There was a time when the US population knew next to nothing about the world of Islam, except what they may have learned from twisted tales of the Crusades or from the literary masterpiece Tales from 1001 Nights. Muslims were considered to be exotic people from desert lands far away.

Wow! Were we wrong! Or, at least, we were myopic in our estimations of who the Islamic people were and what Islam proclaimed and believed. Even in the early part of the 20th century, we misspelled and mispronounced their names and titles. Some wrote of them as “Mooslims” or Moslems or even Mohammedans. In the 1960s, we learned the phrase Muslim and could finally distinguish between the religion of Islam and the adherent Muslim.

Sadly, what we are just coming to learn is the familial relationship enjoyed by Muslims and Christians around the world and, finally, here. A Muslim friend shared this story.

In Pakistan's northeastern Punjab province, Muslim villagers are raising funds to help their poor Christian neighbors build a church. The initiative was begun shortly before Easter by a group of Muslims from a village in Faisalabad, Pakistan’s textile-manufacturing hub.

"There is a tiny Christian population in the village—only 20 families—who have no place to worship," Fr. Aftab James, the local priest, told Anadolu Agency.

"Only days before Easter, the initiative was taken up by our Muslim brothers," he said.

According to Fr. James, Christians of the village had to use someone’s home -- or some other site -- to perform prayers on holy days.

"Muslim residents of the town, however, offered to build us a chapel as a gift," he said. "We are thankful to our Muslim brothers for this wonderful gesture. It makes us feel proud," the priest said.

The local Christian community is now very excited that they will soon have a church in the village.

"Before we had to rent or borrow a house in which to hold Christmas, Easter and other festivities," Faryad Masih, a Christian laborer, told Anadolu Agency. "But now we will soon have our own chapel," he said.

"At first I didn’t believe it when Muslim community leaders said they would build us a chapel," he recalled. "But to my surprise, construction work began within one month of the initial announcement," a visibly excited Faryad said.
"Our community’s longtime dream is now coming true," he said.

Christians, Pakistan’s largest religious minority, account for roughly 3 percent of the country's total population of some 180 million. Most of them reside in Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, where they are mainly involved in the sanitation, nursing and teaching sectors.

Almost 60 percent of Pakistan’s Christian community is Protestant, while the rest are Catholic. The country’s Christians are represented in Pakistan’s government and Senate, and in national and provincial assemblies.

The local community has already raised 150,000 Pakistani rupees (roughly $1,500) towards the total cost of the church’s construction, estimated at some 700,000 rupees ($7,000).

Mian Ejaz, one of the Muslim fundraisers, told the Anadolu Agency that additional funds would eventually be raised to finish the chapel, which would include a medium-size prayer hall and another room.

"We had four mosques in the village but no place of worship for Christians, as most of them are poor and lack the funds to build a church on their own," Ejaz, who also provides funds for the village’s four mosques, said.

Therefore, Ejaz said, Muslim community leaders had decided to give an Easter gift to their Christian counterparts in the form of a chapel.

The day construction work began on the church in March, a massive bombing tore through a public park in provincial capital Lahore killing dozens of people, including a number of Christians celebrating Easter.

"We want to tell the world that Pakistan isn’t a country of extremists—who are only a small minority—but a country of people who believe in religious tolerance and harmony," Ejaz said.

"Moreover, the Christian world is doing a lot for Muslim refugees, so we should pay them [the Christians] back in the same coin," he said, referring to the flocks of Muslim refugees now trying to reach Europe from Turkey.

In the Punjab region, Christians have often borne the brunt of anger and animosity from the Hindu community. The Muslim community has continually rallied to their Christian neighbors’ defense.

A similar effect has been seen in Egypt where Muslims have donated money towards the building of a Coptic church in Al Manufiyya, north of Cairo, signaling another step towards solidarity in a country previously divided along religious lines.

Coptic Orthodox Bishop Benyamin, of the Diocese of Al Manufiyya, began a collection of donations for the church, which will be dedicated to the Virgin Mary. According to Fides news agency, a number of Islamic leaders in the area encouraged local Muslims to contribute to the program, a suggestion that was taken up most enthusiastically by young people and children.
Pleased with the success of the initiative, Bishop Benyamin has urged other communities to follow suit, and said there is a message to learn from the way that Christians and Muslims are working together.

In the Old World, Christians and Muslims have lived side-by-side for centuries. Like any family, they have their own rivalries and squabbles. There is the old saying, “No one picks on my brother but me.” This may be the best expression of the filial devotion experienced between the two faiths and, perhaps, can be a guidepost to future relations between the two.

Fewer things make me crazier than when people speak of things wherein they have no expertise. When the Bible (and most other ancient cultures' wisdom) said that “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” they wasn’t kidding. Last week gave us a glaring example of what happens when a non-expert tries to speak authoritatively about the Bible. Get the popcorn.

It all started last Thursday when Roll Call--the Congressional newsletter--reported that Georgia’s Republican Congressman Rick W. Allen led the opening prayer in a conference meeting. His House Republican colleagues were treated to a harangue calling for the “death penalty for homosexuals.”

Allen led the opening prayer by reading from Romans 1:18-32, and Revelation 22:18-19. All of this shortly before House members were scheduled to vote on a spending bill that included an anti-discrimination provision—protecting the LGBT community—that social conservatives just don’t like. And those conservatives do enjoy reading Scripture verses calling for punishing humanity’s sins, including homosexuality.

I mean, let’s protect the water- and air-poisoners and the corporations and banks that plunged so many into poverty in the crash of 2008-09. But let’s not protect people who do no harm to anyone else. Is that is being said?

Look, if your religious beliefs consider the LGBT community to be “sinful” then that is entirely between you and your community/church. And as the funny man said, “if you don’t like gay marriage, don’t be involved in one.” I tend to stand with (or behind) Pope Francis on this one; who am I to judge? Funny how people forget that the New Testament pretty firmly states, “Judge not, unless you too shall be judged.”

Passages in the verses read by Rep. Allen refer to homosexuality and the penalty for homosexual behavior. “And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet,” reads Romans 1:27.

Wait, what? Can we back up for a second? Read that second clause again, please. The one about women. Yeah, that one.
“Leaving the natural use of the woman…” Is it just me or does “natural use” seem a little…what’s the word…Neanderthal? You know, like the old caveman saying that “women are good for only one thing.”

Now here is something that is important to know about Paul’s writings, that is, when Paul’s usually writes about “homosexuals” and “sodomizers,” he is talking about promiscuity because he also names adulterers and fornicators in those passages. Promiscuity, in their view, is the danger, both psychologically and health-wise. But let’s move on.

Does the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament call for the death penalty for homosexuality? Yes, it does. Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13, chapter and verse. But it calls for death penalty for lots of things. Here are some fun examples…well, unless you’re caught doing it and you get put to death for it...
Committing adultery between a man and a woman.  (Leviticus 20:10–12). And yet, King David was never put to death for it.
Being male and practicing bestiality (Leviticus 20:15).
Being female and practicing bestiality (Leviticus 20:16).
Having incestuous sex (Leviticus 20:17).
Having sex with a woman who is menstruating (Leviticus 20:18).
Having sex with your father’s wife. (Leviticus 20:20). That is not to say “mother” as men had many wives in those days.
Having sex with your daughter-in-law (Leviticus 20:30).

Can we at least admit here that Leviticus, chapter 20, has gone down a strange path? But wait, there’s more...
Consuming blood (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:10). Sorry, Bruce Lee.
Eating anything that mixes meat and dairy (Exodus 23:19). No cheeseburgers!
Eating fat (Leviticus 3:17). Okay, so eating with no flavor.
Eating pork (Leviticus 11:7–8). What? No hot dogs? I’ll take my chances with stoning.
Eating aquatic creatures lacking fins or scales (Deuteronomy 14:9–10). No shrimp or lobster or clams!
Trying to convert people to another religion (Deuteronomy 13:1–11, Deuteronomy 18:20). Missionaries going to get it!
Being a false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:5, Deuteronomy 18:20, Zechariah 13:2–3). Better avoid those stock-brokers and meteorologists....
Planting more than one kind of seed in a field (Leviticus 19:19). What’s the danger there?
Wearing clothing woven of more than one kind of cloth (Leviticus 19:19). Or this?
Touching the dead carcass of a pig (Deuteronomy 14:8). Sorry, football fans…
Dressing across gender lines (Deuteronomy 22:5). And yet the priesthood wore those gowns...

But then Rep. Allen went on to read: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful…”

So, Rep. Allen wants the death penalty for the LGBT community? Then, according to the sayings of Jesus—whom he does not quote once—he had better get the hangman ready for all of us. Because, if we are going to act on the ancient laws of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, we had better follow “every stroke of the pen of the law.”

Especially a congressman who is “without understanding” and “unmerciful.” There is a reason why the Founders of America wanted a clean and clear separation of Church and State, to keep non-experts from doing such damage based on faulty understanding.

Fewer things make me crazier than when people speak of things wherein they have no expertise. When the Bible said that “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” it wasn’t kidding. Last week gave us a glaring example of what happens when a non-expert tries to speak authoritatively about the Bible. Get the popcorn.

It all started last Thursday when Roll Call--the Congressional newsletter--reported that Georgia’s Republican Congressman Rick W. Allen led the opening prayer in a conference meeting. His House Republican colleagues were treated to a harangue calling for the “death penalty for homosexuals.”

Allen led the opening prayer by reading from Romans 1:18-32, and Revelation 22:18-19. All of this shortly before House members were scheduled to vote on a spending bill that included an anti-discrimination provision—protecting the LGBT community—that social conservatives just don’t like. And those conservatives do enjoy reading Scripture verses calling for punishing humanity’s sins, including homosexuality.

I mean, let’s protect the water- and air-poisoners and the corporations and banks that plunged so many into poverty in the crash of 2008-09. But let’s not protect people who do no harm to anyone else. Is that is being said?

Look, if your religious beliefs consider the LGBT community to be “sinful” then that is entirely between you and your community/church. And as the funny man said, “if you don’t like gay marriage, don’t be involved in one.” I tend to stand with (or behind) Pope Francis on this one; who am I to judge? Funny how people forget that the New Testament pretty firmly states, “Judge not, unless you too shall be judged.”

Passages in the verses read by Rep. Allen refer to homosexuality and the penalty for homosexual behavior. “And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet,” reads Romans 1:27.

Wait, what? Can we back up for a second? Read that second clause again, please. The one about women. Yeah, that one.
“Leaving the natural use of the woman…” Is it just me or does “natural use” seem a little…what’s the word…Neanderthal? You know, like the old caveman saying that “women are good for only one thing.”

Now here is something that is important to know about Paul’s writings, that is, when Paul’s usually writes about “homosexuals” and “sodomizers,” he is talking about promiscuity because he also names adulterers and fornicators in those passages. Promiscuity is the danger, both psychologically and health-wise. But let’s move on.

Does the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament call for the death penalty for homosexuality? Yes, it does. Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13, chapter and verse. But it calls for death penalty for lots of things. Here are some fun examples…well, unless you’re caught doing it and you get put to death for it. Here are some of the capital offenses:

Committing adultery between a man and a woman. Leviticus 20:10–12. And yet, King David was never put to death for it.
Being male and practicing bestiality. Leviticus 20:15.
Being female and practicing bestiality. Leviticus 20:16.
Having incestuous sex. Leviticus 20:17.
Having sex with a woman is menstruating. Leviticus 20:18.
Having sex with your father’s wife. Leviticus 20:20. That is not to say “mother” as men had many wives in those days.
Having sex with your daughter-in-law. Leviticus 20:30.
Can we at least admit here that Leviticus, chapter 20, has gone down a strange path? But wait, there’s more.
Consuming blood (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:10)
Eating anything that mixes meat and dairy (Exodus 23:19). No cheeseburgers!
Eating fat (Leviticus 3:17). Okay, so eating with no flavor.
Eating pork (Leviticus 11:7–8). What? No hot dogs? I’ll take my chances with stoning.
Eating aquatic creatures lacking fins or scales (Deuteronomy 14:9–10). No shrimp or lobster or clams!
Trying to convert people to another religion (Deuteronomy 13:1–11, Deuteronomy 18:20). Missionaries going to get it!
Being a false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:5, Deuteronomy 18:20, Zechariah 13:2–3). Better avoid those stock-brokers.
Planting more than one kind of seed in a field (Leviticus 19:19). What’s the danger there?
Wearing clothing woven of more than one kind of cloth (Leviticus 19:19). Or this?
Touching the dead carcass of a pig (Deuteronomy 14:8). Sorry, Packer fans…
Dressing across gender lines (Deuteronomy 22:5). And yet the priesthood wore those gowns...

But then Rep. Allen went on to read: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful…”

So, Rep. Allen wants the death penalty for the LGBT community? Then, according to the sayings of Jesus—whom he does not quote once—he had better get the hangman ready for all of us. Because, if we are going to act on the ancient laws of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, we had better follow “every stroke of the pen of the law.”

Especially a congressman who is “without understanding” and “unmerciful.” There is a reason why the Founders of America wanted a clean and clear separation of Church and State, to keep non-experts from doing such damage based on faulty understanding.

Canon Lawyer Ed Condon called it “the last thing the Church needs right now,” when referring to the question of female deacons in the Roman Catholic Church. He was responding to the issue that was presented to Pope Francis during a question and answer session of the International Union of Superiors General (IUSG) meeting.

The IUSG is a congress of the leadership for superiors of women’s orders. The meeting took place last Thursday, May 12, at the Vatican and some of the female leaders present asked the Pope directly about the possibilities for a female diaconate. Sister Carmen Sammut, superior of the Sisters of Our Lady of Africa and president of the UISG, said the sisters “were quite excited by the fact that Pope Francis did not leave any question out; he really wanted to answer each of our questions.”

Furthermore, when asked about the possibility of a commission to investigate the possibility, Sister Carmen said that the Pope “accepted that proposal and has said that he would bring that forward so that it could be studied even more than it has already. And I hope that one day there will be a real decision about this.”

The day after that meeting, the men were closing ranks in their ecclesiastical phalanx to distance the Pope from any idea of female ordination.

According to the Catholic Herald, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, who serves as Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, issued a “clarification” on May 13, saying that it “is a question that has been discussed much, including in the past, and that comes from the fact that in the early church there were women who were called deaconesses, who carried out certain services within the community.

“But one must be honest: The Pope did not say he intends to introduce a diaconal ordination for women and even less did he speak of the priestly ordination of women. In fact, talking about preaching during the eucharistic celebration, he let them know that he was not considering this possibility at all.”

The number two official at the Vatican’s Secretariat for State, Italian Archbishop Angelo Becciu, tweeted “Let’s not rush the conclusions!”

Sister Carmen, on the other hand, said that the Pope “was very strong about the fact that women should be in the decision-making processes and the decision-making positions of the Church.”

What was the exact question? “The permanent diaconate is open only to men, married and not. What prevents the Church from including women among permanent deacons, as happened in the primitive Church? Why not create an official commission that can study the question?”

The Pope gave a somewhat long answer, as he likes to do and which I appreciate, because he frames his answers within the historical conditioning of Church tradition. Much of what he answered was based on a discussion he once had with a theologian of the Syrian Church—rich in history and tradition—who explained to the Pope that the Early Church did indeed have women serving in the diaconate.

Was the Pope serious about establishing a commission? He must have been because Archbishop Becciu’s tweet was in response to the Pope making a surprise phone call to Becciu, telling him that he wanted a commission on women deacons.
Ah! Looks like Becciu was telling the Pope not to rush to conclusions as much as he was telling that to the women of the IUSG.

And this is what Pope Francis continually faces within his own camp. Francis makes bold and reform-minded statements and the male hierarchy tries to walk them back or even fetter what the Pope is proposing to the point of refusing to have the discussion.

Whom do we believe? The Pope or the spin doctors of the church?

We know that Francis has continually sided with women by denouncing violence and discrimination against women. Their elevation to the diaconate might be a way to send a powerful counter-signal. That was part of the case made by Quebec’s Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher in the October 2015 Synod of Bishops when he introduced the idea of female deacons. I always liked that guy.

Furthermore, as John L. Allen, Jr., editor of Crux magazine states it, “Francis repeatedly has called for more visible leadership roles for women in the Church, and this would certainly be one way to do it. Most ordinary Catholics will never attend a Vatican synod or a board meeting for the Vatican bank, but they do go to Mass, and seeing a woman helping to lead the community in worship would be powerful symbolism.”

One thing is clear. To attempt any prediction as to what Pope Francis is going to do is foolhardy. He would make a great Jazz musician because he follows the theme but his improvisations are usually something extraordinary.

I was shaken and saddened to learn this morning of the death of one of my greatest influences.

The Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S.J., a Jesuit priest and herald of the Catholic social justice movement, became synonymous with anti-war activism in the Vietnam era, had died. Father Berrigan, aged 94, had been living at the Jesuit infirmary at Fordham University in the Bronx when he died on Saturday, April 30, 2016.

It was more than just his activism—far more—that moved me. He challenged the government, he challenged his church, and he challenged a young boy growing up in Florida to think about the power of words and the power of compassion and love.

More fiery than his friend Thomas Merton, whom I came to admire only after his [Merton’s] death, Berrigan had a radical vision of justice that was based on the Gospels and that pushed his order and his church hard.

“Berrigan undoubtedly stands among the most influential American Jesuits of the past century, joining the likes of John Courtney Murray and Avery Dulles,” the Rev. Luke Hansen wrote in America, the Jesuit magazine, and was the first to report Berrigan’s death. Murray focused on religious liberty within Christianity, in general, and Catholicism, in particular. Dulles became known to me during graduate school as a thinker with profound theological insights. But Berrigan…

Berrigan was a prophet in the best sense of the word. He challenged everyone who heard or read his powerful words. I read them. Over and over and over.

In January of 1968, the horrific Tet Offensive took place during the Vietnam War (call it “conflict” if you like, it was war). During that offensive, over 80,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army combatants stormed out of the jungles into the cities of South Vietnam and wreaked incredible havoc. The Viet Cong and NVA even stormed into the compound of the US Embassy in Saigon. A friend of mine was a diplomat there and brought home two battle flags retrieved from the confines of the embassy grounds. And while the US claimed victory, Tet was proof that it was an American intelligence catastrophe. It sparked a brutal renewal of US bombing of North Vietnam.

It was a that moment that the historian Howard Zinn (author of A People’s History of the United States, a true history) and Fr. Daniel Berrigan arrived to receive three US prisoners from the North Vietnamese government. Berrigan and Zinn spent the first, and many subsequent, nights in bomb shelters. In that first night, Berrigan sat with children who were enduring a hellish firestorm. Berrigan was changed forever and his revulsion and horror were revealed in his poem, “Children in the Shelter” which marked his transformation:
I picked up the littlest
a boy, his face
breaded with rice (His sister calmly feeding him
as we climbed down)
In my arms, fathered
in a moment’s grace, the messiah
of all my tears. I bore, reborn
a Hiroshima child from hell.

Those words rattled me to my innermost self and I could never think of war in the same way. That poem helped shape the person I am today.

 “For me, Father Daniel Berrigan is Jesus as a poet,” Kurt Vonnegut once wrote. “If this be heresy, make the most of it.”
Berrigan did just that.

Shortly after the death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in May of 1968, Berrigan and his younger brother Philip, also a priest, with seven other Catholics stormed the draft office in Catonsville, MD, and set fire to draft records in the parking lot outside the office. The burned the draft records with a homemade napalm, the same stuff being dropped on Vietnamese children. While the records burned, the nine joined hands in prayer.

According to the New York Times, the Berrigans and the others issued the following statement: “We destroy these draft records not only because they exploit our young men but because they represent misplaced power concentrated in the ruling class of America.” It added, “We confront the Catholic Church, other Christian bodies and the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face of our country’s crimes.”

The brothers were convicted in a federal court and released on their own recognizance in 1970. Following St. Augustine’s dictum Lex iniusta non est lex (An unjust law is no law), they refused to show up for jail and went into hiding. Berrigan was eventually arrested by the FBI and sent to federal prison. He was released in 1972.

After the Vietnam War was over, Berrigan continued protesting US military adventurism. Later, he was one of the first to minister to AIDS patients and helped shine a spotlight on the AIDS crisis. He combatted capital punishment and all issues in his “consistent ethic of life.”

As Berrigan declared in Milwaukee in 1984, Christians should have no part in “war, paying taxes for war, or disposing of people on death row or warehousing the aged.” He was part of the Occupy Wall Street movement at the age of 92.

As much as I was moved by his socio-political activity, his writings formed part of the foundation of my thinking. He wrote more than 50 books and an additional 15 volumes of poetry.

If you remember Paul Simon’s song Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, there was the line “When the radical priest come to get me released, we was all on the cover of Newsweek.” The radical priest reference was to Father Daniel Berrigan.

In his later years, Berrigan wrote brilliant commentaries on the prophets and why not? He was one of them.
 

Last Tuesday, March 15, 2016, Pope Francis announced his intention to declare the sainthood of Mother Theresa of Kolkata (Calcutta) in September of this year.

Known for her dedicated work among those in direst poverty in the massive Indian city, she is a person close to the Pope’s own heart. She was ruthlessly dedicated to serving her beloved people who flocked to be near her and to receive help from her.

She founded a sisterhood that administered 19 homes and, in the doing, won the Nobel Peace Prize.

She was born Agnese Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910 to Albanian parents and grew up in the city now known as the Macedonian capital, Skopje. In 1920, the city was on the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire.

When she was 19 years old, she joined the Irish order of Loreto and, in 1929, was sent to India, where she taught at a school in Darjeeling under the name of Theresa.

In 1946, she moved to Kolkata to help the poorest of the poor and, after a decade, set up a hospice and a home for abandoned children. Four years later, she established the Missionaries of Charity. That order now numbers over 4,500 nuns worldwide.

Her work in the Kolkata slums won her global recognition and fame. She was often called “the saint of the gutter.” That may be the only true kind of saint there can be any longer.

Her critics bemoaned her hard-line Catholicism and accused her of mixing with dictators and accepting donations from them. As for her supporters, and I am one of them, what better way to use the money of dictators than to help people that those same dictators have crushed underfoot.

Indeed, who cares whence comes the money? The only consideration should be where the money goes and who does it help, agreed?

Mother Theresa died in 1997 at the age of 87. Pope John Paul II beatified her in 2003, her first step to sainthood. It was only five years after Mother Theresa’s death when John Paul II declared that a Bengali woman named Monica Besra was healed from an abdominal tumor as a result of Mother Theresa’s miraculous intervention.

A Vatican commission pronounced that the healing of Monica Besra has been achieved when a photo of Mother Theresa had been placed on the Bengali woman’s stomach and she experienced recovery.

In December of 2015, Pope Francis paved her path to sainthood when he officially recognized a second miracle attributed to her. This time, it was the healing of a Brazilian man—whose name has never been identified—from several brain tumors in 2008. The man is said to have been cured when the priest called for the intervention of Mother Theresa.

"The Holy Father has authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to proclaim the decree concerning the miracle attributed to the intercession of blessed Mother Teresa," the Vatican reported.

Sometimes it takes decades, sometimes even centuries, after their deaths for Catholic believers to attain sainthood. But no time has been lost with the beatification and sainthood of Mother Theresa of Kolkata. Pope John Paul II was quick to begin it all and Pope Francis seems keen to conclude it all, especially in this Holy Year of Mercy.

Maybe it is unrelated and maybe it is not, but Pope Francis introduced new financial rules which affect the process of attaining sainthood. This was in answer to allegations by some that some candidates for sainthood may have their causes sped along by wealthy donors.

Under the new guidelines, an administrator is named for each candidate and is required to maintain “scrupulous respect” in the process as the Congregation of the Causes of Saints analyzes and vets the proposed possible saint.

This is not intended to slow down the process but to enable a rigor in the process. However, nothing, it seems, is going to speed up or slow down Francis’ will to add yet another saint during his pontificate.

Whether it is his intent or not, Pope Francis has and is and will reshape the modern face of Roman Catholicism through an expansion of moderate and liberal bishops and cardinals as well as expanding the bullpen of saints upon whom he can collectively call in this new era of openhearted, open-mindedness.
 
 

This coming Friday, February 12, will witness an historic meeting between the leaders of the two largest denominations in Christianity, the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches. Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill will be meeting in Havana, Cuba, for a two-hour discussion on the plight of Christians under siege in the Middle East and Africa from groups such as ISIS, Boko Haram and al-Shabab.

Russia is especially hopeful regarding the meeting.

"You know, it's a mutual step forward and, of course, like everyone else, we expect that this meeting will be successful, and we very much appreciate the willingness of the two religious leaders to hold such a meeting," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s Sputnik news agency.

While the Pope and the Patriarch are looking to sign a joint declaration of future affiliation and calling for the defense of persecuted Christians, the Russian government is not going to pass up the opportunity exploit the public relations possibilities of the historic meeting. But neither will the Vatican.

In a time when Vladimir Putin promotes military adventurism in Crimea, Ukraine and—seemingly—the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Pope Francis has chosen Father Visvaldas Kulbokas to be the interpreter. Fr. Kulbokas, 41, is a member of the Vatican’s diplomatic service. In June of 2015, Fr. Kulbokas interpreted the pontiff’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kulbokas used to be the first secretary of the Vatican’s embassy in Moscow. He is a graduate of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. Only four Lithuanian nationals have undergone training in the most prestigious institution of high learning of the Roman Catholic Church. The use of Fr. Kulbokas could be seen as the Pope’s solidarity with the Baltic States which Putin eyes so greedily.

On Friday, the TASS news agency wrote, “The unprecedented meeting between the leaders of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, due on February 12 in Cuba’s Havana, has been prepared for 20 years, a senior Orthodox cleric told reporters in Moscow on Friday.

“The meeting in Cuba will take place when Pope Francis will make a stop on his way to Mexico and where Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia will be on an official visit. A joint declaration will be signed on the future relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church.”

"The meeting has been prepared for a long time. In 1996 and 1997, intense talks were held on organizing a meeting of his Holiness Patriarch Alexy II," said the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk.

A joint statement released by the Holy See and the Patriarchate of Moscow has said that this first-ever such meeting in history will be held after a long preparation and marks "an important stage in relations between the two Churches."

In Britain, The Economist magazine down-played the unique nature of the visit saying that several such meetings had happened before at the highest levels. This is not surprising as Britain feels itself further and further isolated from the new relationships developing in a post-Imperial world.

With this era of new (or renewed) international tension, the meeting between Francis and Kirill gains special importance, Cardinal Walter Kasper, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told TASS.

"It is very important that this meeting takes place now that there are so many problems in the world. A lot will depend in resolving international issues in the future on the interaction between the two churches," he said.

According to the cardinal, it is too early yet to talk about the possible visit of Pope Francis to Russia. "This is an important step, but we have an important path to cover for the rapprochement between the two churches," Kasper said.
Still, it is a step.

"The Holy See and the Moscow Patriarchate hope that it will also be a sign of hope for all people of good will. They invite all Christians to pray fervently for God to bless this meeting, that it may bear good fruits," according to a joint-statement released by Rome and Moscow.

For Russia, the meeting between Pope and Patriarch is an attempt to bolster Russia’s “civilizational role.”

“The meeting of the two leaders under the conditions of western sanctions confirms the Christian civilizational role of Russia," Moscow’s Ambassador to Vatican, Alexander Avdeyev, said.

The meeting also provides Cuba with a chance to re-enter world politics and culture, especially Christian culture.
According to Vatican Radio, “The Cuban government has said it is ‘honored’ to be hosting the meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill on 12 February in Havana. Cuba said it would ‘provide every accommodation’ to ensure the success of the historic meeting.”

Part of that historical nature is the role of Moscow’s Patriarch. Only in the 20th Century did such a role become viable again.
In 1721, Peter the Great minimized the role of the Russian Orthodox Church and tried to supplant it with a more Western model. In 1917, the Patriarchate of Moscow was revived but suffered through the flux of Soviet history. Suppressed under Lenin in 1925, it was revived by—of all people—Stalin in 1943. Stalin’s move was political, not religious, and hoped to appeal to the old patriotism of Mother Russia’s sons and daughters during World War II. Nikita Khrushchev renewed the crack-down on the Church after the death of Stalin.

In the following years, the Russian Orthodox Church was seen as strictly adhering to Soviet policy and was, thus, viewed as an arm of the state. It engaged in church diplomacy with Rome and with the World Council of Churches.

In September of 1978, there was a meeting of Pope John Paul I and Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). He was not the head of the Russian church but he was, indeed, second from the top.

Sadly, Nikodim, 48, died of a fatal heart attack during his meeting with Pope John Paul I. It was John Paul who administered last rites to the dying Metropolitan. John Paul I would be dead only three weeks later, having reigned for only 33 days.

Now the true heads of the two churches are set to meet but many observers it could not have taken place much earlier because the Russian church didn’t desire it. The chief objection on the Russian side was Catholic outreach activity in Russia.

But things have changed. Russia’s military is bogged down in Syria with no way to extricate itself. Western sanctions have created an economic crisis in Russia and, perhaps worst of all, the collapse of global oil profits have panicked Russia’s economy which depended so heavily on petroleum exports.

All of this undermines the stability that Putin struggled to create. He needs to find another avenue into global civilization. He turned to the Church.

Let’s see what a Friday in Havana brings.
 

I have said it before and I’ll say it again. To think of all Islam as being represented by the cultists of ISIS/ISIL, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and al-Shabab and more is like thinking that all of Christianity is represented by the KKK, the Nazi Party or the Aryan Brotherhood. No matter how much ISIS/ISIL claims to be true Islam—or the KKK to be truly Christian—it is simply not true.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has created a cult that uses Islam’s phrases that are fashioned into heretical sloganeering.
In the real world of Muslim-Christian relations—not the fanatical rabble-rousing of both Christians and Muslims—there is an understanding and even a filial relationship that does not get picked up by Western press. In fact, there have been many incidents where Muslims have come to the aid—even defense—of Christians and vice-versa.

It has happened more than you think.

In 2006, a Hindu mob attacked a Christian community in the Punjab region of Pakistan. Many Christians were murdered. In one of the most memorable events of that decade, the Muslim population rose up in defense. The Muslim leader declared, “Our brothers, the Christians, do not believe in vengeance. That is their faith. We, however, do believe in it and we will avenge them.”

The Hindu community was punished by the Muslims for the attack on the Christians.

During what was hoped to be the “Arab Spring” in 2011, the military took control after the removal of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The military blamed the Christians for demonstrations against the government, accusing them of violence against the military. In reprisal, the military attacked a Christian neighborhood thereby causing protests.

The brutal crackdown on protests they had incited caused further demonstrations with the Muslim citizenry joining to protect the Christians. TRNN News in Egypt carried the live broadcast of Christians and Muslims together shouting “Muslims and Christians, we are one!”

One Muslim leader called the attack on Christians “haram” (blasphemy).

In August of 2013, the Jesuit Father James Martin posted a photo on Twitter (pic.twitter.com/eKqu3oSLuz) that went viral showing Muslim men, in traditional Islamic dress, standing in front of a Catholic church in Egypt, protecting the congregants while they attended mass.

Later that year, Pakistani Muslims actually formed a hand-in-hand human chain in order to protect Christian worshipers inside St Anthony’s Church when threats were made against the Christians.

On November 30, 2015, Pope Francis made a three-nation tour of some of the most violent clashes between Muslims and Christians. That violence is most-often incited by those pseudo-Islamic cultists.

"Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters," Pope Francis said after a speech given by Imam Tidiani Moussa Naibi, one of the local religious leaders trying to foster dialogue between Christianity and Islam in Africa.

Pope Francis called for "an end to every act which, from whatever side, disfigures the face of God."

Only three weeks later, a bus in Kenya was ambushed by the al-Shabab terrorist group whose leaders have been associated with Al-Qaeda.

It was Monday, December 21, only four days before Christmas when al-Shabab attacked the bus which was travelling from the capital Nairobi to the town of Mandera in Kenya’s northeast where the terrorist group often operates.

It was not the first time al-Shabab had attacked Christians.  In November of 2014, a bus was attacked near Mandera by al-Shabab militants, who killed 28 Christians travelling to Nairobi for the Christmas holidays. They were separated from the Muslim before being massacred.

In April of 2015, al-Shabab killed 148 people in an attack on Garissa University College in April, the militants reportedly singled out Christians and shot them, while freeing many Muslims.

The December attacks would not go like the ones before.

This time, the Muslim passengers on the bus refused to be separated from the Christians. They told the militants to “kill us together or leave them [the Christians] alone,” Mandera governor Ali Roba said. “The locals showed a sense of patriotism and belonging to each other," he told Kenya's private Daily Nation newspaper.

The al-Shabab militants decided to leave after the passengers' show of solidarity and protection.

In January of 2015, the 100th birthday of an extraordinary man was celebrated. Although he died in 1968, Thomas Merton’s influence and affect was phenomenal and has not abated since.

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) was a Roman Catholic monk in the Trappist tradition and was one of the most well-known Catholic writers of the 20th century. He authored more than 60 books, including the story of his conversion, Seven Storey Mountain, which is considered a modern spiritual classic.

Merton, however, became a rather controversial figure within his monastery at Gethsemani in Kentucky and within the Roman Catholic Church in general. Some have called him an unfaithful Catholic and others have called him a prophet.

Jesuit priest Father James Martin, S.J. wrote an extensive article on Merton and pin-pointed seven particular things that Merton did which influenced Father Martin greatly and serves as a “Seven Pillars of Liberal Monastic Thought.”

Martin wrote, “He surely changed people’s lives, and if that’s not enough to change the world, I’m not sure what is.”

I do not and would not disagree with Father Martin’s assessment or his list. His list is as follows but I write personally regarding the list.

1 – “He wrote The Seven Storey Mountain.” It was first released in 1948 and is a beautifully written account of his sad childhood, followed by teenage years of loneliness and a libidinous young manhood. His conversion and entrance into the Trappist monastery was quickly done. He wrote tenderly of being “lost” and slowly finding his way into the monastic life. He was as much a poet as a chronicler.

It was a phenomenal best-seller and why? Was it just the amazing writing? Did he speak to people on some deep level? For me, it was like reading Jeremiah who so open and honest about himself, revealing mistakes and wrong motivations. It was okay to make mistakes but not okay to remain in them. Something wonderful awaits when we find ourselves in something beyond ourselves.

2 – “He reminded people that prayer was not just for monks.” The idea had been expressed before and often. Merton’s point—and remember that this was before Vatican Council II—was that contemplation and prayerfulness was not the sole vocation of those in the religious life. As a matter of fact, Merton once wrote that the layperson who lives out a contemplative life may be beyond the monastic who has the support of a community of monastics.

One of the worst intellectual sparring-matches of my graduate school life was debating that very topic with a phalanx of monks, nuns and priests. I had written a “position paper” on the topic of “Do monastics represent the elite of the Church?” My professor (Bless him.) read it aloud to the class and I was set-upon. If only I had read Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation by that time, I would have had an ally.

3 – “Merton wrote this: For me to be a saint means to be myself.” It is an idea that follows closely on the previous item. It is not saintly to become something I am not. It means so much more to fully become the person I am and was meant to be. In the practice of Shinto in Japan, there is only one object in the Shinto shrine. It is a mirror. This was something that fascinated Merton and he saw that as the quest the “clean the mirror” more and more until the true person is reflected. Merton was say that we would finally see the person that God intended us to be.

4 – “He made it okay to look to the East.” This also builds on the previous point. Merton was fascinated by Zen, Buddhism, Shinto and other Eastern traditions. It was this issue that made him questionable in the eyes of so many Catholic writers both then and now.

Later, a Jesuit named William Johnston would write extensively on the compatibility of Eastern practice and Christian thinking. Johnston’s book “Christian Zen” was pivotal in showing Christians that Zen was not a religion but a practice in mindfulness and was very much in harmony with a Christian theology.

Merton was so very interested in Eastern monastic practices. He wanted to bring monastics from all tradition—Catholics, Buddhists, Sufi Muslims, Anglicans, Hindus and more—into an understanding and fellowship with each other and learn from each other.
He finally convene
d a “congress” of monastics from all over the world to meet in Bangkok, Thailand in 1968. He had met with the Dalai Lama (who still calls Merton his “brother”) and was encouraged to press on with the congress. He had removed his monk’s habit by this time and was wearing blue jeans and t-shirts.

5 – “He wrote this: Why do we spend our lives striving to be something we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our times doing things, which, if we only stopped to think about them, are the opposite of what we were made for?” Think about that for yourselves for a moment or two. It still has profound meaning for me.

6 – “He worked tirelessly for social justice.” Even after he had secluded himself at the monastery in Gethsemani, he did not continue to write and concentrate on prayer and meditation. Rather, he began to work for social justice. He was criticized for “abandoning” his pious writings on prayer but Merton had found his life’s concern was for others. He had encountered God in his prayers and the result was the craving to encounter others.

7 – “He reminded us that everyone is extraordinary and everyone is ordinary.” In Louisville, Kentucky, there is a plaque that marks the spot where Merton had his greatest understanding. I have been to that spot and have seen the plaque. As Father Martin says, “Best to let Merton tell the story.”

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut,” he wrote, “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. . .  This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . .  I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

Just before the very first meeting in that very first monastic congress, Thomas Merton had just showered and was getting ready to dress. He reached to switch on an electric fan and was electrocuted. The congress disbanded and has never convened again.