Taking Over the Narrative

In the admittedly progressive Catholic Church I attend, parishioners have, for years, stood as they and other people received communion and remained standing until all have received and the bread and wine has been put away. The narrative behind this action focused on our being Easter people rejoicing in the once whole, then broken bread and poured wine, becoming whole again through each one of us resurrected in community.

Two other churches merged with ours a few years ago. Their parishioners had knelt, and continued kneeling, after receiving communion. Their narrative seemed to be different, perhaps more with more introspective focus, more internal and personal. The different narratives and resulting actions, with some of us standing in celebration and others kneeling in prayer, seemed awkward at first, uncomfortable, but now we are all used to it, and it seems just another example of blending old and new narratives.

I mention this because I have been thinking about how important changing – even taking over – the narratives in the Catholic Church really is. In spite of all the recent criticism by both progressive and conservative groups within the church, I think that is what Pope Francis is doing. He is reclaiming, and then reshaping, the way we speak about the Church in a way that inspires some measure of pride in what it sometimes was and could be again. I think that strategy is clever, brave, and already effective.

We now have a Catholic Church narrative that finally stresses our amazing history of social justice and service to the poor and celebrates its continuance. We have a narrative that champions environmental justice and brings it to the forefront of our faith. We now have a story to tell about welcoming immigrants – and even all genders (some expansion work needed here!) – and apologizing for some major past sins (against Jews, against clergy abuse of children). We now have a chronicle in which individual conscience is affirmed, and faith has achieved primacy with good works. We need doctrinal revision and changes in practice to go with all of this, but the process has at least started.

I’m sure Francis has not done all of this in isolation. He must have listened to ancient voices and to present witnesses, to his own heart, and, I would like to think, to us. For those ancient and present voices are us, the real church, and we must keep speaking; we must keep reshaping – taking over – reclaiming – the narrative.

The narrative, as you know, still has major omissions. The Pope’s latest Gaudete et Exsultate makes tiny forays into the importance of women in the Church as he actually names, for a change, prominent historical women leaders and acclaims their contributions. But then we get the old rah-rahing of the magnificence of women’s present roles as wives and mothers, the same old, same old again.

And so, we absolutely have to take charge of this particular narrative. We have to re-assert and re-convince and witness again and again and march and write and create drama until we become part of the story as its present leaders and ordained celebrants. As tempting as hashtagging Enough! and Time’sUp! is, we have an important history, present, and future to reshape. Too many of the world’s oppressed, especially its women and children, depend on our success. We have to stand and we have to kneel side by side. It is, after all, our church.