Six Months After Christmas: Still Praying That Bishop Paprocki Will Reject Prejudice Against Muslims

Today is the half-way mark on the calendar between Christmas 2010 and Christmas 2011.  We're six months out from Bishop Thomas John Paprocki's choice to promote prejudice against Muslims in his 2010 Midnight Mass celebration at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield, Illinois.  We have six months until Bishop Paprocki gives his next Christmas Eve homily.

Since he is the bishop in charge of the diocese in which I live, I am praying each day that Bishop Paprocki will turn away from the serious sin of bigotry that he demonstrated in his Christmas Eve homily.  Here's a link to that homily.  The bishop began that homily by celebrating (not noting, not explaining, but celebrating) the execution of a Muslim general on Christmas Day in 1683.  He then went on to lament that Muslims today "wish to move in legally and peacefully" to the United States and Western Europe in order to  "impose Islamist values and sharia law with little or no resistance."  That's right, folks.  The way Bishop Paprocki sees it, you can't even trust Muslims who come in peace.  They all, evidently, have something awful up their sleeves.

When someone is in the habit of prejudging others--particularly a large group of individuals--we call that prejudice.   People who are proud of their prejudice are bigots.  People who encourage other people to become bigots are...well, do we have a word for that?  Some would call such folks hate-mongers.  I'm sure the bishop would not call himself that.  After all, he would point out, he never said anyone should hate Muslims.  Just reject them out of hand.  Including the ones who come "peacefully and legally."  And, oh yes, he also says--more out of rhetorical obligation than heartfelt belief, I suspect--that "not every Muslim is a terrorist."  But he only makes that point once, and very briefly, and it's the same sort of thing that every bigoted person says when he hopes that non-bigots will take him seriously.  It rarely works.

Catholic Christians are called by the church to go the Sacrament of Reconciliation and confess their sins in private, before only God and a priest.  We are not, under normal circumstances, obliged to repent of our sins in a public forum--although we are, most certainly, expected to repent with a sincere heart, if perhaps only in private.  It's entirely possible that Bishop Paprocki has already repented of the sin of bigotry privately, that is, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  It's not my business, obviously, to know whether he has or not.

In this case, however, it sure seems that Bishop Paprocki should supplement any sacramental confession of the sin of bigotry with a public apology and repentance.  For he did not just engage in bigotry--which, sadly, most of us have struggled with in one form or another in our own hearts.  No, what Bishop Paprocki did was much worse.  He used the Holy Mass to encourage others to adopt his prejudice.  In other words, he encouraged every person who attended that Mass, and every person who read the homily thereafter, to engage in sin.  He encouraged others to prejudge individuals as having evil intent when he knows nothing of those individuals.  And, once again:  he used the Mass--Christmas Eve Mass--to do this.

We are all sinners; we are all in need of conversion and acceptance of God's mercy.  With regard to the bishop's very public sin last Christmas, let's hope that the bishop is able to come to terms with this sin and turn from it.  Let us hope he will encourage his flock to reject prejudice and bigotry in all its forms.  (Think about it.  The bishop's example of showing the faithful how one recognizes sin in his own life, turns from it, and seeks to make things right would be inspirational for every Catholic in the diocese.)  And let's also pray that the bishop will remember to celebrate Jesus' love at Midnight Mass six months from now.  (Is it not a shame for a savior to be born--a savior who leads us deeper into God's love--and for a bishop to miss the point of that event?  How sad for those people who went to Mass to celebrate God's love on Christmas Eve.)

The good news for Bishop Paprocki, on the off chance (the incredibly minuscule chance) he stumbles across this blog entry:  God can help you turn away from your sin--even one as drastic as the homily you gave last Christmas.  (Who knows?  You might even have a chance to sit down and get to know a few Muslims as friends, as people.  Don't be afraid, sir.  They might be praying for you as well, for all you know.  Open your heart to God's love, Bishop Paprocki.  You're better than the sin you committed last Christmas in front of all those people.)

(For what it's worth, here's a link to my original post on Bishop Paprocki's homily--from this January.)

SNAP To It: Kansas City & Bishop Finn

SNAP is pushing for a grand jury investigation in Kansas City, so reports The National Catholic Reporter.  Thank goodness.  It's about time.  Good wishes for whoever filled their gas tanks.

I used to be skeptical about SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.  Used to think the group was crassly anti-Catholic in that they never bothered to broaden their focus to other populations of sexual abuse survivors and the people who victimized them.  After all, there are plenty of abusers who are Baptist, and Methodist, and United Church of Christ, and...well, you get the idea.  [Update and correction: A commenter who stopped by has set me straight.  There are indeed SNAP chapters that focus on groups other than the Catholic church.]

Not to mention that most priests (including every priest I've ever known personally, as far as I can tell) are not prone to victimizing children.  Most priests are decent men; some of them are very holy men, and not in a cardboard cut-out sense, but in a genuinely down-to-earth, caring way.

So then:  Why a group that focuses solely on the Catholic church?  That's the question I used to ask myself, and a question which many defenders of the church still ask.   (I'm thinking of people who argue, rather sadly, "We're no worse than the rest of society..."  Not much of a defense there, methinks. Nor much witness to the message of Christ.)

And then I got it.  The Catholic church, unlike so many other organizations and employers who have predators within their ranks, is highly centralized in its policies and decision making.  There is a company line here.  For decades and decades and decades -- with regard to the abuse of minors -- it was a lousy company line, but one that was followed by bishop after bishop in diocese after diocese.  Ignore.  Cover up.  Lie.  Lawyer up.  Stall.

SNAP is needed.  SNAP brings both attention and heat to the cases it highlights.  If its rhetoric is occasionally  inflammatory, its raison d'etre is clear.  The group wants to bring about real change in the church, which includes an end to abuse and cover-ups, and justice for survivors of abuse.  Believe it or not, the church owes SNAP a big round of thanks.  (I'm guessing, though, that members don't expect to hear any clapping until  they get to heaven.  The church on earth is too busy calling the lawyers.)

Nest of Cardinals...and Gratitude

My wife pointed out to me last night that a mother and father cardinal established their nest in an elevated nook of our back porch (on the branch of a huge shrub) while we weren't looking.  Evidently several chicks hatched while we were away on vacation, and we can now see mom and dad bringing food home on a regular basis.  Occasionally, my wife sees little beaks straining upward.  (She has better eyes than me.)  At this moment, sitting here with the door open before the day's heat takes over, I hear clusters of their chirping, the sound of joy or hunger, I'm not sure which.  Would love to snap a picture, but I don't want to trespass on their space.

In any case, the green leaves and the chirps and the summer breeze all leave me feeling very grateful for the five senses God blessed me with.  And I am reminded, as well, of a short video that fits rather nicely with any moment of gratitude.  (Sometimes I watch this piece after a long day, and I always sleep more peacefully that night.)

The speaker here is Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk.

Tim Russert: A Catholic and a Good Man

Greg Kandra, at the Deacon's Bench blog on Patheos, has a couple nice tributes to Tim Russert, who died three years ago this week.  Every Sunday morning when my son was a baby, I would hold him and he and I would watch MTP together--bottle for him, coffee for me, dogs at our feet.  Then the child discovered cartoons.

May Tim Russert rest in the eternal peace and loving embrace of God, merciful creator and lover of all souls.  May God have mercy on each of us at the hour of our death.

Nugget from William J. O'Malley

This morning one book's spine seemed to jump out at me from the stacks of books at bedside.  The book, God: The Oldest Question, by William J. O'Malley, S.J., is one I haven't touched in three or four years.  (This inference is based on the convenience store receipt with which it was bookmarked.  I wonder if I really needed that York Peppermint Pattie...or if I managed to give the second one to my wife, as I hope I did.  Anyway.)

As I skimmed O'Malley's wonderful book this morning, I came across this line, which for some reason I neglected to place an X next to the last time I encountered it.  I'll make up for that here on the Net.

"If the gospel doesn't unnerve you, it's quite likely that you've never really heard it."

Never really heard it.  Heard it, yes, but without hearing it.  Heard the words of the gospel read aloud, yes; read the words with my own eyes, yes.

But have I taken it to heart?  Lived it out in a pervasive, transformative, rubber-meets-the-road way?  Allowed myself to see how far I am from the mark of God's generosity?

Hmmm.  Well now.  Not so much.  Which leaves me thinking:  I have plenty of road still to cover.  And no footsteps to waste.  I need to start listening to the gospel for real and living it like I mean it.  All along the walk. More kindness.  More benefit of the doubt.  A quieter voice except when loudness is truly needed.  Less attention to things, more attention to people.  More humility, less pride.  A greater awareness that the present moment matters, even as I realize that this will all pass away--especially the individual moments in which I might, somehow, learn how to be a Christian..  And, along with that, I need to give myself permission to be unnerved by all that God calls each of us to, and unnerved by the sweep and depth of God's love as well.

Yes, I truly do need to hear the gospel.

Andre Dubus: "A sacrament is..."

One thing that I love in Catholicism (and in progressive strains of spirituality more generally) is attention to the small stuff.  In small things, one sometimes discovers hints of God's love and crumbs of God's grace.

Here's the wonderful short story writer Andre Dubus (1936-1999), a bit of an ambivalent Catholic himself.  This is from his piece "Sacraments" in his second essay collection, Mediations from a Movable Chair:

"A sacrament is physical, and within it is God's love; as a sandwich is physical, and nutritious and pleasurable, and within it is love, if someone makes it for you and gives it to you with love; even harried or tired or impatient love, but with love's direction and concern, love's again and again wavering and distorted focus on goodness; then God's love too is in the sandwich."

I am reminded to savor and be grateful for the small joys of life.  Within those small things, small moments, there is a rich experience that could have passed me by but did not.  There is food for the soul, grace aplenty, crumb by crumb.

Warren Zevon, too, had a similar (sandwich-themed) observation when he appeared on David Letterman's show in the fall of 2002, when he was facing what his doctors told him was a deadly case of lung cancer:  "Enjoy every sandwich."

Excuse me while I get lunch ready for my son, allowing in the possibility that maybe a sacrament is waiting to happen, notwithstanding all the flaws in the sandwich maker.

The Unintentionally Honest Bishop

The sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church (meaning abuse + cover-up by bishops) is not over.  We all wish it were, but it's not.  In Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali recently removed twenty-one priests from active ministry--only after a grand jury investigation led to charges against several of the priests, including the cardinal's right-hand man, who is accused of helping to cover-up suspected criminal misconduct by priests.

Half-way across the country, another bishop, Robert Finn, has covered up another case of a priest who is alleged to have engaged in crimes against children.  If you want to believe that what the bishops' conference did in 2002 in Dallas fixed the problem, you owe it to yourself to read about the case of Bishop Finn.

Robert Finn should resign as bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph (Missouri) diocese.  Finn has admitted in the last few weeks that he shielded a priest who was behaving inappropriately towards elementary-aged children.  The priest is in jail at the moment on child-pornography charges.  Bishop Finn has claimed he did not bother to read a four-page letter which a Catholic school principal delivered to the diocese one year ago; Finn did not read the letter, that is, until about five days ago, after the priest was arrested.

Think about the best case here:  Finn was indifferent to allegations of inappropriate conduct toward children; he was not interested in learning more after his vicar general summarized the letter for him.  Worst case: The bishop is lying about not knowing the letter's contents until last week.  One hopes the bishop is not lying--indifference would be bad enough, of course.  However, previous abuse cases elsewhere have shown some bishops are not above ignoring allegations of misconduct and then lying about their knowledge of those allegations.

Finn acknowledges he knew the priest had at least one nude photo of a child on his computer as long ago as December 2010, along with numerous other photos of kids from the school.  At that time (he has recently claimed), he had someone in the diocese (who?) describe the photo to a police officer who was a friend of diocesan officials--instead of furnishing the suspect photo to the cops--and was supposedly told the picture did not constitute a criminal offense.  Notice that no one told the diocese that the priest's behavior was normal or harmless.

Did Bishop Finn notify anyone on the diocesan child-protection board, the group that is charged with looking into allegations and calling the police?  He did not.  The head of that board was "flabbergasted" when he heard about these allegations in the last few weeks.

There's no way to get around it:  Finn has proven himself to be a bad bishop, an irresponsible shepherd who let the wolf hang around the sheep even though he heard the wolf howling.  Finn is a bishop who needs to resign immediately.

Ironically, however, Bishop Finn unintentionally spoke a small shard of truth in explaining why he did not turn the priest into the police in December.  He told parishioners, by way of apology, that "We have a priest shortage and we needed a pastor there."  The bishop did not want to heighten the vocation crisis in the church--so, he kept a priest in action who he had every reason to suspect might pose a danger to children.  "We have a priest shortage here..."

In the early 1990s, when Wilton Gregory was bishop of Belleville, Illinois (prior to his service as president of the USCCB and his elevation to his current post as archbishop of Atlanta), he made the brave decision to remove thirteen  of his priests from active ministry because credible evidence existed that each of those men had abused children.  Thirteen priests out of about eighty priests total in the diocese who were then below retirement age.  Such a cut--while absolutely necessary--took courage.  The Belleville diocese had a priest shortage prior to the firing of those thirteen men; obviously, the shortage was worse after they left.  Of course, all in all, the diocese was much better off once abuser priests were removed.  

Every diocese obviously needs to follow its stated policy of calling the police when a suspected abuser is discovered among its workforce.  Yet Bishop Robert Finn is, perhaps, ultimately more in keeping with the times than his colleague, Wilton Gregory.  Finn, a staunch conservative, knows that whatever else happens, we simply, absolutely cannot have women priests--so say Benedict XVI and the Roman Curia (as they attempt to raise to the level of infallibility John Paul II's teaching from 1994 that everyone should please just shut up and stop mentioning women's ordination).  We cannot have married priests--unless, of course, you count those married Anglican priests whom the Catholic church is glad to poach; those married priests who are, by coincidence, afraid enough of women clergy and women bishops to want to split with the Anglican faith.

Joseph Girzone, retired priest and author, has written about the cost that the church incurs as a result of its ban on married priests and women priests.  Bishop Finn's failure to act is reflective of both his negligence as a shepherd and his belief that a priest who is dangerous to children is at least better than a woman priest or a married priest.  He's following the company line on that one.  Which is, sadly, one reason why he likely will not do the right thing and quit.

Catholics in the pews who want to see irresponsible bishops such as Finn go need to speak loudly:  both with their voices and their wallets.  If you have a bad bishop, why not put a note in the collection basket that you are praying for the bishop's conversion.  A prayer of that sort is indeed a meaningful contribution to the church's welfare.  Then give your money to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, your local food pantry, or a crisis pregnancy center.

And if you should happen to discover you are not alone in this effort--if you find, for instance, that dozens or hundreds of your fellow Catholics locally are behaving similarly--why not contact your local newspaper or TV station so they can report on this phenomenon?

NB:  Thom, at Faith in the 21st Century, has a good discussion of the Kansas City case, with some attention to what Finn really wants to spend his energy on:  bringing back Latin, liturgical lace, and everything that might undermine the reforms of Vatican II.  On the other side of the coin, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, at the arch-conservative What Does The Prayer Really Say, has a pro-Finn commentary; in Fr. Z's comment box, one finds folks claiming that Finn's approach to this case was just dandy.

With or Without You?

I'm of the generation that experienced the release of the 1987 U2 album, The Joshua Tree, as a cultural and spiritual moment.  (There were also plenty of catchy hooks; have to admit that.)  I remember a couple of friends standing in line at midnight outside the record store on Grand River in East Lansing, waiting for the LP to go on sale.  (Perhaps one or two of my friends bought it on CD, though  most of us did not own CD players at that point.  For many people my age, that seems to have been one of the first albums they made a point of buying once they ponied up for a CD player a few years later.)  Plenty of wonderful songs on that album.  The first one to hit the radio was "With or Without You," a song you can listen to on any number of levels--romantic, existential, spiritual.  Both desire and ambivalence pound through that song, and the dilemma is no closer to being resolved at the end of the song than it was at the beginning.

Fast forward two and a half decades.  I'm not that angst-ridden undergraduate.  Now I'm a somewhat angst-ridden middle-aged fellow, and I still love that song.  Today, though, when I hear it, I think largely of my identity as a Catholic:  This church into which I was born (baptized at two weeks old, thank you very much), this church which I thought was something nearly flawless during my nine years (K-8) of Catholic school.  (That school closed forever last year.  My year of graduation was smack dab in the middle of its sixty-year history, whatever that signifies.)  I spent most of eighth grade thinking about whether I had a vocation to the priesthood even as I recovered--ever so slowly!--from a crush on a girl the previous year who ended up going with another guy to the school carnival.  I wished them well (sort of) and thought that Jesus was with me every step of the way.  (There must have been some girl that a fourteen-year-old Jesus thought was cute, right?)

It was not until my junior or senior year of high school that I first questioned why women couldn't become priests.  It wasn't until college that I first began to question--during a late night conversation with a friend who had been brought up Methodist--the shaky logic and disturbing implications of the church's ban on artificial contraception.  Not until my late twenties or early thirties did I question the church's teaching that the only way a gay or lesbian person could live a holy life was to remain completely celibate for his or her entire life--even if that individual had found an opportunity for love and commitment that, from all appearances, was both real and life-giving.  (No, I'm really not interested in any debates about procreative potential.  Life-long romantic relationships can indeed be "life-giving" in many senses that do not involve the combining of a sperm and an egg.  I write this as somebody who is one-half of an infertile heterosexual couple that has experienced any number of "life-giving" moments over the years.)  

My point, however, is that I've learned to question.  I've learned that I cannot be a good Catholic (or a good Christian of any variety, or even a half-way decent human being period) without asking tough questions.  Questions about the sexism in the church; questions about the continuing difficulty the church has in honestly coming to terms with the history of sexual abuse and cover-up and excuse-making that has pervaded the church for far, far too long.  (Think the issue is completely resolved?  Read this recent piece by Catholic apologist George Weigel and think again.  One silver lining, though, if you click on the article:  Even the readers of the very-conservative National Review call Weigel to task on the issue of abuse victims' ages.)

I'm left to wonder whether I can live with the Catholic church.  Can I stay Catholic?  Should I?  (My spouse and son are Catholic.  I don't want to go across town to worship at the Episcopal church, even if I suspect my conscience and soul would feel more at home there.)  I believe in the Real Presence of the Eucharist in the Catholic mass--I truly do.  However, I also believe that Christ is truly present (if in a different sense perhaps) in the people who gather in all sincerity to worship and serve God in other faith communities...and, not infrequently, I have brief glimpses of Christ's definite presence in people and groups that do not bother at all with the label of "Christian" or devout church-goer.  God is present--can work through, can be seen in--all sorts of folks, no matter what they call themselves.  This I believe.

And yet I do get something out of the Catholic route to God.  I dig many aspects of Catholic spirituality.  I get a lot out of the stations of the cross (when I take the time to do them).  I love St. Francis and Julian of Norwich and Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton and Mychal Judge, the Catholic fire chaplain who died while ministering to his firefighters during the 2001 attack on the WTC.  Those folks were not the "property" of the Catholic church, but their lives were rooted in the best parts of Catholic teaching and spirituality.  Too often, though, the Catholic road I see myself traveling is cluttered with vestiges of sexism, self-righteousness, legalism, and outright corruption.

With or without the Catholic church?  (Bono's voice: "A slight of hand and a twist of fate...")  I can't live with or without you.  But maybe--who knows?--maybe one of these days I'll find out for certain if I can.

Really: Which Bishops Deserve to Be Fired?

Good editorial in The National Catholic Reporter on a very bad event:  that is, Pope Benedict's decision to fire a bishop in Australia who was guilty of the terrible offense of pondering (in a newspaper column) whether the church should consider ordaining women and married men to the priesthood.  As the editorial points out, we can't manage to fire bishops for covering up sexual abuse and enabling abusers, but we sure can go after the ones who think creatively about the church's crisis in priestly vocations.

No surprise.  This is the same Vatican that claimed, only a year ago, that an attempt to ordain a woman as a priest is as morally repugnant as a priest sexually abusing a child.  They are both considered major offenses against the faith.  Seriously.  And the Vatican was happy (not embarrassed) to share that point of view with the world.  Never mind that one is a crime in every modern society, and the other is a debatable issue at worst and a good solution to the vocations crisis at best.