Let this sink in America, I dare ya.

Blood sport is next.

Thumbs up or thumbs down.

Caesar Donny will not be in the lineup himself but will, I’m sure, offer gratuitous, racist remarks about Michelle Obama. 

250 years of democracy, and we are reduced to this?

This took place at the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

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The grass on the Ellipse has been completely destroyed. Coupled with the demolished East Wing, it's a total disaster. 

 

 

Benedict's retrograde problem with a neo-Nazi bishop

Originally published August 17th, 2009, in my blog “Spiritually Incorrect.” 

Father Tom Reese is a well-spoken man and well-trained in theology, but an objective critic he is not. His first loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church has blinded him to the atrocious behavior that is being condoned by lifting the excommunication of neo-Nazi Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Pius X. He states the problem with Benedict’s papacy is that his organization does not have a modern PR office that would break the news of rehabilitating four Pius X bishops, including Williamson, to the world, the liberals in his own church and the worldwide Jewish community. No PR Vatican Secretariat, no matter how up-to-date and informed, could ever make a case for this blunder.

Any self-respecting PR person would say, Benedict, you are the Pope, damn-it, and you have chosen the wrong issue and the wrong message. Emphasize your organization's core mission and make it the centerpiece of your actions. The backward-looking vision of the Society of Pius X has a man like Williamson in charge of their priestly formation. It is a distorted faith that does real harm to people who struggle to alleviate the suffering in the world. Jesus did not say, go to the Pharisee and try to make peace before he goes off and starts a rival sect. He began condemnations of their theology with the words: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees!”

I understand the awkward position in which Benedict finds himself, perhaps not to the extent that Reese understands it, but I can follow an argument. The Roman Church has argued that the form of consecration ensures that its bishops inherit their authority from the original 12 Apostles of Jesus. And by “form,” Roman Catholics mean that the correct words, prayers, and ritual actions for consecrating a new bishop are uttered and performed by a bishop who has been initiated, or ordained, in the same manner. So the Pius X bishops are really bishops according to doctrine, as are, I might add, all the bishops of the old Catholic Church, who are still quite numerous in Germany and have at least four bishops in the US. I met one. The problem, according to Reese, is what Benedict is to do with these bishops so that they do not become loose cannons (my words).

I would bet pennies to dollars that not one in a thousand Catholics knows or cares about the doctrine of the apostolic succession as understood by the hierarchy, and by extension, only one in a thousand would pay any attention to the Pius X bishops when they opened their mouths. These intricacies only interest an extremely small group of scholars, liturgists, linguists, and canon lawyers, and are absolute trivia to most faithful Christians who look to their bishops, and especially the bishop of Rome, to be faithful servants of the Word of God and the Teaching of Jesus. For example, according to the rite composed under Pius XII, the consecrating bishop must use the words: “Complete in Your priest the fullness of Your ministry, and adorned in the raiment of all glory, sanctify him with the dew of heavenly anointing.” I am not going to dispute the beauty of the language, but the fact that this prayer was uttered when the excommunicated bishops were consecrated somehow necessitated a bow to the position that the Nazis did not murder more than 6 million Jews, dissidents, gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled is a horrendous distortion of the values that people should expect from any religious authority.

Is there a way that Benedict could have rid himself and the Church of these troublesome bishops? Of course. He could have simply let their movement die off or become a small fringe group of fanatics—a sensible option. Or if he felt that he had to take some action, following Fr. Reese’s argument, he could have declared them heretics and schismatics. But I fear that he has far too much sympathy for their position. And that is the danger. The conditions on our small planet are far too fragile to allow any hate mongers the publicity they crave.

And so I am still left with the question: where did Benedict get this dumb idea in the first place? I say it is because the leadership of the Church has lost sight of its mission. It has become so remote and isolated that its main concern is defending and legitimizing its authority rather than spreading the message Jesus taught. Sadly, this is the result of Benedict’s looking back to Pius IX and the 1st Vatican Council, and burdening the message of the Gospel with distracting arguments about liturgical propriety, the validity of holy orders, and the ordination of bishops. That view will just focus our attention on the human weaknesses and failings of the followers of Jesus, rather than the simple and direct way that He spoke to us.

3 comments:

John Sumser said...

Very clean and well put. The church has lost its way in a fairly short time. To be futzing around with folks like this simply cements the views of the unchurched. We all left because they were more interested in who was in charge than the flock itself. Shepherds are supposed to shepherd, not spend their time pursuing the vanities of position.

Thanks, Ken

4:01 PM

Kilian Fritsch said...

By the logic of consecration, would not the women consecrated as priests and bishops, beginning with the Danube consecration, be considered validly ordained and consecrated?

2:52 AM

Ken said...

I say yes, of course. I am not a canon lawyer, but I'm sure that the P2 Benedict cabal will find one to refute me. However, I think that the women priests and bishops of the Episcopal and Anglican communions would also qualify, as they have had Old Catholic bishops join in their rites of consecration for years.

2:58 AM

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Catholic Zen teachers: Both/And

Catholic Zen teachers and the ever-present peril of heresy — whatever do you do with dogma? 

I overheard part of a recent conversation about Celtic spirituality and transubstantiation. It led me down this dark path: Original Sin vs. Original Blessing.

This is an abbreviated story of a rather well-known and certainly much-admired Canadian nun, Sister Elaine McInnes. Sister Elaine was a member of a small religious community based in Toronto, Our Lady’s Missionaries. She was also a fully authorized Zen Master. Her Zen teacher was Yamada Koun Roshi of the Sanbo Zen school. Yamada also trained several Jesuits, Father Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, Father Wm Johnson, Father Ama Samy, and Ruben Habito, who was a Jesuit when he began his study with Yamada. Father Wiligas Jager, an Austrian Benedictine monk, also worked with him. In other words, most of the teachers in what has become a Zen practice aimed at Catholics and other Christians in the West began their Zen path in Yamada's small zendo in suburban Kyoto.

After her work with Yamada, Sister Elaine was assigned to the Philippines during its 1980s revolution, where she established meditation programs in prisons. Then she went on to lead prison projects in the UK for many years, and finally, she started another prison meditation project when she returned to Canada. She was presented with the Order of Canada. A remarkable woman. One of my teachers, John Tarrant, also in Yamada’s lineage, remembers meeting her. He said, “She was a kind, no-nonsense kind of woman.” Oh, I almost forgot, she had been a professional concert violinist, Juilliard-trained. She played in the Calgary Symphony Orchestra for five years before becoming a nun. She was already well past 80 when I tried to meet with her in Toronto; she had begun the last part of her life in a small, secluded suburban convent. When she died in 2022, she was 98. 

I’d read somewhere, perhaps an interview in a parochial newspaper, that when asked what she thought about man’s essentially fallen nature, Sister Elaine responded without a pause, "Oh, you mean Our Original Blessing.” My headline: “Canadian nun, accomplished musician, Zen roshi, walks unafraid into dangerous prisons to teach meditation, and takes on Saint Augustine with a chuckle.” What was her faith in humankind that allowed her to cross that line? An act of will, hopeful idealism, blind courage, or real experience? This is what I wanted to talk to her about.

I can find no consistency in human nature. I cannot say if men and women are originally blessed, intrinsically fallen, beset by demons, or have a latent tendency to anger and destruction that erupts from time to time. Is a belief in “Original Blessing” foolhardy, or what it takes to do heroic works of compassion? The experience of post-war Japan and Hippo in the fourth century, attacked by the Visigoths, might have some similarities, but how could followers of Jesus hold such opposing views? The weight of our tradition comes down on the sin side. It puzzles me.    

Pope Benedict, when he still went by the name Joseph Ratzinger, did a 7-day Zen retreat with another Jesuit from Sophia University in Tokyo, Father Kakichi Kadowaki. At the time, Joseph Ratzinger said he found sesshin very inspiring, but later, as Pope Benedict, he condemned another priest, Zen Master Wiligas Jager, and forbade him from publishing or teaching the same practice. I remember asking Father Pat Hawk, another Roshi, a Redemptorist who’d trained with Bob Aitken, about Jager. Pat smiled and said he thought Wiligas was an animist. Ah, again that touch of Celtic spirituality. 

My past twelve months have been filled with heresies. First, I revisited Arianism when we celebrated the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Then, studying Augustine when Pope Leo was elected, I found myself thinking about the Manichaeans, the light and darkness of gnosticism, and then, for no apparent reason, the heresy of Pythagoras, the duality of body and soul. What do any of these heresies have in common? Not much, really. But then, when Celtic spirituality came up in the conversation, it triggered something. Each heresy begins by believing but then exaggerating, or extending blanket assumptions about how the world works based on observation, not Revelation. There may be difficulties with the observation, but I think we can assume that the heretics thought they were seeing the world as it is: the gnostics saw that darkness follows light; Pythagoras observed that the sun seemed to revolve around the earth; Arius tried to reconcile the idea that Jesus was divine yet had a human body. Something earthy got mixed in with the transcendent, and then, when the official institution did its referee shtick, it always favored the transcendent. But what gets lost in the referee’s call is the observation, as well as the joy, that rocks and clouds remain parts of the wonder of our world. They are. It’s that simple. 

Then along comes a priest who reminds us that our Celtic fathers and mothers were Christians who dug their fingers into the dirt and grew potatoes. What is true is comforting, and connects us with something beyond theologians' “filioque” and transubstantiation. I say “Amen,” but the logician in me does not have to exclude anything. I can say, “Both/and,” and say it loudly. Sister Elaine may lose to Augustine in doctrinal debate, but she wins hands down when the choice is between raising children as a Blessing rather Cursed as sinful by a vengeful god. 

Go back to your cushion and wait for the next move. Or set up a meditation in prison project.

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  Sr. Elaine MacInnes in April 2016

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  Front row from left: Sr. Elaine MacInnes, Yamada Koun Roshi, and Jun Maron

• at a Zendo in Manila, Philippines, in the 1980s.

Is life over when it’s over? (Originally posted, Friday, September 17, 2021)

 

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973)

"Each one of us, not only human beings, but every leaf, every weed, exists in the way it does, only because everything else around it does. The individual and the universe are inseparable". ~Alan Watts Sensei

My friend, Michael Papas was a guest student at Tassajara during the Summer of 1980. He recalled a talk by Issan Dorey that he says was a real downer. “I can’t repeat any of it, and the memories of the specific content are vague, but I didn’t find any good news in it at all!”

Afterward, he asked Issan, “If things are so bad, why don’t we just kill ourselves ?”

Issan's answer came quickly, “Because it wouldn’t help.”

My friend is a long-time Zen student. He says, “It was a great answer, obviously. It has stayed with me for more than 40 years. I thought of it many times in 2016 when my wife left me, and suicide seemed like the only way to stop the pain. But truthfully, back then, having children was my main reason for sticking.”

_____________________

Today I read Jonathan Shockley’s post “How Druid Heights Became an Alcoholism Cover for Alan Watts,” and I did ask myself: Are there really any good reasons for living and reasons for dying?

Why should we think that Zen is in trouble simply because there are flawed people who practice and flawed people who teach? Certainly, punches and counterpunches are distracting, especially in a scandal, but they are not off-limits. In my view, idolizing revered teachers also limits the practical possibilities for anyone who sets foot on the path. This presents its own set of problems, which I might explore at another time. Zen is devised for humans, not gods.

Many years ago, I went to a meeting with several of Claudio Naranjo’s senior students on the “Vallejo,” the Sausalito houseboat where Alan Watts talked and drank, womanized and created legends. It is common knowledge that he was an alcoholic, but I have no knowledge of sexual excess. From both my reading and firsthand reports, however, I can say with certainty that he did go on and on. He wrote and published 25 books before his death; 40 more have appeared since. That is the stuff of legend, and an enormous contribution.

I also visited the couple who lived in the rustic cabin in Druid Heights near Muir Woods, where Watts died. One report is that he slumped over his desk, drunk, and died, though some say he made it to bed that night. The story is vague, as are a lot of stories about alcoholics. We will never know the truth because we don’t really need to know. But his desk was kept in the same condition as it had been when he died as a kind of shrine to assist his passage to the Pureland, or Byzantine Heaven, or some New Age version of Limbo. Hesitantly, I asked my host if I could sit in the chair where Watts sat when he wrote, the chair he might have died in. My host, a legendary craftsman, said, “Of course. This way is open to anyone.” I imagined that I heard a faint echo from the Master.

Phil Whalen told me he loved listening to Watts on the old Berkeley KPFA. Many of the people who first gathered around Suzuki Roshi did. For some, it was their initiation into Zen. Watts read widely and wisely, even if at times he speculated wildly. David Chadwick recounted in his biography of Suzuki, Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki, that when a student of Suzuki's disparaged Watts by saying, "we used to think he was profound until we found the real thing." Suzuki fumed with a sudden intensity, saying, "You completely miss the point about Alan Watts! You should notice what he has done. He is a great bodhisattva.” Suzuki did not disparage the ox who tilled the soil, even if all the rows were not perfectly lined up. That would come later, and in some cases, the insistence on plowing perfectly straight lines got a bit out of hand.

At that dinner in Mandala House, I remember a lively conversation with a beautiful woman who was very close to a dear friend who was also present. The woman's son by another marriage, a bright, handsome guy, had driven across the Santa Cruz mountains to be with his mother. Not long after, he died in a car wreck on a treacherous part of that same highway. His mother chose to join him. She took a huge number of sleeping pills and never woke up again in the same house, perhaps the same room where Watts died.

I never met Alan Watts, but I met his ghost. I also carry with me the memories of many other men and women who left life with a troubled past. Though I might think I understand some of their reasons for living, I cannot claim to know the reasons for their dying.

_________________

Issan Dorsey, Roshi, died on September 6, 1990. He was 57 years old. I can think of no good reasons for his dying. If he were still alive, he would be 88 years old today. Watts was only 58 when he died, and his legend spans decades. I might complain that they both died too young with so much left to contribute. I might sing that tired old tune “only the good die young,” but I’d add that sometimes the good die young because they were bad, or at least not as good as we would like to believe.

Michael, thank you for sharing Issan’s kind answer. It still has life.