…there remain millions in the field who seek Jesus. People like Ethan Hawke, here discussing his recent biopic on Flannery O’Connor, WILDCAT:
Hawke recognized that O’Connor was “a truth seeker, and there are a lot of people from every walk of life who are interested in that, and they can find a friend in her.”
He noted that books by Catholics like Thomas Merton and Walker Percy still sell well, decades after their deaths. “They’re printed over and over again, and I know other people are secretly reading them,” he quipped.
Speaking of the spiritual struggles that drove Flannery O’Connor’s life and informed her writing, Hawke said, “I believe there are so many people who are interested in this conversation; they’re just scared of it.”
The reason people excuse themselves from the Thanksgiving dinner table if talk about God comes up, he maintained, is that “it’s a conversation that scares people.”
But, he added, “it’s a conversation that’s absolutely essential to our collective wellness.”
Hawke and Groth acknowledged that it’s a struggle to get such conversations to the silver screen. But Groth has concluded that success will come when they find ways to “tell good stories about the things we have in common, the things that are placed in front of us, so that when we do have the dinner conversation at Thanksgiving, people will want to stay and have it.”
“We’ve made a lot of films over the years that make Christians happy,” he said. “But can we create something that brings us into honest conversation and dialogue with the massive amount and variety of people around us in our circles that leads us to be able to respect one another and love one another and care for one another and draw strength from each other? That’s what was tremendously exciting about Flannery as a film because I knew she’ll stir the pot; she’ll say things in ways that are not comfortable.”
I think he’s right, though I would put it a little differently. I think lots of post-moderns long for God, but don’t know how to even begin talking about that longing and are, many of them, still pre-verbal about Him. Many talk about religion and politics as ways of both trying to talk about Him and avoiding talking about him. Many think that talking about Jesus is talking about something and someone other than God–including many Christians. I regard Hawke as a hopeful sign of a person genuinely seeking God himself and not some sort of God-substitute. I think the fields are white for harvest with many like him. I just wish the US Church would learn to listen to them and meet them where they are rather than wasting our time on power politics, aesthetic quibbles, and self-pity over non-existent persecution.
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Amen. A lot of older people think younger people have “moved on” and are complete materialists, that somehow human nature has changed. If we’re honest, we may remember many of us lived as materialists when we were young, starting careers, raising families, but as one ages one starts to wonder more about why we are what we are, if there is more than meets the eye, why more money or a better job doesn’t make us any happier, realizing we will die and does anything we do matter in the light of that and so on, and the post-moderns will have the same questions as people always have – we need to be there when the questions arise and we need to be credible and not have sold out – we need to do what seems incredible and try to become those saints that the Gospel tells us we can be because sainthood is attractive, it is not self-seeking, it transcends in its efforts to love God and become like Christ. In our American culture, sainthood is “other,” striving to be like the ultimate “Other.”
The US Church got many right wing Bishops, courtesy of Pope JP2. Many of them seem to subscribe to a medieval Catholicism, with the clergy as aristocrats and the laity as serfs. They are in bed with right wing politicians and addicted to political power. They are not helpful.
It seems like a broad brush is being applied today. There’s 289 actively serving bishops in the US, plus another 162 retired bishops. Only a handful stand out among that crowd for prominence in political circles, and it seems like for every Chaput among them there is a Cupich.
My own archbishop was one of those consecrated under Saint John Paul II, and is practically invisible on the political scene. I honestly have a very hazy sense whether he would be better described as conservative or liberal, either politically or theologically. Perhaps I should follow the practices of my generation in trying to evaluate what I may have been overlooking:
I do know that in response to President Trump’s stated plans to increase deportations, my archbishop issued a letter to the diocese reminding us of the inalienable dignity of all persons, and echoing Pope Francis’ call for the protection of immigrants. It was quite similar to the letter issued immediately after the inauguration by Archbishop Broglio, who likewise quoted Pope Francis, but was more direct, calling executive orders issued that day “deeply troubling” for the harm they would cause to immigrants, the environment, and those outside the US who will suffer from decreases in US foreign aid. I also know one of the large Catholic media outlets in the US has been frequently critical of Archbishop Broglio for being too conservative, recently publishing an editorial where they referred to him as “appalling.”
Evaluating this information with the same level of care and thoroughness demonstrated by the most prominent commentators in the media today, I can therefore be certain by association that my own bishop’s call for the protection of immigrants likewise makes him an “appalling” conservative.
Yet at the same time, I remember previous instances when he has spoken out against abortion, when he publicly told our state legislature that if they proceeded with their plan to mandate that priests break the seal of Confession that the priests of the archdiocese could not comply, and when he became the target of local fever pitch protests because the archdiocese reminded a pair of Catholic school teachers who publicly announced that they intended to marry as a same-sex couple that they had agreed to model Catholic teaching in their classrooms. In each of these positions, he was paralleling positions taken by Bishop Robert Barron, who has been frequently criticized as too liberal for his expressing hope that perhaps hell could be empty.
With this I’m stuck with the contradiction of recognizing that my appallingly conservative archbishop is somehow at the same time a bleeding heart liberal like Barron has been summarily judged to be.
With so many confusing contradictions, how do I figure out whether to sanction my bishop with double-secret lay excommunication for being a liberal heretic trying to undermine the foundations of true doctrine because he suggested we should use discretion and sensitivity when discussing the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, or anathematize him for revealing his desire for a medieval reform of the Church by rigidly granting multiple parishes in the diocese permission to routinely celebrate the traditional Latin Mass?
The answer is neither, but instead to be quick to listen, slow to judge, to admonish with patience and charity when it is necessary, and to earnestly desire unity in the Church.
Yes, this is long and rather sarcastic, but I came here after the indiscretion of visiting Twitter, where I once again witnessed a maelstrom of accusations and presumptions, generally considered to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in 160 characters or less. I had a notion that returning here might be a good place to refresh with more calm, measured discussion.
To be fair, once I got to the content of the post, I found that. But first I had to get past a title that, instead of being a precisely worded warning about the subset of Catholics who uncritically align themselves with political saviors, was a disturbingly vulgar generalization of the Church as a whole. It was followed by a reply that seemed (but perhaps in my current mood I’m being overly sensitive) to denigrate a Pope who has played a very important role in my faith, and perhaps at the same time was trying imply something wrong with the centuries old traditions that in their evolved form that this Pope helped preserve also taught me and helped deepen my faith.
It seems futile at times, but nonetheless, I will continue to focus in my morning offering specifically on the intention for the reunion of Christians, including the reunion of Catholics.
I absolutely loved this comment. I agree with a lot of what Mark says on this blog, but I also get annoyed at over-generalization about the US Church and the Bishops. How can we encourage people to be obedient and charitable to the Pope if we don’t also do the same for the vast majority of bishops who are clearly in communion with him? There are a few outliers, but I for one think that the USCCB as a whole is doing a fine job in a very difficult situation and deserve our prayers and respect. We need to be united behind them.
The rich, powerful and white part of the Church in the US is overwhelmingly in favor of mass deporting, persecuting, and killing the poor, and brown half of the Church. The bishops need to confront that and, even more, the laity. There are bishops, clergy, and laity who are confronting that (roughly half the Church). But the Greatest Catholics of All Time, who control the bulk of the money and media available to Catholics are drunk on MAGA.
To see right wing Bishops kissing Trump’s ass is revolting. I cannot respect them.