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The Cynical Explanation as to Why Notre Dame is Giving Barack Obama an Honourary Doctorate, and why the Vatican Goes With the Flow
Now that the day has arrived for Barack Obama to give his speech and receive his honourary doctorate at Notre Dame, it’s time to clear the ideological blather out (like this) of the way and get to some reasonable explanation as to why such a wide swath of American Catholicism–with the tacit approval of the Vatican–is going along with this.
The Roman Catholic Church has survived for many centuries under a wide variety of regimes and states. The Church is a survivor, and that’s especially remarkable considering that it generally holds a good deal of property, which makes it a target for wealth-hungry governments. It’s also an institution that has thrived in conditions unlike the ideal ones that have heretofore existed in this country, so its perspective on politics and government on an operating basis is different than ours as Americans.
The blunt truth is that the Roman Catholic Church, at the highest levels and downward, have concluded that they are looking at a long-term dictator in Barack Obama. Whether this centres in Obama himself or whether it represents a fundamental shift in the style of mind in the U.S. (or both) the result is the same. The church’s response to this has always been to attempt to reach an accomodation with the powers that be so as to insure its own survival at the highest level possible. The way this plays out varies from place to place; one should think of places such as Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, or Poland under communism. How aggresively it pursues its agenda under adverse circumstances depends upon the nature of those circumstances. The current Pontiff and his predecessor are two human illustrations of that variety.
Although it would be interesting to speculate how John Paul II would have handled this situation, the message that’s being sent from both the Vatican and Notre Dame is that the Church has concluded that it’s playing from a weak hand in the U.S. Given the threat of having abortion (and possible nationalisation) shoved down the throat of the Catholic health system, that assessment may have some validity.
This kind of thing is one of the least attractive aspects of Roman Catholicism. It can be heartbreaking for Catholics who are strictly working on principle, but that’s just the way it is.
It’s interesting to note that the one country this kind of accomodation didn’t work in was China. There the Chinese nationalised the Catholic Church (come to think of it, England under Henry VIII did the same thing!) and the RCC is still out of the game there. The rise of China in the world can’t sit too well at the Vatican given this simple fact.
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Dear Graduate
Originally written in 2005.
Dear Graduate,
(name withheld because the Internet is a crazy place)My wife and I were well pleased with your achievement of valedictorian. She was hoping that you, her former piano student, would achieve this. But the piece in the paper (sorry, surfers, paid subscription required) was a surprise. I’ll get to your comments about the erosion of the “rights” of gay marriage and those of reproduction in due course. However, your general pessimism and characterisation of the world in a “downward spiral” was, in some ways, more interesting to me. This was because I myself tended to be cynical and pessimistic when I graduated from prep school. (Warning: reading this site may show little change!)
There are many things to be bothered about these days. But, as the wine enthusiasts would say, 1973 was a very good year to be pessimistic.
The Vietnam War had ended. This got us out of the draft but the backwash of bitterness over the war was still very strong. (John Kerry and the Swift Boat veterans reminded us that it was still there in 2004!) Watergate was in full swing; the left was saving our political system by destroying it through hyped scandal, a legacy that came back to haunt the left during the Clinton years. In January of that year Roe v. Wade forced legalised abortion on us by judicial fiat; even Roe regrets that now. Later that year, the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt initiated our first “energy crisis,” with high prices, long lines and possible gas rationing.
For my part, I was in as deep of gloom as anyone. There seemed to be only two choices out there. The first was communism and (even worse) home-grown social liberalism, with their enforced atheism and widespread loss of life and property. One teacher screamed at me when I had the nerve to cite my parish priest’s interpretation of the Sixth Commandment. The other was the hard, authoritarian conservatism I had been raised with at home. This was not a happy set of choices for someone who wanted to live somewhere else than the power holder/power challenger dialectic which is the norm in the upper reaches of our society, more so now than then.
By God’s unrecognised direction, I made two decisions that would ultimately change everything.
The first was my conversion to Roman Catholicism, done the fall before I graduated. At a liberal Episcopal prep school, this was an act of rebellion, and our school chaplain didn’t miss the point. In addition to getting me into a more conservative church, it also got me out of the “rich kid” millieu and amongst real people. When my brother came to Mass with me, he noted that the people around me looked like they had actually worked with their hands in life. Raised at the church where Donald Trump was married the third time, this was a novelty.
The second was, in its own way, similar to the first: my decision to go to Texas A&M University. Needless to say, this was greeted with horror at school, a horror I did not anticipate. They felt that such a decision dishonoured the school, especially with a graduating class that sent two people to Harvard. But I had my own ideas about where I wanted my career to go and went anyway.
It took two years after graduation for the full impact of these two decisions to make itself known, but when it did, it produced a major crisis. My response at the time was to express myself in fiction; that response can be found in the first instalment of what is now The Island Chronicles, on this site. But ultimately it went beyond fiction; the winds of renewal were blowing, the people around me were real, and I ultimately realised that God did have a reality of His making for me to live in.
Unfortunately many of my contemporaries didn’t have this experience. Some of them ended up as the teachers and school administrators you are leaving behind, but there are more where they came from. The legacy they are leaving is one of confusion. Their idea about “reproductive rights” is solely related to their mania for sexual freedom, which they have turned into making being sexually active the forced norm. Today a decision for chastity is a hard road because of their desire for “freedom;” their main weapon is not the law but peer pressure, which Palm Beach taught me to be a very blunt instrument in the wrong hands. With gay marriage things are even worse, because they taught for so long that marriage was a feudal, hierarchal institution which they neither have the conviction to abolish nor the sense to honour in the form God intended it from the start.
Prep schools are amazing institutions. One the one hand, they tell us that they want us to find fulfilment in life in a very idealistic tone, but when they turn from the abstract to the concrete they cast this fulfilment in terms of material success via getting into “good” universities and entering highly compensated (and/or politically powerful) careers. You, for your part, are doing your duty in both respects. But it isn’t their life, it’s yours. God has given it to you, and the road to fulfilment isn’t the one that school or society says, but the one He set forth for you from what I like to call “negative infinity.” (The ultimate goal, of course, is to be with Him at “positive infinity,” where this site gets its name.
This page and its companion highlight the result of my own voyage. When I sent my first two published books to my prep school’s alumni director, along with an account of my varied career, his response was that “you have lived an interesting life.” God has an interesting life for you too. It’s your choice: make it.
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Sam Ervin’s Speech on Ex Parte Milligan
In view of the back and forth on the Guantanamo detainees and the legal status of same, an interesting audio document is Sen. Sam Ervin’s (D-NC, right) monlogue–and back and forth with Watergate witness John Erlichmann and his counsel–during the Watergate hearings.The monologue is about 30 minutes into the audio clip. The date was 26 July 1973.
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Fruit That Lasts
“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that should remain, so that the Father might grant you whatever you ask in my Name.” (John 15:16)
This verse deals with two important issues — the nature of Jesus’ calling and the nature of our fruit as Christians. Both are important on two levels — on an abstract, theological level and as part of our daily Christian walk.
The Nature of Jesus’ Calling
This verse comes in the centre of the discourse — or the series of discourses — that extend from John 13 (the washing of the disciples’ feet) until John 17 (the “great high priestly prayer.) In these discourses Jesus set forth some of the most profound and important things that he had to say while on this earth. The matters discussed in this verse were no exception.
Jesus starts by reminding the disciples that he chose them, not they him. We say “reminded” because the disciples well remembered when Jesus chose them: “When day came, he summoned his disciples, and chose twelve of them, whom he also named ‘Apostles.’ They were Simon (whom Jesus also named Peter), and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon known as the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who proved a traitor.” (Luke 6:13-16) There are other verses relating to this; it seems that it took more than one call to get some of them to follow him.
Now many emphasize the absolute nature of the call of God. But God himself is more realistic about this: “‘Did not I myself choose you to be the Twelve?’ replied Jesus; ‘and yet, even of you, one is playing the ‘Devil’s’ part.’ He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who was about to betray him, though he was one of the Twelve.” (John 6:70-71) The fact remains that, although God certainly called the disciples, they were in a position to turn their back on him, as Judas certainly did. It is really frightful to consider such a thing but it is something we see all too often.
Jesus goes on to underscore the nature of his calling; not only is he calling the disciples, he is “appointing” them to boot. Today when someone is appointed to a position, be it in the government, church, or the private sector, it is customary to call some kind of gathering (such as a press conference) and have the appointee stand next to the person doing the appointing while the announcement is being made. The idea of course is to emphasize the elevation of the person to a new level of authority.
The word “appointed” used here, though, has just the opposite meaning; it literally means that the person being appointed is placed in a passive or horizontal posture, or is bowing down to the person making the appointment. Rather than elevating the appointee the process Jesus is describing emphasizes subordinating the appointee to him. This is the key to the concept of “servant leadership:” “‘But with you it must not be so. No, let the greatest among you become like the youngest, and him who leads like him who serves. Which is the greater–the master at the table or his servant? Is not it the master at the table? Yet I myself am among you as one who serves.’” (Luke 22:26-27) If we are to be real leaders, we must become servants, and servants first to Our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we think of people who are chosen as the disciples were, we frequently think of people who were created a class apart from the rest of us, who are elevated to a higher state than we can ever hope to attain. But this is not the case; in addition to becoming servants, the word “chosen” in all the verses cited really means “called out,” or selected from the whole of humanity. For the New Covenant Jesus did not set apart a separate family of people such as the Levites to minister to his people; his idea was that those who were to do his work were to come out of the humanity which he had come to save.
The Importance of Fruit
An enormous amount of ink has been spilled and sermon time filled on this subject. Bearing fruit has been a matter of importance to Christians for a long time; we should expect that pastors and teachers would spend a lot of time on this issue. Unfortunately we are so riveted to the subject of producing fruit that we forget the entire meaning of fruit as it appears in the New Testament.
The first thing that usually comes to mind on the subject of fruit is of course the fruit of the Spirit: “But the fruit produced by the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindliness, generosity, trustfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law!” (Gal 5:22-23) Right here the origin of the fruit — the Spirit — is emphasized. This is reinforced by verses such as “‘So, too, every sound tree bears good fruit, while a worthless tree bears bad fruit. A sound tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a worthless tree bear good fruit. Every tree that fails to bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Hence it is by the fruit of their lives that you will know such men.’” (Matt 7:17-20) With this background most of the time spent on fruit is spent in instructing people in how to bear proper fruit.
While this is certainly important, it only looks at fruit from the standpoint of the bearer. However, the Greek word for fruit as used in John 15:16 ultimately comes from the Greek verb “to seize.” In this way the fruit of a tree or other plant is not designated as the end result of the action of the tree or plant, but by the fact that the fruit of the plant is the part which is picked! Looked at in this way, the fruit is the part which is accessible and which people will want to take of and eat.
When I was growing up in Florida, we had orange and grapefruit trees in the back yard. The cat found the trees fun to climb. The trees also had a lot of leaves, but they weren’t of much interest to us unless a hurricane blew them into the swimming pool. The oranges and the grapefruit were important; when they ripened around New Year’s, we could pick them off of the trees and eat them. Only their quality mattered because they were the only parts of the trees that were accessible for eating.
It is certainly important to insure that the fruit of our lives is of the Spirit and of high quality. But if our fruit isn’t accessible to others — if it isn’t where people can see it or benefit from it — then it isn’t really fruit at all! “‘Men do not light a lamp and put it under the corn-measure, but on the lamp-stand, where it gives light to every one in the house. Let your light so shine before the eyes of your fellow men, that, seeing your good actions, they may praise your Father who is in Heaven.’” (Matt 5:15-16)
So many people in their Christian lives spend so much time in developing their spiritual growth, but if it isn’t obvious — if they don’t share it with others in some kind of ministry — then they are not really bearing fruit. We cannot be known by our fruit if it isn’t out in the open. This isn’t just for pastors and ministers — this is for all Christians.
The Result of Fruit
Now that we have seen the real significance of the idea of “fruit,” we need to know what objective all this fruit cultivation and availability is for. So much of what we do has so little long term value that it would be useless to add another activity with no result. This verse promises two things concerning those results.
The first is that our fruit should remain, or abide as King James would say. Put in simpler terms this means that our fruit should stick around, and moreover those who reach out and partake of our fruit should obtain long term value. Jesus intended that our fruit be of eternal result. One of the fruits of the apostle John’s own ministry, namely his Gospel, was written expressly for this purpose: “There were many other signs of his mission that Jesus gave in presence of the disciples, which are not recorded in this book; But these have been recorded that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God–and that, through your belief in his Name, you may have Life.” (John 20:30-31) Jesus himself put it to the Father in this way a little later: “‘And the Immortal Life is this–to know thee the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent as thy Messenger.’” (John 17:3; click here for more information about this verse) The ultimate measure of the worth of our fruit is how much of it ends up in heaven.
The second thing is that we have our prayers answered. Now Jesus intended that we be, as Bossuet would say, “clothed in the omnipotence of God:” “‘I tell you that if any one should say to this hill ‘Be lifted up and hurled into the sea!’, without ever a doubt in his mind, but in the faith that what he says will be done, he would find that it would be. And therefore I say to you ‘Have faith that whatever you ask for in prayer is already granted you, and you will find that it will be.’” (Mark 11:23-24) But such clothing was not unconditional: “‘Not every one who says to me ‘Master! Master!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven. On ‘That Day’ many will say to me ‘Master, Master, was not it in your name that we taught, and in your name that we drove out demons, and in your name that we did many miracles?’ And then I shall say to them plainly ‘I never knew you. Go from my presence, you who live in sin.”” (Matt 7:21-23)
If we expect to do miracles, we must first produce fruit, and fruit that has lasting value. But by that time the miracles may have already started in the lives of those around us.
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Rowan Williams, Golf, Miserable and Glorious Failure at the ACC and Elsewhere
In his own wrap of the Anglican Consultative Council, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams made a statement that, for me, stuck out like a sore thumb:
Drawing upon a phrase coined by the English Roman Catholic nun, Maria Boulding, Dr Williams stated “the alternatives for Christians were not success or failure, but glorious failure and miserable failure. Glorious failure is the recognition that we fall again and again and have a Lord and Saviour whose promise is so inexhaustible that we can pick ourselves up and begin the world all over again, newly created. Miserable failure takes many forms, including the form of telling ourselves that we haven’t really failed at all.”
I am a golfer (sort of.) For a long list of reasons, I don’t have a high swing speed, thus the ball doesn’t go very far when I hit it, even when I hit it well. Occasionally I’ll play a very challenging course here with narrow fairways bordered by very high trees and thick brush. I’ll hit it off the tee, maybe dribble it to the side, where the ball bounces into the undergrowth and out of bounds.
I have a friend who is a long hitter. He tees it up and hits it further, but if it’s not down the middle it sails magnificently over the treetops, looking far more spectacular than mine. But after its inspiring flight the ball drops into the trees and undergrowth, out of bounds.
My shot is miserable failure. His shot is glorious failure. But the result is the same: the ball is out of bounds, most likely lost, and we’re out a penalty stroke in getting to the hole.
The thing that Williams–and others of his idea–hasn’t figured out is that God doesn’t want his people to fail. He has, however, redefined success, and that success needs to be in his strength, done his way and have his objectives. It’s a subtle difference, but one that separates a church that actually meets people at their point of need to one that just bounces from one fiasco to the next.
And that, unfortunately, is the impression that comes out of the latest ACC.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 