Honor: Yours, Mine, and Ours

Be honorable yourself if you wish to associate with honorable people.

-Proverb

I am not a big sports fan as such, but while away visiting relatives, I caught a bit of the televised Tour de France cycling race. It happened to be the segment of the race in which the two lead cyclists vying for first place and ultimate victory flew past, one barely in front of the other. After three grueling weeks of competition, it had come to these last moments, broadcasted as they were happening, and only one of the two would in the end win one of the world’s most prestigious victories.

The road winding up and down the French Pyrenees was paved, but announcer let us know some gravel patches made the edges more treacherous. Almost immediately after this remark, sure enough, one of the two leaders skidded and toppled. For the other, the last obstacle to victory had suddenly vanished. The race was his to win.

Instead, however, he came to a dead stop and waited for the other rider to regain his place next to him before they took off together, both now once again competing equally for the win. It was the honorable thing to do, and he chose honor over guaranteed triumph, prestige, power (including financial), and glory. Wow.

I have also been watching some of the January 6 Committee hearings. Whatever your political stance, I think you will agree that honor is on stage each day with witnesses risking their careers, or maybe even their lives as threats pile up, in order to act with honor to speak the truth no matter the cost. Wow.

Both of these very differing events made me contemplate the role of honor in our lives, especially how very difficult it is to act honorably when to act otherwise could bring, not only less censure, distress, and perhaps even dire consequences, but could actually harm – or at least lessen the impact – of cherished causes, pursuits, ideals, and goals. So many of the January 6 witnesses were true believers and champions of the policies of a leader they admired and saw as effective in so many ways, but even at the risk of harming the cause in which they believed, they embraced truth and courage – and honor. Wow.

And so, yes, while honor is, well, honorable, it is, as these illustrations show, also a most frustrating virtue.

I remember a still painful example of this kind of frustration relating to women’s ordination. Before Holy Thursday one year, some women of our parish pleaded with the then pastor not to conduct the Mass that year as a concelebration with other priests as had been the tradition. We were an especially active parish in support of women’s ordination (many, many purple stoles on Sundays) and concelebration by even more than one male priest seemed an especially blatant affront. Prior to the day, however, we learned the pastor was not going to keep his word. The Mass was, in fact, to be, and sure enough was, concelebrated.

As time for communion began at that year’s Holy Thursday Mass, however, a group of women suddenly marched in with their mouths taped shut and, in front of a surprised congregation, proceeded up the aisle and out of the church. Other women and some men in support rose up and followed them out.

But some of us stayed even though we fervently believed in the witness they were making. The disruption had visibly disturbed the congregants who, until then, had been solemnly preparing for communion, and we did not think it right to disturb their worship further. Respect for the worshippers took precedence over making a dramatic point for the cause, over maybe even furthering it. It felt like the honorable thing to do even if it meant deserting and reducing the impact of our companions in championing women’s ordination – who may, to be fair, have seen expressing their sense of honor in a different way.

We wrestle with this kind of question each year as we witness on both Holy Thursday and Ordination Days outside of Philadelphia’s Basilica. Someone invariably remembers past calls from more vehement activists to enter and march down the aisle inside and, with our backs to the con-celebrators and facing the community, unfurl our “Ordain Catholic Women” banner. We discuss this a bit, and then once again we reject that approach. It would be dramatic, yes; it would most likely give us the press coverage we crave, and maybe even incite some affirmations from people inside making our case stronger to witnessing priests and the archbishop. But once again we conclude: it would not be honorable to intrude and disturb people’s prayer and worship time.

And so, in this and so many ways, we sacrifice impact; we possibly even hurt our mission by being so scrupulous. Or at least we make the journey to what we hope will be an ultimate victory even longer and more arduous. At what point do we say we will no longer accept the kind of frustration acting honorably so often brings? Isn’t honor a bit self-aggrandizing anyway? Shouldn’t we be looking farther and broader and deeper than just our own version of “principle” if we are to bring gender or any kind of justice to the world? Shouldn’t we do what we have to do in order to charge full force – principles be hanged – against, I think many of us would argue, an often most dishonorable opponent?

And yet, I still can’t quite bring myself to answer “yes”. Can you?