St. Patrick’s Basilica: Opportunity Instead of Outrage: A Letter to an Outraged Friend

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Dear __________:  I read the article you sent, as well as a couple of others on the same event (the funeral for Cecilia Gentili at St Patrick’s Basilica, NY). The problem I have with these articles is that they are too easy. The one article you sent by a professor of biblical studies contains insults, and it ends with a “finger wagging” (“Desecrating the cathedral is not the only thing they should be ashamed of”). What conservative Catholic reader of that particular journal needs to be persuaded that what happened at the Basilica in New York was a bad thing? But no one I’ve encountered so far has regarded this event as an opportunity. Allow me to explain. The writing style of a number of these articles is very much like the typical conservative political pundit. Whenever I drive to the US and listen to talk radio, I’m always struck by how polarized American society is. Those on the political left utterly demonize those on the right, but an hour or so later the left are thoroughly demonized by the right on another station. That kind of polarization characterizes many of the conservative Catholic journals as of late, especially with regard to this funeral at St. Patrick’s. 

An effective pastoral approach is very different and requires more than the intellectual virtues to be successful; those who are so busy being offended, outraged, incensed, completely miss it. A good pastor would have to be quick on his feet, for one, and he’d have to see this as an opportunity, a tremendous opportunity. The Basilica was filled with adults who have the spiritual maturity level of children; they are a broken and messed up lot, and they are all together in one place, with a priest at the front. What an opportunity to proclaim Christ and him crucified and risen, and what that means for each one of us. It would require tremendous patience, like an experienced grade school teacher would have in dealing with an out of control class of grade two kids, but many of those writing on this issue can be compared to the university professor who finds himself in front of that grade two class–they’re at a loss. And tone is everything. Anger will ruin it, finger wagging would tune everyone out. One would have to have the ability to speak to them in a way that would connect with them, appeal to their reason which, despite appearances, they have not entirely lost. It’s not about affirming their lifestyle choices, but affirming them (the person), seeing them a certain way, very much like visiting a seriously ill mental health patient–you first have to see them from God’s point of view, that is, see in them a genuine goodness and be able to mirror that goodness to them. But not everyone, certainly not every pastor, is capable of seizing the moment in this way. The default position of many conservative writers is to counter with a moralizing outrage and not to regard this as an opportunity, that is, an opportunity to proclaim Christ, the crucified and risen one who loves each one of us as if there is only one of us.

Proclaiming Christ is not the same thing as moralizing—those who reduce the gospel to personal morality miss the mark as much as those who reduce the gospel to social justice. The gospel is the good news of the resurrection, that Christ has destroyed death and restored life. These people in the Basilica are searching for that which is going to bring them rest; the problem is they think they’re going to find it in the perfect orgasm. The response of a good pastor is not to confront them with a giant “No”, but to appeal to them and get them to hear you when you tell them that behind their “yes” is a much larger and better “YES”, that what they are searching for will never be found in an intimate sexual relationship, no matter what kind it is. Cecilia Gentili was a seeker, but one with a tank full of octane and no steering wheel. She was devoted to a cause, devoted to justice, however deficient and misinformed she might have been. What was she searching for? It should be obvious. What these people are searching for but are oblivious to is right there on the first page of Augustine’s Confessions: “O Lord, You created us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” There is no doubt that each person in that Church feels the emptiness of their lifestyle choices. We can respond by showing them the door and wagging our finger, or we can think of a way to proclaim Christ. But conservative Catholicism seems to have embraced a model characteristic of American politics, and many are stuck in a “culture warrior” mentality, and with that mentality, we cannot for the life of us proclaim Christ in a way that will win anyone over. There’s no doubt the Basilica was not treated as a sacred space, but you need faith to do that, and these people don’t have that faith, which is why it was so important to take advantage of the opportunity to proclaim Christ with zeal, wit, and a profound reverence for these broken people. There’s no need to convince the rest of us that this was a bad thing that happened, but what is the point of outrage? These articles are for the most part a matter of preaching to the choir. What do they accomplish in the end? Do they help us to know how to better respond to something like that in the future?  Hardly. Often it is just some academic flexing his intellectual muscles.

Fulton Sheen believes that the reason Paul did not have much success when he preached the Areopagus sermon is that he did not preach Christ crucified. The power is in the cross, not clever zingers and pointing out logical inconsistencies and ironies. The latter approach just keeps the world divided, but the cross changes hearts and lives.