Why Gary Wills Is a Catholic

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

A Visit With Impact

For its emotional impact, no event of this summer has impressed itself on my psyche so strongly as my visit to a longtime friend who has Alzheimer’s disease. Though this visit lasted only some 15 minutes, it has left me much to reflect on.

Jack and I first met when we began high school together, 55 years ago.  In our new small school, we quickly bonded together through common interests in academic achievement and in sports. After graduation from high school, we went to the same college.

From early on, Jack and I were familiar visitors in one another’s homes. I remember his family taking me on my first visit to Canada. My parents and siblings came to know Jack well and recognized his outstanding intellectual talents.

Despite this close association, however, our friendship always had something edgy about it. Perhaps it was a fondness for arguing, shared by both of us. Whatever the reason, we often disagreed, especially as we grew into adulthood and middle age.

On both politics and religion he would take positions at odds with mine, differences not important enough to fracture friendship but sufficient to hinder intimacy. I would have preferred simple friendly exchanges; too often, we would get enmeshed in debates that grew burdensome.

After completing his studies with distinction, Jack went on to the successful career everyone expected him to have as a lawyer with a leading Boston firm. He was blessed in his family life as well, with a vivacious, caring wife and five sons. In time, there were daughters-in-law and grandchildren.

Several years ago, however, family members and friends became aware that Jack was losing his mental sharpness. That led to his retirement from law practice and to a slow but sure decline in his ability to function independently. Eventually his condition required more care than he could receive at home and he recently had to be hospitalized.

As a person who served in the army, Jack qualified for admission to a Veterans Administration hospital where he is receiving first-rate care. On the beautiful Sunday afternoon of my visit, many of the patients were sitting outside the building with family members. Jack’s wife, who visits every other day, had taken him out for an ice cream cone and I had to wait for their return.

When I saw Jack this time, my spontaneous feeling was sadness that it has come to this. As we walked together, his wife holding one of his arms to support him, I the other, I could not but regret the loss of so much competence. Here was one of the smartest persons I have ever known reduced to largely unintelligible utterances. The tragedy of it all!

And yet, his wife assures me, she experiences lighthearted moments with him. Jack still plays the piano and, amazingly enough, remembers some song lyrics. And he seems to appreciate the outings his wife takes him on, such as the ice cream break.

Still I feel deeply sorry for what has happened to Jack and would do anything to reverse his downward trajectory. Would that edgy remarks and uncomfortable debates still marked our exchanges!

Contact with Jack inevitably makes me wonder if I, too, will lose brain function. How can I not fear this dementia that has afflicted some four million Americans, most of them in later life?

And the mystery of it all strikes me anew. Why Jack and not me? Is this blind fate, or does a loving God permit this for some reason unknown to believers? Or, as some theologians and mystics might suggest, does God also suffer in the terrible diseases of his creatures? Can something be going on the mysterious depths of Jack’s soul that eludes the understanding of other people?

Even with my limited insight I can discover some good coming out of this awful experience. Jack’s illness brings out deep spiritual qualities of love and caring from his wife and family. The community of support that surrounds Alzheimer patients testifies to the best in human beings, the way they respond to dire need.

And Jack’s fate, along with that of millions of others, spurs scientists and researchers to work relentlessly to discover how this dread disease incapacitates the human brain. Already they have developed drugs that have proven helpful in mitigating some effects of the disease, though no medication has yet been able to reverse, much less prevent it.

Despite my experience of fear and pity when I am with Jack and others with his disease, visits with them help me appreciate more deeply my own life. Each day, past and present, appears to be more of a gift than ever and provokes my gratitude.

What better can we do than try to accept the present as a gift and to face the future with hope?

Richard Griffin

Pilgrimage

“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

Phil, in Summer

Summertime requires yet another report on Phileas J. Fogg, our resident cat. As usual, Phil has been up to some of his old tricks although hot weather has slowed his zeal for activity.

Even if you did not feel the heat yourself, you could tell the weather was sultry by simply looking at Phil's summer posture.

On humid days he stretches his long body prone, as if searching for air currents lurking close to the floor. He looks like a rug as he presses himself  as low down as he can. When this bid for relief discovers little or no circulation, he appears close to despair.

He also seeks relief by crawling under the piano bench but that, too, is not cool. And hiding under a bed, another familiar refuge, must prove even worse. He does have access to our fans but seems not to trust them. Wearing a heavy fur coat may be a blessing in the winter months, but right now Phil clearly regards it as a burden.

Whether he blames his human masters for the heat, I cannot tell. But he has had other quarrels with the management of late. His dissatisfaction finds expression in a kind of “erk” that he utters, especially on emerging from his lair in the cellar. “Use words,” we often exhort him but, thus far, we haven’t heard any.

If he did use words, they might express irritation at our summer travels. The sight of suitcases raises his anxiety level visibly. Though we think it a pleasure for him to be fed by friendly young neighbors, for a change, he apparently still holds our absences against us. When we arrive back, a cat not at all gruntled is waiting at the front door.  

Two recent events in Phil’s career deserve special mention. First, he escaped through the front door of our house and spent a few moments outside on the sidewalk. But for the first time, he gave no indication of wanting to go further.

Why he did not climb a tree as he has done in the past, or run down the street, beats me. Would it betray enlightened gerontological principles to suggest that, as he ages, Phil has lost the desire to exercise freedom and explore new fields of dreams?

The second event is even more dramatic. A vet who makes house calls visited Phil at home to administer shots and give him a checkup. That sounds routine and easy. You would never say so had you seen how Phil responded.

He fought as if the vet had been an assassin. This kindly woman attempted numerous times to pet him and reassure him with sweet words but nothing worked to reduce his terror. This was one wild animal, hissing and spitting in the effort to save his life.

Finally, the vet gave up, vowing to come another day. This she did a couple of weeks later, fortunately in my absence. In preparation for this latter visit, Susan had slipped Phil a mickey to reduce his anxiety. It worked to some degree, and the vet was able to carry out her mission without having to fight off the beast.

Meanwhile two of Phil’s habits continue to raise questions for me. Why will he not look at himself in the mirror? He has the opportunity to see there another image of a cat and yet takes absolutely no interest in the prospect. Perhaps he is practicing the virtue of not being narcissistic but I still find it strange.

And why does Phil exhibit no interest whatever in watching television with us? Even when ads for cat food come across our screen, he ignores them. As a television watcher of some addiction, I cannot understand why the tube has not become an object of fascination for our fellow householder.

Meanwhile, I continue to play with Phil, sluggish though many summer days find him. He still enjoys my politically incorrect practice of gently kicking him around. He even allows me to use him as a broom as I sweep him across the kitchen floor.

And he positively grooves on my tickling him under the chin, an activity I engage in somewhat gingerly, given the always present possibility of him seizing the opportunity to bite or, at least, scratch me.

Or, do I perhaps put the matter of play wrongly?

In one of his essays, Montaigne asked: “When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?” I like to think of Phil and me as taking some pleasure in this ambiguity.

As I conclude this essay, Phil has just run by my office door. Perhaps his action gives the lie to today’s forecast of steamy weather. And, though I strongly doubt it, maybe he is on to something the poet Stevie Smith once wrote: “Oh I am a cat that likes to/ Gallop about doing good.”

Richard Griffin

VOTF and Church Reform

“Today promises to be one of the most significant events for the laity in the history of the Catholic Church.”

In making this statement about their July 20th conterence, leaders of Voice of the Faithful cannot be accused of excessive modesty. After all, the history of which they speak stretches back some 2,000 years and includes at least a few other events of note.

However, these leaders and their associates have certainly begun with a bang that has resounded across the Boston area and, they would say, the country and the world. To sit in the Hynes Auditorium, as I did, among the 4200 Catholics who took part in the conference,  was to feel an excitement at something unprecedented in the life of this faith community.

Being there for a day of impassioned speeches and theological reflection was heady. So were personal contacts with friends long experienced in social action. And so was the enthusiasm expressed in the Mass that concluded the formal program. These features reminded me forcibly of the peace movement of the sixties and seventies, and especially of the atmosphere created by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65.

If, as reported, people over age 50 were in the majority at this gathering, many of them could remember the excitement Catholics felt when Vatican II brought about radical changes in the church. I, for one, recall being astonished by the decision of the council to substitute the language of each country for the Latin with which I had grown up. And that was only one such change among many.

Those days were different from the decades that have followed. The open-hearted John XXIII was pope, far-reaching change –  – in both mentality and practice –  –  filled the air, and many church  members felt the future full of promise. For people like me, at least, the first half of the 1960s was the most dynamic time we had ever known as Catholics.

The years since then have brought great disappointments through retrenchments of the hopes held out by Vatican II. Of course, they have also brought events deeply gratifying to most people, especially Pope John Paul’s reaching out to the Jewish community in apology and love. But the spirit of openness that so marked the Council has been replaced, in the Vatican and elsewhere, by a narrowing of outlook.

What is distinctive about the Voice of the Faithful is its character as a movement of  Catholic laity. Beginning only five months ago in the basement of a Wellesley church, it has already grown to some 19,000 members (in large part through the adroit use of the Internet.)  This new organization arose from outrage at the abuse of children and adolescents by Catholic clergy and the cover-ups of these criminal actions by the bishops.

Though outrage at what happened to the young victims fueled its formation, Voice wants to accomplish much more than to express indignation. Among its principal goals, it lists three: to support the abused; to support priests of integrity;  and to shape structural change within the church. This last purpose is obviously highly ambitious and will be sure to bring determined resistance from church leaders.

The radical change that Voice most wants to bring about was laid out at the conference by Jim Muller, the founding president. Dr. Muller is a cardiologist who shared in the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War in 1985. Using graphs, he contrasted two models of church, the first from the top down, and the second from the bottom up.

The top-down structure is what Catholics have been used to since the church’s early centuries but that has to change, says Dr. Muller. Currently, all the power and authority is centralized and that includes the basic three kinds: executive, legislative, and judicial. The pope and the bishops have it all and members of the laity have virtually none.

Other speakers echoed the same call for lay people to take power in the church. Father Tom Doyle, the canon lawyer who first called attention to clergy sexual abuse 18 years ago, portrayed this disaster as “the deadliest symptom of the unbridled addiction to power.” With applause-provoking irony, he spoke of the bishops as themselves suffering from  that addiction, and welcomed the opportunity to “help them free themselves from their chains.”

Jim Post, current president, envisions nothing less than the time when there will be a Voice of the Faithful chapter in every parish in the whole world. “We will not give the bishops a free ride,” he promised. And he claims Voice will hold fast: “We will not negotiate our right to exist, to be heard, to free speech for American Catholics.”

Is Voice of the Faithful going to succeed with its ambitious agenda and bring about a radical change in Church structures? At this point, no one knows what its chances are. A prudent person would not place a heavy bet on this David and Goliath struggle. Members and supporters will no doubt have frequent need to remind themselves who won that epic biblical battle.

Richard Griffin

Voice of the Faithful and the Spirit

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

Elderhostel in Iowa

“It’s almost an out-of-body experience. We’re still floating.” This is what Helen Pfeltz of Bloomington, Indiana says of the feelings she and her husband Cliff still have about a Elderhostel program earlier this month.

She is talking about the six days they spent at Simpson College, in Indianola, Iowa, some 20 miles from Des Moines. Not only did they take two courses, one focusing on opera, the other on Islam and the Middle East, but they also attended “Candide” and “Turandot,” and heard other music as well.

Helen generalizes about the experience with enthusiasm: “There couldn’t be a better time to grow older and to go to Elderhostel, wherever it may be.” And she quotes her son approvingly: “That’s the way aging ought to be.”

Though I did not take part in this Elderhostel experience myself, I did travel independently to Indianola on the previous weekend and saw all three of the operas staged by the Des Moines Metro Opera Company this summer. “Candide,” “Turandot,” and “Salome” pleased me immensely and made me glad for having accepted an invitation to visit a longtime Des Moines friend, Nick Tormey.  

If anything, Nick is even more enthusiastic than I about his local opera company. He often sees the same production several times, sometimes preparing for the formal performance by watching the dress rehearsal. If it is good to have a passion for something in later life, as wise elders often suggest, then opera, full of passion itself, is a fine candidate.

This year marks the thirtieth since the Des Moines Metro Opera Company’s founding. The founder, Dr. Robert Larson, a music professor at Simpson College, continues to be the driving force behind the success of organization. His skill at bringing together dozens of singers and coordinating complicated stage business in extravaganzas like “Turandot,” all the while conducting the orchestra, excites admiration from just about everyone who sees the performances.

This is Elderhostel’s fourteenth year at Simpson College; that means older learners have been part of the opera scene there for almost one-half the company’s life. Michael Patterson, another member of the music faculty at Simpson, has taught participants for all of this time, much to his satisfaction.

Of the Elderhostelers he says enthusiastically: “They infiltrate this place; they talk to everyone; people like them here.” Professor Patterson admires these elders for their spirit, citing the determination of a woman in a motorized wheelchair who keeps coming back despite less than adequate facilities for her. “They shove their physical difficulties aside,” he says.

Michael Patterson also loves teaching these older learners. Because he starts class at eight o’clock in the morning, he wears bright shirts to help wake people up. “I enjoyed your classes, but hated your bright shirts,” wrote one woman in an evaluation. Undeterred, he says: “I get a kick out of the group dynamics, which change from year to year.”

The educational experience for this professor – – a relative youngster at age 49 – – has offered him much stimulation. Of his adult students, he says: “They may have an observation that I may not have noticed.” They also keep him honest: “I can tell when I become too pedantic in class,” he confesses.

Opera was not the only reason the Elderhostelers I interviewed felt enthusiastic. They also benefited from the second course called “Muslim Middle East Background of Conflict.” A feature of this experience for Mimi Nord, a 75-year-old resident of Park Forest, Illinois was the visit to the Islamic center in Des Moines and the opportunity to learn more about the worship and teachings of the Muslim tradition.

But music remained the chief focus of the week, with extras thrown in such as performances from young apprentice singers who put on scenes from various operas. A Des Moines Metro Opera trademark is the way singers make themselves available in the lobby at the end of each performance. There you can talk with them and snap pictures, posing with them, as I did.

Clearly the participants in Elderhostel had fun. The people I talked to also liked the food, with one mentioning meals featuring prunes and oatmeal. “They waited on us hand and foot,” reports Helen Pfeltz’s husband Cliff.

But they also took the learning experience seriously. The beauty of it all can be found in older people discovering the rewards that always come with taking in new knowledge for its own sake. And the social dimension of learning remains vital. As Mimi Nord told me: “You’re missing something (if you don’t have this experience), especially if you like people.”

Further information about the program at Simpson College is available online at www.elderhostel.org. or at 877 426-8056. The cost this year was $534 for a shared room, $584 for a single; these prices include everything but transportation. Elderhostel does give scholarships based on need, judged on a case-by-case basis for expenses other than transportation to the site of the program.

Richard Griffin