Last month, V. Gene Robinson became almost a household name in much of the United States, at least among the 2.3 million American Episcopalians.

News of his election as bishop of New Hampshire, and his confirmation in that office by clergy and lay delegates meeting in Minneapolis stirred widespread interest, and in many places, vigorous controversy. Many leaders of the church rejected, as contrary to Bible teaching, the choice of a gay man living in a sexual relationship with another gay man.

Some Anglican bishops, notably those in Africa, have even threatened to split with the Episcopal Church in America. Whether they will actually do so remains unclear, but the danger to the Anglican communion has become serious enough to move Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to call for a special meeting in London next month.

Pressing though this situation is, it may surprisingly have only a relatively minor impact upon the spiritual life of most Episcopalians. A new report published by the Episcopal Church Foundation, an agency linked to the church but independent of it, finds members of local congregations focusing more on their own prayer and public worship than on controversial issues affecting the church nationally and internationally.

Based on a survey of some 2500 people in 300 different congregations, this study discovers a remarkably strong devotion to spiritual practice among members of the church. Commitment to public worship and to the Prayer Book have become “core dimensions of Episcopal identity,” say the researchers. People regard this as central to their lives and those of their congregations. The Eucharist especially looms large in their spiritual life.

Much like many people in other traditions, these parishioners find they can live with many unresolved questions about their faith and with ambiguities in their beliefs. Most of these people feel a “profound sense of community,” along with a sense of mission and the desire to reach out to others. They also show themselves able to combine a sense of tradition with an openness to change.

They feel their local congregation to be both creative and supportive of them. A sense of common purpose impresses many and they welcome the growing expansion of their role as laypeople.

As to current tensions in the church, their views were found to go against expectations. “Difficult questions related to sexuality, doctrinal clarity, and other volatile issues, are not distracting local congregations,” says the report. However, many laypeople do bemoan the lack of effective leadership in the church.

Finally, the increasing role of women is not a problem for members at large. They wish to continue inclusion of diverse cultures. At the same time they consider it a major challenge for the church “to draw on both its Christian traditions and its search for contemporary spirituality in a way that will strengthen Christian community.”

In a recent column, Peter Steinfels, religion writer for the New York Times, judged the document valuable for suggesting that the Episcopal Church is not on the verge of coming apart over issues of homosexuality and other such questions. In centering on their own spiritual life, Episcopalians have more stability than the news media would make one expect.

Some observers judge the situation even better than the report indicates. Rev. Robert Tobin, rector of Christ Church in Cambridge, knows many Episcopalians who combine a deep spiritual life with concern for the larger issues. Rather than choosing between the two, these people bring into their spirituality a commitment to the Church’s efforts to deal with controversial material.

Barbara Braver, Assistant to the Presiding Bishop for Communication, also suggests that people’s spirituality is wide enough to include the highly publicized questions. “I don’t think the study indicates that there is in the church a ‘me and Jesus’ stance,” she says. Rather, people are concerned about both their own spiritual life and the larger issues of the whole church.

While welcoming the emphases of the two inside observers mentioned here, I would add another lesson. For me, the study’s central value is to show once again how people value religion because it supports their spirituality. Episcopalians, it turns out, appreciate their church and its traditions because they find in them the way to prayer, worship, community, ministry and other precious spiritual goods. When combined with concern for the big issues of the church at large, that looks like spiritual health.

Richard Griffin

In the next few months, if not weeks, the Vatican will announce that Pope John Paul II has appointed new cardinals.  At least, this is my prediction of an event that has become routine every few years.  It does not take a soothsayer to foresee this happening soon.

When it does happen, Sean O’Malley, the new archbishop of Boston, will almost surely be one of those chosen.  Because he holds this position in the third or fourth largest archdiocese in the United States with more than two million Catholics, he will be included among those favored by the pope for this honor. The last four of his predecessors –  Archbishops O’Connell, Cushing, Medeiros, and Law – were all selected for the red hat and installed with much hoopla surrounding the event.

I would like to suggest that Archbishop O’Malley turn down the appointment as cardinal.

To most right-thinking people this suggestion will undoubtedly sound outrageous. They will quickly point to the advantages of Boston’s archbishop accepting the position and they may even judge it an affront to the pope if he were to refuse it.

Among the advantages, the most important is the role of cardinal as papal elector. Since the year 1059, cardinals have had the responsibility of voting for the next pope when the seat has fallen vacant. After they have determined their choice by at least a two- thirds majority, then the ballots are burned, white smoke seeps out into the air, and people assembled in St. Peter’s square see that someone has been elected.

Cardinals also have special access to the pope and can advise him on issues of importance to the church. They have leverage with other church leaders also, bringing more prestige to bear than do other bishops.

However, the cardinalate remains largely honorary and does not confer on the holder of this office any spiritual advantages.  As a matter of fact, it carries with it, in my opinion, certain disadvantages from the vantage point of spirituality and this is my chief reason for suggesting that Sean O’Malley content himself with being archbishop.

Not only does the Bible offer no basis for the office of cardinal, but the words of Jesus in the Gospels conflict with the pomp and circumstance that so often attend the role. In many ways, he emphasized to his disciples the importance of simplicity and personal humility, along with the avoidance of external show.

In St. Matthew’s Gospel, for instance, Jesus contrasts the style the apostles are to follow by contrast with that of secular rulers. “You know,” he says, “that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.”

In other texts Jesus disapproves of his followers seeking the place of honor at banquets and he tells them to avoid external show of piety in favor of the interior spirit of religion. The lifestyle of American cardinals, who dress in brilliant red and are deferred to at every step, seems hardly compatible with the words of Jesus. Also the disproportionate influence they have among the American bishops as a group is reported to damage the collegial spirit of those bishops.

Archbishop O’Malley has already announced his intention to live in the rectory of his cathedral rather than in the grandiose building where his four predecessors lived. Though he has tried to downplay the importance of this decision, it has spoken to people interested in seeing Boston’s new spiritual leader show forth Gospel values of simplicity and humility.

The decision to turn down the cardinalate would indicate even more clearly the archbishop’s commitment to these same values. It would be a way to tell people concerned about the ailing church of Boston and the Catholic Church across the country that he will be different from other leaders.

It would be a way of disassociating himself from conventional power and influence. In accordance with the tradition of his patron, St. Francis of Assisi, this gesture would ally the archbishop with that saint’s radical renouncing of worldly advantage.

Sober heads will tell you this will never happen. However, for spiritual reasons I suggest that renunciation of the cardinalate could strike a blow for freedom and signal new beginnings for Catholics in Boston and throughout the country.

Richard Griffin

So-called “reality television” keeps coming up with new slices of life.  Among the newest, a Fox Network series called “Nip/Tuck” graphically offers viewers of human flesh being sliced, along with plenty of blood.

Whether television shows like this one actually depict reality is another question. About “Nip/Tuck” the American Society of Plastic Surgeons says: “The Society wants to reassure the public that Nip/Tuck does not in any way represent a realistic plastic surgery practice.”

The series, however, does seem to have some reality about it. It may not show plastic surgeons or their work as they really are but it does show people thinking badly enough about themselves to undergo pain and suffering to change their body image.

The producer, Ryan Murphy, told a New York Times interviewer that, when he first started thinking about the program, he intended it to be “a brutal hour look at the reasons people hate themselves.” And, in the first program, shown in July, a doctor asks his patient, “Tell me what you don’t like about yourself.”

Self-dislike, self-hatred seem to be epidemic in American society.  Many of us feel badly about ourselves because we do not measure up to our culture’s ideals of beauty and success.

To combat this tendency, therapies such as the self-esteem movement attempt to turn us around toward the bright side of ourselves. Through mantras of positive thinking, these therapies try to make us feel good rather than to go deeper.

Many seekers among us, however, find in the great spiritual tradition a greater depth and more solid personal support. Monastic spirituality, for example, offers insights into reality that can inspire us to think altogether better of ourselves.

Such insight has come from Thomas Keating, the former abbot of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. Father Keating, widely known for his parenting of the approach to contemplation called “Centering Prayer,” speaks as one who has moved deeply into the life of the spirit.

One of his statements about love is especially worth pondering. “If we have not experienced ourselves as unconditional love,” he says, “then we have more work to do, because that is who we really are.”

Here is a definition of reality that differs sharply with that offered by “reality” shows. Father Keating’s dynamic words, allowed to take root in heart and soul, could transform a person’s life and change his or her world.

In contemplating these words, you will discover layers of meaning. Notice, for instance, how Father Keating does not speak of unconditional love as the source of our being, a sentiment often found in spiritual writing. Rather, he sees each person as himself or herself embodying that love.

And the word “unconditional” means that no matter what, you are loved. It is not a love you must earn but rather it comes to you freely. It makes up part of you because you are you. Ultimately, it reveals the nature of the God who is love.

The word “experience” also signals something important. The realization of oneself as unconditional love does not arise from the thinking we do inside our head. Rather it flows from our daily life, the people we encounter, the work we do, the leisure we enjoy, all the activities that we understand as human experience.

The phrase – “then we have more work to do” – suggests the spiritual exercises that form part of the interior life. Prayer, reflection, silence are the work of the seeker after insight into the self as love.

The way Father Keating phrases the matter reveals a certain irony. He surely realizes that hardly any of us have experienced ourselves as unconditional love. Or, if we have at some time, then this insight has not stayed with us for very long. At best, this view of ourselves comes and goes.

The “more work to do” of which the abbot speaks amounts to an agenda for us as we try to live more fully out of the realization that we are loved. It is the work of a lifetime because all of us need to keep this vision of ourselves fresh.

And Father Keating affirms that this approach to human life would not be just play acting. “Because that is who we really are” opens up his view of us as, not merely loved or loveable, but unconditional love in itself.

Richard Griffin

The assistant principal of the Eliot School in Boston whipped the hands of ten-year-old student, Thomas Whall, for one-half hour until they were covered with blood. This the school official did in front of the boy’s classmates, some of whom openly urged Thomas not to give in.

This incident happened in 1859 and began what now seems a curious series of events in an ongoing struggle between Protestants and Catholics over the public expression of religion. At issue here was the particular version of the Ten Commandments that students were required to recite aloud in the classroom.

By law, the schools had to use the words as written in the King James Bible. This involved a numbering of the commandments different from that used by Catholics, and also different phrasing.  Quite commonly, students would speak in unison and Catholics among them would slide over words to avoid punishment without betraying their own tradition.

Thomas Whall, however, was asked to read the words by himself and so he determined to take a stand. In doing so, he had the encouragement of his family, his pastor, and Catholics around the country. In fact, to the latter he became a hero of conscience and received gold medals and other gifts from many of his co-religionists.

Ultimately, the matter went to court and the judge ruled in favor of the schools. According to the judge, the action by the students and his abettors was a threat to the stability of the school system, “the granite foundation on which our republican form of government rests.”

I owe knowledge of this episode to John McGreevy, an historian at Notre Dame whose recent book, “Catholicism and American Freedom” begins with an account of this event. The author then goes on to detail many other clashes between mainstream ideas of freedom in the United States and contrary ideas held fast by Catholics.

Incidentally, though it never produced conflict, practice of religious recitation in the public schools of Belmont, Massachusetts during my own elementary school days stands out in my memory as having had that potential. Then we used to recite the 23rd Psalm (“The Lord Is My Shepherd”), and we also, as I recall, would say the Lord’s Prayer in the Protestant mode.

At that stage in history, however, no one made an issue of the practice, though now it would be regarded as a flagrant violation of church/state separation. As a Catholic, looking back, I regard saying those prayers in the classroom as something valuable in my education.

The movement since the 1960s whereby Protestants and Catholics have come to understand and appreciate one another’s religious traditions has rendered many past conflicts moot. The ecumenical approach to some controverted issues has helped us to value outlooks different from our own and, when conflicts do arise, to settle them peaceably.

Arguments about a particular translation of the Bible now appear as particularly unnecessary. Various versions in use among Protestants and Catholics have strengths and weaknesses but few people any longer consider them worth fighting over. In modern times, the King James version, in particular, enjoys the esteem of many Catholics for its unique beauty of language.

The same can be said about the wording of the Lord’s Prayer. The part that was once considered “Protestant,” namely the last part beginning “For thine is the kingdom,” is now recognized by many Catholics as part of their own heritage. In fact, a prayer in the Catholic Mass that derives from 1963 uses words that echo those used by Protestants.

The bedrock fact that brings together Catholics and Protestants is, of course, their sharing of the same Christian faith. It still seems bizarre for this reality to have been obscured for so much of the last few centuries. To this very day, people in Northern Ireland and elsewhere seem unaware of the basic religious identity they share with one another.

The incident at the Eliot School and its aftermath now seem almost quaint. Because it arose due to a set of assumptions we recognize as false, we can feel superior to the people involved in that drama. And yet at the time it stirred passions that were based in religious convictions and practice deeply held by members of faith communities involved.

If there is a moral to the story it may be this. When we find ourselves caught up in conflict involving religion, it may be important to look first to what we hold in common with our disputants before we go any further.

Richard Griffin

On an evening in late June, my friend Kenneth Holway was riding with another police officer when they spotted black smoke coming from a Cambridge triple-decker apartment house. Without hesitation, Officer Holway and his partner stopped the car and ran to the top floor of the building from which the smoke was billowing.

There they found a  62-year-old resident, a man who was surrounded by flames. He already had serious burns on his legs that made it difficult to hold him. Nonetheless, with help from the other officer, my friend hoisted the resident on his shoulder and together they carried him down the staircase.

Last week I talked with Ken Holway about this harrowing experience. “It was one of those things: your adrenaline gets going,” he told me. Referring to the need for immediate action, he added: “If it was another second, he would have died.”

According to my friend, in a crisis situation like this you’re not sure what you are doing. What struck him most and made him act fast were two panicked words coming from the resident: “Help me.”

When I asked what went through his mind just after rescuing a fellow human from death, Ken Holway shared some of his reactions. “I collapsed down on the ground and thought ‘that could have been it.’ But you do what you have to do.”

Not surprisingly, he has relived the frightening experience in his mind many times. If he needed a reminder in succeeding days, his aching body helped bring him back to the event. “I felt sore physically,” he says.

In response to my questions about spiritual motivation, my friend, like just about everybody else, finds it difficult to talk about it. One thing is clear, however: the faith that has marked his whole life is vital for him. “It makes me feel good, going to church every Sunday,” he says of the power that comes from his religious practice.

In defying fire and smoke to rescue another person, my friend surely knew how much he was risking. The need for action left precious little time to think, but his thoughts undoubtedly turned toward his wife and children. He knew what they and he would lose if he did not emerge from the inferno.

His sworn duty to serve members of the community, however, trumped even his ties to loved ones at home. He had taken a police officer’s oath and it remained sacred enough to make him respond immediately when another’s life was threatened.

The exact words may not have echoed through his mind at the moment of pressing danger but his spirituality has almost surely been shaped by the words of Jesus: “Greater love than this no man has than to lay down his life for his friends.” In this instance, of course, the friend was simply a fellow member of the human community.

Facing danger in response to the call of duty is nothing new to this police officer. When still a teenager, he served his country in the Vietnam War. Only 20 on his return from military service, he determined to find other ways of serving the public and, years later, got the opportunity to join the Cambridge police force.

Ken Holway does not consider himself a hero, but I think him one. And I am not alone in this view of him. He has received letters from ten other residents of Cambridge, thanking him for serving our city so well. These other ten are unknown to him personally but he is touched that they have responded this way.

Knowing a hero up close is to me a spiritual gift. News of what he did has buoyed up my morale, giving me renewed hope for the human family. If this one man can respond to the call of duty like this, then perhaps the rest of us have greater possibilities than we usually dare think.

Not surprisingly, the excitement I first felt when reading about this event has receded. However, having a bond in friendship with a man who has shown such heroism continues to feed my spirit. Ken Holway thinks of himself modestly, but to me he embodies a nobility of soul that makes a difference.

Richard Griffin

Speaking of the way she and her husband handled his late-life illness, a woman named Olivia said: “That’s what made it doable and sometimes even light  –  –  we’ve chosen to do it together.”

This is only one of many statements made in a strikingly beautiful video called “Hob’s Odyssey” that traces the life of Harrison Hoblitzelle who died on Thanksgiving Day, a year ago. As we celebrate this Thanksgiving, I thank God for the gift of my friend Hob who gave so much inspiration to those who knew him.

The video portrays a man who changed radically when still a young adult. Even his physical appearance underwent a transformation as he discovered different human values. From having been debonair and dashing, he became deep and spiritual.

And yet he was not solemn, by any means. He retained a love for word play and other joking and also often showed what his sister-in-law calls “the mildly acerbic side of his nature.” But, in time, that latter changed, too.  Olivia speaks of the “hard edges which softened with his age.”

His was a life “full of surprises and turns of fortune,” as a friend observed. When he discovered the spirituality of the East and learned how to combine it with the psychology of the West, his soul rejoiced. He became a teacher, not in a conventional mode, but, as another friend said of him then, he communicates “not just with his mind but his heart.”

A decisive turning point came in 1982 when Hob and his wife first visited India. At that time he was suffering from the aftereffects of an illness that had made it impossible for him to walk. But he met a woman with healing powers who commanded him to stand up and walk, and  he did. Of this event, his wife says: “It just blew all his circuits. I saw him the victim of a miracle.”

In India he came under the influence of Father Bede Griffiths, an English Benedictine who combined being a Catholic priest and a Hindu holy man. He lived in an ashram where Hob and Olivia stayed and began a close friendship with Father Bede.

Other spiritual leaders helped shape Hob’s inner life. The Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Han, Jean Vanier, and Father Henri Nouwen –  – all worked important influences on him. From the Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Han he was to receive ordination as a senior spiritual teacher, a part of his odyssey that meant much to him.

Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest whose writings have influenced so many, touched Hob with his spiritual insight. One of the priest’s sayings was to apply to Hob in his illness: “A heart full of compassion can only come from a heart that is broken.”

The illness to which his wife Olivia referred was Alzheimer’s disease, which marked Hob’s last years. With her support, Hob accepted his losses with remarkable grace. Once when he was struggling to respond to a question from me, he turned to Olivia and said with a smile: “She is my memory.”

The first thing that Hob did after hearing the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s was to teach a course on meditation for his fellow sufferers. At the time, his wife Olivia was asked how he was coping. “It’s very hard,” she answered, “but, given his nature, I think we are doing very well.” For himself, Hob said: “Dying is not the hard part, it’s just imagining what it would be like if I lost Olivia.”

In the video Olivia says of Hob things one rarely hears a wife say of her spouse. Among her observations spoken on the video are the following: “He had a beautiful soul.” “It’s been a very beautiful life, the way I see it.”

And his dear friend Emerson Stamps anticipates what life in the next world will be like for Hob. “He will be a great person in that realm too when he steps beyond this little vale,” says this beloved companion.

The video “Hob’s Odyssey” ends with a song by Leonard Cohen whose refrain goes: “Dance me to the end of love.” But the song does not hit it off perfectly because, of the love centered in Hob and Olivia and radiating out to their family and friends, there is no foreseeable end.

Richard Griffin

In Paris of the 17th century, members of the Capuchin religious order, in addition to their ordinary ministry, acquired a reputation for two other activities aimed at saving lives. We owe knowledge of these actions to letters written by Madame de Sevigné whom many in France still read for her perceptive observations of French life those hundreds of years ago.

The first activity in which the Capuchins engaged was putting out fires. They would limit the spread of flames that threatened people in their homes and throw water on the members. This happened before the time that pumps were used to actually put out the fires.

A second effort at life saving by these followers of St. Francis of Assisi was dispensing medicines to people suffering from disease. Thus the priests and brothers of this community acted as quasi doctors in those days of rudimentary medical practice.

Perhaps these historical footnotes have some relevance to the tasks set before Sean O’Malley, a member of the Capuchin order installed this week as the new archbishop of Boston. Looming large among his challenges is the need to put out the fires that threaten to consume the credibility of the church among both among Catholics and others in the general public. He will also have to offer healing to those victimized by sexual abuse at the hands of priests and to provide remedies to other members of the church terribly disillusioned by these actions on the part of those they trusted.

If he manages to put out the fires and heal those alienated, he will be judged a success. If he does not, he will ultimately be considered a failure, even if he accomplishes other important purposes. Such is the scope of the ongoing crisis in the church of Boston.

The new archbishop’s most important qualification for reaching these two chief goals will be his spiritual stature. As a Capuchin friar, he has long cultivated the interior life of prayer and the contemplative traditions of his religious order that traces its origins back to Saint Francis of Assisi. This inner spirit will make a crucial difference in a daily life that surely will be subject to great pressures.

Another side of his spirituality is the way he has reached out to other people, especially the poor and the marginalized. His record of service to those in need gives hope that, among the church’s priorities, he will insist on putting people first. As he himself said in the most striking statement of his first press conference: “People’s lives are more important than money.”

Archbishop O’Malley creates an image that in itself suggests the spiritual. His brown robe tied at the waist with a knotted white cord evokes Saint Francis, who loved poverty and the beauty of God’s creation. The sandals he wears also remind one of the beloved saint who walked the paths of Umbria in his native Italy.

The archbishop’s kindly face with its wreath of white hair, his smile and look of human kindness go further to enhance his image. These features awaken hope that he will prove approachable in his new and demanding position.

But image will go only so far to achieve change. As one life-long Catholic told me: “Just because he looks like Santa Claus does not mean he’s Mr. Wonderful. He’s probably like Cardinal Law but with better people skills and a more humble façade.” Indicating changes in herself, she added: “We’ve all become so jaded.”

Nor will much come from the subservience that too often passes as loyalty to the Vatican. The time demands initiatives that are imaginative in conception and daring in scope.

Among other things, he will have to challenge the clerical culture of the church of Boston. Ever since the sixth bishop, Cardinal O’Connell, who reigned from 1907 to 1944, the archdiocese has suffered from an atmosphere of privilege among some of its clergy. Too often they have abused their authority and oppressed the spiritual gifts of lay members of the church.  

In any event, one man cannot bring about the needed repair and revitalization of a large and complicated institution. It would be unrealistic and unfair to expect him to do so. But the new archbishop can set a tone and release the spiritual resources within the people for whom he is leader.

Richard Griffin