Womens Ordination--in a Nutshell

In honor of Fr. Roy Bourgeois' upcoming talk here in Columbus on the topic of the ordination of women to the priesthood of the Catholic Church, I am reminded of a statement I heard in a skit in a faraway place, a long, long time ago:

Tis more important to pee like Jesus,

than it is to be like Jesus

And after all the theological mumbo jumbo has been written, discussed, scoffed at, denounced and propped up, after all the cards have been played and the men with pointy hats have stomped their feet, it really and truly just boils down to the above statement.

I have written about this topic before and I can bat down the arguments as fast as they can throw them up, and while I tend to avoid bumper-stick slogans I will have to concede that on this point the slogan really sums it up for me.

Let me go as far as to say that I think the Catholic Church will go a long ways to ending abortion when women have the equality in society they were intended for by their Creator. The desire for abortion rights, from my perspective, often comes out of a deep pain that women have for not feeling like they are in control over their own lives. In my view, abortion rights are an improper response to this pain. But I think that when women have the standing in society they were meant for, the discussion about abortion will enter a much better phase than it is right now--it won't be driven as much by the pain of inequality.

Inconsistent Pro-Life People

People betray themselves by their inconsistencies. Not that any of us is perfectly consistent, but inconsistency certainly raises some eyebrows and starts people asking questions.

Take the recent controversy over Obama speaking at Notre Dame. Some were infuriated that a pro-choice president like Obama was given the attention and honors he got, given that the Catholic Church is decidedly pro-life.

On the one hand, this could deserve some congratulations. When many churches are accused of trying to be "all things to all people," here you have one that is willing to take a stand. Perhaps this is something to be proud of.

The anti-abortion stance of the Catholic Church is rooted in a respect for life--all life, all the time, everywhere. There are many Catholics who take a hard line stance on abortion, allowing no if's, and's or but's about it. To them, abortion is wrong and that's all there is to it. Okay, that's a respectable stance. Then ask them about war... euthanasia... the death penalty... these are often considered "negotiable."

Many of these folks who would not support abortion under any circumstances seem to have little regard for the dropping of thousands of megatons of explosives on foreign nations--bombs which kill, most certainly, a number of unborn babies. You may remember that George W Bush--the unrepentant architect of those very actions--also spoke at Notre Dame without a peep from the pro-life contingency.

The inconsistency of the response of folks at Notre Dame reflects a trend that you can see elsewhere among some American Catholics--not all, but some.

It seems that the people I am describing are not pro-life. They seem to be anti-abortion, they have a particular call and desire to stop abortions for whatever reason. Maybe they just like unborn babies and really want to crusade for them. Fine with me. But when it comes to truly understanding what the Church is calling us to understand when it comes to respect for all life, they don't get it.

To narrow the pro-life movement to just abortion is to miss the whole point--all life, all the time, everywhere. The crippled and able. The living and dying. The young and old, born and unborn, healthy and sick, smart and dumb, friend and enemy, neighbor and foreigner, guilty and not guilty, you name it. Life is a gift from God and must be respected through all its phases and manifestations--none is greater or more deserving of their life than another.

Early Christian Martyrs

Being a Christian was a crime in the Roman Empire in the first 300 years of Christianity. However, as Justin Martyr, Tertullian and others have pointed out, there was a vast inconsistency in the way the Romans treated the Christian "criminals" compared to how they treated the murderers and thieves.

When a thief was suspected of a crime, they would arrest him and sometimes torture him to get the truth out of him. It was actually the opposite with Christians: A Christian would already self-identify as Christian and then the Roman authorities would use torture, prison or gladiator spectacles to get the Christian to deny it.

This would be a good time to pause and ask--What benefit did it serve the Romans to do this?

It is not like the Romans were trying to do them a favor by going through all this torture to make the Christians honor the pagan gods to spare them from death. That would have been just too generous. Why did the Romans go through all the trouble to torture admitted believers into denying what they had already publicly and proudly affirmed?

It was about domination. It was a fight for the soul of the Empire. It had nothing to do with justice. If simply being Christian was a crime, then certainly the verdict should be easy if the suspect was fully admitting it. If an admitted believer denied their Christianity in the face of torture, it was not like anyone was going to believe that "confession." In fact, there is evidence that the Romans (as well as the Christians) shunned the people who caved in.

The goal was to see if Roman might was able to break the spirit of a believer. They could return that person tattered and broken back to society, somehow "proving" that the Roman Empire had the ability to conquer dissidents. In this macho, honor & shame society, this was a big deal. Was strength and force enough? The Christians answered: No!

The Romans even stopped torturing women on some occasions, because when the women endured the torture and held their heads up high and continued to affirm their Christianity even to the point of death under the most terrible conditions, it was a absolute shame on the Romans. Consider the language: They felt "conquered" by these women! Now, can can someone who tortures someone to death be the one who is conquered? There are certainly deeper theological reasons as we have seen in the passion and death of Jesus himself. Jesus promised us that might does not make right, and that military and political force do not have the last word.

Roman power was not able to win. They could not intimidate, force or manipulate people to follow their will or make happen what they wanted to make happen.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Fr. Scott gave some reflections on the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in his homily today. This was in recognition of the influence of St. Robert Bellarmine in the formation of the US Declaration of Independence.

It is a very interesting list of rights. The order. The level of importance of each. Something to thing about.

It is curious to ponder what kind of list most folks would come up with if you ask what are the fundamental responsibilities of each person.

Or what list folks would come up with if it were a collective list rather than individual--we all advocate strongly for our own right to life, of course, but what about the right to life for the guy next door?

I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that most folks--even many well intentioned folks--would put the pursuit of their own happiness over and above someone else's right to life.

Now, folks won't necessarily come out and say that. This is something that comes from simply observing actions. Folks seem to put their time, talent and energy on their own happiness first. People literally exhaust their energy, their creativity and their bank accounts rehabbing their house, planning a vacation or doting over their friends and relatives. With some left over time and energy, some well-intentioned folks devote some resources to protecting the rights of others.

How different life would be if we all believed strongly in the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--in that order--and included all humanity and not just ourselves! Just imagine how differently we would have to live in order to put that into practice and act as if we really believed it!

Discerning a Call to Religious Life?

Why go to match.com when you can go to vocation-match.com. Yes, that's right--a matchmaking service for Catholic religious orders.

It is not much different than any other personals site: You fill out a profile, check off some interests, roll the dice. They give you a list of religious communities that fit your criteria. Whether you want to live a prayerful life in a monastery baking bread all day, be a globe-trotting missionary priest, or work in a parish right here in America, they can find a community that suits you.

They also offer to send your profile information to the vocations contacts of those communities, if you so wish.

According to the website, there has been an increase in the inquiries about religious vocations over the past year. One main reason for that is the internet--folks who are bored at work can simply start browsing (like me). You can stick your toe in the water ever so casually. In the recent days of old, you'd have to talk one-on-one with a priest or nun or write a letter to a community to get the ball rolling. That's altogether too serious. Too intimidating.

I think they can stand to fine-tune this site a bit--the criteria focuses on logistics such as the kind of ministries that appeal to you and the geographic location. There might be some value in selecting for the charism or political stance of the group a bit more. I tried it out and found the US Army Chaplains in my list, with the motto: FOR GOD AND COUNTRY. Um . . . I'll pass. However, I can understand that maybe it is better to leave that level of discernment to the individual than to a computer.

Or maybe they are wise to stick to mechanics to avoid stepping on any landmines. Image the kind of shit they'd stir up to label some of these orders as, "Wacko Conservative Throwback to the 1300s" or "Government Overthrowing Liberation Theologians." We all know which is which, anyway.

To be honest, I've been drawn to the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, as I have been quite impressed with the priests I have known at my parish. The Latin American missionary priests have always been my heros. This was true back in high school and it is true now. I also admire the small-town, farming community priests. The Precious Blood blend both! Yet they didn't appear that high on my search list. I got Maryknoll, the Camboni Missionaries, some assorted Franciscan orders and a bunch of others I didn't really know. Interesting that Holy Cross scored high--I went to a Holy Cross high school and always felt drawn to them, even though education at the high school level has never appealed to me (they do other things, though).

I admit to being turned off by the larger orders that seem more institutional, like the Jesuits and Maryknoll, despite the fact that both of those orders are some of the best witnesses to justice in our Church and I respect them both immensely.

I ended up with a list of 79 potential community matches, and that was after narrowing my search criteria substantially. That is a bit much to wade through. I'd rather have 3 choices to pick from and make the best of it.

The Vocation Netowrk also conducted a very informative Vocation Trends Survey, with all sorts of interesting nuggets of information. The main concern for women is the potential time away from friends and family. For men, it is celibacy and issues of personal freedom. Folks over age 50 seem more drawn to a monastic lifestyle, while younger people would rather be out in the world. In the 2009 survey, more men than women said that wearing traditional religious clothing is important, which bucks a trend which generally has it it with women preferring that.

So, you are asking, am I considering a religious vocation? While I won't say 100% no, I can't imagine not raising a family or marrying. If I had two lives to lead, sure, I'd lead one of them as a priest or brother. I am also finding out that my lifestyle as a Catholic Worker is so darn close to the life of a member of a formal religious community that I'm not sure what the benefit would be of changing--I guess I wouldn't have to hold an outside job or worry about health insurance. And with a priest there is also the issue of presiding over (some of) the sacraments. But overall, all my searching has just led me to believe that my calling is right in front of me.

Anyway, I like the site. It doesn't help you figure it all out or show you a big billboard lighting the way to your destiny, but it provides a sounding board, links you easily to information, and gives you an easy way to start some preliminary searching without doing something as obscene as actually contacting a community to make a formal inquiry.

Building Block Meals

I love being creative in the kitchen and coming up with new concoctions. I am also a very simple cook. I like having basic building blocks to work with.

Sometimes I just like to cook up a large batch of something and just eat off of it all week, mixing and matching whatever I have in the fridge. I am still ever-so-impressed with my purchase 25 lbs of whole-grain rice for just under $18. It is not that hard to cook up a batch and just keep it at the ready. It is cheap and I have whole-grains in my diet on a regular basis--that's called being strategic with time, nutrition and finances.

Rice by itself doesn't do the trick, though, so it goes into things and things go into it--I may spoon it into soup, lob it onto a burrito, fry it up with an egg and some veggies, or just mix things into it. One of the best meals is to take this rice, some cooked ground beef and add hot sauce. Even better if I can saute in some peppers and onions, too.

The other day I added the contents of a can of salmon (wild caught) to the rice, and then chopped up a garden-fresh red tomato.

I live and often eat with vegetarians, so keeping dishes separate can be beneficial for them, as well.

Today's meal? Rice with a pile of bacon, some skin-on baked potato pieces and some cherry tomatoes. All mixed together in bacon juices. It takes like something I spent hours cooking, when in reality I just took a bunch of leftover and out laziness just brought them all to work together in one bowl.

Vow of Nonviolence

I went to the Pax Christi Conference and took the Vow of Nonviolence. I have to admit that I was sort of half-hearted about it. No, I don't have any objections to the content--I truly believe in the nonviolence of Jesus. But I'm not really a "vows" type of guy (except for the big ones like marriage) and especially not in this context. You get a large crowd of people are they are all asked to take an oath, it just seems fishy to me, no matter how good the intention. I don't like the Pledge of Allegiance, either. I hadn't been discerning much about non-violence to the point where I could have felt ready to take a vow. I wasn't against it, but I just wasn't "there" yet. So I mumbled through it and just wasn't sure where I sat with it.

But I feel like I'm taking the vow every day now, little by little. I was very moved by Fr. John Dear's workshop session at the conference. He talked about our absolute addiction to violence. We always think that one more war, one more fight, one more argument, one more exchange of harsh words is going to solve our problems, but we are left wanting. You see, violence is not solely the realm of physical fighting. There is violence all over in our relationships, the way we talk, the way we act, the purchases we make, our lifestyle, you name it. It is both out in the open and hidden.

When we talk about people as if they were objects, we commit violence. When we squander the earth's resources, we commit violence. When we tear down instead of build up others, we commit violence.

I now feel it is the right thing to say, so while I may have said it half-heartedly at the conference, I am saying it right now for real. There is a part or two that I still stumble over and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it, but I'm living into it more each day. It's quite beautiful:

A Journey Toward Disarming the Heart

~VOW OF NONVIOLENCE~

RECOGNIZING THE VIOLENCE IN MY OWN HEART, yet trusting in the goodness and mercy of God, I vow for one year to practice the nonviolence of Jesus who taught us in the Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons and daughters of God...You have learned how it was said, "You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy"; but I say to you, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. In this way, you will be daughters and sons of your Creator in heaven."

Before God the Creator and the Sanctifying Spirit, I vow to carry out in my life the love and example of Jesus

by striving for peace within myself and seeking to be a peacemaker in my daily life;

by accepting suffering rather than inflicting it;

by refusing to retaliate in the face of provocation and violence;

by persevering in nonviolence of tongue and heart;

by living conscientiously and simply so that I do not deprive others of the means to live;

by actively resisting evil and working nonviolently to abolish war and the causes of war from my own heart and from the face of the earth.

God, I trust in Your sustaining love and believe that just as You gave me the grace and desire to offer this, so You will also bestow abundant grace to fulfill it.