I share Eduardo's concerns about the suburbs' implications for justice, community, and the environment, and I believe that CST should accordingly have something to say about suburban life. I also believe that the attraction of the suburbs is understandable -- even natural -- and is supported by CST to the extent that parents are encouraged to turn their hearts toward home, replacing Plato's rejection of exclusive relationships and particularized care-giving with preferential commitments to our own offspring. The primacy of the family may help pave the path to the suburbs. When I see the world through the eyes of my children, I would much rather provide them with good schools, a lawn, and a quiet, safe neighborhood.
We must, of course, balance our family-centric focus with a concern for the broader community. But what does that mean? Is it enough for me to flee the city, but vote for candidates who will address urban problems with my tax money? Or should I commit myself -- and my children -- to the city, warts and all. I have a friend who moved with his wife and young children to the Desire housing projects in New Orleans, reasoning that it would be a joke for him to claim a commitment to the needs of that community while retreating to the suburbs every night. I readily admit that I have not -- and probably will not -- make such a sacrifice. I have lived in many urban settings, but my decisions on where to live were always shaped by quality of life considerations, not by any abstract commitment to the city and its inhabitants. But my friend's example has always stayed with me.
As for Lisa's question, I do live in the city and I do send our kids to public school. It's a good school, though, so I can't claim some sort of noble purpose. On the question of special needs kids and urban Catholic parishes, I assume it's primarily a matter of resources. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) If an urban parish had the financial support of the suburban parish that recruited a special needs student, is there any reason to believe that its school would be resistant to taking in those students? While the resistance is certainly cause to head to the suburbs for parents of such students now, isn't the resistance at least partially a result of other parents heading to the suburbs over the previous decades? If state-funded school vouchers were a reality, is there any evidence that Catholic schools would still keep out special needs students?
And let me throw one other observation into the mix, which may be more provocative than I intend. Some of the more frustratingly dormant parishes that I have attended have been urban parishes. I realize that I cannot judge an individual's spiritual life by their exterior, but still . . . parishes where no one sings, no one greets visitors, and the average pulse rate during services seems to hover around 27 are difficult for me to reconcile with the life-changing message of the Gospel. At one parish in Queens, I was excited to learn that there was an adult education committee. Then I learned that its sole responsibility was to replenish the informational pamphlets in the rack at the back of the church. Are there lots of "dormant" suburban parishes? Of course. Are there benefits to living in close proximity to others within an urban parish? Undoubtedly. But there is, in my view (here comes the provocative part), a cost to a religious life that is so much part of the cultural background that it never seems to make it to the foreground. When we are Catholic simply because that's who we are and that's what we do, that seems (at least to my evangelical sensibility) a recipe for complacency. Without a personal decision to embrace the Gospel as truth, Catholicism can simply serve as the wallpaper of our lives. In the places I've lived where virtually everyone is Catholic, the parishes have been much less "vibrant" than in places where the majority is non-Catholic. This does not correspond to a clean urban/suburban distinction, but it is a problem I've observed in several urban parishes.
Apparently, my last post wasn't clear enough, but I was not saying that suburbs are not really Catholic. I was talking about my feelings and perceptions, which I then discounted by noting their likely origins in the particularly urban experience of American Catholic immigrants. Nor is it the case that Catholic people might not have good reasons for choosing to relocate to the suburbs and live a vibrant spiritual life once they get there. The more important question for me is, instead, whether suburban development patterns raise questions that have traditionally been of concern to CST. I suggested a few possibilities. Neither Elizabeth nor Fr. Araujo's posts really go to that question, but I'm curious what they (or anyone else) think.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Today’s The New York Times published and editorial entitled “A Nominee’s Abnormal Views.” [HERE] The subject of this editorial is the nomination of Dr. James Holsinger to be the next Surgeon General of the United States. If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Holsinger would lead the country’s Public Health Service; moreover, he would have for the foreseeable future a platform from which to offer his views on a wide range of medical issues that would presumably draw on his many years of public service dealing with health issues. As the editorial correctly notes, he would serve as the nation’s “chief health educator” and would have “potentially enormous capacity to shape public opinion.”
Curiously The New York Times does not refer to its own enormous capacity to shape public opinion, but I would disagree with the editorial’s authors that Dr. Holsinger’s views on homosexual sex are abnormal. From what the Times alleges about him, I suspect that Dr. Holsinger and I would disagree on questions regarding cloning and embryonic stem cell research. The fact that he and I might differ on this vital issue would not allow me to reach the same conclusion that the Times is so quick to reach. In my opinion, the Doctor would be wrong if he, in fact, supports human cloning for embryonic stem cell research. I would not, however, characterize his perspective on this matter as “abnormal” since it is held by many influential people whom I also believe are wrong.
Abnormal means: irregular; nonstandard; uncharacteristic; atypical; anomalous; strange; odd; peculiar; deviant; aberrant; or malformed. Ironically, the Times (as it suggests when it states that it is “difficult to pigeonhole [him] ideologically”] and Dr. Holsinger probably share similar views on human cloning that leads to stem cell research and the destruction of the human embryos involved in this research. What is “troubling” to The New York Times about this nominee is that Dr. Holsinger is also an active lay leader in the United Methodist Church who opposes homosexual practice.
I may not have written this posting on this Times editorial if it simply asserted its disagreement with the Doctor’s views on homosexual practices. However, for this influential paper and powerful shaper of public opinion to brand and condemn the Doctor’s view on this important topic as “abnormal” should be of grave concern not only to Americans, in general, but to Catholics, in particular. It will be all the more easy in the future for the Times to oppose and denounce a faithful Catholic nominee to any national, state, or local post whose views differ with theirs. Now, that action, should the Times pursue it, would be abnormal. RJA sj
I have enjoyed the robust exchange amongst MOJ participants regarding the Church and parish life in rural, urban, and suburban areas. I may be one of the few MOJ participants who has had the opportunity to serve as a priest the Church in these diverse communities in the United States, e.g., Manhattan, Long Island, Dighton MA, Bethesda MD, Washington DC, Spokane, Los Gatos CA. In response to a question which Elizabeth raised, I have also had some modest experience abroad in Rome, Jordan (where I served as a Jesuit scholastic prior to my ordination), and England where I have also served the local church. I would not want to suggest that any of these diverse communities is more authentically Catholic than some others, nor would I want to propose that Catholicism is more vibrant in any one of these places than it is in another. In all of them, I have met disciples of Christ—sons and daughters of the Church who are generous, thoughtful, and caring Christians. The challenges to practicing their faith are as diverse as their locales, but first and last they are Christians, they are Catholics who labor hard at implementing what God asks of us all. Two of this week’s Gospels (Sunday and today, Tuesday) have reminded us, through Saints Luke and Matthew, that the harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few—nonetheless, the master of the harvest has sent out laborers for the harvest in all these sundry places. RJA sj
OK, I can't help myself. I have a question for you Catholic urbanites. How many of you are sending your children to your local public shool? If you are, instead, sending your children to a local parochial or private school, what's the percentage of kids in those schools with special needs? Does it come close to approximating the percentage of the general population with special needs?
I'll bet some of your neighbors with school-aged children (OK, maybe not your immediate neighbors, but maybe neighbors four or five blocks away from you) do not feel quite as content with urban life, or feel quite as welcome in your urban Catholic parishes, as you do. The only Catholic school I've ever known to actually recruit kids with special needs (OK, well, maybe just one kid, the daughter of a friend of mine) is the school of my comfortably suburban parish.
If we're going to start talking about what kinds of parishes "feel" more Catholic to us than others, I think we're going to end up finding it very, very, hard to generalize.
Here's Cal Thomas holding forth on Hilary Clinton's religious faith (HT Digby):
Liberal faith, which is to say a faith that discounts the authority
of Scripture in favor of a constantly evolving, poll-tested relevancy
to modern concerns -- such as the environment, what kind of SUV Jesus
would drive, larger government programs and other "do-good" pursuits --
ultimately morphs into societal and self-improvement efforts and
jettisons the life-changing message of salvation, forgiveness of sins
and a transformed life.
If the newspaper story is accurate, this
is where Clinton is on her faith: "In a brief quiz about her
theological views, Mrs. Clinton said she believed in the resurrection
of Jesus, though she described herself as less sure of the doctrine
that being a Christian is the only way to salvation." This is a politician speaking, not a person who believes in the central tenets of Christianity.
The
same book that tells of the resurrection, also quotes Jesus as saying
"I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but
by me" (John 14:6). One might ask, which the reporter did not, that if
there are other ways to God than through Jesus, why did Jesus bother to
come to Earth, allow himself to be crucified and suffer rejection?
I can't quite tell what Thomas means by liberal Christianity here. But I know I disagree with his characterization of the view that "being a Christian is the only way to salvation" as a central tenet of Christianity, unless Catholics do not count as Christians. (Of course, we've seen that one before as well.)
From yesterday's paper:
The fight over a popular health insurance program for children is
intensifying, with President Bush now leading efforts to block a major
expansion of the program, which is a top priority for Congressional
Democrats. . . . Democrats have proposed a major expansion of the program, the State
Children’s Health Insurance Program, to cover more youngsters with a
substantial increase in federal spending.
Administration
officials have denounced the Democratic proposal as a step toward
government-run health care for all. They said it would speed the
erosion of private insurance coverage. And they oppose two of the main
ideas contemplated by Democrats to finance expanded coverage for
children: an increase in the federal tobacco tax and cuts in Medicare
payments to private insurance companies caring for the elderly.
I agree with Rick that there's something just not quite Catholic about suburbs, although, like him, I have a hard time putting my finger on it. I've attended urban, rural, and suburban Catholic parishes. And the first two just feel more Catholic to me, particularly the urban parishes. I think part of the answer is the immigrant experience, which has really defined the culture of Catholicism in the United States and which has been an overwhelmingly urban phenomenon. (This actually reminds me of another book to add to the list: Gerald Gamm's Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed.)
But, aside from perceptions of authenticity, I also think there's a moral case to be made against suburban living on grounds of justice, community, and the environment. I think all three objections revolve around the car-dependence that suburban patterns of development literally mandate. Car-dependence separates people from one another, isolates the very young and very old, burdens the poor and harms the environment. The justice and communitarian objections to the suburban lifestyle resonate strongly with traditional themes of CST. The environment, on the other hand, has been something of an ugly stepchild within CST. The Church has had things to say about the environment from time to time, though, and I think (or at least hope) it will have much more to say about it in the future.
