On Religion In America

I know it's not generally within my ken to comment on political matters, but I have been known to do so in the past, particularly when the issue is not simply politics, but anthropology. As of Monday, 43 Catholic entities, including several dioceses, a number of universities (including, shocker! Notre Dame University in South Bend), and other institutions have filed 17 separate lawsuits against the federal government concerning the HHS Mandate. The Franciscan University of Steubenville has announced that they will no longer provide health insurance for their students, nor will they require that students actually have insurance (see badcatholic's as usual high-quality post on it here - in fact, I kind of want to stop this post right now since badcatholic has already done it, and I'll never be as cool as that guy - but nay, I press on!). I was talking about this with my mom yesterday and we came to rather disheartening conclusion: either something big is going to happen, or the whole thing will just get swept under the rug.

There, that's better. Now all I have to do is never move this rug.

Here's what concerns me: we're in America. In many ways, this is an excellent thing. In some ways, it's even the best thing. But in a lot of other ways, it is not a good thing at all. For example, after the announcement of the HHS Mandate, there was immediate pushback from a number of bishops. In response, Nancy Pelosi made a statement that she would  "stand with her fellow Catholics" - and support the president's policy.

I am Nancy Pelosi! I am a credible authority on all things Catholic, especially where people disagree with the teaching authority of the Church on fundamental matters of faith and morals! Thank you! Goodnight!

I realize this is something of an old statement to be commenting on, but it's what's at root that really concerns me. What's implied is that the Church may be easily divided: those who support the mandate de facto, and those who do not merit comment. In another statement, Congresswoman Pelosi said that as a devout Catholic, she "supports the bishops when they are my pastor," but not when they are functioning as "lobbyists" in Washington.

Now of course there are a number of things I could say about such a thought. The real problem, though, is that she may be right. Not in a "truth is the mind conforming to reality" kind of way, but in a simply practical way.

While I have yet to see any sort of data showing that Catholics in general support the administration's policy in this area, I also have yet to see much to the effect of Catholics protesting en masse. Sure, the bishops are raising their voices (and thank God!), but let's take a sober look at the situation.

President Obama has moved to make a policy decision which ought to be found morally abhorrent by more than a fifth of his constituents (that's just counting Catholics), even as he ramps up for re-election. There is no conceivable reason he and the Democratic party would risk alienating that much of their electorate unless they truly believed that it did not matter. That is, that regardless of what the bishops may say with regard to the morality of the mandate, the average Catholic voter would take no notice.

The wrench in Obama's plan is the fact that it is very likely unconstitutional. I commend the bishops for taking that tack and challenging the mandate on legal grounds as that's the only practical way of stopping it. At the same time, part of me laments that the issue has been so reduced. 

Yes, it needs to be answered in the courts, but what seems to be happening now is a much, much wider issue. The administration is attempting to frame the debate as an issue of women's health, whereby those who disagree are excoriated as desiring to oppress women. At the root of this debate are several fundamental questions: what is freedom, yes, how can freedom of conscience be applied, yes, but even more important is the question of what it means to be a human being. Is contraception a "reproductive right"? Is refusing to pay for it somehow an attack on women? Are women the only type of people who are affected by intercourse? Is pregnancy itself an attack on women? Is sex without the risk of reproduction the only possible way for a woman to have dignity, or does this idea itself imply a gross undervaluation of her person? Is the physical act of sexual intercourse a "right"? Is human happiness truly reducible to the ready availability of recreational intercourse?
(On the more immediate level, there are other questions I'd also like to see answered, especially concerning the reasoning and motivations behind the government's definition of contraception as a fundamental issue of healthcare. Is pregnancy to be considered an undesirable or unhealthy state?)
Regardless, if we allow the issue to be merely one of legality ("lobbying" vs. "pastoring," as Pelosi would have it), we have missed a great opportunity. Just like with abortion, the legal issue is important, but what is even more important is converting the hearts and minds of those who do not see the issue in terms of human dignity. This is not an issue of "right vs. wrong" or any of the other accusatory or divisive labels that have been applied already and will be applied in the future (presuming that President Obama is wrong and the issue garners any sort of attention). The issue is, like all matters of import, a question of salvation. But the first question is whether we, the faithful, will see it as such. Are we on a plain between the two horizons of life and death? Or are we merely Americans, whose faith has been subtly but successfully divorced from policy?

I have to admit that these questions leave me with a pretty bleak picture. While the legal approach is necessary, what is really needed is conversion. Which leaves me with only one conclusion: we must be saints. Not for ourselves, not even for the good of our Church, but for the good of the world. For the love of God and for the love of our brothers and sisters. Sanctity, the living of God's own life in our world, is the only way to bring about conversion. It is only God who can move hardened hearts, and so sanctity is all the more necessary, if only to allow the opportunity for the encounter with God.
Believe me when I say that I speak as a sinner and not as a saint, but as a sinner who longs to live united to Christ's life, love, and will. This question of healthcare and contraception should be huge. It should be the occasion of massive public attention because of its constitutional nature. It is also a grace-filled opportunity to speak about human dignity, and it would be a shame to let that pass. But most of all, it is a deep and generous invitation and call for sanctity. Let us then be saints, and let the trees and rivers clap their hands.

St. Thomas More, patron of politicians, pray for us, that merrily we may meet in Heaven!

On Putting Christ in the Friend Zone

Well, apparently I've cut down my posts to a bi-weekly standard, which is unfortunate, since I have great thoughts pretty well all day long, but am too selfish to share them with the world. On the other hand, most of my thoughts end up looking like this, so maybe it's actually better for y'all. At any rate, I've got a bit of an excuse this time: last week I graduated with my MA in Theology, which brought my dad and brother in town for the week, which was, of course, awesome. And now I'm a Master, so you can expect my words to carry a lot more weight. Just the other day I settled a dispute in the supermarket checkout line concerning the divinity of Christ.

How did I do this? Merely by announcing my credentials, presenting my diploma, and declaiming "Jesus Christ is LORD." It was that easy, thanks to my multi-year schooling. Now all I have to do is buy a wallet big enough to fit my diploma in. Or maybe just hang it around my neck.

It'd look something like this. Except that Flav is a far snappier dresser than I. And yes, I've only just learned how to add text to pictures.

So congrats to me! And on to the thought of the week(s):

Having been out of high school for nearly 10 years now, I've only recently come across the verb to "friend-zone" (what can I say? I was only relatively recently disabused of the thought that the word "leggings" referred to those frilly knit things girls in the 80's used to wear on their lower legs sincerely and girls in the 00's wear ironically. Not the case. Those are "leg warmers." I hope you're taking notes). Wikipedia, that fount of knowledge, defines the "friend-zone" thusly:

"In popular culture, the "friend zone" refers to a platonic relationship where one person wishes to enter into a romantic relationship while the other does not. It is generally considered to be an undesirable situation by the lovelorn person."

Thankfully, the wikipedia article also points out that the term was only popularized in nineteen-ninety-freaking-four. So I've only been out of touch for nigh on 20 years. Whiiiiiiiiiiich I'm totally fine with.

I'm not particularly interested in the application of this concept in human-to-human relationships, as undesirable as it may be. I don't give dating advice, I'm a theologian (and a Master, at that). But it struck me that this same sort of dynamic is often present in our relationship to Christ.
There come times in our faith life that demand commitment, maybe more than we are willing to give. Those are the times that I think we can tend to relegate Christ to the friend zone, to think to ourselves "Me and Jesus? We're buddies! It's cool, he's a great guy, but that doesn't mean he can make any demands on me."

The problem with this, of course, is that Jesus doesn't want to be our friend. Jesus wants to be our lover. He doesn't want a piece or a part of our life, he wants our life. He wants to give us life, but the only way he can do that is if we give him our lives. Giving our lives to Christ is as easy and natural as falling in love, which is to say it is the most difficult and run-from experience in our modern world. 
Why? There are too many reasons to list, and this blog is already overlong, so I'll just suggest one: we're afraid. We think that if we can just keep Christ in that friend zone, we've got him contained, and those of us living the general human way of being in this day and age will always contain or run from that which will change us in unpredictable ways. We're far more likely to try to change ourselves in ways we have control over (e.g. weight-loss, "self-help" books, exercising, all in the mistaken belief that we can form our own perfection). Call me male, call me American, call me twenty-something, but submitting to a higher authority scares the bejeezus out of us.
So when those hard times come in our faith (and they will, and if they've already come and gone, they will be back), when being conformed to Jesus demands something from us other than a vague fuzzy feeling and a commitment to "not harm other living beings," we are very often afraid. Look at Scripture, and the many times when God, whether through angels or in the person of Jesus, says, "Do not be afraid." Why is this repeated so often? Because God knows what a knee-jerk reaction it is for us. 
What if we fail? What if other people were turned off by our faith? What if being loving opened us up to criticism and mockery? Are we really capable of loving? Does love exist? Does God really know us personally? Can God really will the existence of a sinner like myself? What if we really are the failures we believe ourselves to be? What if God really knew the depths of our hearts and how dark those depths are or can be? 
Those are some of my fears, and just like the early disciples, I know that it is a constant struggle to act from love instead of fear, because love demands that we be lost, while fear demands that we draw back and hold onto ourselves at all costs. Luckily, the great John Paul II reminds us that even in the face of our very real limitations and failures to love, "We are not the sum of our fears and failures. We are the sum of the Father's love for us."

Look at that frickin' Mr. Coolguy McPope.

We are not defined by our sins. We are not defined by our fears. We are not defined by the eyes which look at us in criticism and judgement, even if they are our own. We are defined only and solely by love. The more we realize this, that we are defined by God's love for us, and not by our actions, however good they may be,  the more we will be able to let go. Realizing that we are loved first is an act of submission that demands all of our being because it means that we have utterly no control over God. Which is a very, very good and freeing thing indeed.

P.S. one of my readers pointed out that even though this blog is called "Inklings of Cleveland," there's precious little on here about either Inklings or Cleveland. Please see the below picture and eat your heart out. Thank you. More Cleveland flavor in the future.

No way! That's waaaaay too pretty to be Cleveland!