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December 11, 2018 | The Valley Catholic
COMMENTARY
Dual Citizenship
By Rev. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Theologian, teacher, award-winning
author, and President of the Oblate
School of Theology in San Antonio, TX
I live on both sides of a border. Not a geographical
one, but one which is often a dividing line between
two groups.
I was raised a conservative Roman Catholic, and
conservative in most other things as well. Although
my dad worked politically for the Liberal party, most
everything about my upbringing was conservative,
particularly religiously. I was a staunch Roman Catho-
lics in every way. I grew up under the papacy of Pius
XII (the fact that my youngest brother is named Pius,
will tell you how loyal our family was to that Pope’s
version of things). We believed that Roman Catholi-
cism was the one true religion and that Protestants
needed to convert and return to the true faith. I memo-
rized the Roman Catholic catechism and defended
its every word. Moreover, beyond being faithful
church-goers, my family was given over to piety and
devotions: we prayed the rosary together as a family
every day; had statues and holy pictures everywhere
in our house; wore blessed medals around our necks;
prayed litanies to Mary, Joseph, and the Sacred Heart;
and practiced a warm devotion to the saints. And
it was wonderful. I will forever be grateful for that
religious foundation.
I went from my family home to the seminary at
the tender age of seventeen and my early seminary
years solidly reinforced what my family had given me.
The academics were good and we were encouraged
to read great thinkers in every discipline. But this
higher learning was still solidly set within a Roman
Catholic ethos that valued all the things religiously
and devotionally I’d been raised on. My studies were
still friends with my piety. My mind was expanding,
but my piety remained intact.
But home is where we start from. Gradually though
through the years my world changed. Studying at
different graduate schools, teaching on different
graduate faculties, being in daily contact with other
expressions of the faith, reading contemporary novel-
ists and thinkers, and having academic colleagues as
cherished friends has, I confess, put some strain on the
piety of my youth. It’s no secret; we don’t often pray
the rosary or litanies to Mary or the Sacred Heart in
graduate classrooms or at faculty gatherings.
However academic classrooms and faculty gather-
ings bring something else, something vitally needed
in church pews and in circles of piety, namely, wider
theological vision and critical principles to keep un-
bridled piety, naïve fundamentalism, and misguided
religious fervor within proper boundaries. What I’ve
learned in the academic circles is also wonderful
and I am forever grateful for the privilege of higher
education.
But, of course, that’s a formula for tension, albeit
a healthy one. Let me use someone else’s voice to
articulate this. In a recent book, Silence and Beauty, a
Japanese-American artist, Makoto Fujimura, shares
this incident from his own life. Coming out of church
one Sunday, he was asked by his pastor to add his
name to a list of people who had agreed to boycott the
film, The Last Temptation of Christ. He liked his pastor
and wanted to please him by signing the petition, but
felt hesitant to sign for reasons that, at that time, he
couldn’t articulate. But his wife could. Before he could
sign, she stepped in and said: “Artists may have other
roles to play than to boycott this film.” He understood
what she meant. He didn’t sign the petition.
But his decision left him pondering the tension
between boycotting such a movie and his role as an
artist and critic. Here’s how he puts it: “An artist is
often pulled in two directions. Religiously conserva-
tive people tend to see culture as suspect at best, and
when cultural statements are made to transgress the
normative reality they hold dear, their default reaction
is to oppose and boycott. People in the more liberal
artistic community see these transgressive steps as
necessary for their ‘freedom of expression’. An artist
like me, who values both religion and art, will be
exiled from both. I try to hold together both of these
commitments, but it is a struggle.”
That’s also my struggle. The piety of my youth,
of my parents, and of that rich branch of Catholi-
cism is real and life-giving; but so too is the critical
(sometimes unsettling) iconoclastic, theology of the
academy. The two desperately need each other; yet
someone who is trying to be loyal to both can, like Fu-
jimura, end up feeling exiled from both. Theologians
also have other roles to play than boycotting movies.
The people whom I take as mentors in this area
are men and women who, in my eyes, can do both:
Like Dorothy Day, who could be equally comfortable,
leading the rosary or the peace march; like Jim Wal-
lis, who can advocate just as passionately for radical
social engagement as he can for personal intimacy
with Jesus, and like Thomas Aquinas, whose intellect
could intimidate intellectuals, even as he could pray
with the piety of a child.
Circles of piety and the academy of theology are
not enemies; they need to embrace.
Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
Over the past two years, I have had the wonderful opportunity to attend over
50 professional development conferences across the world, mostly religious in
nature, including NCCYM, NCEA, NCCL, NALM, NYWC, NCYM, CSMG, YPS,
IASYM, REA, USCCB Convocation, etc. It has been a delight to attend local, re-
gional, national, and international conferences–I always enjoy learning new things.
From November 29 through December 1, 2018, I attended the Santa Clara
Faith Formation Conference (SCFFC). While I have attended the conference in
the past, I was very impressed at the quality of this year’s conference. Between
the comprehensive pre-conference options to the thought-provoking keynote ad-
dresses to the inspiring worship experiences and the variety of session options,
the conference was top notch–in many ways the SCFFC has become a high quality,
nationally-recognized experience that is not to be missed. Kuddos to the Diocesan
leadership team that made the conference a reality, especially Father John Hurley,
Steve Do, and Liz Sullivan, along with leaders from other Dioceses. I very much
look forward to seeing how the conference will continue to grow and become even
more inspiring in coming years.
Chris Miller
Letters to the editor should be 200 words or less and may be submitted via email to
[email protected]. Deadline for the January 22, edition of The Valley Catholic
is Tuesday, December 18, noon. Letters may be edited and are published at the
discretion of the editor.