Talking Point Number Three: Islamophobia

As long as I could remember, my mother dreamed of visiting Greece. While celebrating Christmas Eve 1994 at my parents' home shortly after her retirement, I opened a small package with my name on it under the tree. Inside was a ticket for an Aegean Cruise which was to be spent with my parents. Already in my thirties, I was between relationships and feeling particularly alone at the time, so it was the perfect moment for such a trip. "Maybe you'll meet someone" my mother suggested.

The trip took place in spring of the following year. It began in Athens, a city fascinating for its antiquities, less so for its more contemporary aspects. We spent a few days there before embarking on the cruise. It so happened there was a strike of dock workers at the port of Piraeus where we were scheduled to board the ship, aptly named the Marco Polo. That strike proved fortunate as the travel company arranged for us to meet up with the ship farther down the coast enabling us to visit more of mainland Greece including the ruins of the city of Corinth whose first century Church was the recipient of a series of letters from Saint Paul which would become part of the New Testament. 

Close by we boarded the ship which took us first to the picture postcard islands of Mykonos (famous for its windmills) and Santorini, before sailing to more substantial places, first south to Heraklion, the capital of Crete. There we visited the most ancient site of our trip, the Bronze Age Palace of Knossos, center of the ancient Minoan Civilization. From there we sailed east to the island of Rhodes where my mom and I took an excursion to the city of Lindos, featuring its own city in the air (Acropolis), its magnificence in my estimation anyway, eclipsing the more famous one in Athens. 

The following day was spent entirely at sea with a sail-by (if there is such a term) of the island of Patmos where legend has it, the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible. 

Had our trip ended there, it would have been a smashing success. But in retrospect it was just getting started. We were headed for Turkey.

One of our stops on the western coast of Turkey was the city of Çanakkale, strategically located at the entrance to the Dardanelles (also known as the Straight of Gallipoli for you WWI buffs), the narrow inlet that connects the Aegean to the Sea of Marmara, then via the Bosporus which bisects the city of Istanbul, the Black Sea. About one half hour from Çanakkale sit the ruins of the ancient city of Troy. 

With that visit in mind, to get into the spirit of the trip, I bought along a copy of the Odyssey to read during our time at sea. As is often the fate of good intentions however, there were far too many distractions to seriously consider Homer's epic poem: attending to my father's fragile health, the result of his over-exposure to the Aegean sun, thoughts of my own sad state of affairs back home, and perhaps most of all the female members of the ship's staff, sunbathing topless on the top deck of the ship. 

My own twentieth century Odyssey, complete with the semi-naked sirens, ended up in Istanbul, the most breath-takingly beautiful, exhilarating, fascinating, complicated, exhausting, frustrating and magnificent place I've ever visited.

But that's a story for another day and besides, I'm way off track of the subject at hand.

I bring this up because of all the great experiences of our trip, there is one thing that has stuck in my head perhaps more than anything else with the exception of our time in Istanbul. It was a comment made by our tour guide in Kuşadası, Turkey en route to the location of another place that plays a key role in the history of Christianity, the city of Ephesus. Our guide was a Turk about my age who in addition to his engaging personality and encyclopedic knowledge of the material he presented to us, had a great command of colloquial English. As this was our first port-of-call in Turkey he took it upon himself to introduce us to the Turkish nation, its culture, its history (selected parts of it anyway), its language, and the predominant religion of its people, Islam. Then he made the comment I will always remember. He said emphatically:

"We are Turks, NOT Arabs."

That little tidbit was not news to me nor I'm guessing was it news to most of our fellow travelers, although I could be wrong. We Americans, who constituted the majority of our group, have a deserved reputation for being remarkably ignorant of the world outside our borders, as has been made quite obvious since the events of this past October 7, and I'm sure our guide was aware of that.

Of course, I can't read his mind nearly thirty years after the fact, but by the way he made that comment, not as an aside but rather as a talking point, I couldn't help but think what he was really saying to us was this:

"We are not terrorists."

For a little context, remember this was 1995, a little more than six years before the mother-of-all terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. By 1995, acts of terrorism were commonplace all around the world and their perpetrators were a varied lot with a diverse set of axes to grind. The terms jihad, al-Qaeda and Islamophobia were not yet household words in the non-Muslim world in 1995 and international terrorism was far from the exclusive domain of Arab-Islamic extremists, as it remains today.

Yet they were up there.

Shortly before our trip, the deadliest act of terrorism (at the time) on American soil, the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building happened in Oklahoma City. 168 people lost their lives and hundreds more were injured. I distinctly remember early speculation on who were the perps. Al-Qaeda, who had already committed several acts of terrorism directed at Americans overseas was high on the list. Of course that was wrong, the barbarous act in Oklahoma was committed by home grown American ultra-right-wing extremist terrorists.

In my last post I mentioned that there is a problem with the term Islamophobia. It was probably coined in the 1920s but came into common usage sometime in the 1990s, resurrected some say by Islamists as a parallel term to antisemitism, that is, the distrust and hatred of Jewish people. Beyond describing hatred of Muslims, in a cynical sense this word could be used to deflect criticism of Islam, equating the criticism of the religion with racism, much as the charge of antisemitism is sometimes used to deflect criticism of Israel.

Let me say this: hatred directed at Muslim people is real and like antisemitism, it is a scourge on humanity. There should just be a better word for it.

The problem with the term "Islamophobia" is that it does not, at least in its etymological sense, mean the hatred of a people as does the word antisemitism *, but rather the fear of a religion.

As our friend the Turkish tour guide pointed out, Islam is not confined to a single ethnicity or race. Because it is a missionary faith like Christianity, anyone can be a Muslim.

Given that, it should be obvious that the fear of a particular religion is not the same as the hatred of a people. The next question then should be this, can it be reasonable to fear a religion?

Well, when someone invokes the name of God before blowing him or herself up along with several innocent people on a bus, or intentionally flying an airplane into a skyscraper filled with thousands, or raping, torturing and butchering men women and children in their homes as they go about their daily lives, I'd say, yes, it is reasonable to fear that.

It is argued that all of these acts when done in the name of Islam, are a perversion of the religion, that Islam actually condemns in no uncertain terms the killing of innocent people. I have argued that myself in this space. 

Unfortunately like all religious dogma, there are loopholes. 

Some, such as the contemporary atheist philosopher and popular commentator Sam Harris, would say there are more such loopholes in Islam than in other contemporary religions, making it particularly dangerous. As I am far from an expert on Islam, I am not in any position to say if that is true.

What I do feel qualified to discuss is my own faith tradition, Christianity, specifically that of the Roman Catholic Church.

One obvious loophole in Catholicism is perhaps its most beautiful attribute, the spirit of forgiveness raised to an act of God through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, otherwise known as Confession. By openly revealing our sins we humble ourselves before God (through the intervention of a priest) and come to terms with the fact that yet another thing that binds us humans together is that we all make mistakes; we all fall short of the perfection of God. Most important of all, while forgiving our sins, God calls upon us to "forgive those who transgress against us". 

For me, one of the most powerful passages of the New Testament concerns forgiveness:

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Matthew 18:18

In other words, we are bound by our grudges big and small that we carry around through life like millstones around our necks. Forgiveness unbinds us of the millstone. Forgive, and we will be free of the burden, and can be forgiven ourselves.

This is one of the central tenets of Christianity.

However, in practice, like so many aspects of Catholic dogma, confession long ago came to be a ritual whose spirit got lost somewhere along the way. For many Catholics, reconciliation is all about one's own redemption while forgetting all that other boring stuff. Confession to many, is like a get out of jail free card in Monopoly, justifying bad actions in advance, knowing full well that a trip to the confessional and the penance of few Hail Marys will make everything AOK.

Obviously, that's not how it was intended to work. 

Yet for innumerable Catholics from little old ladies picking flowers without permission to professional hitmen, from priests abusing children to their bishops who swept their actions under the rug, sins big, small and enormous are intentionally committed by Catholics with the full expectation that God has their back, so long as they jump through the right hoops.

So much for good intentions.

Now anyone with a shred of history in their head, knows that the sins of the Roman Catholic Church are profound and numerous. The Crusades, the Inquisition, need I say more? I could go on all day but I won't. If there ever was a religion worthy of inciting fear, it would be the one in which I am a member.

I'm not certain how much the two acts of the Church I just mentioned were inspired by Christian scripture, or simply the acting out of tribal instincts in response to socio/political/economic events of the day, while using a cut and paste version of scripture to justify them. I suspect more the latter than the former. My guess is that Sam Harris would agree when he compares Christianity favorably to Islam, (remember he's an atheist so he rejects both). When Harris compares the two faiths as he has done recently, he doesn't point out those quite obvious examples of brutality committed in the name of Christ. Instead, Harris argues that morally speaking, we in the West (whatever that entails), as a civilization have come a long way since the days of the Crusades, and that the East has a lot of catching up to do. This, according to Harris, is a result of Islam holding them back. 

Sam Harris is not alone in defying current political correctness by singling out Islam as a backwards force. Here is link to a video of a lecture given by the popular astro-physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson introduced by Steven Weinberg, discussing the relationship between Islam and science.

I'm fairly certain that a vast number of people in the non-Muslim world, are not aware of the golden age of Islam of which Professor Tyson speaks. Coinciding with the Arab Empire, at the time the largest empire the world had ever known, it was a period of tremendous breakthroughs in human knowledge all brought to the world by Arab scholars, inventors, mathematicians, scientists, philosophers and other learned individuals. All this took place in what we in the West refer to as the "Dark Ages", a time when in Tyson's words, "the Europeans were busy disemboweling heretics". I might add that the Europeans at the same time, under the authority of the Church, were also busy burning books, attempting to destroy much of the accumulated knowledge of the world at the time, especially that written by pagans such as Plato and Aristotle, under the assumption that the only knowledge worth preserving was to be found in the Bible. 

Meanwhile the Arabs were taking much of that knowledge and translating it into Arabic. Had they not, scores of works of ancient philosophy, science, medicine and mathematics, may have been lost forever. 

And then it all stopped according to Tyson; scientific inquiry among Arabs ground to a halt somewhere in the 13th Century. He attributes this decline to one man, Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. According to Tyson, al-Ghazali codified Islam, much in the same way that St. Augustine codified Christianity. Among the tenets that al-Ghazali came up with Tyson says, is that "mathematics is the work of the devil." 

"Nothing good can come out of that philosophy" Tyson retorted.

Neil deGrasse Tyson has made a brilliant career of making complex scientific ideas accessible to the masses. I am a member of those masses. But simplification in order to explain an idea is not the same as dumbing something down in order to make a point, which he unfortunately does here. 

Parts of his premise are correct, in the period between 750 and 1258 CE, corresponding to the years of the Arab Empire, or more accurately the Abbasid Caliphate, centered in Baghdad and extending from Spain through Persia, there was an explosion of ground-breaking contributions made by Arabs in the fields of science, medicine, philosophy and education. He is also correct about the decline of those contributions, (although not nearly as abrupt as he claims) at the end of that period and from which there has been no significant recovery.

And yes, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, was indeed a profoundly influential Muslim cleric. some say second only to Mohammad himself regarding his influence on the faith. But al-Ghazali was also a polymath: an intellectual, a scholar, mystic, philosopher as well as theologian. He was as much a part of the golden age of Islam as anyone, as well as being a great influence on many non-Muslim philosophers including Maimonidies, Thomas Aquinas, and David Hume. 

Tyson states that al Ghazali taught people "how to be good Muslims", implying that to mean strict, unquestioning fealty to the Quran being the cornerstone of the faith, and that all earthly pursuits such as mathematics and science were not only fruitless but also contrary to the teachings of scripture. 

This could not be further from the truth. Al Ghazali was a firm advocate of reason and critical thinking and judgement. He insisted that earthly pursuits like math and science, which he groups together with philosophy, were essential studies, not in conflict with matters of faith. Reading a bit of his work, you can judge for yourself:

There are those things in which the philosophers believe, and which do not come into conflict with any religious principle. And, therefore, disagreement with the philosophers with respect to those things is not a necessary condition for the faith in the prophets and the apostles (may God bless them all). An example is their theory that the lunar eclipse occurs when the light of the Moon disappears as a consequence of the interposition of the Earth between the Moon and the Sun. ….

We are not interested in refuting such theories either; for the refutation will serve no purpose. He who thinks that it is his religious duty to disbelieve such things is really unjust to religion, and weakens its cause. For these things have been established by astronomical and mathematical evidence which leaves no room for doubt. If you tell a man, who has studied these things— so that he has sifted all the data relating to them, and is, therefore, in a position to forecast when a lunar or a solar eclipse will take place: whether it will be total or partial; and how long it will last —that these things are contrary to religion, your assertion will shake his faith in religion, not in these things. Greater harm is done to religion by an immethodical helper than by an enemy whose actions, however hostile, are in his yet regular. For, as the proverb goes, a wise enemy is better than an ignorant friend.

From  Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers)

In his thesis, Tyson gives little credence to the reasonable possibility that the decline of the scientific contributions of Arabs is likely to be attributable to the decline of their Empire after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols (incidentally, ancestors of the modern-day Turks) in 1258, and the subsequent centuries of invasions by the Crusaders.  Instead, he insists that the strict religion foisted upon the Muslim people by al-Ghazali is the sole culprit.

Why? 

Well, al-Ghazali gets the last laugh on this one as he seems to have anticipated Neil deGrasse Tyson's comments by some nine centuries:

The greatest thing in which the atheists rejoice is for the defender of religion to declare these [astronomical demonstrations] and their like are contrary to religion thus the path for refuting religion becomes easy if the likes [of this argument defending religion] are rendered a condition [for its truth].

Again, from  Tahāfut al-Falāsifa

As one commentator noted, had Tyson spent five minutes reading the Wikipedia entry on al Ghazali, it "could have prevented him from completely misquoting Al Ghazali and shamelessly misrepresenting history." 

Indeed.

Yet even the staunchest defenders of Islam are at a loss to fully explain why there was never a rekindling of the glory days of scientific inquiry in the Arab and more broadly, the Muslim world since the twelfth century.

And the same people are even more at a loss to explain the horrific acts committed in the name of Allah.

But in this respect at least, Muslims are not alone in lamenting the fact that some of their brothers and sisters in faith have used their sacred scripture to justify abhorrent acts. 

Here is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli people shortly after the 10/7 Hamas attacks in their country:

You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.

Amalek, or the Amalekites, were enemies of the nation of Israel from biblical times.  

This is from the First book of Samuel, Chapter 15:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ 

The God of the Old Testament didn't fool around.

It's hard to look at Israel's response in Gaza after the 10/7 attacks and not think this is what Netanyahu had in mind.

But for my money, historically speaking, the most devastating line of scripture found in any of the sacred texts of all three of the Abrahamic religions combined, (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is found in the same Gospel of Matthew of the New Testament that I quoted from above.

You probably know the story. Jesus has been brought to the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate by the people of Jerusalem who insist he be punished for blasphemy for claiming he was the Son of God, and for other stuff that pissed them off. Pilate, the story goes, was warned by his wife to spare the life of Jesus because she had a troubling dream about him the night before. Despite his efforts to grant his wife's wishes, the last thing Pilate needed was an uprising on his hands, so he gave in to the crowd but not before admonishing them and passing the responsibility of Jesus' fate on to them, literally "washing his hands" of the affair. Here is their response to him:

Then answered all the people, and said, 'His blood be on us, and on our children.'

Matthew 27:25

"The people" the writer of the Gospel is referring to here, are the Jews. There you have it, scriptural proof that the Jews killed Jesus who in the view of Christians is the son of God, This is their confession. Not only are they condemning themselves, but their children as well, into eternity. Two millennia and counting worth of antisemitism along with all the pain, suffering and unspeakable horror that came from it, can be summed up in nine simple words. They are scriptural justification for hatred.

Take a deep breath to put all that into perspective. 

Of course, anyone who has ever taken those nine words to heart, and there have been many hundreds of millions throughout history, didn't bother with a couple other crucial verses in the same story, one taking place a few hours before, the other a few hours later in the narrative. 

When the officials came to arrest Jesus, one of his disciples took his sword and cut off the ear of one of the officials. This is what follows:

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?

But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?

Matthew 26:52-54

If you are a Christian, you believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus are God's plan for the salvation of the world. That is why the day we commemorate Jesus' death is called "Good" Friday. Without Good Friday, there would be no Easter Sunday commemorating the central event of the faith.

The people who sent Jesus to his death were merely actors in God's plot.

And how are we to think of those people?

For that we turn to another Gospel:

And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and cast lots.

Luke 23:34-35

There you have it, if Jesus himself is asking God for the forgiveness of the people who arrested him, spit at him, mocked him, beat him, nailed him to a tree to die then cast lots for his clothing, then who are we to condemn them?

This brings us to what I believe is the central question at hand, what comes first, scriptural verses that inspire hatred, or the hatred itself which becomes justified through a selected reading of scripture?

I would strongly advocate for the latter-- that hatred comes first. People who see religion only as a negative force in the world single out all the horrific acts that have taken place in the name of God, but are loath to point out the acts of good that come from religion. I've heard Sam Harris claim that you don't need religion in your life to be a good person, to which I agree. At the risk of sounding like a cliché, some of the best people I've known have been atheists. Conversely, I think it's obvious that you don't need religion to be a bad person either. Some of the gravest acts against humanity, especially in the last 150 years have been carried out without any religious pretext at all.

In defense of religion I will say this: fear and hatred are very natural human responses to adversity; they are self-defense mechanisms we inherited from our pre-historic ancestors. No, we don't need religion to teach us how to hate those who have done us wrong, real or imagined, we're all very capable of that on our own, thank you very much. 

But what about virtues such as kindness, charity, patience, selflessness, justice and the "golden rule" which all faiths promote and aspire to?

These virtues do not come naturally, they need to be taught.

What about loving our enemies as Jesus commanded? 

That idea is so outrageous, absurd and un-natural that despite all my doubts about whether God exists, it  is the one thing that truly confirms my faith, simply because it's hard for me to believe that this command was made up by a mere mortal as it goes against every instinct of our earthly being. 

Yet there it is.

Religion, like all human inventions (Artificial Intelligence immediately comes to mind), is a tool that can be put to good use and bad. Today being New Years Eve, it is customary to think of the people we have lost over the previous 364 days. The person I'm thinking about at the moment is Rosalyn Carter, who along with her husband the former president, spent the last half of her life in service, building homes with her own hands for the homeless. The Carters are examples of people who put their faith to good use. They are far from unique as there are people of all creeds in every corner of the planet who put their faith to good use in the service of others and help make the world a better place. 

Which makes me think of one of the humblest tools the Carters put into service in their work for Habitat for Humanity, the lowly hammer. 

In the right hands, that hammer can be used to build homes for the homeless and other wondrous things. 

In the wrong hands it can be used to bash somebody's head in.

Religion is no different. 

CODA

* There is a bit of a problem with the word antisemitism as well, as included in the Semitic peoples are Arabs. Yet the word is exclusively used to describe prejudice against Jewish people. 

** An even more demonstrable error in Neil deGrasse Tyson's lecture on Islam and science is his mention of a quote President George W. Bush made supposedly after the 9/11 attacks. Bush did say "Our God named the stars", loosely quoting Psalm 147:4, but he did not deliver those words after the terrorist attack, and certainly not as a means to compare and contrast Christians and Muslims as Tyson implies. 

Rather, Bush made the remark during a tribute to the seven astronauts killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. The president in fact made it crystal clear after 9/11 that Muslims are as much a part of the fabric of American life as any other group and denounced in no uncertain terms the prejudice and hatred against them that followed the attack and continues to this day. Here is a link to a speech the former president gave during a visit to the Islamic Centre in Washington, D.C., less than a week after the attack.

Life Imitates Art

I don't have to tell you that the one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt and then erased again. But baseball has marked time while America has rolled by like a procession of steamrollers. 

This quote comes toward the end of the novel Shoeless Joe, written by the Canadian author W.P. Kinsella. 

It's a delectable couple of lines, I especially love the bits about the blackboard eraser and the steamrollers. One certainly cannot deny those are apt metaphors for describing the history of this country. 

But what about the baseball part? Those of us who are devotees of the game certainly believe that too. 

In the book, those words come out of the mouth of J.D. Salinger, yes that one, who is sucked unwillingly at first, into a cockamamie scheme (as it seems on the surface) of the book's protagonist Ray Kinsella.

That scheme is for Ray to devote a few acres of his Iowa farm, which he can ill afford to give up, into a baseball field which he builds by hand, by himself, in order to attract the spirits of long departed ballplayers to play upon. In the book they're not just any dead players, but players who in life, for one reason or other had not completely fulfilled their ball playing dreams. The first group of spirit players to show up were the eight members of the Chicago White Sox who were banned from the game after they took money from gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series. That group includes the title character of the book, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, one of the greatest hitters the game has ever known. Jackson serves as the go-between for Ray and his fellow players. 

The real J.D. Salinger who had nothing to do with the creation of the book, was replaced by the fictional author Terrence Mann (played by James Earl Jones) in the movie Field of Dreams which is based on the novel.

In the climatic scene of the film, against the strains of inspirational music, the character of Mann reciting a cropped version of Salinger's inspiring soliloquy from the book, is crosscut between the disdainful words of Ray's brother-in-law Mark who is trying to buy the farm. The scene is set on the ball field that Ray has tirelessly worked to build. The ballplayers are all there, visible only to the audience and to those in the film who believe. 

As Mark is an agnostic, he walks through the field completely oblivious to the action going on around him. While the killjoy relative tells Ray that he'll be ruined by the next sunrise if he doesn't give up this godforsaken nonsense and sell the farm and all his dreams along with it, Mann, a true believer, tells Ray that people will come to his field, other true believers who will hand over their hard earned money for the privilege. 

You can watch the scene here.

It's the classic struggle between the heart and the head, between hope and despair, dreams and reality, a purely cinematic moment designed to pull every ounce of heart string out of the viewer, as is just about every other scene in Field of Dreams.   

Evoking one of the  indelible scenes from the movie,
members of the White Sox and the Yankees
enter the "Field of Dreams" before their game in Dyersville, Iowa,
August 12, 2021 - Reuters

The population of Dyersville, a town of about 4,000 in northeast Iowa, tripled last week as it hosted the first of what promises to be many "Field of Dreams" major league baseball games. The game was played upon a field constructed especially for the purpose, adjacent to the original field built to be the set for the 1989 movie, which has since become (to some folks anyway) a classic.

Fittingly, the teams chosen to face each other in the first major league baseball game ever to be played in the state of Iowa, were the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees, the team whom we learn in the book, was particularly despised by Ray's dad, John. The senior Kinsella, was himself once an aspiring ballplayer whose spirit ends up playing on his son's field of misfit athletes.

Part of the inspiration for the event was the tradition begun over a decade ago of playing selected National Hockey League games outdoors in baseball parks and football stadiums. 

Much of what turns off people to professional sports these days is the crass commercialism and ungodly sums of money involved in the games. Beyond the novelty factor, the idea was to strip away much of that, well the appearances of it anyway, and bring the sport closer to its roots. By that I mean play the game in its purest form, as it once was played by children, or adults pretending to be children. Anyone who has ever played pickup hockey on a frozen pond knows exactly what I'm talking about. 

Same with baseball. It doesn't have to be a pristine field carved out of a cornfield, the game could be played in a schoolyard, a city park, a vacant lot, or just about any space big enough to contain most of the balls hit by the strongest hitters will do. Here in Chicago where there was limited space available for ball fields, they made the ball ridiculously big so it wouldn't travel too far. If you couldn't come up with enough players to field two teams, the game was adaptable for any number of players. And if you could only come up with two players, you could just play catch, an infinitely satisfying activity and bonding experience, especially between a parent and child.

That, is baseball at its purest. 

These days it's rare to see kids in the schoolyards, parks or streets playing improvised games like New York stickball or pinners and fastpitch in Chicago. Many kids prefer to stay inside and play baseball on the computer. Those who do play real baseball, play the organized variety, complete with coaches, umpires, uniforms, and well tended fields. Don't get me wrong, in the right hands, that kind of baseball is most satisfying both to watch and to play. In the wrong hands, that is to say, when adults get too much in the way, it can become a nightmare. 

That's especially true in the more competitive travel leagues where parents expect a payoff for their efforts, at the very least getting their kid good enough at the game to earn them a free ride in college through a sport's scholarship. For their part, many of the coaches at this level care more about winning than anything else, including the health, well being, safety and sanity of their players. 

The sad truth is, unlike what Terrence Mann says in his soliloquy, baseball and other sports do not represent all that is good.

That's just a myth. 

In his novel, W.P. Kinsella takes great pains to compare baseball to a religion. And like any religion, baseball is filled with myths, including its own creation story.

The location of the most significant temple to the game, The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, is a testament to the power of baseball mythology. 

Comforting as the image may be, baseball was not born in the idyllic little town in upstate New York in 1839. That was a story based on scant evidence concocted by the powers that be in the game at the turn of the last century who wanted to make it be known far and wide that baseball was purely an American game, born and bred in the USA. 

The reality is that baseball was around far longer than that, having evolved from an English children's game called rounders which was itself a spinoff of cricket. It has no particular ties to rural life, it was played in big cities, small towns and down on the farm alike.

But there's a history in this country of disdain for cities and a romanticization of rural life that goes back to Thomas Jefferson and beyond which is what makes carving a baseball diamond out of a corn field so appealing to many Americans. In the novel, Kinsella the author paints a bleak picture of urban life. During his namesake character's road trip to New Hampshire to find J.D. Salinger, he stops in Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh to go to ballgames, and has nothing good to say about any of those places.

Would Field of Dreams have been so heart warming had Kinsella the character built his ball field upon a weed strewn vacant city lot with ghost players materializing out of abandoned buildings? Perhaps, but it would have been a much different story.

I find it ironic that in the movie, the character of Terrence Mann as played by a black actor tells Ray that baseball represents our past and reminds us of all that once was good, while standing in front of a field populated by only white players, which reminds us that all was not good with our country and with baseball. In their time of course, black players were not allowed to play "organized baseball".

As an aside, my major criticism of both the film and the movie is they dropped the ball in that respect by not addressing the issue of the color line in baseball. All they had to do was introduce a few black players from the era into the mix. After all, they more than anyone, were denied the right to fulfill their baseball playing dreams.

Perhaps the game played last week in Iowa was sort of a redemption for the movie and the novel as many of the players on the teams appearing on the field through the cornfield just as they did in the film, would not have been allowed to play in the big leagues one hundred years ago because of the color of their skin. 

As far as baseball as a religion goes, strange as it may sound, I kind of buy into that. Back when I was involved in the Catholic Church, I spoke with several people who lamented the fact that they never felt the rapture as many Christians do, of being swept away by the Holy Spirit. I never felt it either but frankly the very idea scared the pardon the expression, bejeezus out of me. But several times in my life, I have been swept away in pure rapture by the game of baseball, especially when it involved my son.

After not taking the game seriously for years, baseball was reborn for me while sitting at the ballpark with my pregnant wife and it dawned on me that one day I'd be playing catch with my boy. It came to full fruition fourteen years later when as a coach, I witnessed him pitch the last inning of his house league team's championship season, retiring the side in order. It happened again when together we watched the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. And again when he rode upon the shoulders of his best friends after he won the home run derby at a picnic commemorating the end of their last baseball season together. And yet again when toward the end of our best summer ever of playing and watching baseball together, on a perfect evening after a ballgame at beautiful PNC Park, we stuck around after the game as parents and kids were invited to go onto the field to play catch. We didn't bring along our gloves so we just stood there and watched. I'll never forget the look on his face as we caught a glimpse of each other. No words were exchanged at that moment but I know we were both thinking the same thing: 

Is this heaven? No, it's Pittsburgh.

A lot could have gone wrong with the game last Thursday night, it could have rained. Or a player could have been seriously injured as happened last night in a game here in Chicago. Or it could have been a lousy game. Or a bull could have gotten loose and started charging the players. Fortunately none of that happened, although the bull might have been kind of cool. 

The Sox got off to a big lead which they held until the ninth inning with their closer Liam Hendriks coming in. But the damn Yankees staged a two out rally in the top of the inning and took the lead. Then it was the White Sox turn and catcher Sevy Zavala coaxed a one out walk. Up came Tim Anderson to the plate and he took Zack Britton's first pitch on the outside corner to the opposite field for a walk off home run. Redemption indeed as well as sweet justice as Anderson is the only US born black player in the White Sox starting lineup. In his typical fashion, he stood there and admired his drive disappearing into the corn stalks in right field, then went on to celebrate as he rounded the bases. 

The traditionalists may have not been happy by that display of pure joy but all in all, I think the baseball gods were pleased.

The next day my boy and I talked about the game. I mentioned that Kevin Costner (the star of Field of Dreams who was instrumental in the conception of this game) looked a little lost to me when he came out onto the field before the start of the game, as if he got off the wrong exit on I-80, looking for the Farm and Fleet. 

But then I said when the players began appearing from the corn field out in center field, I got a little misty eyed. 

"So did I" said my son.

We're obviously both true believers.

The Reason for the Season

Last night as is my Christmas Eve custom, while waiting for our children, still with visions of sugar plums, video games and other goodies dancing in their heads, to fall asleep so I could set out their presents under the Christmas tree, I settled in front of the TV to watch the delayed broadcast of Midnight Mass from the Vatican. The familiar strains of the ancient Christmas liturgy were all there along with the pomp and circumstance, the haunting choral music, the fancy people in the front rows, the panoply of languages including Latin, all the smells and bells, and the endless procession of Cardinals embellished in their lavish vestments, preceding the Holy Father, Pope Francis I, as he made his way up the nave of the enormous St. Peter's Basilca. This would be the current pope's fifth Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter's, which took place shortly after his 81st birthday.

To some, the over-the-top pageantry of the Roman Catholic Church in all its glory, in its premier venue on its premier occasion, belies the simple story it is commemorating, that of a poor man and his pregnant wife, forced to leave home and travel a grueling journey at the decree of a far off emperor. When it came time for the mother to give birth, no one would open their doors to these strangers, so the couple was forced to find refuge in a barn, placing into service the animals' feeding trough as the bed for their newborn. Of course theirs was no ordinary child, and the good news of the birth of Jesus, the eternal sign of God's being one with His people, was not delivered first to the fancy people, the leaders of the community, the property owners, the righteous, self or otherwise, those in good social standing with comfortable lives, but to the poor and dispossessed, the outcasts, those at the lowest levels society, namely the shepherds out watching their flocks in the middle of the night. Their sheer terror of coming face to face with an angel of the Lord must have been only slightly allayed when he proclaimed to them:

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Now whether you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, or believe in God at all, you have to admit that this is one hell of a story that not only gives many of us some degree of hope in a troubled world, but also provides a valuable insight into the human experience as a lesson in humility. Imagine if you will, the King of Kings, Wonder Counselor, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace coming into this world born in a stable, watched over by the untouchables of polite society. Some might argue that it's such an unlikely story, only God could have come up with it.

Likewise, in its infancy, Christianity was itself an outcast, its members persecuted as heretics, tortured mercilessly before being killed mercifully for daring to proclaim their faith in this radical, revolutionary new religion. Needless to say, more than two thousand years after the birth of Christ, Christianity remains the most dominant of the establishment religions of the world, unrecognizable from its humble origins. And Christians, 1,637 years since their faith became the officially sanctioned religion of the Roman Empire, have done more than their share of persecuting.

No, you won't find much humility at Christmas Mass in St. Peter's in the Vatican, nor for that matter, here in Chicago at Holy Name Cathedral. My family learned that lesson exactly eleven years ago yesterday when we attended Christmas Eve Mass in the cathedral, my mother's parish church. By the time we arrived for mass, about fifteen minutes early, the seats in the pews were all taken save for two, way up at the front of the church. We asked the people seated there if my wife, then eight and one half months pregnant with our daughter, and my septuagenarian mother could sit in the available spots. No, the people sitting in the pew told us, they were saving those spots for their late-coming friends. My wife and mother ended up standing with my son and me for the entire mass. To this day I wonder if the irony of that situation ever registered in the minds of those people who turned my elderly mother and very pregnant wife away.

Today in Pope Francis, we have a pontiff who is doing his utmost to move the Catholic Church away from its climate of self-righteousness and privilege, and closer to its humble beginnings emphasizing the fundamental core values of love, forgiveness, compassion and charity. More than his predecessors, Francis has made a point of advocating for the outcasts of society, namely the sick, the poor, the incarcerated, and most recently, the refugee. In a world whose direction seems pointed in the opposite direction with the recent election of populist demagogues who feed off anger and fear of the stranger, Francis's message is a simple one, be not afraid. When Francis speaks at Midnight Mass in St. Peter's of the plight of the Holy Family as strangers in a strange place turned away by the townsfolk, it should come as no surprise that he would make a connection between the Christmas story and the plight of people living today. Sure enough, early this morning Pope Francis told the world:

The faith we proclaim tonight makes us see God present in all those situations where we think he is absent. He is present in the unwelcomed visitor, often unrecognizable, who walks through our cities and our neighbourhoods, who travels on our buses and knocks on our doors.

This same faith impels us to make space for a new social imagination, and not to be afraid of experiencing new forms of relationship, in which none have to feel that there is no room for them on this earth. Christmas is a time for turning the power of fear into the power of charity, into power for a new imagination of charity. The charity that does not grow accustomed to injustice, as if it were something natural, but that has the courage, amid tensions and conflicts, to make itself a “house of bread”, a land of hospitality.

In his Christmas Eve homily, Pope Francis, who has never hidden his disdain for the current lot of populist leaders including our own president, minced no words this morning when he compared them to one of the most notorious of New Testament villains:

So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary. We see the tracks of entire families forced to set out in our own day. We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away but, driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones. In many cases this departure is filled with hope, hope for the future; yet for many others this departure can only have one name: survival. Surviving the Herods of today, who, to impose their power and increase their wealth, see no problem in shedding innocent blood.

Them's truly fightin' words, the pope equating contemporary world leaders with the man whom Christians believe ordered the slaughter of all male infants in Judea, out of jealousy of the newborn King, whose birth he was informed of by the gift-bearing visitors from the East.

For his part, the Christmas Eve message from the President of the United States was a self-congratulatory tweet proclaiming that he won the "war on Christmas" as evidenced by the number of Americans who were once again using the term "Merry Christmas."

Little does this man seem to understand that the real war on Christmas lies in our selfishness, our indifference, our lack of compassion and understanding for our brothers and sisters, certainly not in our reluctance to use the word Christmas in deference to our friends who do not celebrate the holiday.

The pope closed his message with a prayer to God to wake us from the slumber of that indifference:

Moved by the joy of the gift, little Child of Bethlehem, we ask that your crying may shake us from our indifference and open our eyes to those who are suffering. May your tenderness awaken our sensitivity and recognize our call to see you in all those who arrive in our cities, in our histories, in our lives. May your revolutionary tenderness persuade us to feel our call to be agents of the hope and tenderness of our people.

It is that fire of the revolutionary spirit of the early church that Pope Francis hopes to ignite in the hearts, minds and bellies of all of us, believers and non-believers alike.

When this pope speaks these words the chorus of angels proclaimed to the shepherds outside of Bethlehem so long ago:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and good will toward men...

...he is not uttering a trite slogan found on greeting cards once a year, but proclaiming a call to action for us, this day and every day. It is a message of self-reflection and hope for people the world over of good will, whether they believe or not.

In other words, it is truly meaningless to say the words merry Christmas without living them.

May all of us learn to live those words in the coming new year.

And a very Merry Christmas to all!


Post script:

Pope Francis's 2017 Christmas Eve homily can be found in its entirety here.

Easter

Of all the celebrations in Christendom, Holy Week has the most significance as it defines the very essence of the faith, that is, God's love for his people. It also presents problems, confusions, and preposterous assumptions that make some people run away from the faith as fast as their legs can carry them.

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, commemorating Jesus's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, where throngs of people welcomed him into that city as the chosen one of God, whom they hoped would free the people from the bondage of oppression. In the minds of the people of Judea, that bondage was political, and the hope was that legions of God's army would follow the Messiah and free them from the bondage of their oppressors, at that time the Roman Empire. Quickly it became apparent that Jesus's agenda was not the same as their own. The first thing he did was enter King Solomon's Temple, and smash the tables of the merchants who set up shop inside the most sacred place of the Jewish people, saying "this is the house of God but you have made it a den of thieves." If that weren't enough, he then said, "destroy this Temple, and I will rebuild it in three days." Iconoclastic talk to be sure, especially for the elders of the faith who were always skeptical of people with Messianic claims who in those days, were a dime a dozen. This Jesus character it seemed, was particularly dangerous, as by attacking the goings on of the Temple itself,  he threatened the very core of their most sacred tradition. Clearly he had to be dealt with. Meanwhile the people themselves became disillusioned with Jesus as it soon became clear that he had no intention of toppling the government; heck he even dined with the most reviled representatives of the State, the tax collectors.

Given all that, it should come as little surprise that when Pontius Pilate gave them a choice, the people chose to spare the life of Barabbas, a tried and true zealot willing to fight for liberation, rather than Jesus, whom by then they considered a fraud. Thusly, Pilate washed his hands of the crucifixion of Jesus as he cynically claimed he was carrying out the will of the people. According to the Gospel of Matthew he told them: "I am innocent of this man's blood. The responsibility is yours!" To which the people replied: "His blood be on us and on our children!"

Sadly, as a consequence of those three sentences, for two millennia in the eyes of some, the culpability for the death of Jesus, to Christians the Son of God, has been laid at the feet of the Jews.

This is the clearest, most painful, and egregious example of the destructive power of taking scripture out of context. It represents a complete misunderstanding, misrepresentation and perversion of the entire meaning of Christian thought. Yet there it is in black and white, "the people..." (in some translations, "the Jews") "...replied: His blood be on us and on our children."

In order to put those words into proper perspective, you have to go to the beginning, back to the Gospel passage we often see referenced in the end zones of football games when a kicker attempts a field goal, John 3:16. You probably know it:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

And the following verse:

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

That message of hope, the promise of eternal life is what lies at the heart of Christianity. It is from the bondage of death, of eternal darkness, that Jesus promises to free us. This message applies to all who believe in him, no matter the race, gender, or ethnicity of the believer. But there is still trouble with those verses. What about the non-believer?  Is he or she condemned to the dreaded eternal darkness of death?

I have a very unsatisfying answer to that question, I don't know. The truth is, none of us know. You can check Christian scripture in its entirety and come up with an answer to justify any point of view. We've been debating that point among others for two thousand years. To support your POV you can quote passages from the bible until you are blue in the face and someone will counter it with another passage that will support their quite different POV.

The good news is that we mere mortals have no say over who gets the thumbs up and who doesn't, it's God's job to sort it all out, pure and simple. Our job as believers is to live our own lives on earth as best we can and hope for God's favor. Unfortunately, there are many believers on this planet who willfully take on the responsibility of being the judge and jury over the souls of others, something the Bible explicitly forbids.

To Christians who take their faith at all seriously, the culpability for Jesus's death lies at the feet of all humanity, not just the Jews. It is our collective sinfulness, yours, mine, and everyone else's that is the reason for his death and resurrection. From a particularly Catholic point of view, it is our continued sinfulness that necessitates re-living the Sacrifice of Christ at every Mass. 

In his remarks at the Temple, unknown to anyone at the time, Jesus was referring to himself, his death and resurrection when he told them to destroy the temple and he would rebuild it in three days.  From that point on, Jesus would become the true Temple of God, not an edifice of brick and stone. Indeed the Word of God, first proclaimed to the Jews, would now be proclaimed to all.

Simply put, to the Christian mind, Jesus's death and resurrection was the will of God, it was pre-ordained and there was nothing any living mortal soul could do to stop it, as his disciples found out in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Of all the readings during Holy Week, the one that stirs my soul more than any other is this one, read during Good Friday service. These are the beautiful words taken out of Hebrew scripture, from the book of the Prophet Isaiah:

See, my servant shall prosper,
he shall be raised high and greatly exalted.
Even as many were amazed at him—
so marred was his look beyond human semblance
and his appearance beyond that of the sons of man—
so shall he startle many nations,
because of him kings shall stand speechless;
for those who have not been told shall see,
those who have not heard shall ponder it. 

Who would believe what we have heard?
To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up like a sapling before him,
like a shoot from the parched earth;
there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
nor appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided by people,
a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
one of those from whom people hide their faces,
spurned, and we held him in no esteem. 

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep,
each following his own way;
but the LORD laid upon him
the guilt of us all. 

Though he was harshly treated, he submitted
and opened not his mouth;
like a lamb led to the slaughter
or a sheep before the shearers,
he was silent and opened not his mouth.
Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away,
and who would have thought any more of his destiny?
When he was cut off from the land of the living,
and smitten for the sin of his people,
a grave was assigned him among the wicked
and a burial place with evildoers,
though he had done no wrong
nor spoken any falsehood.
But the LORD was pleased
to crush him in infirmity. 

If he gives his life as an offering for sin,
he shall see his descendants in a long life,
and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.
Because of his affliction
he shall see the light in fullness of days;
through his suffering, my servant shall justify many,
and their guilt he shall bear.
Therefore I will give him his portion among the great,
and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty,
because he surrendered himself to death
and was counted among the wicked;
and he shall take away the sins of many,
and win pardon for their offenses.

These words were written hundreds of years before Jesus, and Christians the world over believe they prophesize the death and resurrection of Christ.

Despite his suffering during the Passion, shortly before he died on the Cross, Jesus looked up to heaven and said: "Father forgive them, they know not what they do."

If the entire meaning of the Easter season could be condensed into a few words, those words would suffice.

Anyone who finds the need to place the blame for Jesus's death on a particular group of people, misses the point entirely.

Easter of course is the most joyous of Christian holidays because it represents for us the ultimate victory of light over darkness, the eternal hope for ourselves, our family and our world. Yet it is impossible experience the joy of Easter without first experiencing the suffering of Good Friday.

Over the years, the absolute joy of Easter has somehow alluded me. Try as I might, often participating in the full litany of Holy Week services, including the extremely poignant (and equally perplexing for the uninitiated) tradition of the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday, my expectations of being swept away in Easter rapture, courtesy of the Holy Spirit, has always seemed to have fallen short.

This year was different. For reasons too complicated to go into, Good Friday, two days ago was a particularly painful day for my family and me.

Then on Saturday something wonderful happened. Easter joy this year blindsided me in the most unlikely of places, a Patti Smith concert. The legendary rock star/artist confessed her longtime love for the holiday of Easter. After the concert it occurred to me that the title of one of her early albums was in fact "Easter." She confessed that may sound unlikely, coming from someone who wrote the line: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." She went on to say she wrote those words back when she was 20, (she's now pushing 70), but that despite a distaste for organized religion, faith plays a big role in her life.

In honor of the holiday, much to the surprise of the crowd, between songs she read this story of Easter as found at the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew:

Now late on the sabbath day, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was as lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the watchers did quake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus, who hath been crucified. He is not here; for he is risen, even as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples, He is risen from the dead; and lo, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring his disciples word. And behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then saith Jesus unto them, Fear not: go tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see me. 

The eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

The experience of real suffering on Good Friday combined with hearing those words of healing in the least expected of places, gave me a sense of joy and solace I could not possibly have found in church.

He is risen, Hallelujah!

Happy Easter.

Could There be a Silver Lining?

Shortly after it was published in 1982, I bought a copy of the book Chicago Churches and Synagogues: An Architectural Pilgrimage, written by George Lane with photographs by Aligmantis Kezys. It covered a subject that had always interested me and frankly, I was a little pissed that it came out before I had the chance to work on a book like this myself, at least the photographic part of it. I was assuaged only after learning that the two authors were Jesuit priests, and resigned myself to the fact that they were probably the right men for the job.

As its secondary title indicated, the book centered around church architecture, with entries chosen for their historical and architectural merit. Another sore point, none of the churches I ever belonged to made the cut. But that's all water under the bridge, the book inspired me to visit a great many of the 125 houses of worship covered, especially the Catholic ones which I felt the most comfortable walking around and taking a peek. 

Last week I broke open my copy to get some information for a piece I wrote on the possible closing of the painfully beautiful St. Adalbert Church in Pilsen. Flipping through the pages of the thirty four year old book is heartbreaking as a good number of the churches that Kezys photographed and Lane so eloquently wrote about are now gone, some destroyed by fire, but most of them demolished.

Since the book was published, a massive purging of Catholic parishes took place, initiated in the late eighties and realized in 1990 under the episcopate of Joseph Cardinal Bernadin. In one fell swoop, Bernadin closed 28 parishes and several more schools. I don't have evidence to support it but I think it's safe to say the Catholic Church in Chicago lost a good number of members then as many people who had the only church they ever knew taken out from under them, simply gave up on the faith rather than join another parish.

Here is an article from the New York Times written in 1990 that describes the final mass at one of the churches featured in the book, St.Bridget on the south side. That parish was supporting itself just fine thank you very much; it was in the black when the archdiocese in its infinite wisdom deemed it had to close. The church survived big time urban renewal, being smack dab in the path of the planned construction of the Stevenson Expressway, which jogged a little to the north to avoid it, but it could not survive Cardinal Bernadin. The building was demolished in 1992.

Over the years, the number of young men entering seminary has plummeted. The archdiocese now ordains an average of 10 new priests per year, many of them, middle aged men. The average age of a working priest is currently about 60 years old and rising. One report I read predicted that if the current trend continues. by the year 2030. there will be approximately 230 priests serving in the Archdiocese of Chicago. When you consider there are now 351 parishes in the archdiocese, something has to give. That something it appears will be many more church closings, making the 1990 purge look like a tea party.

Then there was the seven times seven times seven hundred pound gorilla in the room, the priest sex abuse scandal. It's impossible to quantify the damage the combination of child abuse at the hands of priests and the subsequent cover-up by bishops has caused the Church. Beyond the obvious damage to the lives of the children involved, the collateral damage to the Church includes the understandable lack of trust of church authority that has developed among the faithful. More serious is the damage to the vocation of the priesthood. What once was considered a profession that garnered the utmost respect, since the sex scandal, priests are often treated with scorn and derision. Tens of thousands of hard working, dedicated, good priests and bishops have had to pay the price for a handful of sick individuals, the criminal negligence of some of the higher ups, and the general public's eagerness to lump them all together. I wouldn't be surprised if because of the tragedy, the projected numbers of the ratio of priests to churches in Chicago fourteen years from now, will prove to have been optimistic. 

There is another issue in the Church that hasn't been covered much in the wake of all the really terrible stuff, but is lying just below the surface, ready to rear its ugly head at any moment. Many people don't realize it but the Catholic Church does not speak with one voice, but is as divided along ideological lines as much as the society in which we live. One would find it difficult to find common ground between the left and right extremes in the Church, other than both calling themselves Catholic. That's not to say you won't find Catholics with nuanced beliefs that don't fit neatly into an easily defined ideological camp; in fact more than likely they constitute the overwhelming majority of Catholics in this country. If so they are truly the silent majority, it's the extremes on both sides who seem to be getting all the attention, (sound familiar?), and I don't think it's at all out of the question that there will at some point in the near future be a movement to split the Catholic Church along ideological lines.

Given all that, I'm afraid the recent announcement of the plans to close one of the most beautiful and important churches in the city of Chicago is only the tip of the iceberg for the bad times that lie ahead for the Roman Catholic Church, in the United States anyway.

With the very existence of the Church at stake, it may seem trivial to fret about church closings in a city with an over-abundance of Catholic churches. But if you believe that, you just don't get it. Chicago is still in many ways nothing more than a large collection of provincial villages. Folks may know their own neighborhood-village like the back of their hand, but drop them in another part of town and you may as well have dropped them off in Timbuktu.

They say that all politics is local. The same is true for religion but with much narrower constraints. We like to think Catholicism (as the word implies) is a universal religion. The reality is that for many Catholics, faith begins and ends at the front door of their parish church. As I pointed out in my last post, many native Chicagoans identify themselves more with the parish they grew up in than the neighborhood. Lifelong bonds are formed there. Church buildings were built with the blood, sweat, and tears of folks for whom many of the current parishioners can trace their own roots. Likewise, rivalries sometimes friendly, sometimes not, exist among neighboring parishes. Having an administrator come from out of town (like Cardinal Bernadin or the current archbishop, Blaise Cupich), and tell parishioners to give up their own church and go worship at a neighboring parish is somewhat akin to the commissioner of the NFL coming to Chicago and telling fans of the Bears to give up their team and root for the Green Bay Packers.

Obviously, this strong connection to one parish at the exclusion of all others is not how it is intended to be. Much as I hate to admit it, there is a very compelling argument for church consolidation in Chicago. A good example is a non-Catholic church found in the Lane/Kezys book. It was the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany on the near west side. This Richardsonian-Romanesque building was one of the loveliest churches in Chicago, with a small but devoted congregation, whose former pastor is the wife of a friend of mine. Sadly, through death and attrition, the dwindling congregation could no longer afford to pay their pastor and decided to go it alone without any clergy. Eventually with less than ten parishioners showing up on any given Sunday, the Church of the Epiphany closed its doors in 2011.

Sad and touching as the story of the tenacity of that congregation is. I strongly believe that a church community needs to be connected to the life of the greater community. That's a little hard with a congregation numbering in the double digits, let alone single digits. I can't count the number of sermons and homilies I've heard over the years that centered on the need to extend one's faith beyond the front door of the church. As they often do, those sermons fell upon many deaf ears. 

If there is a silver lining to all this, perhaps the inevitable shakeup that is coming to Chicago and other archdioceses across the country, will serve as an awakening and a renewal for the lives and faith of many Catholics. Closing parishes will be a bitter pill to swallow, especially if the guys with the fancy robes and the big pointy hats approach the sensitive issue of the displacement of parishes without compassion, as if it were merely a business decision regarding the bottom line. If they expect to have any flock left, Catholic bishops will have to do some compromising themselves. Perhaps they could start by addressing the shortage of priests by challenging the centuries old practice of forbidding married men from entering the priesthood, an issue I still have a few reservations about, but what the heck. They might even take the radical step of ordaining women, something I cannot for the life of me see any good reason not to do. These steps certainly will not solve the problem of the shortage of priests by themselves, they might even drive some ultra-conservative Catholics away, but I think they would be positive actions in the direction of the revival of the Church, something it desperately needs.

Here I'll take the lazy man's way out and give the last word to Martin E. Marty from an article for Boston College Magazine, lamenting the passing of the urban Catholic Church. Dr. Marty who says it so much better than I possibly could, concludes his piece with the following:

Whoever cares about the Church and the city, the soul and the spirit, has to hope that within the changes Catholicism in America has undergone there can be resurrection. We will not again see "the Church confident," or "the Church triumphant," but we can hope to see the Church well-poised to help gather people of God on their pilgrimage to the eternal city, inspiring them to help build a more humane temporal city along the way.

Simple Answers to Difficult Questions

We once had a priest who gave the shortest homilies (sermons) possible, sometimes they would consist of only two or three sentences. Somehow he always managed to get the point across in those few words better than his colleagues could with their multiple page dissertations. You might say I could learn a lesson or two from him when it comes to writing blog posts.

The truth is, it's possible to sum up the core principles of any faith, or for that matter ideology, simply and briefly. Hillel the Elder, a rabbi who lived at the time of Christ, is responsible for some of the most profound utterances distilling the true essence of faith into a few words:

If I am not for myself, who is for me? And when I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

The legend goes that one day, a skeptic came to Hillel with this challenge: if Hillel could recite the Torah while standing on one leg, the man would become a believer. Hillel's response while on one leg was the following:

What is hateful to you, do not do unto your neighbors. That is the whole of Torah, the rest is commentary. Now go study.

Which the man did.

The problem with religions or ideologies is that the commentary often becomes more important than the core values. To put it another way, the letter of the law becomes more important than the spirit of the law. Anyone who has ever read the Christian bible, (the first five books of which are a translation of the Torah), knows that when passages are taken out of context, they can be used to justify virtually anything.

That explains thousands of sects of Christianity, each one claiming the Truth to be found exclusively in their own interpretation, and the ultimate favor of God, only for themselves.

The same is true to varying degrees in Judaism, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism Zoroastrinism, Paganism, Atheism (which is also when you think about it, nothing more than a faith), and every other belief system that has ever been devised.

Yesterday, unspeakable acts of violence committed in the name of God took place in Baghdad, Beirut and Paris. It is my sincere belief that religion is not responsible for these despicable acts, rather the perversion of religion.

Fear and hatred are among our basest, basic instincts.. Religion, at least my own experience of it, seeks to teach us a higher level of existence, as expressed through love, forgiveness, and compassion. These things don't come naturally to us, they are taught. Hatred by contrast, does not need to be taught, it just happens. We all experience fear and hatred, and hopefully teach ourselves to overcome those instincts.

We have seen all too frequently that unchecked hatred combined with an overdose of religious indoctrination based upon ideas cherry picked out of scripture is a lethal combination.

As usual, I've gone on too long. These ideas have been better expressed in a meme that's been making the rounds of social media lately. I'm not much for re-posting these quite often smarmy platitudes on the human condition, but I did yesterday as this one seemed to be particularly appropriate. Here is what it said:

A Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, a Pagan, and an Atheist all walk into a coffee shop and they talk, laugh, drink coffee and become good friends.

It's not a joke, it's what happens when you're not an asshole.

Assholes above all, seek to have power over other people. It's very difficult to achieve power by affecting a great many people's lives in a positive way. It takes commitment, self-sacrifice, patience and the will to do good. It's very easy to achieve the power to affect many lives negatively, all it takes it a weapon and of course, the will.

We've seen that the sadistic assholes of Daesh (ISIS) not only seek to achieve power, but also take a great deal of pleasure in afflicting pain and suffering upon others. They do it in the guise of faith but let's face it, you don't need religion to be an asshole. Case in point, there were a whole bunch of assholes in Central Europe in the mid-twentieth century whose hatred was fueled by not by religion , but by nationalism, revenge, and political ideology. Around seventy million people died as a result. Today there are assholes roaming the streets of Chicago who apparently believe in nothing other than nothing is sacred, not even the lives of innocent children.

Late yesterday evening, a remarkable image was broadcast. It showed a group of perhaps a couple hundred thousand individuals gathered in Paris's Place de la Republique with a sign that read in English, "not afraid." That happened early this year after the massacre in the offices of the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. After that horrible event, millions of Parisians of all colors and faiths marched in the streets of that great city. Expect to see more demonstrations of a similar nature today, tomorrow and in the days to come.

Today we are in solidarity with the citizens of Baghdad, Beirut and Paris, as we should be everyday for people everywhere who want peace, regardless of their creed, color or nationality. Fortunately there are more of us than the assholes, regardless of all the attention they get through the suffering they are willing to inflict upon civilization.

We cannot and will not let them win.

What's Your Opinion?

"Everyone has a right to his or her own opinion." So says my eight year old daughter whenever she is asked to arbitrate a dispute between two people. My wife calls her the ACLU of the family. So strong and sincere is her conviction,  I don't have the heart to pose the question, "but what if that opinion is wrong?" The question at the center of all contemporary discourse I'm afraid will have to wait until she gets a little older and her judgement, more critical. By then she will come to realize on her own the hard truth that believing something, doesn't necessarily make it right.

Every fifth grader, (my daughter still has two years to go thank God) is taught there is a distinction between a fact and an opinion. It goes something like this:

A fact is something that can be proven.
An opinion is something that does not require proof.

Saying that Abraham Lincoln was the tallest US president is a fact. Saying that Abraham Lincoln was the most eloquent of all the US presidents, is an opinion.

Are you with me so far? OK how about this opinion: 

George W. Bush was not the most eloquent president.

Not to single out our 43rd president, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but facility with language was not one of Dubya's strong points, so according to most definitions of the word, he could not be considered the most eloquent president. Therefore by any reasonable standard, that opinion would also be a fact. Furthermore the opposite opinion, that Bush II was the most eloquent president, would be a falsehood.

Please note the operative words, "reasonable standard." This is certainly not a case of proof beyond doubt. One could make the argument that President Bush, despite his penchant for spouting off malapropisms like fireworks on the Fourth of July, was better at communicating what was on his mind than the current president, who may use the right words but also has a tendency of talking in circles and sometimes fails to get his point across. Since communication is the heart of writing and speaking, Bush may have been a more effective communicator than Obama, perhaps even eloquent in his own (to some) charming, unique way. It may not be a compelling argument but it's a valid point just the same.

So maybe it's not as simple as our grade school teacher would have us think; there is not a clear dichotomy between facts and opinions. Taking the point further, could there be truths that cannot be universally proven? I believe the answer is yes. They are our moral and ethical principles, the guideposts of our culture. This is a hotly debated topic, there are those who believe that morality is completely subjective, as moral and ethical principles vary from culture to culture. Truth on the other hand is purely objective, therefore as this line of reasoning goes, there can be no such thing as a moral truth.

This concept of moral relativism has been around for a long time, but gained steam since the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th century, the so called "Age of Reason", when the traditional doctrines of church and state were brought under close philosophical scrutiny. Moral relativism essentially states there are no universal rights and wrongs, as those things are determined by the culture in which you find yourself. Some go so far as to claim that moral principals have no more universal relevance than local customs such as whether to address your uncle in the familiar or how much to tip a waiter.

Living as we do in a pluralistic society, we need to give some credence to moral relativism as I touched upon in my post on gay marriage. But can we honestly say that all right and wrong is purely subjective?

Here's a test; is the following statement fact or opinion?

Slavery is wrong.

If you believe that morality is purely subjective, you would be forced to admit that the statement "slavery is wrong", is merely an opinion as there are cultures that exist to this day who still accept and practice human bondage.

Furthermore, one cannot make a definitive argument against slavery without using established moral principles, which the moral relativists would have us believe, are not universally agreed upon. One of these principles, a cornerstone of our society, is the idea that all people are created equal.

Like moral relativism, this idea has been around since antiquity, but came to fruition during the Enlightenment, and was spelled out by Thomas Jefferson in the American Declaration of Independence. As we all know, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and his words explicitly left out women and implicitly excluded all but white men who could own property. Those very words however were used as a springboard for subsequent generations to be inclusive enough to include all people regardless of gender, ethnicity, race, or creed.

Interestingly enough, Jefferson did not preface his most memorable words by saying: "We hold these opinions to be self evident..."

Those "inalienable" rights  that Jefferson enumerates, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", constitute what some philosophers would argue are universally recognizable rights inherent in human nature. This "Natural Law" as it has been dubbed, should not be confused with the law of nature, which does not concern itself in the least with values or individual rights, has no distinction between right and wrong, or reserves any place for the concepts of justice or ethics. Nature simply adapts. As inhabitants of nature, we are subject to its laws; we all need air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and shelter from the elements. We all die. These are facts, universal to all life. But we humans also live in communities where we pool our resources, divide our labor and look out for one another. In order for this to work, we are also subject to the laws of the community. Morals and ethics are human constructs designed to enable human societies to survive; as such they are built around a very simple idea, that you should treat other people as you would want to be treated yourself. This idea, often erroneously attributed to Jesus, has been around for as long as humans gave up being exclusively hunter gatherers. The foundations of every legal system, be it religious or secular, are based upon this "Golden Rule", which comes as close to being a universal value system as any we have.

I would argue that by any reasonable standard, the basic moral standards and responsibilities we (hopefully) hold ourselves to as defined by the Golden Rule, are universal and must be regarded as moral truths. Anything less I'm afraid would result in the collapse of civilization as we know it.

But just as we need to understand the limits of moral relativism, we need to guard against absolutism of any color. We all know about the religious zealots, be they bible thumpers or jihadists, whose slogan might just as well be "my way or the highway." Political ideology has stepped in and now gives religion a run for its money as one of the most significant propagators of intolerance in our society.

A case in point is this article that has been making the rounds on social media. Its author makes some valid points about the problem of hiding behind falsehoods wrapped in the guise of opinions. In the end however, the tone of the article suggests its real motive is to present a forum for the author to air out his own ideological agenda. It's title leaves little doubt about the author's feelings about anyone who may disagree with him: "No, It's Not Your Opinion, You're Just Wrong."

Given the reaction to this article, I'm afraid the piece will only contribute to the demise of intelligent discourse between un-like-minded folks, emboldening them to preach the "correctness" of their own points of view while further encouraging intolerance for the points of view of others.

The glory of modern technology is that it has opened up the world and given us exposure to cultures and ideas literally at our fingertips. Ironically, or perhaps because of that, we seem to have become more entrenched in our own intellectual ghettos, distancing ourselves from any thought or opinion that might challenge or offend us.

Intellectual discourse involving as many points of view as possible is the means by which we progress as a society. It is not something to shy away from but something to welcome and embrace. We may not always like what we're hearing, but to put it tritely, no pain, no gain.

It's true that we have no business hiding behind opinions that support falsehoods, but at the same time we must allow others the room to err, and hopefully they will do the same for us.

In the end, the best we can hope for is that reasonable judgement will sort out it all out.

After all that stewing, I can't help but believe that my daughter's belief in allowing everyone his or her opinion is pretty spot on. Ah the pure wisdom of an eight year old; perhaps they should be the ones running the show.

Don't Mess with Mr. In-between

One e-mail message line on my inbox screamed this:

Obama's illegal alien uncle to appear at new immigration hearing.

And another:

Oklahoma City will not cancel pornographic play mocking the Bible.

From a site devoted to the leanings of the other side comes this:

Libertarian Writings that Read like Comic Books. 

And this: 

Truth, No Strings Attached. 

And again: 

Some Filthy Facts About the Rich.

I've been on the mailing lists of these and similar web sites for some time now. If strangers were to casually glance at my inbox, they would draw the conclusion that my political views are schizophrenic to say the least. Other than their wildly divergent points of view however, there is very little difference between the sites. I never asked to subscribe to them, the organizations responsible for the publications are spamming me, they got my address from other sites that I do subscribe to. I could simply unsubscribe but frankly I'm entertained by headlines such as these, much like those of the tabloids at the checkout line. The difference between these messages and the ones at the supermarket is that the e-mail headlines are lead-ins to articles that are meant to be taken seriously.

I also don't unsubscribe to these sites because unlike most Americans it seems, I'm interested in what people who don't necessarily share my point of view have to say. Good heavens, I might even learn something.

More than anything, what these web sites have in common is the tone of their discourse. There is seldom an attempt to lend any credence to the other side of the argument as if to say people who don't believe as they do are simply a bunch of irritating, misguided fools. On both sides of the ideological divide, the websites, periodicals, and TV networks devoted exclusively to one point of view or another are essentially saying this: "We're right, and everybody else is wrong."

Small wonder why our current government is so dysfunctional, the rhetoric of these internet articles, and the comments that follow them, seem to be a beacon for our politicians as well.

There is a war going on in this country and the weapon of choice by the combatants is hyperbole.

I distinctly remember a time during the late sixties and early seventies when this country was bitterly divided over the war in Vietnam. While we have our own serious problems today, I can't see an issue in our time, no not even Obamacare, that comes close to the divisiveness that Vietnam produced. Yet today I'd say we as a nation are as divided if not more so, than during that difficult time.

What accounts for the lack of tolerance, subtlety, and common sense in our current political discourse is anybody's guess. Perhaps it's because we don't have a common enemy bringing us together as we did during the Great Depression, World War II and the days after September 11, 2001. Maybe it's the proliferation of cable TV outlets, the internet, and social media which provides a platform for every political ideology no matter how extreme or goofy, and promotes the segregation of those with like minds. Or maybe its just the old ennui, I have no idea.

What worries me is that the voices that scream the loudest on both sides are the ones that get the attention, leaving the subtle, unbiased, and measured views behind.

No ideological group holds the monopoly on overblown rhetoric and hyperbole; both sides spew it as freely as a drunken sailor spends money on a twelve hour shore leave. But if I had to crown a king of bluster, a crown prince of bombast, and a champion of the art of summing up all the world's problems into one sentence, usually wrapped around an infantile temper tantrum, that title would have to go to Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh's political views are well documented, as they say he's a little to the right of Attila the Hun. That alone for me is not a problem, far from it. In fact sometimes, rarely, but sometimes I agree with him. It's not his message I find objectionable, but the way he delivers it. Limbaugh is as subtle as a twenty pound sledge hammer, blasting his targets, that is to say anyone who doesn't subscribe to his world view, with insults and diatribes that would not be out of place in a professional wrestling ring. He seems to reserve the bulk of his wrath for women supporting women's issues. Recently Limbaugh labeled a women who publicly supported medical insurance paying for birth control pills a "slut." Of course it's all an act, no one in their right mind should take Limbaugh any more seriously than the circus known as the Jerry Springer Show.

But unfortunately, many people do.

Limbaugh's latest target has been none other than the Pope. When Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires stepped into the shoes of St. Peter in the Vatican this past March becoming Pope Francis, it quickly became clear that he would be a quite different pontiff than his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Benedict, now officially Pope Emeritus, is a brilliant theologian who was instrumental in the creation and implementation of the reforms of Vatican II which brought radical change to the Catholic Church. But the former Cardinal Ratzinger would later change some of his views on the sweeping changes that took place since the Second Vatican Council met in the early sixties and became very well known, even before his pontificate, as a strong voice for conservatism in the church.

Unlike Benedict, Francis, the first pope from Latin America, has rejected many of the trappings of the royal Vatican lifestyle, going out of his way to show that his pontificate will be devoted to the basics, that is to say, ministering to the poor and the helpless, and concentrating on the most fundamental tenets of Christianity, namely the gospel of love and forgiveness.

In recent months Pope Francis has made strong statements about some of the failings of capitalism, specifically the culture of greed that unrestricted capitalism left unchecked, can create.

This is where old Rush, huffing and puffing as usual, comes in. Though not a Catholic himself, he tells us he very much admires the institution. Specifically, Rush strongly approves of the Church's stand against abortion and gay marriage. He brags about being wined and dined aboard a yacht by the former Cardinal O'Connor of New York during a "Pro-Life" cruise. He claims to have visited the Vatican on numerous occasions and correctly points out there would not be a Vatican, and all its treasures, were it not for the vast amount of money that capitalism provides. And he writes admiringly about Pope John Paul II's strong opposition to communism and the late pope's claim that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan (two of Limbaugh's personal heroes) were important figures in the downfall of Communism in central and eastern Europe. Rush is right about that too.

But in the Gospel according to Rush:

...juxtaposed against the actions of Pope John Paul II this pope (Francis) and the things that he released yesterday or recently are really striking. 

There has been a long-standing tension between the Catholic Church and communism. It's been around for quite a while. That's what makes this, to me, really remarkable...

...I'm not Catholic, but I know enough to know that this would have been unthinkable for a pope to believe or say just a few years ago. But this passage, "The culture of prosperity deadens us. We are thrilled if the market offers us something new to buy. In the meantime, all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle." I have to tell you, folks, I am totally bewildered by this. 

Here Rush shows that he's way out of his league. Fair enough, the non-Catholic Limbaugh couldn't possibly (or could he?) know that both Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II, while being harsh critics of communism, also had stern warnings about "unfettered capitalism." According to Rush's great hero J.P.II in 1987:

The tension between East and West is an opposition... between two concepts of the development of individuals and peoples, both concepts being imperfect and in need of radical correction... This is one of the reasons why the Church’s social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal (unfettered) capitalism and Marxist collectivism.

Then in 1991 after the fall of communism in Europe, in the encyclical letter Centesimus Annus, John Paul II wrote this:

...can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?

The answer is obviously complex. If by ‘capitalism’ is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative... But if by "capitalism" is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality (in other words, unfettered capitalism), and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative. (Emphasis and comments are mine)

Pope Benedict XVI would later go on to write much the same on the subject. In that vein, Pope Francis
has added little or nothing to the Church's doctrine on capitalism. What he has done, which has come as a breath of fresh air to many, and a thorn in the side to folks like Limbaugh, is place less emphasis on hot button topics, social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, in favor of living and preaching the Gospel. In other words, the focus of his ministry as stated above, is directed toward the hungry, the poor, the dispossessed, the sinners, (groups Limbaugh doesn't have much time for), as well as the so called righteous. As a result, Pope Francis has brought the Vatican in step with what goes on daily in the lives of Catholic parishes around the world. Contrary to the general (non-Catholic) public's perception, as any practicing Catholic can tell you, the Church's heart resides within the hearts and souls of its people, not within the mysterious halls of the Vatican.

Judging from his words, Rush Limbaugh clearly knows little about Catholicism or the Catholic Church. What he knows or understands about Christianity is also somewhat suspect. If Limbaugh were looking for some truly radical theology he could chomp is pointy incisors into, he should read this:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

That said, it is important to point out that despite Pope Francis's ingratiating words for those on the Left to believers and non-believers alike, the Church's doctrine regarding the controversial issues of our time is not about to change. Don't expect to see the Pope coming out in favor of abortion, or gay weddings inside St. Peter's any time soon. This is as it should be I believe. It's one thing for individuals, government and statutory law to be swayed by changing times, public opinion, and ideology, but I believe that the Church is the one institution in our lives that must remain steadfastly true to its mission, namely the Gospel.

Popes come and go, some of them such as Francis and John XXIII are claimed by the Left, while others like John Paul II and Benedict XVI are claimed by the Right. However I suspect that none of those pontiffs would have appreciated being labeled as a poster child for any particular ideology.

The nutty political discourse we're now experiencing maybe OK for the secular, temporal world in which we live. However when all is said and done, we will all be judged (by a greater power if you believe in such things, and most certainly by those who survive us), by the way we treated others. The fundamental message of Christianity and other religions is so simple and profound that we lose sight of it among the all the busy details of our lives. That message is this:

Love and forgive one another.

That's all.

In the words of the great Rabbi Hillel, spoken 2000 years ago:

 the rest (of scripture) is commentary.

We may claim the Almighty for ourselves but God is neither liberal nor conservative, Democrat nor Republican. He is neither a Communist nor a Capitalist. His message doesn't belong exclusively to the Right or to the Left, to the Jew or the Gentile, or to you or me. It belongs to all of us.

In the end, that message is the only one that matters.