Concerning Faith and Morality

A forthright statement by Bishop Nunzio Galatino, the Secretary-General of the Conference of Italian Bishops, resonates well with the statement by Pope Francis "Who am I to judge?" Reformist Pope Francis stunned the world in the early days of his papacy and now another major proponent of reform has broken ranks with the traditionalist hierarchy in the Roman Catholic Church.

“My wish for the Italian Church is that it is able to listen without any taboo to the arguments in favor of married priests, the Eucharist for the divorced, and homosexuality," is the money quote in an article by Yasmine Hafiz on the Huffington Post dated May 15, 2014.

Obtuse and harmful pronunciamentos from the Vatican have plagued the alleged sacrosanctity of this religious institution for the better part of two millennia. Statements ex cathedra by the supreme pontiff - asserted by the ordained hierarchy to be beyond temporal dispute, become less credible when couched in pedestrian beliefs du jour. Rigorous scholarship and solid science exist in often fractious contrast to such quasi-divine impertinence and there have been some really rotten, really bloody episodes when ideology has attempted to trump serious inquiry au contraire in the long history of this religious denomination.

I wrote and Huffington Post published my comment on this article. Here is what I wrote:

It took the better part of 75 years in my time on planet earth to accept that the pablum thrust on me as a trusting youth was toxic, ignorant, and life-threatening. Check out works by Wayne Meeks, John Boswell, Phillips Jenkins, and Resla Aslan. Look at solid research, not fairy tales. Embrace the humanity we hold in common.

Mind you, there is a not so subtle hint in what I wrote that intimates that I too am a revisionist thinker in these heady matters. Pope Francis is a couple of years older than me and I don't see myself as anything remotely resembling personal status as a peer of His Holiness. There are other religious traditions quite as doughty as the Roman Catholics elsewhere on the globe and in the history of the human race writ large. Some significant tutelage is to be found in the work of Joseph Campbell and I venture to say that terms like ethos, logos and pathos have a more universal significance than the narrow and judgemental habits to which the apologists of Western Christianity lay claim.

I have no objection to the concept of the leap of faith examined by Thomas Aquinas and more recently by Karl Jung. Reason alone is inadequate.  Faith satisfies a fundamental yearning among humankind, it seems to me, but the "whys and wherefores" are essentially inchoate IMHO. Suffice it to say that anthropomorphizing a deity or deities is suspiciously culturally specific ab origine. Commandments come and go in reality, one notices, and assertions of supremacy for religious reasons are a fool's errand.

Huzzzah for the anti-establishment Italian bishop and more such accolades for Pope Francis in his agnostic comments. There will be an Extraordinary Synod for the Family in October and we shall see how mutually exclusive views on hot-button topics may be reconciled.

A year has gone by since my last substantive post here at The View from Sequin Heights, and a lot has happened. CM Lilligren is no more, having been trounced by scads of new voters who preferred CM Abdi Warsame. There are seven new city council members, including a Hmong American in Ward 5, a Somali American in Ward 6, and a Latina American in Ward 9. Also new faces  in the mayor's office and Wards 3, 10, 11, and 13. CM Cam Gordon in Ward 2 continues as the sole Green Party member of the council.

I surmise that the troika of CMs Johnson and Goodman, and Mayor Hodges will continue to rule the roost, since the Council has kept on Rybak's City Attorney, City Coordinator, and a feckless incumbent in whatever passes for civil rights/human rights oversight. The rush to build ever more upper-income condo high- and mid-rises in and within easy reach of downtown will also continue even though it is increasingly obvious that this is a saturated market reminiscent of the scene along the riverfront in the 1980s when the City had to rescue failing enterprises in a unduly optimistic festive marketplace meme.

It will take another four years to see a further evolution in the composition of the City Council and I suspect that my friend and former colleague Kris Brogan will end the longstanding reign of the Rainvillle clan in Ward 1 and the consortium of North Minneapolis political families that have dominated the city council for many decades.

No more Barb Johnson as City Council President should that be the case and CM Glidden, now Council Vice President replacing former CM Lilligren, may bring greater attention to both south Minneapolis and more generally the rapidly changing demographics in the inner-city wards that are a first ring around the central business district  (CBD).

There are some serious loose ends hanging fire. One has to do with the growing population of baby boomers who are aging out of active employment. Another has to do with the home-based white-collar workforce that may well prefer to live in surroundings that Minneapolis has no way to offer - suburban and exurban landscapes, rather than urban cement, noise, air pollution, low-performing schools, crime, clutter, and oppressive taxation. A third phenomenon has to do with official fixation on sports palaces. The way that Minneapolis rammed through a billion-dollar gift to the Vikings owner demeans due process and rests on income projections proven nationally to be a financial turkeys over time and across the United States. Blue-collar employment is also at considerable risk because there seems to be little official interest in sustainable alternative energy production and/or industrial use.

Instead, we haggle over showpiece light rail and/or streetcars, see our infrastructure being given a low priority, and notice flight to the suburbs far more likely than the attempt to return to post-WWII population density meant to reinvent that particular wheel at 500K and higher. Where will 200K additional residents live? Where will they find suitable employment? How will a half-million people find ways to travel that won't involve freeway "parking lot" traffic jams or stiff parking fees in the CBD and its immediate surrounds? What families of four will find it routinely splendid to drop $400-500 for seats at the football stadium every time our losing Vikings fail once again to break their now familiar and unimpressive win/loss record in the NFL?

Item: The rise of a fascist oligarchy nationally has ominous local implications as well. Our police have effectively been militarized. State-sponsored invasions of our privacy have become routine with no credible oversight. We can be "vanished" in the best Argentinian, Chilean,Central American, Russian, and/or Chinese traditions.

Item: Attacking the messenger rather than admitting wrong-doing has become standard issue even in the face of the Congress of the United States. Our national financial structures have been "taken to the cleaners" by large-scale malfeasance in major corporate enterprises and surprise! no one goes to jail for the theft of billions of dollars. No one is held accountable for trillions of tax avoidance dollars parked beyond the usual reach of our Treasury.

Item: More ominously still is the appearance of organized armed and seditious groups on American soil. Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower used national military resources to restore constitutional order in domestic situations threatening the stability of the country writ large. Not so in 2014, despite posse comitatus already a dead letter. Wanton abuse of personal firearms kills thousands of Americans - ten times the lives lost on September 11, 2001. Mass slaughter of children has become no more than an awkward footnote, soon passing from informed views in official circles.

Item: Then there's the matter of global warming. Nature's vote means far more than obfuscatory attempts by the lackeys of the fossil fuels crowd. The entire State of California is now in drought, water reservoirs are emptying out, wildfires are rampant, and the once bountious agricultural central valley is sharply endangered with major national implications. Whatever the cause, that's hard news. Similarly, fracking in hundreds of locations in Oklahoma and Ohio are destabilizing a land mass overdue for a colossal shift along a fault line that runs through the entire lower Mississippi watershed. Ah, yes. And the overuse of the major western aquifers is leading inexorably to the desertification of the great plains and a hefty chunk of the southwestern states east of the Sierras. Meanwhile, both east and west coasts of the country are being pummeled by the great oceans rising in response to accelerated melting of the planet's ice caps and glaciers. Not to mention torrential downpours, devastating superstorms,  polar vortex weather systems, and volcanic eruptions here and there.

These sweeping statements certainly trump whatever concerns I might otherwise still have about the antics of our local governments in Minnesota and Minneapolis. I look in vain for the ounce of prevention and dread the cost of the pound of cure that lies ahead.