Why I Like Popes (Some of Them, Sometimes)

[Cross-posted to By Common Consent]

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001. I didn't take any notice--but then, I'm neither Catholic, nor from Argentina. (Of the tens of millions of people who do fit that description, the word is quite a few of them noticed it very much.) Perhaps I should have, though, because one of the most important things John Paul II did during his 26+ years as the Bishop of Rome (the second-longest period of service in all of Catholic history) was bring into the College of Cardinals large numbers of bishops whom he trusted to carry forward the church in a manner that he understood to be where the Holy Spirit was calling it. And Francis, the current Roman Pontiff and now Time Magazine's Person of the Year, is certainly a servant of God very much after the pattern of John Paul the Great.

The popular acclaim which Francis has received (particularly in social media) would seem to suggest otherwise. JPII--and Benedict XVI after him--were, so the story goes, "conservatives," Christian leaders obsessed with sexual sins and papal authority. By contrast Francis, the "people's pope," the Jesuit, the man who worked in the slums of Buenos Aires, is different--he's leaving private matters alone, and taking the fight for righteousness directly to those political and economic Powers That Be, the Masters of Capitalism, who are most responsible for the injustice in the modern world. Yee-haw!

Of course, anyone even minimally familiar with how these sorts of news stories are enabled and kicked around in the mass media recognizes that what we're seeing here is the usual cycle of celebratory over-reaction, followed by hysterical over-denunciation. Damon Linker, among others, has noted that Francis is hardly a revolutionary, and that the real significance of his papacy will be whether he can rhetorically and organizationally plant seeds that might sprout in unexpected doctrinal and ecclesiastical ways decades and centuries hence. In the short term, then, all we have really before us is Francis's public words, and the tone by which he utters them. And, as best as I can tell, what he's saying sounds a lot like the man who made him a cardinal over a decade ago.

Nearly two decades ago, in 1994, Time Magazine declared John Paul II as their "Man of the Year" (gender awareness in the office's of Time was still a few years away). I remember buying the magazine, clipping the front cover, and framing it; it hung in our apartment (Melissa and I had been married just over a year at that point) for years. Why did I do that? Because John Paul II was a hero of mine. It was a long time before I could articulate as well as I perhaps can today why I felt that way (graduate school--at Catholic University of America, as it happened--was still in my future), but if I was asked, I probably would have said something like this: because he insists that Christian morality has a place at the civil table. And not just a "place" as a private scold or a convenient party member or an outsider calling us to our better natures whom we can safely ignore, but as a participant, with a public agenda that connected the teachings of Jesus to the present moment. Under John Paul II the Vatican was a major player in the final death-throws of Soviet communism--and yet, for all the ways the National Review fell all over the man, he looked every bit askance at Western and capitalist triumphalism as Francis does today. Don't believe me? So I assume you've forgotten "Sollicitudo Rei Socialis" ("On Social Concern"), which JPII penned to commemorate the 20th anniversary of "Populorum Progressio," Pope Paul IV's classic document of Catholic social justice teachings? Here's JPII, lowering the boom:

It is necessary to state once more the characteristic principle of Christian social doctrine: the goods of this world are meant for all. The right to private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle. Private property, in fact, is under a "social mortgage," which means that it has an intrinsically social function, based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal destination of goods....The motivating concern for the poor--who are, in the very meaningful term, "the Lord's poor"--must be translated at all levels into concrete actions, until it decisively attains a series of necessary reforms. Each local situation will show what reforms are most urgent and how they can be achieved. But those demanded by the situation of international imbalance, as already described, must not be forgotten. (SRS 6.42-43)

Which really, isn't very different from what Francis has written in "Evangelii Gaudium" ("The Joy of the Gospel"):

The word "solidarity" is a little worn and at times poorly understood, but it refers to something more than a few sporadic acts of generosity. It presumes the creation of a new mindset which thinks in terms of community and the priority of the life of all over the appropriation of goods by a few....Solidarity is a spontaneous reaction by those who recognize that the social function of property and the universal destination of goods are realities which come before private property. The private ownership of goods is justified by the need to protect and increase them, so that they can better serve the common good; for this reason, solidarity must be lived as the decision to restore to the poor what belongs to them. These convictions and habits of solidarity, when they are put into practice, open the way to other structural transformations and make them possible. Changing structures without generating new convictions and attitudes will only ensure that those same structures will become, sooner or later, corrupt, oppressive and ineffectual. (EG 4.2.188-189)

In short, the message of both men is the same thing that had made me, twenty years ago, a fan of the papacy, or at least of some of the inhabitants of that office, and of some of the things they say. Because Catholicsm--or at least Catholic Social Justice teachings as they have developed in modern times, to be precise--insists that Christianity brings with it to the table of civil discussion a moral platform, one with explicit political and economic dimensions. The American Christian (and Mormon) conservatism I grew up surrounded by had no problem claiming to itself the prerogative to speak out in the first of those dimensions, at least in a limited way: you know, abortion, homosexuality, feminism, the whole culture war/Moral Majority rigamarole. The message of the popes is, or at least can be, different--it can be a message which insists that Christianity charity does not simply mean individual generosity, but rather is a call to structure whole economies so that the welfare of the poor takes priority. Christian righteousness includes the unborn and the unemployed, sexual fidelity to one's spouse and solidarity with those who labor, equality in the eyes of God and in terms of education and economic empowerment. Jesus's message, in short, is one that demands justice and dignity for all from the whole culture, since it is, ultimately, one "seamless garment." That phrase has come in for much abuse over the years, and remains contentious today, in Catholic circles and beyond, even as it has continued to be affirmed by the Vatican. I don't agree with every aspect of that teaching; like any other platform, it can become an excuse for idolatry. But overall, as I became aware of it years ago through the example and work and teachings of JPII, I came to realize that there was a platform out there upon which someone like myself--a pro-life socialist, a left communitarian, a populist egalitarian who is also something of a cultural conservative--could stand. And for that, I was grateful.

So now Francis I is Pope, and also Time Magazine's Person of the Year (apparently, the problem with gender exclusiveness finally dawned on them at some point in the past two decades), and I'm delighted. Francis has shown himself to be a profound and dedicated man, whose uncompromising social justice rhetoric--perhaps more pointed now, coming as it does from the mind and lips of a man from the southern hemisphere, and man who has grown into his present stature as an archbishop and cardinal without the Cold War looming over his every word--is something that in a world which still hasn't recovered from the appalling financial criminality and stupidity of 2008 needs to hear. And keep in mind that, as he reminds us again and again, to put the poor front and center in our Christian thinking is nothing more or less than to proclaim the Good News--indeed, the greatest Good News of all. As Time reported:

The script falls to his lap and he leans forward, looks out over the crowd and just starts talking, his hands in the air, his voice stronger now, doing his own call and response. Jesus is risen, and so shall we be one day, he tells them. And as though they might not quite grasp the implication, he pushes them: “But this is not a lie! This is true!” he says. “Do you believe that Jesus is alive? Voi credete?” “Yes!” the crowd calls back, and he asks again, “Don’t you believe?” “Yes,” they cry. And now he has them. They have become part of the message. He talks about Christ’s love like a man who has found something wondrous and wants nothing more than to share it. “He is waiting for us,” Francis says. And when he comes to the end of his homily, the script drops once more. “This thought gives us hope! We are on the way to the Resurrection. And this is our joy: one day find Jesus, meet Jesus and all together, all together--not here in the square, the other way--but joyful with Jesus. This is our destiny.”

I'm a Mormon (though, truth be told, doctrinally probably more Lutheran than LDS) who rejects as plain unscriptural a large amount of Catholic dogma. (Infant baptism, the intercession of saints, transubstantiation, etc.) But the Catholic tradition presents an understanding of Christian ethics and economic and political concern which has an intellectual comprehensiveness and--I think, anyway--a moral persuasiveness that dwarfs anything that Mormonism (particularly in light of the unfortunate cultural influence of western American libertarian attitudes over the past half-century) has yet managed to articulate. And that part of the tradition, as laid out by the popes, I believe. Maybe someday us Mormons will have Dorothy Days and Sargent Shrivers of our own (we've come close at least once or twice), but in the meantime, as a Christian, I have Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Francis, carrying a torch, passed down to him by his papal predecessors, that illuminates, on Jesus's behalf, much that I see. And thank God for that.

Godzilla, Existential Localist

There are many fine haiku here, but this one is the best. The monster know his Thoreau, obviously. Or his Rumi.

Saturday Night Live Music: "Fairytale of New York"

Since the Christmas season is upon us, let's spend the month enjoying some great live Christmas pop music. This week, a classic from the Pogues, taped a quarter-century ago:

The Last Recorded Performance of the Greatest Acoustic Guitarist of Our Era

And no, I don't know what "our era" is supposed to mean, but I wanted to shoot for something grandiose. Anyway, what a wonderful find on YouTube this is: Michael Hedges, a tremendously talented and innovative acoustic guitarist (and first-rate folk and electronic musician, composer, and cover artist, as well as a very funny man), performing in Sommerville, MA, only a couple of weeks before his tragic death in a car crash in early December, 1997. The visual quality is poor, and you can't always hear his jokes, but the sound comes through brilliantly--and what a brilliant sound it is! I've been listening to this all morning, and it's been taking me back. Melissa and I saw Hedges twice: once at the University of Utah (as part of an acoustic tour which featured the then-local artist Kim Simpson, who we really need to see again someday), and then again years later at The Barns at Wolf Trap in Virginia. He would have been 60 this year, and what a loss to the world of music his absence over the past 16 years has been. Michael Hedges, RIP.

Mice of a Certain Age

A rather vulgar (though not dirty) cartoon, and a very male one as well. For all that (or perhaps even because of it), a funny, poignant, hopeful piece of art. Or so says this almost 45-year-old. Max Landis and AP Quach: you've done great work here. Thank you.

A Master at Work

Eric Clapton's guitar track from "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," isolated. Beautiful.

Being Thankful for National Communities and Civil Religion, Sometimes

[Cross-Posted to Front Porch Republic]

Amongst those Americans who believe that the civic virtues which make both popular government and a fulfilling independence possible are themselves dependent upon, to a great extent, the preservation of traditions and an attachment to place--in other words, amongst those Americans for whom the call of "localism" has some substantive political and moral meaning--no one gets beaten up quite as much as Abraham Lincoln. No, he's not generally made out to be an absolute enemy to all forms of classical republican and participatory democratic virtue , but admittedly, the way in which Lincoln's legacy seems sometimes to almost define the deep meaning of American history can drive many a localist to extremes. It cannot be denied, I think, that Lincoln's response to the secession of the Southern states firmly (and perhaps also unavoidably) tied the forces of America's national government and economy to industrial capitalism, entrepreneurial expansion, and liberal universalism: all agendas which, whatever their many obvious benefits for millions of American citizens, both black and white, immigrant and native-born, over the past century and a half, were and remain today destructive of local attachments and places. The recent 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address--a speech which I think, like it or not, has become the most consequential and important that any American president has ever given--reminds those of us with localist sympathies that, to a great extent, Lincoln managed to bring out of (or--perhaps better--through) the blood and horror of the Civil War a kind of national evangelism, and that the content of that redemptive nationalist narrative is basically an ideologically expansive, rather than a humbly traditional, one. And so the frustrating legacy of Lincoln's actions at a long-ago time of violent and desperate dissension (which, thankfully, has never quite been repeated--and, hopefully, never will be in any of our lifetimes) remains.

On this Thanksgiving Day, however, I want to acknowledge a different (and, I think, more meaningful, if perhaps not ultimately more important in a political and economic sense) 150th anniversary. Today, November 28, 2013, is the 150th Thanksgiving holiday since President Lincoln, encouraged by both the indefatigable efforts of Sarah Josepha Hale and hundreds of other (mostly female) local activists throughout the country, as well as perhaps his own sentimental (even pious) hopes for the union, issued a declaration officially setting aside the last Thursday in November as a national holiday. (After President Roosevelt messed with the holiday some in 1939 and 1940, Congress settled upon the fourth Thursday, where it has remained ever since.) People can properly argue the pros and cons of the sort of civil religion which Lincoln's rhetoric, in the Gettysburg Address and elsewhere throughout the Civil War, ended up establishing throughout the nation, and I can jump into that debate and find sympathy for both sides, as I think is probably the case with most sympathizers with localism in our thoroughly nationalized and globalized 21st-century country. But when it comes to the establishment of America's Thanksgiving holiday--which I would argue is the formal high point in our yearly national liturgy, which unavoidably involves, in President Lincoln's words, an invitation to observe "a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens"--I am nothing but a complete enthusiast.

Holidays are important to me--important enough, at least, to be happy to argue at length about their significance. To sum up my beliefs about the matter as briefly as possible (read the longer version here): yes, I acknowledge that in our late modern world of individual subjectivity, personal and intellectual and even moral mobility, and--perhaps most importantly--disposable consumerism, it is hard to make the case that there is anything "traditional" about holidays. They can all, without exception, be attacked as "invented" occasions, making use of a "fake" history, concocted solely to address or celebrate or salve some political or social or religious interest. I would respond, though, that such inventing is never a totally and circumstantially "interested" phenomenon; rather, every holiday celebration is constructed through exactly the sort of "creative remembering" which actually (at least assuming one accepts the basic fundamentals of Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics, or Polanyian tacitness, or even Oakeshottian common sense) describes the way in which all of us think about, and discern meaning in and through, the experiences that we are embedded in. In the matter of Thanksgiving, it was an occasion which connected Sarah Hale and many others to both a past and a particular place, and the meaning which she and others, as the 19th-century progressed and ultimately turned to war, found in that connection pressed upon them as something worth formalizing. She was not alone in feeling this way; by the time of the Civil War, 25 out of the then-existing 34 states had issued their own Thanksgiving proclamations. So the holiday, far from being invented by a placeless president to sanctify a devastating war, was an organic development, a collective and pious expression--or remembrance--of something which had genuine spiritual meaning nationwide.

Is that, in itself, a reason to challenge the holiday, at least insofar as its ties to the legacy of Lincoln are concerned? Why have national holidays at all? Shouldn't that collective and creative remembering be reserved to communities which share a locality and a history which every member can be a participant in?

Well, of course, local communities and individual states can and do articulate their own formal occasions of commemoration. And moreover, I can see the point of the complaint: accepting the existence of a nation-wide community capable of such a formal, civil remembering--that is, accepting the idea of an American national community, if only for the purposes of being able to collectively acknowledge a certain thankful relationship to God--will invariably add moral legitimacy to the national state. To which I can only respond: I'm not sure how any localist who isn't actually a complete utopian anarchist or individualist or libertarian--as worthy of interest as those approaches may be--can wholly deny the subsidiarian legitimacy of at least some national level of government. We are a mobile people (and always have been), and who is to say that the growing reliance upon--and the national reach of--the rhetoric and tropes of our civil religion wasn't itself an outgrowth of a mobile people who, perhaps unintentionally, were seeking to keep in mind, in the midst of constant transformation (to say nothing to the creative destruction entrenched by the economic liberty of the Industrial Revolution), some kind of attachment and identity? Civil religions, understood in this way (and as I have argued before), are perhaps inexorable; any even moderately free people will seek to build them. In which case, if we Americans are to have a national government (and while there are numerous philosophical, prudential, and constitutional arguments to be made over what shape and scope such a national state ought to take, I am unpersuaded that there are an equal number of good arguments against its existence entirely), then isn't it worth celebrating that this particular national state, 150 years ago, formally committed itself to as humble and localizing an ideal as, once a year, coming together with family and friends, and giving thanks for the productive work which has graced our lives together?

Note also that the nationalization and specification of this communal sense of historical thankfulness (however politically "invented" some may claim it to be), by invariably involving itself in larger processes both political and economic, created conditions through which certain virtues--certainly familiar ones, and perhaps in even civic ones--were promoted and allowed to grow distinctive, sheltered from the intrusions of the homogenizing marketplace and rival polities. Something as humble (though, for most of us, absolutely central to the holiday, even more than flag-football games at the local park) as the "traditional" foods we generally eat during the holiday are themselves an evolved expression of a particularly American sensibility--a middle-class, landowning, frugal, and community-sustaining one--which Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation gave conceptual room to, implicitly challenging alternative (and aristocratic) norms which still held sway in the dining rooms of many of the nation's elites in the 19th century. And, of course, the patterns of employment and commerce which developed around the holiday, enabled by national uniformity, were a large part of preserving its traditional and meaning-filled character as well. (There's plenty of time to feel obliged to find some sort of connection with your friends and family and your shared past when the stores are closed and everyone is home from work.) Now those patterns are collapsing right and left, with relatively few exceptions (and with some market libertarians, predictably, rebuking those of us who denounce this change as "puritanical, anti-commerce prudes" and instead cheering on "the growth in 24/7 shopping"). Very likely any talk of a legislative response to this deplorable development is a non-starter--but whether that is because the popular religious meaning that the holiday enables us to creatively recollect and formalize in our civil lives is exhausted, or because the state which proclaimed the holiday (and by which our many local communities have situated their own recollections of gratitude) is held in contempt by a large portion of the population, is not for me to say. Very likely, both.

Still, let me end on a thankful note: despite the corporate bosses that see it merely as another day to dangle sales in front of a cash-strapped and status-obsessed populace, Thanksgiving still exists, and my American family, at least, along with some friends old and new, from church and elsewhere, still all agree that its a fine day on which to commemorate and share and remember, with turkey and pie and games and laughter and perhaps even a prayer or two. My thanks on this holiday are for all those who have blessed my life. By doing his part, 150 years ago, to impress upon part of my national identity (along with much else that I will happily argue against) something as fine as a reminder to be, in my particular place, grateful to God above...well, I have to say that Lincoln is one of those.

Thanksgiving with the Bartlets

It's basically a given, among both dreamy-eyed liberal lovers of the show and Clinton-hating conservative mockers of it, that The West Wing was fundamentally a kind of civic myth, a vision of the federal government as we (or at least some of us) idly wish it could be: powerful and competent and intelligent but also human and humble and filled with humor. Sorkin's star has plummeted far enough that his style of drama now draws mostly mockery, and I mostly agree with that judgment--but still, I can remember watching this particular episode, "Shibboleth," thirteen years ago, and really pretty much adoring it for the thoughtful fantasy of American identity and responsibility which I knew it was. So here are some free clips:

It starts with Toby and Sam and Josh, being brilliant goofballs, as usual, picking on C.J.-as-straightman, as usual.



One of the primary plots of the episode is C.J.'s struggle to take on the ritual obligations of the Thanksgiving holiday that are visited upon the White House, which she comes to really enjoy, despite her own resistance.



Another plot consists the discovery in a storage container of a large number of refugees from China, who claimed to have fled their home to escape religious persecution.



As is always the case with Sorkin, he brings all these plots together, throwing out all sorts of short random scenes which serve to hammer home the merged themes of the episode. Which, in this case, is that America is a wonderful place, whose every action reflects its complicated, sometimes ugly, but always (on one level or another) glorious history, and which remains, in the end, a blessed land to which all those who love God and/or freedom will want to come.



Great Thanksgiving propaganda, and great television. And kind of a great story too.

Saturday Night Live Music: "Hey Jude"

Blue-eyed soul joins with the authentic, muscular R&B article, and manages to make Paul McCartney's plaintive pop tune funky. Too bad I can't find a video recording of Wilson Pickett doing this song with Duane Allman.

U2: Where Pomposity Becomes Sublime

Haters will hate, of course, but screw them: when Bono gets his high-pitched growl going, and The Edge starts with his sparkling clean guitar lines, and Mullen lays down his subtle beats, and Adam's bass begins to echo in the background, one of the best--and surely the most earnest--rock and roll band of my lifetime shows they can still take command.