Reality Checks

Sometimes you read something that is a sharp reality check. For me this week, it is a reflection by Molly Cahill in America: “An open letter to the bishops, from a young Catholic who’s only known a church in scandal.”  Could that be true? What does that do to her feelings about the church, her commitment, her sense of her place in it? “Young people did not lose a trust we once had in the clergy; many of us never had that trust in the first place.” Of course. She calls on the bishops, meeting this week, to exercise the responsibility they have – I would say, cling to – in our hierarchical system.

Well, how’d they do? They formed a working group – to let President-Elect Biden know that as a Catholic he’s stepped over some lines that some bishops hold as, oh, let’s say, “preeminent.” My reaction to USCCB President Jose Gomez’s address at the end of the meeting is to wonder yet again at the unreality of the church’s leadership. Michael Sean Winters says it perfectly. Gomez warns that Catholics will be “confused.” Winters answers: “Could Gomez produce a single Catholic who does not know what the church teaches on these issues? Has Biden ever claimed he was speaking on behalf of the church when addressing these issues?” The mission of the working group “is nonsense.” 

And the tone is unkind, un-Francis. 

In New Ways Ministry’s blog, former WOC Vice-President Robert Shine highlights another issue in the working group’s portfolio: repeal of the “Equality Act,” meaning LGBTQ equality. Can they even say that name? Shine concludes: 

Many, perhaps most, U.S. bishops have rejected Pope Francis’ vision at a fundamental level. Instead, bishops lean ever harder into denying equal rights to LGBTQ people and to women. They abuse the concept of religious liberty for discriminatory ends. And in doing so, they fail gravely at being the pastoral leaders that Catholics and the whole U.S. society desperately need.

What a perfect answer to Molly Cahill. No, Molly, there is no – what? Accountable leadership. I am still in the mode of counting votes, and so apparently is Winters. He points out that Francis only needs 40 more bishops to shift the balance in the USCCB.

To be fair, Gomez says the bishops can work with a Biden administration on “immigration reform, refugees, the poor, initiatives against racism, the death penalty and climate change,” as summarized in NCR. Those are not part of the agenda of the working group, though “unequal treatment of Catholic schools,” whatever that means, is. The bishops did renew the Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, established in 2017, by a vote 194 – 3 with one abstention. Don’t you wonder who the four are who thought this could be a good moment to let it lapse? And who among the other bishops might have wanted to make it permanent? My guess is that “working” on all these issues will be a lot less “preeminent,” but keep your ears open. 

So many Catholic reform and educational organizations are turning to anti-racism that you do not have to rely on the bishops for a reality check.  Last month the address by Jesuit Bryan Massingale to FutureChurch brought me to tears, especially his call for transgenerational hope and love in these hard times. Molly, we want you in this church! 

This week the excellent Villanova series on de-colonizing the church concluded with three laywomen from Philadelphia’s black parishes explaining their history and the racist challenges they faced and continue to face. What they mourned here was expressed by Paschal Uche, a young Black priest in England, in The Tablet:  “Mostly people don’t stick around and they go to other denominations to be themselves. We lost the diversity we are supposed to have.” The reality of Black and brown people is that Black parishes build the faith; closing them does not.

 This was reinforced to me by the panel NCR Forward presented on Black Catholic history, “Continuing the Journey.” Spirit-filled prayerfulness, vibrancy, humor, living history, Black images – these words occur to me as they explore what it means to be an “Ancestor” with a capital A, a righteous ancestor, in this Black Lives Matter moment. The video will be available next week. Treat yourself to more inspiration.

We can do more than blame our bishops for squandering the opportunity for leadership. We can grab the moment and check another reality, the reality of Black Catholics. We can use this Black Catholic History Month to learn more of the history that, like that of women in the church, is not often part of the mainstream narrative. Molly, there is so much more to what we can do together. Let’s continue working on a new reality!