The beauty of the reasoning creature

There are about 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

There are about 1,000 trillion synapses in the brain of a three year old child.

Yay for complexity.

Tags: complexity

New Title for the Book

For about the twentieth time, I’ve changed the name of the book. I wish I kept track, just to see how it evolved. Anyway, the new name is:

Why God Has Left the Building
A Personal Look at Faith, Reason and the Search for the Sacred

Tags: book

Sacred Space in Chicago

 This marvelous book, with its gorgeous pictures of Chicago’s sacred spaces, is one of the things that made me realize just how much we’ve lost. All that beauty; all that energy. These sacred spaces were also the font of an amazing outburst of social action that provided education, jobs, housing and community services for literally hundreds of thousands of people. Chicago’s old parishes created a vibrant social community and a massive social services organization, beautiful sacred space and a way to mark sacred time, an accessible portal to the transcendent, and a rich web of meaning. And except for the evidence of the buildings, much of it is just a fading memory.

Tags: loss of the sacred, sacred space

“Received Opinion” Strikes Again

Pope Benedict frustrates yet again with his recent comments in Africa sustaining the Church’s ban of all forms of contraception, in this particular case the use of condoms in the fight against AIDs. I can’t help but wonder why Thomist scholars don’t take apart the “received opinion” of the Church’s use of natural law to condemn contraception. Probably don’t want to lose their jobs or are tired of beating a dead horse. It  appears to me to be an utter and complete misreading.

I’ve found only one article, from 1965, which contains a common sense statement of the application of natural law to contraception.

Contraception and the Logical Structure of the Thomist Natural Law Theory 
Richard H. Beis 
Ethics, Vol. 75, No. 4. (Jul., 1965), pp. 277-284.

Here’s the full article. And here are some excerpts:

Consequently, no consideration relevant to the realization of human nature, for example, the world population problem, financial inability to support more children, psychological and physical health of the marriage partners, etc., is extrinsic to the determination of the moral goodness or evil of contraception in terms of Thomist natural law. On the contrary, such considerations are necessarily included in that determination. …

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: natural law

More on the Meaning of the Sacred

If we think of the meaning of the word sacred, we imagine a space, time or action that possesses the specific quality of being distinct from the ordinary and possessing a special and unique dignity that stands out from the daily flow of reality. It explicitly sets itself apart from the ordinary and is entitled to special forms of respect, honor, reverence, protection or veneration. The characteristic of being “set apart from the ordinary” is essential to the sacred; without it, the sacred doesn’t exist. We clearly associate the sacred with religious practice but there are other spaces, times and actions that are legitimately sacred and which can tell us something about what the sacred really means.

Imagine a visit to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, a space made sacred by the nature and magnitude of the sacrifice it represents.

This would clearly be a place deserving of special reverence. It would be jarring to see a person chatting on their cell, tossing a frisbee or shouting out to a buddy. Such ordinary, innocuous behaviors would be rudely out of place for the very reason that they are ordinary and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a sacred place which by its very nature set apart from the ordinary.

The behavior of the soldiers who guard the tomb embody this sacredness. I expect that when they are off duty they behave in perfectly normal ways, chatting, waving to people, cheering at football games and leading fully normal lives. But they do none of that when they are on guard.

When performing their sacred roles, they don ritual clothes, behave in rigorously ritual ways, perform all the duties of their job, and don’t break out of that role until they are well away from the sacred space and have removed their uniforms and returned to ordinary life. It is clear when they get to behave in normal human ways and when they give themselves over to the performance of their sacred role.

Now let’s consider the sacred in relation to religion. I don’t think that anyone would disagree with the thought that the church should be a sacred place. The priest still wears vestments, we still use all the sacred objects and we still say Mass and go to Communion. But let’s look at how we do it.

When we enter the church, it’s okay to talk softly, see who’s there, and look around and wave. A low rumble of noise precedes the beginning. The priest, deacon, lectors and servers process in with the deacon holding the book of readings over his head. They all take their places, facing the people, no longer separated by an altar rail as we are all now one in the Lord. People are introduced and announcements are made. All very fine and ordinary. The priest says prayers, the lector reads the readings, we stand, we sit, the Gospel is read, the homily given, the gifts offered. More prayers are said and the Eucharist is consecrated. We say the Our Father, led by the priest, and wish each other peace. Again, very fine, we are one in the Lord. The ministers who distribute communion move to their places, we receive communion, the Mass ends, more announcements are read, the priest processes out and stands in the lobby, still vested, greeting the parishioners as they leave.

What could be wrong with such an approach to worship? Absolutely nothing, except that the very focus on the people of God and the priest coming together as one pretty much thoroughly undercuts the essential “otherness” necessary for the construction of a sacred space, time or action.

And when I say sacred, I mean sacred in the way that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is sacred; I mean the way historically and anthropologically we have always understood the sacred (e.g., Emile Durkheim, Rudolf Otto, Mircea Eliade) as something explicitly set apart from the ordinary and possessing a special and unique dignity which stands out from the daily flow of reality, the way the Buddhist monk decked out on orange stands out from the ordinary, the way Hindu temples and Muslim mosques stand out (take off your shoes!), the way Holy Name Cathedral and the other great Chicago immigrant churches and old European cathedrals stand out from the ordinary, the way the priest used to stand out from the ordinary, as the one ordained and anointed to perform the sacred rituals. Much of this sacredness has been lost and this is not a good thing.

Tags: loss of the sacred

The Politics of the Sacred

In the old days, we had priests who knew how to perform their sacred role. They put on the vestments and performed the sacred rituals behind the altar rail where no one else went, the inner sanctum of the sacred space that was the church. Unfortunately they often conflated that role with an often appalling clericalism, assuming that because they performed a sacred role, they themselves (and the institution that supported them) were also somehow sacred. From that they took leave to perpetrate all manner of malfeasance from which we are now still suffering. (In Chicago at least, I bet the white ethnic alderman didn’t invent the blingy pinky ring; I bet he copied it from his pastor.)

In the old days, the sacred role of the priest often became enmeshed with the ego of the priest  and the ego in turn of the institution. In the pedophile scandal we have seen the havoc wrought by the egos of some of these priests and the egos of the diocesan institutions that protected them.

Then came Vatican II and all that was supposed to have changed. The sacredotal role of the priest was de-emphasized, the liturgy was opened up so the people could participate, and the role of the priest was broadened beyond just administering the sacraments to the proclaimer of the Word of God, leader of the community and worker for the common good.

What actually happened was that the priest became more human. Many priests became much more approachable and much more socially and politically active (often to the consternation of their bishops or superiors). The Mass also became more human, much more a function of the action of the community coming together as one. Altar rails were removed, altars turned to face the people, the deaconate was opened (to men), and the laity were allowed to distribute communion. The sanctuary, which was once considered off limits, now became all of a piece with the rest of the church. The Mass became the community itself, celebrating the Word of God, rather than a result of the sacred action of the one anointed to offer the sacrifice and the silent, interior but also sacred participation of the congregation.

So what’s wrong with this picture? I totally get the impetus behind it; Vatican II was a long-overdue lurch towards sanity and we have a long way to go until we really get there. But the ritual of the Mass (at least in my experience) has too little to do with the sacred. As the priest discovered his humanity and took himself out into the community and world, that old sacredotal role, enmeshed as with was with clericalism and authoritarianism, got left behind.

But now we face a different kind of enmeshment. Now, if the priest is just an ordinary human being, the ritual he celebrates is also ordinary. To be egalitarian, one must open the ritual to all. Anything associated with the priest as a specially anointed one who celebrates the sacred rituals is seen as pompous and somewhat ridiculous. The priest, being his fully human self, has to be his fully human self not just outside the ritual but inside it. There is no difference. He is Father Joe on the altar, as approachable as can be, saying the words of the Consecration, as much as he is Father Joe, standing in the lobby in full vestments, greeting the parishioners.

(Of course all this egalitarianism is only skin deep. We may have lost the communion rail and the priest may face the people. But he is still a male celibate, the institution still protects its own, bishops are still closing parish schools, the Pope is still smacking down theologians and threatening excommunications–except for the Holocaust denier whose excommunication is getting his lifted. Since Vatican II the church may have lost its sense of the sacred and its understanding of the intellectual content of the faith but it has hung squarely on to its authoritarianism.)

Again, the problem is conflation of ego and role. What is the answer, for those who would like to see a more vibrant sense of the sacred in the liturgy without a return to the authoritarian days of old? I think the answer is to break the enmeshment between the ego and the role. Like the soldier who guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the priest could consciously choose to absolutely distinguish between his role and his person. When in the role, he’s in it, like the soldier is in his role as guard or an actor is in a role in a drama. As a recognition of the sacredness of what is going on, he maintains the role until the ritual is over and the ritual objects are put aside. He would no more chat from the altar than the soldier guarding the tomb would wave to a friend or an actor break the suspension of disbelief in a play by waving to his Mom.

Of course all this assumes that there is a problem, that there is disquiet in the ranks, that there is a perceived lack in the way the Mass is celebrated. Many people I’m sure actually experience a strong sense of the sacred in church or are otherwise quite satisfied with things as they stand; not all experience a lack of the sacred and if they did might not see it as a loss. But many do and that is, after all, the traditional role of religion: to create spaces, times and actions that make manifest the sacred in relation to the divine.

Of course the biggest question of all is this: What exactly is going on at the Consecration? In his sacred role, what sacred act is the priest performing? Our understanding of this will drive the structuring of the ritual. Unless we believe that there actually is something transcendent going on, something set apart from the ordinary, that the actions of the priest bring about the Real Presence of Christ on the altar, then a push for an increased sense of the sacred isn’t going to make much sense.

If we don’t believe it, then what’s the point, let’s all find a nice Protestant church somewhere, complete with good sermons, women ministers, and a nice community. The only reason many of us hang around the Catholic church and tolerate its authoritarian nonsense is because of the sacred ritual of the Mass. If that has become ordinary, what’s the point?

If, however, we do believe it, if we believe that the action of the ordained and specially anointed priest in consecrating the bread and wine is both the sign and the act that brings forth the Real Presence of Christ among us, then what is going on is so much more than a gathering. If that is the case, the ritual needs to be consciously set apart from the ordinary. We need to leave the concept of the priest and the people as one to the Liturgy of the Word and let the priest and the congregation get on with their sacred actions, which are deserving of all the special forms of respect, honor, reverence, protection and veneration that we can give them, not because of the person of the priest but because of the role he is playing. We need to put back the threshold separating the sacred from the ordinary. We can never revitalize the church by returning to the authoritarian days of old or by rehabilitating various right-wing heretics. We can however, return it to its roots by restoring the tradition of the transcendent mystery of sacred space, time and action to the practice of the liturgy.

Tags: bureaucracy, church, loss of the sacred, Vatican II