poland. Like the proposed mosque, the convent was established as a peaceful place of prayer. Some Jewish groups objected to the visible presence of Christian religious life and worship so close to a site associated pre-eminently with the Holocaust. Of course, a great many non-Jews were also murdered at Auschwitz, many of them Polish Catholics (just as Muslims were victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York). Eventually, however, the Church gave in to the pressure to have the convent moved. The larger questions the controversy raised about the tragic events of the 1940s were left unresolved, but the sensitivities of those most directly offended by the convent were nonetheless accommodated. Regardless of where one comes down on the larger geopolitical questions and value judgments, it seems eminently reasonable to expect a comparably similar sensitivity to addressing this controversy in post 9/11 New York.

124 Years and Counting!

The sky threatened, and a few drops actually did fall, but that didn’t deter the celebration or dampen anyone’s spirits at Immaculate Conception Church’s 3rd annual “Irish Fest” fundraiser. Nor did the unremitting heat and humidity that has blanketed Knoxville (and so much of the eastern United States) since my arrival diminish the festivity of the occasion.

During the Irish Fest, I joined a “Tour of the Church,” conducted by one of our parishioners, and even got to participate in a spirited discussion about the beautiful windows and the as yet mysterious identity of the “unknown bishop” in one of the church’s windows. In my previous posting, it was usually my job to conduct such tours, and so it was a doubly new and exciting experience for me to be on the receiving end of such a tour. As I have been learning more about my new parish in my few weeks here, I have learned that our “Church on Summit Hill” has had quite a quite a distinguished history.

The original 1855 parish church had been erected on Summit Hill, its entrance fronting what is now Walnut Street (then known as Crooked Street). Summit Hill was soon to be the site of military action in the Civil War. In September 1863, The Union Army marched into Knoxville and occupied the city. There was a Union artillery position right near the site of the church. During the unsuccessful Confederate attempt to retake Knoxville in November 1863, a house close to the church was hit by a shell and burned to the ground, but the church itself made it through the war undamaged.

Ground was eventually broken for the current church in 1883, and the new church was ready to be officially dedicated by the Bishop of Nashville on September 19, 1886. So the present parish church has been in continuous use – including the original pews - for almost 124 years! As I look ahead to our church’s 125th anniversary in 2011, I find myself increasingly fascinated by accounts of the generations of parishioners who have worshipped here and by the treasure of history and beauty they have left for today’s downtown Knoxville.

Blessed Be her Glorious Assumption!

Most of us, I suppose, have heard of Apollo, the ancient Greek god of sunlight, music, and poetry. According to one legend, when Apollo's mother was pregnant, Python the dragon (foreseeing that this new god might destroy his power) pursued her, hoping to kill Apollo at his birth. But Apollo's father just happened to be Zeus, who intervened to rescue both mother and child. And Apollo, in due course, did indeed destroy the dragon.

Christianity originated in a world where such stories were well known and an important part of the common cultural heritage. The Emperor Nero, for example, even saw himself as a new Apollo. As for the early Christians, who were themselves objects of Nero's persecution, they also adapted such stories to their own situation.

To an ancient Christian audience, already well acquainted with the Jewish Bible, the identity of the woman in today's first reading [Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10] would be obvious. She is Israel, God's Chosen People, finally bringing to birth the Messiah, thanks to whom Israel has been expanded now to include all nations and peoples in a new and enlarged People of God, the Church. Christian traditon, accordingly, identifies this woman with the Church, which continues the task of bringing Christ into the world. Now that the Risen Christ has ascended to his throne in heaven, the Church remains behind, still under attack from the forces of evil in the world (as the persecuted first-century Christians would have been well aware), but ultimately full of hope.

It is easy to see how they could have come to recongize the story of the Church in the image of this woman - and equally easy to see how the Church in turn has seen the image of this woman as a symbol of Mary, the mother of Jesus, the one who first gave birth to the Messiah and who herself has in turn traditonally been seen as an image, a symbol, of the Church. In Mary's own prayer, her hymn of praise known as the Magnificat [Luke 1:46-55], Mary united herself with the whole story of God's activity on our behalf and so serves as a model for us in identifying ourselves totally with God's plan for the world.

An important part of that plan is our hope to share fully in Christ's risen life. Christ, Sant Paul powerfully asserts in today's second reading [1 Corinthians 15:20-27], has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. In Old Testament times, the springtime offering of the firstfruits signified the dedication of the entire harvest to God. So the resurrection of Christ (which took place on the day of the offering of the firstfruits) points ahead to the final resurrection of all those who belong to Christ. In Mary's assumption, we have been given a vision of what God, having already accomplished in Christ, plans yet to accomplish in us.

Assumed into heaven, Mary links the Church, as we are now, with the Church, as we hope to be then, when Christ has destroyed every sovereignty and every other authority and power. And the last enemy to be destroyed in death.

Conscious as we all are of our own death to come, death often seems like the ultimate atttack on all our hopes. Our world is full of natural disasters, inexplicable personal tragedies, and deliberate destruction. Violence and sickness seem to surround us. So powerful does the dragon of death appear, that it dared to attack even Jesus. Only after death had done its worst did God decisively step in, conquering death by raising Jesus from the dead. In Christ, God has given us an alternative future. And, in Mary, Christ's resurrection has, so to speak, become contagious. In Mary's assumption, God has shown himself as her life and her hope - and so also our life and our hope.

In a well known, familiar hymn, Mary is addressed in these words:

O higher than the cherubim, More glorious than the seraphim, Lead their praises, Alleluia. Thou bearer of the eternal Word Most gracious magnify the Lord, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Today, Mary magnifies the Lord on high. She has already led the way for us in being there. May she now also show us how to get there. For where she is, there we hope to be.

Blessed be her glorious Assumption!

Homily at Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, August 15, 2010.

Our Lady of Mid-August

La Madonna di Mezz' Agosto was how my late Grandmother used to refer to the Assumption. "Our Lady of Mid-August" may lack the theological precision of the feast's full and proper title, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. Yet, given that the Assumption falls at the height of the summer vacation travel season, it sort of situates the feast psychologically! I recall how in the summer of 1970, when as an undergraduate I was studying German for the summer in Salzburg, Austria, stores closed and secular activity stopped on August 15 to observe Marienhimmelfahrt ("Mary's Flight to Heaven"). Certainly this season so preoccupied with short-term flight from daily work and cares can be a good moment to pause and consider our long-term flight from the same to the eternal joy of the resurrected life!

In the Sacramentarium Gregorianum, which Pope Adrian I sent to Emperor Charlemagne, are found these wonderful words: "Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, [she] who has begotten your Son our Lord incarnate from herself."

Just two weeks after his reception into the Church in August 1844, Servant of God Isaac Hecker wrote this in his Diary: "To day is the holyday of the Assumption of the dear blessed Mary mother of our Lord and Saviour Jesus. Oh may I be found worthy of her regard and love."

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is generally believed to be the oldest liturgical festival in honor of Mary. It certainly ranks as one of the greatest - along with the celebration of her Motherhood on January 1 (the oldest Roman feast of Mary) and her Immaculate Conception on December 8 (the patronal feast of our country and of my new parish).

The Assumption celebrates the traditional belief of the Church, as solemnly defined by Pope Pius XII: "that the Immacualate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." Pius XII's Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus, which defined the dogma, represents a summary of patristic and scholastic teaching related to Mary's assumption and illustrates how liturgy and preaching have traditionally accomodated scriptural references to iluminate doctrine. Thus, for example, the Pope cited St. Anthony of Padua's use of the psalm verse. Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark which you have sanctified [Psalm 132:8].

As tonight's Assumption Vigil Mass reminds us, in the Old Testament [see 1 Chronicles 15:3-16:2], the Ark of the Covenant was where God dwelt directly with his people. Both Mary and the Church are arks of God's new covenant. Mary, the first ark, is already with God and can be seen there with the eyes of faith by the second ark, the Church, which fervently hopes to follow her even as it strives to imitate her here and now.

Tonight's Gospel [Luke 11:27-28] meanwhile reminds us that, even more than being Jesus' physical mother (great honor though that certainly was), Mary was first and foremost her Son's disciple, who (from her initial encounter with the angel at the annunciation) heard the word of God and observed it. In her life, Mary totally united herself with the whole history of God's activity on our behalf and so serves as a model for us in identifying ourselves totally with God's plan for the world.

An essential part of that plan is our hope to share in Christ's risen life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Saint Paul powerfully asserts in tonight's second reading [1 Corinthians 15:54-57], God gives us the victory over sin and death. The resurrection of Christ points ahead to the final resurrection of all those who belong to Christ. In Mary's assumption, we have been given a vision of what God, having already accomplished in Christ, plans yet to accomplish in us.

Thus, when defining this dogma in 1950, Pius XII expressed his "hope that those who meditate upon the glorious example Mary offers us may be more and more convinced of the value of a human life entirely devoted to carrying out the heavenly Father's will and to bringing good to others. Thus ... in this magnificent way all may see clearly to what a lofty goal our bodies and souls are destined. Finally it is our hope that belief in Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven will make our belief in our own resurrection stronger and render it more effective."

Where Mary is now, there someday we all hope to be!