Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Tom Doyle: Lessons from 30 Years of Defending Victims of Clergy Sex Abuse

 This is a powerful article from Fr. Tom Doyle, arguably, one of the foremost defenders of victims of clergy sex abuse today. I feel I should post the article in its entirety here. Although I have no experience in defending such victims, I have also seen and learned similar things during my years in the service. I still believe in the church, but ... as AN ADULT, NOT AS an unquestioning infantile person. More power to people who work for the peace and JUSTICE of God's reign! I've said it before; I'll say it again: Infantile belief in the institutional church is a form of idolatry, i.e., worship given to someone/something apart from God.

+++THE ARTICLE OF TOM DOYLE FOLLOWS (the emphases are mine)+++
from:  http://reform-network.net/?p=22122



THIRTY YEARS:  WHAT WE’VE LEARNED AND WHAT I’VE LEARNED

Thomas Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.

July 27, 2013


This year marks the end of the third decade of the contemporary chapter in the Catholic Church’s age-old reality of sexual violation of clerics.  In 1983 Jeff Anderson filed the historic case in Minnesota that would launch him on his life-long vocation of bringing not only civil but human rights to the Church’s countless victims.  That summer, the bizarre saga of Gilbert Gauthe was exposed to the light in Lafayette, Louisiana.
This nightmare did not begin in Boston in January 2002, as many erroneously believe.  It did not begin in 1983 either.  It has been a toxic virus in the Body of Christ since the very beginning.  The Didache, a handbook for the earliest followers of Christ, written before the end of the first century, explicitly condemns men who sexually abuse boys.  There were no “clerics” as such then so the “men” included the leaders or elders of the infant Church.
The Louisiana spectacle generally gets the credit for being the beginning of public awareness of the so-called “crisis.”  I daresay though that had Jason Berry lived in Minneapolis and not New Orleans, things might have been different.  Either way you look at it, Jeff in Minnesota and Ray Mouton in Louisiana opened a new era for the Catholic Church and in doing so, changed the course of its history.
When I first became involved with the Gauthe case in 1984 I still believed in the Church.  I thought the institutional structure I was part of, and the People of God described by the Second Vatican Council, were one and the same.  In spite of already having served three years on the inside at the Vatican Embassy I still had some confidence in bishops and shared the hope with my colleagues at the time, Mike Peterson and Ray Mouton, that once the bishops became aware of how terrible sexual abuse of a child could be and the potential for scandal of epic proportions, they would quickly step up to the plate and do the right thing, especially by the victims.
I was dead wrong.  Any lingering hopes I may have had were demolished by my experiences in the years that followed.  I had no idea back then of the extent of the problem but more important, and worse, I had no idea just how duplicitous and destructive the bishops could be.
Back in 1985 the transformation of the Catholic Church back to a medieval monarchy was underway but not yet in high gear.  There were still some good men holding down the office of bishop, most of them remnants from the Vatican II era of hope.  John Paul II, soon to be canonized, set about changing the Church by appointing men as bishops who had replaced pastoral compassion with unthinking obsession with orthodoxy that was for most, a thin cover for soaring ambition and lust for power.  The unified game-plan for confronting the “nuisance of pedophilia” as one bishop (A.J. Quinn, Cleveland) referred to it, was not so obvious in the first years of this era, but it certainly is now.
The Church’s response is actually the response of the governing elite, the hierarchy, not the community of the faithful.  It has been and continues to be shaped by a small number of celibate males, most of them bishops and above, none of whom have ever had any experience of parenthood and all who live in a monarchy significantly isolated from the real world.
I don’t think any of us who were around thirty years ago had any idea where this odyssey would take us.  Above all, we had no idea that the stubbornness, shock, conviction, anger, compassion, desolation, fatigue, disappointment and courage that we have all felt at one time or another, would propel the disparate and sometimes unlikely allies in this hellish drama to bring about profound changes in the Catholic Church and in our society.
We have discovered things that have shocked and stunned us that thirty years ago were well outside most people’s imagination.
1.      We have learned that it’s not “over” simply because the bishops say it is, and it won’t be over as long as the culture and institution that enabled the systemic sexual violation remains as it is.
2.      We have learned that the presenting issue is the sexual violation of children, adolescents and vulnerable adults by clerics of all ranks, from deacons to Cardinals, but that the most outrageous aspect of the scandal has been and continues to be the toxic response by the hierarchy.
3.      We have learned that both the Church and secular society had to be forced to look at child sexual abuse straight on and reluctantly accept the reality that it is a profound and lasting violation of a person’s body, mind and soul and to accept the harsh truth that violated children and adults have regularly been ignored.
4.      We have learned that the toxic and even vicious response of the hierarchy and clergy is deeply embedded in the clerical culture.
5.      We have learned that the root cause of the scandal has been the cover up by the hierarchy and not forces extrinsic to the institutional church such as an anti-Catholic media, a sexualized culture or a materialistic society.
6.      We have learned that there is a monstrous chasm between the authentic Christian response expected of the institutional Church and the actual experience of victims and their families.
7.      We have learned that the exposure of widespread sexual abuse by clerics has brought irreversible changes to the relationship between the Church and secular society.
8.      We have learned that John Paul II cared little or nothing for the victims of his priests and bishops but was instead concerned with protecting bishops, preserving the image of the priesthood and finding a focus for blame anywhere but in the institutional Church.
9.      We have learned that the clerical elite that runs the institutional Church is abysmally ignorant of the complex nature of human sexuality and therefore of the devastating effects of sexual violation on all levels of personhood.
10.      We have learned that the exposure of widespread sexual abuse at all levels of the institutional Church has triggered the exposure of corruption in other areas such as finance and a demand for accountability.
11.      We have learned that today’s bishops have a severely limited and deficient understanding of pastoral care.
12.      We have learned that the last two popes and the hierarchy have a seriously twisted notion of right and wrong whereby they protect or excuse clerics who violate children but persecute and punish sincere, faith-filled men and women who seek new and more effective ways to bring the Christian message to people in our twenty-first century culture.
13.      We have learned that victims who present themselves to Church authorities in a docile, deferential and non-demanding manner……who play nice…… will be tolerated but those who stand on an even level with the bishops and demand true justice will be treated as the enemy.
14.      We have learned that the Church’s leaders from the papacy on down have grossly underestimated the impact their action and inaction would have and the mortal blow this would deal their credibility.
15.      We have learned that some of the most morally compromised people in our society are lawyers who represent Church entities in sex abuse litigation.
16.      We have learned that the clerical subculture than runs the institutional Church is fed by a highly malignant, narcissistic spirituality that requires a docile, controlled and compliant laity to survive.
17.      We have learned that the passive-dependent relationship of the laity to the clergy, centered on sacramental rituals, has in general prevented little more than a passive, muted response from far too many “devoted” Catholics.
18.      We have learned that the strident defense of the institutional Church is grounded in either an ignorance of the authentic meaning of “Church” as the People of God or worse yet, an arrogant rejection of it.
19.      We have learned that blind orthodoxy has replaced courageous charity as the main focus of the papacy and hierarchy in our era.  Those who profess their staunch but limited orthodoxy and total loyalty to the pope and magisterium are concerned for their emotional security at the expense of charity towards victims.
20.      We have learned that the Church has in fact, responded to the victims with charity and support in their demand for justice, but it is not the hierarchy but rather the fundamental Church, the People of God.


The sex abuse phenomenon has affected peoples’ lives in a variety of ways. It has had a profound impact on my own life on several levels.  Most of the impact has been from what I have learned about the institution and its leaders and from my experiences trying to help and support survivors.
1.      I have learned that the sage advice I was given in 1972 by a distinguished priest who had been a peritus at Vatican II, who said “with bishops yes and no are interchangeable terms,” is true.
2.      I have learned that it is dangerous and naïve to place complete, unquestioning trust in the words and actions of the hierarchy.
3.      I have learned that the Vatican bureaucracy and the hierarchy are, for the most part, driven by fear.
4.      I have learned that the ontological change that supposedly happens at ordination to the priesthood is a myth that is sustained only to try to support and enhance clerical power.
5.      I have learned that constant, obsessive and unchecked anger towards the institutional church, the bishops and the papacy is not only debilitating but also self-destructive.
6.      I have learned that as long as I allowed my anger to dominate my emotions, the toxic and dark side of the Church still controlled me.
7.      I have learned that I needed to challenge and question every aspect of the institutional Church that I took for granted or believed without reservation, and that to gain a healthy spirituality I needed the freedom to embrace a higher power of my understanding and to reject that which was grounded in fear or made no sense to me.
8.      I have learned that the institutional Church, its bishops, priests and unquestioning followers are not the enemy.   The enemy is a destructive, heretical and anti-Christian virus called clericalism.
9.      I have learned that bottomless pits of money unjustly expropriated from the faithful, legions of lawyers, volumes of empty excuses and seemingly endless public relations verbiage are, in the end, no match for truth.


AN EPIC SHIFT

The contemporary history of sexual violation by Catholic clergy has not had a straight-line trajectory from 1983 to the present.  It has been a zig-zag pattern influenced by various factors including the quality of the victims’ interactions with Church officials, the evolution of the response of the secular legal system, developments in the understanding of the range of effects of sexual violation and on the reasons why people abuse.  These factors also include the quality of coverage by the secular media and the general recognition of the validity of the victims’ stories.
A crucial factor has been the fact that much of the evolution has been carried out in the arena of the civil law.  In the beginning victims and their families approached Church officials for assistance and for support.  They were almost universally disappointed and in their frustration they turned to the civil courts for validation and accountability.  The basic demand made by victims and their families was recognition and belief and that the cleric-perpetrator be dealt with by the Church so that he could never harm another child.  In the civil courts the Church was confronted with a power greater than itself.
Prior to 1983 the secular press gave no priority to the few cases of sexual molestation by priests that became known.  For example, the story of the trial and conviction of a priest for rape in a southwestern diocese was limited to a short paragraph, buried in the back pages of the local newspaper.  That all changed with the revelations of abuse and systemic cover-up in Lafayette LA in 1983.  Since then the media has slowly but surely shaken its deference to the institutional Church and has reported cases with increasing detail and with editorial support of the victims.
Once it became clear to the hierarchy in the U.S. that they could no longer avoid publicity and control the victims, the relationship with victims and their supporters became adversarial.  In the early years of this era if the victims acquiesced to the bishops and remained silent and graciously accepted whatever small monetary settlements were offered as well as the assurances that “father will be taken care of” the relationship remained uneven with the victims clearly in a subordinate and controlled position.
That quickly changed when victims realized, after presuming complete sincerity, that they were being lied to by the very men they were taught to believe would be the source of help.  Once the victims challenged the bishops and religious superiors both in private and openly, things began to change.  When the victims approached the civil legal system in rapidly increasing numbers, the sides were hardened.
From the late eighties to the present the relationship in general between victims and the institutional Church has been highly adversarial.  Part of this is due to the understandable negative reaction of victims and survivors to the institutional Church and to all of its symbolism and control.  Most of this is due to lived experience.  They have learned that as long as they play by the bishops’ rules without question of confrontation, the illusion of pastoral caring will remain.
Over the decades popes and bishops have made countless public expressions of regret for the abuse issue and have offered apologies to the victims.  The apologies generally take the form of “I’m so sorry for the pain you have felt” or something along those lines. While the individual bishops, bishops’ conferences and the popes are expressing their regret and their commitment to helping victims, they are at the same time viciously attacking them in the civil courts, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to defend themselves and to destroy victims’ credibility.  They profess they have committed themselves to making the Church safe for all children and vulnerable adults but only on their terms. All changes made by Church institutions such as background checks, training, review boards and victims’ assistance coordinators have been forced on the bishops.  The attempts to change civil laws to make them more favorable to victims have been vigorously opposed, generally by one group only, the Roman Catholic Church.
Their lack of credibility is hardened when some bishops, in spite of their zero tolerance policy, continue to put credibly accused clergy in ministry or cover for suspected clergy doing all they can to thwart any type of effective investigation.
Pope John Paul II ignored victims and openly sympathized with bishops and priests.  In the years that intervened between his first known direct awareness of the serious nature of the problem in 1984 and his death in 2005, he never acknowledged much less responded to even one of the thousands of letters and pleas made by victims of sexual abuse.  Requests for audiences were simply ignored with no response.  At the regular world youth gatherings, the pope met with representatives of all manner of youth groups, but never the victims of his own priests.
So, it is not difficult to understand why the lines are hardened and why trust simply does not exist even in minimal form.  When the bishops created the National Review Board in 2002 they populated it with what they believed to be “safe” people. The first board had a victim as a member for one term but there have been none since.  They also seriously underestimated the integrity of several of the initial members.  Since then they guaranteed the NRB’s irrelevance by selecting members who would not rock the boat or venture to far into the minefield in search of truth.  They sponsored the John Jay College’s second study, Causes and Context, but by controlling the focus of the study and the areas of research they made sure it would contribute nothing to the search for the real reasons why this epidemic has flourished.
In the first years after the Boston revelations in 2002, when the landscape dramatically shifted, I made several attempts to engage two bishops who were members of their sexual abuse committee.  I wanted to open up lines of real communication and pave the way so that bishops could begin to know victims and thereby gain a true understanding of just how horrific a problem lay before them.  I had several polite conversations but every planned meeting was cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances”.  I knew of course that bishops are very busy men and I should have known that understanding sex abuse victims was not part of their agenda.
As the lawsuits continued to expose the systemic nature of the cover-up and deception, and as they prompted more and more victims to come forward, it became obvious that the bishops’ overall strategy had nothing to do with pastoral care or getting to the systemic reasons for the abuse epidemic.  Rather, their focus was defeating the victims in court and defeating any attempts at legislative change that would mean more to accountability.  The rank hypocrisy was too obvious to miss.
There is no reason to think the landscape will change in the near future.  There are stories of bishops who have shown compassion for victims but these are exceptions and certainly not the norm.  On the other hand the only bishop in the United States, Tom Gumbleton of Detroit, to stand publicly with the victims was removed from his post by the Vatican only weeks after his first public witness. The excuse given in the letter from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Bishops said that he had “broken communio with his brother bishops.”   That short phrase explains the strategy of the institutional Church. Protect the bishops at all cost even at the expense of the innocent boys and girls whose souls were demolished by the clergy.
Tom Gumbleton’s alignment with the victims was remarkable in that he was and remains the only bishop in the United States to publicly choose victims over the protection of the governing structure.  His witness is both profoundly important because of what it symbolizes, and at the same time powerfully disappointing because he was not publicly supported by or joined by even one of the other 450 bishops in the United States.
The real beginning of what hopefully will be an epic shift came in 2003 when Bishop Geoff Robinson (Sydney, Australia) publicly criticized Pope John Paul II’s lack of leadership in the abuse crisis.  In 2004 he retired from his position as auxiliary bishop of Sydney “for reasons of health,” an obvious euphemism.  Like Tom Gumbleton, he was fired because he “broke communion” with the bishops but he, like Tom, did something that was far more important and far more in keeping with the mandate given them by Christ:  he joined “in communio” with the men and women whom the Church’s priests and bishops had violated and whose trust they had mocked and betrayed.
Geoff published a remarkable book in 2007.  Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church (Garrett, 2007) looked deeply into the two key areas that have driven the sex abuse phenomenon from being an isolated crisis to a part of a toxic culture.  His witness is remarkable because he publicly challenged the two main supports for the toxic clerical culture. He has continued his public witness through speaking tours, especially here in the U.S.  In coming here he refused to be intimidated by the Vatican or by the bishops of every diocese where he spoke, all of whom told him to abandon the tour and prevented him from speaking in any Catholic venue.
Most recently he has been joined by two other bishops, Pat Power, auxiliary bishop of Canberra and William Morris who was removed as bishop of Toowoomba for suggesting the Church think about ordaining women.  Together they have circulated a petition worldwide asking for a new general council to try and bring about the deep structural and ideological changes needs to truly confront the evil of sexual abuse.  In conjunction with the petition, Geoff has published another incredible book, For Christ’s Sake: End Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church for Good (Garrett, 2013).
Catholics have asked why the priests have not spoken up.  The common answer is fear. But that fear has been broken by the creation of a “Whistleblowers Forum” of priests and religious women, active and retired, who have banded together to speak out, support one another and openly challenge the ecclesiastical system.
What I believe is a unique and revolutionary step has been the decision by the Capuchin Franciscan Friars of the St. Joseph Province (Detroit) to conduct a complete audit of their files and a review of the way their province has responded to reports of sexual abuse by its members.  The bishops have patted themselves on the back for their annual “Audits” every year but these are no more than self-evaluations with the same degree of integrity and credibility one would find in the Wall street financial institutions if they conducted their own in-house financial audits and volunteered to the IRS how much they thought they should pay in taxes.
The provincial, Fr. John Celichowski, took a major risk in starting the process because he knew it would open the province to complete exposure.  He took another major risk…when he asked me to be part of the audit-review team.
We worked together for over a year and produced the most complete report of its kind anywhere.  Furthermore this was the only ecclesiastical entity, diocese or religious order, in the world to open itself up to an outside study of how each and every report of sexual abuse had been handled and then to make results available to the public.
The Capuchin venture is historic and a fundamental move in a positive direction because it is not the enterprise of an individual standing independent of the ecclesiastical world, outside the gates of the monarchy, but that of an official body that is an integral part of the institutional Church.              Where will this epic shift lead?  We hope it will prompt other religious communities to give serious consideration to opening themselves to a similar, completely independent review.  My personal hope is that this momentous move may somehow prompt bishops to begin to see that there is only one truly authentic Christian response for the institutional Church and that is to honestly acknowledge the unchristian way victims have been treated and to reach out to those who have been harmed and offer honest compassion.  Nothing short of this will help the institutional Church find its way back to the community of Christ, the People of God.
  
July 27, 2013

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Tutu, Pope Francis, Rohr and the Jesus Hermeneutic


DESMUND TUTU PREFERS “THE OTHER PLACE” TO A HOMOPHOBIC HEAVEN

It’s striking that the iconic archbishop feels strongly that this issue, for the church, is the same justice and peace issue like apartheid was for his country of South Africa.


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POPE FRANCIS URGES BISHOPS TO LIVE THE SPIRIT OF ‘GAUDIUM ET SPES’
Pope Francis in Brazil talks to the Brazilian bishops and urges them to take seriously the mandate of Vatican II to walk by the side of people of the contemporary world in their joys and sorrows (cf. Gaudium et Spes). If there is any clear clarion call to uphold the spirit of Vatican II, it is this one from the present pope.


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RICHARD ROHR on his "JESUS HERMENEUTIC"

This is also a thought-provoking reflection from one of my most respected “teachers” at large, Richard Rohr. He explains how he sees and interprets the world from the viewpoint of Jesus. His hermeneutic is just the opposite of exclusionary and bigoted --- it is reflective of Jesus’ preference for love, compassion and inclusion.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

POPE FRANCIS (also Jesus) AND CLERICALISM: "I want a 'Mess'!"

Pope Francis: I WANT A “MESS!”  Pope Francis in one of his talks to young people gathered for World Youth Day in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, said, “What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses!" ” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130725/lt-brazil-pope/?utm_hp_ref=world&ir=world). In the Spanish (original? not Portuguese?) “Quisiera decir una cosa: ¿qué es lo que espero como consecuencia de la Jornada de la Juventud? Espero lío. Que acá adentro va a haber lío, va a haber. Que acá en Río va a haber lío, va a haber. Pero quiero lío en las diócesis, quiero que se salga afuera…” (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/speeches/2013/july/documents/papa-francesco_20130725_gmg-argentini-rio_sp.html).

Francis uses “lío”, a Spanish term that can mean “mess, clutter, ruckus, noise” among others. Let’s move away from literalism and see the spirit of the remarks. I interpret Francis to be saying: I want you to go out from here back to your home territories and SHAKE THINGS UP! This intention is made clear by the remarks that follow in which he says, “I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out

Yes, that’s it --- GET RID OF CLERICALISM! “Clericalism” can mean many things. It includes the tendency of the institutional church to be focused on “clerical” things, “clerical” of course means “priest” “hierarchical” “institutional” etc.

(my interpretation now)  In short, Francis is trying to convince CLERICS first and foremost and then also the whole church to have a wider vista, a wider view of reality which moves away from a narrow view of God’s action which confined God to musty and dank churches to what God is doing in the wider world, the world that perhaps they have not looked at too deeply because they were too concerned with their own little, puny, well-ordered, tidy, baroque world of gestures, multiple rubrics, privileging of Latin, ornamentation, cappa magnas, strict hierarchical liturgies, etc., etc.

Francis is calling the church, its priests and its people, to be movers and shakers. Can I even interpret that to mean “revolutionaries”? This always strikes me about the historical career of Jesus. However you try to analyze Jesus and his short historical career, it all boils down to the fact that Jesus, that lowly working-man (carpenter) from Nazareth--not part of the teaching elite (e.g. Pharisees), not part of the priestly elite (Jesus was a layman in the Judaism of his day)--was calling people to realize that God and God’s reign was immediately accessible to them (although he did not repudiate completely his religious tradition but was observant whenever possible). 

Jesus, THROUGH HIS MANY TEACHINGS AND ACTIONS, TAUGHT: THAT PEOPLE HAVE IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO GOD, that God is NOT “exclusively brokered” or monopolized by the religious establishment of his day, that God was acting not only in the Temple or through the official priests and teachers but also in very mundane, everyday events and even through lowly people such as a carpenter-lay man from Nazareth.

And for this the religious establishment of Jesus’ day hated him. For this, he was eventually captured, handed over to the Romans, accused of being seditious against Rome and put to a very bloody death.
This age-old story/pattern of ‘Revolutionary-Upstart’ vs. ‘Religious Establishment of Priests and Teachers’ is found at the heart and in the origins of Christianity. However, a very large segment of Christianity, e.g., Roman Catholicism, has allowed itself time and again to be clericalized in a sick and dysfunctional way. This is really astounding because the founder of Christianity was totally against the “clerical mindset.” This has to be made clear in any effort to understand who Jesus is and what Christianity’s essence is all about.

And may God bless Papa Francesco. I really pray that he is not coopted by the clerical system which he seeks to reform at present. Please give him strength, courage and success, Jesus. That’s my fervent prayer! Although … speaking of Jesus again, I also did tell my students that those who seek to follow the radical way of Jesus do not last long in this, our world. They are eventuall “put away” on a cross. I do hope and pray that Francis does not end up this way too soon …

Believing as 'Beloving'

I’ve picked up again and started re-reading Speaking Christian by Marcus Borg. Maybe it’ll give me a good framework for my upcoming course ‘Spiritual Quests and Popular Culture’.

He talks about “believing” (chapter 10) as coming from the Old English be leof which meant “to hold one dear.”  “Believing” in a conventional sense as ‘believing that some notions are true’ is to be contrasted with ‘believing’ as ‘holding something dear’ or ‘beloving’. Only the latter has the ability to save and to transform the person. In other words, believe should be taken in a relational way.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Thoughts on Turkey-Greece Trip 2013

Theater in ancient Ephesus
 I went on a trip to Turkey and Greece because I had long regarded the fact that <I regularly teach the Paul course and had not yet physically been to Turkey and Greece> a grave lacuna in my education. Hence, in mid-May 2013, with the encouragement and support of King’s academic dean, I went on a trip organized by EU (Educational Opportunities) through their subsidiary, the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies, to the two countries which were the main theater for Paul’s missionary activities and the development of earliest Christianity.




ITINERARY. We followed the following itinerary (text taken from the official itinerary supplied by the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies)


DAY 1, Saturday, May 11: DEPARTURE. Departed Toronto for Montreal. Met with other Canadian group members in Montreal. Flew to Zurich, Switzerland. From there on to Istanbul.
DAY 2, Sunday, May 12: ARRIVAL IN ISTANBUL
DAY 3, Monday, May 13: CAPPADOCIA. Overnight in Cappadocia.
DAY 4, Tuesday, May 14: ICONIUM AND ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA. Overnight in Pamukkale.
DAY 5, Wednesday, May 15: CHURCHES OF ASIA MINOR: Laodicea, Hierapolis. Overnight in Kusadasi.
DAY 6, Thursday, May 16: PAUL’S MINISTRY IN EPHESUS. Overnight in Kusadasi.
DAY 7, Friday, May 17: CHURCHES OF ASIA MINOR: Sardis, site of one of the Seven Churches of Revelation. Then Pergamum where the first Christians were executed by Rome. Troas, where Paul had a vision in which he was called to Macedonia (Greece). Continue to Canakkale, the narrowest point of the Dardanelles for the evening. Overnight in Canakkale.
DAY 8, Saturday, May 18: PAUL’S MINISTRY IN MACEDONIA Cross the Dardanelles by ferry and visit Neapolis (Kavalla, Acts 16:11). In Philippi, Paul and Silas “went outside the gate to the riverside, where they sup‐ posed there was a place of prayer. Overnight in Kavalla (Neapolis).
DAY 9, Sunday, May 19: PAUL’S MINISTRY IN MACEDONIA, CONTINUED TRIP: (Acts 17: 1‐9) This morning, drive to Thessaloniki. In the afternoon we see Pella, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, and the famous steps of Paul in Biblical Berea (Acts 17 11‐14) in the New Testament. Overnight in Thessaloniki.
DAY 10, Monday, May 20: METEORA Visit the rock forest of Meteora in western Thessaly and ponder the rough terrain in which the apostle Paul walked during his missionary journey. See famous Byzantine monasteries perched precariously on summits of soaring, sheer‐sided grey rock pinnacles of varied and spectacular shapes. Their history goes back to the 14th century when the monks sought refuge in cliff‐side caves, then fled higher to build the original wooden shelters, later transformed into monas‐ teries. Visit one of these monasteries. Overnight in the Meteora area.
DAY 11, Tuesday, May 21: DELPHI Travel to scenic Delphi, the religious center of the ancient Greek world, considered by early Greeks to be the center of the world. Overnight in Athens.


DAY 12, Wednesday, May 22: ATHENS This morning we will start the sightseeing program in Athens. We will visit the Agora where St. Paul preached and where Socrates taught and was forced to drink the deadly hemlock. We will climb the Acropolis, visit the Areopagus (Mars Hill) where St. Paul was brought before the council and delivered his great sermon about the “unknown god” in Acts 17. We will see the ancient town, the Acropolis, the Parthenon. We will visit the theater of Dionysus, the Temple of the Wingless Victory and other sights, which reflect the golden age of Greece. Late afternoon is on your own to shop and walk about. Overnight in Athens.
DAY 13, Thursday, May 23: CORINTH Today we travel to ancient Corinth. We will spend a full day among the antiquities of this important Pauline city. Paul spent 18 months here on his first visit, and wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians and on a later visit wrote his letter to the Romans. We will visit the site of the Synagogue, the Agora, and the Bema. We will then climb the Acrocorinth to visit the ancient site of the temple of Aphrodite (Greek goddess of love). Overnight in Athens.


DAY 14, Friday, May 24: RETURN to Canada.


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a view Paul himself might have seen in his journeys
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTANCES. Among the first and most significant things  I learned during this trip was the vast distances Paul and his collaborators had to travel! Of course, one shouldn’t forget that there were no cars, let alone air travel at the time. One had to negotiate these vast distances on foot or, if one had money, to buy a horse or donkey (Paul did not have such a luxury most of the time) in order to cover more ground with more comfort.
 We had to negotiate these distances seated in a bus and it was long hours of traveling! Sometimes, I would catch myself getting bored or impatient to reach the destination but I quickly reminded myself of those early Christian missionaries who didn’t have the luxuries we now take for granted. The dominant thought that I had was: Paul must’ve been “nuts” to cover all these distances on foot! In our family doctor’s words, Paul must’ve been something of a fanatic. But that’s an irreverent first reaction … It’s not everything. Looking deeper,


CONVERSION/ENCOUNTER WITH CHRIST. From such an experiential realization (I already knew the distances “theoretically” before) about the great distances Paul covered, one can then move on to ponder upon the deeper reason, the urgent passion that explains why Paul exerted such efforts despite vast distances and against overwhelming odds to spread his message about Christ - HIS CONVERSION or whatever one may call it. In short, something REALLY BIG happened to him. Of course, the New Testament shows that he ENCOUNTERED Jesus and that changed him from someone persecuting Jesus’ Way to someone working tirelessly to get others on the same Way towards God.


THE NATURE OF PAUL’S “CONVERSION”. According to sections of the New Testament such as Gal. 2 and Acts 9, Paul encountered Jesus at a certain point in his life. Acts puts it “on the way to Damascus.” This encounter changed Paul profoundly from someone who actively persecuted people who believed in Jesus to an apostle who tried to bring people to recognize that “Jesus is Lord.” According to Paul’s own words in Gal. 1, God revealed “his Son so that I may preach him to the Gentiles.” He repeats that in Gal 2:7-8 stating that Peter, James and John were sent to the circumcised (Jews), while he was sent to the uncircumcised (Gentiles).


PAUL’S MISSIONARY STRATEGY. Acts shows us clearly that Paul usually would go to the Jewish synagogue when he reached a new place. He would start to convince people that Jesus was indeed the chosen messiah that God had sent into the world to reconcile everyone and everything with God. Some would be convinced; others would become Paul’s enemies and because of that, Paul was frequently the object of controversy and the cause of disturbance in a given place.

WAS PAUL POACHING FROM THE SYNAGOGUE? I agree with John Dominic Crossan (In Search of Paul) that one major aspect of Paul's missionary strategy was to go to the synagogue and address his message primarily to so-called "God-fearers" to try to persuade them to believe in his version of the gospel. God-fearers were gentiles (some of them prominent and rich) who were attracted to the faith of Israel but for one reason or another were not yet ready to be fully converted to Judaism. Since Paul in his letters speak of his divine mandate as being not to Jews but to Gentiles, it is logical that he considered God-fearers (gentiles) his primary object of mission. And he succeeded sometimes. Of course, this was taken very negatively by the local synagogue because in certain cases, the patronage of these prominent God-fearers was important for the existence, protection and flourishing of the synagogue. We can understand then why Paul was viewed by "the Jews" (we find this expression in Acts) as a trouble-maker and threat and was the cause of riots and disturbances in places he visited.


EMPIRE. Paul subverting empire by the proclamation “Jesus is Lord!” One of the most succinct ways to present Paul’s “gospel” (i.e., the good news as proclaimed by Paul) is through the short formula “Jesus is Lord!” (see for example Rom 10:9 or 1 Cor 12:3). One cannot actually even begin to understand the full significance of this if one does not consider the ubiquitous presence of the Roman Empire in Paul’s world, particularly, the cult of the Roman emperor’s divinity propagated with vigor from the time of Augustus onwards. During this trip, I took note of the staggering amount of material as well as literary evidence that pointed to the all-out effort of the Roman Empire to propagate the message that “Caesar is Lord.” It is against this backdrop that Paul’s proclamation of a different lordship (that of Jesus) should and could only be correctly understood. Paul, in short, was trying to subvert the proclamation of the Roman Empire by asserting that Caesar was not the true “lord” of all; it was actually God (Yahweh) through his chosen servant-messiah Jesus who has been experienced as“the Christ” (the chosen messiah-saviour) by Paul and his collaborators.


IN THE END, WHAT DID I CARRY AWAY FROM THESE JOURNEYS? In the end, I have to say that what I learned in Jerusalem many years ago was again proven true: Physical contact with a place or context is always better than a mere theoretical knowledge in order to understand something better. Before I lived and studied in Jerusalem (Israel-Palestine) in 95-96, I already knew quite a lot about the world of the Hebrew Bible and Jesus. However, the actual experience of living in “the land” gave me an experiential knowledge of the world of Jesus that changed and revolutionized my way of reading the Bible and gave me a depth of knowledge that any “theoretical knowledge” could never equal. This time, I acquired an experiential knowledge about Paul and the early Christian communities that no mere theoretical knowledge can equal. I acquired a real “feel” for this particular field of biblical studies and history.


FELLOWSHIP with my FELLOW TRAVELERS. I went to Turkey and Greece with a wonderful group of people, the first group associated with Acadia Divinity School and the second associated with Delaine Blackwell of South Carolina and her women’s bible study group. Throughout the trip, we were able to have wonderful conversations and before we knew it we had also developed good friendships, the kind of koinonia that the New Testament values. This added enormously to making this trip a great and unforgettable learning experience.


LOOKING FORWARD - A KING’S TRIP? I went on this trip also to see the feasibility of organizing a course-trip for the students of our University-College in the near future. Some thoughts on that. The cost that we paid this time seems a bit too high for students and the extensive travel by bus necessary from Cappadocia to Iconoium (Konya) and then on to Laodicea would not be ideal for university students. For this I think that despite its natural beauty and significance for early church history, Cappadocia should be cut off from an itinerary I would make for our students. Instead, maybe we should concentrate on Western Turkey - Ephesus, Hierapolis, Pergamum and try to spend more time in ancient Constantinople itself. I propose we then go on to Athens and environs, particularly, Corinth and Delphi.
I’ll have to work on putting together a viable plan soon. 

among the ruins of ancient Corinth

Monday, July 1, 2013

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI's "Hermeneutics of Continuity" Rejected!

A church news item that struck me was the following about the ultra-traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (info about them) rejecting emeritus pope Benedict XVI’s interpretation of Vatican II using a so-called “hermeneutics of continuity.” After all the overtures from Benedict XVI to the traditionalist group to join once again Catholic communion, the group itself rejected his way of reading Vatican II stressing that Vatican II, in a significant sense, was something of a “rupture” from tradition. See the full story at:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/traditionalists-indicate-definitive-break-with-catholic-church/

Now this is tied up with the evaluation of Ratzinger’s legacy I wrote back in February when I mentioned that the extent of his generosity to the traditionalist group that flatly rejects Vatican II is scandalous. See:

Joseph Ratzinger's Temple of Truth