Rod Dreher: June 2008 Archives

Abbot Jonah of St. John of San Francisco Orthodox monastery in California, gave a talk recently at St. Vladimir's Seminary, on the subject of the right role of bishops. He began by quoting an Orthodox theologian who said recently that bishops have become "useless" -- a judgment Jonah does not dispute. Here is a crucial part of his discussion of what a bishop really should be -- and how the episcopal salt lost its savor, causing a crisis throughout the Orthodox Church:

The role and nature of episcopal leadership within the church is the core issue underlying all these institutional problems. all levels of episcopal primacy have been secularized, cast in terms of civil offices. Thus the patriarch is made analogous to an emperor, a bishop to a prince of the church, etc. They even dress up in church like Byzantine civil officials. The real nature of ministry, of arch-pastorship, and of christian leadership, is lost.

What is the structure of leadership within the church? on all levels, it is a structure of obedience. The presbyters are in a relationship of obedience to their bishop. The bishops are in a relationship of obedience to their primate. The primate is in the relationship of spiritual father to his bishops. Jurisdiction is about a relationship of obedience, which is precisely responsibility and accountability.

The crisis in the episcopacy is rooted in the breakdown of the basic structure of spiritual obedience, which is the essence of orthodox christianity. Spiritual obedience is not subjection and compliance. rather, it is a hierarchy of love and shared responsibility, a hierarchy of discipleship. What is this but a structure of accountability in a spirit of trust and cooperation, in mutual love and respect? moreover, it is a complex of very personal
relationships. When these relationships become simply institutional, and the personal becomes relativized, the very nature of the church, which in its very essence is about the actualization of authentic personhood, is distorted.

This breakdown comes from the secularization of the church's structure by the centuries of imperial subjugation, by the corruption of authority into power, by the reduction of church leadership to an institutional model, and the reduction of membership in the church to civic duty. The Faith itself was degraded from a personal commitment to christ to a socio-political ideology. Nominal church membership and nominal orthodox iden-
tity are the foundations of secularization. This kind of corruption began in the fourth century. When the church was subjected to the Roman, then Ottoman, and then Russian Empires, then to the status of state church, it was effectively reduced to a department of state. The bishops and administration of the church assumed imperial roles, insignia, and rituals; and with them, the Christian vision of the leader as servant became a hypocritical parody {Emphasis mine -- RD.}. Of course, there have been notable exceptions.

This led to the separation of charismatic and institutional authority within the church. What followed was the bureaucratization of church leadership: the reduction of the episcopacy to institutional administration, and the virtual elimination of its pastoral role. Charismatic authority within the church was tolerated among monastic elders, but had little other influence in the life of the church from the late Byzantine period through the Turkokratia and the suppressions of monasticism in the Russian Empire. The fruit of this was the suppression of creativity and initiative, theologically and organizationally, for fear of being disciplined and rejected. instead, personal ambition and competition for position became dominant within the church's institution. charismatic leadership arising
from spiritual vision, the fruit of asceticism, found little context to express itself, even being regarded as dangerous, in the state-controlled institution of the church.

The bishops came to wield power over the lives of their clergy, and instead of being chief pastors, they became distant administrators feared by their clergy. Obedience became confused with compliance and submission. Authority came to be identified with power, humility with subjection, and respect with adulation and sycophancy. accountability was always referred "upwards:" the bishops to the patriarch and emperor or sultan; the priests to the bishops; while the people simply ignored the hierarchy. Even the monasteries, where the ancient vision of the apostolic church was most clearly maintained, were subjected to this secularization of power and office.

The corrupting fruit of secularization is fear and the lack of trust, hence isolation, autonomy, self-will and the breakdown of the real authority of the episcopacy. it destroys souls and the institution of the church. Secularization reduces the Body of christ to a religious organization; it is the form of religion, deprived of its power.

This is an Orthodox version of the argument Phil Lawler made about the Catholic bishops in his book "The Faithful Departed." About worldliness and a desire to exercise power corrupting the true mission of the bishops, and in turn of the Church. Wouldn't it be great if this abbot, with this vision of the episcopacy, were made a bishop? Well, it looks like he is, soon -- he's been nominated to succeed Archbishop Dmitri as head of the Diocese of the South. That is, he'll be the bishop at the cathedral where I go to church. I think this is a marvelous thing.

Washington Times reporter Julia Duin reveals that Francis DiLorenzo, the Catholic bishop of Richmond, Va., knew in advance that Catholic Charities of Richmond was about to oversee the carrying out of an abortion it arranged for a minor in its care -- and the bishop did nothing to stop it. Excerpt:

The Roman Catholic bishop of Richmond was told that a diocesan charity planned to help a teenage foster child get an abortion in January and did not try to prevent the procedure.

Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo "was told erroneously that everything was in place and there was nothing he could do to stop it," said Steve Neill, Bishop DiLorenzo's communications officer. "He is very apologetic about the whole episode.

"It is very awkward, it is very embarrassing. A human life was taken. He certainly has not taken it lightly in any way. He is clearly opposed to abortion."

Mr. Neill said the bishop was informed Jan. 17, the day before an abortion was performed on the 16-year-old Guatemalan girl, who was a foster care client of Commonwealth Catholic Charities of Richmond (CCR), a group incorporated under the diocese.

CCR Executive Director Joanne Nattrass also knew about the planned abortion, Mr. Neill said.

"The director was very upset about it and it clearly went against all she stood for as a director of Catholic Charities," he said.

Bullsh*t. A bishop of the Church is told a day in advance that an abortion is going to take place under the Church's auspices ... and he doesn't try his damnedest to stop it?! The director of Catholic Charities is supposedly distraught about the planned abortion because it "went against all she stood for" ... and she didn't try to stop it?! They're covering their butts, and doing a poor job of it.

Here's Steve Neill, the bishop's flack, on why CCR staff organized this abortion:

"They were so caught up with the plight of the young girl who already had a child," Mr. Neill said. "She was not a Catholic. She got pregnant by her boyfriend, and she was determined not to have the baby."

Yes, well, the unborn child wasn't a Catholic either, so her life counted for nothing? It's amazing what you find yourself saying when your livelihood depends on defending the indefensible.

Honestly, these people. Of course, no one in authority will lose his or her job, or feel compelled to resign in shame, because these things aren't done. Mistakes are made, plausible deniability is asserted, however pathetically -- but bishops are forever. The poor Catholics of Richmond endured Bishop Walter Sullivan for what, nearly two decades -- and now this DiLorenzo guy. What did they do to deserve this?

Note well that if it hadn't been for Duin's initial reporting, this whole thing would have remained a hush-hush affair between the bishops.

Here's a link to my short rant on how the use of the word "vibrant" to describe neighborhoods is bourgeois white people talk for "ethnic neighborhoods that most people like us disdain, but we think are cool." It was sparked by an editorial in my own newspaper describing as "vibrant" a part of town where blacks, whites, gays and Hispanics all live together. Apparently, when people of different ethnic backgrounds or sexual orientations exist in close residential proximity to each other, they begin to vibrate.

UPDATE:. Whaddaya know, I just checked the Stuff White People Like website to see if "vibrant" turned up, and it does, in the comments under the Gentrification entry. Excerpt:

White people like to live in these neighborhoods because they get credibility and respect from other white people for living in a more "authentic" neighborhood where they are exposed to "true culture" every day. So whenever their friends mention their home in the suburbs or richer urban area, these people can say "oh, it's so boring out there, so fake. In our neighborhood, things are just more real." This superiority is important as white people jockey for position in their circle of friends.

Precisely. White people who use the word "vibrant" to describe a piece of real estate on which ethnic or tattooed people live really want to make a statement about their own broad-mindedness or social progressivism (versus the supposed fear and closed-mindedness of suburban white people). This is why I'm so fascinated by the word. It's an elite white-people social marker, a sign that one-upsmanship is being attempted.

Have you seen "WALL-E", the Disney/Pixar film, yet? Me, no, but I'm taking the boys this weekend. The WSJ's Joe Morgenstern calls it a "masterpiece," and the critical consensus seems to be pretty strong in its favor. Over at TAC's blog, though, Patrick Ford has found a couple of conservative critics who hate, hate, hate the movie, calling it an anti-capitalist insult to its audience. Ford responds in part:

The real tragedy of these callous conservative critics (say that three times fast) is that they are missing the real lessons of the movie, ones I found immediately attractive to a traditional conservative. In the film, it becomes clear that mass consumerism is not just the product of big business, but of big business wedded with big government. In fact, the two are indistinguishable in WALL-E's future. The government unilaterally provided it's citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth's downfall.

Another lesson missed is portrayed perfectly in Coffin's claim that WALL-E points out the "evils of mankind." The only evils of mankind portrayed are those that come about from losing touch with our own humanity.

It will be a good day when it becomes possible to criticize the excesses of American consumerism without being pilloried from the Right for being some kind of America-hating lib symp. Why on earth is it considered "liberal" to point out that gluttony is sinful, and that evil lurks in the hearts of men? Is the Bible liberal? Come on!

For a hemi-demi-semi-Monk-like compulsive like me, Atul Gawande's much-discussed New Yorker piece on the science of itching is ultrafreaky. Consider this passage, about a woman who had shingles on her forehead, which left her skin numb ... except for an overwhelming, inexplicable itch:

M. was willing to consider such possibilities. Her life had been a mess, after all. But the antidepressant medications often prescribed for O.C.D. made no difference. And she didn't actually feel a compulsion to pull out her hair. She simply felt itchy, on the area of her scalp that was left numb from the shingles. Although she could sometimes distract herself from it--by watching television or talking with a friend--the itch did not fluctuate with her mood or level of stress. The only thing that came close to offering relief was to scratch.

"Scratching is one of the sweetest gratifications of nature, and as ready at hand as any," Montaigne wrote. "But repentance follows too annoyingly close at its heels." For M., certainly, it did: the itching was so torturous, and the area so numb, that her scratching began to go through the skin. At a later office visit, her doctor found a silver-dollar-size patch of scalp where skin had been replaced by scab. M. tried bandaging her head, wearing caps to bed. But her fingernails would always find a way to her flesh, especially while she slept.

One morning, after she was awakened by her bedside alarm, she sat up and, she recalled, "this fluid came down my face, this greenish liquid." She pressed a square of gauze to her head and went to see her doctor again. M. showed the doctor the fluid on the dressing. The doctor looked closely at the wound. She shined a light on it and in M.'s eyes. Then she walked out of the room and called an ambulance. Only in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, after the doctors started swarming, and one told her she needed surgery now, did M. learn what had happened. She had scratched through her skull during the night--and all the way into her brain.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!