Musings in the Ruins of Ancient Rome

This morning was cold and wet – not the best morning for outdoor sightseeing. Even so, I took the Metro to the Colosseum and then walked along the Via dei Fori Imperiali, which connects the Colosseum to the Piazza Venezia. Originally built by Mussolini as the Via dell’Impero to add more majesty to Italian military parades, the new street contributed to the excavations of the 5 Imperial Fora – that of Julius Caesar, and those of the Emperors Augustus, Vespasian, Nerva, and Trajan – all additions to the original Roman Forum necessitated by the increase in the City’s size and population under the Empire. With the demise of the ersatz Italian “Empire” of the 1930s and 1940s, those ancient imperial Fora provided the street with its present name.

Meanwhile rising above the ruins of that great but long dead empire stand the many monumental churches built by the empire’s successor. At the end of the Via dei Fori Imperiali, for example, there is the church Santissimo Nome di Maria al Foro Traiano. As for Trajan’s Column, erected to commemorate the Emperior’s victory in the Dacian Wars, it still stands in front of the church just west of Trajan’s Forum, but the Emperor’s statue disappeared centuries ago, and the 125-foot column is now topped (since 1587) by a bronze statue of St. Peter.

Just south of all this is the area of the original Roman Forum and the Arch of Titus, commemorating his conquest of Jerusalem. I explored the Forum in detail on my first trip to Rome two decades ago and may well do so again, but today was not a day for that. So instead I climbed the Capitoline Hill (Campidolglio), the smallest but most famous of Rome’s “Seven Hills,” the religious and political center of ancient Rome and still the seat of the city government. At the top of the hill, the Piazza del Campodoglio, designed by Michelangelo, reflects the modern orientation of the city, with the Palazzo Senatorio facing north, its back to the ancient forum. At the northwest end of the Campidoglio originally stood the Temple of Jupiter, the largest of the ancient Roman Temples and the terminal point for Imperial Triumphs – its site now dominated by that modern (1911) neo-pagan Temple to the triumph of the secular liberal state, the monument to King Vittorio Emmanuele II. Abutting that modern monument, however, occupying the highest spot on the hill on the site of the original Roman citadel is the ancient and beautiful Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, which gets its name from the tradition that it was there that the Tiburtine Sybil predicted to Augustus the coming of Christ with the words, Ecce ara primogeniti Dei. And as we all learned long ago in 1^st-year Latin class, it is also the site where the sacred geese alerted the Romans to an imminent attack by the Gauls in 390 BC.

Back down the hill towards the forum is the site of the Mamertine Prison (S. Pietro in Carcere), where Saints Peter and Paul were once confined. I ended my morning in the heart of ancient Rome recalling Isaac Hecker’s visit there in 1857:

“Wednesday I said Mass in the Mamertine prison, in which St. Peter was confined by the order of Nero; and also St. Paul. The pillar is there in which they were chained, and the fountain remains which sprung up miraculously at their feet, in whose waters they baptized their gaolers and twenty-seven soldiers. There were with me four American students, and you can easily imagine that I prayed earnestly in Holy Mass to obtain or us all the zeal of the Apostles for the conversion of our country” [From a letter to Mrs. George V. Hecker, November 7, 1857].

The Iron Lady

It has been weeks now since I have been to the movies. I like going to the movies. It's probably the only branch of "popular culture" that I really engage with. For one thing, one can go to a movie in the morning or the afternoon (in the U.S. at least), and (very important for me) one can go alone. So I see a lot of movies - not as many in Knoxville as I did in New York - but still a good number.

Here in Rome, there is a movie theater on the Via in Lucina (a little street near the Parliament Building, off the Via del Corso) that shows foreign films in their original language. I went there this afternoon to see The Iron Lady. getting off the bus at the Piazza San Silvestro, I stopped to visit the Pallotine Church of S. Silvestro in Capite (photo). The "head" referred to in the church's title is that of St. John the Baptist, a relic of which is displayed in a side chapel.

With Meryl Streep in the starring role, of course the acting was superb. (The actor who played Lady Thatcher's husband, Dennis, was also excellent). In the end, however, what the film finally has going for it is just that - the acting. The movie portrays Thatcher and the events of her life and career through the prism of old age and the onset of dementia, oscillating back and forth between the present reality of Thatcher in her declining years and flashbacks portraying her memories of past events. the method works well to portray both the pathos of old age and retrospective insights into historical people and events in Britain's recente past.

Those events, however, seem to serve mainly as the scenic background on which the movie paints Thatcher's character and self=understanding. That is not an uninteresting subject. Still - and perhaps I am being just very old-fashioned here - I came away feeling that the events themselves - their political, economic, and cultural significance for Britain and the world - and Mrs. Thatcher's decisive part in them were less than fully illuminated. this is a film about feelings - mainly Margaret's, also Dennis's, and also those of her colleagues. in Government and in the Conservative Party. I suspect thatcher herself would be the first to say that her feelings are much less important and interesting than the events in which she played a part and the world they helped form. this is a film about feelings not ideas, but thatcher was preeminently a person of ideas.

So we get a feel why she pursued the economic policies she did, why she transformed the Tory party into something it had never quite been before, and why she was so resolute in resisting Argenitinian aggression in the Falklands, but we get little sense of why all fo this matters in the long run. As for the end of the Cold War, in which she played a modes but significant role (especially in facilitating President Reagan's developing relationship with Gorbachev), that gets just a scant few superficial minutes. The feelings angle does, however, help illuminate one important dimension of the Thatcher story - how a "grocer's daughter" took over a traditionally aristocratic party and in the process imprinted that party with a middle-class ethos and middle-class values. That theme comes through loud and clear, and although the larger political, social, and cultural context may be left somewhat undeveloped, the movie makes clear how truly transformative this was.

The movie that explores and develops the historical significance of her tenure at Number 10 has yet to be made. Meanwhile, Meryl Streep certainly still deserves her Oscar nomination.

Sciopero!

Sciopero in Italian means strike - as in a labor union going "on strike." Such strikes seem still quite popular in Europe - much more so than in the U.S. today, where Labor Unions seem to be in terminal decline (except for Public Employees' Unions).

Today was supposed to be a strike day for the buses and trains, the strike being officially scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (or, as they say here, 8:30 to 1700). Assured by several others that the strike would safely be over in time for me to get a bus coming home from class this evening, I prepared myself to walk to class. As walks go, it is not that bad. Basically, you walk down the Via Nazionale to Piazza Venezia and then take the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele II to the Tiber. Thankfully the Via Nazionale is downhill from here, and the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele II is level. So it's an altogether manageable walk. Even so, I decided to carry only the bare essentials - textbook and notepaper - and to leave extra early.

So out I went. I was about three-quarters of the way down the Via Nazionale, when my bus passed me! So at the next bus stop, I stopped and waited, and sure enough another bus came! I boarded the bus and made it to the Urbaniana even earlier than usual! I spent some time in the University Bookstore perusing a volume on Concordatory law, then had my usual vending-machine coffee, and as further compensation a chocolate bar too! And, as anticipated, the trip back this evening was equally uneventful.

What to make of all this? In the U.S., a Public Employees' Strike (especially a Transit strike) typically evokes strong reactions - both by ideologues on the opposing sides and also by the more moderate majority that just resents being inconvenienced (especially by public "servants"). Here, however, it seems to produce little more than a shrug. A sciopero is just another nuisance - one of many - that one just has to put up with in the burdensome grind of daily life.

As a priest once said to me (and I have quoted many times before): "When you live in a foreign country, you should expect that some things will be different."

The Battle for Religious Freedom

In an article I wrote back in 2008 for the Paulist on-line magazine The Catholic World analyzing that year’s presidential election, I offered this opinion: “Obama’s challenge will be to hold his centrist support in the country by resisting the demands of his party’s left wing and its various special interest constituencies. … Meanwhile, the significance of the religious constituency in a renewed Republican coalition will likely depend on whether or not the Democrats can deliver on the economy and stay safely in the center on cultural and moral issues.”

Early on, during the health insurance reform debate, the Administration abandoned the idea of a “public option” and embraced what was once a “conservative” idea (the individual health insurance mandate – now so stridently opposed by Republicans). Back then it really did look as if the Administration was trying to stay in the center and resist its special-interest constituencies on the left. But an essential component of that hope - that the Obama Administration would “stay safely in the center on cultural and moral issues” has proved elusive.

Not surprisingly, the President and those around him share the prejudices of their class. That abortion is some sort of fundamental human right seems to be one of those core prejudices, as is its corollary that pregnancy is a disease to be prevented or ended by “reproductive health services.” It was always unrealistic to suppose that the President and his associates would actually alter their views on such issues. But it was perhaps possible to hope that a President who back in 2006 had said, "secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square," might make more of an effort to be more accommodating to the many American citizens who strongly disagree with the liberal elite on such fundamentally divisive cultural and moral issues.

Even that modest expectation has now likewise proved elusive. Conventional wisdom holds that a presidential candidate, having safely secured his party’s nomination, moves more to the “center.” Conventional wisdom not withstanding, there seems little prospect of that this year. The Administration’s (thankfully unsuccessful) attack on the “ministerial exception” in the recent Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission case, and now its obsessive determination to force religious institutions to provide employees with health coverage that covers morally unacceptable practices can certainly be seen as attempts to appeal to the extreme ideological wing of the party. As someone once observed in regard to the policies of the (recently replaced) government in Spain, left and right really don’t pursue such radically different economic policies anymore. To motivate its base, what the left still has is in its arsenal its anti-religious cultural and moral agenda.

The problem posed by the Administration’s latest decision, however, goes beyond re-introducing the culture war into the campaign. If allowed to stand, this mandate could well force significant parts of this country’s vast Catholic social service network either to stop providing health insurance for their employees or to get out the business of providing social services. One wonders whether precisely that outcome might not be an unwelcome one in certain quarters.

After all, this is the same Administration that rejected the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ request to renew a grant to help victims of sex trafficking, even though the USCCB got the second highest rating from an independent review panel. If pro-choice ideology trumps all other considerations, Is the Administration signaling that in the Brave New World of universal healthcare, there really is no room any more in American society for church-operated social services?

If so, then religious Americans who have up till now desired to see universal health coverage may find themselves instead forced to hope that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does not survive its forthcoming date with the Supreme Court.

Saint Paul, Preacher of Truth to the Whole World

This being the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul (the patronal feast of the Paulist Fathers and the 26^th anniversary of my Final Profession), this morning I took the metro to the Papal Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls on the Via Ostiense to attend the Pontifical Mass celebrated at the Papal Altar by the Abbot of the Benedictine monastery attached to the Basilica. (The Pope himself will go there later this afternoon to celebrate Vespers. I could have had a ticket; but, of course, I must be in class then!)

Most saints are celebrated on the anniversary of their death. Indeed San Paolo fuori le Mura (the second largest church in Rome) is built on the site of St. Paul’s burial. If a saint was a martyr, that itself is often the saint’s principal claim on our attention. Paul the Apostle was, of course, also a martyr. The Church and Abbey of San Paolo alle Tre Fontane some two miles away mark the site of his martyrdom. The traditional date of his death (together with St. Peter) is celebrated with greatest solemnity on June 29.

But then, every January, we have this additional celebration of St. Paul – unusual not only for being additional, but because it focuses on a particular occasion in his life, the event we commonly call his “conversion.” Monumentally portrayed by Lumen Martin Winter above the main entrance to the Paulist Mother Church in New York City, that event (recounted in Acts 9) transformed Paul the persecutor of the Church into a disciple of Jesus. It also put him on an equal footing with the others to whom the Risen Christ had earlier appeared - in the process exemplifying for us what it means to be converted to Christ, to become a disciple of Jesus, his witness in the world, and an apostle sent with mission to evangelize, to make disciples of all peoples.

Paul was, first and foremost, a devout Jew, well educated in the Law, a Pharisee, that is, a member of the Jewish group most zealous about religious observance. As a disciple of Jesus, Paul never ceased to be a Jew. At the same time, he was also a Greek-speaking Jew, from the Diaspora. (There was nothing unusual about that either. More Jews lived outside of Israel than in it at that time.) He grew up in what is today Turkey, in a Greek city, and enjoyed the privilege of Roman citizenship.

All of this would prove very important, indeed, because one of the great issues which confronted the 1^st century Church was figuring out how Jews and Gentiles were connected in God’s plan for the salvation of the world through Jesus Christ – and how they should relate to one another within the one community of the Church. The way this issue was eventually resolved (thanks in no small part to Paul) helped transform what would otherwise have been a small Jewish sect into the biggest and longest-lasting multi-cultural institution in the world - the Roman Catholic Church.

What Paul experienced when he met the Risen Lord on the way to Damascus was a revelation of God’s plan to include all people in the promises originally made to Abraham and his descendents and now being finally fulfilled in Jesus. So what we traditionally call Paul’s “conversion” was not his switching to some other religion. The God who revealed himself to Paul in the person of Jesus was the very same God whom Paul had always served (and served so enthusiastically). What changed was that now Paul recognized Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, though whom all people are included in God’s plan of salvation.

The converted Paul saw no conflict between Judaism and faith in Jesus. But, because it was Jesus that ultimately mattered, he also came to see no conflict between Gentile culture and faith in Christ. For the pagan peoples of the Roman Empire, that was good news indeed. It’s easy to see why Paul’s mission was so successful among different types of people. The world has changed a lot since Paul’s time, but that mission hasn’t!

Saint Paul had the kind of enthusiasm for the faith that Servant of God Isaac Hecker so much wanted his Paulist Fathers to have, what Hecker repeatedly called “zeal for souls.” Paul’s career as an apostle illustrates how completely Christ can captivate the completely converted Christian. As Blessed Pope John Paul II famously said: “Those who have come into genuine contact with Christ cannot keep him for themselves, they must proclaim him.”

Paul was not one of the original 12. He wasn’t there when Jesus said to his disciples: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” But he absorbed those words as surely as if they had been addressed to him initially – as we also must do.