Joan Chittister on Thomas Reese

Thanks to Jane Redmont for this link. It’s a column written by Joan Chittister responding to the ouster of Thomas Reese from America. She writes:

"From where I stand, it looks like it's a sad day for Catholicism when America magazine becomes the kind of publication we choose to repress. The purpose of this magazine, for instance, is not to promote pornography or anarchy or hate mongering. the purpose of America is to promote thinking about the issues Catholics confront in society today. But thinking, apparently, is not allowed."

She's right. And clearly the people in the Vatican who fear critical thinking are moving ever more surely in the direction of trying to shut such thinking down. Let that be a lesson to all of us! Now is the time to grasp with both hands, more firmly, both the biblical narratives and the core Catholic traditions we live by -- AND our ability to think critically.

As my friend Adán points out so eloquently (see his essay in Belief in Media), the church conceives of media in instrumental terms -- the producer creates the message and sends it out to people who passively accept it. The church tends to think of its own authority in those terms, too. But neither works. Meaning is created in the "in between" -- the space between the creator of messages and the receiver of messages. And the Holy Spirit is surely NOT able to be contained or controlled by any human authority, not matter how embedded in church structures.

We need to grasp hold of all the core elements of Roman Catholicism and refuse to allow narrow minded human beings -- actually, I can say "men" here -- to close our minds and hearts. Thomas Reese, and the Jesuits more generally, ought to be using this moment to proclaim the Gospel and Catholic thought as broadly and openly as they can. They have a moment in pop culture -- Tom Reese is a very visible, recognizable "face" now, from the coverage of the papal transition -- where attention is turned toward them. They need to have the courage to take it. And if they won't, which wouldn't surprise me given my recent experience with the Jesuits who run my local parish, then it may well be up to laypeople to do so. WE should not allow the men at the top of the hierarchy to use fear to close us down, to use fear to stop our voices. Bush has played that game too well with the nation, we can't allow it to happen in our church.