Vatican Visit and Some Cultural Learnings

The other morning I got a phone call, which was a rare enough thing in itself. The caller invited me to come see him in the Vatican. How exciting, I thought, and I put myself together as soon as I could and headed out to the bus stop.

Once I was on the second bus, however, I started to have one of those anxious, 'who will roll away the stone' kind of moments. In my various visits to the neighborhood, I had many times seen the good Vatican gendarmes shooing people away from the gates and entrances, or blowing whistles at those careless enough to step beyond where they were permitted to be. It happened to me myself recently; thinking that I would use the restroom next to the post office on the right side of St. Peter's Square (ad orientem), but not realizing that whole area was closed for some reason or other, I got the shooing gesture and the, Prego, Padre, tutto chiuso. So how was I supposed to get into the Vatican to get to this appointment?

I got down there too early. So I said my rosary, pacing up and down inside the south colonnade. I think my picture was taken a few times. I explained to some Dutch visitors the nature of consistories. I listened to the sounds of creche construction. When the time came, I approached one of the gates.

This leads me to the first of two cultural reflections in this post. I have learned that the best way to approach authorities or officials here is to self-present in a supplicating, deferential, and self-deprecating manner. If, as an American, you feel like you're at the point at which you fear to be thought obsequious and insincere (the reader can insert other terms more vulgar and perhaps more fitting), then you've got it. You must suppress the American idea that the most important thing is to present, as quickly and as clearly as possible, exactly what you need so that the person may deal with you efficiently and be on to the next thing. On the contrary, the most important thing is how you express your recognition of the gloriousness of the post occupied in this life by the official before you. Whether this glorious post happens to be Cardinal of the Roman Church or ticket lady at the train station, it makes no difference. The same principle obtains.

So I approached the gendarme at the gate. Forgive me, Sir, for taking your time, but I don't know how this works. So-and-so invited me to come here and meet him at place such-and-such. Could you help me know what to do? That did the trick. Why, yes, Father, it works like this: we will call so-and-so right away. Once they had done this, they gave me some directions to the place where I was to go, and released me into the streets of the Vatican. I have to say that it was a bit of a thrill, setting foot in the Vatican for the first time. (I mean apart from St. Peter's, the Museums, and the Post Office.)

Secrets of the Vatican: the Gas Station

My visit included a couple of pilgrimages inside St. Peter's, such as my first visit to the altar of Pope Blessed John Paul II since he's been upstairs. It was my first time in St. Peter's since the early morning in 2007 when I went to Mass in Polish on the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe. It struck me that St. Peter's was one of the very  few Catholic churches I had visited before becoming a catechumen. "Why not start at the top?" offered my host.

This brings me to my second cultural reflection. One of the places I got to visit on my trip into the Vatican was the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the 'conclave hotel' built by John Paul II. Now I remember back around the time of the last conclave there was some noise about this place in the press, somebody saying that it was scandalously opulent and someone else saying no, it's simple and monastic, or something like that. They can't both be true, so what gives? In reflecting on this, I have come to realize a cultural difference regarding the nature of luxury.

We Americans tend to think that costliness brings with it comfort. When you go to the house of a well-to-do friend, you expect to enjoy the classy drink you are offered while you sit on a comfy couch, or at least something like that. You get what I mean. But in Italy, you see, or at least in the world of the Roman Church and her affiliate institutions, these things don't automatically go together as we Americans presume they should. It is not at all strange here to enter a room with a shiny marble floor, adorned by luxurious curtains and works of art in classic style, and find there for sitting the sort of small, hard, straight-backed chair that brings to mind something from your elementary school. This is how, perhaps, a place in the Vatican could seem to us both fancy and monastic at the same time.

Slow Posting

Posting has been slow this week. I guess I'm somewhat preoccupied since hearing that my move and transition is coming up so quickly. There are so many things to think about: all the loose ends I need to tie up here in States before I go, planning my flight, deciding what I need to bring and what I need to get over taking along, trying to communicate with my new community, etc.

Not the least of these preoccupying things has been the last two mornings I've spent at the Italian consulate here in Boston, trying to apply for the visa per motivi religiosi, tipo 'D', per lunga durata. To my surprise, I think I have succeeded in this task as of yesterday afternoon, despite not yet having an original copy of the letter bearing the seal of the Vatican secretariat of state. What the secretary of state of the Holy See has to do with the Republic of Italy allowing the Capuchins to invite me to live and work for the Order in Rome I'm not sure, but I suppose this is exactly the sort of holy mystery that may be revealed to me in this new ministry as secretary for the English language.

If anything, my mornings at the consulate have shown me how simple my life really is. Overhearing the various and often tense conversations between the seekers of visas and the consular staff, I heard about all kinds of elaborate travel, complex international work, intricate finances, bi-continental marriages, the repatriation of mortal remains, etc. Last night I suggested to the formation staff that the student friars could be sent to the consulate on visa application days for the sake of learning multicultural sensitivities. The interactions between American applicants and the Italian staff did not always look to me like successful multicultural encounters, if you ascertain my meaning.

So, thanks for your prayers. More adventures to come.

Latin, Language, and Revelation

Over the last six years the presence of Latin in my life has been accelerating. Before the summer of 2005, there was almost none. Now there's a lot. Knowing that I needed to pass the dreaded Latin exam of the famously cantankerous Iraqi Jesuit Fr. Stanley Marrow in order to complete the STL degree I started working on in the fall of 2005, I spent a good amount of that preceding summer trying to learn. I still remember the examination: two hours to translate Gaudium et spes 29-30. I didn't finish, and was sure that I had failed. I was genuinely surprised to find out that I had passed.

That same fall I saved up some of my "day off money" and ordered the typical edition Liturgia Horarum, thinking that it would be a good way to get some regular practice. In our communities we usually only pray Morning and Evening Prayer in common, so as I approached my diaconate ordination in the fall of 2006 I was working on making sure I was praying the rest of the hours each day on my own.

Then, in 2007, just two months before I was ordained priest, Summorum pontificum appeared. When I read it, I understood that the faithful were given the right to ask for the Extraodinary Form, so I thought I had better familiarize myself with it. So I started to attend a Latin Mass, when I could, on Sunday afternoons.

Now, having been transferred out of full-time ministry back into studies, I'm spending the best hours of my days reading theology in Latin. When I can on Sundays I sing with a local chant schola.

In these ways Latin has become a big part of my life, stemming mostly from the community's decision to bless my idea of pushing myself to get the STL, and ordering those breviaries.

This phenomenon of Latin in my life leads me into some theological reflection sometimes. I make no apology for praying in Latin; Vatican II is clear that Latin is the ordinary language for divine worship in the Roman rite. Nevertheless, there are some deeper theological questions that arise for me.

First of all, I think that one has to say that all human language as we know it is relative. Language as we have it now, especially in its diversity and perhaps also in its ambiguity, is only as old as the confusion at Babel. I imagine that we all still know the original language that was spoken before this, but we don't know that we know, or we have forgotten it. A language, like Latin for example, might be venerable or sacral or whatever, but it's still relative and exists only because of the fall of humanity from original blessing.

Nevertheless, there seems to me to be another theological question that moderates this first point. It has to do with the relationship of revelation to culture. We Catholics like to talk about the 'inculturation' of the liturgy or even the teaching of the faith, but sometimes I feel like there are assumptions made here regarding the relative arbitrariness of the cultures from which we have received divine revelation. God called Abraham, but is it accidental or constitutive for revelation that he lived in the frameworks and assumptions of the culture from which he came? Did the Holy Spirit lead Peter and Paul to Rome on purpose because it was in God's plan that western Christianity should be assisted by some the culture, polity, and liturgical culture of the Roman Empire? Is the conversion of Constantine a historical accident or a purposeful work of divine Providence? I have come to think that some of our conversations about inculturation presume the thinner theological opinion about these matters, namely that such things are accidents of history rather than constitutive of revelation in some way. But I wonder if such an idea that human culture is an entirely fungible medium into which the faith can be superimposed really takes the incarnation seriously. To get back to the original point, all these years after the passion and death of the Lord, is it an accident of history that the Mass as we have today in the 2002 Missale Romanum is in Latin, or is it how God meant it to be? I think we usually presume the former answer, but anyone who says that should go back and read Benedict XVI's infamous speech in Regensburg, in which he makes the deep claim that the translation of the Old Testament in Greek in the inter-testamental period was continuous with the work of divine revelation. Again, as I say, I also wonder if the thin claims about the relationship between culture and revelation take the incarnation seriously. That the Son was incarnate at a particular time and place, within a particular culture, speaking a particular language or languages, cannot be an accident, and nor are these things easily separable from the revelation of God which He is.

What's at Stake: Mission

(This is the first in a series of posts that will be an attempt to articulate how the experience of parish ministry has changed me as a theological reflector. Here is the introductory post.)

In the course of one day I met representatives of two very different, but equally sacramentally lost communities.

In the morning I went to visit a local reform school to hear confessions. A handful of teenage boys appeared for the sacrament, and for most it was their first time. Almost all were Hispanic and were confident that they had been baptized as infants, either in the home or in church. They reminded me of those St. Francis Xavier speaks of in his reading in the breviary, 'They only know that they are Christians.' I was impressed by their seemingly innate reverence and love for our Lord and our Lady, but I was amazed at their ignorance of the faith. They were praying people, but they didn't even know that there was a prayer that went with the rosaries they wore as amulets. The cultures of poverty, the absence of durable family structures, and especially the dislocation of immigration had taken the faith away from these young men. I asked each where he was from, and all but one told me about the dormitory at the school. They lacked a sense of being from somewhere apart from the juvenile corrections system. I realized that a visit to their world, a glimpse into their particular geography, was a trip into 'mission territory.'

That same evening I sat in the parish office planning a wedding with a young, delightful couple. They are the great-grandchildren of Irish and Italian immigrants. Their great-grandparents built the beautiful churches we have in this part of the country. Their grandparents and parents were the beneficiaries of the great American system of parishes and schools that catapulted European-American Catholics into the privileged and ruling classes of these United States. Thanks to all of that, and especially to the sisters, these young people sat before me with college educations, good jobs and good teeth. And yet, they seemed to have very little use for the faith that had done so much for their ancestors. They had received all of their sacraments, but had 'graduated' from the practice of the faith after their confirmation and were no longer practicing in any measurable way. Apparently, whatever religious education and sacramental formation they had received as children was no longer durable or relevant to their experience of themselves and the world. They weren't hostile to God or His Church, but were more or less indifferent to both. They did not have a sense of what it all had to with them and their concerns. Just as I had in the morning, I realized again that I was in a mission territory.


My point in relating these experiences is not to rant about them (I do it enough!) or even to blame anyone for this sacramental lostness. My question has to do with my own identity as a Christian and a minister, and the models implicit in the parish ministry as I have experienced it.

On the natural level, my job as a parish priest is one of 'customer service.' People appear and ask for things, i.e. sacraments, spiritual direction. I offer Mass and preach to the people who show up for it. The model of ministry is centripetal. If people want something, they come to the church to try to get it. Ministering in this fashion takes up most of my time, and staff is shrinking. When I came here this parish was served by three full-time priests, a full-time lay friar, and one retired priest who helped with Masses and confessions. Three years later, we are two full-time priests, a half-time lay friar, and another retired priest who helps out.

The ministry sails along on this model, which would seem suited to a kind of 'Christendom' situation in which the faith was fully planted and established. My experience suggests that we don't live in such a world, but in something more like a mission territory. This divergence between the ministerial model and the pastoral situation is precisely the dissonance that presses upon me, and it leaves me with three theological pressures:

The hermeneutic of suspicion angle: What are the conditions of possibility of living, preaching, and ministering in denial about the mission 'territories' all around the parish? What allows me to act like a priest who lives and works in an established Christendom when in fact this is not the case?

The practical. What would have to happen to free up preachers and ministers from the centripetal model of parish ministry, so that they would be able to 'go out' on mission, to seek those who have become lost? In other words, as staff and clergy continue to diminish, what changes in ministerial models will help us not to become burnt out and buried under the work of keeping house and free us up for the missionary needs that are right under our noses? Are we ready to hear about and imitate the God whose Love is so outrageous as to 'leave the ninety-nine?'

Preaching, catechesis, and inculturation. How can the Word be preached and the sacraments offered in a way that is compelling for the human person of today? What are the languages and articulations we need to make to help people see that the concerns of the faith are the concerns of their own hearts as well? This isn't a new question, of course, but what can learn from the errors in this area of which we heirs at this historical moment, move beyond simply condemning them, and be about the rebuilding of a compelling articulation of Christianity?

St. Patrick's Day Rant

Now don't think for a minute that I would be against recognizing and celebrating the immense contribution that Irish-Americans have made to the the flourishing of the Catholic faith in these United States. Still less would I ever have a problem with the veneration of the saints. I don't even have a problem with the stray solemnity* that interrupts the ordinary course of Lent. St. Patrick's Day when I was a student at NUI Galway was one of the most fun things ever.

But...St. Patrick's Day and its attendant celebrations have become a liability to the observance of Lent. I don't think Patrick would approve, and so I suggest that his feast day be moved out of this particular liturgical season.

Before you get all shocked at my outrageous suggestion, let me explain. It's not that there's one day lost during Lent. I'm talking about the few weeks of parades, receptions, parties, and banquets of fraternal organizations. In the parish where I work, which has strong Irish-American roots, I calculate that for the clergy and leading faithful, approximately 12 to 15 percent of the days of Lent are de facto suppressed or superseded by celebrations associated with St. Patrick's Day. This is certainly unacceptable as we try to prayerfully accompany our catechumens through the desert of Lent to the Promised Land of the new life of baptism. Again, I don't think Patrick himself would approve.

"But you can't just move St. Patrick's Day!," you complain. In the last revision of the general Roman calendar, many saints' days were moved around, and hardly anybody remembers what they used to be. So, I propose that we do something to recover our Lent. Praying at his altar today, I'm convinced that St. Patrick would want it that way.

UPDATE: Apparently there are a lot of people for whom St. Patrick's Day induces thoughts of ranting. The exact search term "St. Patrick's Day Rant" has been bringing by a good deal of search engine traffic today.

*Here in the archdiocese of New York, as in many places in the USA, St. Patrick is our titular patron. Thus his day goes from being a Lenten "commemoration" to a full solemnity.

Así pues...

There's a good article in the New York Times this morning on the shift toward Spanish language and Latino Catholicism here in New York. The presenting dissonance is the appointment of our tenth Irish bishop (in a row) for a local church in which the majority or near majority of Catholics are Latino. In fact, New York hasn't had a non-Irish ordinary since the death of bishop John Dubois in 1842 (He was from Paris.)

Now I wouldn't want this to interfere with the big fun of Dolan's honeymoon period here in New York. But this shift in North American Catholicism is obvious in my own experience. The Church needs not only to accept it, but to celebrate it.

In the last two parishes I have been in before this one, the Sunday schedule culminated in a Spanish Mass. In both cases the attendance and the participation at this Spanish Mass exceeded the other Masses in English combined. In the parish where I work now we have confessions for an hour on Saturday afternoon. In between confessions I almost always have time to pray Evening Prayer, and sometimes even have time to pray my Rosary as well. On the other side of town some Mexican sisters have taken over a parish convent where they run retreats most weekends. I've gone several times to help with confessions. They put me in a room with a sign on it asking that no more than seventy people be in line for confession at a time. I tell them that I'm good for two hours or maybe a little more. After that, I'm exhausted from trying to listen in Spanish.

Now my experience is limited in scope, and is confined to the Northeast of the United States. But it does tell me that the future of our faith as it is practiced here is more and more Spanish speaking and Latino in culture. The average Latino Catholic is more likely to attend Mass than your average Anglophone Catholic. (In fact, the great majority of the latter don't attend to their religion at all, or perhaps only in an emergency like marriage or death.) Latinos are less likely to substitute actual children with pets, so they have more children and are more likely to raise them--to one degree or another--in the faith.

So, Irish archbishop or not, a local church blessed with the culture of Irish Catholicism or not, we are on our way to being a Latino church. Check out the article here.

Culture of Death

This is honestly one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. The drivers who hit the poor man just drove off. Others drove around him and kept going. Finally the cops happen by and do something.

I don't see how anyone can say that there isn't something fundamentally wrong with our culture. Our willingness to live with abortion, poverty, execution, and illegal wars waged on false pretenses have damaged our perception and consciences to the point where we are able to ignore the immediate need and suffering of a human life right in our path.

How can our world be converted to the path of putting some value on human life?

Cell Phones

So far I've been able to resist this cultural transformation, but I know the day is coming when I'll have to get a cell phone. Luckily for me, it's still considered slightly sketchy for a friar to have one.

It certainly seems convenient to be able to reach people and be reached on the go. On the other hand, it makes me sad when I constantly see people blabbing on the phone while ignoring the children they have in tow. I was on a shopping trip with another friar when he decided he needed to have a half-hour conversation on his cell phone, leaving me to communicate about possible purchases through gestures and facial expressions. On the subway, where people used to read or sleep, we are now introduced to everyone's private business.

It's definitely a transformation. You notice it in the movies, how people didn't always have cell phones.

When I was a chaplain in a psychiatric unit one of the head psychiatrists once remarked that he though the invention of the cell phone had done more than anything else to lessen the public stigma of schizophrenia. It used to be that someone walking down the street talking to themselves was odd and frightening. Now everybody's doing it.