Between Easter and Pentecost, Catholics around the globe are
reading the Acts of the Apostles. The
readings now are about Paul’s adventures along the coast of Turkey and Greece. And today’s reading is about a time when Paul
got hauled into court by some brother Jews.
Paul looked over his accusers, and saw an old ideological
split. Some of his accusers were
dogmatic about their beliefs concerning a spiritual life that transcends daily experience,
including angels and spirits and a life after death; others were equally dogmatic
in denying such fuzzy-wuzzy. So he made
an appeal to one side, asserting his roots in their beliefs. The two sides forgot about Paul and attacked
each other. When the melee began to spin
out of control, the Roman intervened and pulled Paul out. Case closed.
I find the reading immensely comforting, addressing a
personal worry. When I was in court in
the 1970s and 1980s, pro-life activists used to argue about whether to raise technical
issues in court, or ignore technicalities and focus on speaking about children’s
lives. I was generally a strong advocate
for scrapping all the technical nonsense and focusing on the real issues at
hand; I felt dirty when I descended to trivia amidst a slaughter. But I did it at times. Once, there were three of us on trial for
blocking access to the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Silver Spring,
when it was on Cameron Street. The court
was on Georgia Avenue, a few hundred feet south of Cameron. Everyone in the courtroom knew exactly where
everything had happened. But still, the prosecutor
neglected to ask witnesses whether the events occurred in Montgomery County. No one bothered to say that Cameron Street,
right over there, was in the county. And
so there wasn’t any explicit testimony establishing the Montgomery County court’s
jurisdiction in the case. So when the
prosecutor finished, I asked for a dismissal, and got it. We didn’t argue about babies and go to jail;
we raised a technical issue, and went home, to fight another day.
It is a delight to me to read that Paul did the same kind of
thing. He expected to get convicted of
some capital crime, sooner or later, and was at peace about that; but on the
way, he felt free to wiggle and dodge at times.
(Polycarp did the same, a few decades later.) So I can, too; and I don’t have to feel dirty
because of it.
But Fr. Martin asked, this morning, whether anyone still
argues about theological issues with the passion that caused the riot that
freed Paul. I was startled by his
question. Of course they do! (Hm. Of course we do.) Half the Catholic Church is convinced that
God really cares about sexual morality, but doesn’t have a strong opinion about
how to write laws defending a nation’s borders.
The other half is equally convinced that God has been sending prophets
to denounce injustice throughout human history, but doesn’t get too fussed
about details of urination or fornication or other genital activity. Morality versus justice: which does the Lord
care about? I think the division is
weird beyond belief. But still, the current
reality is, these two sides denounce each other with bitter passion.