"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).