My Brother, My Sister, And Our Churches

We can agree with a principled argument that the tax exemption for religious activities is perhaps not in the best interests of the country, and moreover, much of what is characterized as religious activity is not really very religious at all, but is more in the area of profit making enterprises or political activity. When I see that I get very agitated about the tax exempt status. It seems to me that the government crosses a bright red line on matters of church and state very, very often.

We can also agree that the contradiction between separation of church and state and a nation that is overwhelmingly judeo- Christian in my viewed has caused blind spots in oversight of some of these institutions. This has created to a fertile hothouse of financial crimes and worse. On the financial side we have seen what seems to be a limitless parade of charlatans, church leaders both big and powerful, and small and localized, raising huge monies through their ministries and the diverting vast sums for personal financial gain in a hustle not terribly more sophisticated than a the card monte player, but with tragically worse consequences. In my view the doctrine of separation has kept the government hands off for too long in too many instances, which has only allowed these crimes to continue. In the latest episode high pants Paul Crouch and his frightful purple haired wife are accused of embezzling $50 million from the TBN enterprise they founded.

Eminently worse…It is quite clear that the Catholic church at levels which in my view reaches as high as the current as well as the previous pope has for decades been concealing, and indeed been accepting of, a conspiracy of pedophiles. Sexual indiscretions and outright crimes we have seen from other church leaders, notwithstanding, I do not think there is any doubt the atmosphere of criminality in the Catholic church is directly tied to the vows of celibacy that the priests take. I believe that many of these heinous crimes were overlooked by church leadership that saw them in some cases as the “natural” outcome of the vows of celibacy. Furthermore, there can be little doubt that the entire hierarchy of laws dealing with sexuality and in a broader sense women, is driven by a deep and abiding fear held by the all-male leadership of the church. There is every reason to believe that if women were including in the higher reaches of church leadership many of these crimes would have been exposed at a substantially earlier date.

Much in the way that Penn State hid the crimes of Sandusky in furtherance of the glory of their football team, Catholic leaders hid the crimes of scores if not hundreds of pedophiles, with chronic histories of serial abuse, in furtherance of the projection of their power and as they saw it moral authority. The deeply twisted mind set which created this moral catastrophe and injured what is no doubt thousands of people exposed the institution of the church for what it is: A group of mortal men who set themselves up as a bridge between people and their perception of God, whatever that is. It has made clear to me that as humans we are all deeply fallible, and in a larger sense created an environment where the entire cannon of social stands of the church can and ought to be called into question. It is nearly impossible to hear any Catholic leader lecture Americans now on so many issues when we now know the absolute moral failure on which they stand. That so many continue to deny, or to be too afraid to speak compounds the damage.  

I was raised as a Catholic by a devout mother, but for me the ugliness of the behavior, combined with the total lack of morality of church leaders in covering up the crimes, has torn something in me that was tenuous at best to start.  Yet there is still something in me that makes me reluctant to condemn the population of the church in the broader sense. More than 40 years ago I met Jesuit brothers, friends of our family, deeply involved in the liberation movement in The Philippines. This is right about the time Marcos took power, 1965. I still remember with great affection the pictures I saw of the Philippine people whom I know the brothers wanted to help so much and cared for so greatly.  One of my mother’s closest friends from back then, a former Jesuit brother is still someone I hold in the highest regard as a moral person. In many ways he is the only link I have to my former Catholic self.

In later years my mother, through her church worked with people with HIV and cancer though hospice. Her faith gave her a calling so much greater than mine, and she acted on that faith in ways both large and small. She is gone from us now, but she was a better person than I will ever hope to be, and the reason for that is and was the foundation of faith in her life.

In deference to my observant wife, I still attend a church service maybe a couple times a year. But intellectually I left the church with little in my bag, except the teachings to love one’s neighbor in whatever form one can, care for those less fortunate than us, heal the sick, house the homeless, and in general try to operate in a sphere of concern and empathy that is larger than your own little world. There are Christians of many flavors who hold similar views, and of course this can also be said of Jews, Muslims, and people of all denominations.  One of my closest childhood friends is a man of deep and abiding faith.  We are all on some sort of journey of discovery. My friend is perhaps more liberal in his views than any time in his life. Yet I know that it is his faith that informs his sense of morality. He did not need to leave his church to engage the growth that his rich and fertile mind would have taken anyhow. Even now, there are times and ways I am oddly jealous of the connection he feels to his faith and his church.

So when I see people on this page attacking religious institutions, and sometimes churchgoers with a vengeance and fury normally reserved for a conservative republican, I want in some cases to both champion their rage and condemn their narrow mindedness. Today we saw someone make a series of condemning remarks about the Jewish population in the community in which he leaves which border on racism. In tone and tenor they ought to be condemned. There simply is no justification at any level in our discourse to make statements which condemn a community of people with the broadest of brushes and which make no accommodation for the individual sense of moral being within the larger religious communities.

While it is easy to condemn the hate speech we have heard recently, generated in large part by religious affiliation and doctrine, liberals and the progressive community at large ought not to respond with the same kind of narrow-minded vitriol. Liberals have for decades been allies with the moral authority of church leaders in almost every battle, be it union organizing, disarmament, and of course civil rights.  For those that condemn all church activity I respectfully present Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and challenge you to carry your extreme argument to that level of absurdity. Today church leaders across the country are taking on the issues of immigration, climate change, and the deep sense of unfairness they perceive in the country. Far from talking the talk, many are also walking the walk, ministering to the increasing legions of hungry and homeless. Catholic charities leads in these endeavors, and it should be pointed out is compensated well by the federal government for much of this activity. But that does not diminish the urgency of their work, or the faith that guides and informs it.

This is an area where liberals ought to be able to find some common ground with conservatives. Bush, for all his legendary failures, increased spending on AIDS massively, and for once and forever, sort of buried the argument that the wages of sin caused the disease so those sickened by it have reaped what they have sewn. There is growing movement among evangelicals to minister to those in extreme poverty in Africa. Many do this out of a deep and abiding moral calling. Of course, they also want to proselytize.

We are all so torn in this country with our particular political affiliations and ideology; there is every reason to be concerned about our future. In the political sense I have grave doubts on how and where and why we might find any reconciliation or compromise. But in the moral personal sense I can recognize a brother or a sister when I see one. Not all of them are atheist liberals, especially those who espouse a generalized hatred that borders on or is racist. Some of them might be evangelical Christians, some of them might be Catholics, some Jewish, some Muslim, some Hindu, AND some pagan and/or atheist.  We spot our enemies so easily. Would that we could spot our friends as well. God, whomever that may be, might sort of like that.