Letter to Friends and Family; TRACT 29: Goy, you can give me a shine.

In writing my last letter home, I began thinking about my ambivalence toward the Catholic Church, a reflection I often have here in Mexico. And I began thinking about an idea that popped into my head when I was dabbling in hagiography many years ago.

Wikipedia quickly refreshed my memory and added another fact: beatification allows Catholics in a location to venerate a local hero beatified by Rome (though such centralization of sanctity was not the case for several centuries); canonization is the elevation of a beatified Catholic to sainthood.

Appreciation of this rich tradition of relating to God through people, even townies, excites misgivings about modern Catholicism with the silence of Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust and the recent scandals about sexual abuse in the U.S. and elsewhere. These events taint the Church but not necessarily its traditions.

Perhaps the Roman Church can do something to reconcile this divisive history. Call it a new “Stride Toward Freedom”. When Martin Luther King wrote that spiritual milestone, by pre-Vatican II standards, he was headed to Hell or, at best, Limbo for not being an R.C. My time in an Episcopalian grade school, with my beloved ´1940 Hymnal´, probably planted the seed of beatifying non-Catholics.

´Hymn 243´ sings merrily of the saints of God – patient and brave and true – and they are people like you and me. Hmmm. Sounds like early Christianity when there were too few of the faithful around to be exclusive and martyrs checked their egos at the Coliseum.

Let’s face it: we live in a difficult and bloody time amid the globalization of selfishness. Winning has become the only thing and we are all losing. Billions of impoverished people are left behind despite the unflinching efforts of brave and compassionate people, ranging from soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq to AIDS workers in Africa.

People need hope and relating to God directly can be difficult. What if the Roman church, still in a position to better the world, started beatifying non-Catholics? For example, Martin Luther King would be a perfect candidate. What would be the practical consequence?

First, devoted Catholics in the U.S. would be permitted to venerate (i.e., show respect openly inside the Church) this saintly man; it already happens in many parishes on M.L.K. Day. More important, the Roman Church would be sending a message – not necessarily a relativistic one – that the plea for peace and the sacredness of sacrifice still resonate in this hardened age.

WHO WOULD YOUR CANDIDATES BE? Do not fret over whether you are Catholic. Who would be, in your eyes, worthy of old-fashioned veneration because (s)he basically deserves it? For me, Robert Kennedy and Sargent Shriver would lead my list as devoted Catholics.

Non-Catholic nominees would include the obvious like Mahatma Gandhi, Florence Nightingale, President Abraham Lincoln, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Dietrich Bonhoeffer while others emerge from the accidental place and time of my birth like William Larimer Mellon, Charlie Blango, President Gerald Ford, David Hackett and, of course, Roberto Clemente.

Beatification simply means these people are in the presence of God now. Thus beatification becomes almost a tautology.

Why?

These people were already in the presence of God when they lived amongst us, making us a little better by their very examples shining through their very human faults.

Letter-28 to friends and family: Farewell to a Warrior.

Last week-end was a busy time for souls of a higher level. First came the great news that Pope Benedict XVI had approved the beatification of John Paul II just five years after his death. Then came Martin Luther King Day, celebrating one of the finest spirits to emerge in mid-Century America followed by the death of an unsung hero of the War on Poverty under President Johnson, R. Sargent Shriver.

In his own way, each man demonstrated that, to be its own reward, virtue requires more than talking the talk or even walking the walk; it entails sacrifice whether it be a life’s dream, a life of ease or life itself. I have already talked about the impact of Dr King’s spiritual classic, “Stride Toward Freedom” (http://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2010/11/letter-22-to-family-and-friends-peace.html). My frame of reference with the Polish Pontiff came from newscasts.

That leaves R. Sargent Shriver, whom I knew for all of thirty seconds. That took place in Framingham, Massachusetts in February 1976. A history teacher invited me along for a week-end trip up to Massachusetts to work on the Shriver-for-President campaign. Since I was languishing on final warning (near expulsion), this trip represented a chance to swill a beer and a ticket out of town for a few days.

It proved to be a lot more. My only “encounter” with Mr Shriver before that had been three years earlier when he and his son walked through the dining hall during dinner-time. He was a candidate for Vice President of the United States at the time and so the people at my table, including me, decided to be deferential by flicking butter pads against the ceiling. Contact! Sarge looked up at our handiwork, rubbed his chin and walked out. Needless to say, his son did not join us the next year for mystery meat and other fine fare.

In any case, R. Sargent Shriver was running a hopeless campaign for President in 1976, punctuated by the fact that his bother-in-law, Senator Ted Kennedy, did not endorse him in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, he came and spoke to each one us, exchanging pleasantries but being genuinely warm. Those thirty seconds – and reading about his “tireless” efforts on behalf of the Peace Corps in American History class – convinced me that I would be a Peace Corps volunteer some day.

It may have taken thirty-five years in my case, and may have required going to Afghanistan to bide my time until I could start, but I got here, thanks to a man comfortable enough with himself, with his beliefs and with power. Sadly, logic and virtue rarely pick a President. The best news of all for me is that these “brief-but-profound” (mini-ha-ha) encounters proved accurate.

Last night, my novia and I had a wonderful dinner with the former Peace Corps-Mexico Director, his wife and another lovely couple. The host was really the founder of the program here. Peace Corps-Mexico gets the formula for capacity transfer right by working with people who truly want to receive it and not paying us a boat-load of money. He and his wife are lovely people and have had an interesting life together.

My acquaintance worked closely with R. Sargent Shriver when the latter was in Paris as U.S. Ambassador from 1968-70 (i.e., under Prsident Richard Nixon). While my dinner host saw the warts of Ambassador Shriver that I never would be able to perceive on a freezing night in Framingham, his assessment of Shriver basically confirmed my first impression over small talk and blatant “place-dropping” (on my part): a warm, decent, humble, hard-working and intelligent man.

Oh what a loss we have had.