Culture and Identity in the Current Crisis

Now I'll be almost the last to weigh in on the Notre Dame controversy, except for perhaps Suzanne (unless I've forgotten). Here's Stephen, Fred, and Deacon Scott as well as a more general observation which I thought pertinent from Conjectures, a quote from Bishop Blase Cupich of South Dakota who warned his fellow bishops that “prophecy of denunciation quickly wears thin.” I'll post here in case we take it up together since for some reason it just won't die.

I'm also (like Stephen) not shocked or particularly surprised by Notre Dame's decision. I've both attended and taught at mainstream Catholic colleges. I'm mildly curious about why Bill Clinton isn't on the list of presidents who received this honor (was he asked? did he refuse?). It would be more useful, in my opinion, to put resources to fighting the erosion of conscience protections for health care workers than to fight this battle.

Some years ago at the national diakonia in Chicago, we heard Cardinal George speak about the original immigrant culture of Catholics which really never took root in the American culture. It has been a while, so I may be overstating this observation, or not. Instead Catholics after some generations assimilated to the culture. You can find some of this thought of his in an interview with John Allen, where he said:

[W]e created alternatives to the mainstream institutions. They were never, I think, ghetto institutions, because they prepared people to take their place in mainstream society. They didn’t try to cut them off from it, but to prepare people to take their place in the mainstream precisely as Catholics. Once they succeeded, then the value of those very institutions seemed to be lessened, and the institutions themselves said it’s important for us to be mainstream, and to no longer be so identifiably Catholic. So they’re porous in ways that they weren’t before....

Notre Dame, perhaps the most prestigious Catholic institution in the country, is an example of this ambiguity, at least in respect to the current controversy.  It's certainly not true of the entire institution, as witnessed by various friends of mine.  Note that the response to such ambiguity often has been to again set up alternate institutions, separate and culturally apart.  This counter-culture is robust, though we may wonder how significantly it leavens the common culture.

What bothers me most about the current debate is the painful public lack of unity which is probably not helped by the Catholic blogosphere. Tangentially, there was the set-up with Archbishop Burke which was part of a lay campaign to remove bishops who were not aggressive enough in denying communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians.  That most saddens me, some of our finest pastors, denounced for their own pastoral approach.

The entire situation we find ourselves in today, since the November election, reminds me of the 1968 crisis Fr. Giussani spoke about in 1972 in his talk "The Long March to Maturity". Perhaps the crisis itself was quite different, but the challenge of our response is really the same.

Perhaps it is useful to remember that in the life of those He calls, God never lets anything happen unless it serves for the growth and maturation of those He has called.

This is so above all for the life of the individual, but in the final analysis, and more profoundly, for the life of His Church, and therefore, analogously, for the life of every community, be it a family or an ecclesiastical community in the broadest sense. God never permits anything to happen unless it is for our maturity, our maturation...

This, we can say, is the indicator of our faith’s truth, its authenticity or lack thereof: if the faith is truly in the foreground, or if in the foreground there is another kind of concern; if we truly expect everything from the fact of Christ, or if we expect from the fact of Christ what we decide to expect, ultimately making Him a starting point and a support for our projects and programs.

Now look at Fr. Giussani's judgment of the "Reduction of the Christian Fact", which could not sum up better the risk we take right now in our political *reactions*.  A campaign even for a good cause becomes an ideology.  As if solving the political problem would conquer the evil.

What were the consequences identifiable in the attitude assumed by this large sector of the Movement in the era we are commenting on?

a) First, as it says on the sheet: “An efficientistic conception of Christian commitment, with accentuations of moralism.” Not accentuations–with wholesale reduction to moralism! Why should anyone remain Christian? Because Christianity pushes you to action, presses you to commitment, no other reason! It’s like a father and mother who tell you, “Come on, you have to do this!” and then they leave you alone to do it yourself, as if they weren’t there. (Instead, Jesus says, “I will be with you to the end of time.”) This is a concept of incarnation in which the Christian is truly cut in half, cloven in two. And from the contingent, historic point of view, Christians still have the right to remain in the world only to the degree in which they throw themselves into worldly action: it’s ethical Christianity, that is, Christian ethics, Christian behavior, which means being Christian in the world identified with worldly commitment....

b) Second consequence (and this is the gravest thing): the incapacity to “culturalize” the discourse, to bring one’s Christian experience to the level in which it becomes systematic and critical judgment, and thus a prompt for a modality of action. It’s the Christian experience blocked in its potential for impact on the world, because an experience impacts the world only to the degree to which it reaches a cultural expression (which doesn’t mean only to the degree to which it reaches the university–this has nothing to do with it!). Cultural expression means judgment, capacity for systematic and critical judgment of the world, of worldliness, of the historic circumstance, and thus it becomes a suggestion for a modality of program and of action.

Experience that doesn’t reach this point has no face, lacks a face in history; it has no face and therefore can subsist for a long time in “pre-historic” eras, but to the degree to which the relationships in society, in human life become denser, press against that experience, it disappears, because it’s alienated in the pressures of the environment. ...

Our experience disappears.  How tragic.

So how do we respond?  What kind of campaign should we raise?

I remember being so struck by this text by Fr. Giussani when I first read it as another way to proceed:  this method, which is following, obedience, something far more solid than my own presumption.

In any case, the methodology is faithfulness to experience. I don’t know whether anyone here has remembered in this moment what it says in the premise: that Christianity spreads in the world not because of our work, but by the grace of God. So then, leaving behind our immaturity, becoming mature, is a grace of the Spirit within us. Let’s keep reminding each other! The Holy Spirit descended where they were gathered together in the Cenacle, where they were all gathered together. The Holy Spirit descends upon our communion. Therefore, for example, a “settlement” is an outcome of cultural expression, but before being an outcome of cultural expression, at least as a tendency, it’s the premise for cultural expression. In fact, our maturity is expressed in our passionate desire that the Church of God live visibly here where we are, in our striving that it be lived here, and therefore that Christian communion be built here and wherever we are, so that this “new person,” this “one body” as Saint Paul says–“in which there is neither man nor woman, neither Greek nor barbarian, neither left nor right” (“All of you are one, one person in Jesus Christ”)–may bring good to the neighborhood, university, work, parish… bring good to the world, as an incarnate presence, incarnate!

But the logic of the incarnation, that is, the logic of mission, happens entirely in us, because the incarnation in the world, in the sense of interest in and help for the world’s problems, of real collaboration in the world’s struggle for authenticity, is only a ray of light, only an inevitable consequence of those problems, of the world’s needs, of flesh and blood, of the world, of life lived as Christian community, converted, translated in terms of faith. Incarnation doesn’t mean getting involved in the labor union, the factory, or university. Incarnation, that is, mission, is living the university, the factory, etc., as communion. It doesn’t mean getting involved in this or that cultural or practical or socio-political problem, but living our whole humanity as communion.

I remember once, in a time of great trial, when we were living hard things faithfully and enduring the lack of understanding of others, thinking that "living well is the best revenge". We were certain that all would be well if we held onto the One we trust. How many psalms state just this in every situation of threat, injustice and untruth.

The only way, it seems, is to live this communion in the place where Christ is present, this living experience.  However awkward, rough, we hold to this communion which is home to this life-giving experience, a house with a necessary human structure.  It isn't for us to save the world, but to witness by our unity to One who is saving all.

Petitio Principii in California

While I am on the subject of would be oligarchs, California Attorney General, Jerry Brown, who is the former and, if current reports are accurate, maybe the future governor of that state (reminds me of a friend who used to work for Louisiana State investigative division who told me that when out of office, the now prisoner, Edwin Edwards, was introduced as "the former, future governor of Louisiana"- I guess recycling extends to politics these days, too) and whose Dad was governor, is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, a referendum passed on 4 November that amended the state’s constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. His reasoning? "Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification."

I guess explicitly defining the family in the way it was understood when the state constitution was written and ratified is not compelling justification. In other words, not only is the justification compelling, but to assert that there is a "fundamental constitutional" right at stake is to beg the question. The only basis for such a claim is the State Supreme Court's ruling back in May claiming such a right. The citizens of California rejected this claim and amended the constitution in a legal and fair manner. Hence, there is no reasonable basis for Attorney General Brown's argument. Alas, law these days has less and less to do with reason properly employed because legal arguments and judicial decisions are no longer grounded on any objective premises. As Alasdair MacIntyre describes us, we are an emotivist society with no way of arriving at a consensus that is not seen as an arbitrary imposition, a power play, of one side against another. Such attempts at ushering in rule by the judiciary do not bode well for the future of our constitutional system of government, which is grounded on objective premises. In addition to After Virtue, I am also reminded of the highly controversial 1996 First Things symposium, The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics.

So, here’s the question, why is an elected official seeking to overturn a legally enacted constitutional amendment? The lesson here is that, as voters, we need to stop playing both sides of the street. We must vote in a clear-headed manner. How can we continue support candidates who do not value what we hold dear and expect anything different?

QOTD: Putting Truth to a Vote

“We can say, in particular in terms of politics, that you can never put truth to a vote, because if you lose, it’s still of value, and if you win, the truth needs freedom in order to be lived, and can’t be imposed." Giancarlo Cesana

"An Adventure for Oneself", Traces 9/08

Magdi Cristiano Allam at Meeting 2008, Rimini

[The most dramatic talk for me so far was given this morning by journalist Magdi Cristiano Allam. You may recall he is the former Muslim who was baptized by the Pope this past Easter. He travels with bodyguards as he remains under a death threat as an apostate to Islam. As I was listening to his courageous speech, I was reminded of my visit to the Solzhenitsyn exhibit yesterday, and found Allam a fine successor to the Russian writer in his unflinching commitment to truth. The journalist John Waters (notes to follow) shared the panel with Allam. The following are my notes from Allam's portion of the panel titled, "Christianity is not a doctrine but an encounter: two journalists tell their stories". Pictures to follow.]

Allam told the crowd that they are the protagonists with their certainty of truth in Christ, strong in a solidarity of values and determination to act. He expressed gratitude for CL which he called "my house of values". Within this house, I have met authentic witnesses of faith."

From the time Allam was first invited to the Meeting in 2003 until what he called the most wonderful joy of his life, his baptism on March 22nd by Pope Benedict XVI, in what seemed at first a chance encounter, providence gave this opportunity to him to take or leave.

When he was four years old, his mother was very poor and was a babysitter for a rich Italian family in Cairo. The family sent him to a Catholic school, which was the beginning of Allam's journey. He had the chance to learn of Christianity and to share life experiences with real witnesses of the faith, people devoted to Christ who lived their faith with good deeds, in a totalizing way that envelops our humanity. All this created in him the ethical awareness of life values as the center of existence with the person as the starting point. This ethical basis included the non-negotiable values of Pope Benedict XVI, universal legitimate values such as the sacredness of life and the dignity of the human being as the foundation of civil coexistence, respect for freedom, especially freedom of religion as the core. Along this journey, he was comforted and supported by many witnesses. Christianity is a matter of encounters and the witness of faith through good deeds.

On this journey, at one moment, he said, his spirituality corresponded perfectly with faith in Jesus. Pope Benedict XVI confirmed this in insisting faith and reason cannot be separated. He gave the challenge that everything at the level of reason corresponds to humanity and is perfectly valued even in the Christian religion, the religion of truth, freedom and life.

This is why he became convinced to side with the Pope on many issues, particularly after the Pope's address at Regensburg in 2006 on faith and reason, denouncing violence perpetrated in the name of God. That Islam was spread thorugh the sword is an historical fact supported by Islamic texts. This was traumatic for Allam. After the Pope said this, a brutal and general condemnation ensued with some requesting apologies, others removing ambassadors, and with extremists calling for a death sentence. The Pope was isolated by many critics in the Western media and even from Christian churches and Catholic prelates who found this speech undesirable. This made him ponder, and he recognized that today the West fears looking at the truth. It does not recognize one truth, and it is convinced the truth must stay hidden within ourselves. We are afraid to criticize others so think it is better not to express the truth. The root of this cowardly attitude is the ideological disease of relativism which deprives us of the use of reason. We want to put all religions, cultures, values and knowledge at the same level.

The West is victim of another ideology which is political correctness. In our approach with Islam, we cannot say or do anything to hurt sensibilities. Western culture has another ideological disease, goodism. As long as we give everybody rights and freedoms, everybody is happy. Goodism is the opposite of the common good which is based on rights and duties. Only then will it become good for all.

This led him to reflect on his 56 years of experience as a lay, moderate, liberal Muslim committed to faith and reason. He had worked with great passion and results he was proud of on recognizing fundamental rights, non-negotiables among Muslims. In 2004, he was involved in assembling a delegation of moderate Muslims to make a statement against terrorism. He was involved in affirming faith and reason and democracy. He was condemned to death by extreme Islamists.

This led him to reflect, and he was obliged to study and understand better the theological roots of Islam. Christianity is a religion of God become man incarnated in Jesus. Islam was a religion of text; the Koran was created by and with God and could not be subjected to reason and analysis. There are many verses in the Koran which legitimize the ideology of hatred and of death. Mohammed, by historical documents which are accepted also by Muslims, was a warrior who fought and killed. Some passages testify that he personally participated in crimes, including in the year 627 the decapitation of 700 male adult Jews at the gates of Medina. Muslims do not deny these facts. But he could not be indifferent to facts. His conclusion was of the incompatibility of values he believed and had fought for.

This led him to abandon Islam once and for all. He is condemning Islam as a religion, but he wants to distinguish between the religion and those people who follow it. Individual Muslims must be valued, respected, loved per se. And he finds affinity especially with those who respect human rights and common values. One must work together to build a common civilization. We must do this in the certainty of truth, disenfranchising ourselves from relativism. We should assert the dignity of Christianity and not jeopardize the solidity of our faith. The ability to share values is linked to our ability to be fully ourselves, protagonists of our life, recognizing the truth, that the certainty of the truth is one of the root values in us. Then we can become protagonists in personal and collective action for humanity.