Veteran’s Day

On Veteran’s Day I am reminded of my required time in the military.  War threatened at the time, but we were not yet engaged in open battle.  As I look back, I consider my ineptness as comic.

But I also remember my grandmother’s brother, Tim Walsh.  He was an outstanding student and the Franciscans considered him an outstanding prospect.  They sent him to England to study for the priesthood.  He was given the religious name of Jerome.  After he was ordained, he volunteered to serve as a chaplain for Irish troops in World War I.  He went back to the priory in England with PTSD.  I did some research on him and discovered that Irish chaplains went to the front lines. 

He died in the United States as a relatively young man with my grandmother in attendance.

 War, even with honor and glory, is horrible.  It's the innocent who pay the price.

Gustavo Gutierrez – Liberation Theology

 

One of the greatest theologians of contemporary times, Gustavo Gutierrez, O.P., recently passed away on October 22, 2024 in Lima, Peru. His theology was revolutionary in more ways than one. 

His method was from the ground up.  He advocated for ‘comunidades de base,’ that is, communities relating their situation to Scripture.  He saw this as a way of liberation, as the Jews from Pharaoh’s domination.

His guide was the theology of the brother of Jesus of Nazareth, James the Just.  James prefaced ‘preferential option for the poor’ and the need to act for social justice. 

Weekly protest for immigrant rights in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office (ICE) in Milwaukee

A Theology of Liberation, by Gustavo Gutierrez, O.P., 1973. (Six references to the Epistle of James)

The Birth of Christianity, by John Dominic Crossan, 1998.

Zealot:  the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan, 2013.

Epistle of James, The New American Bible.

Opus Dei, MAGA, the Dark Money Cult, & the 2024 Election

Daily Meditation by Matthew Fox - October 12, 2024

 Many people, when they hear about the rise of Christian nationalism in America, think it is all about evangelicals who are Trump supporters.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  

The fascist wing of the Roman Catholic Church amply represented by Opus Dei (and others such as the Legion of Christ), have played a major and expanding role in Washington, D.C. ever since the papacy of JPII that linked up with the far-right CIA of the day to bury liberation theology and base communities operating in South America.  

Those who stood by the poor, such as Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador who was martyred while saying Mass, were badly treated by Rome.  Indeed, one of Archbishop Romero's close friends, Bishop Casigalida with whom I spent a week in the amazon which was essentially his diocese was silenced by the Vatican of that time for daring to call Romero a saint (Romero has since been canonized under Pope Francis).  

I wrote about these goings-on 15 years ago in my book, The Pope's War, which traces such matters under Ratzinger and JP II and includes a significant chapter on Opus Dei.  New Testament scholar Bruce Chilton, who wrote the Foreword to the book, called it "prophetic." 

Now Gareth Core, a British financial journalist, has released the best book ever written on Opus Dei, with special emphasis on the mighty role they have played in recent American politics:  e.g., rendering SCOTUS beyond recognition and a wing for the Republican party.  Yes, part of MAGA, which I propose in my new book on the antichrist, stands for:  "Make America Grotesque Again." 

Gore's book is called Opus:  The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church.  It is 450 pages of solid research and clear storytelling of the takeover of American politics, including of course SCOTUS and the Republican Party by the fascist wing of the Catholic church, which is dead set against Pope Francis.  It includes the conversions of Newt Gingrich, former Senator Sam Brownback, Robert Bork, Larry Kudlow, and Laura Ingraham to that peculiar version of Catholicism.  Trump players like Bill Barr, Pat Cipolione, Steve Bannon, belong to the same religious club.  

Now vice-presidential candidate J. D. Vance should be added to that list of hardline climate deniers and Trump acolytes.  If Trump and Vance are elected next month, the Opus Dei wing of the Catholic Church will be one step away from the presidency.  

Pretty scary indeed, considering the already own the unsupreme court and Trump is currently the oldest presidential candidate and showing serious mental and physical decline not to mention his ethical and spiritual ill health.  Or, in traditional language, his links to the archetype of the antichrist.  

Gore tells the story of how Leonardo Leo led the fight to forbid Obama from nominating a justice for the Supreme Court because it was "too close to the next election."  Of course, Senator Mitch McConnell was all in on that unprecedented move, but Leo provided the legal ammunition.  Later however, with Trump as president, it was not too late to appoint Judge Barrett even though the election was already in progress.  

Leo is a far-right Catholic who barely admits that Pope Francis exists (or his excellent encyclical Laudato Si that defends the rights of Mother Earth and the rights of the poor).  He prefers the company and ideology of billionaires like Harlan Cros, sugar daddy to ever willing Supreme Court judges like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.  Gore makes clear that Leo is also very chummy with Ginni Thomas.   

A fine summary of the book can be found in the New York Magazine by investigative journalist Nina Burleigh.  It is called "How Opus Dei Conquered D. C."  (September 19, 2024).  Read it and weep.  And act.  And spread the news of the antichrist in waiting. And get out the vote for alternatives.

FROM REDEEMER TO REVOLUTIONARY

 

God of the Absurd  

Jesus of Nazareth was declared God and Redeemer through his crucifixion by the Council of Nicea.  Now that the myth of original sin is historically and theologically found impossible as a credible myth, Jesus and his death can now be looked at as a challenge to the Roman Empire.

Jesus of Nazareth was not the first to be crucified by the Roman Empire for advocating freedom.  He is the best known for advocating a nonviolent jihad for freedom.  

See:  

God & Empire by John Dominic Crossan  2007

Jesus, A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan  1994

Original Blessing by Matthew Fox  1983

Recovering the Sacred: Teilhard, Newell & the Celtic Tradition By Matthew Fox October 5, 2024

Celtic Spirituality, Philip Newell, Teilhard de Chardin, The Sacred

I ended my Daily Meditation yesterday with the all-important practical question:  What other ways are there for recovering a sense of the sacred?  Meaning, besides Lakota teacher buck Ghosthorse's practice of going without water to recover the sacredness of water.

And Thomas Berry's teaching that bringing back the experience of awe and wonder that the "numinous" universe gives us.  (And, let me add, what the Webb telescope makes available daily to us.)

I am reminded of Teilhard de Chardin's observation on the death knell of religion in the West.  Because it is not sufficiently moved by a truly human compassion, because it is not exalted by a sufficiently passionate admiration of the universe, our religion is becoming enfeebled.

These words were translated into English in the year 1968, the spring I sat in class with Pere Chenu and he named the creation spirituality tradition for me the first time.  Chenu had great respect for Teilhard.

Teilhard elaborates in another place.  I give the name of cosmic sense to the more or less confused affinity that binds us psychologically to the All which envelops us.  In order that the sense of humanity might emerge, it was necessary for civilization to begin to encircle the Earth.  

The experience of awe and wonder at our home, the universe and the cosmic sense, Thomas Berry equates with our moving from a human-centered and narcissistic relationship to nature to a sense of the sacred.  Teilhard again:  The cosmic sense must have been born as soon as humanity found itself facing the frost, the sea and the stars.  And since then we find evidence of it in all our experience of the great and unbounded:  in art, in poetry, and in religion.  

We find the awareness of the sacred well named by Celtic scholar Philip Newell in our time.  "The Celtic tradition has been saying all along, "he reminds, "that we cannot contain the sacred.  Rather, we are to look for it everywhere, and we are to observe it and be liberators of it in one another and in the earth."

And he reminds us that there is work ahead.  "The labor pains of a new birthing will be mighty.  there is no going back to the small God."  Anthropocentrism and human narcissism is in no way the future--of religion or politics or a viable path for humanity.  

What I call "deep ecumenism" in my book on the Cosmic Christ is born of this renewed sense of the whole.  As Newell puts it:  We now know too much about the interrelatedness of all life to pretend that well-being can be sought for one part alone and not for the whole, for only one religion, one nation, one species.

There is no returning to the limited notion of sacredness as if it were somehow the preserver of one particular people over another, of one race gender, or sexual orientation.  Sacredness is the birthright of all that is.  It is the grace that comes with existence."

The Working Catholic: How to Vote by Bill Droel

Whom should U.S. Catholics vote for in the presidential election? The question, in so many words, was posed to Pope Francis during his recent return flight from Asia. Choose, he replied.  Both major candidates are flawed. Vice-president Kamala Harris does not fully respect life with her position on abortion. Former president Donald Trump does not respect life with his position on immigrants. “Decide according to [your] conscience,” the pope concluded.

Electoral politics is about incremental improvement, not about perfection. There is no perfect candidate for a Catholic voter, or in fact for any voter. Pope Francis is preaching humility, writes David French in The New York Times (9/22/24). His words are “an invitation to introspection, a call to examine your conscience.” French contrasts thoughtful humility with “absolute certainty.” He offers MAGA Christians as an example of having minds “largely free of doubt.” They are sure that “you cannot be a Christian and vote Democratic,” writes French.

Interestingly, only a small percentage of voters describe Donald Trump as religious. His supporters, a recent survey suggests, don’t care if he is religious or not. Even though those supporters might identify as Christian, they have other motivations for supporting Trump.

A Catholic voter or a Catholic office holder should strive for consistent application of principle, explains Steven Millies in A Consistent Ethic of Life (Paulist Press, 2024).However, he continues, consistent does not mean equal. Some issues are more pressing, others have wider consequences. The virtue of consistency requires experience, prudence and some sophistication. There is little value in adding-up checkmarks on a so-called guide for Catholic issues. The moral method is prior to the issues. (More from Millies in a subsequent blog.)

A faithful Catholic who practices thoughtful humility is not a relativist. He or she has strong principles but is savvy enough to consider contingencies. Simply signaling one’s virtue is arrogant. A sincere Catholic realizes that what is good for an individual or a group this month may not serve the common good in six months. The common good, by the way, is different from the greatest good for the greatest number. The common good looks further along the calendar. It considers the good things citizens can achieve only acting in common: neighborhood and school safety, clean water, a thriving economy and the like.

Who to vote for? Strategy is an additional consideration.

Some Catholic leaders of late advise voting for the individual, not for the party. This advice is directed to Catholics who favor multiple issues associated with a party, but who know that one or more of its candidates are mistaken on an important issue. Split your vote, this advice says.

This strategy is a big departure from what U.S. Catholics have long been taught: Vote the ticket. Unless a party controls a legislative body (city council or House of Representatives), there will be gridlock. No meaningful improvement will occur. Second according to the traditional Catholic strategy, benefits to a neighborhood or a family come by way of a united party, not by a solitary office holder. Third, it is the party that can best corral any office holder that goes rouge.

Humility, consistency and a view to the future are among the imperatives Catholics exercise in the voting booth.

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a print newsletter on faith and

The Working Catholic by Bill Droel

  

A victim syndrome underlies the divisiveness in our society, explains Frank Bruni in The Age of Grievance (Simon & Schuster, 2024).

Each of us experiences frustrations. We complain that the line in the grocery is too long and it was a mistake to shop or the neighbor’s dogs bark all day and a move to a No Pets apartment would be wise.

Grievance goes beyond such feelings of bad luck. We can normally get past daily frustrations with a swear word or two and a little wine at night. Grievance, however, is the belief that I have “been wronged,” writes Bruni.  It has damaging psychological and social repercussions. Grievance is excess agitation and excess sensitivity. It leads to “wildly disproportionate outbursts” and perhaps conspiracy theories. They are out to get me, an aggrieved person suspects. Grievance is “an all-encompassing lens” through which past hurts regularly reappear, Bruni continues. It is unfortunately a conflation of “the picayune and the profound.”

Grievance is also different from bad luck in that it reduces frustration to fault in others. An aggrieved person sees that someone is above or ahead of them. The advantage, our aggrieved person quickly concludes, was unfairly gained at his or her expense. An example is someone who says, my tax dollars go toward assisting those lazy, illegal migrants.

Although he is our Whiner in Chief, Donald Trump did not start the grievance trend. Bruni mentions Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) of France, who toured the U.S. and then famously wrote his generally positive impressions. However, de Tocqueville pointed out that people on our shores are forever “brooding over advantages they do not possess.” The grievance trend has steadily increased since the late 1960s as our culture and our economy have tilted away from organic communities and heavily toward individualism.

We no longer live in a Garden of Eden. There is bad luck, sin and dysfunctional institutions all around. However, children can learn to navigate life and thus develop a healthy disposition as adults. Erik Erikson (1902-1994) named stages of development. The crucial first one is trust vs. mistrust. That is, a child must come to believe that the world is generally a reliable place; that its scrapes and bumps and slights can soon enough be hopped over. Trust and thus happiness are achieved with dependable parents and a circle of good playmates.

Of course, Donald Trump doesn’t help matters with his harangues about scams and rigged processes and fake news and polluted institutions and losers. But Bruni goes beyond Trump’s pessimism to provide many examples of aggrieved behaviors. Bruni calls out those young adults who have a hyper-craving for safety. They want a buffer against what they consider offensive language, against teachers who present a full range of literature or history, against guest speakers with opposing views and more. A key word for these young adults is hurtful.   

In addition to Trump, other forces are fueling grievance. For example, elements in the self-help movement have morphed into a presumption that “all feelings are presumed meaningful and warrant a group’s attention.” This hypersensitivity assumes a right to be “protected from disappointment,” leading perhaps to temperamental antics by an individual or groups.

The massive wealth gap is another accelerant. It undermines our country’s promise of upward mobility. The gap hits home through an array of cultural signals like elite seating at stadiums, concierge health care arrangements, displays of luxury porn in magazines and on TV, executive-only washrooms and the like.

Bruni also mentions the prevalence of dystopian movies and internet sites in which destruction and end times are depicted. These films support pessimism and justify grievance.

Don’t misunderstand. There is injustice in the world. The healthy response to which is the virtue of social justice. It is unhealthy to respond by fantasizing villains lurking all around, by hallow displays of annoyance or by posturing oneself as a victim. Social justice is organizing like-minded people for improved policies or institutions. It requires competence, an end game and a good enough for now plan B.

Get What Is Social Justice? from National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $5)

"A Female President of the United States: A Hope?" by Leonardo Boff

 This weekend I received the following article from my friend in Brazil, theologian Leonardo Boff. I have cut it some to fit our format. Matthew Fox in his Daily Meditation from August 19, 2024

The real possibility that a woman, Kamala Harris, will become president of the imperial power, the United States of America, would represent a novum in the history of that country, and perhaps a step forward in the new relationship between genders. 

The USA, independent since 1776, has had 44 presidents, all men and none women.  Many see the president exclusively in military terms, more as the head of the Armed Forces--the one who holds the red telephone and the button to launch a nuclear war--than as the promoter of the common good. 

That's why they keep fighting wars everywhere.  Virtually all presidents, including Obama, are imbued with "manifest destiny," the belief that the United States is anointed as "that new people of God with a mission to bring (bourgeois) democracy, (individual) human rights, and peace (of the market) for the world".

Under the patriarchy that has lasted for ten thousand years, since the Neolithic era, with the formation of villages and agriculture, women have always been relegated to the private world.  Even knowing that a historical era existed, twenty thousand years ago, of matriarchy forming egalitarian societies that integrated with nature and was deeply spiritual.

Patriarchy, the predominance of the male (machismo) was one of the greatest mistakes in human history.  The type of State we have is attributed to patriarchy, including war and violence as a way of solving problems, the private appropriation of land, and the generation of inequalities and all types of discrimination.  

In capitalism, in its various forms, it gained its most expressive configuration, with the rate of social inequity it brings with it.  

Throughout this process, the main victims were women, along with those deprived of strength and power.  Since then, the destiny of women, in historical-social terms, has been defined based on the man who occupied every public space. 

But slowly, starting in the United States, in the 19th century, women became aware of their autonomous identity.  The feminist movement grew, became active in practically all countries and occupied public spaces.  Entering universities and then into the job market, women brought their unique (non-exclusive) values as women:  more given to collaboration as opposed to competition from men, more care, more flexibility, more ability to deal with complexity, more human sensitivity and heart, finally, more open to dialogue against sexist and patriarchal authoritarianism.  

In a word, they brought more humanity to a rational, rigid, competitive, efficient world, marked by the will to power as domination:  the world of men.  They, by their nature, represent rather the will to live and to relate.  

Even so, the fight for gender equality is far from being fully won.  It was only in 1920 that women gained the right to vote in the United States.  In Brazil only in 1932.  Today 52% of the electorate is female.  

Empowering women's identity and relational autonomy will generate a new paradigm:  that of reciprocity, of cooperation between men and women....

Politically, the best way to express this civilizational advance would be participatory, socio-ecological democracy, in which man and woman cooperatively and in solidarity would build a dream world that responds to the deepest desires of the human psyche.  

The Working Catholic: Two Labor Days by Bill Droel

  

The original Labor Day parade was held in 1882, in New York City. It was sponsored by the Knights of Labor. Its organizers were two Catholics. Though not related, they share the same last name. Matthew McGuire (1855-1917) was a machinist from New Jersey; Peter McGuire (1852-1906), working in Chicago at the time, was a carpenter. In 1894 Labor Day became a national holiday and was set on the first Monday of September.

St. Joseph, also a carpenter, is associated with Labor Day in round-about fashion. The saga begins here in Chicago where on May 1, 1886 a federation of labor unions began a campaign for an eight-hour workday. A subsequent rally in our now trendy Haymarket area turned violent when someone threw a stick of dynamite. Police then fired wildly into the crowd. Four workers and seven police died. Seven workers were rounded-up and sentenced, four of whom were hanged in November 1886.

In July 1889 communist leaders in several European countries designated May 1^st as Labor Day to honor the Chicago Haymarket workers. (Illinois Labor History Society; www.illinoislaborhistory.org)

 In 1956, to offset the communist influence on Europe’s Labor Day Pope Pius XII (1876-1958) established May 1^st as the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Some U.S. bishops immediately asked to observe the new St. Joseph feast on the first Monday of September in our country only. Permission was granted. Nonetheless instead of the September date, the May 1^st date for St. Joseph took hold in the U.S.

 Ed Marciniak (1917-2004), a Chicago labor activist, saw in the two dates a significant difference in worldviews. People in the U.S. “have never developed a strong class consciousness,” as did those in communist-influenced Europe, he wrote. Working families in Europe drifted away from Catholicism because Church officials there and in Latin America got too much “in league with the wealthy against the poor.” By contrast, U.S. Catholicism “has never had…a hostile working class.” (Since 1968 many Catholics in our country have left the church behind. They walked away out of indifference or lately in disgust, but not out of economic or political hostility.) 

An economic system predicated on “class struggle…will be inadequate and distorted,” Marciniak concludes. So maybe having two dates in our country (May 1^st and first Monday in September) contains a hidden blessing. 

(Learn more about Marciniak in Ed Marcinaik’s City and Church, National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $20). 

 

 

The Working Catholic: Mystery by Bill Droel

 

It is commonly ranked as the top professional football play of all time. Only 22-seconds remained in the December 1972 AFC Division final. The Steelers were losing. That’s when Terry Bradshaw pitched the immaculate reception to Franco Harris (1950-2022) for the thrilling victory. The play is legendary; it can be viewed on several websites.

The Eucharist is not a legend. It is not a reenactment. It is not available on instant replay. It is a total reality that contains the Pascal Mystery of Jesus Christ. However, to enter into the Eucharist and absorb the real presence of Jesus/God it is necessary to experience the world as enchanting. And that is a problem. All of us these days are prone to misplaced enchantment. We take many things for granted, assuming that what we don’t know can easily be learned through a Google search. We shift our curiosity to superficialities—to rumors about celebrities, to gossip about schoolmates, to endless detail about daily comings-and-goings. We go to a football game, yet spend our time there attending to our mobile device.

We modern people have replaced awe and reverence with a blasé take on reality. Yes, a rare eclipse stimulates our imaginations. For the most part, however, we neglect the daily discipline of contemplation that would allow us to apprehend the surprising movements of grace lurking within or beneath normal routines. Nearly everything nowadays is taken at face value; and even then not taken too seriously. Ours is an age of irony.

There are moments when we do encounter something that defies the trivial. There are some levels of experience that are not readily explained on the internet. What is the meaning of death? What accounts for singular and incomprehensible recoveries? The internet does not know. Our first reaction is to diminish such things. There are clichés we can use to move on.

Another reaction to uncertainty is a MAGA-style conspiracy theory. It is intolerable that scientists can’t immediately know the cause of and simple cure for Covid-19. So it must be a hoax and the remarkable vaccine is really perpetuating a sinister plot. Our disposition toward the gracious and mysterious is scant.

The Eucharist is a complete story. It is more than a story, of course, but its enchanted drama is prior. Without that prior enchantment, an effort to philosophically explain the Eucharist can unintentionally have an opposite effect. Nor is openness to enchantment aided by too much technical stress on prior requirements for Eucharistic worthiness. No one is worthy. The Eucharist is a gift.

The Eucharist is a dynamic event that cannot be dissected. It has to be captivating. Marriage is a mystery. It must be entered into without total certainty and yet without paralyzing doubt. Marriage reveals what it contains over months and years; in its highs and lows. In the same way, the Eucharist is a mystery. The word mystery is not a cop-out, used by those who lack sensible explanations. The word mystery means that which can only be known in relationship.

Droel edits a print newsletter, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629).

The Working Catholic: NO CONSECRATION by Bill Droel

The bells are back.

Years ago and for years before that, the attention of worshipers at Mass drifted for understandable reasons: their ignorance of Latin and their partially obstructed view of the drama. Congregants often used their time at Mass for private prayer. Thus at key moments in the Mass, particularly at the consecration, altar servers would ring an assemblage of bells. The bells went quietly into a closet nearly 60 years ago. In recent months, however, several churches have dusted off the old Mass bells. Their purpose is similar to what it was in the old days. Only today the distraction is individual use of mobile devices during what should be communal worship.

The Assyrian Church of the East has a Mass/Divine Liturgy ritual (Anaphora of Addai and Mari) without a consecration, also called “words of institution.” This ancient ritual, now used mostly in India, is in full communion with Roman Catholicism. How can this be? How can Jesus Christ be really present in what appears as bread and wine unless the formula of Jesus’ Last Supper is prayed over the bread and wine?

The current Mass ritual for Roman Catholics (the 1969/1970 Novus Ordo) is meant to pull all worshipers into “full and active participation” in this premier prayer. It is a single prayer, from the entrance procession to the dismissal procession. Christ is really present in a magnificent way throughout—beginning to end. Christ is present in the presider (the alter Christus). Christ is really present in the proclamation of God’s revealed Word, through the voice of the lectors. Christ is really present in the communion bread and the communion wine. Christ is really present in the congregation as they pray the Mass and as they head for the exit sign, acting as members of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Isn’t it possible that the truth of Christ really present in the entire Mass is conveyed as well in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari Rite (without an explicit consecration) as in the Latin Rite (with or without bells)? Still, is the Anaphora of Addai and Mari valid?

Most Catholics in the United States celebrate Mass in what is called the Latin Rite and most presume theirs (be it celebrated in Spanish, English or Polish) is the only Mass ritual. Yet in addition to the Latin Rite, Roman Catholicism has several other equally valid rites. For example, in October 2009 Pope Benedict XVI approved the Anglican Rite. Its Mass, celebrated here-and-there in Great Britain, the United States and India, varies only slightly from the Latin Rite. The ancient Byzantine Rite is widely used in the East, but also at a small number of designated parishes in the U.S. It has many differences from the Latin Rite. There is likewise the Maronite Rite used in Lebanon. There’s the Ge’ez Rite used in Ethiopia and also in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. All of these rites are equally valid within Roman Catholicism. So too are several more that are traced to the early days of Christianity.

Keep in mind too that the Mass or Divine Liturgy in all of the Eastern Orthodox churches is valid and licit; that Christ is truly and really present in their worship. 

The Assyrian Church of the East (the Addai and Mari Rite), which belongs to the East Syriac Rite, is not Eastern Orthodox; it is a separate branch of Christianity. Its Mass, as mentioned, is quite different from a Latin Rite Mass. However, it is valid and licit; Christ is truly and really present in their worship. Since 2001 there has even been an official agreement allowing “mutual admission” of one another’s worshipers between Assyrian Church of the East and Roman Catholicism.

To make matters more complicated and more interesting, Roman Catholicism judges the Mass of several break-away denominations to be valid, though not licit. That is, Christ is really present in their Liturgy/Mass, even though their rites may differ from the common Latin Rite. By illicit, Roman Catholicism means disapproval of their independent governance status. The Polish National Catholic Church, headquartered in Scranton, is one example.

Suffice it to say that God is bigger than any one parish, bigger than any one formula for the Mass/Liturgy and certainly bigger than any two-minute segment of a liturgy.

Droel edits a print newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago,

The Working Catholic: Eucharist by Bill Droel

 

Our U.S. Catholic bishops host a Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis from July 17-21, 2024. It is the culmination of a three-year process meant to teach the real presence of Jesus/God in the Eucharist.  The bishops are reacting to surveys that seemingly show that Catholics do not know or do not believe the dogma of the Eucharist. (There is ambiguity. For example, to answer a survey question by saying “the Eucharist is a symbol” does not preclude the belief that it is God’s real presence. It can be both. Additionally, our bishops have multiple motives. For example, one faction is using the Eucharistic Congress to highlight a contradiction between President Joseph Biden’s devotion to the Eucharist and his support for abortion access.)

Pope Pius X (1835-1914) was a conservative. He opposed several modern trends. However, he is credited with opening the door to modern liturgical reforms, centering them in the dogma of the Eucharist. In the first two decades of the 20 th century, monasteries in Germany, France and Belgium experimented with reforms that were soon enough authorized at Vatican II (1962-1965). These changes are meant to bring worshipers into closer relationship with the Eucharistic, through the Mass. They include prayers at Mass said aloud by the entire congregation—the Gloria, the Creed, the Sanctus, the Lamb of God and several responses. The Mass itself is prayed in the vernacular, rather than in Latin—in Spanish, English, Polish and more. Taking a cue from Pius X, regular reception of the Eucharist in both the consecrated wine and bread is the norm, no longer something rare or selective. Qualms about one’s worthiness are taken care of in the opening penitential rite of the Mass.

It is interesting to note that from the early 1900s until Vatican II, the liturgical movement was connected with the virtue of social justice. For example, Fr. Lambert Beauduin, OSB (1873-1960), a major figure in the liturgical movement, was a labor chaplain with a strong social conscience and compassion for the poor. Fr. Virgil Michel, OSB (1890-1938) of Minnesota did more than anyone else in the U.S. to promote the liturgical movement and the dogma of the Eucharist. “The liturgy is the ordinary school for [and] the indispensable basis of social reconstruction,” Michel said. The Eucharist inside a church is a failure if it doesn’t live in jobsites and neighborhoods during the week, he preached.

The concept linking Eucharist and social regeneration is called the Mystical Body of Christ. The Mystical Body is Christ acting all week long through people who are allergic to injustice. The phrase was well-known in the years prior to Vatican II. Then it quietly disappeared. 

Could the loss of the Mystical Body concept be listed among the causes of weak appreciation for the Eucharistic dogma? Might a renewed emphasis on social renewal be an effective way to reverence Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist? To be continued…

Droel edits a newsletter on faith and work for National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL

60629)

Humanity and the quest for peace.

 

Isaiah 11

Could there be an evolving of humanity’s awareness of the sacredness of the material and the spiritual?  It would move us towards creation and away from destruction.  (The evolving Divine Milieu – Teilhard de Chardin)  

With wars raging, peace seems impossible.  An ethic of non-violence is unimaginable, but let’s look to St. Paul.  He followed Genesis, ‘all is good’ and Romans 8, All creation is groaning for redemption.    

Love exists in our experience of family and friends.  We are waiting for love that is beyond friendship or family.  We wait for love that is unconditional for all creation.

For in hope we were saved.  Now hope that sees for itself is not hope.  For who hopes for what one sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.  (Romans 8:24-25)

Are we evolving towards universal unconditional love for all creation?   (The evolving  Divine Milieu – Tailhard de Chardin)

 

PBS  -  Teilhard de Chardin, scientific visionary

MPT Presents | Teilhard: Visionary Scientist | PBS

Moral Guidelines

 

Rembrandt

Have we lost our way?  

President Joe Biden seems impervious to the criticism that sending arms to Israel resulting in massive killings is wrong.  Candidate and former President Donald Trump is without shame with the revelation of his sexual crimes. His business dealings even violate capitalist norms. Both men have millions of followers.  
Thomas Friedman says we’ve lost our moorings as a society. (“How We’ve Lost Our Moorings as a Society” May 28, 2024, New York Times)

But what about the ancient Decalogue, the ten commandments? The spring festival of Shavous celebrates God giving the Law to the Hebrews.  Is this just ritual?

The Law states: “You shall not kill; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or your neighbor’s goods.”  Have we dismissed the Decalogue?  Are we pursuing the idolatry of the Golden Calf?  (Ex. 32:19)  

As a nation, our Golden Calf is power and money.

The Two-Fold Detour of Christianity in the Fourth Century by Matthew Fox

 Christianity took a two-fold detour in the fourth century.  First, when the emperor Constantine became Christian and spread Christianity through the empire in order to make some peace between warring factions of Christians.

While peacemaking is a good thing, Christianity paid a severe price when it moved from being essentially a thorn in the empire's side to being a crusade in Christ's name.

New Testament scholar Dominic Crossan wonders aloud if the Nicene Creed called by Constantine was a 'nightmare.'

The 'desert fathers' movement (beginning third century) and subsequent monastic movements (beginning fourth century) both resisted the dominant imperial values of the imperial culture before and after Constantine.

The price paid by a so-called "Cristian empire" was severe on indigenous peoples, their cultures and religions especially from the time of Columbus on.  "Christian empires" of the Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, or Belgian colonizers seldom qualified as something Christ-like.

The second shadow that emerged in the name of Christianity in the fourth century was that of Augustine and his cherished Neo-Platonism.

Augustine planted dualisms of body vs. soul, sexuality vs. spirituality, nature vs. grace, male vs. female alongside his notion of original sin that fashioned a dualistic Christianity that spread in Western Europe and beyond. 

There were movements that resisted this dualism--Aquinas was key--but as historian Pere Chenu laments, it never really took hold in the church. 

Christianity became less and less moored to Jesus and his teachings and to the original meaning of the Christ event--including the Cosmic Christ and a creation-centered mysticism.

Unmoored from the gospels, it became moored to the needs of empire-building including invoking the idea of 'redemption' (understood as redemption from original sin) as the rallying cry to conquer peoples of the earth.  And preaching that one was doomed to hell if this 'redemption' was not accomplished exclusively through Christ.  And feeding the Doctrine of Discovery (mercifully but belatedly buried recently by Pope Francis after five+ centuries).  

The Nicene Creed, crafted by bishops under the eye of Emperor Constantine, does show important traces of the Cosmic Christ cosmology, but it astonishingly leaves out the teaching of Jesus.  No mention whatsoever of 'love thy neighbor'; 'what you do to the least you do to me"; "Be you compassionate as your Father in heaven is compassionate"; the Beatitudes; or justice.  One has to look elsewhere for that--maybe back to the gospels themselves?

Why Unions at Good Companies? The Working Catholic by Bill Droel

“Why did the new, worker friendly workplaces prove unable to keep their employees happy enough not to have to pay union dues?” So asks a Chicago Tribune editorial (4/10/24). The editors have in mind Trader Joe’s, Starbucks, the camping equipment retailer REI plus several museums and theatres here in Chicago and elsewhere. After all, Trader Joe’s has a 7% annual pay increase, a 401K, a health insurance option, employee discount on groceries and more, the Tribune informs us. 

Many executives and managers plus the Tribune editors have a mistaken premise. Employees who desire a union are not entirely motivated by discontent, particularly regarding their wage. The desire for participation is an increasingly important factor in union activity among nurses, tech engineers, hotel staff, autoworkers and more. These employees organize in part to keep their good company good. 

Then too perhaps the Tribune and others are mistaken that these companies really are progressive. The companies in question undermine their image once the word union enters their domain. The noble employers quickly reveal another side. They retaliate. They threaten to close a store or an entire plant. They harass outspoken employees. They make side-deals with passive employees. They begin legal action against employees who promote their cause with t-shirts and tote bags that display the company name or logo. Such employers conclusively reveal their true character when they retain a union-busting firm. They continue their hostility by avoiding conversations and negotiations with employees.

Paternalism is not respectful. Grand mission statements are hollow without genuine involvement of all the workers. 

Catholic labor relations doctrine can help. It states that a decision for or against a union belongs to the employees without paternal or maternal interference from their employer.  Every honest company, no matter the circumstances, should share information with its workers through regular conversations, attractive pamphlets and newsletters plus supplying understandable summaries of the data given to investors. But a union vote is to be without harassment.

Catholic doctrine does not say that any one or another company must have a union. Nor does Catholic doctrine endorse this union for this company. Again, the choice belongs to the employees. 

Catholic doctrine does say that a healthy society has the collective participation of workers in some form. Democratic unions are a normal way to secure participation. Catholic doctrine instructs employers and employees to behave ethically. Retaining a union-busting firm violates Catholic doctrine and is objectively sinful. Instead, employers are advised to seek reputable assistance in their labor relations. Those employers who bargain tough are well within bounds.

For more on this topic, obtain St. John Paul II’s Gospel of Work (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $8)

Psalm 130: De Profundis

 

Out of the depths I call to you, Lord;

Lord, hear my cry!

Thousands of people were killed in Gaza with ordnance paid for by the U.S. 

Gangs in Haiti are armed and powerful.

May your ears be attentive

To my cry for mercy.

   Climate change immediately affects the globe.

If you, Lord, mark our sins,

Lord, who can stand?

Speaking of ‘following the money,’ Opus Dei activist Leonardo Leo, who handpicked our six far-right supreme court judges who dismantled Roe V Wade, is now a billionaire himself. 

(Daily Meditation by Matthew Fox, May 18, 2024)

But with you is forgiveness

And so you are revered.

        Pope Francis says that indifference is a world-wide disease.

Anti-War Protests Seen as Anti-Semitic

 

Religion has ingrained anti-Semitism into the public psyche.  Anti-Semitism is credible as an excuse for the protests by government officials.  Both Jewish and Muslim people are considered Semitic. 

For example, anti-Jewish hatred is found in the Christian version of the Bible, especially some passages read during Holy Week.  Jesus of Nazareth is said to be killed by the Jews. 

Pilate washes his hands.  The blame is on the Jews.

At the end of the famous ‘Camino to Santiago de Compostela,’ pilgrims enter the Cathedral and are faced with the statue of the legendary Santiago Matamoros, Saint James, slayer of Muslims. 

Santiago Matamoros, Saint James, the slayer of the Moors.

Santiago is seated on a horse carrying a sword.  The legend surfaced in the beginning of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain.(9^th Century) 

Santiago Matamoros was the patron of the Fascist General Franco during the Spanish Civil War. 

The anti-war movement rejects the horror of the massacre of thousands of people in Gaza.  Let’s look at a quote from a Jewish writer who said, ‘Love your Enemies?’ (Matthew 5:43-45) This quote is from the Bible, the ‘Book’ that all three Abrahamic religions respect.  Power politics has no reference to such a statement.  This ancient saying is swept out of conscienceness by the political thrust for power. 

The Working Catholic: Social Doctrine Part 16 by Bill Droel

 

 

It was news when this past April employees at a Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga, TN voted overwhelmingly to join United Auto Workers (www.uawregion8.net). The vote is noteworthy because the South is generally not receptive to unions. It is not only noteworthy in the present. We may “someday look back at the Chattanooga vote as a milestone on the road back to the more or less middle-class society” in the U.S., writes Paul Krugman in NY Times (4/26/24). 

The vote’s back story is also intriguing. It has the potential to advance Catholic social thought in our country, specifically the Catholic principle of economic participation and its extension, the industry council plan. In older Catholic textbooks this is called solidarism. In Germany it is co-determinism or works council. In France it is enterprise committees; in Belgium it’s delegates for personnel; and it is joint consultative committee in England.

In his 1937 encyclical, Of a Divine Redeemer, Pope Pius XI (1857-1939) wrote about the industrial council plan. Several Catholics in the U.S. promoted the idea during and after World War II. Its basics are explained in Ed Marciniak’s City and Church by Chuck Shanabruch (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $20). A council meets regularly to discuss industry products and planning. Membership includes executives, employees, middle-managers, government officials, and maybe consumers. Some topics can be off-limits, like wages. The plan does not supersede a union. In fact, its intention is to focus collective bargaining. The plan does not encourage collusion among competitor companies, including price fixing. In fact, the plan’s goal of cooperation enhances production within democratic competition. The industry council solicits and implements ideas from all the participants in a company or an industry. Its outcome lessens the need for government meddling.

As the industry council plan spreads, Marciniak said, neo-liberal industrialism or post-industrialism will be tempered. “Society has lost its organic character,” Marciniak wrote in 1954. Society “is gradually being torn apart by class and racial conflict.” The industry council plan, he emphasized, “is not benevolent paternalism, but rather a real partnership in which working [people] will become co-responsible with management in solving the economic problems of industry.”

Please note: The industry council plan does not hang on the cloths line by itself. It is one contribution to multiple reforms that take shape gradually. Second, the plan is not of, by and for Catholics. There is no need to ever invoke Pius XI or Marciniak. The council’s meetings do not require an opening prayer.

Back to Tennessee. VW, headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany, participates in a works council. VW wanted to implement that model in its Chattanooga plant. However, U.S. labor law seems to require a union before there can be a works council. In 2011 some workers in Chattanooga began a union drive at VW. They lost a vote in February 2014. Reasons for the defeat included the oddity that VW’s Tennessee employees at that time were paid a few cents more than Northern workers represented by UAW. Additionally, some VW employees in Chattanooga lacked confidence in the UAW executives up in Detroit. Along came Shawn Fain, who in March 2023 won a reform campaign to be UAW president. He then led a rolling strike simultaneously at GM, Ford and Stellantis. By October 2023 a framework for a favorable contract was in place.

The success of the UAW’s strike in 2023 and more specifically its 2024 success in Tennessee raise the possibility of a works council in the U.S. Stay tuned.

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a printed newsletter on faith and work.

Voces de la Frontera's March on MAY DAY 2024: Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Gather at Voces' Office, 1027 S. 5th Street, Milwaukee, WI.  

March to the Fiserv Forum on 6th Street and Juneau Avenue

9:30 a.m.  RALLY AT THE VOCES' OFFICE

10:30 a.m.  MARCH TO THE FISERV FORUM

11:30 a.m.   RALLY AT THE FISERV FORUM

The Working Catholic, Immigration Part Three by Bill Droel

 

Archbishop John Hughes (1997-1864) of New York is probably not a suitable role model for a bishop today. And yet…

Hughes was born in Ireland. He once tellingly wrote: For first four days of my life, I was “on social and civil equality with the most favored subjects of the British Empire.” But then I was baptized a Roman Catholic.

Hughes emigrated to the U.S. in 1817 where he worked in a quarry and in landscaping. He was eventually ordained for the Philadelphia diocese and within 12 years was appointed as a bishop to New York City. From the time he arrived on these shores, Hughes strongly felt that Catholicism was in harmony with our Constitution and our democratic ideals. He was consistently positive about pluralism, the electoral process and the law. At the same time, Hughes was a controversial opponent of certain assumptions and attitudes embedded in the dominant culture of his day. Using today’s term, Hughes was a cultural warrior.

Machine Made:  Tammany Hall by Terry Golway (W.W. Norton,  2014) explains the tension that made Hughes a champion of immigrants and a threat to others.  The dominant culture of his time was associated with New York's elites, with evangelical Protestants.  They fancied themselves as reformers, as technocrats.  They knew what was best for society.  But Hughes judged them to be an outdated aristocracy whose hypocrisy denied opportunities to immigrant families.  He saw heavy-handed moralizing in their campaigns for temperance, child welfare and the like.  In fact, to him their notion of social improvement was anti-Catholic, anti-Irish American.

Concurring with the First Amendment of our Constitution and anticipating a key insight of Vatican II (1962-1965), Hughes believed that a religion does better within pluranlism than in a theocracy.  "There is no such thing as a predominant religion" in the U.S., said Hughes.  Ours is not "a Protestant country or a Catholic country or a Jewish country or a Christian country in a sense that it would give any sect or combination of sects the right to oppress any other sect."  A minority, he continued, 'is entitled to the same protection as the greatest majority."  further, a minority has 'the right to reject the values of a dominant culture."  

Hughes was best-known for applying his understanding of the Constitution to education. To Hughes, as Golway writes, the public schools “were imbued with Protestant assumptions and attitudes.” Hughes judged that they were sectarian and thereby undermined our Catholic style of Christianity. The school system “conveyed cultural disrespect.” Hughes first attempted to gain public funding for a small number of parish schools, but his political and legal efforts were thwarted. Hughes then concentrated on bricks-and-mortar. “Build our own schools first,” he said. Church buildings can come later. Today, Hughes is considered a founder of the Catholic school system through which thousands upon thousands of immigrant children and their descendants have moved into the mainstream.

Hughes “was outspoken, aggressive and political to his very marrow,” Golway writes. His nickname was Dagger John. His style would not go over among Catholics today, accustomed as they are to breezy, polite clergy. Further, his style is unacceptable in post-Vatican II theology in which lay people, not Church employees, are expected to be competent leaders in civic affairs. But Hughes’ insights are still relevant.

§  The Gift of Immigrants. All immigrant groups are, allowing for a period of adjustment, a source economic growth and social energy for our country.

§  Genuine Pluralism. People learn and exercise virtues through the give-and-take of family life and in their particular parish/neighborhood. By contrast, the diversity movement in our schools and businesses does not help people find meaning or propel them in society. As it turns out, Catholic particularity within ethnic communities and parishes makes for citizens sensitive to the greater good.

§  Disabling Help. Many immigrant families arrive in the U.S. needing resources. When government funds are involved, self-sufficiency stalls. Instead of dealing through a bureaucracy, help is ennobling when it is funneled through proximate institutions (ethnic networks, a parish, a precinct, an independent settlement house, a neighborhood clinic and a union hall or worker center).

§  Quality Education. The mix of races and ethnicities in today’s public schools can encourage social awareness and genuine tolerance. So too with the philosophy of a Catholic school—more so these days because those schools admit a significant number of non-Catholic students and a number of Black students.

§  Religious Liberty. Our Constitution’s First Amendment is a two-way street. Government shall not meddle in a church’s religious affairs nor favor any one religion. No distinctive religious doctrine shall dominate any part of government. In the other direction, when clergy and other Church leaders enter the public square they must argue their positions in civic terms. Catholic clergy must stop short of partisanship. (Hughes admittedly inched over the society-partisan politics boundary by running a slate of local electoral candidates.)

Droel edits a printed newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)