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ARTICLE
NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 8  Tom McMahon's commentaries continue to attract some of the highest number of page reads of anything we publish on Catholica. Today's commentary might break all records as it touches on a subject will be of interest to a huge number of readers — the meaning of Marriage. We have held the Polar Express as it prepares to move on to STATION MARRIAGE, waiting for the papal train to depart STATION AUSTRALIA. I am reading Fr. Paul Roberts' report [LINK] on Pope Benedict's Youth Day visit, grateful that there will be no collision as we occupy a different set of tracks. I can't locate STATION MARRIAGE on the papal schedule. … all aboard! A dearth of female names. I suspect prejudice… For on board reading I provide excerpts from CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE DRILLS (for use in the Parochial Schools)*; this is safe reading as we have the Nihil Obstat (nothing stands in the way) of Rt Rev Msgr John A McMahon and the Chicago imprimatur (it may be printed) of His Eminence Albert Cardinal Meyer (dead April 9, 1965). Drill 76 mentions four types of our blessed mother, 1) Eve, 2) Ruth, 3) Esther, 4) Judith and Drill 82 informs us who composed the Hail Mary, namely 1) the Angel Gabriel, 2) St. Elizabeth, 3) the Church. The only other female names I can find is in this small 32 page booklet are Mary and Stations of the Cross Veronica. The nine great feasts of the Virgin Mary are Drill 67. There is mention of marriage as a sacrament with the biblical text "what therefore God has joined together let no man put asunder [Matt 19.6]". The 9th commandment warns us away from a man's property by telling us not to covet my neighbor's wife and the 4th to honor father and mother. Under sins crying to heaven for vengeance oppressed widows are mentioned. Well over 60 male names are mentioned, even the 9 choirs of angles (Drill 83) seem to resemble the masculine. There is a dearth of the real feminine; I suspect prejudice. *For a pdf copy of the Drills see: catholicpamphlets.net/pamphlets/CHRISTIAN%20DOCTRINE%20DRILLS.pdf A dearth of books dealing with Marriage… If I could live to be one hundred and ten I could not do justice to marriage and institutional religion; source material is difficult to find. In scanning my library (those 300 over my computer) I am somewhat shocked by the realization that most of my books have male authors and deal with a male dominated religion and the hot button issues of the day center around male clericalism. Priesthood is certainly the dominant Trentan sacrament.There are a few books about nuns who jumped the old convent walls and a handful on women being ordained as roman clergy.
Recently I have fallen back on MARRIAGE: A History by Stephanie Coontz, a delightful study of marriage since the days of Caesar. Along with my studies of the Middle Ages on Great Courses DVD's I have been playing Sherlock Holmes in ferreting out where Rome has stood in relationship to the position of women and their union with men. Outside of political and business deal marriages Rome seems to have a deaf ear, and eye, to womanhood; in Ken Follett's WORLD WITHOUT END the female power position is held by Caris, sensuous prioress who is the object of hate and deceit by the male clergy; its good vs evil with Caris, loved by the people choosing to remain unmarried so as to maintain her championship of femininity and the rights of the people. (Caris does marry and the book is well worth reading.) From my bookshelf I pulled Eugene's Kennedy's THE CHOICE TO BE HUMAN, 1966, Jesus alive in the Gospel of Matthew; Gene dedicates his book to his wife Sara. What will I find on marriage in my reread? Something may show up later on in this series. I will go back as well to Gene's THE PEOPLE ARE THE CHURCH and A TIME FOR LOVE, a Realistic Discussion of the Most Explosive Force in Human Life, 1972; both of these small treatises are dynamite, having a profound effect on my co-ed thinking in the years following Vatican Two. In 1967 wearing a cassock and walking around the inner courtyard of St. Leo's Church, San Jose, Ca. I had carefully read Pope Paul's letter on celibacy, seeking support for my then present celibate condition; I stopped in my tracks as I realized "this man is afraid of women". A doorway shutting out the world to clerics was now opening; like Alice I would begin to explore the wonderland of creation … and God said it is good. I meditated on my mother and father's marriage and the wonder of how I came to be. I so often wondered if God is love why the church forbids love to its clerics. Along with Bobbie Dylan I sensed I had God n my side. I have a paucity of knowledge concerning marriage in ancient cultures; I can go to the Bible and account for David and Solomon's many wives, tribal customs where the marriages of the powerful are recorded. A society heavily involved in homosexuality Rome in the time of the Caesars painted show piece — pretty pictures of female consorts and we have the Cecil B De Miles political marriage of Anthony and Cleopatra. For political reasons Alexander the Great (great at what?) married a daughter of every country he conquered. Stephanie Coontz says that 95% of women during the Middle Ages never saw a church type ceremony. It will take up to nearly the 1800's to see the female begin to choose her mate; there are letters of protest to this free choice marriage in Colonial America, the rationale being that such free choice will being an end to the balance in commerce and land inheritance. I am not here to tell you history; my main interest is where was the Roman Catholic Church in this marriage field? And what role did it play from the time of the Caesars to the present? I find the church woefully disinterested, promoting the celibate monastic priesthood and the glory of virginity with vowed nuns. I'm curious now as to what Jesus had to say. Sliding off the track…
… woops, by Serge I have let the Polar Express slide off track … (what track, Tomas?) … Information on marriage as we know it today is barely found in the Middle Ages. The Roman church in its quest to rid society of women ignored the matter of marriage for centuries, women being mere chattels — and one better remember the female comes along equipped with a dowry! I dread hearing a man refer in modern society to his wife as an object-thing-possession; I desperately attempt to avoid introducing Elaine as "my" wife.. In American cowboy country the woman is often seen as walking just a step behind her Stetson hatted husband. Trent valiantly tried to resurrect the marriage status by proclaiming it was a union started by Jesus himself … remember Trent's definition of a sacrament? An outward sign, instituted by Christ to give grace … Jesus started marriage at the feast of Cana? Modern scripture scholars hold that the story of Cana is the hoped for wedding of the two Jewish kingdoms, Judea in the North and Jerusalem in the South and Jesus is the bridge that reunites the two bitterly opposed blood related nations. Throw in the modern thinking of Jesus being married to Magdalene and the Vatican panics and protests; why the furor? Twenty years ago I wrote to 40 bishops asking them to withdraw from penning and sending out a letter on the status of women; I got 18 agreeable replies. I reminded them that priests of our era were so poorly educated in female matters that that we had best say nothing. The present male priesthood should stay far away from marriage, ceremonially and advice wise. The Polar Express is headed into uncharted territory, particularly after the great sexual revolution of the 1960's. My wife and I watch the movie JUNO; realistically I should watch it four more times to comprehend the casual approach of the young to out-of-marriage pregnancy. We previously mentioned two different worlds in this sacraments series, number 7, and I did experience a 3D version of human sexuality as if it were buying a hot dog and fries at a high school football game. Complain about the young all we want and their lack of morals; I wonder if we adults did not aid and abet their run for freedom by our clandestine Victorian silence that allowed human sex to be seen as a no-no evil? The attempts to keep us chaste have turned into a mighty boomerang as we sit silently by. We have our chance today to witness to the awesomeness of the Creator, the universe, the reproductive system and the intricacies of the human body, and so on without end. We can sing today genuinely that old hymn Holy God We Praise Thy Name …..awesome, aweful, awe-full … every creation is a sacred sign of the Presence of the Divine Maker. We are a sacramental creation. Vatican Two made mention of Marriage and Priesthood being on an equal footing. Most priests ordained in my pre Vatican Two era are rank amateurs at real life and understanding women; remember Richard's Sipe's "forever 14". Restoring the human body to sacredness… Some heavy work needs to be done to restore the human body to sacredness. When I view DANCING WITH THE STARS I see more female flesh than clothing and I sense the challenge to my old self (trained in the 1930's with negative archetypes) and the new man, Christ Jesus in me, with an eye to God's beautiful creation. In WORLD WITHOUT END the male warriors can hardly stand in the presence of a female without grabbing a breast; I'm no prude yet I do question the male obsession with the female mammary glands, wondering if there is not in us a deep-seated infantile need for our mothers. Hollywood has mixed up our psyches. Can a male clergy preach homilies that do justice to God's creation? In 1967 I was kicked out of a church after I preached on the dignity of the female body. Stay with us as next week we pell-mell forward in our search for sacramental meaning in the modern world; I have a sense that many ordinary people have discovered fine human meaning in the simplicity of their married world and they look at us old fart clerics with amusemen.. Let's look next time at the great middle age transformation from house to home. Tom McMahon, San Jose. 24/07/2008  ARTICLE
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©2009 Tom McMahon |
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Tom McMahon, ordained in 1954 and now married, lives a very fulfilled life in San Jose and continues to contribute voraciously to several Catholic discussion lists in the States. He has been an enthusiastic supporter and encourager of the Catholica initiative from the very beginning.
How economic inequality harms societies... We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust. Richard Wilkinson, is Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, and cofounder of The Equality Trust, a nonprofit that aims to reduce income inequality by educating and engaging the public while supporting political commitment to address the problem. 16m55s [String on the Catholica Forum where the general issue of wealth inequality and this documentary was first discussed 25Jan12] | [WATCH THE VIDEO]
Doco 035: 25Jan12
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