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The Legacy That Is Ours On the great seal of the United States are these words written in Latin which read, "God has favored our undertaking." In a new book I came across, The Myth of American Diplomacy by Walter L. Hixson, there is a reading of American history not found in the text books of my youth. It is a demythologizing of what transpired in this land from the 17th century onward, beginning with the Puritans in New England. These settlers of America felt as called by God as Moses leading the fleeing Israelis out of Egypt. America, the new Israel, fulfilled a divine/human Manifest Destiny. Hixson notes Puritan theology was rife with a Manichean spirit, a titanic struggle between Good and Evil. The Indians bore the weight of this divine pilgrimage; although savage at times themselves, they were no match for the imported British. "Although they considered the Spanish papists less civilized than themselves, the English Protestants actually displayed the least interest in humanitarian and missionary activity among indigenous peoples. . . . the French, for their part, proved far more willing to live among, and even marry into, Indian culture. Thus it was the New English and ultimately the American settlers . . . who proved to be the rightful heirs of England's Irish conquest. . . . Extermination rather than colonization or enslavement was the early English response to otherness." (You Irish persons, note the analogy!) Hixson's reference to the French presence as different is poignantly illustrated by the Jesuit missionaries in New York State among the Algonquin, Huron, Iroquois and Mohawk tribes. Robert Ellsberg, in his All Saints, notes Isaac Jogues and his Jesuit confreres "immersed themselves in the lives of the people" in the 1600s. Jogues, in particular, returned to the American mission from France in 1644, having been grievously tortured by the Indians, disfigured hands, a severed thumb and fingers. Their heroism is staggering and it was based on a belief that only by totally entering the Indian culture could they begin to understand one another. They saw themselves as expendable. Isaac Jogues and some of his Jesuit brothers were tortured to death. The story of the "other group" who were markedly different is well known, the enslavement of African Americans. Our history is defined by an effort to protect our "lovely white," as Benjamin Franklin expressed it. Jefferson, a slave holder, while writing the Declaration of Independence, Hixson notes, harbored no thoughts of hypocrisy, as he wrote "All men are created equal." Jefferson, and few others, could stand outside their culture and the economics of slavery. Again, Hixson, "since the beginning Americans have internalized a racial hierarchy we are still struggling to come to grips with . . . driving a huge rethinking of our history." The nomination of Barack Obama for the presidency of the U.S. is a monumental cultural achievement, a transforming sign of hope! We Americans think of ourselves as open-minded to a fault, but no less a critic than Alexis de Tocqueville noted way back in 1833, "I know of no country, in which, speaking generally, there is less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America." Culture, salted by misguided or pathological religion, can be quite destructive, be it Puritan or Catholic. Bishop Geoffrey Robinson of Australia has undertaken the task of enlightening the faithful about how and why so tragic and egregious an evil as the crisis of pedophilia among the Catholic clergy went unattended. A culture of non-accountability to the people and non-transparency allowed it to flourish. Hearing him speak, the insight that most touched me was the dichotomy: the involved Bishops felt a sense of duty to offer God's forgiveness to the culpable priests, but a deep recognition of the human casualties, the havoc and suffering imposed on innocents seemed to escape them. Robinson places the blame on a hierarchal culture, including the failure of Pope John Paul II to provide leadership in addressing the issue, one of the greatest scandals of the 20th century church. To change the embedded culture within the church, Robinson notes, will be a huge challenge. So how did we religious people get it so wrong? Puritans slaughtering Indians in God's holy name, Christian churches staunch supporters of slavery, clergy abusing children, war making, a continuing legacy. (Hixson) "Violence against external enemies, from Indian savages to modern day terrorists, emerges as integral not merely to foreign policy but to national identity. The simple yet chilling implication of this conceptualization is that it places war at the center of U.S. identity." How do we emerge from all of this in the name of Jesus? He did say, the whole Law and the Prophets is summed up in loving God and loving one's neighbor as oneself. Jon Sobrino, the Salvadoran theologian, puts it simply, "the proclamation of God's love simply had to go hand in hand with historic deeds of love." Given that Sobrino's five Jesuit house-mates were assassinated by the U.S. supported junta in the 1980s, his words are not to be taken lightly. I recently heard Fr. Michael Duffy, at St. Francis Inn in Kensington, speaking at Mass, say the best expression of love of neighbor is mercy; mercy upon mercy. Who of us is not in need of mercy? Joe Bradley |