The quest for safe, generic, 'ceremonial' prayers

As the members of the Town of Greece Board prepared for business, a local Catholic priest rose to offer a short prayer. "Heavenly Father, you guide and govern everything with order and love," said Father John Forni, of St. John the Evangelist parish. "Look upon this assembly of our town leaders. ... May they always act in accordance with your will, and may their decision be for the well being of all. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace. Amen."

Perhaps it was the "Father" God reference, or even that final trinity of blessings, but this 2004 prayer was listed (.pdf) among those considered too "sectarian" during the Town of Greece v. Galloway case that recently reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Most religious conservatives cheered the high court's 5-4 ruling, which said local leaders could continue to allow volunteers from different faiths to open meetings with "ceremonial" prayers that included explicit doctrinal references to their traditions, even references to Jesus Christ. The court majority also said it was crucial that one faith not dominate others and that prayers must not be allowed to "denigrate" other viewpoints, to "threaten damnation" or to "preach conversion."

However, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted for the majority: "To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian would force the legislatures sponsoring prayers and the courts deciding these cases to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech, thus involving government in religious matters to a far greater degree than is the case under the town's current practice of neither editing nor approving prayers in advance nor criticizing their content after the fact."

Kennedy's bottom line: "It is doubtful that consensus could be reached as to what qualifies as a generic or nonsectarian prayer."

Even among church-state analysts who disagreed on the decision, this theme -- that the state must be denied the power to determine which prayers are generic or safe enough -- emerged as crucial common ground.

"Put bluntly, government has no right to declare that the only God welcome in public is a 'generic God,' " noted the Rev. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in online commentary. "That is a profoundly important constitutional argument. For Christians, this is also a profoundly important theological argument. We do not believe that any 'generic God' exists, nor can we allow that some reference to a 'generic God' is a reference to the God of the Bible."

On the liberal side of Baptist life, Bill Leonard of the Wake Forest School of Divinity openly challenged the belief that the state should have the power to determine when prayers cross the line and become oppressive. "What government official," he asked, "will judge when one person's prayerful 'conviction' becomes another's 'damnation?' "

Labeling his perspective that of an "old-timey Baptist," Leonard said the big question is why so many rush to embrace "ceremonial" prayers in the first place.

"There may be government-centered ceremonies where the deity is addressed in various forms, but let's not stoop to calling it prayer," he said, in online analysis. "Prayer is talking to God, not to the Emperor, the President, the Congress, political parties, county commissioners or people gathered for hearings about potholes, zoning or sanitation. They may all need prayer, but certainly not the ceremonial kind.

"Prayer is anything but ceremonial; it burns in the soul, dances in the feet, erupts from the gut. ... No, no, Mr. Justice. Government use of prayer to tout privileged 'religious leaders' or their 'institutions' trivializes faith's most wondrous connection: a confrontation with the Divine."

This complex debate is packed with political and religious ironies, noted Francis Beckwith, who teaches philosophy and Church-State Studies at Baylor University.

Many liberals, especially unbelievers, would like to ban public prayer altogether, yet accept non-sectarian prayers as "their own kind of don't ask, don't tell policy," he said. Meanwhile, some conservatives feel "so squeezed out of everything" and "so under attack" that they grudgingly accept watered-down expressions of public faith.

In the end, he added, "Christians -- on the left or the right -- should worry about representatives of the state trying to co-opt their leaders and their symbols and their language to serve some particular political cause or movement. ... That temptation is always out there."

Dueling saints from the Second Vatican Council?

History will show St. John XXIII was a pastor with an "exquisite openness to the Holy Spirit," while St. John Paul II will be known "as the pope of the family." That was as close as Pope Francis came to providing the sound bite all the so-called Vatican experts were waiting to hear during the historic St. Peter's Square rites in which he -- with the retired Pope Benedict XVI looking on -- elevated to sainthood two popes who did so much to shape modern Catholicism.

The media mantra called the humble Pope John XXIII the patron saint of the left, while Pope John Paul II was the courageous general for the right. Clearly, Pope Francis' goal was to broker peace between these warring Catholic camps.

Francis stayed the course.

"St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II were ... priests, bishops and popes of the 20th century," he said. "They lived through the tragic events of that century, but they were not overwhelmed by them. For them, God was more powerful; faith was more powerful -- faith in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of man and the Lord of history."

Francis then linked both saints to the Second Vatican Council, the seismic event that defined their era: "John XXIII and John Paul II cooperated with the Holy Spirit in renewing and updating the Church in keeping with her pristine features, those features which the saints have given her throughout the centuries."

So both popes sought renewal, but also to guard the faith's foundations. After all, in his October 11, 1962 address that opened the Council, Pope John XXIII declared: "The greatest concern of the ecumenical council is this -- that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously."

The young Bishop Karol Wojtyla of Poland was an active participant at Vatican II. The future Pope John Paul II was known for his contribution to the epic constitution "The Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes)," which he loved to quote, along with various other Vatican II texts.

In fact, during his "heroically long pontificate" -- almost 27 years -- John Paul offered detailed written and verbal commentary on "virtually every controversial or disputed point in the Council documents and on the event of the Council itself," noted Father John Zuhlsdorf, at his popular "What does the Prayer Really Say?" weblog.

The future St. John Paul the Great, as many are already calling him, "may not have solved, settled, definitively pronounced, on every controversial issue, but he offers commentary and insight on them. ... I think Francis was steering us to John Paul II as an additional interpretive lens, for a proper hermeneutic of reform."

Meanwhile, it's also important to remember that "conventional political labels" like "liberal" and "conservative" are simply inadequate when discussing the work of saints, said Father James Martin, a Jesuit best known as The Colbert Report chaplain and through books such as "My Life with the Saints" and "Jesus: A Pilgrimage."

In terms of the substance of his life and work, both liturgical and doctrinal, Pope John XXIII is "probably best thought of as a 'conservative.' I think that on moral and sexual issues ... he probably would have implemented the Council's work in the same way as John Paul."

Meanwhile, John Paul II did so much to push forward on issues such as economic justice, world peace, ecumenism, mass communications and a host of other subjects. It's impossible to look at the sweep of his remarkable life and conclude, as some critics have, that his pontificate was dedicated to "trying to slam the lid back on" after the Second Vatican Council. "That's just too simplistic to argue that," he said.

The larger truth is that both of these popes, now hailed as saints, embodied the work of the Second Vatican Council, each in their own way, in their own time.

"It's true that there were clusters of issues that led Catholics in different camps to adopt one or the other as their hero," said Martin. "But those labels are so limiting, while the lives of these two men were not. ... People that insist on using political labels keep trying to turn everything into a contest about who wins and who loses. That's not the way to talk about the lives of the saints."

Year 26: Frustrated Catholics playing 'Name that pope'

Soon after Pope Francis skyrocketed into media superstardom, some frustrated Catholics started playing an online game that could be called "Name that pope." Most of them were not upset with what their charismatic shepherd from Argentina was actually saying and doing. Instead, they were frustrated with the media storm portraying him as radically different -- in substance -- from his predecessors.

Frankly, this is one of the strangest stories I have seen during the many years -- 26 as of last week -- I have been writing this "On Religion" syndicated column.

Want to try this game? Start with this quotation: "The reservation of the priesthood to males, as a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives himself in the Eucharist, is not a question open to discussion."

Name that pope: That's Pope Francis, believe it or not.

Round two: "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs."

Name that pope: That's Pope Benedict XVI.

Round three: "If we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, we make of our possessions a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! ... Instead of bringing life, they bring death."

Name that pope: Benedict, again.

Round four: "Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. ... Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church's effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. ... It is not 'progressive' to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life."

Name that pope: Francis, of course.

What's going on? Many progressives now shouting praises at Francis don't seem familiar with the doctrines he is supposedly modernizing, according to Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, a Catholic Republican in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

"This old wine of the Gospel has become new again in Pope Francis' way of expressing and living it. 'Bombshell' is the word that pundits attach to comments he makes that are nothing more nor less than what the Church has taught from the beginning," she wrote, at the Public Catholic website.

Another religion-beat veteran, someone who has read daily Vatican dispatches for 20 years, thinks it's "nonsense" to say that Francis has suddenly shifted Rome's concerns away from contraception, abortion and homosexuality to poverty, peace and environmentalism. If there has been a dominant theme under recent popes, it has been human rights.

"It was the media, some advocacy groups on both sides and perhaps some individual bishops -- but not the popes -- who were fixated on what is so wrongly mischaracterized as 'pelvic issues,' " said Ann Rodgers, who recently became communications director for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh after several decades covering religion in the mainstream press.

So why is Pope Francis a media star and "Teflon" when it comes to criticism? Speaking at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Rodgers said the key is that famous Marshall McLuhan statement: "The medium is the message."

After his election, Francis declined a limo and rode a bus to dinner with other cardinals. The next day he famously paid his own bill at the international residence house, where he had often stayed in the past and knew the staff by name.

"The medium is the message," said Rodgers.

The list goes on and on. Last fall, the pope publicly embraced a man with a horribly disfigured face. He warned Mafiosi to repent or face hell. On his first Maundy Thursday, he washed the feet of inmates, including women and non-Christians.

"When he is washing the feet of a Muslim girl, he is not making a claim that she is a Christian or that Islam and Christianity are in any way interchangeable," said Rodgers. "He is saying, 'You are a Muslim girl. You are a prisoner and I love you, in the name of Jesus. I am here to serve you, in the name of Jesus.' ...

"He takes away her sense of shame, but in a way that may help her aspire to holiness. He's not just talking about mercy. He's not just talking about loving the stranger who is our neighbor. The medium is the message."

Building a new monastery in the isles of Celtic giants

Father Seraphim Aldea is so committed to building the first Orthodox monastery in the Scottish isles in more than a millennium that he did something no monk searching for solitude would ever, ever do. "I learned how to use that dreadful Facebook thing," he said.

The Romanian monk has already been handed an abandoned Church of Scotland sanctuary on Mull Island. While Kilninian was built in 1755, it appears in 1561 records as a site associated with the great Monastery of St. Columba on Iona. Thus, this property may have been linked to monasticism as early as the 7th century.

But there is a problem. The Atlantic coast of Scotland, including the 150 main Hebrides islands, is now a "Designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" -- which means major restrictions for anyone wanting to build or restore anything.

Normally, starting a monastery means obtaining land and then gathering some monks to move there, noted Father Seraphim, during a fundraising swing through the Baltimore area. The monks build their facility and then it's dedicated. But that isn't how things work in Great Britain these days. Before the 34-year-old monk can build a single monastic cell he has to buy land that can provide running water and a sewage system.

"I need your help ... to build that toilet," he said, drawing laughter from his audience. "It sounds stupid, but that's all there is. We can build the first monastery in the Hebrides in over a millennium if I can build a toilet."

Scotland and Ireland have for centuries -- well before the 1054 schism between Rome and the Orthodox East -- been famous for the work of St. Columba, St. Brigid, St. Brendan and other great Celtic monastics. Pilgrims continue to flock to these lands to visit ruins on these sacred sites.

It is customary for the boatloads of pilgrims headed to Iona to stop on Mull Island, noted Father Seraphim. Thus, the goal is to build a new monastery (mullmonastery.com) out of local stone for those who want to stop, rest and pray, or even to spend several days as visitors. The chapel will remain dedicated to Saints Ninian and Cuthbert, while the monastery will house a community of nuns, since it is "likely that a pack of bearded foreign men" would be harder for "the locals to trust," he said.

A group of Catholics has already made a similar attempt, but eventually gave up and donated the sanctuary to the Orthodox -- under the condition that Kilninian would become part of a monastic community.

Father Seraphim, who is 34, noted that he knew nothing about the great Celtic monastics when he began doing graduate work in England, concluding with a doctorate in history at the University of Durham. Then his bishop asked him to consider working near London or, perhaps to continue his scholarly research in Paris.

However, Father Seraphim told his superior that he "felt called to solitude." When told about the abandoned sanctuary in the Hebrides, the young monk asked: "Do you know someone mad enough to be willing to go and live there?"

If he is able to purchase five acres providing clean water and a septic system, Father Seraphim plans to move to Kilninian this coming fall. He said he is convinced, after preliminary research, that there are still believers in England who feel called to monasticism. In addition to several "semi-monastic houses," there appear to be a number of hermits in various parts of the land who are dedicated to prayer and worship.

"This vocation is there, it still pulsates in these islands," he said. "What people are lacking is tradition. They need examples -- not one, not two, but several real monasteries -- so that they may have somewhere to learn from without having to leave their country."

Meanwhile, if Americans are concerned about the faith's future in their own land, then they need to be concerned about this kind of renewal project in postmodern England and elsewhere in Europe, said Father Seraphim.

"England and Scotland and Ireland are the lands of your ancestors," he said. "It sounds strange to say it, but the truth is that whatever happens in Western Europe today will take place everywhere in the world in about 50 years. If we let those countries go completely ... it is going to affect us all."

Time for another rant about Lent

With Ash Wednesday behind them, online friends of Hollywood screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi braced themselves for what has become a Lenten tradition -- fasting-day manifestos from the witty former nun. "It's a Friday of Lent dear Catholic brethren. And you know what that means," she wrote on Facebook. "Corporate Sacrifice Power Activate! No meat. No braised oxtail. No venison medallions. No veal short ribs. No rabbit sausage. NO MEAT. No Muscovy Duck. No Turkey jerky. No Kangaroo Loin Fillets. nO mEAt. No elk flank steaks. No Wagyu beef. No Chicken Kiev. No MeAt. No meat. No meat. NO MEAT."

In case anyone missed the point, Nicolosi has strong convictions about the tendency these days among Sunday Mass Catholics to assume that centuries of traditions about fasting and the spiritual disciplines of Lent have been erased from the church's teachings and canon law.

Yes, skipping that Friday cheeseburger may seem like a symbolic gesture for many Americans, she said, reached by telephone. Nevertheless, these kinds of small sacrifices add up and they can help believers focus on bigger questions about this life and the life to come.

"The attitude among way too many people these days is that there's no real sin in anything, anywhere, anymore," said Nicolosi, who leads The Story Institute at Azusa Pacific University. "Everyone has taken in the idea that God loves them and then decided that the whole idea of sin and repentance and sacrifice and punishment and hell just doesn't make any sense. ...

"It's like there are no bare minimum membership requirements for being a Catholic and there's no bare minimum requirements for Lent. There's no eternal accountability. Everyone thinks they're basically OK and that everything they want is basically OK."

Meanwhile, in an ironic twist, it seems that more Americans are talking about the 40-plus day penitential season before Easter. And Lent isn't just for Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox anymore. Lent is for bookish evangelicals and all kinds of liberal mainline Protestants, not just Episcopalians. Ministers in a variety of churches are distributing Lenten meditation booklets, planning special retreats and even adding midweek services for truly die-hard worshipers.

But at the heart of this modernized version of Lent is a popular concept that has little or nothing to do with ancient church traditions. This is, of course, the idea of each individual believer choosing to "give up one thing" for Lent and then, apparently, sharing this choice with the world through social media.

A recent glance at the 2014 Twitter Lent Tracker found that the Top 10 items to sacrifice during Lent were school, chocolate, Twitter, swearing, alcohol, soda, online social networking, sweets, fast food and, wait for it, Lent. Giving up meat came in 11th and surrendering coffee was the 14th choice. Those in need of guidance may turn to WhatToGiveUpForLent.com for help.

"To the extent people avoid 'real Lent,' I would suppose it's because of our society's difficulty with the idea of religion making claims on our lives and obligations," said Jimmy Akin, director of apologetics for the Catholic.com website.

"To the extent people embrace this 'do-it-yourself Lent,' I would think it's because of two factors: first, our innate religious impulse seeking a way to express itself and, second, the therapeutic, self-help current in our culture."

Meanwhile, the updated online resources in what Akin calls his annual "Lenten rant" continue to note that Catholics are supposed to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday, the Fridays of Lent and Good Friday. He added: "The law of abstinence binds everyone who is 14 years old and up unless they have a medical condition that would interfere significantly with abstinence from meat."

Meanwhile, Nicolosi noted, it may be a good thing that the spiritual curious are at least experimenting with the "give up one thing" Lite Lent concept. The problem is that so many Catholics have settled for this radically individualized take on a crucial season in church life.

"Come on, people! It's Lent," she said. "We are supposed to believe in the power of corporate prayer and sacrifice and we should be hearing about that from our priests and bishops. ... It totally frosts my cookies that I have heard more about Lent this year on Fox News than I have from the pulpit of my own church. That's just not right."

The pope and the Pentecostal smartphone

The image projected onto the giant screen above the recent Kenneth Copeland Ministries conference was not your typical clever smartphone video. Still, the crowd of Pentecostal Protestants was mesmerized because the shepherd vested in white who addressed them -- in Italian, with subtitles -- was one of the last men on earth they would have expected to warmly bestow his blessing on them.

Pope Francis stressed that they "must encounter one another as brothers. We must cry together. ... These tears will unite us, the tears of love. ... I speak to you in a simple way, with joy and yearning. Let us allow our yearning to grow, because this will propel us to find each other, to embrace one another and together to worship Jesus Christ as the only Lord of History."

There was another historic twist at the end. The pope from Latin America asked the flock in Texas for a spiritual favor, which would have been unthinkable during decades of bitter tensions between established Catholic churches and the rising tide of Protestant -- usually Pentecostal -- believers in the Americas.

"I thank you profoundly for allowing me to speak the language of the heart," said Pope Francis. "Please pray for me, because I need your prayers. ... Let us pray to the Lord that He unites us all. Come on, we are brothers. Let's give each other a spiritual hug and let God complete the work that he has begun. And this is a miracle. The miracle of unity has begun."

Copeland then took the stage, shouting, "Glory! Glory! Glory! Come on, the man asked us to pray for him!"

Many in the crowd lifted their hands and began speaking in what Pentecostal Christians believe are heavenly, unknown tongues. Copeland -- a global televangelist -- proclaimed: "Father we answer his request. ... We know not how to pray for him as we ought, other than to agree with him in his quest ... for the unity of the Body of Christ. We come together in the unity of our faith. Hallelujah!"

This drama was the result of relationships forged behind the scenes. The video was recorded during a Jan. 14 visit to Rome by Bishop Anthony Palmer, a Pentecostal minister from England who is part of the independent Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches. He traveled to Argentina five years ago to work with Catholic Charismatic Renewal leaders and also met the local Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio -- now Pope Francis. Their ongoing friendship led to an invitation to visit the Vatican.

The pope's video, and its enthusiastic reception by Copeland and his flock, caused a sensation on the Internet. The key was the contrast between the image of the Jesuit pope with a media-friendly flare for simple living and that of Copeland, an elder statesman of what critics call the "prosperity Gospel."

Meanwhile, some Protestants worried about Palmer's challenge to the crowd: "Brothers and sisters, Luther's protest is over. Is yours?" And some Catholics pondered the pope's statement: "It is sin that has separated us, all our sins. ... It has been a long road of sins that we all shared in. Who is to blame? We all share the blame."

Both of these reactions miss the point, noted Marcel LeJeune, the assistant director of campus ministry at the thriving St. Mary's Catholic Center at Texas A&M University. The goal of the pope's message was to demonstrate Christian unity where it could be demonstrated -- in prayer and encouragement -- rather than doctrinal debates.

"This is what Christian unity looks like," he argued in a commentary at the Aggie Catholics website. "It doesn't ignore the differences that we have with our non-Catholic brothers and sisters. It isn't triumphalistic. It isn't us vs. them."

At the same time, speaking as a Catholic raised in Texas, LeJeune said it was stunning to see a flock of evangelical leaders openly praying for the pope, instead of, as was common in the past, "talking about Rome being the great whore of Babylon."

Catholics and conservative Protestants have to "find some middle ground between sitting in a circle singing 'Kumbaya' and sitting off by ourselves going on and on about our many differences," he said, in a telephone interview. "We have to see each other as brothers and sisters, rather than enemies, or we will just keep driving stakes into the hearts people who are open to becoming believers."