Why bother trying to make sense of a pronouncement from the ‘Vicar
of Christ’ when the Church has been shown to be corrupt from the beginning? Tom
Doyle points out the corruption of the church in his review of Dylan Elliot’s
new book on the pedophile scandal.[i]
Still I would contend that it is worthwhile to attempt to understand the point
of view of Pope Francis, a world religious leader. It is obvious that neither Francis nor his
followers see the hypocrisy of advocating a change of political structures when
the Church ignores the pedophile issue, the catalyst being its own clerical
system. However, the serious life and
death situation we are experiencing worldwide demands we look at every point of
view without trivializing any opinion, except the trivial.
Pope
Francis uses the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ as the keystone of his encyclical,
Fratelli Tutti. Dr. Amy–Jill Levine offers some hints for understanding
a story teller’s point of view in her book, Short Stories by Jesus.[ii]
She asks, “What is Jesus saying in the parable of the Good Samaritan?” (Luke
10, 25-37) Dr. Levine contends that the
purpose of a parable in the first century was to make the listeners
uncomfortable. Many commentaries and
homilies are standard and listeners yawn and forget the story until next
time. It is conventional for Christian
homilists to comment that Priests and Levites are insensitive to the beaten man
on the road because of their Jewish beliefs.
Is Luke trying to say that the message of the Christian Jews is
better? Luke, writing forty or more
years after Jesus’ death, was in a contentious situation with the Pharisees
after the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Romans in C.E.70. Were the Christian Jews to take a leadership
role?
Samaritans
were of Jewish heritage and revered the Torah.
Basic to the Torah is the Jewish commandment, “Love God and your
neighbor.” If the source of the story is
Jesus and not Luke, then what does the parable mean? In Jesus’ time the Samaritans were despised
by Judean Jews – they were people of another country. The lawyer in the story asks: what does love of neighbor mean, who is my
neighbor? The Samaritan tells us by his action;
he followed the law of the Torah as advocated by Jesus. Jesus is telling a story that illustrates
what both Judaism and Christianity believe, a cause for both Jesus’ listeners
and contemporary believers to be uncomfortable.
Pope
Francis refers to the Good Samaritan in chapter two of Fratelli Tutti. Francis goes beyond
brotherly love. He expands the meaning of charity to charitable political
love. In chapter five Frances writes, “This
political charity is born of social awareness that transcends every
individualistic mindset.”
Philia is brotherly love and charity is agape in Greek. Agape
is selfless love, a term used long before Christianity. Agape
is a human trait we strive to achieve, but international political agape?
That’s an ancient consideration and demand for action, like the
Samaritan, to a contemporary world under siege.
Is agape the answer? It’s been suggested before with limited
success.
Marguerite
Porete, a Beguine and a mystic who wrote in French, identified the human
quality of agape as divine love and stated in her book, The
Mirror of Simple Souls[iii],
“Such love is a sure guide and more secure than rational morality.” Marguerite Porete was burned at the stake for
heresy in Paris in 1310; William of Paris, O.P., the chief inquisitor, called
her pseudo-mulier, a fake woman. At that time Clement V reigned from Avignon
as Pope.
Francis’ solution seems impossible, but it is Christmas time. Matthew says it was the birth of Emmanuel, God
with us. Can we see the victims of
pedophilia, pedophiles, Presidents and Popes in the image of Christ - the
Messiah? For now, perhaps this is the
answer.
[i]
Elliot, Dylan, The Corrupter of Boys, University
of Pennsylvania Press.
[ii] Levine, Amy-Jill, Short Stories by Jesus, Harper
One, New York, 1989.
[iii] Porete, Marguerite, The Mirror of Simple Souls,
Paulist Press, New York, 1993.
