Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini died last August, one of my favorite Church leaders. He was one of the best scripture scholars in the world. He headed the famous Biblicum in Rome and when he died he was a marvelously successful archbishop in Milam. Two weeks before he died, he said, “The Church is 200 years out of date and in need of radical transformation. The Church is tired. Our culture has grown old, our churches are big and empty and the Church bureaucracy rises up. Our religious rites and the vestments we wear are pompous.”
None of that was new. Many of us have been saying it for many years but when Benedict was pope he did not see the need or have the strength to make the necessary changes. What will happen now? With Pope Benedict breaking new ground with his extraordinary resignation, this is a time to question many aspects of Church administration. Systems of governance in the Church has changed several times over the last 2,000 years and, believe me, it was not always monarchy. Look through the four Gospels and you will find very little in the life of Jesus of Nazareth that you would instinctively connect with monarchy – total power in the hands of one person.
My heartfelt prayer is that the cardinals will endeavor to come to grips with the extraordinarily serious problems in the Church with basic structural changes that are required, and that they will have the vision and the courage to do so.
God bless the new pope. A great deal of work awaits him.
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For most of the last century, the American people and its government have been struggling to resolve a pressing need and an apparent conflict. The need is a very real one and it casts a shadow over life in the United States. The conflict flow from the natural responsibility of a people, whether it be family, tribe or nation, to convey its value system to each new generation and our current inability to do that. Throughout history, all groups have learned to do this and thus preserve their values, traditions and mode of living. The United States does not know how to do that.
All true values are ultimately based on a moral foundation. On reviewing the relationship between religion and public education, the Supreme Court has slipped back and forth several times occasionally creating a small opening for more action, but usually making it ever more difficult. Back in 2007, Texas attempted to deal with this issue by enacting a law allowing public schools to teach bible courses as a separate elective but the law demanded that the courses are required to be fair and unbiased. This is not an impossible goal. The bible is the most important book in the history of much of the world. The bible has had tremendous influence not only in millions and billions of individual lives, but in the flow of history in the public area. The bible has been powerful and often involved conflict and even hatred. This means that since it is such an important book, it would be possible to teach where it came from, what culture influences affected the bible and, in reverse order, what the bible has affected in the flow of history.
The educators had good intensions but their efforts have not been completely successful as yet. Last week, the Texas Freedom Network released a study showing that among the 60 school districts that have taken advantage of this new state law there was widespread failure to comply with the law requiring courses to be fair and unbiased. I am not surprised. It would take a very disciplined teacher to utilize a book that primarily reflects God’s activity in history and not let his or her faith show through in the classroom. In other words, the professor is not to reveal that he or she actually believes the bible, actually holds to the idea that the events recorded in it are really true. I understand that the State of Texas doesn’t want Baptist teachers clearly teaching the Baptist faith or Roman Catholic teachers endeavoring to instruct their public school students in Catholicism. However, I don’t think that the personal faith of the teacher should be a reason for making that person ineligible as a teacher or professor.
Much has been written over the last two generations about the fact that the state cannot endorse teachers supporting one particular faith and I think that most Americans solidly agree with that. On the other hand, is there not a valid question as to whether or not atheism or at least agnosticism have become the established religion of the United States of America. I wonder.
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Everybody is talking about it! Whether it is the TV, the radio, the computer or the newspapers, the nation’s attention seems to be centered on the delicate ballet being presented by President Obama and Speaker Boehner. Tough words are exchanged nearly every day but I doubt that the outcome is going to surprise anyone. This self-inflicted crisis is only going to have one outcome and that is simple application of horse sense. Onward through the fog!
However, there is another problem, an enormous problem, and the communications systems to which I referred are virtually ignoring. Given the size of this difficulty, it is a tragedy for millions of Americans and for the whole country. The issue, my friends, is jobs – jobs – JOBS.
I don’t care what figure you use – 10 million, 12 million, 14 million, 8 million – the fact is that millions of human beings, millions of families are either already living in desperate straits or can see that it is but a matter of weeks or months away. In the early 1930’s when a comparable and, in fact, even larger problem existed, the country pulled itself together and made every effort to put the issue of jobs on the top of the list. What do we have to do to get paychecks flowing into America’s families again was the question then. The answer wasn’t always perfect but there was tremendous determination and effort that was imagination and a willingness to take risks. Today, the same question confronts us but the response is absent. Even the tragically small effort by the president is laughed off by his opposition.
Let’s think about that, my friends. Millions of Americans, MILLIONS, are in truly desperate straits. Thanks be to God, we have an emergency support system that has carried them for many months. However, the solution is not government checks being sent out to at least get the rent paid and food on the people’s table. The solution is JOBS – people not only paying their own way but paying taxes as well.
Where is the anger? Where is the voice of frustration on the public square? Where is the Church? With unemployment below 8%, our country is walking away from the problem, ignoring it, but for those who are in that 8% unemployment life is agonizingly difficult.
I know that there are too many requests for help from all directions but everyone of us should really stretch ourselves to help people who are in difficult straits at this time.
Merry Christmas indeed!
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If there is anyone in the United States that did not know that American politics is a tough, difficult and expensive world, they do now. A two year struggle to choose a president for the next four years is now over. As I said last week, most of us are very thankful for that fact. Will anything be different now?
The last two years were extraordinarily bitter and hostile. It seemed like the government was at a complete impasse. The battle over the debt ceiling took us into a very dangerous situation and was temporarily solved only at the last minute.
I think that we are all happy to note that there are glimmering signs of rationality and a willingness to work together to solve our many and very serious problems. The president’s position is strong and Speaker Boehner has given some indication that he is going to try hard to develop a cooperative spirit in the Republican controlled House. If that works out, it will certainly be a wonderful blessing for the country. We must deal with our problems and continued stalemate, conflict and logjam points us to disaster.
Let’s pray that our leaders are open to responding to reality and that they put the overcoming of these obstacles ahead of their personal views and opinions.
We are reasonable people. Let us move forward and let us move forward together.
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When I was a kid in the 1930’s and ‘40’s, the nations frequently interfered with one another but it was usually on the basis of attack and invasion – Russia into Finland, Germany into Poland, Italy into Ethiopia, Japan into China and then finally the whole world was engulfed in what was truly a WORLD war. That was a terrible scene and while aggression frequently rolled over borders, as powerful nations abused weaker neighbors, no government that I knew of ever got involved in the internal problems of another country if they did not have to. Of the examples mentioned above, at the time of the invasions other nations remained neutral. While they might have criticized or condemned the attackers, they would never consider joining the fray in order to help an oppressed people.
Today is a better world! While nations were tragically slow on Rwanda, move they finally did. The United States and the U.N. stepped in dramatically in Bosnia when Serbia was attempting a modern form of ethnic cleansing. Recently, the whole world witnessed the fact that heroic revolutionaries in Libya received dramatic help from the outside world and thus toppled the tyrannical world under which the people had suffered for 40 years.
Now it is Syria! The Syrian people are suffering terribly by a government that is brutally murdering them. While citizens have the moral support of the rest of the world, the agonizing question goes on: will the outside world act to end this slaughter? I think they will because the mindset has changed across the planet and we realize that safe, developed nations don’t have the luxury of watching their neighbors being slaughtered by unjust and cruel governments.
The world is a long way from being “fixed” but we are certainly moving in the right direction.
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There is still shooting and dying in Libya. Gaddafi is still on the run and forces loyal to him are determined to hold out as long as possible. Nevertheless, it does seem that a new and trusted government is in the process of being established. Oh, if only Iraq and Afghanistan could have utilized the Libyan model.
In Libya, the U.N. Security Council gave the operation genuine legitimacy. Fighting on the ground was conducted by Libyan rebels, not Western soldiers. No army of occupation marched into Libya’s capital. The soldiers were all Libyans themselves. Finally, the dictator was overthrown by his own people, not by an outside power. These are wonderful advantages for the Libyan people and we all hope and pray that they will be properly taken advantage of and the new government to be established will be stable, just and productive. The Libyan people deserve as much.
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Major fighting has come to an end in Libya and the Libya’s transitional government is in charge of most of the country. Last week, the leader of the new government, Mustafa Abdeljalid, made his first national speech on martyr’s square in the capital. He issued a call for reconciliation throughout the country. This is a wonderful beginning. There is always danger after a revolution that new forms of civil strife will develop as various factions fight for leadership in the new situation. Reconciliation is going to be the key to the new democratic Libya and maybe the key to that key will be the women of the country. Libyan women were extraordinarily active during the revolution serving heroically in many different capacities. They are now struggling to keep a share in the power that comes with freedom and that they helped to secure.
After so many years of oppression, it is only natural that some people, filled with hatred, would seek vengeance. Let’s hope and pray that the women of Libya, who instinctively know the advantages of peace and harmony, will be major players in helping to lead the country into a new and beautiful chapter.
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For several years, the Chinese government has been lightening up its oppression of the Roman Catholic Church in that country. Now, however, the Communist government is beginning to get tough again. The government recently appointed three Chinese priests to be bishops in the state-run “Catholic” Church. The Vatican has responded by excommunicating the bishops. They have been validly ordained but their election is illicit because of the lack of papal approval.
The existence of the “patriotic” church in China is a very serious problem for the Vatican. The government church has many priests and bishops who are validly ordained who made the painful choice of going along with the government in order to maintain some form of Catholic life. They should not be judged harshly for this because the pressure on them has been tremendous. However, the real Church in China is very much alive with an estimated 12 million members, hundreds of priests and religious, and dozens of bishops. In this country, a complicated working relationship has developed but it is always touch and go as the government can change its policy on a dime as it did in this case.
The West should never take religious freedom for granted. A large portion of the world’s population doesn’t enjoy this blessing. Let’s pray together for greater religious toleration across the world and a greater spirit of cooperation between the religious bodies that are able to function freely.
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From time to time in this little bit of space, I mention the importance of empathy. We need it as individuals and it seems to me that we need it in a desperate way right now for ourselves as a nation. There is tremendous pain and suffering going on in this country. That pain and suffering is affecting millions of people and yet as a nation, we are coming very close to completely ignoring it.
One-sixth of America’s workers are either unemployed or stuck with a part-time job. What is the national response? No jobs bills have been introduced in Congress, no job creation plans have been advanced by the White House and all we hear being discussed is SPENDING CUTS. Try and get your imagination around that every tenth person who wants to work is unable to find work…is unemployed! Put some meat on those bones and see that fear and panic facing millions of Americans as they gradually go through their financial reserves and the public support of unemployment is slowly coming to a close. The highways are crowded, the restaurants are jammed, the theaters have sell-out productions and on the surface America looks just as prosperous as it was in 2005. It is not.
Thanks be to God, we have put an end to the rapid decline in jobs but those who have lost their jobs now have little hope of being restored to them. This calls for a massive national response the same way that it did in the Great Depression. Percentage-wise, our present employment crisis is not nearly as difficult as it was in 1931 and 1932, but if you have lost your job, it is just as severe, just as painful. Regretfully, unlike 1933 and 1934, hope on the horizon is not all that obvious.
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Back in 1985, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford starred in a wonderful movie about land problems in Africa in the early part of the 20th century. The heroine is desperately trying to save the land of the natives people from being expropriated by the British government and English developers. The movie had a happy ending but time marches on.
At the end of last year, a world bank study released tallied farm land deals covering at least 110 million acres, the size of California and West Virginia combined. It announced that during the first 11 months of 2009 more than 70% of these deals were for land in Africa with Sudan, Mozambique and Ethiopia among those nations transferring million of acres to investors. Tragedy follows tragedy. I don’t doubt that the economic forces in countries like China and France will increase agricultural production but for whom? There is a very real chance that the native populations that have been there since the dawn of time may find themselves cut off from their land, their villages and their future.
Village leaders in Mali were dumbfounded when government officials said last year that Libya now controlled their land. They had always considered it their own passed down from grandfather, to father, to son. Now Libya has leased it.
Out of Africa indeed!
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Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini died last August, one of my favorite Church leaders. He was one of the best scripture scholars in the world. He headed the famous Biblicum in Rome and when he died he was a marvelously successful archbishop in Milam. Two weeks before he died, he said, “The Church is 200 years out of date and in need of radical transformation. The Church is tired. Our culture has grown old, our churches are big and empty and the Church bureaucracy rises up. Our religious rites and the vestments we wear are pompous.”
Themocracy