During the early centuries of Christianity, Christ’s followers met – often secretly – to honor his memory by community prayer including the sharing of bread in remembrance of the importance of togetherness in the Passover meal at the Last Supper.

They met in each others’ homes for their prayer services just as Amish worshippers do in their communities today. They had no priests, again replicated in Amish services in our time where leaders are chosen by the community and given no perks.

In fact most historians contend that Christ had no plans to start a new religion. He was critical of the legalistic formalism that dominated the Jewish rabbinical establishment of his day, but he is best understood as a charismatic Jewish rabbi with an inspiring message.

The records show that these early Christian groups were egalitarian, with men and women chosen by their peers for leadership positions not only for their prayer and communion services but also in their charitable outreach to help poor and needy members of their developing community.

Then in the early 4th century the Roman Emperor Constantine allowed Christians to assemble without any hassle and to worship freely. The Emperor himself asked to be baptized on his deathbed after years preparing as a catechumen. He made Christianity respectable, giving it the Roman stamp of approval.

For the first time a clear pecking order was established as the hierarchical structures and trappings of the Roman Empire were transferred to the growing Christian church. For example, a diocese, a Roman administrative unit, was transmuted to a basic governing part of the church; a basilica, the Emperor’s majestic hall, became an important place of worship for the members of a burgeoning religion.

The church moved away from its original emphasis on the equality of all members by assigning authority based on offices held in the community. In the new hierarchical structures decision-making was vested in priests and bishops. With the gradual growth over centuries in the prestige of the papacy, a hundred and fifty years ago Pius 1X brought the acquisition of power to a new and dubious level by claiming infallibility when pronouncing on faith and morals.

Over the years this hierarchical system led to the development of a powerful church organization that did outstanding work with people of all ages in every part of the globe. The Catholic Church is the largest nongovernmental organization in the world, providing food for the hungry and medical care and education for millions who would be cast aside without the services of the heroic Sisters, Brothers and priests who stood with them, opening the door to a chance for a better life.

But there was a serious downside to the growth of the church as a major center of political power, influencing and participating in wars, a long way from a universal religion of peace and goodwill. The church was an important player in religious battles in Europe and in leading crusades to make the cross dominant in Jerusalem. The institution forgot its humble founding principles and responded to political developments with generals and armies similar to other European powers.

Women and married men were excluded from any position of church authority which was vested entirely with a male celibate clergy. They continued to dress in gowns and top hats and other similar gaudy apparel, symbols of importance back in the days of the Roman Empire and still setting the church leadership class apart from the hoi polloi in the pews.

Augustine, a reformed libertine, who lived in the same century as Constantine, promulgated a poorly-researched theory that the so-called original sin was a sexual act initiated by Eve. She was responsible in John Milton’s later words in Paradise Lost “for all our woes with loss of Eden.” This baseless Augustinian rationalization combined with the deplorable misogyny in all the major cultures of that time led to a negative and unhealthy attitude to sexual behavior and especially to the subsidiary role assigned to women in the church.

That situation has not changed. When Pope Francis convened an important international synod last February to make recommendations on how best to deal with the ongoing crisis related to sexual abuse by clergy, he invited a few hundred aging church leaders – all male – to the Vatican to deliberate on these crucial matters.

From a church with over a billion members not even one woman or young person voted on the final recommendations. Hardly an adequate response in 2019 to dealing with the biggest crisis in the church since the Reformation 500 years ago.

The Second Vatican Council convened by the last great pope, John XX111, attempted to deal with the clericalist culture by stressing that all church leaders at every level are meant to be servants of the people and certainly not lording it over them. The Council pronounced that the church should always be seen as consisting of its full membership, the people of God, with the mysterious Spirit inspiring lay and cleric alike, without regard to human pecking order. Surely Beginners’ Theology 101!

Unfortunately, after the Council ended in 1965 the caste system re-asserted itself. There was little change in the blatant misogyny, the cult of secrecy within the clerical club and the institution-wide sexual repression.

Starting about 50 years ago, the pandemic of sexual abuse by many priests and Brothers and some nuns was gradually revealed in all its enormity. People were shocked that widespread maltreatment of children by men wearing Roman collars and by women displaying crucifixes was not only tolerated by church authorities, but these predators, instead of being dismissed or reported to the civic authorities, often were just transferred to a different parish where they inevitably found new victims.

Pope Benedict pointed the finger of blame for the sex abuse crisis at the new liberal ideas about sexuality that gained provenance in the 1960’s. Other conservative clerics blamed the Western culture sympathetic to the gay lifestyle as the culprit.

Most commentators agreed that clericalism, which encourages people to view priests and other church dignitaries as different and exempt from the rules and consequences that apply to everyone else, is the core problem leading directly to the deep crisis.

Commenting on a White Paper titled “Confronting the Systemic Dysfunction of Clericalism” prepared by the Association of Catholic Priests in the United States, Cardinal Cupich from Chicago described the damning research findings as “a catalogue of horrors, chronicling imperial pronouncements, putdowns, claims of privilege, entitlements and exemptions from accountability .”

The pope and the cardinals, bishops and priests still speak for the church on all matters of religion or morality. The hopes of many progressive theologians during Vatican Two and since that the life experiences and spiritual insights of “ordinary” people would be valued and incorporated into church thinking has not happened.

Despite all the heartbreak caused by clericalism, the congregation in the pews is still not heeded. Sadly, the traditional establishment built around an elite clerical class continues to call the shots in the Catholic Church.

 

By Gary OShea at wemustbetalking.blogspot.com

 

Thomas Aquinas, the famous Dominican priest and theologian, promoted natural law as a sound basis for ethical teaching. This approach followed the great Greek thinkers and in particular Aristotle who used human reason alone to deduce binding rules of moral behavior.

Major problems have arisen as a result of the limitations of this natural law thinking when dealing with sexual morality. It was central to Pope Paul V1’s controversial 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae which banned the use of condoms or the contraceptive pill even for married Catholics, basically because, following Aquinas’ model, the moral order dictates that one may not stymie or interfere with the natural procreative purpose of sex.

 This  papal edict was disregarded by almost 90% of Catholic couples as impractical. It has the distinction of being the first Vatican encyclical honored, in Shakespeare’s words far “more in the breach than in the observance.”

In the late sixties – at the time of the pope’s letter – the prevailing culture was hostile to gays. Queers were often dismissed as dysfunctional deviants, stigmatized as engaging in aberrant behavior which disobeyed the laws of nature.

 Mainstream Christian teaching condemned homosexual  acts as a clear breach of natural law and thus morally wrong.

Since the 1970’s societal attitudes to gays have changed dramatically. Most Western countries now propound the humanist belief system that eschews judging the sexual behavior of others and  is comfortable with the philosophy of live and let live.

The Pew Research Center’s 2013 Global Attitudes Survey finds “broad acceptance of homosexuality in North America, the European Union and much of Latin America.” In many countries, including the United States and Ireland, gay marriage is now accorded the same protections and legal standing as male-female unions.

Sociologists are amazed by the speed of this massive change in attitude across the western world. It is correctly seen as a major paradigm shift in a short time frame from ignorance and intolerance of homosexuality to widespread acceptance of what is now often spoken of in terms of a different lifestyle.

The Christian churches in Europe and the United States face a major dilemma. Should they go with the new spirit of tolerance or  revert to the old sermons that reflect the outright condemnation of homosexuality as an abomination, a viewpoint that is asserted in the books of Genesis and Leviticus as well as in the harsh epistolary reflections on same-sex relationships by the apostle, Paul?

Many theologians and biblical scholars point out that, whatever about the validity of assertions of divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments, all the books of both represent the thinking of the historical era when they were written with authors who reflect the beliefs and prejudices of their time.

True to this perspective, the Bible contains prohibitions against eating shell fish and has strange injunctions ordering the stoning of adulterers as well as those who work on the Sabbath, not to mention mandating the same treatment for awkward and disobedient children. And much more of the same!

Clearly these were tribal rules designed to deal with real situations thousands of years ago. It is close to blasphemous to suggest any divine input in such writings. Also, while Paul of Tarsus was fluent in advising Christians, especially women, on sexual matters, Christ had little to say about these issues. There is no record in the gospels of him even commenting on same-sex romantic behavior, suggesting strongly that it didn’t figure prominently in his sermons.

The Catholic Church responds to the new perspectives on the gay lifestyle by supporting laws that ban discrimination and by affirming the rights of homosexuals to a full social life free of any discrimination. However, the Vatican also asserts that same-sex intimate behavior is “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to natural law.” It is a very tall order for a gay person to establish a positive relationship with a powerful institution that  tells homosexuals, male and female, that they are loved but are also objectively disordered.

Some prominent conservative leaders in the church point to the prevalence of gays in the priesthood as the main reason for the clerical abuse crisis. This reasoning, based on an unfounded vision of  out-of-control gay clerics with unnatural tendencies, is vehemently opposed by most commentators who point to clericalism, a hierarchical system that gives excessive and undue power to men wearing Roman collars, as the systemic root of the problem. The power of the clerical garb gave these immature men permission to act out their corrupt and evil fantasies.

Recent disturbing pronouncements from the highest levels in Rome about admission criteria to seminaries suggest that openly gay candidates are too risky for ordination and should be excluded. Advocates for a non-judgmental church, with the principles set down in the Sermon on the Mount as their guide, fear that gays are being scapegoated again. It is indeed inviting to point the guilty finger at queers and load the blame for the worst and most damaging church crisis since the Reformation on to their shoulders.

It should be noted that Cardinal Reinhart Marx, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, stated in an important interview last year that blessing of same-sex unions is allowed in German Catholic churches. Some Austrian dioceses follow the same protocol.

 Note to Cardinal Dolan: If it is OK in Germany why not in New York where so many wonderful gay couples live, most of whom, unfortunately, feel alienated from the Catholic Church?

Protestant churches have similar internal differences about this thorny moral issue which can be appropriately seen as pitting tradition against modernity. Many are comfortable with the natural law argument and preach strongly against any diminution of the traditional Christian condemnatory stance.

 They bolster their position by pointing to the biblical story about  the denunciation of the sexual sins in Sodom described in Genesis as clear proof of God’s condemnation.

As long ago as 1963 the Quakers in England, who were very prescient in their analysis of the human issues involved, recognized the authenticity of same-sex relationships. The United Church of Christ celebrates gay marriage while some Anglicans and Lutherans provide a formal wedding blessing. The United Methodist Church elected a lesbian bishop in 2016, but two years later the Council of Bishops reversed the church’s liberal policy and today their official position opposes same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly-gay  clergy.

Finally a word about Sodom which has come to represent the most glaring example in literature of lecherous debauchery because of the shameless sexual behavior associated with the biblical story about that ancient city. Many erudite modern scholars say that the Sodom message is not primarily about sexual depravity. They argue, based mainly on  comments in later books of the Bible, that the  Genesis authors wanted to convey that the worst sins that were committed in their powerful story reflected the shoddy welcome shown to the visitors in a Hebrew culture where generous and open hospitality was considered a paramount virtue.

 

On February 10th, 2013, Pope Benedict shocked the world with his announcement that he would step down from the papacy at the end of that month. He promised that his contribution to the church in retirement would be “a life dedicated to contemplation and prayer.”

 

He chose rooms in the Vatican for his domicile and announced that his title would remain Pope followed by the descriptor emeritus. He continues to wear the pectoral cross and the white garments which are seen for centuries as part of the papal regalia, and he is comfortable being addressed as Your Holiness.

 

This rather haughty behavior raised hackles in many places with Diarmaid McCulloch, the renowned professor of Church history in Oxford, predicting ominously that “two popes is a recipe for schism.”

 

Francis, true to his belief in a modest lifestyle, lives in Casta Santa Maria, a guesthouse for visiting clergy where he eats in a self-service cafeteria and gets his coffee from a coin-operated machine.

 

In February Francis called together in Rome the heads of all the national bishops’ conferences and leaders of religious orders to deliberate on the awful abuse of children by ordained clergy. This gathering was strongly and appropriately criticized by progressive Catholics because very few women or lay people participated.

 

However, it was an unprecedented and serious effort, unmatched by any of Francis’ predecessors, to come to terms with what is undoubtedly the biggest crisis in the Catholic church since the Reformation 500 years ago. The deliberations extended over four days, and  since its conclusion Francis has unveiled the first church law which mandates that all  allegations of sexual abuse must be reported to the top members of the local hierarchy.

 

A few months after the conclave ended Benedict published a long article in a conservative German magazine placing the blame for the sex abuse crisis on the liberal culture of the 1960’s and certain changes in church thinking evident in the Second Vatican Council. He pointed his finger of rebuke at the anything-goes liberal sexual culture of those years for releasing the demons of pedophilia.

 

The former pontiff decries the move away from theology based on natural law and strict adherence to biblical rules in favor of a situational approach where what is right and wrong depends on the circumstances of each case. This moral  relativism, in his opinion, led to faulty moral reasoning and confusion, even in the Vatican.

 

The longstanding maxim of church governance recited – often in Latin – in every presbytery and seminary, Roma locuta est; causa finita est (Rome has spoken – end of discussion!) no longer carries weight because the two popes and their followers preach different sermons, one legalistic and highlighting sin and possible damnation, the other far more anchored on actual human dilemmas and focusing on mercy and compassion, especially in dealing with the poor.

 

In the area of sexual ethics which so often engage the celibate moralists in the Vatican, the liberal wing led by Francis advocate for allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion while the traditionalists consider that approach an abandonment of a sacred biblical principle that precludes adulterers – their language – from participation in the Eucharist.

 

Conservatives blame the provenance of a gay lifestyle in seminaries as a major cause of the sex abuse crisis. 80% of the children abused are male so, they conclude, the abusers must belong to what they name disparagingly as the lavender mafia, active homosexuals in clerical robes. Blaming gays has a long  history among Catholics, but it is contradicted in this situation by most experts who argue convincingly that the clerical culture that approved excessive power for men wearing the Roman collar opened the door wide to all kinds of abuse, including sexual predation. In addition, they point out that young boys are more accessible than girls to corrupt priests and brothers.

 

The crisis predated the liberal sixties. In the 1950’s Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, a priest from the Archdiocese of Boston, wrote to his superiors and met  Pope Pius X11 warning about the widespread sexual abuse of minors by priests. He admonished bishops that re-assigning known pedophiles in the hope that they were cured by therapy was a terrible mistake.

 

 Fitzgerald referred to these wayward clerics as repugnant vipers and paid a deposit for a remote island in the Caribbean where he wanted to consign all predatory priests. The bishops weren’t ready for that isolationist approach sixty five years ago.

 

Benedict’s 5500 word letter portraying the church as a victim in an unfair and hostile world is not a new perspective. The former pontiff would prefer a smaller church with members committed to the traditional teachings that go back centuries, crowned by the belief in papal infallibility passed at the First Vatican Council in 1870 at a time when strong and dominant leaders were greatly admired throughout Europe.

 

On the other hand, Francis’ big tent philosophy sees the church at its best comforting the poor, welcoming the refugees and opening the door to waverers. He has proclaimed – no doubt with the southern American border in mind – that building walls to keep people out is unchristian.

 

There should be no problem with theologians presenting scholarly disquisitions that disagree with the prevailing wisdom in the Vatican. However, when a former pope sets down a detailed analysis, a parallel and contradictory story to the reigning pontiff’s, on the biggest conundrum facing the church, we are looking at a truly scandalous situation. Which one of the popes should people believe?

 

Church rules regarding the behavior of a retired bishop in dealing with his successor are instructive and explicit: deference to the new appointee guided by a spirit of generous co-operation. It seems that Benedict doesn’t believe that this mandated behavior for retiring bishops applies to popes.

 

Francis is under open attack from arch-conservative Catholics led by Cardinal Burke, former archbishop of St. Louis, who was photographed wearing a tee shirt emblazoned with the message: Benedict is my pope. These hostile actions came to a head last summer while Francis was visiting Ireland. Archbishop Vigano, a former papal nuncio to Washington, issued a letter accusing the pope of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse and urging him to resign.

 

 These dissidents, who include Steve Bannon, stalwart promoter of anti-immigrant  balderdash, are shocked to see him kissing the feet of Muslims at a Vatican ritual, and they wince at his fierce critiques of modern capitalism, a system which often shows scant regard for workers’ dignity.

 

Archbishop Ganswein, Benedict’s right hand man and a very powerful Vatican functionary, asserted in 2016 that the two men are, in his words, really part of the “one expanded papacy”, one “active” and one “contemplative.”Francis rejected the idea out of hand, but can anyone imagine a previous pope having to deal with such impudence from a senior prelate.

 

Natalie Imperatori-Lee, a professor of theology in Manhattan College in the Bronx, warns Benedict about his inappropriate behavior, telling him that he needs “to practice a ministry of silence. To continue to speak out is to flirt with schism. Let the pope be pope.” Indeed!

 

Gerry OShea blogs at  wemustbetalking.com

Fr. Daniel O’Leary was born in the village of Rathmore County Kerry, close to the Cork border, in 1937. He died in January of this year after a short battle with cancer.

Fr. Donal, as he was called by his friends, served as a parish priest in the Diocese of Leeds in England  for the first thirty years of his ministry. After that he worked for  two decades teaching theology in St. Mary’s University College in London.

He authored a dozen books on spirituality and was well-known as a leader of parish and diocesan  retreats. He was a regular columnist in the prestigious international Catholic  news weekly, The Tablet.

In his final column for that publication he stated that he wanted to be “free of fear and bitterness and full of love and desire as I step up for the final inspection.”  He goes on to argue in the major theme of his parting essay that forced clerical celibacy is “a kind of sin, an assault against nature and God’s will.”

Priests married and lived normal sexual lives until the Second Lateran Council in 1139. The change at that time seems to have been caused by economic considerations resulting from family members’ claims to inherit church property  after the priest’s death.

The creation story in the Book of Genesis is very clear about male and female joining together to propagate the human race. God’s words are recounted as a statement of incontrovertible principle: It is not good for man to be alone.

This core foundational wisdom affirming the complementarity of the two sexes is certainly not confined to the Judaeo-Christian tradition. For instance, the same message is conveyed powerfully in the famous two-faced statue with carved hands joined from the back and front on Boa Island on Loch Erne, close to Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.

This is a fine relic, a message from pre-Christian times of the wise psychological insight that balance is crucial in every positive life force, between male and female, goddess and god, yin and yang – each one needing the other for a full productive life.

The Catholic Church – alone among the main Christian denominations – stipulates that its priests must commit at ordination to a life without sex which is a part of normal intimate female companionship. It is a heavy and unreasonable burden imposed on young men who are usually in their mid twenties when they are ordained.

Sigmund Freud points out that the sexual drive to procreate is second only to self-preservation in the human psyche. The young priest faces fifty or more years of daily struggles to honor his solemn pledge to eschew any sexual contact with a woman. A tall order for many men!

Some priests maintain their commitment to their promise at ordination, but others, as many as 40%, either leave the priesthood to get married or cultivate  a  discreet sexual relationship  with  a woman while continuing in their ministry.

Loneliness is a major problem faced by men who are compelled to avoid the safe haven of sharing their intimate feelings with a partner who understands and relates to their deepest human challenges and frustrations.

Fr. O’Leary is very clear about the serious damage this lack of female intimacy causes: “I am just pointing out that one of the fall-outs of mandatory celibacy is the violence it does to a priest’s humanity and the wounds it leaves on his ministry.”

He also argues that it is very difficult to maintain a sense of personal authenticity when one is struggling to control demanding sexual and emotional drives while pretending to parishioners that all is well with the world.

He is at one with Pope Francis in condemning clericalism which sets  men wearing the Roman collar apart from the wider faith community and heightens the sense of isolation felt by many priests. In O’Leary’s words clericalism “keeps vibrant, abundant life at bay; it quarantines us priests for life from the personal and communal expression of healing and the lovely grace of tenderness.”

The distinguished Kerry man reflects on the inadequate seminary training he received in All Hallows College in Dublin where falling in love was viewed as the cancer to be avoided at all costs; prayer and confession were recommended as the cures.

His own words in recalling those seminary days are very poignant and powerful, leading to an unhealthy and upside-down spirituality: “Emotion was the threat; detachment was the safeguard; becoming too human was the risk.”

The Vatican shows no sign of reverting back to the church rules during the early centuries of the church. Pope Francis recently referred approvingly to the opinion of his predecessor from the sixties, Paul V1, who said that he felt so strongly about maintaining the status quo in this area that he would rather give his life than to change the celibacy law for priests.

It is important to note that the Kerry theologian’s  cri de coeur does not mention the clerical sexual abuse crisis that continues to haunt the Catholic church. That provides an additional strong argument for seriously reviewing the prohibition imposed at ordination, but O’Leary’s entire focus and the ground for his heartfelt plea for change are based on the stultifying and, in his opinion, sinful effects that compulsory celibacy have on the spiritual and emotional development of his fellow-priests.

Is anyone in the hierarchy heeding the profound final love letter written by the late Daniel O’Leary?

 

Capitalism has lost its appeal for many young people. In a recent poll,  51% of Americans aged from 18 to 29 stated that they feel more positive about socialism with just 45% affirming the capitalist system. This represents a hefty 12% decline in just two years.

What has caused this dramatic  change? A few statistics that indicate serious dissatisfaction with the status quo may give some indication of the issues involved. Since 1989 the working class share of total income in America has declined from 45% to 27%. Four out of ten citizens complain that they don’t have the means to pay an emergency bill of just $400. Only 14% of private sector workers have access to paid family leave.

Meanwhile the rich have done very well. There are more millionaires and billionaires than ever before in the United States. The stock market is flying, benefiting mainly the richest 10% who own 80% of the shares. Sales of luxury boats and cars have never been more ebullient.

With big money in America comes an accretion of political power. Nobody claims that the worker living from week to week has the same political clout as the millionaire. Relatively small groups with deep pockets like the National Rifle Association  get their way in Washington even when a clear majority opposes their agenda.

There is an important moral dimension to how the wealth of a country is distributed. Reinhold Niebuhr, the great New York Protestant theologian of the last century, argued that Christians have a clear moral obligation to pursue justice and “to prevent the strong from consuming the weak.”

With, for example, a recent study revealing that 25% of children in Texas live in demeaning poverty, Niebuhr’s admonition surely applies in modern America.

The Catholic tradition going back to Thomas Aquinas always asks about “the common good” as distinct from individual profit or private gain in assessing any political or economic situation. Francis, the pope of the poor, has spoken repeatedly in the strongest terms against a capitalist system that he sees as blind to the plight of people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Moralists led by Pope Francis condemn the heightened inequality and crass treatment of the poor and refugees. The poet William  Wordsworth’s words come to mind when the American Government approves of the separation of young children from their parents and   closes our ports to strangers in dire need: “We have given our hearts away – a sordid boon.”

A few years ago the billionaire Warren Buffett urged the lawmakers in Washington to stop coddling the super rich, pointing out that his secretary is compelled to pay a higher percentage of her taxable income to the IRS than he does. Young people trying to deal with their monthly bills as well as paying their taxes are angered by unfair situations like this, and in the midterm elections when Republicans lost a massive forty seats in the House their voices were clearly heard.

The top 1% of earners and the big corporations hire teams of accountants to tease out every dubious deduction to reduce their payments to the local and federal treasuries.

The last Trump budget gave massive tax breaks to the super rich and big corporations. Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, assured people that these giveaways wouldn’t  impact the national debt, but economists now tell us that it has added about two trillion to the bill that future generations will have to pay.

Meanwhile the Internal Revenue Service enforcement division was reduced by a third over the last eight years. One IRS estimate claims that  businesses skip paying their tab to Washington to the tune of about 125 billion dollars annually – enough to finance the departments of State, Energy and Homeland Security. Audits of people in the top 1%, the most likely group to misreport income, have dropped from 8% in 2011 to 2.5% last year.

Congresswoman Alexandria  Ocasio-Cortez proposes a Wealth Tax on big earners. She suggests a top rate of 70% on taxable income over 10 million dollars. The current marginal rate is fixed at 37%. Predictably this proposed new high rate has drawn harsh criticism from conservatives who conveniently forget that under President Eisenhower, the Republican president in the 1950’s, the top marginal rate hovered around 90%.

Bill Gates, until recently the richest man in the world, endorses the supposedly socialist proposition of levying higher taxes on wealthy people, but he disagrees with Cortez on how to achieve this. Instead of new taxes on income, he argues convincingly that the focus should be on upping the contributions from levies on Estates and Capital and Social Security.

Liability for Estate or Inheritance Taxes was greatly reduced in recent years thanks to a masterful propaganda assault on what the so-called reformers successfully labeled a “death tax.” The amount exempted has now been raised to 5.6 million dollars  for individuals who die and double that figure for couples. Very few would argue against excluding the first few hundred thousand dollars from liability for this Estate tax, but the changes in recent times are a major boon for the children of millionaires and a serious loss to the treasury.

The Social Security Trust Fund is heading for insolvency in sixteen years. At present the 6.2% levy on all income ends at $132,900. If this limit was eliminated and all income was subject to this tax, the Trust Fund would be clear until the next century. There are hearings currently scheduled for a Bill in Congress that would extend the Social Security levy to all income in excess of $400,000.

The Wealth Tax issue has come very much to the fore in France where President Macron  rescinded this tax on the wealthy  when he took over as president a few years ago. He also reduced some benefits that especially hurt low-paid workers and retirees. The Yellow Vest movement  is seen as a response to these changes, and one of their main demands continues to be a restoration of the Wealth Tax.

After the sad burning of Notre Dame Cathedral Macron promised it would be rebuilt within five years. Billionaire Francois  Pinault  pledged 100 million euros to the renewal project, only to have Bernard Arnault, France’s richest man, double that amount as his contribution to the restoration.

The workers wearing yellow vests continued their protests proclaiming that the generosity of the big contributors only strengthened their case for a Wealth Tax. One of the leaders mocking the Trickle Down Theory, which underpins Macron’s economic policies, wondered if any of the Arnault or Pinault  billions would find their way to citizens in need.

Another memorable protest  sign in Paris recalled Victor Hugo’s famous novel: “Everything for Notre Dame but nothing for Les Miserabiles.”

Back to the United States where many young  people especially are questioning the economic system that has spawned grossly unequal  policies leading to the disgraceful situation where many people do not even have health insurance. Some are calling themselves socialists but this movement is better understood as a loud call for radical changes in the present capitalist system.

These young people made a big statement in the midterm elections and they are likely to do so even more forcibly in November 2020.

After the German defeat in the First World War a hundred years ago, the terms of the surrender were worked out in Versailles. President Wilson, representing America, proposed a 14-point plan that was broadly  generous to the defeated Germans, but he was overruled by the British and, especially, the French who insisted on  punitive terms, including hefty annual reparation payments by Germany to the victorious countries.

Only about 16% of these payments were ever made, but the Treaty of Versailles was viewed as a national humiliation by the German people. After the agreement was signed many commentators predicted that the harsh terms made another European war inevitable.

And so it was. Twenty years later Hitler led the German forces to another military catastrophe with America providing much of the war equipment and leadership responsible for defeating the Nazis. The chief-of-staff of  the American forces was General George C. Marshall who was later appointed as Secretary of State by President Truman.

Instead of punishing the German people who were in a dire situation after the widespread destruction of factories and farms during six years of war, Marshall introduced a policy of providing financial support to help European countries to recover. The focus of what was called the Marshall Plan was restoring the infrastructure needed for an economic recovery in Europe, including in Germany. This represented an important new and magnanimous departure in international affairs, a total rejection of the punitive Versailles approach.

The centuries of European wars, culminating in the two world wars of the 20th century, were now viewed by many as part of an embarrassing past. In their place, over a few decades, came the United Nations, the European Economic Community and NATO, all highlighting the rejection of militarism and narrow nationalism. This new era of peaceful co-operation was greatly influenced by American leaders, especially George Marshall, who deservedly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.

Marshall’s use of what is called soft power as distinct from military prowess was also followed in the Peace Corps, started by President Kennedy in 1961. This program, which continues to the present day, has proved to be very popular with many idealistic young Americans who work in poor countries, providing much-needed education and training skills for the local communities. Since its inception close to a quarter of a million young people, mostly college graduates, from all over the United States have served as Peace Corps volunteers, representing the United States, in more than forty Developing Countries.

President George W Bush is remembered mostly for the disastrous decision of committing American troops to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he also personally initiated a major program to end the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. This was called the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It received strong bi-partisan support in congress and in 2008 no less than 37 billion dollars were budgeted for this program. PEPFAR saved millions of lives and is deemed one of the most successful soft programs ever promoted by Washington.

Before he finished his second term in the White House in 1960 President Eisenhower warned in his farewell speech to the American people that what he called “the military-industrial complex” was the biggest threat to peace and prosperity in the United States.

This was at the height of the Cold War when leaders of both parties in Washington vied with each other in asserting their hatred of all versions of communism. So it was shocking to hear a popular president, a five-star general, declare that it was the defense industry – the armament makers, combined with government leaders demanding increased funding every year for more sophisticated weaponry – not the communists, who presented the biggest threat to the country.

In the 2018 budget Eisenhower’s current successor in the White House, a man who, during the Vietnam years, was exempted from military service because of a troublesome heel, proposed a massive increase of 82 billion dollars for the Defense Department whose total budget, hovering around 800 billion, is now larger than the defense budgets of the next seven major countries combined: Russia, China, Germany, France, Great Britain, Japan, Saudi Arabia and India.

The military-industrial complex rules! The non-military part of the budget, the soft part covering diplomacy and aid programs, was reduced with the huge monetary increases going to enhance  the modern arsenal of war.

There is no doubt that the American military lords it over all its enemies, near and far. How have they performed as the best-equipped military power ever during the last seventy years since the George Marshall initiative at the end of Hitler’s war?

The report card is unimpressive. America tied the Korean War, lost in Vietnam, and we are looking for any way to extricate ourselves with some modicum of honor from the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Winning in either place is no longer an option. With all our precise bombs and drones we cannot defeat ragtag guerilla armies driven by strong tribal and religious commitments.

Rumblings of military action to prevent the development of nuclear weapons in Iran and North Korea elicit statements from  experts warning that they are very dubious about the prospect for success in another war in either country.

Next year President Trump will again propose a big increase in the defense budget while cutting back on the diplomatic service and benevolent programs in poor countries. There is no place for the soft Marshall Plan approach in his calculations. The military-industrial complex calls the shots more than ever in Washington.

The child sexual abuse topic in the Catholic Church is unpleasant and not something most Catholics want to have to think about. After all only a small percentage of child sexual abuse has taken place within the Catholic Church, it is spread across our society and has permeated all manner of institution but largely exists in families. Unfortunately, it is not over yet for our society or the Catholic Church in New York State. Just recently the former leader of the Newark, NJ and Washington, D.C. dioceses, Cardinal McCarrick has been credibly accused of sexual abusing a minor and seminarians throughout his career as a priest.

THE PROBLEM

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church spends their careers protecting the assets of the Church and protecting the Church from scandal. Protection of the worldly patrimony and spiritual beliefs are important goals for the Bishops. However the single-minded protection of Patrimony and avoidance of scandal has come at a high price to Jesus message of love, truth and justice. Saint John Paul II’s Catechism is clear: Perpetrators of crime should be given justice; the truth must be told and when it is not reparative justice is required. Despite these moral requirements for all Catholics including the Bishops, love, truth and justice was generally not provided to the survivors of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in New York State. Even though the bishops like St. Peter denied Christ three times lay Catholics in NYS can help correct some of the harm done by the Bishops’ denial of Jesus in their handling of the child sexual abuse tragedy.

The situation in New York State is among the worst in the USA with regard to the Statue of Limitation (SOL) reform. As of today in NYS, if a young person walks in a police station on or after their 23rd birthday to report that they had been sexually abused as a child they will be told that they have no rights to the criminal or civil justice systems. Their abusers go scot-free except in some cases of rape.

FIRST DENIAL

The first denial of Jesus was when the victims and their parents where lied to or diverted from justice when they sought help for the victim of the child sexual abuse in their school or parish. They were often sent away with distracting and confusing responses leaving them believing that there must be something wrong with them for trying to get help.

THE SECOND DENIAL

The second denial of Jesus was when the leadership of dioceses throughout the state of New York maintained the cover-up of the problems of the perpetrators of child sexual abuse protecting them from the criminal justice system. Further, the cover up was exacerbated by the horrific secret moving of known child sexual abuse perpetrators from one parish to the next parish exposing unsuspecting parents and their children to this grave danger.

THE THIRD DENIAL

Finally, the third denial of Jesus is currently happening with the ongoing expenditure of millions of dollars, lies to the public and intimidation of state legislators by the NY Catholic Conference of Bishops to prevent the passage in Albany of the Child Victim Act. The bishops are and have been actively blocking the NYS legislature from opening a “look back windows” of 1 year to permit access to the civil justice for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. They were denied justice over the last decades by outdated NYS statue of limitation laws. The painful trail of decades of human devastation and of justice denied to the survivors calls for citizens and Catholics of conscience to use the legislative processes of state government to bring justice to the hidden sins and secrets of our society and in the case of Catholics, the Catholic Church. Catholics need to be a voice in Albany in opposition to the powerful voice of the Catholic Bishops to block the “look back window.”

At the recent Budget session in Albany Cardinal Dolan met with the NYS Senate President Flanagan to make a special plea to block the Child Victim Act “look back window” that Cardinal Dolan characterized as “toxic for us” and “very strangling.” In Cardinal Dolan’s pleadings to Senator Flanagan he completes the third denial of Jesus in support of Church property over love, truth and justice for the survivors of childhood sexual abuse. How ironic for Cardinal Dolan to refer to potential harm to the financial state of the Church with the human reference words “toxic” and “strangling” that are so apt for what was done by the Church to the human victims of childhood sexual abuse.

FALSE FEARS OF CHURCH SHUT DOWNS

Minnesota passed a child victim act in 2013 with a look back window and the St Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese recently settled with over 400 survivors and a total settlement of $200 million. The funds for the settlement came from insurance providers estimated $170 million and about $40 million covered by the Archdiocese and parishes. (source: NCR, June 15-28, 2018). In dioceses across the USA where a look back window passed, threats of financial doom to church operations did not materialize. Insurance covered most of the settlements and bishops announced to the public that Church operations would not be impacted. In fact, bankruptcy laws treat not for profits in a much more friendly way insuring that they have the resources to continue their operation after the legal challenges.

PROGRESS ISN’T ENOUGH

The Rosenthal bill was approved by an overwhelming majority in the Assembly this year. In addition, Governor Cuomo put the Child Victim Act in his budget but it was deleted from the budget by Senator Flanagan. These were two major victories this year for the Child Victim Act, but the legislative session closed recently without passage of the bill in the NYS Senate. The NYS Senate President, John Flanagan, a Catholic, has continually blocked hearings or a vote on the CVA bill. Senator Flanagan refused to meet with survivors and advocates of the budget CVA bill, but was able to give more than an hour meeting to Cardinal Dolan the day before the vote on the budget that included the CVA. The truth is that the republican leadership of the NY Senate allows a very outsized role to the NYS Catholic Conference in the person of Cardinal Dolan.

TAKE ACTION NOW

The next legislative session for NYS legislature in set for January 2019 and the challenge now is to get a few extra democratic seats to permit Democratic control of the NYS Senate and then the likely passage of the CVA. In the interim it is important to:

Let Cardinal Dolan know that we oppose his blocking of the CVA window and that it is not the letter or spirit of Pope Francis leadership who directed that the bishops take all actions to repair the damage of the sexual abuse crisis.
It is also important to let Senator Flanagan and his Republican leadership team knows that we, lay Catholics speak for the Church and want the “look back window” and justice for the survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

In the early 20th century, the Catholic church was strongly in favor of the development of trade unions, a major controversial public issue at that time. Pope Leo’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, which was promulgated in 1891, vigorously promoted the right of workers to organize and negotiate their wages and terms of employment.

Employers used every trick in the book – fair and foul – to prevent workers from having an organized voice. Employees often looked to Rome for support, and every pope since Leo has affirmed that workers have a clear moral right to union representation.

Mike Quill, the outstanding Kerry man who founded the Transport Workers’ Union with help from the Communist Party in the 1930’s, laced his speeches with references to papal statements of support for workers’ rights.

Pope Francis has confronted the conservative argument that the best economic arrangement for workers is a laissez faire approach where big company profits will flow downwards and increase the salaries of ordinary workers. Francis knows better: Trickle-down economics “expresses a crude and naive trust in those wielding economic power.”

For the last fifty years the American Catholic Church has become increasingly conservative, rarely heard about the travails of workers or the plight of trade unions, rallying its members instead against abortion, gay rights and, disgracefully, even opposing Obamacare, which mostly helped the poor and working families, because it mandated the availability of contraceptives in all health insurance policies.

Bishops and cardinals are rarely heard about the serious economic inequality that now permeates American society where the top 1% has accumulated more wealth than the bottom 80%, and current Republican economic policies are making the situation even more unfair. Where are the prophetic voices on pulpits, crying out against the moral depravity of public policies that rob the poor and ordinary workers to give the millionaires even fatter bank accounts?

The situation for workers was better in the 1970’s because unions were strong enough to insist on decent wages and conditions for their members. Since then union membership has declined to a mere 6.8% of workers in private industry and to 34% among public employees.

The union movement is facing a major crisis in a case that is currently before the Supreme Court. In what is known as the Janus case, the court must decide whether to nationalize Right-to-Work laws. If the court weighs in on the side of Janus then non-union employees would be exempted from contributing to the costs of negotiating and defending the labor contract worked out by the union.

At present employees in 22 states who choose not to join a union are mandated to pay what is called an agency fee, contributing in that way to the cost of contractual negotiations.

If the court rules against the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), then workers, like Mr. Janus, would become freeloaders, benefiting from union negotiations but not paying a penny for the service.

Such a ruling seems likely because Republicans – against all precedent – refused to confirm Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to replace Anthony Scalia on the Supreme Court, instead packing the court with Neil Gorsuch, a nominee with strong right-wing conservative credentials.

A decision against AFSCME would cripple union organizing nationwide, and just imagine the disgruntlement of union members paying higher union dues to benefit freeloading co-workers. Keep in mind that nobody wants to force any worker into joining a union or to compel any employee to contribute to any political party; the sole issue is that workers who benefit from contractual negotiations should pay an agency fee for this service.

The Catholic bishops, true to their honorable pro-union heritage, have filed a strong brief with the Supreme Court supporting the AFSCME position, arguing cogently that Janus’ case is “a misguided effort to protect one individual from government coercion” without giving due weight to the powerful argument that the common good of all workers requires the rejection of any law that, in effect, protects freeloaders.

Bishop David Zubick of Pittsburg wrote a strong, heartfelt column in his diocesan newspaper seconding the amicus brief of the Bishops’ Conference.” I grew up in a union household. My father was able to support his family thanks to leadership of his union, Local 590. …. The role of unions in supporting strong families is one of the reasons that the church has supported the labor movement from its earliest days.”

The common good, what benefits the community as a whole as distinct from the private gain of individuals, is paramount in all the social teaching of the Catholic Church. One hopes that this core moral perspective will prevail in the Janus case before the Supreme Court.

Gerry O’Shea blogs at wemustbetalking.com

1968, 50 years ago, is sometimes described as annus horribilis – a time of devastating events and awful tragedies. In March Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, and in June Bobby Kennedy suffered the same fate in Los Angeles. In August Soviet tanks shattered a brave and hopeful democratic dawn in Prague, and riots at the July Democratic Convention in Chicago reflected deep societal divisions about the jungle war in Vietnam.

In October in Northern Ireland civil rights marchers faced the same police thuggery that Martin King and his supporters had to endure in Alabama and Tennessee. The mayhem of the civil rights marches morphed into the Irish “Troubles” that lasted for thirty years.

Then in the summer of 1968 Pope Paul V1 published his much-anticipated encyclical Humanae Vitae which asserted that the use of contraceptives, even by married couples, was against the laws of nature and thus sinful.

Paul’s predecessor, John XX111, had set up a consultative commission to advise him on this vital issue. The Second Vatican Council, in the spirit of the 60’s, urged the church to move away from the autocratic model where the man at the top decided and the people obeyed. This conservative approach was summarized in church circles as Roma locuta est, causa finita est – Rome has spoken; the discussion is over.

The new mood of openness was supported by many church leaders and indeed the Council documents favored collegial decision-making over the old hierarchical model. The 72-member advisory commission included 16 theologians, 13 doctors, 5 women and an executive of 9 bishops and 7 cardinals. After extensive deliberations it reported in 1966 to John’s successor, Pope Paul. Apart from a minority of six traditionalists who claimed the Church could not change its long-held position of opposition to the use of contraceptives, the vast majority saw no moral conflict between Catholic beliefs and the use of condoms or the contraceptive pill by married couples.

Unfortunately, Paul sided with the minority and his encyclical Humanae Vitae reflected the narrow scholastic thinking that prevailed among traditionalists. Rome had spoken but this time there was a heated and bitter debate around what many Catholics considered the pope’s spurious arguments about contraception.

Paul was greatly influenced by the 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii written by Pius X1. That papal letter espoused a strict ban on the use of contraceptives and branded any deviation from this ruling as a “grave sin.” Paul felt – with good reason – that if he sided with the majority on the commission he would be inviting harsh condemnation from traditionalists who would demand an explanation of how sexual acts that Pius called intrinsically evil in 1930 could be morally permissible forty years later.

The pope used Natural Law reasoning which argues that stymieing the conjugal act by preventing the possibility of pregnancy is unnatural and therefore immoral. Deriving moral imperatives from the purposes of physical acts is problematic for many modern ethicists.

There is another criterion for judging the morality of any human behavior. This involves Catholics from all backgrounds deciding in good conscience what is right and what is wrong from an ethical standpoint. This approach is called the Sensus Fidelium and involves ascertaining the sense of the faithful about any issue. In other words, the beliefs and practices of the people in the pews should be seriously considered before making moral pronouncements. Advocates for this democratic approach point out that the Holy Spirit is active with the whole community not just with the hierarchy.

Viewed through the prism of the Sensus Fidelium, Paul’s teaching about the use of contraceptives was rejected by the vast majority of Catholics. Arguing, for instance, that the Natural Law forbids a married couple from using a condom to prevent pregnancy runs counter to common sense.

His central conclusion in the encyclical that the use of contraceptives by married couples is somehow against the Church’s moral code was rejected and disregarded by most people who agreed with the majority opinion on the papal commission.

Some conservatives still carry the torch for the teaching in Humanae Vitae. Breitbart News joined the debate by opining that using contraceptives makes women “unattractive and crazy,” and the American Catholic Bishops are seriously considering basing their upcoming pastoral letter about the importance of the family on the teaching in Pope Paul’s encyclical.

Francis has not repudiated his predecessor’s teaching in Humanae Vitae – to do so would almost certainly cause a schism in the church. However he recommended that three children would be appropriate for most families and he condemned the idea of Catholic families “breeding like rabbits.”

Should popes feel bound by previous papal pronouncements on moral matters? Paul couldn’t follow the advice of the clear majority of Pope John’s commission because of Pius’s encyclical, and Francis is tied to the flawed Natural Law reasoning used by both of his predecessors.

Let’s consider an imaginary company in America, a publicly-traded corporation with 1000 employees who have just announced annual profits of 100 million dollars.

Their accountants say that they owe 10% in government taxes, so the question arises about where the remaining 90 millions go. There are three groups with legitimate claims on the company profits: management, shareholders and regular workers.

Forty years ago the average CEO’s salary in America was twenty times more than one of the company’s line workers; today the ratio has climbed to an astonishing two hundred and seventy. If we take the average worker’s salary as $50,000, that gives the CEO annual compensation in multiple millions.

That is how the cake is divided. The corporate executives and the shareholders are represented at the table when the profits are divvied up and they take good care of their interests, but the workers have no voice in the decision-making. The result is that, despite big increases in corporate profits, ordinary workers’ salaries have barely matched the inflation rate since the 1970’s. Surely a classical example of a rigged system where the majority of those who contributed to the company’s success have no say in the distribution of the profits.

In the same 50-year period union membership has declined dramatically. Now only 6.4% of private sector workers carry a union card; the figure was about five times that in the 1970’s. The union contracts negotiated at that time ensured steady improvements in the lives of workers and their families. In addition there was a strong ripple effect on the wages and conditions of non-union workers as employers felt that they had to remain competitive in their salary structure.

The dramatic growth in income inequality in the United States is closely related to the decline in union membership.

Even today union workers earn up to 30% more than similar employees in companies that do not have an organized voice. And trade union members nearly always have better healthcare, vacation and pension benefits.

Public sector workers, especially in the tri-state area, are highly unionized and their wages, pensions and working conditions reflect a powerful voice at the negotiating table. As a retired teacher, I am grateful that I am represented by a strong union, the United Federation of Teachers.

It is hard to see how the lot of most private-sector blue-collar workers will improve without a strong voice at the corporate table. This will entail an unlikely spurt of growth in trade union membership or legislation in Washington that would mandate this change.

Unfortunately, Republicans would strongly oppose any legislative proposal in the direction of worker representation on company boards. Their recent taxation policies clearly favor corporations and the rich. They promise that higher company profits will somehow dribble down and result in salary increases for workers – a very dubious proposition that doesn’t meet the common sense test.

Democrats usually get the support and financial backing of the big unions and their economic and taxation policies are much more likely to favor the middle class. President Obama did raise taxes on the affluent to help fund the Affordable Care Act, and Hillary Clinton promised that, if elected, she would propose a bill that would encourage some profit-sharing by companies – surely a step in the right direction. Still, overall, Democrats lack conviction in this regard and show no plans to address these issues.

Of all the Christian denominations, the Catholic Church has been most associated with supporting workers’ rights. From Pope Leo the X111’s revolutionary encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891 to John XX111’s Mater et Magistra 70 years later to many statements by the present pope, Rome has been clearly in the workers’ corner, favoring their demands, including the right to organize and to negotiate a living wage. Mater et Magistra goes further, asserting that workers should be co-owners and thus sharing in the profits of the enterprise where they work.

Unfortunately, very little is heard from the pulpits on the glaring injustices suffered by ordinary workers. Why are there no outraged church voices raised against the immorality of stagnant employee wages and reduced worker healthcare benefits when companies are making record profits and CEO’s are raking in millions? Instead we have top leaders with names like Ryan and Brady disgracefully leading the charge for improving the lot of the already well-heeled.

The millions of workers who in frustration voted for Trump last year must surely realize by now that this administration in Washington does not respond to their needs. They should rally around an assertive trade union leader – like a Cesar Chavez or a Mike Quill – to realize the power of worker solidarity. A tall order for sure, but otherwise the remuneration of top management compared to the pay of ordinary workers will widen even further.