J
JReducation
Guest
Recently, Pope Francis was quoted as having said that the Church tends to obsess. He has spoken on this at different times. He spoke about an obsession with abortion, homosexuality, and contraception. But he has also spoken about a Church that is too focused on herself, what Americans would call navel gazing. The pope would not use such a term, because it does not exist in Spanish. We have to remember that this is a man who thinks in Spanish and speaks in Italian. I did not make this up. He said this of himself.
When he said this about the Church being obsessed with herself, he was not referring to her well-being. He was referring to being overly preoccupied by procedures and structures. I have the benefit of having lived in Latin America for many years and of speaking the Latin languages rather well. I think I understand what he’s trying to say, which does not always translate well into English, especially for Americans.
We know why these concepts do not translate well into English. English is a Germanic language, not a Romance language or a Latin language (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and Rumanian). But we have to understand why even with the best linguist on board, it will not translate well into “American”. The reason is simple. Americans are by our own tradition, navel gazers. The USA is a very self-preoccupied and self-absorbed society. As I used to tell my students when I was a professor, Americans believe that we’re all that and a bag of chips too. We refuse to acknowledge that anyone can be better than we are at anything, bigger than we are in anything, more democratic than we are, more anything else than we are. I remember being taught this nonsense when I was in elementary school. I believed it until I became a missionary. Then I found many things outside of the USA that are far better than some things that we have here. I also found some things could not compare. In other words, I found that the world is really made of human beings just like us.
But to the American Catholic, the idea that he may have been wrong about how he views the Church is anathema. Here is the problem. The American Catholic does not understand that what he sees is not the problem. What he sees in the Church may be very good. The problem is how he does the seeing. There seem to be two mindsets.
On the left you have a mindset that is especially negative. It tends to view the Church as being out of touch with reality. The reason that this is so, is because this person is looking for dust. In other words, he’s looking at how old things are. If it’s old, be it doctrine or ritual, then it must be replaced with something new, which is total nonsense as we know. But it’s very difficult to convince this person that he has to change his glasses and the angle at which he looks at the Church.
On the right, you have the exact same phenomenon, but with a twist. This is the Catholic who is obsessed with the word liberal. This gives him hives, as if he had touched Poison Ivy. He too needs a change of lenses and a new angle from which to contemplate the Church. He’s looking for anything that is younger than he is and rejecting it. He’s not even interested in whether it works or not. For that matter, he’s not interested in whether certain customs and traditions work either. He just wants to maintain them.
Both of these extremes belong to the group that he pope has identified as those who are looking inward, obsessed, overly self-preoccupied. You can figure it out. I don’t need a label to make this clear.
The question is how do those on the left and right get themselves out of this mode? The idea is not to jettison the old for the sake of the new, nor is it to hang on to the old and reject the new. The idea is to look at old and new and see how what works well together. For example, can we take a dogma, which is old and cannot be changed as we all know; but can we explain it and communicate it in a way that modern man understands it and sees how it’s important to his daily life, rather than simply give him a definition of the Immaculate Conception. The definition is nice, but unless you’re already a devout Catholic, it does not tell you anything about your sense of isolation, you fears, your pain or the meaning of life.
On the flip side, discussing the merits of women priests without and understanding of why we don’t’ have them in the first place, is a discussion in a vacuum. You can’t discuss changing something unless you understand what it is that you propose to change and why it came about in the first place. In this case, we find that as we discuss how a male priesthood came into existence and why it has been unchangeable, the how and the why answer the question of “should” we change this or “can” we change this.
I believe that these are the obsessions that the Holy Father is criticizing. One side is obsessed with changing and fixing what does not need to be changed or fixed, because it’s not broken, just misunderstood. The other side is obsessed with protecting it, but does nothing to help the general population understand its value in the marketplace. This is what the pope means when he says that we have to go out to the edge.
I have to be willing and able to sit down with a pro-choice person and explain the Incarnation in a way that it sheds light on human dignity and human rights, especially the right to be born. But I also have to be able to sit down with the most die hard Traditionalist and explain why he has to tone it down. Some things are never going to happen because we make it a law.
I can’t legislate love. Faith without love is dead. I have to stimulate love. To do this, I can’t be at odds with the person whose faith I’m trying to strengthen.
Are we too self-absorbed for our own good and the good of the Church?
When he said this about the Church being obsessed with herself, he was not referring to her well-being. He was referring to being overly preoccupied by procedures and structures. I have the benefit of having lived in Latin America for many years and of speaking the Latin languages rather well. I think I understand what he’s trying to say, which does not always translate well into English, especially for Americans.
We know why these concepts do not translate well into English. English is a Germanic language, not a Romance language or a Latin language (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and Rumanian). But we have to understand why even with the best linguist on board, it will not translate well into “American”. The reason is simple. Americans are by our own tradition, navel gazers. The USA is a very self-preoccupied and self-absorbed society. As I used to tell my students when I was a professor, Americans believe that we’re all that and a bag of chips too. We refuse to acknowledge that anyone can be better than we are at anything, bigger than we are in anything, more democratic than we are, more anything else than we are. I remember being taught this nonsense when I was in elementary school. I believed it until I became a missionary. Then I found many things outside of the USA that are far better than some things that we have here. I also found some things could not compare. In other words, I found that the world is really made of human beings just like us.
But to the American Catholic, the idea that he may have been wrong about how he views the Church is anathema. Here is the problem. The American Catholic does not understand that what he sees is not the problem. What he sees in the Church may be very good. The problem is how he does the seeing. There seem to be two mindsets.
On the left you have a mindset that is especially negative. It tends to view the Church as being out of touch with reality. The reason that this is so, is because this person is looking for dust. In other words, he’s looking at how old things are. If it’s old, be it doctrine or ritual, then it must be replaced with something new, which is total nonsense as we know. But it’s very difficult to convince this person that he has to change his glasses and the angle at which he looks at the Church.
On the right, you have the exact same phenomenon, but with a twist. This is the Catholic who is obsessed with the word liberal. This gives him hives, as if he had touched Poison Ivy. He too needs a change of lenses and a new angle from which to contemplate the Church. He’s looking for anything that is younger than he is and rejecting it. He’s not even interested in whether it works or not. For that matter, he’s not interested in whether certain customs and traditions work either. He just wants to maintain them.
Both of these extremes belong to the group that he pope has identified as those who are looking inward, obsessed, overly self-preoccupied. You can figure it out. I don’t need a label to make this clear.
The question is how do those on the left and right get themselves out of this mode? The idea is not to jettison the old for the sake of the new, nor is it to hang on to the old and reject the new. The idea is to look at old and new and see how what works well together. For example, can we take a dogma, which is old and cannot be changed as we all know; but can we explain it and communicate it in a way that modern man understands it and sees how it’s important to his daily life, rather than simply give him a definition of the Immaculate Conception. The definition is nice, but unless you’re already a devout Catholic, it does not tell you anything about your sense of isolation, you fears, your pain or the meaning of life.
On the flip side, discussing the merits of women priests without and understanding of why we don’t’ have them in the first place, is a discussion in a vacuum. You can’t discuss changing something unless you understand what it is that you propose to change and why it came about in the first place. In this case, we find that as we discuss how a male priesthood came into existence and why it has been unchangeable, the how and the why answer the question of “should” we change this or “can” we change this.
I believe that these are the obsessions that the Holy Father is criticizing. One side is obsessed with changing and fixing what does not need to be changed or fixed, because it’s not broken, just misunderstood. The other side is obsessed with protecting it, but does nothing to help the general population understand its value in the marketplace. This is what the pope means when he says that we have to go out to the edge.
I have to be willing and able to sit down with a pro-choice person and explain the Incarnation in a way that it sheds light on human dignity and human rights, especially the right to be born. But I also have to be able to sit down with the most die hard Traditionalist and explain why he has to tone it down. Some things are never going to happen because we make it a law.
I can’t legislate love. Faith without love is dead. I have to stimulate love. To do this, I can’t be at odds with the person whose faith I’m trying to strengthen.
Are we too self-absorbed for our own good and the good of the Church?
