Say What?

This morning I am reading for and writing this blog in an unusual silence. There is no electricity in my building, so I hear the rain on my windows from no-longer fierce hurricane Zeta and the sloshing of the traffic in the street below. No radio. No mechanical or electronic hums. Just quiet.

Somehow the articles I quickly printed wind up being about speech. What is said and unsaid matters.

“Are women involved in a toxic relationship with the church?” asks Phyllis Zagano in NCR. She must have used one of those computer programs to count the incidence of “fraternity” and “fraternal” in the “extremely smooth English translation” of the Pope’s recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti. I trust her on this because she suspects that “a computer search seems to have replaced ‘brother’ with ‘brother and sister’ nearly 30 times, even changing Scripture translations. For example, the translation of 1 John 2:10-11 approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops begins ‘whoever loves his brother,’ not ‘whoever loves a brother or sister.’”

Because my faith community does that all the time, I don’t have to always feel “gaslighted.” I forget that the rest of the Catholic world doesn’t make those edits. Zagano finds toxic the “subtle cognitive dissonance” of the church’s saying one thing about women and doing another, perfectly exemplified in the language games of this document. See “Do As I Say” in this blog.

And that leads us to Pope Francis on civil unions. Matthew Sitman in Commonweal explicates the bizarre situation first reported in The New York Times about the bit of tape used in the film Francisco. It was from a 2019 interview filmed by the Vatican but cut from the version that was released. Pay attention to what’s in your archives when you give access! They didn’t and the filmmakers did. Sitman asks: “What kind of declaration is made by allowing, perhaps inadvertently, archival footage to be used in a documentary? Since we don’t know if Francis knew that the endorsement had been cut from the original interview or if he knew that it would be included in the new documentary, can it be truly said that he intended to make these views known now, let alone describe him as forthrightly calling for such measures?” The Vatican isn’t saying. Many others are, friends and foes of Francis, including me. Sitman says: “One possible interpretation of what Francis could be doing, in line with his preferred style of leadership, is that he’s initiating more than deciding.” How far he wants to go to initiate a doctrinal change remains unclear because he’s speaking only about the secular realm, another case that could be called gaslighting. Yet the impact is far greater, especially in countries where laws “do not protect” LGBT people. Sitman calls for “no ambiguity” about that.

Actions more than words also communicate in making Archbishop Wilton Gregory the first African-American Cardinal. It’s more than the usual confirmation of the importance of the Washington, DC, seat. And it especially confirms the leadership of the person sitting there. Christopher White in NCR gets the exact tone I would use: Gregory “slammed a decision by the Knights of Columbus-owned John Paul II National Shrine to host President Donald Trump the day after he ordered tear gas against peaceful protestors near the White House advocating for racial justice.”

I remember Gregory’s struggle to get the USCCB in 2018 to issue a new pastoral on racism. I could not join those who found it inadequate because I knew how much he put into just getting the bishops to say something. He did the same thing as president of the USCCB in 2002, when the Dallas Charter established for the first time nationwide procedures for handling the sex abuse of children. Like the pastoral on race, it may have been more promise than practice – but wouldn’t the church have been more than gaslighting if more bishops had insisted on practicing what they said?

Living in Philadelphia, I appreciate the one Catholic statement I have seen on the killing of Walter Wallace, Jr., a Black man, by the police. Sister Mary Scullion calls out “the repeated violence and senseless killings by police in our communities.” She asks the leadership of the City to more appropriately respond to crisis situations like this, especially involving mental health issues. “We stand in solidarity with the movements for racial justice. Every person is precious and worthy, every person has dignity, gifts, and value, every person has the right to flourish.” I’ve written about her before. She’s the perfect example of the leadership religious women can exercise.

On the other hand, what sisters – and clerics in general – should do or say politically is clear in Canon Law, as quoted by Soli Salgado in NCR’s Global Sisters Report: “are not to have an active part in political parties and in governing labor unions unless, in the judgment of competent ecclesiastical authority, the protection of the rights of the Church or the promotion of the common good requires it.” I find the labor union part so odd (not in the European context, perhaps) and the sequence of priorities deplorable.

Is this true to your experience of sisters or clerics in general? The point of the article seems to advise they focus on issues rather than parties or candidates, yet there are frequent, often veiled, references to political activism. It’s a lot more than gaslighting. David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, said: “We can also get a little too precious about the whole issue of an endorsement.” Salgado summarizes further: “Because only one of the two major U.S. political parties campaigns against legalized abortion, church leadership is often seen as tipping the scales toward the Republican Party, sometimes saying Catholics can’t vote for a Democrat because of his or her position on abortion or denying the Eucharist to pro-choice candidates, Gibson said.” And she refers to “many sisters” saying the same thing.

Salgado talks with Sr. Deirdre Byrne, LWSH, who spoke at the Republican nominating convention, and Sr. Simone Campbell, SSS, who prayed the Democratic one. Both stressed that their faith made them do it. Byrne “told GSR that she doesn’t consider her RNC speech an endorsement of Trump so much as a ‘thank you.’” Read the article for further details.

Campbell is retiring from NETWORK, an organization which lobbies for social justice.  For the first time this year its board endorsed a presidential candidate, Biden, and later, Campbell did, too.  Salgado’s brief history of the Social Service Sisters explains how they, as “a society of apostolic life” are not a religious order and therefore are exempt from the Canon Law quoted above.

Now, in the silence, I hear the bells of the church at the end of the block, and then the lights come back on in my apartment. I hear the music on the radio and various hums and hisses, not rain and traffic. Seek silence to gather strength. Then say “Say What?” whenever gaslighting happens.

And now you have your chance! WOC has prepared the perfect “Say What?” to the slick media package that is the USCCB’s National Vocations Awareness Week. WOC’s Toolkit provides typically creative and nurturing actions beginning tomorrow, November 1. I particularly like addressing the Cardboard Cardinal and Swarming by Zoom. The last day, November 9, is a discussion with RCWP and ARCWP focused on discernment. What a thoughtful response to the gaslighting that the church’s position on women’s ordination really is.

Finally, I welcome WOC’s newest staff member, Anna Burnham. As Digital Organizer, she will work with us to post this blog and on many other things. I look forward to your help, Anna. I also want to express my deepest thanks to Kate McElwee and Katie Lacz, who have dealt with technical issues and, most of all, found remarkable graphics to illustrate what I have to say, sometimes better than words ever can.