Learning from Our (First) Parents

THE LIVING WORD

Oct 24 2014 - 1:37pm | Richard J. Clifford

Can we see Adam and Eve anew?

PARENTAL UNITS. Stained glass window depicting Adam and Eve in the cathedral of Brussels, Belgium.

Centuries of Biblical interpretation make it difficult for us today to appreciate Adam and Eve as characters in a well-told story that deftly probes the ways of God with humans. Yet the increasing availability of literary works comparable to Genesis 1-11 enables us to appreciate how seriously ancients took their stories of origins. Pope Pius XII’s 1943 encyclical “Divino afflante spiritu” (Nos. 19-23, 31) urged scholars to appreciate “the manner of expression and the literary mode” of the stories in Genesis 1-11. Tryggve Mettinger of Lund University in The Eden Narrativeclearly expresses appreciation for Genesis 1-11: “the conditions of real life in the present are seen, in a validating and explanatory perspective, as being founded on events between god(s) and man in primordial time.” The referential ambition of such texts is representativity; that is, they possess a validity that is greater than the individual case. Mettinger explains: “We do not ask about the factuality, the historicity of event narrated, but about the relevance of the narrative. How can it contribute to our understanding of what it means to be a human being,” and, one might add, what it means to be a married couple.

The Man and the Woman in the Garden of Eden

The Lord God creates the man (2:4-7), plants a garden in Eden with the tree of life and tree of the knowledge of good and bad, appoints the man as gardener and gives him leave to eat everything except the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad (2:8-17). Observing that it was not good for the man to be alone, God creates the animals from the earth. Observing again that no animal proved to be a suitable helper for the man, God creates the woman from his rib (2:18-24). On seeing her, the man rhapsodically declares her to be the one for him; the couple are naked without shame. Enter a snake (not a serpent, not Satan), wisest of the animals, who persuades the couple to eat the fruit of the tree, which, he says, will open their eyes and make them like the gods who know good and bad. (The translation “like God” in the NRSV is inaccurate.) The couple’s eyes are indeed opened, but they know only one new thing—they are naked (2:25-3:7). God investigates their transgression (3:8-13) and assigns penalties to the snake, woman and man (3:14-19). The man then gives his wife a second name, Eve, “mother of all the living” (3:20). God clothes the couple with leather, i.e., permanent, garments, and expels them from the garden (3:20-24), setting armed cherubim to guard against re-entry.

It may help readers to recognize two “before-and-after” scenarios shaping the story, one “agricultural” and the other “anthropological.” Before the couple’s sin, agriculture consisted in the man tending a vast garden irrigated by a mighty stream flowing up from the Deep and branching into four great rivers that fertilized the earth. After the sin, the couple was expelled into a new agricultural system in which the man will laboriously till the arable soil dependent on uncertain rain. The soil had been there from the beginning, of course, but it was dormant, for “there was no man to till the soil” (Gen 2:5).

The “anthropological” scenario concerns the couple’s human nature and defining tasks. Before their sin, the man and the woman enjoyed fullness of life and knowledge simply by being in the presence of the Living and Wise God. To be sure, they were not inherently immortal like heavenly beings, formed as they were from earth, nor did they have the wisdom of heavenly beings. But such limits did not matter as long as they were in God’s garden. After the sin, “death” in the sense of living outside Eden, the sphere of life, was imposed on humans. Humans now had a life span.

Narratives such as Genesis 2-3 invite many more questions. Here are seven.

Gardens of gods and kings were exceedingly important institutions in the ancient Near East well into Islamic times; their plants and trees symbolized creativity and fertility. 1. Is the garden important in the story? Yes, for it is part of the palace of God. Gardens of gods and kings were exceedingly important institutions in the ancient Near East well into Islamic times; their plants and trees symbolized creativity and fertility.The four rivers fertilizing the earth in Gen 2:10-14 are essential to the story also, for they symbolize the intense vitality emanating from the garden. The man and woman did not need to go outside God to enhance their life. There was another reason the garden was important. It was sacred space, requiring strict protocols for human behavior. Expressions of sexuality and all vestiges of death were excluded, for God was eternal, beyond sex or death. The demand for such purity in sacred places is a feature of both Judaism and Christianity as Gary Anderson points out in The Genesis of Perfection (2001).

2. What is the meaning of the two trees? Though the narrator tells us there were two trees, the man, woman, and snake speak of only one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. (In the same way, the narrator speaks of the “Lord God,” whereas the couple and the snake speak of “God.”) The best explanation for the discrepancy in the number of trees is not that the tree of life is a later addition (a common view), but the literary concept of voice (who speaks?). The characters speak from their limited perspective, whereas the narrator speaks from an unlimited perspective. 

The trees are metaphors for the two qualities that in the ancient Near East chiefly distinguished earthly from heavenly beings—immortality and super-wisdom. Two second millennium Mesopotamian stories, Gilgameshand Adapa, tell how the gods gave humans a certain degree of wisdom, but withheld immortality. Like the protagonists of those two stories, the biblical couple gains a certain knowledge of primordial things, but not the heavenly knowledge they aspired to.

3. Why did God forbid the couple to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad?God’s prohibition is usually seen as an assertion of divine will, reminding the couple that humans’ first duty is to obey God even when no reasons are given. But an explanation that is more closely tied to the story is also possible. God’s command was meant to safeguard the wisdom the couple already had simply by being in God’s presence; there was no need for them to acquire knowledge outside of God. The tree of knowledge wastherefore forbidden to them. In the Bible, God sometimes issues a command (“You shall not eat!”) instead of giving a reason. In Deut 16:18-20, for example, God describes the duties of judges by a series of commands: “You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality,” instead of simply saying (as we might do) that judges must judge fairly.

4. Why did the man and woman not die when they ate the fruit? God said to the man, “on the day you eat from it you shall surely die” (2:17) “On the day” is simply a Hebrew idiom for “when”; it should not be taken literally. “You shall surely die” cannot mean that the man will die upon eating the forbidden fruit, for he lives to be 930 years old (Gen 5:5)! Nor does it mean “you will become mortal,” for the man was already mortal by reason of being made from earth. The meaning can only be that the man’s sin will end that nearness to God that made him fully alive despite his being made of earth. When he leaves God’s garden where life abounded, death will eventually come to him, as 3:19 says, “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

The eyes of the man and woman were indeed opened, but they learned only that they were naked.5. Is the Woman a temptress leading the Man into sin?Christian tradition has often said yes, but the short answer is no. We need to know why the snake approached the woman rather than the man. When God noticed that none of the animals was a suitable helper for the man, he created the woman from the man’s body. The snake was passed over and planned revenge. He addressed the woman to expose her as an unsuitable helper. And so he asked, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’” The snake first overstated the prohibition (“from any tree?”), provoking the woman to another overstatement (“or eventouch it”) and awakening in her, it seems, a sense of the arbitrariness of the command. To the woman’s generic reference to “the tree in the middle of the garden,” the snake supplied specificity: it is not just any tree, it is the tree that God doesn’t want you to eat from, for its fruit will make you “like gods knowing good and bad.” The woman looked at the tree again—its fruit was delicious, alluring and imparting secret knowledge. She ate and gave the fruit to her husband standing at her side. (Unfortunately, Jerome’s Latin Vulgate omitted “at her side,” creating the impression that Eve approached him later as a temptress.) The eyes of the man and woman were indeed opened, but they learned only that they were naked.

6. Why are the Man and the Woman naked and not ashamed (2:25)? It is often noted that Eden depicts the childhood of the race, for only children are naked and unashamed. Yes, the couple’s sexuality has not yet been awakened, but that fact must be put in context. In the agricultural scenario mentioned above, the soil outside the garden was originally dormant, because “the Lord God had not caused rain to fall upon the earth and there was no man to till the land” (2:5). But when the man left the garden to till the soil, the soil was activated by the man’s tilling it and rain began. The same thing happened to the procreative aspect of the couple’s sexuality. It was dormant at the beginning of the story, indicated by the couple’s unashamed nakedness. As long as they were in God’s garden, they did not have to worry about procreation of children, for life bloomed everywhere. Indeed, they could not have exercised their sexuality (in the Bible, the remedy for mortality) because no elements of sex and death were permitted in the sacred dwelling of the eternal God. But once expelled from the holy garden, they had to exercise their procreative powers and beget children, for they no longer were in the life-imparting presence of God.

The interpretation just stated, while not a common one, has the advantage of explaining a puzzling feature of the story: the man names his wife twice, the first time in 2:23, when he names her “Woman.” (The phrase “the two of them become one flesh,” in 2:23 does not refer to sexual union, but to the woman’s joining the man’s family.) He names her a second time in 3:20, “Eve” when “she became the mother of all the living”; she must henceforward bear children in view of human lifespans.

God enters so deeply into human temporality and finiteness that he must wait to learn what these new creatures are capable of doing before responding. God has a learning curve.Inquiring minds will no doubt ask: if the couple had remained forever in Eden with their procreative powers dormant, how could they have had descendants and the human race expand? The answer lies, I think, in understanding the way that God chose to relate to the couple—by observing and responding. God observed that it was not good for the man to be alone and so created animals from the earth to be his helpers; but observing that animals did not satisfy the man’s “aloneness,” determined that the helper would have to come from the man’s body. But why did God not foresee the man needed a woman? Even more pressing, why did God not foresee the human race would become totally corrupt and avoid the bother of even creating the world? It took ten generations before God “regretted making man on the earth, and his heart was grieved,” and that “he was sorry he made them” (Gen 6:5-8).  Philosophical notions of divine omniscience cannot be applied to God in these stories. In a sense, God enters so deeply into human temporality and finiteness that he must wait to learn what these new creatures are capable of doing before responding. God has a learning curve.

7. How should we understand the divine punishments inflicted on the snake, the woman and the man (3:14-19)? “Punishment” is probably not the right word. Rather, God imposes on them a new state, or more accurately, announces the new state their actions have created. The snake, the woman, and the man become the beings we know today. Previously, the snake aspired to be a suitable helper to humans and was able to stand and speak face to face with them. Now he must crawl on the ground as humans recoil at the sight of him. The woman can no longer live simply by her nearness to the Living God. She will now “live” by giving birth to the next generations, a process attended by pain and danger. Because the husband listened to her instead of God, she now must listen to her husband, “Your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you.” The man will longer tend a well-watered and fruitful garden, but struggle to farm resistant soil.

The man accepts the couple’s new state when he names his wife Eve, “the mother of all the living,” 3:20, and God accepts the new state of affairs with a gesture of his own—replacing the couple’s hastily made fig leaves with leather, i.e., permanent, garments. God’s final act is to put the tree of life beyond their reach, a mercy in view of their mishandling of the tree of knowledge of good and bad. God’s sarcastic comment (3:22) can be paraphrased: If they made such a mess of their life with the tree of knowledge, think what a mess they would make with the more potent tree of life.

What Do Our First Parents Teach Us?

Living in the very dwelling of God proved too much for our inexperienced first parents. They had to leave it for a less intense environment. But they—and we—cannot forget that living with God in Eden was what God originally intended for them. And we, poor banished children of Eve, ought never to forget God’s original intent or to lose hope that one day that intent will be realized.

If the story teaches us about God’s high hopes and generous intent, what does it teach us about our parents’ sin? When the snake urged the woman to eat the fruit so that she and her husband could be wise like the heavenly beings, he invited them to go outside their relationship with God to acquire something belonging to another order of beings. Their act was an everyday thing—eating fruit—but it was representative. It was at once an act of disobedience and an act of idolatry. Disobedience is more obvious. God had commanded them, using the commonest Hebrew verb of commanding. The Hebrew verb šāma‘, “to obey,” is profoundly personal; one “listens to” a person rather than carries out a command. In 3:17, God accuses the man of “listening to the voice” of his wife rather than listening to God. The couple refused to let God define their life.

Their act was, more subtly, also idolatry. The couple went for the gift and bypassed the giver, illustrating vividly Hos 2:8: “[Israel] did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold that they used for Baal.” The prophet Hosea indicts the people for seeking from other gods the benefits that were in reality gifts of the Lord. The man and woman in Eden sought to be wise with heavenly knowledge instead of living on earth with God.

Though the pair (and all whom they represent) missed out on the fullness of life and wisdom that was originally intended for them, they did come away with a lesser version of each. They continued to live, but not in the Garden of Eden. And as for knowledge, they had seen what happened in the beginning, and they also learned how to farm the soil and beget the next generation. The story ends with a loss, but not an irreparable one, for it is possible for their descendants to access the garden and the tree of life in the present, albeit in a diminished mode, by visiting God’s dwelling, seeking wisdom, and living according to God’s word. Expulsion from the Garden of Eden may have pushed the man and the woman into a harder existence, but it provided the human race with an indelible image of a future life with God. No wonder that the Christian vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 22 includes the tree of life.

Richard J. Clifford, S.J., is a professor of Old Testament at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry in Brighton, Mass. A former editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly and president of the Catholic Biblical Association, he also served as a translator and commentator for The New American Bible, Revised Edition. This article is part ofAmerica’s series, "The Living Word: Scripture in the Life of the Church,” co-sponsored by the American Bible Society.

Ten Reasons To Oppose the Death Penalty

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| Mary Meehan America Magazine

From November 20, 1982

Over 1,000 state prisoners are on death row in America today. A Justice Department official recently said that many of them are exhausting their appeals and that we may soon "witness executions at a rate approaching the more than three per week that prevailed during the 1930's."

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, there is an effort to restore the death penalty as a punishment for certain Federal crimes. A bill to accomplish this was approved by the Judiciary Committee in a 13-to-6 vote last year when conservatives lined up for the death penalty and liberals declaimed in vain against it. Yet one need not be a certified liberal in order to oppose the death penalty. Richard Viguerie, premier fundraiser of the New Right, is a firm opponent of capital punishment.

Some of the arguments against the death penalty are essentially conservative, and many others transcend ideology. No one has to agree with all of the arguments in order to reach a decision. As President Reagan has said in another context, doubt should always be resolved on the side of life.

Nor need one be "soft on crime" in order to oppose the death penalty. Albert Camus, an opponent of capital punishment, said: "We know enough to say that this or that major criminal deserves hard labor for life. But we don't know enough to decree that he be shorn of his future—in other words, of the chance we all have of making amends."

But many liberals in our country, by their naive ideas about quick rehabilitation and by their support for judicial discretion in sentencing, have done much to create demand for the death penalty they abhor. People are right to be alarmed when judges give light sentences for murder and other violent crimes. It is reasonable for them to ask: "Suppose some crazy judge lets him out, and members of my family are his next victims?" The inconsistency of the judicial system leads many to support the death penalty.

There are signs that some liberals now understand the problem. Senators Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) and Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.), in opposing the death-penalty bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, are suggesting as an alternative "a real life sentence" for murder and "heinous crimes." By this they mean a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole. And if we adopt Chief Justice Warren Burger's proposal about making prisons into "factories with fences," perhaps murderers can pay for their prison room and board and also make financial restitution to families they have deprived of breadwinners.

With these alternatives in mind, let us consider 10 good reasons to oppose the death penalty.

1. There is no way to remedy the occasional mistake. One of the witnesses against the death penalty before the Senate committee last year was Earl Charles, a man who spent over three years on a Georgia death row for murders he did not commit. Another witness remarked that, had Mr. Charles faced a system "where the legal apparatus was speedier and the death penalty had been carried out more expeditiously, we would now be talking about the late Mr. Charles and bemoaning our error."

What happens when the mistake is discovered after a man has been executed for a crime he did not commit? What do we say to his widow and children? Do we erect an apologetic tombstone over his grave?

These are not idle questions. A number of persons executed in the United States were later cleared by confessions of those who had actually committed the crimes. In other cases, while no one else confessed, there was great doubt that the condemned were guilty. Watt Espy, an Alabamian who has done intensive research on American executions, says that he has "every reason to believe" that 10 innocent men were executed in Alabama alone. Mr. Espy cites names, dates and other specifics of the cases. He adds that there are similar cases in virtually every state.

We might consider Charles Peguy's words about the turn-of-the-century French case in which Capt. Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly convicted of treason: "We said that a single injustice, a single crime, a single illegality, particularly if it is officially recorded, confirmed...that a single crime shatters and is sufficient to shatter the whole social pact, the whole social contract, that a single legal crime, a single dishonorable act will bring about the loss of one's honor, the dishonor of a whole people."

2. There is racial and economic discrimination in application of the death penalty. This is an old complaint, but one that many believe has been remedied by court-mandated safeguards. All five of the prisoners executed since 1977—one shot, one gassed and three electrocuted—were white. This looks like a morbid kind of affirmative action plan, making up for past discrimination against blacks. But the five were not representative of the death-row population, except in being male. About 99 percent of the death-row inmates are men.

Of the 1,058 prisoners on death row by Aug. 20,1982, 42 percent were black, whereas about 12 percent of the United States population is black. Those who receive the death penalty still tend to be poor, poorly educated and represented by public defenders or court-appointed lawyers. They are not the wealthy murderers of Perry Mason or Agatha Christie fame.

Discriminatory application of the death penalty, besides being unjust to the condemned, suggests that some victims' lives are worth more than others. A study published in Crime & Delinquency (October 1980) found that, of black persons in Florida who commit murder, "those who kill whites are nearly 40 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks."

Even Walter Berns, an articulate proponent of the death penalty, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last year that capital punishment "has traditionally been imposed in this country in a grossly discriminatory fashion" and said that "it remains to be seen whether this country can impose the death penalty without regard to race or class." If it cannot, he declared, then capital punishment "will have to be invalidated on equal-protection grounds."

It is quite possible to be for the death penalty in theory ("If this were a just world, I'd be for it"), but against it in practice ("It's an unjust, crazy, mixed-up world, so I'm against it").

3. Application of the death penalty tends to be arbitrary and capricious; for similar crimes, some are sentenced to death while others are not. Initially two men were charged with the killing for which John Spenkelink was electrocuted in Florida in 1979. The second man turned state's evidence and was freed; he remarked: "I didn't intend for John to take the rap. It just worked out that way."

Soon after the Spenkelink execution, former San Francisco official Dan White received a prison sentence of seven years and eight months in prison for killing two people—the Mayor of San Francisco and another city official.

Anyone who follows the news can point to similar disparities. Would the outcome be much different if we decided for life or death by rolling dice or spinning a roulette wheel?

4. The death penalty gives some of the worst offenders publicity that they do not deserve.Gary Gilmore and Steven Judy received reams of publicity as they neared their dates with the grim reaper. They had a chance to expound before a national audience their ideas about crime and punishment, God and country, and anything else that happened to cross their minds. It is hard to imagine two men less deserving of a wide audience. It can be argued, of course, that if executions become as widespread and frequent as proponents of the death penalty hope, the publicity for each murderer will decline. That may be so, but each may still be a media celebrity on a statewide basis.

While the death penalty undoubtedly deters some would-be murderers, there is evidence that it encourages others— especially the unstable who are attracted to media immortality like moths to a flame. If instead of facing heady weeks before television cameras, they faced a lifetime of obscurity in prison, the path of violence might seem less glamorous to them.

5. The death penalty involves medical doctors, who are sworn to preserve life, in the act of killing. This issue has been much discussed in recent years because several states have provided for execution by lethal injection. In 1980 the American Medical Association, responding to this innovation, declared that a doctor should not participate in an execution. But it added that a doctor may determine or certify death in any situation.

The A.M.A. evaded a major part of the ethical problem. When doctors use their stethoscopes to indicate whether the electric chair has done its job, they are assisting the executioner.

6. Executions have a corrupting effect on the public. Thomas Macaulay said of the Puritans that they "hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." While wrong on the first point, they were right on the second. There is something indecent in the rituals that surround executions and the excitement—even the entertainment—that they provide to the public. There is the cat-and-mouse ritual of the appeals process, with prisoners sometimes led right up to the execution chamber and then given a stay of execution. There are the last visits from family, the last dinner, the last walk, the last words. Television cameras, which have fought their way into courtrooms and nearly everywhere else, may some day push their way right up to the execution chamber and give us all, in living color, the very last moments.

7. The death penalty cannot be limited to the worst cases. Many people who oppose capital punishment have second thoughts whenever a particularly brutal murder occurs. When a Richard Speck or Charles Manson or Steven Judy emerges, there is a tendency to say, "That one really deserves to die." Disgust, anger and genuine fear support the second thoughts.

But it is impossible to write a death penalty law in such a way that it will apply only to the Specks and Mansons and Judys of this world. And, given the ingenuity of the best lawyers money can buy, there is probably no way to apply it to the worst murderers who happen to be wealthy.

The death penalty, like every other form of violence, is extremely difficult to limit once the "hard cases" persuade society to let down the bars in order to solve a few specific problems. A sentence intended for Charles Manson is passed instead on J.D. Gleaton, a semiliterate on South Carolina's death row who had difficulty understanding his trial. Later he said: "I don't know anything about the law that much and when they are up there speaking those big words, I don't even know what they are saying." Or Thomas Hays, under sentence of death in Oklahoma and described by a fellow inmate as "nutty as a fruit cake." Before his crime, Mr. Hays was committed to mental hospitals several times; afterwards, he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

8. The death penalty is an expression of the absolute power of the state; abolition of that penalty is a much- needed limit on government power. What makes the state so pure that it has the right to take life? Look at the record of governments throughout history—so often operating with deception, cruelty and greed, so often becoming masters of the citizens they are supposed to serve. "Forbidding a man's execution," Camus said, "would amount to proclaiming publicly that society and the state are not absolute values." It would amount to saying that there are some things even the state may not do.

There is also the problem of the state's involving innocent people in a premeditated killing. "I'm personally opposed to killing and violence," said the prison warden who had to arrange Gary Gilmore's execution, "and having to do that is a difficult responsibility." Too often, in killing and violence, the state compels people to act against their consciences.

And there is the point that government should not give bad example—especially not to children. Earl Charles, a veteran of several years on death row for crimes he did not commit, tried to explain this last year: "Well, it is difficult for me to sit down and talk to my son about 'thou shalt not kill,' when the state itself...is saying, 'Well, yes, we can kill, under certain circumstances.' " With great understatement, Mr. Charles added, "That is difficult. I mean, that is confusing to him."

9. There are strong religious reasons for many to oppose the death penalty. Some find compelling the thought that Cain, the first murderer, was not executed but was marked with a special sign and made a wanderer upon the face of the earth. Richard Viguerie developed his position on capital punishment by asking what Christ would say and do about it. "I believe that a strong case can be made," Mr. Viguerie wrote in a recent book, "that Christ would oppose the killing of a human being as punishment for a crime." This view is supported by the New Testament story about the woman who faced execution by stoning (John 8:7, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone").

Former Senator Harold Hughes (D., Iowa), arguing against the death penalty in 1974, declared: "'Thou shalt not kill' is the shortest of the Ten Commandments, uncomplicated by qualification or exception....It is as clear and awesomely commanding as the powerful thrust of chain lightning out of a dark summer sky."

10. Even the guilty have a right to life. Leszek Syski is a Maryland antiabortion activist who says that he "became convinced that the question of whether or not murderers deserve to die is the wrong one. The real question is whether other humans have a right to kill them." He concluded that they do not after conversations with an opponent of capital punishment who asked, "Why don't we torture prisoners? Torturing them is less than killing them." Mr. Syski believes that "torture is dehumanizing, but capital punishment is the essence of dehumanization."

Richard Viguerie reached his positions on abortion and capital punishment independently, but does see a connection between the two issues: "To me, life is sacred," Mr. Viguerie says. "And I don't believe I have a right to terminate someone else's life either way—by abortion or capital punishment." Many others in the pro-life movement have come to the same conclusion. They don't think they have a right to play God, and they don't believe that the state encourages respect for life when it engages in premeditated killing.

Camus was right: We know enough to say that some crimes require severe punishment. We do not know enough to say when anyone should die.

Pope Francis removes U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke from Vatican post.

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Burke appeared out of step with the current pontificate.

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Pope Francis removed U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, 66, as head of the Vatican's highest court and named him to a largely ceremonial post for a chivalric religious order.

Cardinal Burke, formerly prefect of the Apostolic Signature, will now serve as cardinal patron of the Knights and Dames of Malta, the Vatican announced on Nov. 8.

The move had been widely expected since an Italian journalist reported it in September, and the cardinal himself confirmed it to reporters the following month.

It is highly unusual for a pope to remove an official of Cardinal Burke's stature and age without assigning him comparable responsibilities elsewhere. By church law, cardinals in the Vatican must offer to resign at 75, but often continue in office for several more years. As usual when announcing personnel changes other than retirements for reasons of age, the Vatican did not give a reason for the cardinal's reassignment.

A prominent devotee of the traditional liturgy and outspoken defender of traditional doctrine on controversial moral issues, Cardinal Burke had appeared increasingly out of step with the current pontificate.

In December 2013, Pope Francis did not reappoint him to his position on the Congregation for Bishops, which advises the pope on episcopal appointments.

Cardinal Burke expressed frustration, in a February 2014 article in the Vatican newspaper, that many Americans thought Pope Francis intended to change Catholic teaching on certain "critical moral issues of our time," including abortion and same-sex marriage, because of the pope's stated belief that "it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time."

Insisting that the pope had "clearly affirmed the church's moral teaching, in accord with her unbroken tradition," Cardinal Burke blamed perceptions to the contrary on "false praise" of Pope Francis by "persons whose hearts are hardened against the truth."

After Pope Francis invited German Cardinal Walter Kasper to address a meeting of the world's cardinals in February, Cardinal Burke emerged as a leading opponent of Cardinal Kasper's proposal to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

Cardinal Burke also warned that efforts to streamline the marriage annulment process -- the mandate of a commission that the pope established in August -- should not undermine the process' rigor.

During the Oct. 5-19 Synod of Bishops on the family, Cardinal Burke was one of the most vocal critics of a midterm report that used remarkably conciliatory language toward people with ways of life contrary to Catholic teaching, including those in same-sex unions and other non-marital relationships. The day the report was released, the cardinal told an American reporter that a statement from Pope Francis reaffirming traditional doctrine on those matters was "long overdue."

Cardinal Burke made the news again late in October when he told a Spanish journalist that many Catholics "feel a bit of seasickness, because it seems to them that the ship of the church has lost its compass. The cause of this disorientation must be put aside. We have the constant tradition of the church, the teachings, the liturgy, morals. The catechism does not change."

A former archbishop of St. Louis, Cardinal Burke was named by Pope Benedict XVI to lead the Apostolic Signature in June 2008. At the time of his dismissal, he was the highest-ranking U.S. bishop at the Vatican. That distinction now belongs to Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The new head of the Apostolic Signature is French Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, formerly secretary for relations with states, the Vatican's equivalent of a foreign minister.

The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

"san-giovanni-in-laterano"

Lateran Basilica baptistry

November 9, 2014

Click here for scripture readings.

A study on accidental death occurrences shows that

(a) 20% of all fatal accidents occur in automobiles,

(b) 17% of all accidents occur in the home,

(c) 14% of all accidents occur to pedestrians on streets or sidewalks,

(d) 16% of all accidents involve travelling by air, rail, or water,

(e) 32% of all deaths occur in hospitals,

and (f) only .001% of all deaths occur in church during worship services.

According to this study, therefore, the safest place for you to be at any given point in time is not in your car, or in the home or in the hospital but in church!

Today we celebrate the dedication of the basilica of St John Lateran in Rome.

Why celebrate the dedication of a church in far away Rome, you may ask.

It is to remind us of the importance of the church building as sacred space set apart for personal and collective encounter with God.

Historically, the basilica of St John Lateran is the oldest church of Rome and the highest ranking church in the world, followed by St Peter’s basilica in the Vatican. As such it is the mother of all churches.

When we celebrate its dedication to God, therefore, we celebrate the mystery of God’s special presence and indwelling in buildings set apart for divine worship, including our own parish church.

We know that God is everywhere.

Yet when the people of God erect a building and dedicate it totally to God’s service, God’s glory comes to dwell in that building in such a way that the building can now be called the house of God.

Solomon recalls this mystery in his prayer of dedication of the temple in Jerusalem: “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).

So, while we celebrate God’s special indwelling in a temple, we must remind ourselves that God’s presence is not confined in the temple.

 God is still everywhere.

But God manifests His glory in a special way in some persons, places, and things. A temple or church is one such place.

In earlier days, a temple, church or shrine was revered so much as to suggest that God dwelt exclusively in such places.

People went to church, participated in service, received communion and went home without knowing who was sitting beside them in church.

Spirituality was very individualistic and the man or woman sitting next to you was rather seen as a distraction in one’s intimate communion with God.

Worshippers forgot that we are brothers and sisters, and that we come to church to worship God as family.

To discourage this self-centered religiosity, Vatican Council II introduced some changes in worship such as the priest facing the people at Mass and worshipers exchanging the sign of peace.

But we swung from one extreme to the other, and today many Christians have lost the sense of the church as a sacred place, to the point that the comportment of many worshipers in our churches today borders on irreverence.

Many Christians have altogether abandoned traditional practices that were meant to remind us that we are in God’s presence when we enter the church.

These include such little things as signing oneself with holy water on entering the church, genuflecting or bowing to the altar before taking one’s seat or before leaving the church, and lowering one’s voice when one has cause to talk in church.

When we realize that the church is a holy place, a place of encounter with God, with one another and with oneself, then we bring a certain disposition of mind and body to church service which helps make worship an uplifting rather than boring experience.

Today’s celebration of the dedication of St John Lateran invites us to renew our faith in the church as a house of prayer and to cultivate habits and practices that make it easy for God to encounter us whenever we go to church.

Discerning Paradox: Why We Should Care About the Synod

by Eric Clayton

Let’s be honest: Christianity is built on seemingly irreconcilable paradoxes. God becomes human. Jesus is both God and man. Death brings life. And we’re all called to be last so that we might be first.

It’s a lot to take in — and that’s why we should all be particularly interested in this week’s extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family. There’s a lot of paradox — a lot of seemingly irreconcilable difference –and we get a front-row seat to watch the Holy Spirit work.

Any cursory glance through Catholic news reports and blogs over the last few months will show you what I mean. We’ve seen journalists at each other’s throats trying to interpret Pope Francis’ intentions. (Check out our own Mike Hayes’ predictions here.) We’ve seen arguments upon arguments about what makes a valid marriage. We’ve even seen cardinals quarreling in public.

Really, what we’ve seen is conversation and dialogue, which in reality is what we should be hoping for. Such conversation leads to good discernment and allows impossible paradoxes to become moments of creativity. (After all, not so long ago, having a retired and active pope living in the Vatican would have been considered such a paradox.)

Here are five paradoxical points of dialogue we should be attentive to during these days of conversation.

1.    Pastoral vs. Doctrinal Approach

There’s a lot of talk of streamlining the annulment process and reevaluating how the Church cares for those who are divorced. German Cardinal Walter Kasper has articulated a new way forward that would allow those who have gotten divorced and remarried to receive Communion after a period of penance, focusing more on the pastoral realities and needs of individuals without changing doctrine. Yet, can there be a pastoral approach that does not mirror doctrine? Shouldn’t our actions be reflections of our beliefs?

Here we will see the Church grappling with the nitty-gritty realities faced by so many people around the world. Here we may also see the “Francis Factor” on full display, bringing lofty language and theological concepts into the realm of everyday people. But, will this be a one-sided dialogue?

2.    Bottom-up vs. Top-down

Pope Francis shocked the Church last October when he asked that all Catholics be surveyed regarding issues affecting the family. Though it was a drastic change in Church governance — asking for input from the grassroots — the 39-question survey was unwieldy in its wording and implemented haphazardly from one diocese to the next. While some bishop conferences made it available widely, others failed to do so. And there continues to be apprehension as to how the answers will factor into the synod discussion.

How, then, can so many voices be heard? Will the airing of so many opinions be possible — or wanted — amidst the bishops’ own opinions?

3.    One Church vs. Big Tent

Some say the Church is a big tent welcoming all, even those of differing views; others say there is just one way to be Catholic. We’ve most likely heard this before, but rarely have we seen such adamant and public arguments between cardinals, bishops, and other church leaders putting this statement on display. While Cardinal Kasper expounds upon his ideas for reconciling divorced and remarried Catholics, American Cardinal Raymond Burke publicly denounces his plan. Five cardinals have also co-authored a book, Remaining in the Truth of Christ, to dismantle Cardinal Kasper’s proposal. This is a particularly pertinent paradox, as Pope Francis himself is particularly taken by Kasper’s theological approach.

Can these differing — and disparaging — views find common ground? More importantly, will the pastors themselves? The pope has plans to be actively involved in the discussions throughout the synod — unlike his predecessors. We will see how his leadership style navigates these treacherous waters.

4.    Global vs. Local

As church, we’re to make Christ known throughout the world, yet the Church looks very different depending on where in the world we are. This goes beyond giving local bishops more influence. This means that the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church must relate and react to the reality of different cultures, geographies, and governments. In thinking about issues affecting the family, Catholics in the United States often default to issues like contraception, gay marriage, and divorce. But what about interreligious dialogue, conflict, poverty, migration, or forced and child marriages? The bishops will need to develop a pastoral plan that accounts for the entirety of the Church’s needs, not just respond to a few hot-button issues.

5.    Continuity vs. Change

In the years since Vatican II, we’ve heard a lot about continuity and discontinuity — was the Church actually changed or simply renewed? Is change even possible when we’re tasked with carrying Christ’s message through the ages? We’ve seen this same conversation continue during Francis’ papacy: Has he broken with his immediate predecessors or simply changed the tone and emphasis of his teachings?

Regardless, this will certainly serve as a paradoxical backdrop to the proceedings of the synod, as doctrine cannot change but emphasis can. Working within that dichotomy, what new work is even achievable?

So, why should we care about the synod? Because we’ll see what a discerning church looks like under Pope Francis. In the end, it’s the Holy Spirit’s game — and we must allow the Spirit to work, in the Church and in ourselves. The synod begins the conversation that will culminate at the World Meeting of Families next year in Philadelphia.

That means we have a whole year for dialogue, discernment, and paradox

Pope Francis bashing is all the rage

By Scott Alessi|

blog Vatican

Poor Pope Francis. No matter what the guy says or does (or doesn’t say or doesn’t do), people are bound to use it to further their own ideological arguments. Francis’ openness to dialog and his willingness to frankly discuss touchy subjects has been taken up by those who call for change in the church as ammunition in their arguments. And for those who worry that Francis is complicating their own agenda, he’s become a common target, held up as an example of exactly what the church needs to avoid.

In the wake of the Synod on the Family, Francis bashing seems to be reaching new heights. Cranky Cardinal Raymond Burke has seemingly taken every opportunity to criticize the pope, even granting an interview to Buzzfeed of all places, in which he said Francis has “done a lot of harm.” Bishop Thomas Tobin of Rhode Island, who has in the past expressed his disappointment in Francis, wrote on his diocesan website that the pope has succeeded in “making a mess.” Coincidentally, Tobin praised Burke in the same post, calling him a “principled, articulate and fearless spokesman for the teachings of the church” while condemning Francis for putting the church in “danger of losing its courageous, counter-cultural, prophetic voice.”

Robert Mickens writes at Commonweal of an unnamed bishop saying Francis’ much talked about Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”) could have been written by a simple peasant. Mickens cites an article in the Italian daily La Stampa that talks about “enemies of the pope” who do not criticize him with respect, but who “go as far as to denigrate him.” La Stampa’ s Vatican Insider also reports that Cardinal Gerhard Mueller may or may not have snubbed the pope publicly after a tiff between the two (Mueller denies the snub, though he doesn’t dispute reports of an argument).

But fear not—you need not be a high ranking church official to take shots at Francis. Just ask Pat Buchanan, who threw his support behind Francis’ critics and warned that the pope is dangerously close to heresy. “And as it is Catholic doctrine that the pope is infallible,” Buchanan wrote, “that he cannot err when speaking ex cathedra on faith and morals, this would imply that Francis was not a valid pope and the chair of Peter is empty.” So not only can you criticize the pope, but you can suggest that if he isn’t on your side then his papacy may not even be legitimate.

The arguments from Catholics in the camp of Burke and Buchanan are nothing new, except that now they have adopted Francis as the face of their fears. But the pope isn't the one creating divisions or introducing radical ideas, he's simply bringing to the surface internal debates that have long existed and putting those arguments out in the open. Clearly that makes some people very uncomfortable. Perhaps that's because it shatters the illusion that the church is a unified body whose teachings are clear, unambiguous, and never changing, as opposed to a church that evolves in its understanding and application of age old teachings.

Francis seems to know what he's doing, and so far, he doesn't seem rattled by the criticism. He appears to be more concerned with improving the church than winning popularity contests, and suggestions that he's a heretic who is dooming the church aren't making him change course. Don't expect the personal shots at Francis to stop any time soon, but don't expect the pope to get too worked up over them either. After all, I hear he's not one to judge

Seven lessons from the Vatican’s wild and crazy Synod on the Family

(RNS) Pope Francis and senior Catholic leaders wrapped up their two-week Vatican summit on the challenges of modern family life on Sunday (October 19) without reaching a consensus on a number of hot-button topics. So where does that leave Francis’ papacy? And the church?

Here are seven takeaways:

1. Hard-liners won the battle

A midpoint status report on the debate among some 190 cardinals and bishops was described as a “pastoral earthquake” because of its unprecedented (for Catholic churchmen) language of welcome of and appreciation for gay people, as well as divorced-and-remarried Catholics and cohabiting couples.

The media tsunami over that apparent breakthrough panicked conservatives, who waged an intense public and private campaign to make sure none of that language—apparently favored by Francis himself—made it into the synod’s final report. They succeeded, and even the few watered-down paragraphs on gays and remarried Catholics did not reach the two-thirds threshold needed for formal passage.

Hard-liners claimed victory, and headlines spoke of Vatican “backtrack” and a “resounding defeat” for Francis that left his papacy “weakened.”

2. Reformers may win the war

That could be a Pyrrhic victory, one that cost more than it was worth. If the controversial passages did not reach the two-thirds benchmark they nonetheless won strong majorities. In addition, a growing number of reform-minded bishops say they voted against the contentious proposals because they did not go far enough in emphasizing the church’s welcome, respect, and value for gays and lesbians.

“I didn’t think it was a good text because it didn’t include those words strongly enough, so I wasn’t satisfied with it,” British Cardinal Vincent Nichols told The Telegraph.

Many other synod participants, including Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky., head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, also made a point of using the language of welcome that had been rejected. Controversial efforts to alter church practice to allow remarried Catholics to receive communion are also still in play, prominent church leaders said.

Francis himself also made it clear at the end of the meeting that he wants the church to be open to “new things,” and he ordered that the “defeated” proposals still be included in the text. It is likely that over the next year or two he will also appoint more like-minded cardinals and bishops who will push for changes.

3. Change is hard

Change is especially hard for the Roman Catholic Church, which likes to present itself—and its teachings—as immutable. But history shows that doctrine has changed (or “developed,” as theologians say) and many synod participants reiterated that teachings could, and should, be adapted for today’s new family realities.

Still, finding the theological language to justify such shifts, and the pastoral mechanisms to carry them out, is difficult. The bishops meeting in Rome (those who weren’t opposed to any changes) were all over the map when it came to specifics, and it may take time to settle on acceptable solutions, if there are any.

4. Catholicism is ‘flirting with an Anglican moment’

That’s a phrase New York Times columnist Ross Douthat used on Twitter in discussing the resistance of African bishops to what they saw as the synod’s focus on Western concerns like divorce and homosexuality, and efforts to adapt church teaching on those issues in ways that the African churches would not accept.

The Anglican Communion is the global network of 38 autonomous member churches with some 80 million members—including the 2 million-member Episcopal Church, its U.S. branch. Anglicans have been divided almost to the point of breaking as African churches have rejected moves by Western members to open the sacraments to gays and lesbians.

That dynamic is also a risk for Rome, as African Catholicism is also growing in size and influence. Two key differences, however: About 16 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics live in Africa, whereas well over half of all Anglicans are from Africa, and they have a far greater say in the future direction of Anglicanism. In addition, Catholic proposals to be more welcoming to gays are a far cry from the changes pursued by some Anglican churches.

5. Speech is free

Amid all the lobbying and armchair analysis, it’s important to step back and realize that in the three decades before Francis was elected pope, bishops, priests, and theologians could have been investigated, censured, silenced, or fired for many of the ideas that were being openly discussed at the synod. That is perhaps the real earthquake, and it’s one that Francis himself wanted.

6. Talk is cheap

On the other hand, be careful what you pray for. Francis has long urged Catholics to say what they think without fear of reprisals. Opening the synod, he again reminded the participants that he had just one condition for their talks: “Speak clearly. Let no one say: ‘This you cannot say.’“

And by all accounts they did, with great passion inside the synod hall, but even more sharply in the press. The various interest groups seeking to influence the discussions were often much less diplomatic. As one cardinal put it to the Catholic news site Crux, at a certain point open discussion becomes “chaos.”

7. Francis is the “Pope of Process”

That’s what Grant Gallicho of Commonweal magazine called the pontiff. Francis and his fellow Jesuits might prefer to characterize his method as “discernment.”

Either way, it means that this synod was not the end, but the beginning. Nothing has been decided, and nothing is off the table. There will be another longer, and larger, synod next October, and between now and then Francis says he wants everyone to continue to debate and discuss. Which they are already doing.

In the first week of November, Catholic University in Washington will present a lecture by Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog and an outspoken opponent of the proposed reforms. Three days later, the campus will host another German theologian, Cardinal Walter Kasper, a leading proponent of reforms and Mueller’s chief sparring partner.

Pull up a chair. Discernment can be entertaining as well as enlightening.