Mr. Trump and Truth

             It all started with academics, those people who hang out in universities. I am one of them.

The academics speculated, correctly, that truth is a creation of the human mind. More accurately, it is the creation of a group of human minds agreeing on a statement or a story.

Because truth statements are human creations, they are subject to error. More troubling is that truth can so often be used as a weapon to dominate someone else. This insight has become the basis of an intellectual movement labeled "postmodernism." Postmodernism agrees with the following statement: "Whenever someone claims to be speaking the truth, look out, because that someone is angling to get power over someone else."

The statement can easily be oversimplified to saying that there is no such thing as truth. Such misinterpretation leads people to reject any statement made by academics.  

 

What is Truth?

We have to have truth. So we need a definition of truth. I go to mathematics.

In geometry, we speak of a plane as a surface with width and length but no depth. There is no such thing in reality. But the idea is useful.

The concept of god or God is useful in the same way. I define truth as "the story the way God (or the gods) would tell it."

Truth is a quality of a story. Did the criminal intend to kill the victim? We may never know, but somewhere there is a truth: either the criminal did or did not intend to kill the victim. We have a tool to try to determine which story is true, the jury trial. We know that juries can be wrong, but they are the best we have.

In other areas, science plays the same role. Is the vaccine safe? It is or it isn't. We use observation and peer review to try to determine which story is true. Those tools can be wrong, but they are the best we have.

A third source, which supplements both jury trials and science, is testimony. We accept some people's story as true because we trust those people. Jurors trust witnesses. Scientists trust other scientists. Religious people trust their faith leaders. Politicians trust their pollsters. 

Which brings us to Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump claims that the 2000 election was stolen. Either it was or it wasn't. The truth is the story that God would tell. We use science and testimony to try to determine which story is true.

We have used a combination of scientific observation of how the voting process is carried out and testimony of people who were involved in the voting process. Out of those two sources we have concluded that the story that God would tell is that the election was not stolen. We could be wrong. We have claimed to speak the truth, but watch out, we may be angling to get power over you.

The durability of the story that Mr. Trump tells is based on two things: the reality that many people do not understand the value of science, and the ease with which stories, true or false, can be propagated by social media. We combine those two facts with the danger that Mr. Trump and the people who testify in his defense are angling to get power, the power of government. He can correctly argue that people who oppose him are also angling to get power. Which is true? Which story would God tell?

 

Truth and Faith

I am a professionally religious person--I make my living from religion. My faith, Roman Catholicism, claims to speak the truth. Our claim is one of the reasons why academics say that people who claim to speak the truth are often angling to get power. We have a sad history of popes and other church leaders who have used power in very unfortunate ways.

The Catholic church leadership still uses power. If I state something publicly that goes against church teaching, I can be out of a job. That is power.

Catholic tradition has put too much weight on what we call "natural law." The term implies that there are certain stories that everyone accepts as true, and that anyone who does not accept the stories is either ignorant or is lying.

But there are no such stories. History is full of examples of stories that everyone thought were true but were later judged not to be true. One example from Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) tradition is that charging interest on loans leads to bad outcomes and is therefore evil. It was not until the 1400s or 1500s that most Christian communities accepted the alternate story: under some conditions, charging interest on loans will not lead to evil outcomes and is therefore permissible.

We are human beings, not gods. We cannot tell the story that God would tell. We can only grope towards the true story.

And once we think we have some grasp of the story that God would tell, we enrich our knowledge with our love of other people and of the creation that God has given us. We do the best we can not to use truth to get power over others.

For a fine reflection on the relationship between truth and love, I suggest reading Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 letter "Caritas in Veritate," ("Love joined with Truth"), available on the Vatican website. Benedict does not discuss definitions of truth. He asks us to reflect on the beautiful things that love can produce when it merges with and enriches truth. including scientific truth.

Website migration

 

With the help of the Quincy University Advancement Office, I have set up a website, and plan to move things from this blog to that site.

The website address is:   friarzimm.com

The website has a modified blog format. I have divided the entries into two categories, "religion" and "secular issues." Under each heading the entries are listed with the most recent post on top. The titles of the entries are displayed, and the site is more easily searchable by topic.

The wrong turn

 

[published in Muddy River News 2/3/2023]

     The pro-life movement in this country is in the ditch. At a crucial moment they swerved in the wrong direction, like a driver on a patch of ice, and overturned.

    This is sad, because their moral instinct is right—every abortion is a tragedy. It is not something that people cheer about. We do not make jokes about it.

    At a crucial moment, in 1973, after Roe v. Wade, defenders of the unborn went on record in favor of the quintessential American solution to all problems: pass laws. Punish evil and you will stamp out evil.

    No. You will not stamp out evil because you will not stamp out sin.

    Sin is a bad word in our times. It calls to mind Puritan divines preaching the wrath of God, and most of us Christians no longer see God as wrathful. That is not because we have abandoned religion. We just started realizing the message of Jesus Christ: God is not in favor of punishment.

    The wrong turn that the pro-life people made in 1972 was to go for the political solution to the tragedy of abortion. Roe said that states could not use law to prevent abortion. The solution: overturn Roe.

    The prolife cause succeeded. The dog caught the car.

    What has happened is the exact opposite of what prolife defenders want. It has made abortion something to be defended in public. Democratic politicians go on record in favor of it. Protecting abortion has become a virtue.

    True, it took law to abolish slavery. But slavery and abortion are very different issues. Slavery was a public practice, with immense economic consequences. Abortion is very private, and while abortion provision has economic consequences, as the prolife cause points out, it does not compete with Microsoft.

    What prolife defenders should have done is work to create a moral consensus that abortion is tragic. Instead they have caused a major political party to promote a moral consensus that abortion is to be defended.

    It did not have to be this way. But our American flaw, where there is sin, punish, captured the prolife cause.

the hood

                              

 

the hood

    for me

    is what franciscans wear

    what drew me to them.

 

think of it.

 sixth grade

christmas midnight mass

first year serving mass

              st. mary’s hospital

two franciscans appear

              deacon and subdeacon

              (sisters wanted solemn high mass)

              never saw one before

                     I liked the hood

                     neat!

 

three years later

            high school seminary

            lots of hoods

            I reflect

                you know,

            hoods invite

                 could grab them

                        from behind

                 these are guys you could

                        grab from behind

                        stop in their tracks

            I like that

            I want to be like that.

 

why?

who knows?

            something in me?

a leper stopped francis in his tracks

            changed his life

            go to the bottom

                        be like the carp      

                        feed on the bottom

            who cares what the neighbors think

                        where you find Jesus

                        where Jesus finds you.

 

francis in a broken down church

            crucifix in a broken down church

                 a leper church

            but this time a message:

                 Build!

            OK

                  said francis

            I will build

            I need stones

                  Give me stones

                  and off he went.

           

            false start

                  nobody hurt

                  some buildings fixed

                  but new direction

            build people

            build up souls

                  broken down souls

                  bottom again

no wonder anyone can stop these guys

                  in their tracks

 

 why me?

            background?

            questionable grandfathers

                  one suicide, other probably alcoholic

            yet loving parents

                  parents without pedigree

                        alcohol and suicide ruin pedigrees

                   did they find Jesus on the bottom?

                        did Jesus find them on the bottom?

            maybe they taught me

                        go to the bottom

                        Jesus will find you

 

so I like the hood

            foolish motive for seventy years of living

                  but it held up

            don’t even wear the hood that much now

                  but it’s there

                   someone could stop me in my tracks

             good way to live

 

actually,

            not a half bad way to accept death

                  pulled from behind

            get stopped in my tracks

                  hope by Jesus this time   

 

Pews

Church pews are the single greatest obstacle to the Eucharistic liturgy as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council.

For the last two or three summers, excepting the Covid-limited years, we friars here at Holy Cross Friary have shared our Eucharist each weekday on the covered patio between the two buildings that make up our friary. Some years ago we bought fifteen or twenty outdoor furniture chairs to accommodate the people that began to join us. We were tired of dragging dinner chairs out of our two houses.

But this past summer even the new chairs were not enough, and we were dragging dinner chairs out again. People say they love sharing the Eucharist with us and with one another in that setting. This is what liturgy should be.

Of course, with the coming of autumn, the weather has driven us indoors, but even more important is our desire to use the University chapel for those weekday Masses so that students might be welcomed. But as soon as we return to the chapel, what happens?

All the congregants scatter. It is like what physicists call “Brownian motion,” where molecules seek the greatest distance from one another in any given space.

I have a dream.

In the dream we would remove all the pews in the chapel and replace them with reasonably comfortable chairs. We would move the altar from its platform and put it down on the floor in the midst of the chairs.

We would have to have enough chairs to accommodate larger groups, but surely that obstacle could be overcome. We would set up enough chairs to seat the number we expect, just as we have done on our patio. If more come, we could easily take some out of the storage space and use them.

Movable chairs would require labor to place them and clean under them. Since a typical weekday Mass draws at most twenty-five people, that would not be a huge project. Even the Sunday Masses draw only fifty or sixty people. It would be a rear occasion when enough chairs would have to be used to fill the chapel.

But the arrangement would place the worshippers within speaking distance from the presider, and close to one another. This is what I think is attractive about our summer patio Masses.

I shudder at the thought of removing those beautiful pews—such fine wood, over a hundred years old.

But does keeping them sacrifice a living liturgy to dead wood? The pews were put there when the couple of hundred students at the College were required to attend Mass, at least on Sundays. The only time I have seen the chapel full in recent years is for special occasions: the night when we bless all the college athletes, and graduation time. This past May the chapel was not full even for the graduation Mass.

But could we afford such a change?

The wood in these pews is magnificent. Maybe we could cover the cost of removing them, re-carpeting the floor, and replacing them with chairs just by selling the wood in the existing pews. Each pew has planks fourteen feet long and some feet wide. Finding a buyer might require patience and widening the search, but when some people are salvaging wood from old barns, others might salvage it from pews.

The Eucharist is a living form of worship. Many beautiful churches in other places have become museums. Ours are headed in that direction.

Beauty is wonderful, but prayer with one another is even more wonderful, and prayer in the Eucharistic presence of Jesus is heavenly.

I would mourn the loss of our pews. But I would mourn more if they were to burn in a church fire, or get eaten by termites in a boarded-up building.

Furniture should serve life, not strangle it.

 

 

Abortion is tearing our country apart

 

Abortion is tearing our country apart.

Few people see abortion as a positive good. That includes many of the women who choose to have an abortion. Yet our politics have forced us into two camps. Both sides of the issue are to blame.

Those of us who are Catholic Democrats do not see abortion as a good thing. The issue is not whether abortion is wrong, but whether it is a good thing for the state to make it illegal.  It is possible to argue that some behaviors are evil but that getting the state to punish them creates more problems than we wish to accept.

There are countries that make prostitution legal. There are countries that make use of any kind of drug legal. There are excellent arguments on both sides of those issues, but countries have made the decision that the lesser evil is on the side of permissiveness.

Our own country experimented with making alcohol use illegal. Few people saw alcohol addiction as good, but eventually the country decided that the lesser evil was to permit alcohol use. We have gradually developed ways of dealing with alcoholism better than making alcohol use illegal.

There are better ways of dealing with problem pregnancies than making abortion illegal. We can support women, and men, who find themselves pregnant. We can support them socially and financially. Many  groups such as Birthright have been doing heroic work in support of such people. But when a problem is so massive that private initiative cannot effectively deal with it, we use government support, no matter what it costs. We do that with floods and fires and hurricanes, and now with Ukraine. We need to do it with our own people who are pregnant. Whether the pregnancy is their own fault or not is not the issue. They and their unborn children are ours, and we take care of our own.

We are not heartless people who care only for fetuses but not about women after their children are born. We are not heartless people who see fetuses as a form of maternal disease. We are people who have gotten ourselves into polarized camps by leaders who are too willing to fight rather than to talk. We need to talk, and talk some more, and recognize that our opponents are human just like us, moral people just like us, and not as cocksure about their rightness as our leaders are trying to make us believe.

Lattices

 

Lattices

    A lattice is a structure around which climbing plants can grow. The image suggests an inanimate thing, the lattice, providing a means for a living thing, a plant, to flourish.

    Churches are lattices.

    A church provides a structure within which people can experience God. The life is in the people and their experience, not in the structure.

    Take the Catholic Church. It provides places where people can gather, and gathering is essential for experiencing God. It provides a script for behavior when the people gather (liturgy). It provides resources that can enrich the experience (Scripture and theology). It structures experience around life events: baptism, Eucharist, burial.

    Within the structure, all kinds of different experiences occur. Some people experience God through mysticism, some through concrete acts of service to others, some through a regular routine of prayer. Many withdraw from the lattice but continue to find God through faint memories of the stories of God.

    People who have never had the experience of the structure never benefit from what the structure can provide. They are like athletes who grow up without coaching, and whose abilities may or may not ever fully develop, or like musicians who have not had people around them who will nurture their musical abilities. Some such people will overcome their disabilities and develop a relationship with God in their own way. Many, perhaps most, will not.

    That is the cause for regret on the part of us religious people. We are like people who love music and regret that some people never get to experience the goodness of musical experience.

    The regret is the motive for what we call evangelization. We do not evangelize for the sake of numbers—statistics about church membership and ritual attendance are misleading. We who manage the structures are managing wood and nails, not living things. God is moving in our structures, we hope, and sharing abundant life. Our role is to let plants grow.

    We of the structure are human beings, which means that we are sinful. We develop pathologies of structuring. We fall in love with controlling other people, or with pride in creating beautiful buildings and objects. We love creating rules, because rules are one way for us to gain power over other people. Rule breakers get ruled out of conversations. We get into fights with other religious people, sometimes even to the point of using violence. This is especially true when we merge our lattices with political lattices, whose function is to keep us at peace with one another. Church and state merge, and the structures smother life instead of promoting it.

    For some reason we church people got the idea that we have to control the world in order for people to come to God. No. We just have to provide the lattice and get out of the way.

 

A poem

 

Weeds

 

have sympathy for weeds

            flowers out of place

true, not so pretty

            don’t look like flowers

            have to look close

but persistent

            even in sidewalks

 

God works that way

            life out of place

often not so pretty

            have to look close

we church people are sidewalks

            weeds are life