David Gibson: December 2008 Archives

Inspired by William Safire's annual Office Pool of predictions for the coming year, I am herewith inaugurating a "Catholic Pool" for 2009. Safire's 2009 NYT pool column ran last Sunday, and you have to hand it to him for keeping it going even though he has an almost unbroken record of guessing wrong. Perhaps it is wishful thinking on his part; perhaps it is the peril of being a conservative in a bad decade (or generation) for Republicans.

In any case, I shall not be critical, as I am jumping into the deep end myself. And I'll even go all the way and post my answers in the "extended" reading tab at the end. Feel free to post comments and suggestions, but above all, record your own answers. We'll check back in a year...

ONE: Pope Benedict XVI's anticipated visit in May to the Holy Land will be:

a) Derailed over ongoing violence between Israel and the Palestinians;
b) Hailed as a breakthrough as the pope's visit leads to an unexpected truce;
c) A source of renewed Jewish-Catholic tension over the upcoming beatification of Pope Pius XII and Benedict's remarks on the Holocaust;
d) A breakthrough in Jewish-Catholic relations as Benedict makes a public examination of conscience over the role of the German church in World War II.
e) Longer than expected, after the Pope unexpectedly "converts" to Judaism and takes the name B'nedict.

TWO: Pope Benedict's first visit to the African continent in March--to Cameroon and Angola--will be:

a) The spark that helps bring down the Mugabe regime in nearby Zimbabwe;
b) Overwhelmed by coverage of an American-led force sent in to remove Robert Mugabe;
c) Dominated by criticisms of evangelical and Pentecostal "sects" by Benedict that elicit comparisons to his Regensberg speech on Islam;
d) Dominated by headlines about the papal in-flight showing of Cardinal Arinze's favorite movie, "The African Queen" in which the scenes depicting the Germans are deleted.

THREE: Pope Benedict XVI will create a new flock of cardinals, with the "Jesuit hat" recently vacated by the departed Avery Dulles, SJ, going to:

a) Fr. Thomas Reese;
b) Fr. Joseph Fessio;
c) Fr. James Martin;
d) Fr. Edward T. Oakes;
e) Diogenes

FOUR: The next Archbishop of New York will be:

a) Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory;
b) Military Vicar Archbishop Timothy Broglio
c) Bridgeport Bishop William Lori;
d) Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee;
e) Cardinal Edward Egan, who will repeat as archbishop;
f) Blogger Rocco Palmo, who will announce his own appointment three weeks before the Vatican does.

FIVE: Relations between the U.S. hierarchy and the Obama Administration will be characterized by:

a) A battle over Obama's first nomination to the Supreme Court;
b) Cooperation rather than confrontation on abortion-related issues;
c) Clashes over Obama's support for civil unions for homosexuals and a modification of the "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy on gays in the military that the bishops argue infringes on their trademarked seminary practice;
d) Episcopal infighting over whether to invite the Obamas to join a Catholic parish in Washington so they can be denied Communion.

SIX: The next great battle in the "Liturgy Wars" will be over:

a) Kneeling to receive communion on the tongue;
b) Moving the "sign of peace" forward to near the start of the Mass;
c) The pope's decision to allow or bar women as fully-recognized lectors;
d) Banning any song with the words "gather" or "people" in them more than once;
e) "Re-introducing" Aramaic into the Mass;
f) New regulations on how many inches of lace must be worn on an alb.

SEVEN: The next great theological debate will be over:

a) The Virgin Mary as Co-Redemptrix;
b) Donatism: Was It Really So Bad?;
c) Remote material cooperation;
d) Material remote cooperation;
e) John Henry Newman: Gay or Just Good Friends with that Fellow?

EIGHT: Following on the embrace of Galileo, the Vatican will surprise the world by rehabilitating:

a) Gustavo Gutierrez, a Dominican priest and a founder of Liberation Theology;
b) Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican priest who was burned at the stake after leading a crusade against "immoral" Renaissance art;
c) Giordano Bruno, a Dominican priest who was burned at the stake for advocating free-thinking ideas and heresy;
d) Thomas Doyle, a Dominican priest and canon lawyer who is a leading critic of the hierarchy's failings on sexual abuse;
e) Non-Dominican Charles Darwin, who 150 years ago published scientific claims that almost mirrored that which the Church has always taught...

NINE: The biggest name to become Roman Catholic in 2009 will be:

a) George W. Bush;
b) Philip Seymour Hoffman;
c) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad;
d) Mel Gibson;
e) David Gibson.

TEN: The biggest name to be canonized in 2009 will be:

a) Pope John Paul II;
b) Pope Pius XII;
c) Pope John XXIII;
d) Pope Pius IX;
e) NCR's John Allen, after he is credited with a miracle of bilocation.

ELEVEN: In his long-awaited encyclical on social justice, Pope Benedict XVI will:

a) Continue the theme of his previous encyclicals and highlight charity, or love, as the sine qua non of social justice;
b) Declare that charitable actions that are not motivated by or in comformity with divine Truth as incompatible with Catholic faith;
c) Forget to mention social justice;
d) Begin with the words, "Can't we just be friends?" leading to the unusual official title, "Possumusne esse amici".

TWELVE: In a surprise move, the College of Cardinals will:

a) Expand their numbers by including the first non-ordained member since the nineteenth century;
b) Meet to discuss contingency plans for a papal retirement;
c) Lengthen the cappa magna to a minimum of fifteen feet;
d) Offer courses for credit;
e) Change the official color of their robes from "red" to "bright red."

My answers...

The latest report shows housing values continue to plummet. And the misdeeds of swindlers like Bernie Madoff continue to proliferate. What to do?

The German town of Augsburg--of the famous Lutheran Confession--has a very Catholic response: Dirt cheap rents ($.23 a year!) on decent homes in perpetuity--as long as the tenants pray for the eternal souls of the banker, Jakob Fugger, and his family, who built and endowed the housing development some five centuries ago.

The Wall Street Journal has the story:

Jakob the Rich was Wall Street long before it existed. He minted coins for the Vatican, bankrolled the Holy Roman Empire and helped steer Europe's spice trade in the early 16th century to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful financiers in history. He left more than seven tons of gold to his successors -- and a good deed.

Much of the Fugger business empire crumbled over the next 150 years, battered by wars and soured credits. But the walled Fuggerei, with its picturesque lanes and seven gates in the heart of this onetime European banking capital, still stands.

As in medieval times, the Fuggerei enclave is locked at night. Residents take turns manning the gatehouse to open up for late stragglers and fine them (between 50 cents and a euro, depending on the hour).

They promise to say three prayers -- the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary and the Apostles' Creed--each day to boost the celestial ambitions of the Fuggers. To remind them, the family built a church inside the entrance gate.

At this point, I might take that deal. Sorry, Martin Luther.

Via RNS's Blog.

I thought the old saw that suicides increase during the holidays--the result, it was assumed, of isolation and despair deepened by the camaraderie ostensibly being enjoyed by everyone else--was an Urban Legend that I was the last to catch on to.

Apparently not. This story by Jim Nichols of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer is a good myth-buster, with some explanations as to how the legend got going, why it remains so durable, and why it's not true. Nichols quotes Pat Lyden, executive director of the Suicide Prevention Education Alliance of Northeast Ohio, who says the misconception is rooted in a pervasive public misunderstanding of what triggers suicides--and, more importantly, what does not.

"Untreated mental illness, such as depression, bipolar disorder [commonly called manic depression] and anxiety disorder, are the main causes of suicide," said Lyden, whose nonprofit organization teaches youths about warning signals.

"People, I think, expect more suicides at Christmas because they see people who have the blues, or who have loneliness," she speculated. "But the blues and loneliness are not the same as major illness. This particular illness affects the brain, in the same way other diseases affect the heart or the pancreas or other organs."

The escalating warfare in the birthplace of the Prince of Peace may claim another victim: Benedict's visit to Israel this May. According to CNS, Vatican sources have said a worsening of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could alter the pope's travel plans.

Such a visit could provide the impetus for a cessation or lessening of hostilities, but the pope has to get there first, and he is undoubtedly (well, hopefully) weighing his words carefully. From the CNS coverage of Benedict's noontime blessing address yesterday:

"I am deeply saddened for the dead, the wounded, the material damage, and the sufferings and tears of the people who are the victims of this tragic sequence of attacks and reprisals," the pope said.

"The earthly homeland of Jesus cannot continue to be a witness to such bloodshed, which is repeated without end! I implore the end of this violence, which must be condemned in all its forms, and a restoration of the truce in the Gaza Strip," he said.

The pope called for a fresh demonstration of "humanity and wisdom in everyone who has responsibility in the situation."

[snip]

The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, told Vatican Radio Dec. 27 that the latest escalation of violence was a provocation by both sides, and showed that both Hamas and Israel were caught up in a mentality of conflict.

"Hamas is a prisoner of a logic of hatred, Israel of a logic of trusting in force as the best response to hatred. They need to keep looking for a different way out, even if it seems impossible," Father Lombardi said.

The spokesman said Israel's attack on Gaza was notable for its intensity and the number of victims.

"Certainly it will be a very hard blow for Hamas. At the same time, it's quite probable that there will be innocent victims, in fact many of them; hatred will increase and the hopes for peace will once again fade," he said.

The Vatican has often been seen as tilting toward the Palestinians in terms of sympathies, and these comments seem to strike the kind of balance that will not be welcome by either side--and thus a potential complicating factor for the Vatican.

One reason Rome is seen as pro-Palestinian is that the dwindling Christian community is largely made up of Palestinian Arabs. In a sense, as in Iraq, they are caught in the middle, squeezed by both sides. This is often lost on Westerners as we sing sweet Christmas carols about that faraway manger.

That vise was exemplified by a story by Austen Ivereigh in Our Sunday Visitor of Dec. 21. The story is available online only to subscribers, but in it...

Notre Dame's well-known, highly-regarded--though not in some circles--theologian and commentator Richard McBrien spoke recently with the Globe's Michael Paulson and, not surprisingly, fireworks ensued.

Yet as often happens, it wasn't so much anything McBrien said, as much as the apoplexy of the reactions to his even saying anything. For my money, McBrien is one of the surest guides to church history and theology anywhere. Yes, his commentary can be provocative to some, especially these day, as commentary tends to be. Yet his weekly columns (which are finding fewer outlets these days) and certainly his academic work is top-notch.

"Academic" is actually an unwise adjective here. McBrien's "Encyclopedia of Catholicism" is an indispensible one-volume work (and includes entries from the best experts across the spectrum), and his "Lives of the Popes" and "Lives of the Saints" are also superb. I am also just getting through his latest, "The Church," a study in ecclesiology and "the development of Catholicism," and McBrien is again at his best, displaying wide and deep knowledge and a broad perspective.

So why the agita when McBrien talks? He himself does not get angry. Check out the interview here, and the nature of the comments. Over at dotCommonweal. Cathleen Kaveny had to shut down her thread on the interview because it turned divisive.

McBrien also doesn't regard himself as a "liberal" necessarily, which may be what gets conservatives riled:

McBRIEN: I regard myself as a broad centrist. But to an extreme right-wing person, especially in religion, and within the Catholic Church, a centrist or a center/left person is automatically perceived as an extreme left-wing person, bordering on, if not actually in, heresy. But for every e-mail or blog that you would see that would condemn me...I can tell you I got a lot of e-mails and letters from Catholics who said that I had given them hope and that their teenage kids who had been alienated from the church said that, "If there were more priests like the guy we were watching on television, I'd still be a Catholic."

IDEAS: And why don't you leave?

McBRIEN: Because it's my church. It's my home. And I was born in it. I've been a Catholic all my life. And I have affirmation from so many good people. I feel that I have a responsibility to them to continue working at it and doing the best I can.

Not much to argue with there. And I do think McBrien is certainly in the broad center, if one looks at the sense of the faithful on various matters of church practice and law, not to mention theology.

Yet my view is that, essentially, we are all liberals now, in the sense that everyone in the church takes the classic "liberal" view toward history and culture and, most especially the Church--criticizing what we like, and who we like, be it the laity, the clergy or the hierarchy, and coming at the institution with an attitude of skepticism rather than reflexive acceptance. This is certainly true of "conservatives" as much if not moreso than "liberals." The Catholic cafeteria isn't just open, but the line is long, and covers the spectrum.