Defending religious liberty

Archbishop William Lori of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has responded to outrageous statements by Martin Castro, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who recently said “the phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance... religion is being used as both a weapon and a shield by those seeking to deny others equality.”

Lori responds:

These statements painting those who support religious freedom with the broad brush of bigotry are reckless and reveal a profound disregard for the religious foundations of his own work. 

People of faith have often been the ones to carry the full promise of America to the most forgotten peripheries when other segments of society judged it too costly. Men and women of faith were many in number during the most powerful marches of the civil rights era. Can we imagine the civil rights movement without Rev. Martin Luther King, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel? In places like St. Louis, Catholic schools were integrated seven years before the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Jesus taught us to serve and not to count the cost.  

Our record is not perfect. We could have always done more. Nevertheless, we have long taught that the one God, maker of heaven and earth, calls each and every individual into being, loves every individual, and commands believers to love and show mercy to every individual. The idea of equality, which the Chairman treats as a kind of talisman, is incomprehensible apart from the very faith that he seeks to cut off from mainstream society...

In a pluralistic society, there will be institutions with views at odds with popular opinion. The Chairman's statement suggests that the USCCR does not see the United States as a pluralistic society. We respect those who disagree with what we teach. Can they respect us? We advocate for the dignity of all persons, a dignity that includes a life free from violence and persecution and that includes fair access to good jobs and safe housing. People of faith are a source of American strength. An inclusive and religiously diverse society should make room for them.

The Paradox of Easter

Reflections from Czech priest and theologian Tomas Halik:

When we confess the Easter faith, at whose centre is the paradox of victory through an absurd defeat, why are we so afraid of our own defeats - including the demonstrable weaknesses of Christianity in the world of today? Isn't God speaking to us through these realities, as He did when He spoke through the events that we commemorate at Easter?

Yes, the form of religion to which we are accustomed is truly dying off. The history of religion and the history of Christianity consist of periods of crisis and periods of renewal; the only religion that is truly dead is one that does not undergo change, the one that has dropped out of that rhythm of life...

At the present time, we are witnessing the withering away of a type of religion (and Christianity) that came into existence at the time of the Enlightenment - partly under its influence and partly in reaction to it. It is withering away with its own epoch. As on many occasions in history, this situation of faith can be interpreted optimistically or catastrophically: the optimistic interpretation offers various technical solutions (a return to premodern religion or a facile “modernisation of religion"). The catastrophic vision speaks (yet again) of Christianity's final demise.

But I would suggest that we must interpret our present crisis as an Easter paradox. The mystery of Easter forms the very nub of Christianity, and precisely within that I see a method of dealing with the present problems of Christianity, religion and the world in which we live...

The mystery of the Resurrection is not a feel-good happy ending, cancelling and annulling the mystery of the cross. One of the great theologians of the twentieth century, J.B. Metz, emphasized that when we proclaim the message of Resurrection “we must not silence the cry of the Crucified" - otherwise, instead of a Christian theology of Resurrection we offer a shallow “myth of victory."

Belief in the Resurrection is not intended to make light of the tragic aspects of human life; it does not enable us to avoid the burden of mystery (including the mystery of suffering and death), or not to take seriously those who wrestle strenuously with hope, who “bear the burden and the heat of the day" of the external and internal deserts of our world. It does not assert some religious ideology or facile belief in place of following in the path of the crucified Christ...

I consider genuine piety to be openness to the unmanipulated mystery of life. The God to whom I refer - and I am convinced that it is the God spoken of by Scripture and the Christian tradition - is not a “supernatural being" somewhere in the wings of the visible world, but a mystery that is the depths and foundation of all reality.

You can read the full article “The Paradox of Easter and the Crisis of Faith" here.

Anglican-Lutheran Dialogue

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), Lutheran Church Canada (LCC) and the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) have recently published an excellent interim report on their ongoing ecumenical dialogue.

The report can be found here.

Unity in Love

Last week the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, addressed the leading bishops of the Anglican Communion calling for unity in love and the healing of divisions within Anglicanism and the wider church. Here is an excerpt:

It is over 1000 years since the Great Schism fully separated Western and Eastern Churches, and, despite the Council of Florence in 1445, and a very temporary reunification, the divides and wounds in the body of Christ deepened greatly 500 years ago.

We so easily take our divisions as normal, but they are in fact an obscenity, a denial of Christ’s call and equipping of the Church. If we exist to point people to Christ, as was done for me, our pointing is deeply damaged by division. Every Lambeth Conference of the 20th century spoke of the wounds in the body of Christ. Yet some say it does not matter: God sees the truth of spiritual unity, and the Church globally still grows. Well, it does for the moment, but the world does not see the spiritual Church but a divided and wounded body. Jesus said to his disciples, “as the Father sent me so send I you”. That sending is in perfect unity, which is why even at Corinth and at the Council of Jerusalem, we find that truth must be found together rather than show a divided Christ to the world...

All of us here need a body that is mutually supportive, that loves one another, that stoops to lift the fallen and kneels to bind the wounds of the injured. Without each other we are deeply weakened, because we have a mission that is only sustainable when we conform to the image of Christ, which is first to love one another. The idea is often put forward that truth and unity are in conflict, or in tension. That is not true. Disunity presents to the world an untrue image of Jesus Christ. Lack of truth corrodes and destroys unity. They are bound together, but the binding is love. In a world of war, of rapid communications, of instant hearing and misunderstanding where the response is only hatred and separation, the Holy Spirit whose creative and sustaining gifting of the church is done in diversity, demands that diversity of history, culture, gift, vision be expressed in a unity of love. That is what a Spirit-filled church looks like.

You can read the entire address here at the Church Times website. 

The Crisis of Conservative Catholicism

Ross Douthat recently delivered the 2015 Erasmus Lecture entitled “The Crisis of Conservative Catholicism" which is well worth a read.

Click here for the transcript as published in First Things.