Saturday, August 7, 2010
I've received some sprited correspondence concerning my "eye contact" post, as I expected and even hoped I would. Some of that correspondence wonders why I would post something about liturgy on a Catholic "law blog." That's easy, and I thought it would have been obvious (especially given its development here at MOJ over the years). We are not "Catholic" if we are not Eucharistic. Who we are as a Eucharistic people is not, furthermore, just about (as one corresdpondent called it) "liturgical aesthetics." Our sense of who we are as lawyers, citizens, servants must be, in part, a function of who we are as Christians, and that depends in part on how we understand ourselves in relationship to the Lord and others in his Mystical Body. Congregationalism, for example, leads to a different view of the state than does a rich theology of the Mystical Body.
Which leads to the second point I'd like to address. A number of correspondents have accused me of being condescending with respect to Fullam's claims. But let's ask for a moment, if it's possible, how the established Eucharistic community Fullam visited would likely receive her published, disseminated, and fairly widely discussed decision that its church should be deconsecrated and the community itself thus put into diaspora. What if they read and pondered her post? Would they feel respected? Think about it: Fullam parachuted in and posthaste declared the community's life not worthy of continuance, then she returned to Berkeley (which, as I say, I love).
Pullam's words were flippant, I would suggest; her respect for the integrity of the worshipping community she visited was, it seems to me, lacking. One of my great joys in traveling in Europe is the rich diversity of liturgical communities I've been privileged to participate in. Some of them are more resonant with me than others, to be sure -- but what bearing has that on whether the less resonant communities should be terminated? I defy someone to show me how, given the reasons she marshaled for its closure, Prof. Fullam respected the community she visited.
When Fullam arrived, there were souls gathered to pray in the Lord's name, indeed to celebrate the Mass -- yet Fullam, the visitor, calls now for the community to be dispersed. In my humble judgment, Fullam's stance/agenda merits careful consideration, rejection, and, further, the rebuke I tended to deliver. Turnabout is fair play, and I replied as I did in order to create a sense of how Fullam's victims might feel about her treatment of their lived reality. Fullam ignores the side she doesn't live. I pointed out that she is apparently tone deaf to what it is that had in fact gathered the Eucharistic community she was gifted to be able to visit (and then condemn).
Let this be clear. My reply to Fullam was only indirectly related to what is condescendingly and dismissively referred to as "liturgical aesthetics." She called for the deconsecrating of a church and thus the end of the community's life together in worship. I meant to show -- as I would again -- the insufficiency (and nature) of the reasons for that judgment by a visitor to that worshipping community. It was her insistence upon a certain kind of aesthetic that led to her call for closure! I'm much more tolerant.
Friday, August 6, 2010
While I'm at it . . . . Someone called Lisa Fullam, who (I am informed) teaches at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley (which is real estate I love, Berkeley that is) does quite a number here on (what I suspect was a valid celebration of) the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It begins with her report that, after leaving the big ethicists' conference in Trent, she "ducked into" Mass (though she doesn't use the noun) in another (and unnamed, no doubt to protect the innocent -- surely not the guilty) town. She then begins by accusing the "presider" of leading the congregation (though that noun is not used) through an "expressionless Eucharistic prayer." What would count as an adequate "expression?" Never mind that the Eucharistic prayer was prayed inaudibly by the celebrant until five minutes ago. Then comes the indictment that said presider never provided "eye contact." Mirabile (non) visu! Do Christians go to Mass for eye contact? I can get that at the grocery store. Further, she indicts, he "didn't even bother to preach -- that might have revealed engagement." I am grateful to hope that Assoc. Prof. Fullam would have been docile in the presence of the requested preaching. Further, at the Sign of Peace, her bill of particulars goes on, this pour presiding soul "didn't deign to greet." "Offerte vobis pacem", though, isn't an imperative for a round of "greet[ing]." Perhaps the celebrant was a man of good taste? Sound theology? Would Fullam credit these as reasons from not having a meet-and-greet in mediam Missam? I doubt it. Fullam reaches her climax with the indictment that this bumbling fool "dispensed Eucharist mechanically." One wonders what this apparently dutiful and devoted priest could possibly say in his own defense. Perhaps he believes he was faithfully following the Novus Ordo. Perhaps he doesn't think celebrating Mass is a demand to make "eye contact" for those who "duck[] in" or even crawl in for Holy Mass. "No wonder so few bother to attend," Fullam winds up in her closing argument. No wonder, indeed -- if you adopt Fullam's theology. Her last judgment: "might as well deconsecrate the place."
As a believer in ex opere operato (which, obviously, is only the beginning of what there is to say about liturgy), I remain more hopeful than Fullam appears to be. Still, I think this bit from Evelyn Waugh, in his piece "Changes in the Church: Questions for the 'Progressives'" (Catholic Herald, 7 August 1964), which -- for the record -- I wouldn't quite wish to embrace in its entirety, is the beginning of a response to Fullam: "Finally, a word about liturgy. It is natural to the Germans to make a row. The torchlit, vociferous assemblies of Hitler Youth expressed a national passion. It is well that this should be canalized into the life of the Church. But it is essentially un-English. We seek no 'Seig Heils'. We pray in silence. 'Participation' in the Mass does not mean hearing our own voices. Only He knows who is 'participating' at Mass. I believe, to compare small things with great, that I 'participate' in a work of art when I study it and love it silently. No need to shout. . . . 'Diversity' is deemed by the progressives as one of their aims against the stifling Romanita. May they allow it to English Catholics. I am now old but I was young when I was received into the Church. I was not at all attracted by the splendour of her great ceremonies -- which the Protestants could well counterfeit. Of the extraneous attractions of the Church which most drew me was the spectacle of the priest and his server at low Mass, stumping up to the altar without a glance to discover how many or few he had in his congregation" . . . or even if someone called Fullam had "ducked in."
Pope Benedict has taught and demonstrated that there are many worthy forms of Catholic worship. We can hope that the Fullams won't succeed in deconsecrating sacred plaes in which worthy worship is said not to take place because it doesn't deliver "eye contact" or other coveted phenomena obtainable elsewhere.
I'n my experience, the Christian doctrine that justification is by grace alone, not by our works or some other contribution we make, is a message of great and joyous freedom. A big reason I'm a Protestant is the heritage of that message. Ever since New Testament times, people have worried that the message undermines moral behavior, but I think that Paul answered that well in his letters. But is the emphasis on justification by grace alone individualistic--just "me and Jesus"? I ask that sometimes as a Protestant who hangs around a lot with Catholics who are always talking about community and "the social nature of the human person." Well, here's a passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together, which our church house group just read, that eloquently explains how the emphasis on grace alone is precisely the reason why community is so important. It's beautifully Protestant and, I think, beautifully Catholic, worth an extended quote:
The death and the life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources; rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from the outside, in God’s Word to him. The Reformers expressed it this way: Our righteousness is an ‘alien righteousness’ a righteousness that comes outside of us (extra nos). They were saying that the Christian is dependent on the Word of God spoken to him. He is pointed outward, to the Word that comes to him. The Christian lives wholly by the truth of God’s Word in Jesus Christ. If someone asks him, Where is your salvation, your righteousness? he can never point to himself. He points to the Word of God in Jesus Christ, which assures him salvation and righteousness. He is as alert as possible to this Word. Because he daily hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he daily desires the redeeming Word. And it can come only from the outside. In himself he is destitute and dead. Help must come from the outside, and it has come and comes daily and anew in the Word of Jesus Christ, bringing redemption, righteousness, innocence and blessedness.
But God has put this Word in the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother, his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure
And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation. As such, God permits them to meet together and gives them community. Their fellowship is founded solely upon Jesus Christ and this ‘alien righteousness.' . . .
Someone named Michael Sean Winters says he's not happy with Judge Walker's decision and (more particularly) opinion overturning Proposition 8. In developing his disagreement, Winters distinguishes Lawrence v. Texas: "I understood why the majority of the Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that privacy concerns demanded that they overturn a sodomy law." It's hard to know where to start, so I'll be brief. First, was "privacy" the stated right in Lawrence? Second, are "concerns" sufficient reason to overrule the legislation of a "sovereign" state? Does Winters really mean that? I am reminded of what I once heard a young and guileless intern tell a group of us she was leading on a tour of the Supreme Court: "The dissent is where some Justices tell the majority they were in bad taste." It's not surprising that Winters admits not understanding "Justice Scalia's concern, voiced in his dissent, that the Lawrence ruling would expedite gay marriage."
Once there is a judicially enforceable constitutional right to be free from the impositions of a normative anthropology, little that follows can be surprising. Winters elides this by transmuting Lawrence into a privacy decision.
In her column today, Peggy Noonan warns about this:
I started noticing in the 1980s, the growing gulf between the
country's thought leaders, as they're called—the political and media
class, the universities—and those living what for lack of a better word
we'll call normal lives on the ground in America. The two groups were
agitated by different things, concerned about different things, had
different focuses, different world views.
But I've never seen the gap wider than it is now. I think it is a chasm.
Noonan's point -- that university professors and others among the cultural elite in the United States are preoccupied with matters that are viewed as politically correct extremism or ivory tower foolishness by others and thus have become disconnected from the world inhabited by our fellow citizens -- is difficult to dispute.
Every time I gather with neighbors or parishioners, or when I simply talk with others while waiting in line at the grocery store or walking around the lake at the local park, I am reminded by just how insular and narrow are academic perspectives on what is important, on moral values, on living a satisfying life, on politics, on economics, or even on hobbies and pursuits. The gulf between what is conventional wisdom in academic circles and what is valued in most other settings is brought home to me in more direct terms when I travel to places other than college towns or urban centers on the left and right coasts.
A weekend spent with my now-elderly mother and her friends or my in-laws and the extended family across several generations, along with the lively conversations and debates that follow when we get together, serve as a cautionary note to me. Even someone like me whose more conservative views and traditional religious beliefs depart from the academic norm can find himself shaped and constrained by the politically-correct academic mindset, starting to think that some points are obvious or some positions are indisputable. But then I realize yet again how most universities have become echo chambers in which like-minded academics, whatever their discipline (and to some extent whatever their political party), confirm one another in their opinions (most of the time).
The question I want to pose to members and readers of the Mirror of Justice is this: Are Catholic academics any better at reflecting the greater diversity of thought and breadth of perspective found outside of the typical university setting? Do we pay better attention to the matters that are of greater concern to our fellow citizens, even if they are not the hottest topics in the faculty lounge or the trendy subject of an academic symposium? Have we, or at least have those Catholic professors who take the Catholic legal and social thought projects seriously, done a better job of remaining connected to the real world? If the Mirror of Justice is any indication, I think maybe we have, that our very disagreements on-line keep us better grounded. What do you think? Comments are open.
