Monthly Reading Links

"The complex legacy of Benedict XVI"
John Allen, National Catholic Reporter

"Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us"
Steven Brill, Time

"The Godfather"
Brian Harper, America

"After the Flaw: Noticing the little 'ifs' during Lent"
Joseph Hoover, America

"Happy Valentine's Day! (Or Why I hate Disney's The Little Mermaid)"
Jason King, Catholic Moral Theology

"Neat, Pat, Cheap Endings"
Terrance Klein, America

"Chicago mother has lost all 4 children to gun violence"
Dawn Turner Trice, Chicago Tribune

Please follow me on Twitter (@jwbidwell) for additional reading recommendations.

An Open Letter to Cardinal Mahony

The Los Angeles Times published an article on Wednesday about your social media efforts of the last few weeks. I am one of the Twitter users anonymously quoted in that article. While the quote itself was accurate, I fear the context of it was not.

You sent out a tweet on Monday about your blog post on "loving your enemies." I sent two tweets in reply, intended as commentary on your blog posts of the last few weeks. As the article points out, your "blog doesn't allow readers to post responses." So my tweets, the first of which was partially quoted in the article, were these:

I've met you. You're a good man. But this online pity party is unseemly. Don't just praise the "silent Jesus", act like him. *

And please give up denial for Lent. Your enemies aren't all judgmental haters and you aren't a persecuted scapegoat-martyr. *

You probably don't remember me, but we spoke a few years ago at the Cathedral one Sunday. My wife and I had brought her parents to Mass and we decided to have lunch on the Cathedral plaza. As we ate, you came up to say hello. It was late afternoon, the plaza was pretty deserted, and you were by yourself. You didn't just shake hands and move along, you chatted with us for a few minutes. You never acted like the Cardinal-Archbishop of Los Angeles, you were simply a pastor getting to know some visitors to your church. It was just a brief encounter, but it spoke volumes to me about the kind of priest and bishop you are in your heart of hearts.

Your ministry to immigrants is noble. I greatly appreciate the gift to the Church that is the Religious Education Congress. I love the Cathedral, especially the Communion of Saints tapestries. I worked with one of your former close aides, who shared stories, good stories, about his time working for you. The point is, when I wrote that "You're a good man," it wasn't just a line, it is a truth I know from direct experience.

Yes, your legacy is much more than just the sexual abuse crisis. I take you at your word that you made every effort to fix the mistakes of the past. But you made those mistakes and you need to stop trying to spin them.

Yes, our social media culture promotes instant judgmentalism. But it also promotes a sort of knee-jerk self-defensive denialism. "Loving your enemies" should also involve taking the time to thoughtfully discern if our "enemies" grievances are warranted and just. That would be a genuine imitation of the "silent Jesus."

I cannot begin to imagine how humiliating it must have been to be so publicly rebuked by your successor. But you had an opportunity to teach us something noble and you blew it. What might have been, had you proclaimed respect for Archbishop Gomez's decision and chosen to spend Lent in private prayer and reflection? Pope Benedict has just shown us that we need to put our family, the Church, before ourselves. Can you honestly say that you have been doing the same lately?

At the beginning of February, Elizabeth Scalia wrote, "Mahony tells the truth when he says the world and its experts supported some of his responses. But Heaven never could have. And he should have known that." I suspect you agree with her, and that your acts of denial are an attempt to push away not only the humiliation others have heaped upon you, but also that which you place upon yourself. But none of this denial and spin is going to get you any closer to the forgiveness you crave.

My sincere hope, as your brother in faith, is that you will take off the suffering servant scapegoat-martyr hat, and use the remainder of Lent, especially the imposed solitude of the upcoming conclave, to humbly reflect on all that has happened.

I also ask that you perform one small penance. Please read the following two essays by Joanne McPortland. If you've already read them, please read them again.

• "The Cat & The Cardinal: Assigning Moral Culpability When the Will Is Ill"
• "Dear Cardinal Mahony, Please Stop"

I was proud of the man that I met on the Cathedral plaza on that Sunday so long ago, proud that such a man was our bishop. I want to be proud of you again.

Farewell, Brother Benedict

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected ... He was seen as the Vatican's "Enforcer" ... "God's Rottweiler," the "Panzer Cardinal" ... Hence in the immediate aftermath of his election, most commentators fell back upon tried-and-true labels: "archconservative," "authoritarian," "hard-line."

Probably the best expression of all this came in an editorial cartoon in L'Unità, the newspaper of the old Communist Party in Italy. Understanding the cartoon requires a bit of background. In Italy, perhaps the most revered pope of modern times is John XXIII, known as il papa buono, "The Good Pope." One treasured memory of John XXIII is an evening in October 1962, the opening of the Second Vatican Council, when the Catholic Action movement organized a torchlight parade that finished in St. Peter's Square. The pope was not scheduled to address the crowd, but when it arrived, John XXIII wanted to speak. He said something burned into the consciousness of most Italians, repeated endlessly on television and radio. Smiling down on the crowd, he said ... "When you go home, you'll find your children. Give them a kiss, and tell them that this kiss comes from the pope." It summed up the legendary love of the man.

Thus the L'Unità cartoon showed Benedict XVI at the same window, saying, "Tonight, when you go home, I want you to give your children a spanking, and tell them that this spanking comes from the pope."

John Allen, "The Word From Rome", National Catholic Reporter

This is my favorite anecdote about the conventional wisdom on Pope Benedict. Once upon a time, it was a perspective I shared. As his papacy comes to a close tomorrow, I trust that I am not the only one who has shed that view.

Benedict confounds our American socio-political labels. His words alternately delight and enrage both the family values and social justice crowds. He refuses to be stuffed into one of our usual boxes. Theology professor Charles Camosy describes Benedict as the Pope of "the 'great et…et' or 'both/and' way of being authentically human."

Yes, it must be said that, as the headline of a more recent John Allen offering puts it, "Benedict leaves behind legacy full of ups and downs." But popes are more than just CEOs of a global corporation, this one in particular. Benedict is in love with Truth, and that is the gift he was given to share with us. "He asked searching questions of both the church and the world, and offered his own provocative answers," says Allen, who concludes the aforementioned article with another anecdote.

British Prime Minister David Cameron may have provided the best epitaph while bidding the pontiff farewell at the Birmingham airport on Sept. 20, 2010, after a four-day swing in Scotland and England.

"Holy Father," he said, "you made us sit up and think."

The reason I love Benedict so much is that I've come to believe that the central truth he is trying to get us to see is the same one I am struggling to proclaim: We are family. As Benedict himself said in his final General Audience today:

It’s true that I receive letters from the world's greatest figures - from the Heads of State, religious leaders, representatives of the world of culture and so on. I also receive many letters from ordinary people who write to me simply from their heart and let me feel their affection, which is born of our being together in Christ Jesus, in the Church. These people do not write me as one might write, for example, to a prince or a great figure one does not know. They write as brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, with the sense of very affectionate family ties. Here, one can touch what the Church is – not an organization, not an association for religious or humanitarian purposes, but a living body, a community of brothers and sisters in the Body of Jesus Christ, who unites us all.

"Our brother calls us to love, love God, love your neighbor, love ... Our brother died and rose so that we might all be one people, one community."

"You are my sibling. We are family. This is the essential truth of life. It is the only moral truth that really matters."

Benedict may not have blown us a lot of kisses in the last eight years, but let it never be said that his love for us, his family, was anything less than legendary.

May God bless Pope Benedict XVI, our brother Joseph Ratzinger!

Harry Potter and the Simplicity of Love

Pearls of Wisdom from Professor Albus Dumbledore

1. Humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.
2. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
3. The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.
4. We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.
5. Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.
6. Once again, Lord Voldemort fails to grasp that there are much more terrible things than physical injury.
7. Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?

My wife and I finished re-reading the "Harry Potter" series earlier this week. And once again, I was captivated by how much the novels teach about the truth of life, love, and, yes, even God. In an odd sort of way, they also mirror the journey of faith: what starts out as a children's story becomes, in the end, a very adult affair.

For "Harry Potter" does not preach about the sappy love of greeting cards or the misty love of self-help gurus. No, it unflinchingly tells us that self-sacrificial love is the most powerful magic of all. It drills that message into us with the deaths of Regulus, James, Lily, Albus, Dobby, Severus, and so many others. And then it asks us to feel pride as we accompany Harry through the forest and stand watch while he allows Voldemort to cast the Killing Curse without a fight. As someone else once said, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."

And speaking of Jesus, it has never been lost on me that the wizards and witches in "Harry Potter" celebrate Christmas and Easter just like their Muggle neighbors. God is never mentioned by name, but there he is nonetheless, hiding in plain sight. We could dismiss this presence as meaningless background scenery, or we could take it as sly evidence of a Presence that is the source of love and magic alike.

"For us, there is simply our way of being, which is a path of great power. This power takes many forms, but it always produces what we desire."

Many will scoff at the idea of a children's book about magic being a font of theological wisdom, but I think God delights in showing up in unexpected places. Besides, what good is Truth if you need a doctorate to understand it? It seems to me that our Parent wants to converse with all of us, not just those in graduate school. "Harry Potter" is a great reminder that the Gospel isn't so complex after all.

"Why do you babble so much about me? So much time and energy, for what purpose? What more is there to understand about us than love?"

On a side note, I am once again publishing on Friday instead of Wednesday. I fear this is not going to be an easy Lent for me. But perhaps that is a not such a bad thing. For as J. K. Rowling has so admirably shown us, the most difficult path to a destination is sometimes the only one that will actually get us there.

1.   J. K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", Page 297

2.   J. K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", Page 333

3.   J. K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", Page 426

4.   J. K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", Page 723

5.   J. K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", Page 826

6.   J. K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", Page 559

7.   J. K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", Page 723

Lenten Journeys

I feel I must begin this post by acknowledging the obvious, that it was not published as scheduled on Wednesday. I have struggled with my words the last few weeks, until finally, inevitably, they failed to arrive on time. But why should I have expected them to? They aren't really my words, after all. They belong to something greater.

Because it's not about me.

I say this to my wife when she asks where I want all this writing to go. It's not about what I want. The end goal is God's not mine, and they haven't exactly given me a ten-point plan. Is that frustrating, bewildering? Sure. But say no to my Creator? Never.

Because it's not about me.

I heard this from Pope Benedict in his decision to resign his office. How many people would give up the kind of power, position, and prestige that he has? And yet he does so willingly, perhaps even joyfully, because it's about the Church, not him, and not just the Church institutional, but the People of God, us. More to the point, it's about what God desires for us, their family, not the plans or dreams of one member of that family. And so our brother Joseph was wise enough to hear God's will in this matter, humble enough to accept that will, and brave enough to live it.

Because it's really all about God's will.

We see this every time we look upon a crucifix. It is God's will in all its frustrating and bewildering glory. It makes no sense, until we get to Easter morning, and we have a glimpse, a taste, of the overwhelming beauty that is Love.

And so another Lent has begun. Forty days to prepare for our glimpse, our taste, of something wonderful. Forty days to discern God's will for us, for you, for me. Forty days to dwell in the most sublime mystery. It's really my favorite time of the year.