The World Needs a Franciscan Renewal

Eight hundred years ago, a little man from Assisi, a man without tremendous wealth, power, stature, or societal influence, set a movement in motion that would leave the Church and world forever changed. That man was St. Francis of Assisi.

Within just a short decade, there were already more than 5,000 friars in countries all across Europe, the Poor Clares had spread to multiple monasteries and established itself as a new way of monastic living, and the penitent movements had received their rule and amassed a larger number even than the rest.

It’s difficult to underestimate the effect that the Franciscan movement had on history. With its great size and diversity came the ability to spread its culture and values, including a number of innovations, in a way that had never been seen before. Constantly on the move, they could respond to the signs of the times, enflaming a people with passion before moving on to the next place. The way they served the poorest of the poor, living humbly themselves, preaching in new and popular ways, and not asking for much in return challenged the secular priests of their day to serve in a different way. The nativity scene and stations of the cross, while not invented by the Franciscans, are popular devotions today because of their insistence on an incarnational way of prayer. And the breviary, the shortened and compacted way of praying the psalms found in every religious house in the world today, was first employed by these traveling preachers.

At every level of the Church, in every country in the world, the Franciscans have not only been present, but have left their mark in irreconcilable ways.

But why? Why didn’t the Dominicans, who were formed around the same time, not grow as quickly? Why did it take the Jesuits, who were founded to do similar forms of ministry, so long to get its first pope (who took the name Francis!) Why haven’t the Benedictines, who have existed for much longer, had such a lasting effect on the imagination of the Church? And why haven’t the countless other religious orders that were founded throughout the history of the Church been able to match what the Franciscans have done in 800 years?

I ask these questions not to put down other Orders or even to shamelessly promote the Franciscans (okay, a little bit of the latter), but simply to marvel at what seems inconceivable: a religious movement started by a simple man like Francis should have never worked at all, let alone have changed the Church and world as it did.

Why is that? And maybe more importantly, what might we learn from the success of this movement 800 years ago in what our Church and world are facing today? That is what I was employed to talk about last weekend at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Arizona. While I can’t repeat all 5 hours of talks, I wanted to share the central points here in this week’s vlog.

I hope it inspires you to join in the movement, in however you can in your situation, and happy Feast of St. Francis to you all!

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 5 Comments

 Posted on October 4, 2018 by

 Fraternity, Justice, Ministry, Poverty, Prayer, Theology

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I Understand If You Want to Leave

On Tuesday of last week, the Catholic Church found itself back in the spotlight. Unfortunately, this was not the sort of spotlight that Jesus meant when he said that a lamp should be placed on a stand so that all may see its light. No, once again, the Catholic Church was the center of the world’s attention for the sins it has committed in the abuse of minors by priests and its subsequent coverup. According to a Grand Jury report from the Office of Attorney General in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as many as 1000 minors had been abused by priests over a 70 year period.

One thousand.

For many, the gist of the story is old news. In fact, the Church had reported similar numbers itself back in 2004 when it had done a full survey of the entire country. The fact that there were so many is horrifying, but not all that new. What is new, though, is the list of perpetrators and the details of their cases. As opposed to 2004, what the world is seeing now is more than just a statistical breakdown, more than just overall generalities, but an actual list of names, details of their abuse, and the ways that the Church systematically covered it up. By no means for the weak of stomach, the report reveals unconscionable tactics that these priests used to lure in minors, abuse them, and even create a network of abusers within dioceses, able to continue their actions from place to place under the shelter of the Church.

Simply horrifying.

And so, once again, the Church finds itself in the spotlight with attackers from every angle. We experience the same hatred and distrust as a decade ago, the same wound being reopened and made worse. And we are left shocked because we put our Band-Aid on and thought that it would have healed by now. There are some in the Church that wonder why there is so much animosity towards the Church again, becoming very defensive, claiming that there is nothing new in this report and that this is all old news. But this wound is too deep to think that it could have healed in short time, to think that it could have healed on its own without tending to the depths of the damage inflicted. No, to its credit, the Church changed some of its protocols and made Churches the safest place for minors in our world today, but it never addressed the structures that led to such a problem, and it never really healed the wounds all around.

And so they fester.

And so we find ourselves bombarded with the same horrible arguments as a decade ago. Some want to use this an opportunity to remove the requirement of celibacy for priests, arguing that this is the cause. But do we really want to say that remaining single and not acting out sexually causes one to be a rapist? Should we be worried about the millions out there not currently in relationships? This is ludicrous. Others want to use this as an opportunity to denounce homosexuality and to purge our seminaries of anyone with a same-sex attraction. But do we really want to say that having an attraction to someone of the same sex causes one to rape minors? That there is a natural propensity in gay men to want to be sexually active with children? This is absurd.

Pedophilia and ephebophilia are not normal expressions of sexual desire. In fact, they are not primarily sexual in nature: rape is more an act of violence than anything else. These things comes from a place of brokenness and distortion, the result of a real disorder. To use this situation as a means to promote an agenda, claiming that celibacy or homosexuality causes one to develop such a disorder and act out in heinous ways, is cheap, scientifically inaccurate, and against what the Church has said about itself.

But most of all, it is a deflection. It is a way of scapegoating an issue so that the blame is placed onto someone else, that we who are not of that category are left feeling innocent, and all the while, the victims themselves are left as an afterthought.

That cannot be our path forward. That cannot be the way we ultimately heal this wound and move on as the light of Christ in the world. More than anything else, the Church needs to recognize and accept the sins that it has committed, willing to accept the consequences for the sake of bringing justice for the victims, rather than focusing on self-preservation. Rather than focusing all our attention on who is to blame so that we can be sure that we’re not to blame, our focus needs to be on having a real sense of remorse, an honest reflection on what went wrong, and a steadfast commitment, above all else, to those who need the most healing. As much as this situation hurts us and we can say that the Church needs to be healed, we are not the victims here. I’ll say it again:

We are not the victims here.

It is only when we are able to fully accept this that the healing can begin. A Band-Aid will not heal this wound. Nor will treating the wrong patient.

 9 Comments

 Posted on August 22, 2018 by

 Justice, Video

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Happy Second Monday of October!

Every second Monday of October, residents of the United States celebrate “Columbus Day,” a commemoration of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492. For many who live in this country, it marks the beginning of our history, the start of European settling in the Western Hemisphere.

For many others, however, the date and commemoration are not things to celebrate. Besides the fact that the Americas were “discovered” thousands of years earlier by the people who had called it home when Columbus arrived, his arrival marked not the beginning of our history but the end of theirs. In the decades that followed, many native nations were assimilated, thrown into slavery, or wiped out, witness to horrible atrocities that would continue into the 20th century. Today, 1492 represents a terrible memory—both for the remaining native people and for European-descended Christians who lament our first ancestors’ actions—of the evil that is possible when greed leads us.

Like all of history, though, it’s a mixed bag that leaves us sitting uncomfortably in the middle without a correct answer. Was Columbus a “bad” guy? I’m not willing to say that outright. As easy as it is to see the actions of a particular historical figure and judge them from the perspective of our current moral lens, doing so is not prudent or fair. While the actions of a historical figure may not be permissible today, we must always remember that we are where we are and know what we know precisely because of the lived experience—and major failures—of those who have gone before us. To impose our value system on a historical situation that was acting under completely different historical situations and values—essentially holding two people to the same rules even though they’re playing a different game—is not a beneficial way to look at history. While I do think that many of the acts committed against the native peoples were objectively against the will of God, we must remember, as in all cases, that our social context, systems of injustice, societal expectations, and limited worldview restrict our ability to freely choose the good.

For that reason, I spend this Columbus Day—or Indigenous People’s Day—or First Nations Day—or the Second Monday of October… day—not focusing on the evil committed by someone of history and accepted as normal by the people of his day; someone acting the way that most acted in their day is not worth commemorating, good or bad. Instead, I spend this day focused on a man who stood against what was normal and accepted in his day, a man who risked his life and reputation to stand for something that was unpopular and unheard of. That man? Dominican Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, the “Protector of the Indians.”

For email subscribers, click here to watch this week’s video.

 2 Comments

 Posted on October 9, 2017 by

 Justice

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We Don’t Have The Luxury

It seems like a rule of nature that conflict is inevitable. While the last two decades has been witness to extremely polarized thinking in both ecclesiastical and political debates, the fact of the matter is that people have always been in conflict. We disagree with one another. We get angry. We fight. Such is life. On this side of the Kingdom, I’m just not sure we can avoid it.

But oh do we try.

When I meet someone who has opinions diametrically different from mine, my first impulse is to try to change their mind. I may not open with that, and really, I may not even pursue it in action, but that desire is there. While small differences in opinion are not only good, they’re necessary, there is something deep inside of me that is unsettled when someone claims something I find absolutely ludicrous. I must fix them.

Maybe you know this feeling. If so, then maybe you know what usually happens in these cases: nothing. In my whole life, in all the people I have met and in all of the conversations about politics, religion, philosophy, or the like, I’m not sure if I have ever changed the opinion of someone who started off diametrically opposed to me. Never. Instead, what almost always happens is that at least one of us gets frustrated at our inability to fix the other person and we leave the conversation worse off than when we started: same opinions held but a worse relationship between us.

What do we do now?

More times than not, we just let it go. Rather than carrying the burden of the frustration with us well after the conversation is done, we try to forget the argument and move on with our lives. And on the surface, this seems like our best option: adding resentment to an altogether meaningless conversation is not good for one’s mental or emotional health, and benefits neither you nor your opponent. Letting the conversation go is probably the best thing we can do.

Rather unfortunately, though, we often let go of much more than that. In my experience, when faced with a difficult person or opinion that we cannot reconcile with the way we view the world, we often let go of the person as well. Rather than having to deal with the frustration that such a perspective is out there, and unwilling to accept that it cannot be reconciled with our world view, we employ a defense mechanism that eliminates the problem: we determine that that person or opinion is fundamentally wrong, therefore not of any worth to our lives.

It’s a nice tactic, actually. Able to put someone in a box—no, they put themselves in a box away from reason, not us!—our commitment to them and their ideas disappears. Those people are so messed up, we say. That one is crazy, we think. Why waste time thinking about or engaging people who are so far from right thinking?

And yet, as nice and comforting it is to us, as neat and tidy as it makes our relationships, when we do this, we forget something rather fundamental to our lives: As Christians, we do not have the luxury of writing people off.

As much as we want to solve problems by cutting people out of our lives and forever ignoring them, we do not have the luxury: we are called to forgiveness.

As much as we want to put people down for being “so messed up,” we do not have the luxury. We are called to love even our enemies.

As much as we want to attack others, play the victim, or try to get people our our side against them, we do not have the luxury. We are called to be meek peacemakers.

As much as the world may find certain behaviors and ways of dealing with conflict acceptable, we do not have the luxury. We are called to another world.

As much as we want to hide from issues and people, avoiding conflict and saying that “it’s not my problem,” we do not have the luxury. We are called to imitate God’s justice and mercy in our world, building up the kingdom of God, not just for ourselves, but for all.

There is no doubt in my mind that conflict has existed as long as life has existed and that it will continue long after I am gone. I have no utopian dreams of creating a world in which everyone holds hands and gets along, all thinking and speaking with one voice. This side of the Kingdom, conflict is a reality at the center of our lives. As Christians, that should not free us from being who we say we are—Christians. No, Jesus himself came and lived in a volatile world with conflict all around him. In fact, it is mainly through conflict that we know what we know about him and how we are to live. As easy as it is to buy into the values of the world—to act like the leaders of camps we see around us, to improve our cause by putting down our enemy, to determine for ourselves who is worth engaging and who is not—we need to remember one thing: if we want to call ourselves followers of Christ, we do not have the luxury of letting go of any part of the body of Christ.

 2 Comments

 Posted on October 6, 2017 by

 General Reflection, Justice

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Against a Mob Mentality

One of my favorite movies is Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. Looking beyond the chilling plot of the movie—an elusive and deadly virus wipes out a large part of the world’s population—at its core is a kernel of truth that strikes much closer to home: sometimes, the virus of an idea can be more dangerous than a virus of the body.

While the government and world health organizations are working around the clock to find a cure and law enforcement and medical personnel are heroically doing their jobs when all seems lost—everyone who is “in the know” doing everything they can to save lives and keep the world together—there is one character spreading conspiracy theories and inciting a revolt. The government has a cure but they won’t share it with us. There is a cheap cure that the government is trying to coverup and refuses to test. I have been cured by this miraculous drug, so buy my product.

What ensues is mass chaos. Starting first with only those desperate and deranged enough to believe this man’s conspiracy theories (and unable to see how he is profiting greatly from it), some people take to the streets in fits of anger. If they’re not going to help me, I’m going to help myself. Stores are looted. Pharmacy workers are assaulted so they can get more of the “miracle drug.” Laws are disregarded. And while it started as only a few loud and violent people setting the example, their tearing at the fabric of society left the rest of the world with no choice: unless we also start looting, disregarding the law, fighting for our place, and standing up to the government, we won’t survive.

A mob mentality. Uninformed and seeing their peers acting a certain way, rational people find themselves guided by their anger and doing completely irrational things. Surrounded by so many others, they never question their motives, check their facts, search for alternatives, or know when to stop. Things just snowball out of control.

I present this rather dark picture as an extreme example of the tendency many of us have been prone to in recent years. While the increased political nature of our culture represents a people no longer willing to stand aside and be passive when their moral convictions are being challenged—undoubtedly a good thing—the critical thinking, respect for others, patience in due process, and willingness to respond constructively that needs to accompany political and social action has not increased as much. Conspiracy theories have become mainstream, vocal and violent minority groups scare the majority out of rational thinking, misinformation quickly circulates without question, and truth seems to have narrowed to but a singular expression, usually the one that I hold. Those people are wrong, we think. There is an emerging mob mentality in our world.

Oh, and yes, in our Church as well. This week showed us two prime examples.

The first is the case of Fr. James Martin, S.J., editor-at-large of America Magazine, acclaimed author, and consultor to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications. The recent author of a book about building bridges between the Church and the LGBT community, Martin says that he has faced unrelenting hate mail from some in the Church in recent months. Led by three minority but extremely vocal fringe groups in the Church, a campaign of voices directed this anger towards his venues in hopes of “getting him fired.” Despite his talks being about Jesus and not LGBT issues, despite being in good standing with the Church and being officially chosen by the Vatican for a special position, and despite his book in question having the imprimitur of the Jesuit provincial and approved by multiple cardinals of the Church… these venues cowered to the hate speech and cancelled his talks. Even publicly admitted that they did not disagree with what he was going to say, they simply feared the mob.

Another case, same situation. Enter Rebecca Bratten Weiss, college professor and founder of The New Pro Life Movement, an organization focused on integrating Cardinal Bernadine’s “seamless garment” and giving more attention to women’s rights within the “pro life” movement. The recent subject of an attack by one of the same fringe groups that attacked Martin, Weiss’ support of Cardinal Bernadine (yes, a cardinal of the Church), questioning of the mechanics of the current “pro life” movement to make it better, and even her personal life, were brutally chastised online, causing an outcry against the university. This week, Weiss was released from her position, and the president made an official statement to the website in question, assuring its followers that she had been released.

Two recent examples, but not the only ones. Lest what I’m trying to point out be misconstrued as a partisan statement (a criticism that might ironically serve to prove my point), this sort of mob mentality exists on the right and on the left, in the middle and in the apathetic: uninformed people going with the masses and using violence or the power of their voice rather than rational and respectful arguments, is not the exclusive domain of any one group. As we have seen in 2017 alone, mob mentality is everywhere.

And… while I know that this is going to be a longer post than normal, but short answers and loud voices won’t cut it in such a complex situation. I think that this is a critically important issue of our time that needs our attention, and I would like to offer a few suggestions that could help us, as Church, avoid this terrible trap.

There are more than two sides

In our American political system, there are really only two parties: Democrats and Republicans. While there are technically hundreds of parties, no one will ever get elected or do anything significant from outside of these two. Because of this, we are often faced with a false dichotomy: we are told that there are only two answers to a question and we have to choose one. “Which side are you on?” is a famous question to divide people.

The fact of the matter, though, is that every issue has multiple positions one could take, and often, we arbitrarily accept the opinion of a certain party even when it doesn’t fit our view 100%. In doing so, we not only cheapen our own perspective, but we make it easier to see the other as enemy: rather than realizing that there is a spectrum of perspectives and that most people don’t fit perfectly in the box but lean one way or another, we unfairly write people off as “those people” or from “that party” when their opinion might actually be fairly close to ours to begin with. When we realize that there are actually 10, 20, even 50 different ways of looking at things, we are much more likely to engage our neighbor and realize that we have something in common to build off of.

To combat a mob mentality, we need move away from broad categories of large groups and focus on individual people and ideas.

Some sides are in fact wrong: Fact checking

In our post-modern, post-fact world, we have placed the individual above all. While there is definitely a sense in which one’s experience and way they understand the world is valid, as it is their experience, and should be cherished as such, just because something has personal meaning does not mean that it is universally or objectively factual. A good example is something I saw on the news last year. A politician said that his constituents did not feel as safe as they did twenty years ago, therefore, the world was not as safe. It may be true that they do not feel as safe, but statistically speaking, his constituents were drastically less likely to be murdered today. Personally true, factually false and part of a mob mentality when continued to be spread.

I can’t tell you how many times I open my Facebook and see well-intentioned, nice, non-crazy people posting things that are not factually accurate. Usually it’s not a complete lie or slander. No, what I’m talking about is the thing that “sounds” right, comes from a quasi-reputale source, and is about something they like… but is a bit fuzzy on the details. A growing example of this is climate change. Scientifically speaking, there’s no doubt that the earth is warming and that humans are the main cause. And yet, that doesn’t mean that everything weather-related can be used to prove the effects of climate change. A huge hurricane season could be climate change, but it could also be within the statistical probability of a normal climate. One data point does not prove the whole.

To combat a mob mentality, we need to be informed and think critically.

But many sides can be right at the same time: Pluralism is not relativism

On the other hand, just because there might be wrong answers does not mean that there is always only one right answer. Is there only one way to climb a mountain? Surely not. And even though two people may not go along the same path, they can absolutely get to the same place.

As Catholics, those who hold that there are absolute truths about the world, this may sound a lot like relativism, the idea that everything is just as right as another. That’s not what I’m saying. Pluralism, rather than relativism, recognizes that there are absolute truths or ends about the world, but there are also multiple ways of expressing and understanding that truth. Look at our liturgy. Even within the West, the Vatican has allowed the modified Latin rite of the mass to be celebrated along with the normal, preferred rite of Vatican II, as well as having recognized a number of Eastern rites and communions to maintain their own separate traditions. Each are fundamentally different in gesture, purpose, and even outcome, but they all point to the same absolute truth.

In our religious world especially, controversy tends to boil over because we are unable to accept that there might be a different perspective that also holds truth. When we see the way people approach Church, God, family, ministry, and the outside world, there is a temptation in our world to write people off as a false Church, as heretics, as not the true believers. This, I firmly believe, is the result of a lack of faith. Unable to see that God is complex and not capable of being boxed into our small brains, anything that differs from our understanding challenges the validity of our faith… and it has to be stopped. It is easier to call someone a heretic, to protest their talks, to get someone fired, to belittle them as stupid, to laugh at them, or to ignore them than it is to engage what they are saying, where they are coming from, and the ways in which they might be right.

To combat a mob mentality, we need to broaden our worldview and live in the complexity of God’s mystery.

The Church has survived worse

Finally, there is no doubt that our world is witnessing dangers and fears that many of us have never seen before. We are, in some ways, at a turning point in world history, at a fever pitch of tension.

And yet, there’s also a sense that there is nothing new under the sun. The Cold War was much more dangerous than our times. The 1960s and 70s experienced much more social upheaval than today. The 1940s produced more war and death. The 1930s saw a much greater collapse of our world economy. The early 1800s resulted in a much greater cataclysmic tear in the fabric of the religious world. The 1600s witnessed a world in which Protestants and Catholics were murdering each other for different beliefs. Between 800 and 1100 the Church had a pope that sold the papacy, priests becoming overwhelmingly wealthy for doing little work, Church wealth used for war and opulence, and the intellectual decline of our theology. And so on. The Church and world has seen some stuff.

And it has prevailed.

So often in our arguments, our intensity and passion is the result of a narrow perspective: deep down, I think believe that this issue is the most important of history. This issue, whatever one we’re fighting about, proves how terrible the world is, how far we’ve fallen, and that there’s no hope… we have to fight above all else to win it. Too often, we make the stakes too high on the issues, gives ourselves too much credit in being responsible for causing/solving them, and we go nuclear when things don’t go well, failing to live for tomorrow because we believe that everything comes down to this one thing or to us.

There are important issues in our day. Absolutely. And we should definitely be passionate and serious about the world. But we also need to remember that the Church has survived worse. It is not up to us to be its savior, nor is it up to us to employ any means necessary to win an argument—personal attacks, creating false dichotomies, acts of violence, hatred, moral decay—undermining our cause to uphold the kingdom of God by acting against it. We are called to remember that this is God’s institution, not ours, and God will ultimately hold it together, not us.

To combat a mob mentality, we need to take a deep breath and remember that it’s going to be okay. At least in the long run.

I think our world and Church desperately needs these things. To stand for justice and truth, as mobs believe that they are doing, but to do so free of broad, inflexible categories of right and wrong; without personally attacking those with whom we disagree but working to bring the fold together; in integrity for real truth, not just the truth that supports our claims; and with the humility to know that we work for this Church but we are ultimately not responsible for it.

When we do this, standing together for what we believe and engaging the world, we are not a mob… we are a Church.

 8 Comments

 Posted on September 22, 2017 by

 Justice, Ministry, Theology

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Breaking In The Habit

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