The Church’s Stepchildren

If the Roman Catholic Church is a family,she has a lot of stepchildren. These are the folks who hand around, Cinderella-like, on the periphery. They sit in the back of the church. They may come to Mass only for major life events, or holidays. They don’t know where they fit.

Who are these people? They may be LGBTQ. They may be divorced and remarried. They may be at odds with one or more of the official church teachings.

For some people, these are not reasons to feel like stepchildren. Some people have a vision of church that allows them to take what makes sense to them , leave the rest, and still have a sense of belonging.

The Church’s stepchildren aren’t like that. Her stepchildren take the Church at her word. They think that if they don’t believe a certain way and act a certain way, they’re not really part of the family. They’re second class, at best.

If the institutional Church is a family, why can’t she be more like a blended family? In a blended family, there are still blood ties, but they aren’t the only ties, and they aren’t the most important ties. The most importany ties are those of shared life and love.

This image of Church-as-blended family doesn’t say that doctrine and dogma and teaching aren’t important commonalities; it just says they’re not the most important commonalities. For the Church to be a blended family, its leaders and teachers don’t have to change an iota of doctrine or dogma. They can adhere to all of the creeds and councils and codes.

What they would do, however, is act as if the most important bonds are those of common life and love. The Church lives a common life most visibly at the Sunday Eucharist. Receiving Eucharist is a significant aspect of Roman Catholic life. What if leaders communicated this, but also communicated that worthy reception of the Eucharist is a matter of conscience, and conscience is first of all between the individual and God?

This is not a devaluing of the Eucharist, but rather a re-valuing of it. Instead of people receiving Eucharist outside of theirhome parishes so as to avoid the priest who know they are divorced and remarried, they could join their parish family at the table, and deal with God about the divorce and remarriage. Instead of LGBTQ people deciding to stay int he closet rather than forgo receiving Eucharist, they could deal with God about their sexual orientation and practice.

This is a time-honored tradition in Roman Catholicism. It’s called the the primacy of conscience. “Primacy of conscience” doesn’t mean “anything goes.” It means I stand before God in the transparency of who I am. What is the truth about me and my actions? Is my heart open to God, and am I willing to continue opening it, no matter what that costs me? If we are God’s children, we have a right and a responsibility to stand before God in just this way. And there is no fooling God.

If the Church taught openly about the primacy of conscience and encouraged people to form and honor their consciences, she would have many fewer people who feel like stepchildren. The weekly family gathering would be messier. There would be a much greater variety of people there. Some would be those whom others consider “unworthy.”

Some might feel they have earned their place at the table. They’ve kept all of the rules since they reached the age of reason. They were married “in the Church” and they used Natural Family Planning. They’ve dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s.

When Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” to those about to execute the woman caught in adultery, all of her accusers walked away. Like them, each of us, when we lie awake in the wee hours of the morning, knows  that we are not without sin; our sin may just be less visible than someone else’s.

One of the hallmarks of Roman Catholicism is that the institutional church doesn’t change with every shift in society and culture. She establishes a benchmark. At a time and place in history when so much is left to how an individual “feels” about something, establishing and holding to a benchmark is valuable. Let it stand.

But realize that, in one way or another, we all fall short of that benchmark. None of us  is “worthy” to be God’s child and to sit at God’s table. Let each of us trust God as the only One who has the right to judge, and welcome each other to God’s table.

Camino

It started out with all the promise of an early summer day. The sun was bright and already warm. It would be hot, but this was San Sebastian, Spain, on the Bay of Biscay. The breezes off the water would moderate the heat.

Today we would walk a short piece of the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James, legendary since the ninth century. It can be walked in a month, they say.

You walk the Camino, not hike it as you hike the Apppalachian Trail. The purpose is different. It’s a physical challenge, yes, but more than that, it’s a spiritual challenge. You walk the Camino because you want some something from it, something intangible, something you might not even be able to name. It’s a different “something” for each of those centuries of pilgrims who has trudged kilometer after weary kilometer.

About six of those kilometers stretched ahead of me. Loomed would be a better word. I’m not an athletic person. I knew this would be a challenge. I had no idea how much of a challenge.

It started out easy enough – about 10 minutes of easy! Then an ascent. It was a paved ascent, past a couple of new urban farms. The horse, the goats and their kids were a distraction from the rapid increase in altitude.

And it kept going up…and up! I was breathing rapidly. It wasn’t the kind of rapid breathing you get when you’re running. It seemed harsher, more forced.

The path would level out, the guide promised. Words he repeated often during the several hours I wrestled with the Camino.

The path did level out…for a few minutes. Then it ascended again. The Camino was speaking…harshly. The large stones that paved the way were round and hard under my feet. Some were just damp enough to make them slippery. And they’d go up. Not always sharply up, but you had to pay attention.

Trees shaded the Way, their roots reaching out to trip up the unwary walker. Watch the rocks! Watch the roots! I learned to plan each step carefully.

Shades of green enveloped us. Birds called. A long fat slug meandered in harm’s way until carefully removed to the side. The only other animals around besides us were the birds, which I heard rather than saw.

There was plenty to see, however. Periodically, a space in the trees opened onto a view of the bay, where blues ranged from deep to pale, white foaming where the water crashed on the rocks. Gulls circled and called.

At first, I stopped to take pictures of these photo-worthy views. Soon, though, I decided to save my attention and energy for the next step.

There were obstacles to that looming “next step.” A tree root would reach out to trip me. I quickly decided that dignity was over-rated when the safest way forward seemed to be to sit down and scoot. And shyness wasn’t even a thought when the only security was found in grabbing the guide’s hand.

But what were the options? Going back? The thought crossed my mind. I’m sure it’s been done before, especially in modern times, when human and animal feet aren’t the only means of transportation. But I had no concept of how far we were from Pasaia San Pedro, our destination. And going back would have meant struggling along the same rocky, rooted ground we’d already covered. Abandoning the Camino didn’t seem any easier than going forward.

The only way was ahead: clambering, scooting, hanging onto the guide. I learned that it didn’t pay to look further than the next step. I’d see an ascent or a descent, and it would be all I could do to keep from crying. The only way was forward. And the way forward was to think no further than the next step.

There was a fountain ahead, the guide said. To the fountain! Just make it to the fountain! How far ahead was the fountain? Like a child on a road trip, I asked, “How much further?” Just ahead. Just ahead.

Finally – the fountain! The rush of cold water over head and face. Gulps of it into a parched mouth. No thought of appearance; just blessed refreshment! The fountain was one of the delights of the walk, the water evaporating on my skin bringing respite. It was only a momentary reprieve. Thirst returned. Descents and ascents. Roots and rocks.

It would end – eventually. Taking one step at a time forward, it would end. That was the only consolation. It would end in at the village, Pasaia San Pedro. Five minutes, the guide kept saying.

My sister and I laughed about it later. It was always just five minutes to the next brief reprieve. Five minutes for him and those who, like him, knew the Camino and took to it like mountain goats!

Finally, the bar! Water, wine or beer to go with the pinxos? Water! Blessed water! Water and the pinxo of tuna and pepper or anchovy; I don’t even remember now. What mattered was that we had finished. And there was water.

It’s tempting to make a metaphor of the Camino, to say there are life lessons to be learned from the process of the walk. That is so for some. For me, that approach would make the Camino less than what it is, as if it needed my motivations, my hopes to make it worthy of being. For me, the Camino is itself. It doesn’t need me, or any other walker, to give it meaning. It is worthy in itself, for itself.

Leave it alone in its rocky, rooted, breath-taking harshness/beauty.

 

This Is Not New York!

Gran Via in Madrid is an elegant avenue. There is no jarring steel-and-glass starkness to introduce a sour note into that elegance. The heavy traffic – the traffic of any contemporary city – contrasts with that timeless elegance.

At one end of Gran Via is El Parque del Buen Retiro, an expansive green oasis that leads you to forget you’re in the middle of a metropolis. Tree-lined walkways, punctuated by fountains and sculptures, invite ambling. The park is populated, but the pace and purpose are peaceful.

It’s tempting to say, “Madrid is like New York City, and El Parque del Buen Retiro is like Central Park.” It seems harmless to say that. Such a statement gives the listener a sense of what Madrid and its park feel like. It’s a point of comparison that makes what is foreign seem familiar.

But it’s a siren-song familiarity. It lures the listener into the sense that he or she understands Madrid better than he or she does. The forces that shaped that city and her park are far different from those that shaped New York City and hers.

That seemingly innocuous statement flattens all that shaped and continues to shape Spain into what she is. The pre-Roman tribes disappear. The Roman presence is no more. The historic kingdoms – Castile, León, Galicia Navarre, and the rest – are felled by a single statement. The wonderfully and terrifyingly independent País Vasco and Cataluña are no more.

And please – do not say el Pais Vasco is like Louisiana, with its Cajun French! According to ethnographers and linguists, there are no people like the Basques in all of Europe. Their language is related to no other existing language. This fiercely independent people, descended from sea-faring whale-hunters, belongs only to herself, as strong as the iron for which she was also famous. Franco, even with Nazi collusion, could not stifle that spirit, although those Fascist forces leveled Guernica and slaughtered its civilians.

Cataluña too resists all attempts to meld it into an amorphous “Spanish culture.”  Street signs and plaques in Catalán are just an indication of the rich history the language symbolizes.  Anecdotal report indicates that her people consider themselves more French than Spanish. History and culture here go far beyond Barcelona and Gaudí.

The whole sweep of Spanish history is emasculated when we compare Spanish cities and cultural artifacts with our own, implying that our own are the norm. The Muslim conquest. The Muslim contributions in art, architecture, medicine. The graceful swirls of vines and flowers on palace walls, with not a trace of the human form. The verdant Generalife gardens. The mosques with their pillars, leading the spirit to transcend time and space. Those who conquered much of the Iberian penninsula in the name of Allah disappear in a swirl of dust.

The visitor to Spain sees only hints and traces of these varied histories and cultures. “Western” fashion, traffic, business – even the disappearance of the once-sacred siesta – can give the illusion that Madrid is not so different, after all, from Rome or Paris or New York. Even their different languages have a common base in Latin.

But do not be deceived! Spain – and Italy and France – those countries that may seem most accessible to North Americans – are not just expressions of a common contemporary culture with a different language. The forces of history and culture that shaped these and all other peoples of the world still seethe beneath the siren song of apparent similarity.

If we overlook them, it is to our peril – and our tragic loss.