Internet and Philosophy

The Internet is truly miraculous. The other day I ran into an essay by Croatian philosopher Mario Kopić whom I met years ago in Dubrovnik. It immediately brought to mind our last meeting, at a wine bar in Dubrovnik's Old Port that served the loveliest mellow red wine from a small barrel on top of the counter. Over the years, I lost Mario's e-mail so when his essay reminded me of that meeting, I attempted to find him on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites that have helped me find other friends - alas to no avail.

Mario does not seem to write a blog, does not post his philosophical essays online and does not tweet. As he said in a rare interview to a Dubrovnik magazine, he clearly "lives apart." What little of his work can be found online is posted by others. It's not hard to guess why. Few of his essays - profound contemplations on cultural and existential themes - can be skimmed through quickly and superficially as we do most of our online reading. One that I found, titled Church and Nihilism would probably resonate with any online reader if they could understand it. It's not an easy read even for a Croatian native speaker and it's nearly impossible to translate. I will try my best to convey what it says.

The basis of the Christian ethos is love, which is also in the core of the Christian belief, says Kopić. This essence of Christianity has been obscured by the Church's efforts to achieve and maintain power and domination.  Mind you, this is a simplified, unauthorized interpretation of the original text. The author is much more sophisticated and nuanced. 

While he talks about Christianity in general, it seems clear to me that Kopić refers mostly to the Catholic and the Eastern-Orthodox Church. He says the Church has deviated from the Christian ethos of love for the divine to hatred of everything it perceives as contrary to its preaching. The Church also has taken away from man the right to act according to his own conscience. That right, Kopić asserts citing the Bible, was God-given to mankind through Adam, making the original sin, the birth of Christ and the Resurrection possible. By denying individuals their freedom of conscience, the Church assumes the role of lawmaker and law-enforcer, not unlike the state. In fact, the philosopher notes, the Church has, whenever possible, used the state to help impose its will on the people. By placing the church law above love, it has changed man's status from that of an autonomous God's creation to that of a church member. In this and many other ways, the Church annihilates man's God-given autonomy as much as the secular state does.

Furthermore, instead of promoting the sanctity of life except by banning abortion, Kopić notes, the Church even today tolerates death penalty and blesses armed forces, in some cases even war criminals. 

Kopić further states that no law or religion should replace individual conscience, but stipulates that conscience is not possible without awareness, i.e. understanding of one's own self and the rest of the world.  Human dignity, he argues in an elaborate fashion, results from a person's ability to contain his/her own desires out of love or deference for others. The ability to control oneself cannot be enforced by Agents or Supervisors appointed by the Church or the State, says Kopić and concludes that without love, neither God nor people have much of a future. 

The essay is about Christianity, but its basic ideas can apply to any religion. And Kopić is not the only one to promote them. Years ago, I asked a renowned Muslim scholar, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Professor of Law at the University of California, how God judges a person who has been instructed by his imam to go and kill in the name of religion. Here is what he replied: “The Quran is very explicit about the individual accountability of each person, fully and completely, for their own actions and that they will not be allowed to say in the final day that ‘this person told me’ or ‘that person convinced me.’ That message of individual responsibility and individual accountability is critical [to Islam].” 

Fadl also said a Muslim has to make efforts to understand the Quran and he has to go out of his way to befriend non-Muslims. "God created different people because only through the understanding of human race in all its diversity can people gain true understanding of the Creator," he said.

Interviewed for the same story, late Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, California said that Judaism, Islam and Christianity can be compared to different languages teaching the same basic things. The role of religious teachers is to facilitate communication among groups that use these different languages.

“All of us believe that God created the individual in his own image, regardless of race or gender or religion. We are invested with an inviolability - with a divine potentiality. We all come from Adam. And Adam, we must remember, was not a Jew. He was not a Christian. He was not a Muslim.”

Rabbi Schulweis said all men and women, regardless of their religion, are  created by God.  So "to love God, but to hate his creation, is not only a contradiction, it is the uttermost blasphemy.” 

Jewish or Muslim?

There is now near universal agreement among scholars that most world religions, especially the monotheistic ones, share common ethics, although the rites and traditions differ.  A Muslim might be surprised to learn that Christianity's New Testament requires women's subservience and invisibility, not unlike the strictest Islamic law. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul said that women must be veiled, and you can still see Catholic women in many countries covering their hair when they enter a church. It is believed that St. Paul also wrote  (Corinthians I, 14:33-35 ) "the women should keep silence in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home." Ultra-Orthodox Jews also require that women cover their hair and submit to the husband's rule. (On that topic I highly recommend the Israeli movie Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem).

It is the outward demonstrations of diversity rather than true religious differences that provoke tensions between religious groups. Catholic theologian James Wiseman, professor at The Catholic University of America, said there is something in the human nature that compels us to differentiate between "us" and "them". But he said religions do evolve with time and so in the 1960s, the Vatican affirmed for the first time the sanctity of non-Christian religions. “The Church has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and doctrines which, although different in many ways from her own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all people,” said Wiseman.

The Internet could make inter-religious communication easier than ever. It even has translation engines to lower down, if not diminish, language barriers. But when did you last see a civilized intellectual discussion on any topic on the Internet? Most online exchanges, religious or secular, are controlled by "Agents" and "Supervisors," including anonymous commentators who revile in the crudest language anyone who disagrees with them, powerful groups that control the thinking of their members, purveyors of hatred and authors of clever and catchy phrases that promise to stick. Philosophers like Kopić reserve their thoughts for readers who would make more effort.

American Catholic Church Faces Shortage of Clergy

Voice of America
07 April 2002

The current pedophilia scandal is the latest and probably the gravest of several issues that have been plaguing the American Catholic Church in recent years. The institution is faced with a severe and growing shortage of ordained men. Zlatica Hoke looks into what the American Catholic Church is doing to reverse the trend.

St. Anselm's Abbey is a quiet oasis next to a busy street in Northeast Washington DC. Located on a hillside overlooking the Catholic University, it has been home to a Benedictine monastery and church for almost eighty years and to a school for boys, aged twelve to eighteen, for sixty years. Abbot Aiden Shea has spent forty-four years of his life here. "A year after leaving the military, I entered the monastery," he says.

St. Anselm's Abbey, NE Washington

Seventeen monks at the abbey meet five times a day for prayers. They spend the rest of the day teaching at St. Anselm's Abbey School and at the Catholic University. Most of them are ordained as priests, so they alternate in leading the Mass liturgies. Abbot Aiden says they are often invited to help in the neighboring parishes. "We don't have a parish ourselves, but we help out in several parishes and are chaplains in some schools. A number of us give retreats," he says. "Many here are spiritual directors. So there's quite a variety, so to speak, of ministries."

The small Benedictine monastery has never had more than 40 monks. But Abbot Aiden says the numbers started to decline in the 1960-s. The loss of monks is reflected in St. Anselm's Abbey School faculty profile. "When it opened in 1942, I think, there was one layman who was in charge of physical education and there was a school secretary who was a woman," he says. "Otherwise, all the faculty were monks and as the numbers (of monks) diminished, then the number of monks in the school diminished also."

Today, fewer than one third of the school faculty are monks. All other teachers and administrative personnel are lay people.

The situation in Washington's Benedictine abbey reflects the state of Catholic communities throughout the United States. While the number of Catholics in the nation grew from about 40 million in 1960 to more than 60 million in 2001, the number of ordained priests steadily declined.

In 1965, there were about 58,000 ordained priests; last year there were about 46,000 .

The number of monks and nuns has also declined. The number of young men studying to be priests at Catholic seminaries across America has dropped from about 18,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 4,000 last year.

Edward Burns is the executive director of the Secretariat for Vocations and Priestly Formation at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, based in the nation's capital. He says the shortage of clergy is felt especially hard in the west and mid-west. "It's not to say that it's not felt here in the East, because it's felt all over," he says.

The official Catholic Church figures show that more than a quarter of American parishes have no resident priests. Many churches have had to reduce the number of Masses per day. Some parishes have had to close down or merge with others.

And many services once performed by priests, such as baptizing, counseling and teaching religion are now delegated to deacons [Lower order than priests, who are ordained to officiate at some sacraments such as baptisms and weddings, but cannot celebrate the Mass; they can be married], lay ministers and church associates. Some churches, notably in Florida, have embraced clergy from countries that have had a surplus of priests. For many years it has been Ireland, but in recent years, that country too, as well as the rest of Europe, has been faced with a shortage of Catholic vocations.

But Burns says in many countries, especially in Asia and Africa, there has been an increase of ordained priests and seminarians. Father Burns says the shortage of priestly vocations in this country is part of a larger trend. "It was on the front page of the Washington Post a couple of years ago that marriage is at an all-time low," he says.

Burns believes there is a general commitment crisis in the American society. According to Father Burns, Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopalian churches in America are also experiencing a declining number of ministers and the number of rabbinical students is also in decline.

He says many young Americans today grow up in an affluent society with a wide choice of career and other opportunities. While many are willing to serve the church for some time or in some capacity, few are willing to commit to a lifetime of self-denial and serving others. The abbot of St. Anselm's Abbey says even fewer are willing to take the vow of chastity, obedience and stability, which his order requires. "The vow of stability means, at least on the first level, that we will be in this monastery until we die. We are not ever transferred," he says. "And that is very, very daunting to many young people because they are so used to change and mobility. It is very sobering for them to wander around here (the abbey grounds) and think that they are going to live here until they die."

The American Catholic Church is working hard on reversing the shrinking trend of its ranks. Director of Vocations for the church, Edward Burns, says one way is asking newly ordained priests and seminarians to inspire other young men with their personal stories. "We are preparing for World Youth Day that's coming up in July. It will take place in Toronto [Canada]. And a great number of young people will be in Toronto, a great number of young people from the United States will be participating. We are hoping to have an effective way of challenging young men to consider diocesan priesthood," he says.

In addition to that, says Father Burns, the Catholic Church has been using contemporary methods to invite young men to consider the priesthood: radio and TV advertisements, the Internet, posters and even roadside billboards.

But a growing number of Americans feel that despite all the advertising, or importing priests from other countries, the increasing clergy shortage will not be halted. In a recent poll of lay Catholics, almost three-quarters said they were willing to expand ordination to married men, former priests and women. A growing number of Catholic priests have expressed the same sentiments, including William Byron, the pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Northwest Washington DC. "We have become very accustomed to having female physicians, we are accustomed to having female chief-executive-officers of corporations, why shouldn't we just as easily become accustomed to having female priests," he says. "I don't see any reason why we couldn't do that."

But Father Byron says he does not expect any major changes in the church any time soon. "This is an institution that's 2,000-years-old and change has to come gradually."

Many Americans feel, however, that the Catholic Church will be forced to change at least some of its centuries-old policies sooner rather than later. The current clergy in the nation is getting old, there are more priests aged 90 and over, than those under thirty. Father Byron says for each five or six new priests ordained in a year, the church might bury or retire ten or twelve. He says there is no shortage of Catholics who want to serve the church, but there are roadblocks for many of those who would like to be ordained.