Following the Fisherman-Shepherd

Pilgrims in Israel can quickly sense the contrast between the dry desert of Judea (where Jerusalem is) and the relatively greener region of Galilee (where today’s Gospel story [John 21:1-19] is set). Renewed annually by winter’s life-giving rains, the land around the large lake the Gospel calls the Sea of Tiberias (more commonly called the Sea of Galilee) is (like California) at its freshest and greenest in the spring. And it was there, in this spring season sometime between the Jewish festivals of Passover and Pentecost, that Peter and several other disciples returned. It had been from those same familiar shores that Jesus had originally called them to follow him. Now they had come home. They had come back to what they knew best. They went fishing. But this was to be no normal fishing expedition!

There is a lovely little church on the shore that marks the supposed site of this event. In it is a rock (photo), that is traditionally venerated as the stone on which the risen Lord served his disciples a breakfast of bread and fish. Staples of the Galilean diet, bread and fish seem to be staples of the Gospel story itself! Just a short walk away along the lakeshore is another church, marking the supposed site where Jesus had (not so long before) fed 5000+ people with five loaves and a few fish. Presumably, the disciples would have well remembered that earlier meal. And surely we should too, as we also assemble here at the table set for us by the risen Lord himself. Here, in this church on this hilltop, as surely as on that distant lakeshore, he feeds us with food we would never have gotten on our own. Here too he challenges us, as he challenged Peter, with the question: do you love me?

Peter was asked that question three times - obviously corresponding to (and symbolically undoing) the three times that Peter had earlier denied Jesus, his triple profession of love forever replacing his triple denial. Listening in on their conversation we are treated to a dramatic change in imagery as what started out as a fishing story has now turned into a shepherding story.

On the one hand, Peter and his fellow disciples have been commissioned by Jesus to keep casting their nets, drawing people in – into the Church, which will continue the mission of the risen Lord in this world. As members of that Church and beneficiaries of its mission, we have, all of us, been invited to set sail with Jesus, present in his Church in a particular way in the ministry of Peter, the Church’s fisherman-in-chief. That is why the Pope’s ceremonial ring traditionally portrayed Saint Peter fishing  and so has for centuries been called the Fisherman's Ring.

But once inside, within the community of the Church, another image dominates - that of Jesus the Good Shepherd, who here shares that shepherding role in a special way with Peter. Others will share in shepherding the flock, of course, but Peter is particularly and specially called to follow Jesus in the role of the Church’s shepherd. Hence, that lovely little church on the shore that marks the supposed site of this story is called The Church of the Primacy of Peter.

Proclaiming the primacy of Peter and his successors, the Second Vatican Council declared that Christ “put Peter at the head of the other apostles, and in him he set up a lasting and visible source and foundation of the unity both of faith and of communion.” This mission of Peter and of his successor, Pope Francis, has been very much in the news of late, thanks to the papal visit to the United States last September, followed by the papal pilgrimage to Mexico and the US border in February, and now with this week’s much-awaited release of Amoris Laetitia, the Pope’s Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, about which we will surely have much more to say in the weeks and months ahead.

Typically, in all these gospel stories of the risen Lord’s appearances to his disciples, there is some dramatic moment when Jesus is recognized, as when the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” But recognizing the risen Christ is not the end of the story. It is but the beginning of one’s new life lived in the Church, where like Peter and with Peter we learn to love and follow the risen Lord. So, even before being formally entrusted with his special mission, Peter led the way, dressing up for the occasion, jumping into the sea and swimming to Jesus ahead of the others. As his role requires, Peter was already leading his flock, leading by example. His example illustrates for the rest of us what it means, first, to recognize the risen Lord and, then, actually to follow him.

Like – and with – Peter, we learn by doing, by loving and following. If we keep Christ in the closet, confining him to at most only a corner of our lives, if we do nothing to bring his risen life anywhere to anyone else in the here and now, in the basic bread and fish of ordinary life, then well may Jesus have to ask each of us over and over again, do you love me?

And so, after everything else has been said, Jesus says to us, to each of us in his or her own way of life, in his or her particular role and vocation in the Church, just what he said to Peter: Follow me!

Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, April 10, 2016.

Amoris Laetitia - continued

What, then, are some of the challenges families face today? Quoting a 1979 statement of the Spanish bishops, Pope Francis notes that, thanks to cultural changes, individuals receive less support from social structures than in the past (AL 32). Ours is an increasingly individualistic culture.  But without noble goals or personal discipline, Pope Francis observes, freedom degenerates into an inability to give oneself generously to others (AL 33). The effects on marriage and family life are evident.

No one can think that the weakening of the family as that natural society founded on marriage will prove beneficial to society as a whole. ... There is a failure to realize that only the exclusive and indissoluble union between a man and a woman has a plenary role to play in society as a stable commitment that bears fruit in new life. No union that is temporary or closed to the transmission of life can ensure the future of society. (AL 52).

Earlier, the Pope warned against a mentality against having children and promoted by the world politics of reproductive health, which creates a situation in which the relationship between generations is no longer ensured and also the danger that , over time, this decline will lead to economic impoverishment and a loss of hope in the future (AL 42). This is the first of several references which refer to the contemporary problem of contraception and its effects on marriage, family, and society. Later, in chapter three, the Pope will reference how Humanae Vitae brought out the intrinsic bond between conjugal love and the generation of life (AL 68). Blessed Pope Paul VI's encyclical is referenced again later in the chapter (AL 80-83).

Other societal problems adversely impacting the family, which the Pope mentions in chapter two, include a lack of decent housing. Families and homes go together (AL 44). Other economic problems mentioned in this section include lack of adequate health care and problems related to work. The sexual exploitation of children is acknowledged and is all the more scandalous when it occurs in places  where they ought to be most safe, particularly in families, schools, communities and Christian institutions (AL 45). Then, there are also the various issues associated with migration (AL 45), disability (AL 47), caring for the elderly (AL 48), and the situation of families living in poverty and great limitations (49).

Finally, in this chapter, the Pope warns about a legal deconstruction of the family, tending to adopt models based almost exclusively on the autonomy of the individual will (AL 53). In contrast to a certain ideology of gender, he follows the Synod in stressing that  biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated (AL 56).

In an Exhortation that heavily emphasizes and encourages pastoral accompaniment of individuals, couples, and families in problematic situations, the Pope starts out with some fundamental distinctions. It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality. ... Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift (AL 56).

Ideological distortion, however, has many possibilities. Personally, I have often worried whether our constant invocation of the New Testament analogy of the union of husband and wife with the union of Christ and his Church may seem so elevated that it speaks inadequately to the real life experience of many couples, its spiritual value thereby getting lost in the application. I was, therefore, encouraged to find in chapter four that very recognition that the Pauline analogy is "imperfect" (AL 73). So, even while recognizing that the natural order has been so imbued with the redemptive grace of Jesus that every valid marriage between two baptized persons is inherently sacramental, the Exhortation also acknowledges a need for further reflection on God's action in the marriage rite (AL 75).

Even so, the challenge for the Church remains to present marriage more as a dynamic path to personal development and fulfillment than as a lifelong burden, and in doing so to make room for the consciences of the faithful, who very often respond as best they can to the Gospel amid their limitations, and are capable of carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them (AL 37).

What that might mean in a renewed pastoral ministry of accompaniment is a major focus of this Exhortation. It was evident in the Synod Relatio's concern for those who participate in the Church's life in an imperfect manner - those who are living together, or are only married civilly, or are divorced and remarried - and whom the Church's pastoral care should encourage to do good, to take loving care of each other and to serve the community, and, where possible, should eventually encourage them to celebrate the sacrament of Matrimony (AL 78) Following Pope Saint John Paul II (Familaris Consortio 84), the Relatio enjoined pastors  to "know that , for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations." Pastors, the Relatio continued, are to avoid judgments that do not take into account the complexity of various situations, and they are to be attentive, by necessity, to how people experience and endure distress because of their condition (AL 79).

I will return next week to more of what that might mean in the renewed pastoral ministry of accompaniment to which the Pope is calling the Church.

Amoris Laetitia - A First Look

The Pope's long awaited Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, dated and signed, fittingly, on the feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, was finally released to the world this morning. Being an early riser, I listened live to some of the formal press briefing in Italian. Then, at the office, I printed out the whole thing (all 325 paragraphs) and quickly read through it in free moments over the course of the day. That, of course, was what the Pope explicitly asked us not to do! I do not  recommend a rushed reading of the text (AL 7). And, of course, the Pope is right. This document is meant to be read and studied - and even meditated on. It is not meant to be rushed through in a hasty search for soundbites.

That, inevitably, was what much of the media did. So we got such absurd headlines as "Pope insists conscience, not rules, must lead faithful" (AP). Or "Pope Francis offers hope to divorced Catholics, says no to gay marriage" (The Washington Post). The latter, while somewhat accurate at least, still ignored some 90+% of the document, a document which really is not primarily about divorce, nor is it about gay marriage, however important both those topics seem right now in our society. But then it is inevitably the most normal of responses to search such a document for references to whatever one's preferred topics and causes happen to be!

Needless to say, many such commentaries display neither nuance nor in-depth substantive detail. Those qualities are generally in short supply anyway. Witness the coverage of our political campaigns! Unfortunately, people probably pay even less attention to Church documents than to politics. So how much of the wisdom and beauty of this Apostolic Exhortation will trickle down into the pews remains to be seen. In any case, it will clearly take time. But taking time with this is a good thing.

Amoris Laetitia is, first of all, an authentic engagement with the the two synods on the family, as the repeated references to the last synod's final relatio make evident. It is a Post-

Synodal Apostolic Exhortation in the truest sense, and (except perhaps for its length) it could well serve as a model for what it would mean to take the synod process more seriously in the future. 

It is also a profoundly pastoral document, in the sense that it is about examining the way the Church ministers to families (of all sorts) in all sorts of complex contemporary situations. It is not about defining doctrine but about the living application of revealed doctrine in the Church's day-to-day encounter with families, primarily in parish life.

Each of its nine chapters is a substantial essay in itself, and most could conceivably merit being published individually as guides to particular topics. Most obviously, chapter six ("Some Pastoral Perspectives") could easily stand alone as a manual for marriage preparation and ongoing ministry to families and crisis situations. Likewise chapter seven ("Towards a Better Education of Children") could just as well be an essay in its own right.

What this suggests is not just that the entire document deserves time to be read and absorbed, but that each particular part of it deserves such treatment. Chapter one ("In the Light of the Word") is the typical scriptural introduction, with which such documents nowadays tend to begin. It would be tempting to skip over this chapter. Indeed, one could do so and still profit from the rest of the document. But then one should at some point go back and read the chapter on its own, for it is also an edifying mediation on the family as experienced in scripture, from the creation of Adam and Eve to the Holy Family of Nazareth. 

Likewise, chapter four ("Love in Marriage"), which begins with a lengthy meditation on 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, could well stand alone and would be worthwhile meditation for all married couples and those preparing for marriage. In fact, the Pope specifically recommends chapter four (together with chapter five "Love Made Fruitful") to married couples to read. We are all familiar with the popularity of 1 Corinthians 13 as a wedding reading. The Pope's extensive meditation on that text in this document is a good alternative to the popular superficial use of that Pauline text. 

Meanwhile, chapter two ("The Experiences and Challenges of Families") traces the contemporary situation of the family. Here the contributions of the synod's relatio are especially evident and relevant. this chapter honestly highlights how modernity has harmed family life and continues to do so, but also challenges us for having often been on the defensive, wasting pastoral energy on denouncing a decadent world without being proactive in proposing ways of finding true happiness (AL 38). The challenge Pope Francis poses in this Exhortation is to stop wasting pastoral energy and proactively speak and act about marriage and family life - and minister to individuals and families, however we find them - in ways which. while fully faithful to God's revealed word, are actually helpful to family life and the Church's overall mission in the modern world.

How the Pope proposes for the Church to respond to that challenge I will write more about in these coming days.

Nominating Conventions - Contested and Not

"A Convention not a Coronation" was one of the slogans of the "Moderate Republicans" during their unsuccessful effort to forestall the nomination of Senator Goldwater prior to the Republican National Convention in San Francisco in 1964. They failed, and Goldwater got nominated on the first ballot - as has every major party presidential candidate in my lifetime. But it was still taken for granted until relatively recently that it was up to the Convention to nominate the candidate, whether in one roll call or after several (or even 103 as infamously happened at the Democratic Convention in 1924).

In the early years of the Republic, as political parties established themselves, it was each party's congressional caucus that effectively determined its party's nominee. Sectional conflicts and the increasing democratization of American life in the Jacksonian era led to the replacement of congressional caucuses as nominating bodies by broader based party conventions - formal gatherings of delegates representing state party organizations. Up until the 1960s, such delegates were largely chosen by local and state party leaders ("bosses"), who often controlled the votes of their delegations. Hence the popularity of "Favorite Son" candidates, to whom a state's delegates might be committed until negotiations during the convention led to a consensus on a nominee. In a case of deadlock, that nominee might be an unexpected "dark horse." That term was coined at the Democratic Convention in 1844, when James K. Polk, a little-known former Governor of Tennessee emerged as the consensus nominee after the two leading candidates had both failed to secure the necessary two-thirds majority (the amount then required). If I am not mistaken, the last real "dark horse" was Wendell Wilkie, nominated by the Republicans in 1940.

In the "Progressive Era," a few states adopted presidential primaries. In 1960, the first presidential election I really followed, John F. Kennedy ran in several primaries - notably Wisconsin and West Virginia - in order to demonstrate his electability (as a Roman Catholic). His victories in the primaries did not in themselves guarantee his nomination, but they helped him to persuade party bosses to take his candidacy seriously. In contrast, his principal rival, Senate majority Leader Lyndon Johnson didn't compete in any primaries at all but still expected to prevail at the convention. It was only during the 1st Ballot at the Los Angeles Convention, when Wyoming put Kennedy over the top, that his nomination was assured. 

Primaries grew in importance in the 1960s. Nelson Rockefeller's defeat in Oregon (a few days after his second wife gave birth, thus reminding everyone of Rockefeller's divorce) may have sealed the fate of his presidential ambitions. Eugene McCarthy's strong showing in the 1968 New Hampshire primary evidently moved LBJ to decide to quit the race in March 1968. But that year's disorderly Democratic Convention in Chicago gave the nomination to Vice President Humphrey, the candidate of the party establishment, who had not run in even a single primary. After that, the Democrats and then the Republicans reformed their party procedures to encourage primaries and caucuses, and never again would someone be nominated who had not competed in the primaries.

The older system had its faults, to be sure. But a system that gave us Lincoln and FDR surely has something to recommend it!

The last major party convention whose outcome was in doubt was the Republican Convention in 1976, when Ronald Reagan came close to winning the nomination away from President Gerald Ford. Since the 1980s, each party's nomination has gone to the candidate who had already accumulated a majority of delegates in primaries and caucuses well before the Convention itself, which in turn has degenerated into a pre-planned performance to show off the party's unity - a "coronation." This new scenario is much preferred by party establishments to a crippling contest that could weaken the party in the general election to come.

So while those of us above a certain age can well remember when "contested" conventions were still the norm, such an event has become unusual by today's norms. Hence the excitement among some and the anxiety among many politicians and Republican party professionals as that prospect seems to be increasingly likely. Donald Trump may well be the frontrunner in the number of delegate votes won so far, but Donald Trump's unconventional candidacy has not motivated the party to unite behind him in advance of the convention. It is possible that whoever wins the nomination in Cleveland will face serious, uncompromising opposition at that convention - not only in the balloting but possibly in the rules, credentials, and platform committees, traditional locations of conflict at earlier conventions. There may not be riots in the streets as some have warned (and as actually happened as recently as the 1968 Democratic Convention). But, having effectively "forgotten" how to compete at a convention and if necessary select a "dark horse" compromise, it is hard to see what scenario will bring this convention to a satisfyingly happy end for the Republicans.

The People v. O.J. Simpson

Ten weeks are almost an eternity in our increasingly ADD culture, but FX's 10-week crime drama The People v. O. J. Simpson succeeded in holding my - and the TV audience's attention just as the events it recalled held our collective attention over a decade ago. I can still remember watching the infamous Bronco chase in the TV room at the Paulist Motherhouse in New York. And I can just as vividly recall the TV room in the rectory in Toronto the day of the verdict. I remember each of us opining what the verdict would be. I was hesitant to say what I thought, but deep-down I believed the prosecution had failed to make its case and so expected the Not Guilty verdict that was announced moments later.

The FX drama did a great job in retelling the story - in a way which treated all the major participants somewhat sympathetically. It was actually possibly to feel sympathy even for Marcia Clark and Lance Ito in the dramatized version, which highlighted what they were going through personally in ways that the contemporary coverage could not. The "hero" of the show was, of course, Charlie Cochrane, and the series did a good job of portraying his sense that this was not just a celebrity trial but an opportunity for revenge against a racist establishment. Presumably that was also how most of the jury saw it - and many others outside. On the other hand, as the Chris Darden character lectured Johhny in their final conversation, nothing really changed for ordinary African-Americans, who would continue to be on the losing end in their interactions with white-dominated law enforcement. Obviously recent events on the bloody streets of so many conflicted American cities have continued to confirm that reality.

The real O.J. Simpson trial, verdict, and immediate aftermath confirmed the persistent racial divide in this country, rooted as it is in America's original sin. The juxtaposition of white anger and black celebration after the verdict said it all then - and continues to say it all since so little has changed to overcome that divide.

FX did us a great service in re-dramatizing this episode. It captures (without tedious nostalgia) what America was like midway thought the last decade of the 10th century. Changing the station to the news channels dramatizes how pitifully little has changed in race relations since then.