Joseph Stoutzenberger

Beauty and Awe

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

Those of us watching the news this August 2023 are seeing images of what was once the beautiful, lush, verdant Maui Island of Hawaii, now devasted by wildfires sparked by unusually dry conditions. We have also been constantly viewing beautiful people and places in Ukraine being destroyed, such as the magnificent Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa or a theatre filled mostly with children. I am also struck by how the United States side of the Rio Grande River is now laid waste. Natural habitat has been replaced by a stretch of land devoid of vegetation and replaced with razor wire and unsightly fences.

The Bible begins by proclaiming that the created world is good, another way of saying that it is beautiful. The Psalms often sing of the beauty of the natural world, and St. Francis of Assisi wrote a song praising the beauties of creation. The bible’s Song of Songs also called the Song of Solomon, is a love poem filled with an appreciation for the beauty of the natural world and of the author’s beloved. “You are beautiful as Tirzah, my beloved, comely as Jerusalem…Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me!”

Jesus says nothing about beauty in the gospels. He does speak favorably of creatures of nature—birds of the air and beloved sheep. Jesus does have much to say about goodness, which is clearly an expression of beauty. Perhaps changing a few words would express his understanding of the two concepts. In the Beatitudes, instead of “blessed,” substitute “beauty.” “How beautiful are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of God.” Matthew’s Last Judgment description contrasts that which is beautiful with that which is unsightly: “Whenever you give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, and visit the sick, you create beauty.” Especially in the beatitudes, the beauty that Jesus proposes is not so much “doing for” as it is “standing with” the other. Our experience of beauty is always enhanced when we can see through another’s eyes, such as through the eyes of a child.

Studies have shown that spending time in nature inevitably uplifts our spirit. Even surrounding ourselves when indoors with scenes of sunsets and trees has a positive effect on our mood. Each season and every environment has its beauty. If we don’t appreciate the beauty of a sunset or a gentle stream flowing through a pristine forest, our lives will be greatly diminished. A barren landscape leads to a barren spirit. No amount of screen time can match the wonder and beauty of the natural world.

The link between beauty and goodness found in the bible has been shown to be scientifically observable. Today it is called “moral beauty.” Dacher Kaltner, the founder of the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley, led a team surveying people’s experiences of awe from many different cultures. They found that: “Around the world, we are most likely to feel awe when moved by moral beauty: exceptional virtue, character, and ability, marked by a purity and goodness of intention and action.” An experience of moral beauty results in a sense of unity and connection with that which is greater, what we would call “awe,” but it also leads to a desire to want to be a better person ourselves. Moral beauty is contagious.

Dorothy Day, echoing her favorite author Dostoevsky, said, “The world will be saved by beauty.” Both Day and her Russian novelist linked beauty with goodness. She found beauty in the run-down Bowery section of New York City, transformed because she was engaged in serving meals to homeless people in the neighborhood. Her Catholic Worker House created an aura of beauty—moral beauty, where many would see only repellant shabbiness. St. Augustine observed that the beauty we see around us, which is finite, is a reflection of beauty itself, which is God. We are likely familiar with equating God with the good. To experience beauty as a way to God is not a separate pathway from the way of goodness. That sunset we see, and the life we live are more beautiful when shared. Spurred on by such feelings of awe, our acts of kindness become beauty passed along. Only beauty will save the world.

A House of Many Mansions

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

Some years ago, I attended a lecture by the then Cardinal-Archbishop of Philadelphia. The focus of his talk was Catholic social teaching, but he delivered it just a few days after the scathing report on child sexual abuse by Philadelphia priests became public. When it was time for questions, the first woman to speak approached the microphone nervously. Almost in tears, she told the cardinal that she works with young people in her parish and that they are very confused, upset, and disheartened about the reports of abuse. Wouldn’t he please come and speak with them and reassure them that he understands why they are disturbed and that the church is doing all that it can to prevent this from ever happening again. The cardinal’s response was exasperatingly brief and dismissive: I have a very busy schedule and couldn’t possibly fit in a visit to your parish in the near future.

I wanted to whisper in the cardinal’s ear. Let her know that you feel her pain. Let her know how distraught you are about what the recent report revealed. Let her know that you realize how disturbing it must be for young people and that you pray for them every day. The woman didn’t want to hear about the cardinal’s busy schedule. She wanted compassion and comfort. She wanted to know that the cardinal cared. How wonderful it would have been if he had stepped down from his podium and went to her and gave her a hug. Might he even have cried with her, letting her know that he was with her and her young Catholics who couldn’t possibly connect the love of God with what was written about in the local papers?

I suppose it is unrealistic to think that every man ordained a priest or bishop would be capable of pastoral sensitivity, despite their being called “pastors.” Some are better at administration and serve best in offices apart from contact with regular people. In recent times the church has seen a pope who is more of a scholar and a professor—Pope Benedict XVI, followed by a pope who is more of a pastor—Pope Francis. Even before he was elected pope, Benedict oversaw a Vatican commission that declared that a homosexual orientation is inherently disordered and objectively wrong. I recall thinking at the time that his words would increase the number of Catholic young people who would commit suicide. Already young people who discovered that they were gay were killing themselves in greater numbers than the average. While he distinguished, in true professorial fashion, between persons themselves and their orientation, clearly, young people could not help but think that they themselves were disordered and sinful simply because of their sexual orientation. His language also very likely spurred on homophobic acts of violence, already an epidemic around the world.

Creator: VATICAN MEDIA | Credit: via REUTERS
Copyright: VATICAN MEDIA Divisione Foto

That message is starkly different from what Pope Francis said to young people gathered on August 3, 2023, for World Youth Day. He told the crowd that in the church, there is room for everyone. He even had them repeat the word: “Todos!” “Todos!” “Todos!” He said that “each person encounters God by their own way.” When Pope Francis made those remarks, he was not sitting in his study pouring over law books. He was looking out over the sea of young faces, each one of which he saw as beautiful. He wanted them to know that. As a pastor, he is able to read people as well as books. He wanted these young people to know that God looks upon them lovingly, regardless of what labels would be put on them.

Fred Rogers, aka Mister Rogers, was a Presbyterian minister who had a popular television show until his death in 2003. He exuded pastoral sensitivity. At the end of each show, as he left the set, he said to his young viewers: “You always make each day a special day. You know how? By just your being you. There’s only one person in the whole world who’s like you, and that’s you. And people can like you just exactly the way you are.” Perhaps Jesus had the same message when he said, “In my father’s house, there are many mansions.”

I doubt that Jesus had in mind a sprawling suburban development where every house looks the same. I’m guessing that he had in mind homes that have been lived in, filled with sorrow and laughter, where people of different shapes and sizes, ages and orientations, encounter God in their own unique way and share their gifts to make a rainbow of God’s all-embracing love.

Should People Follow Their Conscience? Seeking Common Ground

by Joseph Stoutzenber

I recently ran across a quote that spoke to me about my own ventures into writing about religious topics. In his book The Enthusiast, Jon M. Sweeney quotes religion scholar Wendy Doniger as saying: “It’s hard to imagine how you could write about any subject as sensitive as religion or history without outraging someone.” I have found that one subject area sure to bring on outrage in Catholic circles is the Catholic teaching on morality, and one topic likely to bring on more heat than light is that of conscience. Is there potential for common ground among factions who have strong opinions about the question: In moral decision-making, should people follow their conscience?

Much of the problem in answering this question is the lack of a clear definition of the term. In my recent book that provides an overview of Catholicism, I point out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church identifies three elements that make up conscience, or, more accurately, conscientious decision-making: awareness, discernment, and judgment. In a Commonweal, February 2023, review of the book Pope Francis and the Transformation of Health Care Ethics, by Todd A. Salzman and Michael Lawler, Bernard Prusac comments about the book’s discussion of Pope Francis’s Amoris laetitia that “the document’s potential is lost if its teaching is reduced to the claim that individuals have the right in conscience to do the good as they see fit.” Prusak suggests that the document is better understood as “the way that persons discern how objective norms apply to them in their concrete, complex circumstances.” Are these actually two conflicting understandings of conscience, or is there a possibility of common ground between them?

As the Catechism points out, an essential element of conscience is discernment, including discernment of objective norms. Then conscientious decision-making means applying discernment of norms to “concrete, complex circumstances” (judgment). An example of discernment and judgment applied to a concrete but complex question is minimum wage legislation. An objective moral norm is that all people have a right to life. How can that principle be applied to circumstances in which some people are working but not making sufficient income to provide for the health and well-being of their families? St. Thomas Aquinas has an interesting interpretation of the moral norm “Do not steal” that comes into play here. He says that when one person does not have enough to survive while other people have wealth well beyond their needs, then the rich person is the one who is actually guilty of theft. In Gaudium et spes, Vatican Council II enshrined this teaching into modern Catholic social doctrine: “If a person is in extreme necessity, he has the right to take from the riches of others what he himself needs” (#69). How’s that for a statement that, at face value, would outrage many and calls for much thoughtful discernment!

When the minimum wage is looked at in light of the right-to-life norm, the complexity that Prusak talks about is readily evident. How exactly do we determine the minimum needed for a worker to provide for a family? Should there be national legislation, or should it differ from state to state, community to community? Are there alternatives to increasing the minimum wage equally or that are even more effective in achieving the goal of providing for the well-being of people struggling to survive? Should wages differ by occupation? What impact would an increased minimum wage have on businesses—would it result in an overall negative impact on all people involved? Might businesses close in one place and open in another place where workers would work for less? Surely there is much room for thoughtful judgment when it comes to this one moral decision that affects so many. Discernment of moral norms is clearly called for in conscientious decision-making, but when faced with concrete, complex situations such as assuring a living wage for workers, thoughtful decisions (judgment) about what it means to do the good are called for. It is not a rejection of moral norms to say that people have the right and the responsibility “to do the good as they see fit.”

Sacramental Seeing: Are There Limits?

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

May 2018: Ornate golden interior of St. Peter’s Basilica. St Peter’s Basilica | Vatican City, Borgo & Prati, Rome | Attractions – Lonely PlanetVisit
Creator: Sun_Shine | Credit: ©Sun_Shine/Shutterstock

Some years ago, I traveled through Europe. I was awed by many sites that exuded a sense of the holy. Walking down the center aisle of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, I saw a plaque on the floor halfway to the sanctuary that read, “From here to the altar would fit St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.” It was hard not to be overwhelmed by the imagination and effort that people of the past put into creating such a magnificent structure. Notre Dame Cathedral, before its tragic fire, dominated a beautiful section of Paris. Chartres was home to a cathedral where the light shining through the blue stained glass inspired those inside to raise their hearts and minds to God. There were also plenty of places not strictly religious that were teeming with life—the little cafes of Paris and the fountains of Rome, the pubs of Ireland and the beer gardens of Germany, and the view of the Alps traveling from Germany to Italy. An outsider such as myself could easily look upon all of these wonders as sacred manifestations of the holy. A particularly touching religious site for me was the little chapel of St. Francis in the grand Basilica in Assisi (Cover photo, featured image), erected in his honor.

A detail of the North Rose window of Chartres Cathedral, France. Dating to c. 1231 CE, it has the theme of the Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled with Mary as their instrument. by **Allie Caulfield**
published on 15 October 2018

Survivors gathered on May 3, 1945, to salute the Allies and to remember people who perished in Dachau.Credit…United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

I discovered, however, that the most moving and heart-wrenching place I visited was the remains of the concentration camp at Dachau. On the train into the city, a poster advertised the upcoming “Dachau Folk Festival.” Again, from my perspective as an outsider, I questioned how music, dancing, and celebrating could take place in a town associated with such a dark past. I was struck by Hannah Arendt’s writings about what she called “the banality of evil.” She wrote about Adolph Eichmann, who claimed to do nothing more than arrange train schedules. He was simply doing his job, making sure that trains transporting thousands of Jews to the concentration camps to be murdered did not interfere with the trains taking soldiers to the Russian front. It was difficult, if not impossible, not to be moved to tears walking through the camp. I found a small stone on the ground there that bore rust marks of barbed wire. Along with rosary beads supposedly blessed by the pope purchased at the Vatican gift shop, it was the only souvenir I brought home from my trip. The barbed wire markings were probably recent, but they served as a fitting reminder for me of the horrors that went on there.

The first book I ever wrote is Celebrating Sacraments, meant for high-school religion classes and still used in some schools. It reflects a broader understanding of the Catholic concept of “sacrament” than was dominant before sixty years ago when most people associated the term almost exclusively with the seven key rituals that serve as stepping stones in a Catholic’s growth in the faith, the Seven Sacraments. After Vatican Council II, as an investigation into these seven was taking place, theologians and religious educators started to talk about the universality of “sacrament.” If a sacrament is an “outward sign of God’s grace,” then surely the earth itself is sacramental, and all God’s creatures are holy manifestations of grace. The love of God comes through in love shared within families and among friends, even in casual encounters taken for granted. Aren’t such exchanges sacramental? They are visible, tangible expressions of the presence of God—God’s body language. The Seven Sacraments are best understood in relation to this broader understanding of sacraments.

I bring up sacramentality as fundamental to a Catholic worldview here because a place like Dachau tests the limits of the concept. Even before Vatican Council II, American Catholics were reminded in the Baltimore Catechism that “God is everywhere.” Was God present at Dachau when thousands of people were being slaughtered there? Is God present when bombs obliterate the towns of Ukraine and many of the people in them are thoughtlessly killed? How can we dare to say that there is a loving presence of God everywhere when a devastating earthquake kills so many people in eastern Turkey and Syria? And yet we seem to sense that holiness underlies tragedy. Along the road to the Dachau concentration camp are memorial shrines erected by various religions and nations, reminders that we are entering a holy place. When someone dies in a car crash, loved ones erect little shrines at the site to honor the memory of the victim. In such circumstances, we can yell and scream at God. There are even biblical psalms to help us do so. But do we want to dismiss the lives snuffed out in tragedies as less than holy? Rather than dismiss God, isn’t it better to plead with God to find sacredness in lives cut short and sufferings endured? Before the Latin word “Sacramentum” was used for the presence of God in our midst, the Greek churches referred to “mystery.” God’s presence is frustratingly hidden from us, a mystery. Horrible tragedies, especially ones perpetrated by human beings themselves, shock us to search ever deeper into discerning God’s presence and to dedicate ourselves to counter such distortions of the holy. We are meant to be stewards of life, which is the sacramental presence of God. Honoring the dead, especially those callously dismissed as so much junk, calls upon us to affirm life.

The Woman Wearing a Hat

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

I dreaded writing this blog, but I thought perhaps it would resonate with others who have had similar experiences. Recently, I attended a conference about how modern science has deepened our appreciation for God. At the end, the presenter asked us what signs of God’s presence did we see around us. I blurted out the word “hospitality.” Then he asked us to get into pairs to share a final activity. My wife noticed a woman sitting by herself across the room. I noticed her at lunch because she was the only person wearing a hat. My wife suggested that she would go over to pair up with her while I talked to the woman next to me, whom we had talked to earlier. I wasn’t up for talking alone to this person, so I said, why don’t you stay here and talk to the person next to us, and I’ll just listen. I caught the eye of the woman in the hat but made no move toward her, and my wife continued to talk to the woman next to us. When I looked back for the woman with a hat, she was gone.

I immediately began to ask myself: Why didn’t I encourage my wife to talk to her or go over to her myself? Why was my response “no” when “yes” would have been so simple and so obviously the right, that is, hospitable, response. No doubt, it would also have likely been refreshing for one of us to meet a new person. I immediately began to imagine that the woman felt rejected that no one stepped out of their comfort zone to talk with her and so left a few minutes early, and I could have prevented it. I’ll never know. I do know that I left bothered by what I had done or, in this case, not done. Wasn’t the message of Jesus that we are supposed to be bothered by people around us in need? Didn’t he tell us that no one is to be left out? And I gave voice to that message when I called out “hospitality” as being a sign of God at work within the human community. Five minutes after saying the word, I failed miserably at this gospel mandate.

I tried to console myself in multiple ways. I looked for solace in the words of St. Paul: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15). I tried to convince myself that if the great St. Paul didn’t always do what he knew to be right, who am I to think that I too wouldn’t fall short at times? And what about St. Peter? When faced with the opportunity to admit being a follower of Jesus, he denied even knowing him—not once, but three times! I thought of all the times Jesus said to people he encountered, “Go in peace. Your sins are forgiven.” I needed to hear these words, but it was a challenge to take them to heart. I tried a psychological approach. I reminded myself that my unthinking response in that situation reflected a strongly entrenched character trait within me and that this failure could serve as a catalyst for dedicating myself to making slow, sputtering changes when faced with similar future situations. Jesus, who cast out demons in his day, is ready and willing to help us cast out the demons we carry today.

I read that Bart Ehrman and other scripture scholars have discovered that the great story of Jesus and the adulterous woman about to be stoned told in John’s gospel was a later addition to the gospel as originally written. Thank goodness it made it into our scriptures. Clearly, Jesus views the men about to stone the woman as the real culprits in the story. Their sin? Lack of hospitality. Lack of compassion. A failure to recognize their own sins and failings and being quick to judge another. I can imagine Catholics who go to confession confessing the sin of adultery. I wonder how many confess to the sin of inhospitality? Hospitality was an essential virtue in the ancient middle east, and Jesus would have decried its lack when he saw it. Travel to a country such as Turkey and other parts of Western Asia today, and you are likely to discover that most people there still value hospitality highly. We need that quality in so many places in our world today, especially given the number of people displaced by violence, unsettled political circumstances, and the lack of basic necessities due to climate change. The epidemics of loneliness, depression, and anxiety in our country today also call out for us to respond with hospitality to friends and strangers alike. I write those words humbly as one who has fallen short in living up to that gospel message but who recognizes how transformative hospitality can be personally and globally. I admire those people for whom hospitality seems to come naturally, such as my wife, who thought to reach out to the woman in the hat when no one else did.

Meanwhile, I will contemplate the maxim most of us heard as a child: To err is human; to forgive divine. Sometimes forgiving ourselves is the hardest of all. Jesus tells us that God forgives. Surely, taking a cue from God is always lifegiving; and the challenge to reach out in love of ourselves and others remains.

Woke Catholicism

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

For a few years now, I have been working on writing an overview of Catholicism. While reading and researching Catholic perspectives on the bible, church, sacraments, and morality, I was also reading news reports about priests’ sexual abuse of minors and bishops who covered up abuses without reporting them to proper authorities. In a report about priest abuse in Pennsylvania, I discovered that the principal and chaplain at the high school I attended were on the list of committing “credible offenses.” Three priests who taught at one time at the university where I taught had also been dismissed from active ministry because of abuse accusations. I felt as though the book I was writing was about Catholicism as an ideal, while there existed a separate and different Catholicism that was real. It is hard to reconcile the church as the unsullied bride of Christ with the reality that the church was being represented at times by very flawed and, indeed, sinful people. With each damning headline, the church looks more and more like the prophet Hosea’s unfaithful wife, Gomer. Like Hosea’s, our faith is being tested every time church leaders misrepresent the severity of the problem.

I realized that I could not write about “Catholicism” without recognizing the reality of sexual abuse that has taken place in the church in the recent past and today. I looked at other books that described themselves as offering an introduction to or an overview of Catholicism. None that I found addressed this dark side of Catholicism. They spoke of the role priests and bishops are to serve in the church, without acknowledging that ministering to the faithful was at times being distorted into abusing the faithful and scarring them for life.

The response to clergy sex abuse that was commonplace for years reminded me of the conversation going on in the United States about “woke” and “anti-woke” movements. In the 1990s, some African-American commentators talked about the need to be informed, educated, and conscious of societal injustices—being “woke.” An essential element of wokeness was to look for injustices that may be ingrained in society and its institutions. The movement advocating wokeness led to a backlash. Some politicians proposed that seeing systemic injustices in society was anti-American, a denunciation of the wonderful structures that exist in American society that should not be questioned. Talking about injustices, even such clear-cut examples as the enslavement of Africans before the Civil War, was upsetting to white children who would feel bad about it but were not responsible for it. Wokeness also came to be seen as advocating for some groups on the fringes of American society whose identity and lifestyle ran counter to what many believed were traditional Christian values. School children should be shielded from learning about non-heterosexual persons; it could lead to third graders, for instance, questioning their own sexual identity. Should students in the lower grades be asked whether they wanted to be called he, she, or they?

Anyone familiar with how psychological therapy works knows that not addressing a problem is never a path to healing. There has been sickness in the church when it comes to priestly sexuality and abuse, just as there have been injustices in American society. Even children can’t help but wonder why so many black people live in poorer sections of our cities and not so many in wealthy suburbs. When all of a sudden, Father Jim no longer shows up for Mass anymore, parishioners naturally begin to imagine the worst. Saying “Let’s not talk about it” isn’t helpful to anyone’s psychological health, children or adults. In the same way, bishops seeking to avoid scandal by not addressing the real scandal of men abusing children while hiding behind the mask of their priestly garb was not healthy or helpful for anyone.

Catholicism needs a “woke” campaign, calling for everyone in the church to be educated, informed, and conscious of problems such as abuse. Part of that campaign is to look for possible systemic causes for problems and systemic solutions. Perhaps it’s time to consider not restricting priesthood to celibate men, for instance. Surely, given the extent of the problem of abuse by church workers, we are well beyond blaming “a few bad apples.” And the coverup approach has only led to more people getting hurt. Church leaders have taken some steps to employ a woke approach to matters of sexuality, clerical identity, and healthy interaction among the diversity of people who populate our world. Unfortunately, the non-wokeness about these matters for so long has muted their voice when speaking out against societal problems that sorely need to be addressed, such as racism, sexism, and heterosexism. God knows we need a church and a country that is “woke.”

What about Angels?

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

In a book that sets out to provide an introductory overview of Catholicism, certain topics invariably are left out. For instance, in my recent book, I don’t discuss the topic of angels. I do discuss the devil, mostly to point out the central teaching of Catholicism that Jesus the Good triumphs over the powers of evil—Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. Angels perhaps figure more prominently in the popular imagination of Catholics and non-Catholics than in official teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church devotes eight paragraphs specifically to them, #328-334, although there are some references to angelic appearances elsewhere. The Glossary of the Catechism says an angel is: “A spiritual, personal, and immortal creature, with intelligence and free will, who glorifies God without ceasing and who serves God as a messenger of his saving plan.” In his book of Christmas poems, Seeing Haloes, John Shea adds another common characteristic of angels: they “show up in more ways than you can imagine and when you least expect.” Shea has an angel that says, “I am the winged reminder to open your myopia into mystery.” His description reflects the Bible’s three common threads about angels: they appear in human form, do good, and disappear.

Angels are messengers from God who serve as protectors and heralds of good news. In the Old Testament, they tend to appear as human beings, often unexpectedly. Abraham welcomed three strangers who gave him the good news that his ninety-year-old wife Sarah was to bear a son. Abraham’s grandson Jacob encountered a stranger. Then and perhaps even now, you never know when a stranger is an angel in disguise, so Jacob asked the stranger for his blessing.

The stranger refuses, but Jacob will not take no for an answer. He wrestles with the stranger through the entire night to get his blessing. The experience is so transforming that henceforth Jacob has another name—Israel, which means “one who wrestles with God,” in this case, a messenger from God, an angel. In the New Testament, Mary is visited by an angel and told she is to become the mother of the Son of God. Twice angels appear to Joseph in a dream, once to tell him to marry Mary despite her being pregnant and, after the child’s birth, to go to Egypt to avoid the wrath of Herod intent on killing the newborn king. The birth of Christ is heralded by an entire choir of angels who alert shepherds of the wonderful event that signals glad tidings for all.

Popular culture has made good use of angels. What would the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” be without the angel Clarence? Beat poets of the nineteen-fifties and more contemporary songwriters refer to angels. Bob Dylan’s 1979 song “Precious Angel” pleads: “Shine your light, shine your light on me/Ya know I just couldn’t make it by myself/I’m a little too blind to see.” Bruce Springsteen and folk singer John Prine mention angels in their songs. There has been more than one angel-themed television show. The list of popular references could go on forever.

I am old enough to remember when Catholic children were told that they had their own personal guardian angel. That was always reassuring for a Catholic child to hear. True to my Catholic background, as an adult, I had an encounter that I can only describe as the intervention of an angel. Perhaps you have been aided by an angel sometime in your life as well. I was driving an old Subaru from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, when in a desolate stretch along I-95, I heard a loud “ping” from my motor, and the car lost power. Fortunately, I was near an exit and made my way, going at most ten miles an hour to a mini-mart just off the highway. I was totally baffled about what to do, so I called my wife from a phone inside the store (this was before everyone had cell phones) and described to her what happened.

A man was standing next to me fixing his coffee, and when I got off the phone, he said: “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help but hear what you said. I used to be a truck driver, and I know what it’s like to break down on the road. I know an auto repair shop a mile from here that is reputable. If your car runs, you can follow me to it, and then I’d be happy to drive you wherever you’d like to go.” I dropped off the car at the repair shop, and the man again offered to drive me home. I said, “Thank you, but I live in Philly, and that’s too far for you.” He replied, “I’m free for the afternoon and would be glad to do it.” I said, “Thanks for the offer, but is there a town nearby that has a train or bus that can take me to Philly? I would appreciate a ride there.” He took me to the train station in New Castle, Delaware. I thanked him, and he drove off. I never thought to ask him his name. I was so flustered and distracted by my situation that I couldn’t even picture what he looked like after he left. On the train ride home, it struck me: I was just visited by an angel! This is how angels operate. Abraham knew it. Jacob knew it. Mary and Joseph knew it. And now I had a first-hand experience of it myself.

Aidan’s Grandpas

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

My son and his wife moved to Sarajevo last year, taking my now eighteen-month-old grandson with them. Recently, when my image shows up on their phone, and his mom asks Aidan, “Who is that?” he says, “Grandpa.” I told my son that it felt great that Aidan recognized his grandpa, even if in an image on the phone. Tim said, “Don’t get too excited. He calls any old man ‘grandpa.’”

At first, I laughed at myself for thinking Aidan knew me after not seeing me for months at that early age. Then, thinking about it more, I thought it was wonderful that Aidan thought of all older men as grandpa. Every older woman is a grandma, and aunts and uncles, cousins, sisters, and brothers surround him.

Tim took his wife to the US embassy where she worked and wanted to go in with her but had Aidan with them. The old Bosnian guard at the gate said, “Leave him with me while you go in. I’ll take care of him.” Tim sent me a brief video of the guard bouncing a ball and playing with Aidan.

An older gentleman, guard outside a large fence, talking to a young boy.

Isn’t this the world we want for ourselves and our children? We are family, and we need to take care of one another. A moment takes place at every Catholic Mass that breaks the formal solemnity of the ritual. The celebrant turns to the congregation and says, “Let us offer one another a sign of peace.” All of a sudden, that person in front of us is not just an isolated individual separate from us but is someone who wishes us peace, as we wish them peace as well. In some more progressive settings, people actually move out of their pew and wander around, offering peace to as many people as they can reach. The symbolism is clear: We are family.

The abstract art design background of human hands touching together, United hands together, expressing positive, teamwork concept — Human hands of different ages, genders, and races intertwined, United hands together, expressing a positive teamwork concept

Now, of course, the challenge for us is to figure out how to live together as a family. I know that in Turkish culture, it is customary for all adults to contribute to the raising of children. There was something of that spirit at work in American society in some places not too long ago as well. When neighborhoods worked well, adults on the block got to know the children and would be attentive that they were staying out of harm’s way. Trick or treating on Halloween still has a spirit of neighborliness. Little ones dressed as princesses or superheroes show up at neighbors’ doorsteps and accept candy from people they ordinarily never speak to. However, the trend for decades now has been what a sociologist of American culture calls “the pursuit of loneliness.” The wealthier you became, the more you set up barriers between yourself and others.

Hopefully, religions play an important role in making the human family a reality. A recently widowed woman began a program at her parish called “the merry widows,” through which she engaged all the widows of her parish to support one another and women newly widowed. It represents just one way that a church gathering can create a supportive, family-like atmosphere. That handshake and greeting of peace at Mass is a reminder that taking care of one another needs to spill over in specific ways locally and globally. The welfare of the family demands it.

“It’s Only a Story”

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

Whenever I brought up Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden in my college teaching, a student from a Catholic high school invariably would say: “My religion teacher told us that it’s only a story.” I knew what they meant: the bible isn’t giving us a factual account of the creation of the world, as if the biblical writers were news reporters describing first-hand events as they happened. (“Stay tuned to find out what happened on the third day.”) I always cringed when I heard that word “only.” I would have preferred that their high-school teacher had said: “It’s a rich and meaningful story,” or simply, “It’s a wonderful story.” The “only” tended to leave students dismissing the great stories of the bible as not being powerful and poignant, and it risked lumping every biblical account into the fiction section of the library.

By the time I began teaching, some scholars had been exploring the wisdom found in myths, folk tales, and fairy tales. Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, and Alan Watts were among those who inspired us to take more seriously ancient and modern stories. Campbell wrote a book titled The Power of Myth, based on a popular PBS documentary about his research. A number of Catholic writers made good use of stories as well, such as John Shea and Father William Bausch. Human beings are story-telling animals, presumably like no other. We are finding out more and more about the intelligence and emotional life of other animals, but it’s hard to imagine dolphins and monkeys gathering together after one of their numbers dies and telling stories about them. Human beings seek meaning, and stories are a major vehicle for trying to make sense of the human condition. Today, scientists attuned to theology and theologians attuned to science are telling us that the universe itself is a story that has been developing for over thirteen billion years. The human story is a recent but wonderful outgrowth of that story. Tune in a billion years from now to see how that story progresses!

One consequence of the recognition of the importance of stories was the trend to look upon the bible itself as literature. Colleges offered courses on “the bible as literature,” but there were English courses, even on the high-school level, that treated bible stories as they would other stories. The story of Adam and Eve was placed next to the lyrics of Joni Mitchell’s song “Woodstock,” in which she pleads that “we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” The Babylonian creation myth was contrasted with the biblical stories of creation. The Book of Job lent itself to comparison with other stories that explore the precarious nature of humanity and human suffering. The Bible is indeed literature.

Where does that leave Christians, especially modern Christians, who want “the facts”? If you have ever attended a funeral service for someone you knew only slightly, you might hear a eulogy filled with surprises. You might discover that the old man you knew had, when younger, played music in a band or was active in the Ironworkers union he had been a member of. You might hear that the Irish grandmother who died used to hide guns for the IRA in her bakery shop back in Belfast. If successful, a eulogy seeks to take the composite of a person’s life and shape it into a coherent story. The story is based on facts but also conveys the significance of those facts. A mother of four has children and grandchildren, in-laws and relatives, and connections to a wide community of co-workers and friends. Each story is knitted together and makes a large quilt that reveals who the person is and was.

The Jesus story is like that, at least in the gospel retelling of it. Gospel writers saw the overall message of Jesus foretold in his leaving the comforts of home to preach a message of hope to poor people and challenge to the rich. Accounts of healing and forgiveness hinted at the message he commissioned his followers to carry on. The grand story of his suffering and death, rejected by powers that feared his message of justice for the lowly and comfort for the afflicted, encapsulated the meaning of his entire life. Stories circulated about his presence even after his death, leading to his promise of salvation reverberating to this day. There are plenty of facts about his life, and clearly, there are embellishments and even fictionalized ways of conveying his message, but it is in the coherent story that the meaning of his life is revealed.

Christians in different camps argue over the factual nature of the words, deeds, and especially the resurrection of Jesus. In doing so, they overlook that they share a common belief about his message: God is love, Jesus embodies that love, and God’s love surpasses death. In 1949, Fulton Oursler called it “the greatest story ever told” and wrote a popular book about it. Christians pray that, in the end, their story is bound up with and finds meaning in the story of Jesus.

Vatican Council II: Evolution or Revolution?

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

I am old enough to have spent my childhood immersed in pre-Vatican II Catholicism. I recall priests at the altar muttering sounds in a foreign language and altar boys responding in sounds they did not understand: Et cum Spiritu tuo. As an altar boy myself, I served at funeral Masses, during which the priest dressed in black and a hymn was chanted in Latin that translated to “a day of wrath” when “the world would be broken into ash.” Thankfully, I didn’t know what it meant, but the tone was foreboding enough. The small town where I grew up was home to two Catholic churches and many Protestant churches. As a Catholic, I wouldn’t dare enter one of the non-Catholic churches. I didn’t know what went on in them, but I was sure that it was unholy and taboo. Vatican II ended in 1965 and ushered in not only external changes but also changes in attitude and ambiance as well. I noticed the transformation that took place over the next decade and presumed that this was unanticipated and unprecedented for Catholicism, not just a renovation but a revolution. It felt that the Holy Spirit was certainly active in the late sixties and early seventies. It was only later that I discovered that for decades before, seeds had been planted and nurtured that came to fruition at the Council. One person who was a harbinger of change was a French layman name Louis Massignon (1887-1962).

Massignon lived during the period of colonialism by Western European nations. During the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century, parts of Africa and Asia were carved up by different countries, especially England and France, and exploited for their natural resources. France’s takeover of Algeria led to the murder of over a million Algerian people, Arab and mostly Muslim. Massignon looked at this tragic situation through his understanding of the Incarnation of Christ. He pondered the words of Jesus about caring for the hungry, the thirsty, and those in prison and suffering. Whatever was done for “the least”—suffering, impoverished, oppressed people—was done for Christ and in the name of Christ. While some Catholics in northern Africa suffered hardships, the majority of people who were hurting under this colonial arrangement were Muslims. For Massignon, if Christ is present in the poor, then surely he was present in the Muslims who were beaten down physically and psychologically.

In 1934 Massignon and a friend started the Badaliyah movement dedicated to praying for and caring for people suffering under these unjust political and social arrangements. In his mind, it required learning Arabic (Badaliyah is an Arabic word meaning “substitution”) and about the religion and customs of Islam. Massignon wrote that substitution means “to rejoice with them, and suffer with them, especially for that which they lack, in order to be worthy of carrying them.” He wrote that Mary welcoming divine presence within her serves as an inspiration “to persuade our hearts to console the afflicted and to transfigure the despair in this Muslim country.” His appreciation for and love of Islam and Muslims inspired many Catholics. Among them was Giovanni Battista Montini, who became Pope Paul VI in 1963 and thus oversaw most of the proceedings of Vatican Council II. Montini was a member of Massignon’s movement and received his annual newsletters. One of the groundbreaking changes coming out of the Council was a recognition of the “rays of truth” that emanate from religions other than Catholicism. Massignon died a few months after the beginning of the Council, but his message was consequential in this change in teaching and attitude toward other religions. I no longer needed to fear entering non-Catholic places of worship. I attended prayer services where representatives of various religions prayed together. I even attended a few weddings in a Lutheran church where a Catholic priest was also present, blessing the couple as part of the service. Pioneers like Louis Massignon led the way for dramatic changes simply by probing Catholic teachings such as the Incarnation and applying them to the realities in which they lived.