BY: FR. MICHAEL D. PLACE, STD
Fr. Place is president and chief executive officer, Catholic Health Association,
St. Louis.
This column is being written in later July as we prepare for our historic joint
meeting with Catholic Charities USA, Celebration 275. Even as we celebrate so
much that has been accomplished, we cannot separate ourselves from the realities
that surround us. What follows will be some reflections on some of those realities.
September 11
As you know, my service to the "ministry gathered" that is CHA involves a great
deal of air travel. Consequently I am reminded several times a week, as I experience
airport security, of how life has changed because of the tragic events that
unfolded on that fateful day, September 11, 2001.
Clearly one result has been a resurgence of a sense of patriotism. The New
York Times editorialized about this on July 4 when it said, in part:
The burst of patriotism that followed September 11 was more than a mere
articulation of the obvious, that this country and its principals had been
attacked. For many Americans it was also an acknowledgement of the willingness
to sacrifice some part of their time — that space between day-to-day duties
that feels so much like freedom itself — to protect the real thing. We imagined,
in the intensity of the moment, that the sacrifice would entail some grand
new patriotic adventure. Over the long run of the normal days that followed,
we have come to realize that for most of us it will be as mundane as standing
without complaint in long lines at the airport.
The New York Times went on to reflect on the freedom that our patriotism
is called to serve. The newspaper observed that "feeling one's freedom is a
little like trying to feel the rotation of the earth. It taxes imagination .
. ." to encounter it. How true that is. There is no simple rulebook to describe
freedom or the patriotism that serves it. In a sense, freedom and patriotism
are abstractions that must be enfleshed continuously. Our founding ancestors
knew this, which is why they had the boldness to proclaim that both concepts
were to be ordered or directed by two other overarching realities. The first
reality is the conviction that there exist some fundamental truths that provide
both foundation and context for how we imagine or give flesh to abstract notions
such as patriotism and freedom. It is these "first principles," if you will,
that should differentiate our patriotism from Nazi militarism, our sense of
freedom from the so-called freedom that communism afforded the proletariat.
The second reality is the commitment to the democratic process. As messy and
uneven as it is, the great American experiment is driven by an almost naive
belief that in the long run it is better to trust the common sense of the majority
than to cede control to any elite. But, because patriotism and freedom are more
evocative than substantive, we need a way with which we can explain to each
other and come to a shared understanding of what they entail — what they require
of us as individuals and as a society.
It is in times of crisis such as September 11 that, as individuals and as
a nation, we test, reappropriate, or refine this understanding. Crises such
as these become something akin to the "crisis of limitations" that, as individuals,
we face periodically during our own life journeys.
As we reflect on this current moment, I would suggest, we are confronting
two critical issues that will define our understanding of patriotism and freedom
for the near future.
Vulnerability Many commentators have observed that September 11 has
left us with a collective sense of uncertainty and vulnerability about our personal
and collective security within our national boundaries. The confidence that,
because of our unchallenged global military superiority, our national ego had
developed since the embarrassment that was Pearl Harbor has been shattered.
We, like the citizens of Belfast or Tel Aviv, know that the tranquility of social
order and even the breath of life can be extinguished in a moment of what, to
us, seems to be senseless violence. Similarly, our image of ourselves as the
global "good guy" or "white hat" is challenged by the reality that, for the
perpetrators of the violence, their actions are an expression of calculated
purposefulness, destroying what they perceive to be the arrogance of the Western,
liberal, postmodern, post-Christian hegemony of the world order.
At issue, then, is how do we respond to this very real threat? Clearly our
national and Catholic heritage support a robust understanding of a just self-defense.
Nations and individuals have a right to secure borders and safe homes. Just
as there is legitimacy in the active pursuit of domestic criminals so, too,
there is a legitimate pursuit by the community of nations of those who
would threaten legitimate national boundaries or bring violence to individuals
or groups on the basis of race, gender, religion, or national heritage. The
pursuit of either is an expression of patriotism that calls for the extraordinary
and mundane self-sacrifice about which the New York Times wrote.
But such pursuit must be given the order or direction that is provided by
the inalienable truths contained in our national charter documents and in those
international covenants that are so congruent with our Catholic vision of the
common good, international solidarity, and the constraints of a just war. Without
those restraints, our patriotism can be accused of being as misguided or even,
God forbid, as evil as the militarism of the then-president and now jailed Slobodan
Milosevic. Dialogue on such matters never comes easy for a nation. The Vietnam
War debate that divided our country is a poignant reminder of that fact. To
avoid that dialogue or to stifle it with accusations of a lack of patriotism
is, ironically, to be quite "un-American," because in so doing, we deny that
which makes us who we are — a democracy born of trust in the common folk setting
national direction.
As Catholics, we have an obligation to bring to that dialogue, first, a trust
in divine providence that can allow us to make good choices even in the midst
of profound vulnerability, and, second, a humility that comes from knowing that
human sinfulness is real, the awareness of which tempers our moral analysis.
We know that the line between patriotic self-defense and militaristic imperialism
is razor thin, and that the temptation to cross it as inviting as a luscious
apple.
The "Other" Understandably associated with the vulnerability of which
we have been speaking is a desire to mitigate that fear and powerlessness by
searching out the enemy — the "other" in our midst — and ensuring that the enemy
cannot do us harm. In pursuit of this goal, it is not uncommon for nations to
limit or curtail customary freedoms. Because the concept of freedom is so abstract,
the limitation of those freedoms must be guided by or informed by a moral discourse
that is much more robust than the simple goal of "finding the enemy."
As a nation we need to remind ourselves that, at best, we do not have the
most noble of track records in this regard. For reasons that we now question
or regret, we have in the past identified as "witches" a variety of people — Native
Americans; foreign-born Irish, German, and Polish Catholics; and citizens of
Japanese descent — in such a way that some or most of their freedoms could be
constrained permanently or temporarily. Clearly there is a profound price to
be paid by a nation founded as the "land of the free" when it indulges in an
unrestrained pursuit of security that finds solace in declaring a few not to
be worthy of freedom. Clearly our commitment to those who are poor or marginalized
compels us, as a Catholic community, to be a voice of moral concern in our neighborhoods
and communities for our sisters and brothers of Middle Eastern (or other) descent
or the Muslim faith, lest they become ostracized or their freedoms inappropriately
restrained.
Crisis in the Church
In June I was, as is customary, an official guest at the annual spring meeting
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. I was present to hear Bishop Gregory's
courageous opening address, in which he candidly outlined the depth and breadth
of the issues facing the church in the United States because of clerical misconduct
and apologized to all who have been and are being injured. I also listened to
the riveting reflections by those who have been victims of that abuse. I also
saw and felt the impact of their powerful testimony to trust betrayed and lives
shattered on the bishops, many of whom were experiencing such personal witnessing
with its pain and anger for the first time. This was followed by two loving
but incredibly forthright, if not confrontative, reflections on the current
moment by two leading Catholic lay persons. When that portion of the meeting
ended, one knew that in one way or another the future would be changed because
of the events of that day. The only question concerned the parameters of that
change.
Clearly much has been written and spoken about what is an evolving reality.
I especially commend the reflections of Fr. Bryan Hehir that appeared in the
last issue of this journal ("Credibility, Competency, and Care," Health Progress,
July-August 2002, pp. 35-36). We will engage this reality again during Celebration
275. As I reflect on all that we are experiencing, it seems helpful to distinguish
the various ways in which we experience this moment. Let me mention two.
In one way or another, we experience this crisis as a believer in the family
of faith that is the church, and as believers, our perspective on this moment
is impacted by our other experiences as believers. If one is already unsettled
or alienated or angry, the current events will only make matters worse. No matter
what those individual "pre-existing ecclesial conditions" are, there is some
similarity between this ecclesial crisis and September 11. As with September
11, for many the breadth and depth of this situation has challenged, and for
some shattered, the trust they had placed in those who are called to serve as
leaders in the community of faith. Though in absolute terms the numbers involved
are small, the significance of those actions of child abuse or episcopal failure
has taken on symbolic importance far beyond the individual impact. It is not
surprising that a community that is nurtured and sustained by a symbolic, sacramental
imagination should also have an encounter with finitude, failure, sinfulness,
and evil that would come to have a symbolic significance that is difficult to
fully appreciate.
However, a failure to appreciate this symbolic significance will guarantee
a worsening of the situation. As important as new rules and protocols are, they
will not themselves restore peace in the family of faith. The far deeper issues
for all baptized believers, who by virtue of their baptism share equally in
the mission of Jesus Christ, must be named and addressed if we are to be able
to believe in and trust those who pastor as priest or bishop. As believers,
we trust that relations that have been injured can be restored, but this requires
that contrition be expressed, that forgiveness be sought and given, and
that a firm intention of amendment be enshrined in effective structures and
systems of inclusive accountability. All this may require an extraordinary openness
to God's grace. We also know that a restored or healed relationship will never
be as it was before the injury. It is important that all of us be open to a
different future that, with God's grace, ultimately could be a better future.
We also experience the crisis as leaders, in one way or another, of
a ministry of the church. We know we do not act in our own names but, rather,
by virtue of being commissioned by the church. Consequently, although not responsible
for the crisis, we should assume that it is possible that in some way or other
our ability to lead will be affected. Of particular concern is our ability to
be an effective witness in the arena of public policy to our ethical and social
justice commitments. As unfortunate as such a negative impact would be, it would
be far worse if this time of crisis were to occasion a failure of nerve that
would result in our withdrawing from or reducing our activism on behalf of our
deeply held convictions. That would be a real crisis for the voiceless for whom
we speak so often.
Scandal in the Business World
As I write this, the stock market is in disarray. The business, financial,
and accounting professions have been found wanting and we are experiencing a
yet-to-be-measured crisis of confidence by the public and the investors. Commentators
who describe the resulting erosion of the savings of the retired and others
do not mention that erosion in the investments of the health care ministry (which
have helped us in recent years to continue the ministry) is also significant.
It is too soon to know the long-term significance of all this for the business
and public policy aspects of the ministry. We also do not know if or how the
"business culture" that nurtured the root causes of this crisis has impacted
the ministry. "Being in the world (though not of the world)" would suggest at
least the possibility of some impact. This would suggest that it might do us
well to review our own business and accounting practices to make sure they reflect
our ethical commitments. After all, one of the lessons of the recent events
is that one can be both legally correct and ethically wrong.