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It’s All About ME
¡Pobre de mi!
Clerical narcissism is the bane of many, perhaps all churches. It was a major factor in the sexal abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, and Episcopalians are not immune. He Baltimore Brew reports:
With Bishop Heather Cook in a Baltimore jail cell on charges of manslaughter, drunk driving and leaving the scene of an accident, the man who presided during her hiring says he didn’t realize how burdened he was by the incident until “a bishop colleague” spoke with him.
Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton – Cook’s Episcopal Diocese of Maryland boss, who has acknowledged diocesan officials knew about Cook’s 2010 drunk driving and drug arrest but did not disclose it to the people who elected her – recounted the colleague’s words of solace in a “pastoral letter” published today.
“Eugene, I am the child of an alcoholic and I’ve spent many years dealing with that and coming to understand the hold that alcohol has on someone who is addicted to it,” the colleague said, according to Sutton’s account.
“I want to tell you that the Diocese of Maryland is not responsible for the terrible accident that killed that bicyclist,” the colleague said, according to Sutton’s letter. “You are not responsible for that; Heather Cook is. It’s not your fault.”
Sutton goes on to say the colleague’s words prompted him to “burst into tears.”
“I hadn’t realized how much I had internalized the weight of responsibility for the tragedy, the sense of shame, and the desperate need to make it all better,” Sutton wrote in a letter posted on his Facebook page as well as on the website of Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.
But the areas where Sutton addresses his personal feelings of culpability – and seemingly absolves himself – are also striking.
“I hadn’t realized how much I had internalized the weight of responsibility for the tragedy, the sense of shame, and the desperate need to make it all better,” he writes.
“Later, praying before the Icon of Christ the Pantocrater, I gazed into those piercing eyes of our Lord, asking: What is Christ wanting to say to me? And what did I want to say to him?”
“After what seemed like an eternity, I was finally able to gaze into his eyes and say: ‘Lord, it’s not your fault,’” he recounts.
Well, no, the death of Tony Palermo is not God’s fault, although the question of theodicy is the most difficult matter in Christianity, as Pope Benedict admitted once in an interview.
ButSutton is quick to absolve himself and the diocese of any responsibility.
Commentators on Baltimore Brew site were spot on:
The Diocese knew of Cook’s alcohol, and drug, abuse. Yet the church saw her fit to be placed in a position of power. They promoted her (but did not disclose it to the people who elected her) to the second highest position in the church in Maryland. They did this even with her recent horrible choices. In the world of us alcoholics, four years is very recent. The church chose to say marijuana and a .27 BAC wasn’t a huge deal. They chose to say being so drunk that you’re driving with a shredded tired and covered in your own vomit isn’t a big deal. They chose to call this a lapse in judgment. They saw no problems with her as being a leader of Christians. Was she the best choice the Episcopal Church could come up with. How did she make it to the final four? Was the church trying to fill a spot with a politically correct choice? And now, finally, they are going to review that process that allowed her to keep her background private. During the election process she was encouraged to self disclose but chose not to.
Another is more direct but also spot on:
The Bishop’s Super-sized crosier says it all. Bigger than the Pope’s staff!
No wonder with this culture of the High and Mighty, Bishop Cook lost her basic Christian values and compassion, as well as what is right and wrong!
This cult mentality of supreme power and elitism has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus.
Exodus 32.4 all over again with the Pagan imagery going to their heads and good judgment going out the golden temple door.
No wonder the High Priestess has a skewed vision of right and wrong.
And another give the bishop some good advice:
Mr. Sutton, there is a reason why you have “internalized the weight of responsibility for the tragedy, the sense of shame, and the desperate need to make it all better”. You are not responsible for this murder, but your actions in hiding and ignoring Cook’s problems did play a part in causing it. What you are feeling is called a conscience. What you do about it will show who you are as a man. Hiding behind god and your position is not the answer.
I do not know Sutton’s involvement in the appointment of Cook, but many people were complicit and were enablers. Also, I doubt that the day of the accident was the first day since 2010 that Cook was blind drunk. Had no one in the diocese noticed her drinking problem? The precise legal liability of the diocese will probably be tested in court, but their moral responsibility in choosing an irresponsible alcoholic for a position of church leadership, an action which gave her the sense of invulnerability from consequences of her actions, is clear.
The Church of the Holy Communion
To return to the life and times of the Reverend Francis Effingham Lawrence.
The Church of the Holy Communion
As our never-failing source Wikipedia says:
The Gothic Revival church building was constructed in 1844-1845 according to a design by Richard Upjohn, and was consecrated in 1846. In 1853 Upjohn completed the Parish House and Rectory on West 20th Street, and in 1854 he built the Sister’s House.[The design of the church, which features brownstone blocks chosen for placement at random, made the church “one of the most influential buildings of the 19th century”. It was:
[the] first asymmetrical Gothic Revival church edifice in the United States … Upjohn designed the building to resemble a small medieval English parish church … The church’s founder, the Reverend William Muhlenberg, a leader of the evangelical Catholic within the Episcopal Church, was closely involved with the design …
Muhlenberg believed that the Gothic style was “the true architectural expression of Christianity.”
Another source elaborates:
Land was procured on the northeast corner of Sixth Avenue and West 20th Street, at that time a second-rate residential district surrounded by fields. On July 25, 1844, the cornerstone was laid for a church designed by Richard Upjohn and built from 1844-1846. Upjohn’s small building resembled a small medieval English parish church and was noted for being the first asymmetrical rustic Gothic Revival edifice in the United States, a design that would be copied by many churches throughout the country. Dr. Muhlenberg, a leader in the evangelical Catholic movement of the Episcopal Church, was closely involved with the design, suggesting the use of transepts and other features that were more typical of Roman Catholic churches.
Richard Upjohn (1802-1878) designed Trinity Church on Wall Street. It is formal and symmetrical.
Trinity before the canyons were built.
But he made the Church of the Holy Communion asymmetrical and less elaborate, presumably in keeping with Muhlenberg’s desire to welcome both rich and poor, like the village churches of England. The asymmetrical tower inspired numerous Episcopal churches in the United States.
This view romantically portrays the location of the church as it should have been.
This is the church as it in fact was in the 1860s.
Here is an older view, probably in the heyday of the church.
Here you can see how Upjohn used brownstone to give an informal, rustic effect.
And how it looks today.
Here is the interior in 1946.
Muhlenberg, like the Ritualists of England, used Catholic paraphernalia to appeal to the poor, who found bare churches and hour-long Calvinist sermons a touch on the cold side. He thought that the poor should be served with grace and beauty.
The Church of the Holy Communion was the first church to use flowers on the altar, and after the Easter service the congregation in procession brought the flowers to the sick in the hospital the church had founded. This seems to have been the origin of the New York custom of the Easter Parade. Other churches took up the custom of Easter flowers; as Francis Lawrence said in thus funeral sermon of 1877, it was –“a practice now indeed carried to such a silly and wasteful extreme, many churches seeming rather flower-shops at Easter than Sanctuaries of the Almighty, that he almost regretted that he had introduced the custom.”
And the Easter Parade no longer was in service to the poor:
In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it,
You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade.
I’ll be all in clover and when they look you over,
I’ll be the proudest fellow in the Easter parade.
On the avenue, Fifth Avenue, the photographers will snap us,
And you’ll find that you’re in the rotogravure.
William van Duzer Lawrence
William Van Duzer Lawrence (1842-1927) was my wife’s 4th cousin 4 times removed (distant, but traceable). “Removed,” by the way, means a different generation. For example, my uncle’s children are my first cousins. My great uncle’s children are my first cousins, once removed, and so on.
Van D., as we shall call him, according to Wikipedia
was a millionaire real-estate and pharmaceutical mogul who is best known for having founded Sarah Lawrence College in 1926. He played a critical role in the development of the community of Bronxville, New York, an affluent suburb of New York City defined by magnificent homes in a countrylike setting. His name can be found on the affluent Lawrence Park neighborhood, the Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate Corporation, and on Lawrence Hospital.
The pharmaceutical company was Perry Davis, later Davis & Lawrence, which published a book Nursing the Sick, which achieved mention in Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian cookbooks 1825-1949.
Davis and Lawrence also manufactured “Pain-Killer”
“”PAIN KILLER” was patented by Perry Davis in 1845. It is believed to be the first nationally advertised remedy specifically for pain – as distinct from a particular disorder. “Pain Killer” was distributed by Christian missionaries around the world Its ingredients, mainly opiates and ethyl alcohol, were entirely natural. No need of doctors (who had a deservedly poor reputation).
Nothing like organic opium to relieve pain. Narcotics provided a solid foundation to the Lawrence fortune; once you started taking Pain Killer, you never wanted to stop.
As a youth Mark Twain encountered it. In his Autobiography he reminisces:
It was not right to give the cat the “Pain-Killer”; I realize it now. I would not repeat it in these days. But in those “Tom Sawyer” days it was a great and sincere satisfaction to me to see Peter perform under its influence–and if actions do speak as loud as words, he took as much interest in it as I did. It was a most detestable medicine, Perry Davis Pain-Killer. Mr. Pavey’s negro man, who was a person of good judgment and considerable curiosity, wanted to sample it and I let him. It was his opinion that it was made of hell-fire.
Next Van D went into real estate. He founded Bronxville, which was designed for upper-middle class types who wanted a pristine community:
Lawrence Park proudly advertised in House and Garden in 1925: “Restrictions? Yes! Bronxville has been carefully guarded in its development…. The index of desirability has always been character, culture, and the ability to fit easily and naturally into the social scheme.”
As a Protestant minister remarked “Jesus Christ, – himself a Jew – would not be a welcome citizen of communities such as…Bronxville.
In 1958 Harry Gersh, using the name of Harry Greenberg, tried to buy a house in the Holy Square Mile, as Bronxville was known.
One real estate agent told him bluntly: “I have to tell you that you wouldn’t be comfortable here in Bronxville. There are no Jewish people in the village.” She only had his best interests at heart:
Some of my best friends are Jews,” she said. “And I wouldn’t want you to be hurt. It’s not even you and your wife so much. You’re probably used to it. But your children. You know how cruel children can be. Think of your son and daughter exposed to the cruelty of the other children.”
Van D. built the Hotel Gramatan in Bronxville
A massive fixture straddled atop Sunset Hill from 1905 until 1972, the Gramatan enjoyed its spectacular heyday in the 1920’s. Developed by real estate mogul William Van Duzer Lawrence, The hotel enjoyed an international reputation of exclusivity, attracting stars such as Greta Garbo, John and Ethel Barrymore, Gloria Swanson, Peaches and Daddy Browning and Theodore Dreiser. Society from all over the world flocked to the Gramatan to rub elbows; its balls and social events serving as mixers for the rich and famous.
Jews were allowed in the hotel.
Sarah Lawrence College was his next major work in 1926. He named it after his wife,
and built it on his estate. Westlands:
From its inception, the college was intended to provide instruction in the arts and humanities for women. Its pedagogy, modeled on the tutorial system of Oxford University, combined independent research projects, individually supervised by the teaching faculty, and seminars with low student-to-faculty ratio.
One of my nieces went there, I shall have to ask her if the tradition of all natural opium continues at the college.
Its architecture leans to Stockbroker Tudor, as we see in the Titsworth and Dudley Lawrence dorms:
Van D. also founded Lawrence Hospital after his son nearly died when he fell sick and had to be taken to New York.
Such are the accomplishments of this Lawrence: a fortune built on opium and real estate, a college, and a hospital.
At present those who try to build fortunes on opium and its equivalents end up in jail or dead, rather than successful philanthropists.
She Polished Up the Handle So Carefully
One might wonder about the qualifications of Heather Cook that outweighed her drunken driving episode in the judgment of the Episcopal Church.
The diocesan website has this sketch:
Cook loved school, and participated in sports and extra-curricular activities enthusiastically. One of the profound learnings of her young life came when she was not elected president of the student council, which she coveted. Instead, she was chosen to edit the yearbook. Looking back, this was part of a consistent life theme: being placed, over and over again, in situations where a dedicated communicator was needed. Whether through public speaking, print, film, or graphic art, opportunities came to convey her passion for deeply held values and beliefs.
Curiosity about the world prompted her to pursue university studies in 1974 at Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada, and later at the University of Exeter, England, and work as an au pair in Spain, on a kibbutz in Israel, and as a grape- picker in France and vegetable-harvester in England.
Back in Baltimore, working as a redactor at Waverly Press, she was re-introduced to faith as a young adult and discerned there was something else calling her. She realized she needed to find her own identity as a young woman, and not wait for it to come through marriage. This, coupled with a spiritual awakening that was encouraged through Education for Ministry classes at Epiphany Church, Timonium, and an introduction to contemplative life through silent retreats, opened the way for her to hear God’s invitation to seminary.
The prestige of the Episcopal clergy has declined. The stereotypical (if not typical) Episcopal clergyman of previous generations was a learned, Ivy League, Phi Beta Kappa, ex-military man. Now the stereotypical clergyperson is a failed kindergarten teacher. Sic transit….
Hiatus
In 2014 I had two nasty concussions. After I got over those I decided to spend my time finishing the manuscript of my latest book, which has the tentative title: Meek or Macho? Why Men Are Alienated from Christianity.
So if anyone cares, I am back.
I have also amused myself with ancestry.com and tracing my family’s genealogy. My wife has a large and fascinating family, especially the relatives by marriage, so as Winston Churchill (who has about 8,000 American cousins), Charles Darwin, Aldous Huxley, etc.
So mostly for amusement of my extended family, I will post some genealogical finds which may be of some interest as illustrations of social history.
I will begin with a series of reflections on the Reverend Frances Effingham Lawrence, my wife’s second cousin four times removed.
Intermission
The Slippery Slope in a Formerly Catholic Country
Any resemblance to the Nazi program of killing people whose lives were in terrible condition and suffering from illness and dementia is purely accidental.
From the National Post:
Should children have the right to ask for their own deaths?
In Belgium, where euthanasia is now legal for people over the age of 18, the government is considering extending it to children — something that no other country has done. The same bill would offer the right to die to adults with early dementia.
Advocates argue that euthanasia for children, with the consent of their parents, is necessary to give families an option in a desperately painful situation. But opponents have questioned whether children can reasonably decide to end their own lives.
Belgium is already a euthanasia pioneer; it legalized the practice for adults in 2002. In the last decade, the number of reported cases per year has risen from 235 deaths in 2003 to 1,432 in 2012, the last year for which statistics are available. Doctors typically give patients a powerful sedative before injecting another drug to stop their heart.
Only a few countries have legalized euthanasia or anything approaching it. In the Netherlands, euthanasia is legal under specific circumstances and for children over the age of 12 with parental consent (there is an understanding that infants, too, can be euthanized, and that doctors will not be prosecuted if they act appropriately). Elsewhere in Europe, euthanasia is only legal in Luxembourg. Assisted suicide, where doctors help a patient to die but do not actively kill them, is allowed in Switzerland.
In the U.S., the state of Oregon also grants assisted suicide requests for residents aged 18 or over with a terminal illness.
In Belgium, the ruling Socialist party has proposed the bill expanding the right of euthanasia. The Christian Democratic Flemish party vowed to oppose the legislation and to challenge it in the European Court of Human Rights if it passes. A final decision must be approved by Parliament and could take months.
The principle of euthanasia for children sounds shocking at first, but it’s motivated by compassion and protection,” said John Harris, a professor of bioethics at the University of Manchester. “It’s unfair to provide euthanasia differentially to some citizens and not to others [children] if the need is equal.”
(snip)
And Dr. Gerlant van Berlaer, a pediatric oncologist at the Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussels hospital, says the changes would legalize what is already happening informally. He said cases of euthanasia in children are rare and estimates about 10 to 100 cases in Belgium every year might qualify.
“Children have different ways of asking for things but they face the same questions as adults when they’re terminally sick,” van Berlaer said. “Sometimes it’s a sister who tells us her brother doesn’t want to go back to the hospital and is asking for a solution,” he said. “Today if these families find themselves (in that situation), we’re not able to help them, except in dark and questionable ways.”
(snip)
The change in the law regarding people with dementia is also controversial.
People now can make a written declaration they wish to be euthanized if their health deteriorates, but the request is only valid for five years and they must be in an irreversible coma. The new proposal would abolish the time limit and the requirement the patient be in a coma, making it possible for someone who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s to be put to death years later in the future.
In the Netherlands, guidelines allow doctors to euthanize dementia patients on this basis if they believe the person is experiencing “unbearable suffering,” but few are done in practice.
Computer Gremlins
John (and anyone else whose comments disappeared)
Try sending again. The website had a mysterious malfunction.
Lee Podles
A Lively Faith
The discussion has been helpful. It is tautological to say a personal relationship. A relationship between persons is by definitely personal – but simply to say it is personal does not define it very well. There are many kinds and levels of personal relationship.
The older language of a lively faith is perhaps more helpful. Faith can be separated from charity. As James says, the demons believe and tremble. A faith can be merely notional, a commitment to a set of abstract statements.
Or we can have faith in a person, trust in that person’s love for us, and this is the sort of faith that we have (or should have) in God. It is obscure or weak in many people, but I think it keeps them going.
However, when we realize that Jesus died for us, for each of us and all of us as the new humanity, and pours his Spirit upon us, and cares for us, and wills our good, we have lively faith.
The key word is realize, and I think that Newman discussed that matter at length. When the truth of the Redemption becomes real to us, something we stake our whole existence on, that gives meaning to everything, then we have what some call a personal relationship with Jesus. Is this what people mean?
A Personal Relationship?
Waddell’s book Formng Intentional Disciples does not really answer the question about what exactly a personal relationship with God is.
For some people, personal has an erotic connotation – up close and personal. The unfortunate tradition of erotic mysticism uses this sort of language to describe the Christian’s relationship with God – Christ as the Bridegroom of the soul, falling in love with God (language Waddell uses) and even more explicit language and images (think of Bernini’s St. Theresa). Perhaps some people (especially men) do not like this language and that is why they do not use us the word personal to describe a relationship with God.
Also, our relationship with Jesus is not like that with another human person. Unlike those who met him while he was on earth, we, like Paul, do not know Jesus according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Jesus is glorified now, and pours forth his Spirit through many channels, both ordinary (Scripture, the sacraments) and extraordinary. This is not the sort of personal relationship we have with other human beings, so again, that may be a reason Catholics do not think it is possible to have a personal relationship with God in Christ.
If a person believes in God, and says his relationship with God is not personal, what kind of relationship is it? I find it hard to imagine it’s being an impersonal relationship, the type we have with the force of gravity, or the US government.
Rock Art for Rock Art Heads
Around Santa Fe we visited some rock art panels.
Here is Kokapelli aka The Water Sprinkler, mostly drawn, I suspect, by teenage boys.
Here is A Mayan Calendar, or maybe a Sun Wheel, or maybe a hubcap.
“This is clearly a Two-headed Whatsits.”
Another obvious Whatits, or perhaps a Je-ne-sais-pas.
Shall we dance?
Problem in Santa Fe
We went to Santa Fe for the opera and chamber music festival, but no one warned us that the city was suffering from a serious vermin problem.
Look, there’s another one!
Call the exterminator!
There is nothing worse than an infestation of dragons.
The Faith of a Cardinal
Whispers in the Loggia links to an interview with Cardinal Schönborn. He is frank about some of his family’s problems. His grandfather and father were not practicing, and his parents divorced when he was young.
He was a young Dominican during the disastrous period after Vatican II. Bultmann was their guide to theology, and he was told prayer was meaningless. He stopped praying for a year, and was getting ready to leave the Dominicans. He returned to the practice of prayer in 1967 after hearing an Orthodox monk who spoke about prayer and the importance of a spiritual father, a staretz. He has told me he is deeply grateful to the Orthodox for saving his vocation. Orthodox have told me that the Catechism of the Catholic Church could have been written by an Orthodox, so I think that Schönborn has learned both to pray and think like an Orthodox. Schönborn is both the Latin archbishop of Vienna and metropolitan of Eastern Catholics in Austria. If he is ever elected pope, we may see major movements to restore communion between East and West.
Russell Shaw’s American Church
Russell Shaw’s new book American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America, gives his interpretation of the relationship of Catholicism’s interaction with America. He agrees with Orestes Brownson, who was pessimistic about how Catholicism would do in America, rather than Isaac Hecker (founder of the Paulists) who was optimistic, Shaw also thinks that Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore set the Church here on a firmly Americanizing and assimilationist course.
The Irish especially were determined to make it in America. They were hostile to German immigrants, and even more so to Eastern Catholics. The Irish were determined to be complete Americans, and their high point came with the election of Kennedy. After Vatican II Catholics dismantled the “ghetto,” and wholeheartedly embraced the world. Catholic politicians have completely adopted secular establishment attitudes to sexuality and life issues. Visible practice among the laity has collapsed, and Catholics are indistinguishable from other Americans in divorce and abortion, and Jesuit colleges vie among themselves to sponsor gay organizations.
Shaw thinks the ultimate source of the collapse is the American attitude that individuals have a direct line to the Holy Spirit, and that, in modern terms, “conscience” or the “sensus fidelium” trumps the faith historically transmitted by an authoritative Church.
Shaw is correct in his diagnosis; that is certainly what has happened. He thinks that Catholicism cannot survive in a foreign and increasingly hostile environment without a plausibility structure, the network of schools, institutions, and practices that formerly allowed most Catholics to live in a Catholic environment. Shaw therefore places his hope in the new web of Catholic institutions, such as Thomas Aquinas College, the Nashville Dominicans, etc. , that will form a new Catholic subculture.
But these are miniscule, touching a fraction of 1% of the Catholic population. Catholic schools continue to decline rapidly, and nothing has replaced them as a means of transmitting both Catholic doctrines and practices to the next generation. Religious orders are rapidly dying out.
Progressives want the Catholic Church to be remodeled after the model of the Episcopal Church: accepting married clergy, gay clergy, gay marriage, contraception, abortion etc. But despite the advantages of wealth and social status, the Episcopal Church has been in a precipitous decline for a generation. Only Hispanic immigration has softened the decline of Catholic numbers, but they too will eventually be affected by American culture. Some have already departed to forms of conservative Protestantism; others are being secularized.
God may have surprises for us, but it looks like the Catholic Church in America is going to go the route of Catholics in Europe, without the advantages of an historic tie to the culture. Catholics will be a small remnant. The vitality of the Church is in the Global South.
The sad thing is that the decline of the American Church is self-inflicted. I remember in the 1960s arguing with a Dominican at Providence College. He insisted all Catholic schools should be closed and that Catholics should go only to public schools. I asked him how he expected Catholics to learn their faith. He said Protestants had Sunday School and that was enough. But of course it is not enough for Protestants, and even less so for Catholics, who need to learn both doctrines and practices.
(Here is Shaw’s interview on the book; here is Elizabeth Scalia’s response; here is George Weigel’s response, here are some reflections by an historian I wonder whether Commonweal or America will notice the book.)