Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Vatican II Pioneers



Pat and Patty Crowley

Hope and anticipation for Vatican II was fostered by the Christian Family Movement which was founded by a Chicago couple, Pat and Patty Crowley.  Essentially a lay movement within the Roman Catholic Church it fostered ecumenism, status for the laity, liturgical reform, and Catholic action with the goal of a better world.  Vatican II was encouraging but Pope Paul VI's Encyclical, Humanae Vitae, prohibiting artificial birth control, restricted progress.  This disappointed the Crowleys, but they continued in their efforts for church reform.  I am confident you will find the following story about the Crowleys moving and insightful.  It is  written by their oldest daughter - Patricia Anne Crowley, O.S.B.                                Bill Lange


Our 103 year old Sister, Vivian Ivantic, has been urging me to write about my parents for a couple of years now.   However, until William Lange invited me to write about my parents for his blog, I kept procrastinating saying to myself,  I am just too close to this topic…..I will try to write next week…I just don’t have time right now, etc.

So let me at least begin.   My father, Patrick F. Crowley, the son of Irish Catholic parents, was a fascinating combination of traditional religious practices and creative avant-garde spirituality.  His lifelong friendships from his early years at St. Mary of the Lake grammar school and Loyola Academy persisted even though those men were of various political persuasions and religious practices. He adored my mother and with her and those friends, formed what was known as “The Poker Club” or, at one point as “The Stork Club”.   He used his professional career as a lawyer to serve both sides of the family as their corporate counsel as well as to provide for his immediate growing family and to help all who came to him for legal advice and / or financial support.   He was a learner par excellence and reached out to emerging voices in our world to come and share with the hundreds of couples who gathered each year at Notre Dame for the annual conventions of the Christian Family Movement.  My impression always was that no one could bring themselves to dislike him and hardly anyone could say “no” to him!  What I suspect that people seldom saw in him was a soul that felt great anguish at other people’s suffering.  His disappointment was particularly evident to me when the encyclical on birth control, Humanae Vitae, was published.  He took that turn of events to heart and felt keenly the pain of couples around the world at that time.

Patty Caron Crowley, my mother, was the daughter of a Jansenist French-Canadian father and a Baptist mother, who converted to Catholicism when Patty was young.  She was often misunderstood by her mother, when as a student of the late Father John A. Ryan at Trinity College in D.C., she learned of Catholic social teaching and began to make decisions based on what she had learned.    Her social and political views were even more radicalized when she connected with the handsome Pat Crowley, who had been formed to think broadly in his years at Notre Dame University.  When they met, Pat was smitten immediately.   Patty, probably to please her mother who did not think a poor Irish law student was good enough for any daughter of hers, went off to Paris for a year and there dated several continental guys.  She apparently always remembered those times and never ever regretted her acceptance of Pat’s proposal for marriage upon her return home.

Pat and Patty were soul mates. Their personalities could not have been more different!  Their relational complementarity was their gift to all of us.  Their roles fit their personalities – he the visionary and she the organizational and practical one.  Together they graciously welcomed people of all faiths and origins into our home.

 In the 31 years between their deaths, I came to know and appreciate my mother’s strength and determination.  She, too, suffered greatly from the Church’s decision to go against the majority opinion of the Birth Control Commission.  It took her 25 years after Humanae Vitae was published, to speak out publicly about their “conversion” experience. They, along with the vast majority of that group, were convinced by letters from couples around the world, by scientists and theologians on the Commission that birth control was not intrinsically evil.  The official Church chose not to follow that advice and, as a drastic result, lost much of its authority among many of its members.


That is the context in which I grew into adulthood.  The family I knew in the first decade of my life was pretty typical of the times – as many children as possible, parochial school for the kids, daily mass at 6:30 a.m., family rosary after the evening meal, regular visits to grandparents, nightly family dinners, summer camp experiences and so much more.  That all changed during the next decade of my life.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Martin Luther King; A Letter from the Birmingham JAIL, April 16, 1963



How does King's letter relate to the current immigration debate?


   Despite the evidence of violence and devastating poverty in Latin American countries and the inadequate and unfair immigration law of the U.S., many U.S. citizens condemn undocumented immigrants for one reason:  immigrants are breaking the law.

   Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, noted that both St. Augustine (Father of the Church, 354-430) and St. Thomas Aquinas (Church Doctor, 1225-1274) stated that a bad law was no law and did not require obedience. Dr. King was referring to the ‘Jim Crow’ laws of the South as bad law, but historically, there are many other examples, such as slavery itself.


Aquinas and Augustine on law



St. Augustine of Hippo, North Africa

    
In his letter from the Birmingham jail, King quotes St. Augustine: 

“That which is not just seems to be no law at all.”  

Aquinas quoted the above statement by Augustine and added:  

“But if in any point it (human law) departs from the law of nature (reason), it is no longer a law but a perversion. (1.)

Aquinas and Augustine knew that civil law was crucial.  Augustine wrote no matter what government (even the Roman Empire), man must obey the law, 

“…so long as he is not compelled to act against God or his conscience…” (2.)

Augustine and Aquinas represent differing philosophical and theological points of view but agreed that human law must serve all people – the common good.

St. Thomas defined law as:

 “… nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by him who has care of the community.” (3.)

   A law can be a ‘bad law’ on two grounds:  if it is unreasonable and if it does not serve all in the community; it is a matter of forging a proper, peaceful society. 
  
   Law cannot rule out all possible or perceived evil.  Such a law may cause more harm than good.  In a pluralist society such as the U.S., religious mandates cannot be inflicted on the general public that would damage the common good.  An example would be a law to deny the right of some to health care.    An example is the Roman Catholic hierarchy attempting to impose the unreasonable prohibition of abortion in all circumstances, prohibition of contraceptives, and denial of gay rights.  St. Thomas states:

“…human law cannot punish or forbid all evil deeds, since, while aiming at doing away with all evils, it would do away with many good things, and would hinder the advance of the common good…” (4.)

The debate in forming the U.S. Constitution resulted in accepting slavery as the only possibility of forming the Republic.  The Constitution legalized slavery, but the horrible Civil War resulted in a change of the Constitution and a modicum of freedom for slaves.


Human Solidarity

   John Courtney Murray, S.J., a key advisor of Vatican II on freedom of conscience quotes English Dominican Thomas Gilby, O.P.:

“Civilization is formed by men locked together in argument.  From this dialogue the community becomes a political community.” (5.)

The dialogue is of existential importance. Timing is a factor.  When do practical politics move the Creator’s ‘self evident truths,’ expressed in the Declaration of Independence, to become the written law of the Nation?  The Letter from the Birmingham Jail gives a resounding cry of – Now!  In a book published in 1968 Doctor King explained:

“We still have a choice today: nonviolent co-existence or violent co-annihilation, this may be mankind’s last chance to choose between chaos and community.” (6.)

Dr. King used the term ‘mankind.’  Classic theology and philosophy attempted to be universal and not nationalistic.  St. Augustine wrote:

“The simple truth is that the bond of a common human nature makes all human beings one.” (7.)


Undocumented Immigrants

   U.S. immigration law is flawed, but there is a human bond with immigrants and is recognized by the U.S. Constitution and America’s basic proclamation, the Declaration of Independence.  Paul Rougeau emphasizes the need for International Solidarity advocated by John Paul II in his encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis.   Rougeau calls for a ‘cosmopolitan’ community. John Paul II writes Solidarity is:  

“…a fundamental concept that all humankind and Christians should agree upon and put into practice.  Solidarity should influence the lives of persons, nations and the world in general.” (8. R 78)

 In reference to the U.S. immigration crisis Rougeau states:

“Christians are called in solidarity with these migrants to promote meaningful dialogue about changing this system. (immigration)   “… we must confront the reality that respect for human dignity, human rights and liberal democratic principles excludes the possibility of massive deportations of undocumented immigrants. (8. R152)


Civil disobedience, a part of political dialogue

  Dr. Martin Luther King, a 20th century Baptist minister, in explaining why he broke the law, referred to classic theology and philosophy that predates the Protestant Reformation, capitalism and nationalism. Classic philosophical thought corresponds to the basic proposition of the U.S. founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence.  King quotes Lincoln’s 1858 ‘House Divided Speech,’ “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.”  

How do you solve the problem?  Like Lincoln at Gettysburg King refers to the U.S. Declaration of Independence – and the basic American political proposition, ‘All are created equal.’  For the community to survive, “the bond of mankind” - Augustine’s words, must be recognized – “all are created equal” means everyone.  King understood America as did Lincoln at Gettysburg. (9.)  King goes further and re-established an important part of civil dialogue in forming community, non-violent civil disobedience, to overturn unjust law.  The American tradition goes back to writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau.

   Dr. Martin Luther King is rightly considered an American patriot and a model to follow.


Notes

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Benziger Brothers, 1947, I – II
(1. Q. 95 – A. 2, p.1014)  (3. Q. 90 – A. 4, p. 995)  (4, Q. 91 – A. 4, p. 998)

St.Augustine, Image Books, City of God, 1958, (2. P.113)  (7, p. 302)

John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths, Sheed & Ward, 1960, (5. p. 6)

The Declaration of Independence.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter From a Birmingham Jail.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Where do We Go From Here: Chaos or CommunityBantam Books, 1968, (6, p. 223)

Vincent D. Rougeau, Christians in the American Empire, 2008, (8, p. 152)


Gary Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Simon & Schuster, (9.)