Why are you a Baptist? Or a Unitarian? Why are you a Muslim? Or a Buddhist?

These questions, which could be addressed to various readers of this column, are prompted by a reading of a new book by historian Gary Wills. “Why I am a Catholic,” is the title of this latest in a long list of his publications.

He wrote it in answer to some critics of his previous book “Papal Sin,” which details ways in which modern popes have operated within “structures of deceit” instead of acting with respect for truth.  Professor Wills believes a critical attitude toward the church is consistent with loyalty as a believing Catholic and he tries to show why in this new book.

The book forms an imperfect unity consisting of: a brief memoir; a review of Catholic history focusing on the papacy; and an analysis of the Apostles Creed. To judge from what the author has said on the lecture circuit about this work, he intends the third part, the creed, to provide the chief reason for his being a Catholic.

When he comes to the creed, Professor Wills explains its threefold structure: faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For him, belief in the Holy Trinity is not a frill but belongs at the very heart of the Catholic tradition. He shows this doctrine to be all about love and quotes from a sermon of St. Augustine: “It is a trinity: the lover, the loved, and love itself.”

While setting forth his appreciation of the Holy Trinity, the author also emphasizes that numbers and relationships cannot adequately express who God is. As the transcendent one, God goes far beyond any human ways of describing him. As God says in the Bible, “My ways are not your ways.”

While analyzing the Apostles Creed, Gary Wills shows a scholar’s knowledge of history and theology. But he does not merely appreciate the doctrinal heritage of his faith intellectually. Beyond his activity as a scholar interested in religious issues, he takes the spiritual life seriously.

He prays regularly and takes part in public worship at Sunday Mass and at other times as well. Among the prayer forms he favors, he mentions the rosary, which he recites daily. Incidentally, he rejects the view of some Catholics who consider saying the rosary outmoded

The first section of the new book consists of a short memoir of the author’s early life and his career as a scholar and writer. It provides a personal history of how his spiritual life took root and grew strong. Let me here suggest that the memoir may provide a better answer to the question he poses in the title.

He grew up in a family that took Catholicism seriously, even though his father was not Catholic himself. Young Gary had gone to elementary schools taught by nuns and a high school run by Jesuits. Thus he was formed in the ways of Catholic Christianity and became deeply committed to this tradition.

After high school graduation in 1951, he joined the Jesuits who had been his teachers. In the novitiate, he experienced serious doubts about this vocation and ultimately left the Jesuit ranks in 1957, long before ordination to the priesthood. By this time, he was highly educated in the ways of both spiritual and intellectual life.

This family and educational background could have played greater importance in helping the author answer the basic question posed by his book. Another answer might have been: “I am a Catholic because I grew up in a Catholic family where the faith was handed on to me.”

This answer is one that many other people, perhaps most, would give if they were asked the question. The role played by upbringing in forming one’s view of the world and our spiritual values is enormous.

A dear friend whose wisdom I respect has suggested to me that perhaps we should not be able to answer the question posed by the Wills book. Why we have this or that spiritual identification usually goes too deep for words.

As Pascal says, “The heart has reasons that reason knows not of.” Yes, we can provide some explanation for who we are spiritually, but the real answer may well be mystical. We may even believe we are who we are because of a call from God rather than because of any initiative of ours.

Richard Griffin

“It was a great experience for Nicholas and me,” says theologian Harvey Cox about a trip he and his teenage son took this summer. The two traveled to several states in the South where the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s took place. At some of these sites, Harvey Cox had taken personal part in events that were important in the history of this movement.

In Williamstown, North Carolina, for example, they visited the jail where the father had been imprisoned for two days before being transferred to another jail for a week. “I walked around and peered in the windows,” he says of his stop at the now-abandoned building.

To the father, a veteran theology professor at Harvard Divinity School and an ordained Baptist minister, the return meant a chance to renew the spirit that animated him and his fellow pioneers, four decades ago. He also wanted to show his son where events crucial to 20th century American history took place.

For the son, it was an opportunity to share in his father’s personal history and to learn more about that history for himself. As they moved from place to place, the boy used a camcorder to keep a record of their trip.

Of all the places visited, Professor Cox felt most moved by Selma, Alabama. There they stayed near the Alabama River at a hotel, formerly segregated but now something of a civil rights memorial. They also walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where in 1965 marchers had been brutally attacked by state troopers and the merciless forces of the local sheriff.

Birmingham was another place where they stopped, this also the site of bloody attacks on peaceful demonstrators.  In May of 1963, hundreds of schoolchildren and teenagers marched with adult demonstrators to a local park in order to protest segregation. The notorious sheriff Bull Connor turned police dogs and fire hoses on the marchers and arrested thousands of demonstrators. In the same area during this period four young girls were burned to death in a church.

In Atlanta, father and son visited the Martin Luther King Memorial and found it rich in memorabilia of Dr. King’s life and the historical records of the civil rights movement.

The travelers also visited Mississippi delta where Harvey Cox had worked in 1968,  and where he was delighted to be reunited with some of his old associates.

He was also happy to note that some conditions had changed for the better. Automobile trouble led to one example of striking change.

When he stopped on the side of the road because his rental car had boiled over, he saw a Mississippi State highway patrol car come up behind his. With apprehension, he remembered that police in that state had often treated outsiders brutally. Imagine his surprise and relief when out of the police car emerged two officers, black women, who greeted him with: “Hi! How are you doing? Is there anything we can do to help?”

On the other hand, much remains as it was. Many of the changes remain on the surface, reports Professor Cox, and too many people of color still find themselves with opportunities severely limited by prejudicial racial attitudes.

When I asked Harvey Cox whether he considered the trip a pilgrimage, he answered without hesitation: “That’s exactly what it was.” He compares his journey to the great medieval routes to  Compostella , on the western edge of Europe where, through the centuries, millions of pilgrims have traveled.

The Coxes approached the sites in a reverential frame of mind, though they had the wisdom to take occasional breaks. For instance, they went to a Red Sox game in Atlanta, where they saw the Sox lose to the Braves. It made sense to find some relief from oppressively hot weather and the fatigue of covering long distances. Medieval pilgrims did much the same, although without the benefits of baseball and air conditioning.

Radio and television journalist, Christopher Lydon, says of Harvey Cox’s original experience in the civil rights struggles: “He was there when it took guts to do it.” Professor Cox himself points away from himself to the larger meaning of the events that he has recently relived: “The Freedom Movement remains for me one of the most significant chapters in American history.”

Richard Griffin

On the eve of the gathering of some 4,000 Catholics in Boston last week, I interviewed an involved member of Voice of the Faithful, the new organization that sponsored the meeting. A psychiatrist professionally, Ana Maria Rizzuto is also a person for whom spirituality is of utmost importance.

Her thoughts about change in the Catholic Church appear to come from a deep spiritual commitment to her faith. She shares her views with a quiet intensity that makes them persuasive.

The new organization has arisen in response to the crisis in the Catholic Church triggered by priest abuse of children and adolescents. The Voice of the Faithful has published its three principal goals: 1) To support those who have been abused; 2) to support priests of integrity; 3) to shape structural change within the church.

Speaking of the reform that Voice of the Faithful pledges to bring about in the church, Dr. Rizzuto says: “What we need to have is a true awakening, grounded in the drastic change that baptism makes.”

For her, baptism means two things: first of all, a call “to assume true responsibility for continuing the mission of Jesus.” Referring to her fellow baptized, she says “the success or failure of this mission is in our hands.”

Secondly, “we are responsible for the world,” she goes on to say. “We must transform the world into Gospel values.” The organizational church, she believes, does not give expression to this call.

The reform of the Catholic Church envisioned by the Voice of the Faithful will not happen, Dr. Rizzuto believes, “unless we pray continually to the Spirit.” In the past, saints were sent by God at crucial times in the church’s history; nowadays, no single person can do it. “We now need to do it collectively,” she believes. “We need a saintly people.”

But people in the church are also sinful, what she calls “holy sinners.” And “that is why we need the Spirit.” The Spirit will give reformers the confidence to bring about change. “We have to be very bold,” she says, “to have such conviction that no one can stop us.”

How does this become contagious? She answers her own question: “By natural imitation of other people, by the excitement of connection with them.” This is why she has chosen to become involved in the new movement of lay people who seek not only to prevent crimes of sexual abuse from occurring again but to change church structures so that the laity will share power and responsibility for the church.

Dr. Rizzuto’s comments point to the need for the Voice of the Faithful to build its movement on a solid spiritual foundation. Were it to neglect the spiritual base and simply act in a political way, then, by its own principles, it would fail to become the force in the church that it envisions becoming.

Leaders who spoke at the convention, though using different terms, would seem to agree with this one member’s views. Father Thomas Doyle, who received the first “Priest of Integrity Award” at the meeting, told the 4,000 cheering delegates that “people, including the pope, have been praying for a new dawn and it is here.”

Thomas Groome, a theologian at Boston College, portrayed members of Voice of the Faithful as “re-engaged in the unfinished agenda of Vatican II: the retrieval of the theology of baptism.”

Thomas Ahrens, a young lay leader of the Catholic Church in Germany, proclaimed: “The Holy Spirit speaks through the ordinary people of God.”

Author James Carroll, referring to the communion that members of the church receive when Mass is celebrated, said: “If we can take the body of Christ in hand, we can take the church in hand as well.”

Several survivors of sexual abuse by clergy also spoke movingly at the conference. Their messages were oftentimes sobering and downbeat, but some also spoke of the spirit that must mark Voice of the Faithful’s organizational life.

One of them advised the group: “Do not be discouraged at any stage. You have no idea how much hope and faith in me this (movement) has engendered.”

Finally, the words of Jim Muller had special importance because he has taken a leading role in founding the new organization. Talking with a group of members he said: “I genuinely believe God has played a role in bringing us together.”

Richard Griffin

My friend Bill, I discovered only recently, once arranged housing for a woman of my acquaintance when she had to leave home with her children because of violence directed against her by her husband. Bill (not his real name) found a house in Maine (not the real place) where the woman could stay until it became safe for her to return home.

I had the good fortune to become a friend of Bill when we were 14 years old and classmates in the same small high school. His friendship, in my eyes a gift, has continued over the many years since then. This means I have held a privileged vantage point for observing up close at least a few of his acts of kindness toward other people.

Providing a temporary residence for the woman in crisis is only one sample from a lifetime of generous services that Bill has provided to others. I have often felt buoyed up in spirit by knowing about some of them.

Bill has affected my spiritual life in other ways as well. If ever I needed a motive for feeling humble, all I need do is compare myself with him. He does more good, often at considerable cost to himself, than I could even imagine doing myself.

He often visits the sick, keeps in touch with old people in need of human contacts, has long supported a house for people with developmental disabilities, and reaches out to impoverished residents of a Latin American country who need medical attention.

Long ago, my friend managed to turn his career into a kind of ministry. As a businessman, he has always regarded his customers, not primarily as sources of money, but rather as human beings who often needed more than what anyone could sell them. In paying attention to their human problems, Bill went far beyond the call of his profession to serve them more deeply.

If Bill has a secret behind his attention to the needs of others, I suspect it lies in his ideal of ministry. Like many other people, he realizes how his spiritual tradition expects of him concern for others and service to them.

He does not leave ministry to members of the clergy but realizes that the laity also are mandated to serve. Whether explicitly or not, Bill exercises what a long tradition calls the priesthood of the faithful. It is not a mere sharing in the ministry of clergy but is a response to the call to service that each layperson receives at baptism.

If questioned, Bill would undoubtedly attribute great importance in his life to the example of Jesus “who went about doing good.” As a Christian, he takes seriously the words of Jesus: “As long as you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to me.”

Like everyone else, Bill has known adversity. Health has often been a problem for him; so has the loss of family members and friends in death. But these experiences have probably had the effect of strengthening his ministry. As a “wounded healer,” he feels much empathy for those who are in difficulty.

Often people like Bill do not receive much recognition for their good deeds. He, however, has the admiration of more friends than anyone else I know. Among ourselves we sometimes joke about having a party for him but needing to rent Fenway Park in order to fit everybody in.

At a time when his church is suffering a deep crisis of confidence in its ordained leadership, Bill and countless others like him take on new importance. They are proving themselves to be the church in action as they reach out to their brothers and sisters in the human family. They show how the development of lay ministry has become one of the most important features of church life in modern times.

We would perhaps find ourselves on firmer ground spiritually if we changed our associations with the word “ministry.” Instead of immediately thinking of professional clergy, we might benefit by thinking first of people like Bill.

They are the bedrock of our communities of faith, the ones who each day carry out ministry to soul and body. They are church, they are everywhere, and to them we can look for inspiration.

Richard Griffin

This is a story of something that should happen often but in fact too rarely does. The names have been changed along with some other details, but the story is true and comes from one of the women involved, with the other woman’s approval.

The narrator, Sheila, had been living in the house owned by her friend Jane. Sheila had always paid rent to Jane but, through the years, the two also considered themselves good friends. One day, however, thirteen years ago, Sheila received a call from her friend suddenly announcing that Jane was going to buy a condominium and that Sheila would have to move out as soon as possible.

Sheila, feeling under great duress, did move out in June of that year. “It was horrendous, horrible,” she says about the event. It was emotionally devastating to her, not only because she had no place of her own to move to, but because her friend was treating her so coldly. That was clear from Jane’s activity during the move: she remained in the house, sitting at her desk working at her high-tech job, without any involvement in Sheila’s labor or distress.

In the time that succeeded this break between friends, Jane experienced a series of harsh events. Both of her parents died, and later, so did her brother in a fire that burned down the family home. And Jane’s health was challenged in a life-threatening heart attack. Also her part in the break with her friend had bothered Jane for the entire 13 years of their separation.

Two Christmases ago Sheila received a letter of apology from Jane, along with a check for 1,000 dollars. This represented money that Jane felt she owed her friend. What had moved Jane to make this gesture of reconciliation was watching “A Christmas Carol” on television and how Scrooge his miserly ways affected other people.

Responding to a suggestion made by Jane, Sheila went out to dinner with her. During the dinner Jane “flat out apologized” to her friend for all that she had done. Sheila felt deeply touched by this turn of events, in part because “I had the most in common with her of any of my friends.”

Ironically, Jane revealed during this reconciliation that, on the very evening of the day her friend had moved out, she had left on Sheila’s pillow a note changing her mind. Unfortunately, Sheila never saw the note and the expulsion went through. Jane had also made other early efforts to contact her former friend, even sending a birthday card in August after the break, suggesting they get together.

Since the reconciliation, the friendship has regained its old strength and may even have improved because of the shared pain of separation. Sheila has spent time at her friend’s vacation house; they have gone to cultural events together; Sheila has accompanied her new-found old friend to medical appointments.

“We have a great relationship now,” says Sheila in summing up the restoration of the bonds between them.

And about Jane’s initiative, Sheila waxes enthusiastic: “I have to hand it to her –  – it is very seldom that someone apologizes and does not make any excuses.”

Surprisingly, not all of Sheila’s friends have hailed the reconciliation. Some have suggested that she should not have been so forgiving. However, Sheila considers herself fortunate and takes continuing pleasure at her rediscovered friendship. And Jane feels a burden lifted as she resumes the benefits of a relationship that once meant so much to her and now does again.

Jane had the good sense not to wait till old age before taking action to repair a broken relationship. But it is never too late or too early to act this way, as some other people have had the wisdom to realize.

One such person was William Maxwell, a writer and editor at the New Yorker magazine. His friend Alec Wilkinson, in a recent memoir about Maxwell, recalled an action  taken by him in middle age: “When he was in his fifties, Maxwell wrote letters to every person he felt he had harmed, to apologize.”

As it turned out, Maxwell may have been overly scrupulous because, adds Wilkinson, “no one remembered the offense or recalled the incident in the same light that he did.” But this lack of response does not detract from the writer’s noble impulse to attend to the spiritual health of his personal relationships. Like Jane, he was to enjoy the rich benefits  that come with reconciliation.

Richard Griffin

“We should not judge the effectiveness of our prayer by how prayerful we think we are. Our very attempt to pray is, in fact, prayer.”

So advises Rev. Paul Witmer,  minister at the Central Presbyterian Church in Des Moines, Iowa. He convenes the prayer group to which my friend, Nick Tormey, belongs. (The latter has shared the pastor’s words with me.)

On a visit to Des Moines last week, I did not have the opportunity to meet with the prayer group because members have taken a recess until August. Nick Tormey misses the meetings during this break. “I like the regularity of knowing that on Friday noon I would be spending some time in silence.”

He expresses appreciation  of the meetings despite experiencing ups and downs in prayer. “Sometimes my mind would shut down,” he explains, “and I would feel at peace, while at other times I would feel distracted but I still value that time apart.”

The peaceful atmosphere of the place where they meet counts a lot. “The quietness of the chapel,” Nick observes, “the picture of Jesus and the rich young man in the fancy hat; the light streaming through the tall rectangular window.”

He also values the bonding with other people. One other participant shares with him the pain he feels as he goes through a divorce.

Summing up the experience, Nick says: “I always feel as if I’ve done something, even if it wasn’t very prayerful.”

What Nick reports of his group sounds much like the spiritual benefits I have derived from the prayer group to which I have belonged over the past three years. It is representative, I suspect, of what people experience in many other such groups across the country.  People in search of spirit come together and find much value even when they encounter distraction, dryness, and only intermittent peace of soul.

Anglican priest and theology professor Sarah Coakley, in the current Harvard Divinity Bulletin, writes about the prayer group that she has run for eight years. Right from the start Prof. Coakley discovered two practical advantages of silence: first, it bridged the sometimes wide religious and political differences among members, and secondly it created “a brief haven of rest from our (often frenzied) intellectual activities.”

After not using rituals in the early days, the group soon discovered the need of at least a few. Now, they begin with the sound of a bell and they light a candle to focus attention. They also instituted  the practice of exchanging the kiss of peace at the end of each session, a gesture that has evolved from a mere handshake to a more emotionally expressive sign of friendship.

In assessing her group’s experience, Prof. Coakley lists five features:

1. It has led members to adopt other spiritual practices such as liturgical prayer and the prayer of intercession. Thus they have discovered a fuller spiritual life through the habit of praying regularly.
2. They have found their group to have a life of its own that goes beyond that of individual members. As Prof. Coakley puts it, “Its sum is mysteriously more than its parts,” a reality that produces “a deep sense of communion, trust, and peace between the participants.”
3. The group has traveled beyond ecumenism and, with the addition of Jews and Buddhists among others, has become inter-religious. This sometimes leads to a “level of mutual regard and trust beyond words.”
4. Members now welcome requests to pray for certain requests and intentions. Before the bell rings for prayer, these intentions are quietly mentioned.
5. Some members have carried over their prayer into social action. Thus some students are engaged in work in prisons, hospitals, and other places where people are in dire need of help.

Summing up, Prof. Coakley writes: “I like to think of the group as providing an open-ended invitation to such ‘wasting of time’ before God in a School (and culture) of obsessive busyness.”

One hopes that prayer groups can share this kind of experience with one another. The Des Moines group, at least, will profit from what the Harvard group has learned. Having read Sarah Coakley’s article, my friend Nick plans to ask his fellow members to add two features. “I am going to suggest intentions and the kiss of peace at the end,” he says. “I think this will help solidify the group.”

Richard Griffin

“It was beautiful; it was just right,” says my friend Olivia about the ceremony she and her family members devised for the ashes of her beloved husband Hob. He died last Thanksgiving Day at age 78, after a life marked by a sustained search for light and truth.

Olivia and her two adult children wanted to commit Hob’s ashes to the world of nature and spirit as he would have wished. They judged it appropriate to do so near the house in Vermont that Hob loved and called his “soul place.” This beautiful setting was clearly the best place for the remains of his body to be absorbed by the physical world.

Hob’family created a simple yet eloquent ceremony in two parts that gave testimony to the kind of person he was.

The first part was oriented to Hob’s and Olivia’s grandchildren, planned so they could have a role in committing their grandfather’s ashes to the earth. One of them said to Olivia: “Baba Hob (the name the grandchilden called him) has gone to heaven.” In response Olivia said their grandfather’s soul had left his body.

The children first picked flowers from the garden nearby and collected them in tribute to Hob. Then his son dug a hole that the children lined with the flowers. Everyone stood around the hole and joined in song.  Asked to choose music they liked, the children chose to sing two verses of the joyful song, “The Lord Is Good To Me.” At this time they dropped fistfuls of ashes into the hole.

In the second part, the adults carried on the rite themselves. The four of them walked to the edge of a spacious meadow adjoining the house. There a ridge borders the meadow and leads to a steep hill. On that hill at the very top is a great maple tree, 100 years old. As it so happened, that tree died the same day as Hob.

This is the focal point of the surrounding area, so the four adults knew that was the place where they wanted to be. They formed a circle. Then they took the ashes by the handful and named Hob’s people and his the impact he had on them.

“And this is for all of his students,” they said, “and this is for those whose lives he touched.” “And this is for Hob’s sense of humor and the laughter he brought to all of us.”

Of this part of the event Olivia recalls: “It was beautiful,”

Then his son Ethan announced, “I need to throw some ashes and make a big noise.” So he tossed ashes into the wind while crying out loudly in a kind of primal scream.

Olivia noticed how the lighter parts made a cloud that was like spirit.

They let her throw the last fistful. There were no words left so she let the ashes go into the wind. Addressing her companion of so many years, Olivia exulted: “Hobbie, we did it.”

On the way down the hill, Olivia recalls, “we noticed a beautiful large marble rock. We plan to bring it up to the hilltop and install it there as a memorial to Hob.”

Then, after it was all over, they went into the village for tea and croissants, another activity that felt “just right.”

Reflecting afterward, Olivia says: “The overarching point for me was that ceremony and ritual hold the tremendous intensity of times like this.” She added: “Having children take part in it was vital,”

About formulating the ritual, Olivia observes, “The land almost told us what to do.”

Such was the ceremony carried out by one family as they committed the last remains of their loved member to the world of nature and spirit. With this heartfelt rite, they paid loving tribute to a man of soul who had inspired them with love and his striving to find the deepest meaning in life. Theirs is the joy of knowing how Hob will be forever associated with his beloved land as well as with those in whose life he made a difference.

How Olivia and her family members bid final farewell to their beloved Hob was only one way of doing it, of course, but their story can serve as inspiration for the rest of us. In their depth and beauty their simple rituals give eloquent recognition to the dignity of the human spirit.

Richard Griffin