TIME FOR DEBATE

 An Vatican official once told me that bishops don't disagree publicly with one another. It wasn't just that dog doesn't eat dog. And it wasn't that bishops didn't disagree with each other. It was that people would feel scandalized if there was any suggestion of a disagreement, much less a full blown row between them. Are the people really that weak minded?

Recently, two Vatican hot-shots went at it head to head in Rome. One, the head of the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the other, the chair of the group of eight cardinals chosen by the pope to advise him. The issue was the reception of Holy Communion by Catholics who are divorced but remarried outside the Church. Pope Francis, looking at the issue from a pastoral point of view, had called for a re-examination of it, feeling there was room in the debate for the mercy of God. Archbishop Muller of the CDF, looking at it from the point of view of Rome's doctrinal watchdog, respectfully disagreed.

Cardinal Maradiaga of the Group of Eight, when asked what he thought of Muller's apparent dismissal of the Pope (and God's mercy), said: " He's a German...so in his mentality there's only truth and falsehood. But I say, my brother, the world isn't like this and you should be a bit more flexible when you hear other voices. That means not just listening but then saying no." Maradiaga then went on to say that he was sure Archbishop Muller "will arrive at understanding other positions too" even if at the moment he is listening "only to his own group of advisors."

What we're seeing here is not just a spat between clerics in high places, but a battle being fought out in the ongoing struggle for a new kind of Church, one that has been irrevocably impacted by the "Francis effect." It's a battle between a black and white view of Catholic reality and an acceptance of the complexity of the human experience of weakness and failure. Francis has said more than once that the Church is not for a Catholic elite, but a field hospital where the wounded find healing and care. We can expect an ongoing series of spats like that of Muller versus Maradiaga.

More than half a century ago, the Second Vatican Council called for the principle of subsidiarity to be a hallmark of how the Church would do business. It meant broadening decision-making processes at world, national, diocesan and parish level, so that issues pertaining to parish would be resolved at parish level; issues pertaining to diocesan level would be resolved at diocesan level; and issues pertaining to the national scene would be sorted out at national level. It never got off the ground due to its being labeled by the Vatican as "Protestant Congregationalism." 

Francis has put us back into the mode of the Second Vatican Council, of implementing its reforms, but fifty years on. It's really Vatican II for slow learners.

PASTOR EMERITUS

CURING AND HEALING

 I had a remarkable visit with a man in a nursing home last week. He is eighty four years old, with cancers in his lungs, colon, prostate, and blood. And his teeth are rotting from a lifetime of smoking. I've know this person for thirty years and always found him lively, generous and good humored. He came to the front lobby with a huge smile and escorted me to his apartment, half walking and half trotting - his signature gait - along the hallways and stairways. He still exudes a real boyish enthusiasm for life.

Having insisted I take the most comfortable chair in the room, he offered me tea and proceeded to ask me how I was. But I countered with a similar question about himself. His smile broadened as he began a litany of blessings from God. To see the enthusiasm with which he spoke about how he has been blessed in his latter years was special for me. It's not something I experience from every sick person I visit. Far from dwelling on his multiple cancers (any one of which would scare the wits out of me), he kept telling me with real conviction that his life was in God's hands. And then he would flash a beatific smile. Is it that our lives are in God's hands, too, but we don't realize it?

As I drove away after an hour's visit, I was thinking of the Gospel stories of Jesus healing the multitudes of sick and handicapped. I wondered about bodily affliction and the deep sense of well-being I had just encountered. I wondered, too, about curing and healing. Two different things? There are many incidents in the Gospels of people being healed and jumping for joy. My colleague back in the nursing home was jumping for joy. He certainly had not been cured. But had he somehow been healed? The cancers were there and advancing, but he was not unduly worried about them. His main focus was gratitude to God for "something." Was it real inner healing, I thought?  Is this what the stories of Jesus healing people in the Gospels are all about?

After I bade my farewell in the lobby and he disappeared into the elevator, I turned back to the receptionist and commented on how happy my friend was. She dropped what she was doing, looked me in the eye and said with conviction: "He is the most loved resident we have. His sense of faith, gratitude and kindness to people here is infectious. He gives us all hope. Everyone feels better when they meet him."

I myself felt the better for the visit. There's a story in the Gospel where the sick who were lying in the market place touched the tassel of Jesus' cloak and were healed - Mark 6, 53-56. Was my friend in the nursing home like the tassel of Jesus' cloak who seems to have touched so many of his fellow residents (and visitors alike). Is he an extension of God's loving care to heal his people, a channel of his peace and joy, and a minister of his presence? Maybe Pope Francis wants to draw our attention to the power of the poor and needy through people like my friend who is so ill, and yet exuding with a well-being and happiness that's not of this world.

PASTOR EMERITUS

DOCTRINE AND LIFE

 "Anyone who knows the reality of Catholic life is well aware that at the retail level, there's always a sort of negotiation that goes on between what the rules say and what actually happens. It is not about hypocrisy or disobedience, but adapting universal norms to the infinite complexity of real life situations." - John Allen

This observation from the popular NCR columnist is not only true but it makes a lot of sense. The tension between what the rules say (e.g. Sunday Mass attendance) and how people observe them is out there for all to see.

It's not hard to find clergy who think only in terms of black and white: the rules must be obeyed no matter what. They assume that human needs should be made to fit their own understanding of every doctrine and rule in the book. Others, recognizing the greyness of life, are more comfortable acknowledging that the "Sabbath was made for man," and not vice versa. Jesus didn't appear to have a problem subordinating laws to human need. As my mother used say, "Necessity respects no law."

When the Church in the form of its clergy seeks to impose the letter of the law upon an unwilling individual, that person will likely go his or her own way. In other words, good and decent people follow their own consciences when confronted with something they are not ready to embrace. They will feel misunderstood and rejected, and go seek out someone whom they feel understands their situation better.

This is sometimes the case when an engaged couple is refused a Church wedding because of cohabitation. I have heard of families being refused the baptism of a newborn infant because they haven't been married in the Catholic Church. Many divorced Catholics who have remarried outside the Church want to receive the Eucharist, but cannot get their situation resolved by Church officials.

Sacraments, like the Sabbath, are for the spiritual benefit of the person. They are not offered by the Church as a reward for being good, but as healing, nourishment and strength for the weak. They are meant to be celebrated with a level of faith that fosters a spiritual and moral change for the better. They are not offered indiscriminately, like the blessing of a statue or a crucifix.

One of the Church's roles is to bring people "to that full, active and conscious participation" which the nature of the sacraments calls for - (cf. Vatican II on the Liturgy #14). This ensures both the spiritual nourishment of the people celebrating and the integrity of the sacrament itself. There are times when people's readiness for the Eucharist should be given priority over a technicality that might exclude them.

PASTOR EMERITUS

DISCOVER, CELEBRATE, SHARE

 "At once they left their nets and followed him." 

It didn't work that way with me! When people ask me when I decided to become a priest the most honest answer I can give is, "About a dozen years after I was ordained." During those early years I spent my time preaching the agenda of the Second Vatican Council  - offering workshops on liturgy: doing what I didn't need to be priest to do. They were interesting years but, looking back, I didn't seem to focus much on evangelization. I think that was the result of confusing monastic life (I had been a Cistercian) with priesthood during formation.

I've heard married people say the same kind of thing, that the real decision to be married came some years after they stood at the altar. Half ways through the 1970s I began to rethink my priesthood and many things about the church. But one thing I haven't really needed to rethink was my call to be a priest.

"Call" is a strong word. I had no visions, heard no voices, experienced nothing mystical. What I experienced was a a nudge, a prompting, an intuition - a suggestion that becoming a priest might be what I was meant to do with my life. It was a kind of hunch.

I followed the hunch, hoping that God was behind it and, to the best of my ability, I believed I was doing with my life what God wanted me to do. What God originally nudged me into has turned out to be very different than what I expected. I am reminded of a book I saw a few years ago with the intriguing title: "This Isn't The Life I Ordered."

Well, whose is it? Even though I believe I am still on the same page as God, I found that a priest's work is often frustrating, painful, lonely, confining, confusing, depressing, unsupported and even suspect. But at the same time, I found my work has been exciting, challenging, fulfilling, uplifting, liberating, validating, appreciated, needed, joyful, blessed and deeply rewarding.

If you think a priest's work is mostly doing "holy things" or saying "holy words" - or even being "holy" himself - you've got it inside out. We live in a culture of junk. My work is to sort through all the junk in our lives, and to dig deep enough to discover the HOLY in our hearts, our lives and in the world around us. The discovery of the HOLY makes me want celebrate and share it with others.

This Sunday, we will be reminded for the umpteenth time that Christ continues to nudge his people to believe that leaving their nets to follow him - in whatever way - might, indeed, be a very good hunch.

PASTOR EMERITUS

WHO ARE WE?

 A new year has dawned and with it, hopefully, a measure of new hope. The first thing you notice about Jesus when you open any of the Gospels is that he is out and about his business. What's he doing? Calling simple fisher folk to follow him. No theories to go with it, no philosophies, no ideologies or theologies. Just two simple words: "Follow me!" How simple it looks. How difficult to do!

According to theologian philologist, Gerhard Lohfink ("Jesus of Nazareth" p. 73), "follow me" means walk after me. The ancient rabbis had their disciples (a word which means "learners") focus not on walking after them but on studying the Torah, the Law of Moses. Rabbinic disciples were first and foremost students. Jesus was a rabbi with a difference. He interpreted the Torah in a new way, sang the old words to a new tune. He didn't call his disciples to be students of the Torah or anything else. He called them to follow him, to sing his new song along with him.

The Gospels tell us that they dropped whatever it was they were engaged in, and simply followed him. It was hardly a sheepish, willy-nilly "follow the leader" thing. People need something to hope for in order to drop everything and start moving in another direction. Those first disciples saw some hope and felt some excitement in Jesus' invitation.

For many people today God is irrelevant, non-existent, a meaningless concept. Putting one's hope and trust in God sounds to them like a pious cop-out. To believers, such people - and they are legion - appear to live without much long-term hope. Their hopes often center on living healthier and longer, making a better life for their families, maybe even a better future for society. These are worthy ideals, excellent and decent, but to people of faith such hopes seem to be missing something important that's hard to put words on.

Allowing Jesus into our personal space, accepting his vision of life, engenders an ongoing excitement and hope that has to be experienced to be believed. Pope Francis got to the heart of things when he said that he was "A sinner who had been touched by the mercy of God." From that moment onwards, Francis saw life differently. The great issues of war and peace, wealth and poverty, justice and injustice clarified and became part and parcel of who he is today. That, I suspect, is why he speaks so simply yet so compellingly on these issues on an almost daily basis.

I forget who it was who said, 'We don't know who we are until we discover our call from God." It makes sense. We are called by a power way above and beyond ourselves to be the person God had in mind when we started to exist - maybe sinners waiting to be touched by God's mercy. We are called to worship, to fellowship and community, to be all things to all, especially to those who bear the label "poor." Maybe 2014 will be the year when we slow down, stop and listen for the personal call - and respond.

PASTOR EMERITUS