The Catholic Church, or The One True Church as believers would have it, is many things. Like all human institutions, it has its faults, and the Catholic Church has had more time than any other institution in our culture to accumulate those faults.
But I must confess (pun intended) that I have not adequately appreciated the Church's role in the history of our civilization. For starters, it is the oldest continual institution in Western Civilization, so we can safely assume that the Church must be doing something right.
When we assess the role of the church, we have to remind ourselves that for the overwhelming majority of its history, the church was dominant over the state. Henry VIII was the one who really got the ball rolling in the other direction, and the process of establishing the state's dominance over the church was halting and slow in most places.
The question here is not whether the state should be more powerful than the church. The question is what role the church played before the state was dominant. That role was mixed, of course, with a little humanity here and a little barbarism there, but it's an issue worth considering.
Until very, very recently, the church was the only institution in Western civilization that did anything at all for the poor, for example. There was no welfare, no social security programs, nothing but blood and iron coming from the state. Mercy and charity came only from the church.
It was the church that fed the poor, maintained the libraries, offered safe-haven to fugitives, and so on. The state did none of these things.
The church was also the first truly international institution, which claimed at least in theory that all Christians were equal in some sense. When we consider what havoc was wreaked by state-sponsored nationalism in the 20th century, the church-sponsored internationalism that preceded it clearly has its merits.
For every reactionary priest that burned a scientist at the stake, there were 10 priests who safe-guarded human knowledge accumulated by ancient civilizations during the Dark Ages. For every pedophile rapist that preyed on orphans, there were ten holy men who taught and fed those very same orphans.
Politicians today tell us not to compare them to the Almighty, but to compare them to the alternative. The church's problem is that it asks us to compare it to the Almighty, which makes its predictable human failings all the more grating on our collective conscience, but that should not obscure its good works.
The church today has a role much different than that which it played throughout most of its history. It is no longer involved in governance. And although this is a good thing, we should reflect on the fact that for centuries, it was the only institution in our culture that dispensed mercy, however imperfect, and the only institution which curbed the powerlust of kings.For all its failings, it is a dark prospect indeed to imagine the past without the Catholic Church.
The "six degrees of separation" principle in my mind is sort of like the "principle" of gravity, or God, or the greatness of Bob Dylan; all these things take huge leaps in pretension and anti-socialism to deny. In other words, they are all manifestly true, and only obnoxious people are invested in denying them.
The funny (or American) thing about the six degrees theory is that is started out as a latter-day parlor game centered around the actor Kevin Bacon, and was restricted to the realms of movie actors.
Example: Kevin Bacon was in "JFK" with John Candy, who was in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" with Steve Martin, who was in "The Pink Panther" with Beyonce. Hence, there are only 3 degrees of separation between Kevin Bacon and Beyonce.
Many a stoned teenager has been amazed by this truth. But it's not just a parlor game. It doesn't just apply to famous people, and it doesn't just apply to movies. It applies to every single human being alive.
There are well over six billion of us, but there are no more than six degrees of separation between any 2 of us. It is this truth which shatters the "illusion of separateness", as I've heard it called.
Here is but one example. My sister married an Israeli citizen in 1993. In 1994 they went to Israel to visit my brother in law's aging parents. On the months-long trip, my sister met and spoke with Yasser Arafat.
She spoke with him, sat with him, had a conversation with him. The six degrees theory does not apply to strangers who you brush elbows with on the street; this is about actual connections, where you are introduced to someone, talk to them, inquire about their families, remember them.
So my sister met Yasser Arafat. That makes me 2 degrees removed from Arafat. Who has Arafat met? It would take forever to flesh this out, but one example would be Saddam Hussein. That makes me 3 degrees removed from Saddam Hussein.
And keep in mind, the "game" allows for SIX degrees of separation.
It is difficult to articulate what this proves, because it is not a minor point; it cuts straight to the heart of how we look at the universe. It gives pause to those of us who insist on treating ourselves as separate little universes, and it delivers the proper weight to the words "brother" and "sister".
"One good thing about music / when it hits, you feel no pain" --Bob Marley
By the time you get to be my age, your preferences take on a certain air of consistency. Anyone you count as a close friend at this point in your life will most likely remain a close friend, for example.
Taste in art and taste in friends say alot about a person. Below is a list of my dirty dozen musical artists. These are the 12 musical artists with the most songs in my library, after their discographies have suffered my obnoxiously pretentious editing process.
Two parenthetical notes are in order.
Firstly, Bob Dylan is on the list, but he is not of the list. He is in an order all his own.
Secondly, many of my favorites are not on this list because they lack the quantity of recorded music that modern recording artists enjoy. Sam Cooke and Credence Clearwater Revival jump to mind.
That being said, just as I'm set on my friends, I'm set on this music:
It's a sad commentary on the pedantic propaganda that passes for our media that I should begin by pointing out that the "Ground Zero Mosque" is not at ground zero and is not a mosque. Sort of like how the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman.
Most people who are opposed to the building of this community center a few blocks away from Ground Zero acknowledge that Muslims have every right to build the center; they simply feel that the Muslims should not actually invoke this right.
Such a crystallization of ignorance about the nature of rights presents us with a teachable moment. True rights, true freedom, does not take a back seat to peoples' feelings. True freedom is not something which is practiced only when nobody else is offended by its exercise.
If that were the measure of freedom, then North Korea is a free country. Citizens of North Korea are perfectly free to do or say anything they like, as long as it does not offend the government. Christians and Jews in Iran are free to do whatever they like, as long as it does not offend the Muslim clerics.
We all know that North Korea and Iran are not "free" countries, so it is (or should be) clear to us that real freedom is that which is protected even if others are offended by its exercise.
That is why true freedom of the media, for example, is not gauged by whether or not the media praises the powerful, but by whether or not the media challenges the powerful and holds them accountable.
Religious freedom in this country should be held to the same standard. This raises the secondary issue at play here, which is why exactly building a Muslim community center in Manhattan is so controversial in the first place.
Clearly, for those who oppose the project, there is a direct connection between the 9/11 massacres and Islam as a whole. That much is evident. These people hold that Islam, as a faith, should not be anywhere near Ground Zero. But what if we were to apply that logic to other faiths or institutions?
If all murderous acts carried out by people using a certain faith or ideology as justification resulted in that faith or ideology being banned from the scene of the crime, what would the world look like?
Well, first of all, there would be exceedingly few churches or mosques anywhere on the face of the earth. Also, there would be no American embassy in Japan, no German embassies anywhere in Europe, and on and on and on.
Collective guilt and true freedom do not mix. If the only ones among us who are truly free are those of us whose faith or ideas have never been abused by wicked men for vile purposes, who among us is free? I sure know I wouldn't be.
