SEEDS FOR A SPIRITUAL MONARCHY SOWN IN FIRST CENTURY

The formation of the Spiritual Monarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has a long history.  Its roots go back to the first century after the execution of Jesus of Nazareth, the itinerant preacher who refused to accept the Roman emperor as God. 

The Monarchy serves well as a guardian of its ‘infallible’ interpretation of faith.  However, a serious problem is evident with the exposure of the pedophile scandal.  The isolated and insolated male celebat monarchical structure of the Church is suited for the crimes of pedophilia as well as other crimes against society. Is it time to separate the wheat from the chaff? (Q Gospel-Mt.3:12)

A Divided Legacy
When and where did it begin? After Jesus’ execution two traditions emerged among his followers.  J.D. Crossan in his book, The Birth of Christianity, explains: 

The Life Tradition, with its emphasis on the sayings of Jesus on living within the kingdom of God, is centered in Galilee and goes out from Galilee.  The Death Tradition with its emphasis on the resurrection of Jesus and on lives lived in expectation of his return, is centered in Jerusalem and goes out from Jerusalem.  (1. Crossan, p. xxxiv)

The Life Tradition
The Life Tradition is the older tradition and is based on sayings of Jesus found in the Gospels of Mathew and Luke.  Both Mathew and Luke depend on the Gospel of Mark as a source but differ in that they incorporate sayings of Jesus not found in Mark.  As a body of material these sayings are called the ‘Q Gospel.’  The sayings represent the wisdom and life of Jesus.  An example would be Jesus’ preaching on the Beatitudes - Lk. 6:20-49, Mt. 5:3-12. (H. C. Kee, p. 466).  

Attached to the Life tradition are the sections of the Gnostic Gospels which are outside of the official cannon of Gospels recognized by main line Christian Churches – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  One of these, the Gospel of Thomas, is cited by J.D. Crossan.  He notes that 37% of the Q Gospel has parallels in the Gospel of Thomas. (1, J.D.C. p.248)  The Life Tradition was not interested in a monarchy and emphasized equality.

Elaine Pagels notes that:  “Orthodox Christians believe that Jesus is Lord and Son of God in a unique way: he remains forever distinct from the rest of humanity.”(Pagels, p. xx)  

‘Jesus is Lord’ is the basic preaching or kerygma of main line Christians. Pagels points to the differing opinion of the Thomas Gospel:  “Jesus said ‘I am not your master. …He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he.’“  (Pagels p. xx)

The Gnostic Gospel of Faith Wisdom reports Jesus as saying:  “…whoever the Spirit inspires is divinely ordained to speak, whether man or woman.” (Pagels p. 65) 

   The Life tradition generated a realized and actualized ethical eschatology.  The Sermon on the Mount from Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain from Luke are the ‘Guide to Living’ in the kingdom of God.  Ethical activists differ from the advocates of an apocalyptic approach who wait for the second coming of Jesus.  


The Death Tradition
   The death tradition was based in Jerusalem and focuses on the passion death and resurrection of Jesus.  The tradition is best exemplified in the Gospel of Mark which is bereft of the sayings of the Q Gospel. Mark emphasizes Jesus’ authority even of the cosmos.  ‘Jesus is Lord’ is the basis for kerygmatic preaching. The Monarchical Church is based on this theology with the pope as Christ’s Vicar on earth.  The Death Tradition awaits the second coming of the Lord to triumphantly establish the Kingdom of God.

   The need for absolute authority was considered of supreme importance with the threat of the Gnostics with Gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas.  Bishop – Saint Irenaeus (130 - 202) of Lyons along with the Church of Rome and others declared the Gnostics to be heretics. The Death tradition then became dominant in Christian practice and theology.  Emperor Constantine in the fourth century enforced a unity in theology or world view with military support. 


A Mixed Orthodoxy of Two Traditions
   John Dominic Crossan, after a review of some of the literature on the “divided tradition”, explains:   

“In my own understanding, I rephrase those twin traditions of the sayings and of the passion –resurrection as twin traditions of Jesus’ life and Jesus’ death.  They are for me two sides of the same coin.” (1 J.D.C. p. xxxiv) 

 Look at Paul as an example.  He surely did not succumb to the authority of Peter, John, or James the Just, Jesus brother in Jerusalem.  Paul writes to the Galatians with a message that is similar to the Gospel of Thomas that claims equality:   

 “As a result these people who are acknowledged as leaders – not that their importance matters to me, since God has no favorites – these leaders as I say, had nothing to add to the Good News as I preach it.” (Gal. 2:6-7)

Paul won the debate and the uncircumcised were allowed membership in the Christian movement - a practical decision by the Jerusalem leaders – John, Peter, and James the Just. (J. Murphy O’Connor, p.141)   

   Were Paul’s ethics determined by his apocalyptic belief in the imminent second coming of Jesus?  Slavery was to be tolerated, (Letter to Philemon), and the government to be obeyed (Romans.)  Paul’s basic preaching - kerygma was ‘Jesus Christ as Lord,’ but did not cite John, Peter, or James the Just as Christ’s Vicar on earth. (Phil. 2:11)


Freedom from the Monarchy
   John Dominic Crossan writes:  “Here is the heart of the original Jesus movement, a shared egalitarianism of spiritual (healing) and material (eating) resources.” (2 J.D.C., p. 107)

  The pedophile scandal has shocked Roman Catholics into recognizing that the religion of the Monarchy is false.  The message of the itinerant preacher, without a place to lay his head, is being heard outside of the Cathedrals and Basilicas once filled with faithful worshipers.  Now only tourists grace these beautiful buildings.


References:

1.J.D. Crossan, The Birth of Christianity, Harper, San Francisco, 1998.

2.J.D. Crossan, Jesus a Revolutionary, Harper San Francisco, 1995

Jerome Murphy O’ Connor, O.P. Paul a Critical Life, Oxford University Press, 1966

H. C. Kee, F.W. Young. K. Froehlich, Understanding the New Testament, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1965.

Elaine Pagels, Gnostic Christianity, Random House,

The Working Catholic: 'King Day' by Bill Droel

          This month’s celebration of Rev. Martin L. King (1929-1968) is of course about more than King. The civil rights era is about more than the Montgomery boycott that began in December 1955. It certainly includes Rosa Parks (1913-2005), who courageously refused to give up her seat on a bus. And, Parks’ disobedience was not a momentary reaction, but was the outcome of much preparation.

In recent times several scholars have drawn attention to “the longer civil rights movement.” Karen Johnson of Wheaton College is one of those scholars. Her book, One in Christ: Chicago Catholics and the Quest for Interracial Justice (Oxford University Press, 2018), details significant civil rights activity as early as 1930—not in the South but in Chicago. Her examples, perhaps surprisingly, are Catholic organizations.

Johnson’s thorough account in eight more-or-less chronological chapters plus 49 pages of valuable footnotes is “primarily a story about laypeople” who in addition to highlighting aspects of Catholic doctrine also challenged the notion that priests are above laypeople, that urban Catholicism is synonymous with intra-parish ministries and that Catholics acting as Catholics should keep their efforts separate from Protestants and Jews.

Arthur Falls (1901-2000), a pioneering black physician involved with Federated Colored Catholics and then with Catholic Worker movement, is prominent in the first four chapters and appears throughout the book. The fifth and sixth chapters feature Friendship House with Catherine de Hueck Doherty (1896-1985), Ellen Tarry (1906-2008) and Ann Harrigan Makletzoff (1910-1984); the seventh and eighth feature the Catholic Interracial Council with John McDermott (1926-1996) among others. Msgr. Dan Cantwell (1915-1996) and Ed Marciniak (1917-2004) appear in nearly all the chapters.

These Chicago Catholics were successful to a degree. They “helped enlarge America’s moral imagination,” Johnson explains. They showed that racial justice is more than a political matter. Due to these Chicago activists and also to many religious leaders in the South and around the nation, civil rights became a significant aspect of faith, both for blacks and for whites. Further, the Chicago Catholics—years before Vatican II (1962-1965)—taught others that individual salvation and personal transformation are not enough. They communicated, in words and more so by way of example, that full-time Christians must seek “the common good by reforming the institutions shaping the public sphere.”

A contagious esprit surrounded these dedicated Catholics. They nourished one another in several institutional spaces, Johnson emphasizes. They all knew that liturgical grace was essential to their efforts. They believed that the liturgy of the word continued out the church door as each of them did their part in the Mystical Body of Christ to live a liturgy of the world.

Johnson includes enough detail to dispel any suggestion of hyper-romanticism about these civil rights pioneers. These people were street savvy. They knew how to agitate and at the right moment what to compromise. They avoided getting personally bent out of shape as they necessarily engaged in sharp disagreements with one another over strategy: How to include Chicago’s bishop—if at all. Whether or not to include anti-poverty measures in efforts against racism. Whether or not to maneuver inside the Democratic Party, which in Chicago was the Daley Machine. Are discussion groups a waste of time? Can Catholics be militant?

Remarkably, most of these Catholic civil rights leaders remained Catholic their entire lives. It is remarkable because, as Johnson details in parts of two chapters, more than one bishop, some influential pastors and the Catholic system itself reinforced racial distinctions. For example, Falls once told me that the segregation that hurt him the most was on Saturday afternoons when he went to confession. Blacks had to stand in one line and wait until each person in the white line had received absolution.

Johnson writes a comprehensible story. This is an achievement because all her subjects died before she began. She thus scoured multiple libraries for newspapers, magazine articles, minutes of meetings and more. Johnson, by the way, is not Catholic. Yet the book flawlessly covers Chancery politics and points of theology. 

A powerful 2% of young Catholics are once again interested in the social question--in race relations, in living wage campaigns, in the dignity of all life, in socially responsible business, in green technology, in mental health delivery, in criminal justice reform and immigration topics. One In Christ is an inspiring account of visionary Catholics who navigated the push-and-pull of public life, and had some fun along the way. As we rightly celebrate King Day, we can continue to learn from all the efforts in our country toward "liberty and justice for all.”   

Droel of Chicago is a board member of National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629).