‘Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where
you did not plant and
gathering where you did not scatter"
In my experience Catholics who actively
practice their Faith tend to fall into one of two camps. There is the Orthodox crowd who tend to
devote most of their energy on the spiritual needs of people, and then there is
the social justice crowd who tend to focus more on people’s material
needs. It is not uncommon to find people
with a strong zeal for one or the other camp.
It is almost impossible to find someone with a strong zeal for
both. Mother Teresa was one such rare
person. She had great concern for the poor,
but she ran her order with salvation as the highest goal. People who can integrate both into their
thoughts, emotion and action do exist, but they are very uncommon. It is also worth noting that these two camps
often do not trust each other. To a more
orthodox person, social justice persons often look like they are overly
permissive and embracing of relativism, while social justice persons often
paint the orthodox as heartless, legalistic and cruel. This schism in thought does not have to
exist, and I think the Church may have been presented with a unique opportunity
to heal the divide.
As of
roughly yesterday Cardinal Burke was named the Patron of the Sovereign Order of
Malta. For those not familiar with the
Cardinal, he is currently considered a strong defender of orthodoxy and is
quite highly respected in those circles.
He has also become a very visible Cardinal in the sense that it is not
unusual for the media to broadcast his views.
I have been trying to figure out exactly what the Cardinal’s new
position in the Order of Malta entails, and as far as I can tell he is
basically the chaplain for the order. I
am not familiar with the Order of Malta, but from their website it appears they
focus on working on taking care of the poor and elderly. They also appear to run medical,
humanitarian, and diplomatic missions. My
understanding based solely on what is reported in the media is that this is a
position that comes with very few formal responsibilities compared to his
previous positions. I for one hope and
pray that he leverages these unique conditions to the advantage of the Church –
this is an environment that is ripe to unify Orthodoxy with Social
justice. If this type of thinking could
be implemented in the hearts and minds of the Faithful it would truly be an
earthquake in the Church.
Cardinal
Burke is in a unique opportunity to show to the world how to bring Orthodoxy
back to social justice work. Cardinal Burke is already a leader among Orthodox
Catholics, he doesn't need a formal title as a defender of orthodoxy. He is
already well respected by many and has proven himself to be a staunch defender
of the Faith. He is man who has nothing to prove in that regard. By
placing him in a position that focuses on humanitarian efforts he has the
potential to become a much more rounded world leader. He is uniquely positioned to become an
authority at implementing social justice work in an Orthodox manner. This could potentially be huge since I would
argue we have not really had a Church leader at the level of Cardinal with his
international name-recognition who did this in my lifetime and I doubt in my
parent’s lifetime as well. Below are
possible ways this appointment could benefit the Church:
Participation in Social
Justice Work of the Church:
Lately I have found myself increasingly confused when trying
to figure out which social-justice-type groups I should direct donations to
because even those within the Church have faced scrutiny for their lack of
adherence to Church teaching. Whether or
not this scrutiny is warranted is up to debate.
Regardless with Cardinal Burke in
charge I feel like I don't have to worry about those issues at least with
regards to the Order of Malta.
Orthodoxy on Bioethical
Issues:
The order of Malta seems pretty involved with medical care. I
would love to see Burke take on all the ethical challenges that have been
coming up in the day-to-day life of medical providers. Examples include immigration, stopping the spread
of AIDs and other communicable diseases, addressing the right-to-die crowd, artificial
contraception, abortion, ethical challenges associated with modern health care
directive documents and protocols and conscience rights.
Healing the “Conservative”
and “Liberal” divide:
Roughly speaking the orthodox-social Justice dichotomy I
mentioned earlier is very similar to the conservative – liberal dichotomy we
see in American politics. American
Christians have basically ended up adopting this dichotomy and applying it to
Christianity. I suspect the reason for
this has a lot to do With Roe vs. Wade. Abortion
is an issue that Orthodox Catholics cannot compromise on and tends to trump
almost all other issues for them. My assessment
of this is that they have tended to align themselves with
Republican-conservative thinking. Democratic-liberal
thinking is seen as suspect because the Democratic party supports access to
abortion. There is also some interplay here between Capitalism and Communism. Catholic social justice teaching is much easier
to reconcile with a capitalist system than a communist system, and once again the
Republicans tend to be more capitalist than the Democrats, so orthodox
Catholics tend to align themselves with the Republican-conservatives. The opposite tends to happen with
social-justice Catholics. What Orthodox
Catholics have to remember though is that Republican/conservatives values are a
compromise at best. Catholic values are
actually somewhat orthogonal to the conservative-liberal and capitalist-communism
scales. I am not sure a political system
has ever existed that reasonably align itself with Catholic values.
It is also worth noting that when you have a position with
very few actual responsibilities it opens up the possibility of inventing your
own responsibilities. In some ways a
position like this is similar to a sabbatical that a professor might go on to
either write a book or explore new directions.
Cardinal
Burke's time is cheap right now. He is now free to attempt much more
experimental, forward-thinking techniques to unify Orthodoxy with social
justice. The beauty of this is that he has very high credibility among
orthodox Catholics. Orthodox Catholics
tend to be more conservative in their thinking, but they will probably entertain
forward-thinking ideas or proposals Burke puts forth. If in his social-justice role he can gain
respect the respect of the social justice role we may finally find ways to mend
social justice and Orthodox thinking that have been in existence for at least
the last 50 to 100 years.
Pope Francis has made no secret that he feels caring for the
poor and outcast is his highest priorities.
It is noteworthy that he has placed Cardinal Burke in a position where
he can focus on just that. In some ways
this opportunity allows for cross-training similar
to that seen in high-level succession planning.
