War of Words

In the wake of the latest mass murder perpetrated in our gun-crazy country, a predictable word of words has exploded as various factions go to their separate corners with their exclusivist interpretations. For some, the attack was all about homophobia. For others it was all about "radical Islam." For some of that latter faction, it just won't do to blame homophobia at all. For some of the others, it is similarly unacceptable to ascribe any blame at all to Islam.  (Thus one Planned Parent group inanely tweeted: “#Islam doesn’t foment the violence alleged gunman Omar Mateen enacted, toxic masculinity & a global culture of imperialist homophobia does.") And then there are those who, for whatever reason, just blame it all on "hate."

Of course, in the real world - rather than the world of such ideologically preset certitudes - one factor doesn't necessarily exclude any of  the others. Homophobia, "radical islam", and generic "hate" could all easily have been components of this criminal's mindset and contributors to his crime. A complete investigation may in time sort out which, if any ,was the dominant influence in his thinking. but the inconvenient fact is that human beings are incredibly complex creatures, capable of having multiple (and even contradictory) ideas at the same time and being motivated by multiple (and even contradictory) hostilities and allegiances. 

So far, it seems reasonably safe to say that the crime was motivated by both homophobia (possibly of the self-hating variety) and at least some religiously influenced radicalization. (How else to explain the site of the crime and the chosen targets, on the one hand, and the bizarre invocation of ISIS in the 911 call?)

Meanwhile, people go to their separate corners and shout slogans. The most bizarre is the assertion by Donald Trump (but not just by him) that what this country needs is to keep shouting the slogan "radical Islamic terrorism."  But no war has ever been won by sloganeering. It is unlikely that any terrorist will lay down his arms, or any criminal terrorist act will be more easily prevented by our shouting slogans into the air.

But we do at least know who the victims were. Even if the fact that they were gay turned out to be only a partial explanation of their murderer's motives, it doesn't change who the victims were and that they were specifically targeted. Expressing sorrow or anger at the event without at least acknowledging that the victims were all gay people is hardly helpful. In that regard, Donald Trump did at least do that much, even if in service of his apparent emphasis on religion as the final cause of this killer's homophobia.

The way we use (or don't use) words matters. Acknowledging the identity of those murdered matters. Acknowledging all the factors that may have played a part in the killer's motivations matters also. As does admitting that, however hate-filled he may have been, without being able to get a gun, he could not have so easily perpetrated his crime.

As Senator Warren said this afternoon on the Senate floor, the murders were committed by "a terrorist with hate in his heart and a gun in his hand."

Brain Dead

In recent years, the absurdities of what passes for politics in present-day America have inspired some amazingly successful TV. Think Veep, for example, or - more edifyingly - The West Wing. Now, just in time for - and right in tune - with the 2016 election season/debacle, comes CBS' Brain Dead, which promotes itself as "a comic thriller set in the world of Washington, DC, politics." The first of a proposed 13 [!] episodes of Brain Dead premiered on CBS last night. (Having long ago been spoiled by other stations and having lost my tolerance for commercials, I recorded the show and watched it today.)

Before introducing the series' central character - Laurel Healy, a documentary filmmaker who takes a job in her brother's Senate office, in a deal to get her father to pay off her student loans and fund her work) - the show sets the scene with TV images of our real-world contemporary candidates speaking and an opening observation that in 2016 it began to be noticed that people were losing their minds. Why? Well, we also see some familiar footage of a meteor landing in Russia. As we soon learn, this meteor, which gets shipped to the United States to be studied at the Smithsonian, happens to contain dangerous alien insects that will eventually crawl into people's ears and destroy much of their brains. 

Meanwhile, Laurel, who genuinely hates the family business - politics - but seems to have inherited some talent for it, starts work on the day of a government shutdown, caused presumably by Republican intransigence. Laurel divides her time between, on the one hand, mediating a deal between her brother and a Republican Senator, whose principal staff member is obviously Laurel's opposite number (and, this being TV, one suspects possibly an eventual love interest), and, on the other hand, trying to find out what is causing some strange behavior (which we, the audience, already know the alien source of).

The image of alien insects destroying the brains of American politicians - and thus making our dysfunctional politics even worse - is intended to offer a comic knock at our poltiica system at the very time that it has such to the lowest it presumably can without the intervention of alien insects! Whether that is enough to sustain 13 episodes remains yet to be seen. But it is a good beginning so far!

Orlando

It is, of course, right and just to mourn those murdered Sunday morning in Orlando, to console the survivors, to condemn the homophobic hatred that seems to have triggered this tragedy, and generally to lament the regular recurrence of such crimes in our national life. Such responses we have heard and will continue to hear in abundance. 

For example, Archbishop Cupich of Chicago yesterday issued a fine statement:

Our prayers and hearts are with the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando, their families and our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. 
We are grateful to the first responders and civilians who heroically put themselves in harm’s way, providing an enduring reminder of what compassion and bravery look like--even in the face of such horror and danger.
In response to hatred, we are called to sow love. In response to violence, peace. And, in response to intolerance, tolerance.
The people of the Archdiocese of Chicago stand with the victims and their loved ones, and reaffirm our commitment, with Pope Francis, to address the causes of such tragedy, including easy access to deadly weapons. We can no longer stand by and do nothing.

In the end, however, all such concerns will lead to little or nothing until we as a society address the last of those points - the "easy access to deadly weapons." 

It is a fundamental responsibility of a civilized society to protect its citizens and their ability to go about their lives in relative peace by monopolizing the use of force. One of our society's highest priorities ought to be getting guns out of the hands of civilians, who in a modern civilized society have no business having them.

Unfortunately, making things even worse than they already were, our notorious Supreme Court has recently rejected a long tradition of constitutional interpretation, that took the Second Amendment as meaning what it literally says regarding state militias, to misconstrue the Second Amendment as creating an individual right to have a gun. (In 2008, District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a gun.) Until and unless that destructive mentality changes, what hope have we as a nation?

The Evangelical Doctor

Can we not say that the virtuous lives of the saints are like measuring lines stretched over souls to make sure our lives take the proper shape and measure up to their good example? Whenever, then, we celebrate the feast of a saint, let us look to them as giving us the pattern our lives should take. In speaking thus of the saints in one of his sermons, Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) was obviously not speaking in that immediate context of devotion to himself. But, within just one year after his death, Anthony was himself canonized by Pope Gregory IX, and he remains to our own day one of the Catholic world's most recognized and popular saints. 

During the last Jubilee year (2000), I had the privilege of visiting Padua and venerating the famous saint's relics. The story is told that, some 30 or so years after his death, when the saint's tomb was opened, Saint Bonaventure (then Minister General of the Franciscans) held in his hand Anthony's still incorrupt tongue and composed the antiphon: O blessed tongue, that always blessed the Lord, and made others bless and praise him; it is now manifest what great merits you possess in the sight of God.

Anthony's saintly popularity is based in large measure on his reputation as a miracle-worker. As everyone knows, he is widely invoked by those seeking lost objects! But Bonaventure's praise of Anthony's tongue highlights the center of Anthony's sanctity - his evangelical zeal. Belatedly proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1946, Saint Anthony is known among the Doctors as Doctor Evangelicus ("Evangelical Doctor").

But long before being declared a Doctor it was his very Franciscan spirituality, which - along with his miracle-working - that has so endeared him to the faithful around the world, especially in his native Portugal and his adopted Italy. Back in the 1990s, at Saint Peter's Parish in downtown Toronto, the parish's long established Italian community used to celebrate a great feast in Saint Anthony's honor. This included a major parish dinner, a Mass and distribution of blessed bread ("Saint Anthony's Bread"), and a great street procession through the neighborhood with his statue and his relic. (The accompanying photos the procession with his statue, and me carrying his relic and and blessing the bread.)

In this sad era that so glorifies wealth and demeans (and even criminalizes) the poor, the distribution of Saint Anthony's Bread expresses a symbolic connection between devotion to Saint Anthony and identification with the poor. As Saint Anthony reminds us in one of his sermons: Today Christ stands at our door and knocks in the person of the poor.

Apostola Apostolorum

The Congregation for Divine Worship has raised the memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene to the rank of a feast, which presumably means it will now be celebrated with proper psalms and readings in the Office and the Gloria at Mass. Apparently, she will also have her own proper Preface, which in the Roman tradition is no small thing. The text of the new preface is for now available only in Latin. I will not attempt a translation here. But, as best I can make out, the Latin text highlights the Risen Lord's appearance to Mary in the garden, in view of the fact that she had loved him while he lived, saw him die on the cross, mourned him at the tomb, and was the first to see him risen, and so was honored with a ministry along with the apostles in order that the good news of new life might come to the whole world.

Mary Magdalene's obvious importance in the Gospel story and the role she played on Easter have appropriately sometimes caused her to be called apostola apostolorum ("apostle of the apostles"). So it seems altogether fitting that her feast be raised in the calendar to a rank equivalent to that of the actual apostles.

On her feast last year, I posted about Mary Magdalene and the process of freeing her from her historical misidentification in the West with the sinful woman in Luke's gospel.

Here is what I wrote on July 22, 2015:

Today the Church commemorates Saint Mary Magdalene, a particularly prominent figure in the Gospels (and one of the patrons of the Paulist Fathers). Having been healed of some sort of demonic possession, she became a disciple of Jesus, one of several female disciples who followed Jesus and apparently funded his ministry (cf. Luke 8:2-3). She was present at Jesus' crucifixion, and was the first to see the Risen Lord and to witness to it to the apostles (Mark 16:9-10; John 20:11-18). Hence her medieval title apostola apostolorum - “apostle of the apostles.”  (The attached photo is of Fra Angelico's fresco version of the Risen Christ's Easter morning appearance to Mary Magdalene.)

The strange misidentification of Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman who washed jesus' feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair (cf. Luke 7:36-50) has had a long history. It seems to owe much of its staying power to a famous 6th-century homily of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who then compounded the error by also misidentifying Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus and Saint Martha. (This was in spite of the obvious fact that Bethany and Magdala are geographically different places!) One result of this unfortunate misidentification was the idea - which I can definitely recall learning as a child (when, incidentally, the liturgical calendar officially entitled her as "Mary Magdalene, Penitent") - that the seven devils  driven out of her by Jesus were actually the seven capital sins!

Historically, not everyone agreed with this, of course. The Eastern Churches always emphasized instead her primary status as a disciple. In the West, Saint Ambrose seems to have considered her a virgin, and the Benedictines in their calendar kept Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany on different days. But certainly still the standard western (and secular) view when I was growing up remained that of Gregory.

Thus, in the old Missal, the Gospel for her feast was the story of the sinful woman in Luke. while the identification with Mary of Bethany was reflected in the collect, which referred to Jesus having raised her brother Lazarus back to life. The fact that Saint Martha was (and still is) celebrated alone exactly one week later certainly seems consistent with the once standard belief that Martha's sister had already been honored when celebrating Mary Magdalene one week earlier.

In the 1950s, in the deliberations of Pius XII's Pontifical Commission for the Reform of the sacred Liturgy, serious attention was given to correcting (at least in the liturgy) Mary Magdalene's historical misidentification. Thus, at the Commission's 39th meeting on April 27, 1954, it was generally conceded that Mary Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were not identical with each other and that neither was identical with the sinful woman in Luke's Gospel. It was proposed to turn the July 29 feast of Saint Martha into a feast of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and to create a completely new feast of Mary Magdalene on May 8 focusing on her presence at the foot of the Cross and the Risen Christ's appearance to her on Easter. Nothing came of that proposal, however. 

It was only with the introduction of the 1969 Missal that, without altering any feast days, the historical identity of May Magdalene was at last clarified and her significance for the Church properly highlighted. So now the Gospel for her feast is John 20:1-2, 11-18, the account of the Risen Christ's first appearance to her on Easter morning and her mission to tell the Apostles the news. And the new collect prays, O God, whose Only Begotten Son entrusted Mary Magdalene before all others with announcing the great joy of the Resurrection, grant, we pray, that through her intercession and example we may proclaim the living Christ and come to see him reigning in your glory.

On the other hand, the old liturgy did at least honor Mary Magdalene's role as "apostle of the apostles" by requiring the recitation of the Creed at Mass on her feast. Sadly, she lost the Creed in the rubrical reforms of 1955, and so far at least has never gotten it back! (Of course, in the current missal not even the Apostles are entitled to the Creed anymore!)

Everything about the story of Mary Magdalene that is actually certain - her healing by Jesus, her response by becoming a disciple, her generous financial support for Jesus' mission, her fidelity at the foot of the Cross when most of the others had abandoned Jesus, her Easter encounter with Christ, and her commission to evangelize - highlight her true importance in the early Christian community and her continued significance for the life of the Church in every age.