A historic, late-hour deal reached at the United Nations climate change summit, COP27, to establish a « loss and damage » fund for countries vulnerable to the devastating impacts of a warming world represented « a real breakthrough, » said Catholic and other religious groups who called it an answer to their prayers and a sign of some progress as negotiations fell short in other areas.
But they added that the new fund will fail to aid those already suffering from more extreme heat and storms if it follows the path of past pledges — including eliminating heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions and long-promised financing for climate mitigation and adaptation — that have not yet been delivered or implemented.
Countries at COP27 failed to agree on a full phaseout of fossil fuels, and only roughly 30 delivered on promises last year to come to this resort city on the Red Sea with more aggressive national climate plans in line with meeting the Paris Agreement’s ambitious temperature limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
While the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan reaffirmed a global commitment to the 1.5 C target, it made scant advances to implement past pledges to meet it.
« If governments stick to paving the way for a future with good intentions and aspirational declarations while widening the gap with the implementation and follow-up needed, they will indeed lock us up on pathways to disaster, » read a statement from CIDSE, an umbrella organization for Catholic development agencies from Europe and North America.
While the agreement on loss and damage represented a milestone, the inability to reach a decision on ending fossil fuels made COP27 « a lost opportunity, » Comboni Missionary Sr. Paola Moggi, who attended the conference on behalf of the faith-based NGO VIVAT International, said during a debriefing webinar Nov. 22 hosted by the International Union of Superiors General.
« We can cure the symptoms but not address the causes. And this was for me the failure of this COP, » she said.
A deal on loss and damage
Across two weeks of tense negotiations, and after days of gridlock, delegates at COP27 representing nearly 200 nations agreed on Nov. 20 — two days after the summit’s scheduled conclusion — to set up a loss-and-damage fund to help nations most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
Its establishment was a major victory for small-island nations, who first proposed the idea three decades ago, and other countries like Pakistan, the Philippines and many on the host continent Africa that have witnessed the destruction that global warming is inflicting.
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« The work that we’ve managed to do here in the past two weeks, and the results we have together achieved, are a testament to our collective will, as a community of nations, to voice a clear message that rings loudly today, here in this room and around the world: that multilateral diplomacy still works, » COP27 president Sameh Shoukry said during the closing plenary.
He added, « Despite the difficulties and challenges of our times, the divergence of views, level of ambition or apprehension, we remain committed to the fight against climate change. »
The major deal on loss and damage excited religious leaders, civil society groups and climate activists who for years have been pushing wealthy countries not only to take concrete actions to reduce their emissions, but also provide financing for climate-related destruction, especially in the global south.
« This is a huge achievement, » said Fr. Leonard Chiti, a member of the Society of Jesus in southern Africa.
He noted that before COP27 it wasn’t clear if loss and damage would be on the agenda or if developed nations, including the U.S., would reconsider their past resistance to such a fund over fears of limitless liability claims.
Days before the conference began — one dubbed the « Africa COP » where activists hoped the priorities of less-developed countries would be elevated — delegates backing loss and damage successfully added the issue to the discussions. As negotiations continued, developing nations were later joined by the European Union in pressing for the fund to be inserted into the final text.
« To get both is a huge victory, » Chiti said.
CIDSE called the loss-and-damage fund « a very important first step in recognizing historically unfair differences between those who have caused the climate crisis and those who have been paying for it. »
The Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan calls for the fund to assist developing countries particularly vulnerable to adverse climate impacts, though it does not define which countries can access it, which ones will contribute to it or how much. Those details are expected to be negotiated over the next year.
‘My worry is that many things have been agreed on before but have never been implemented.’
—David Munene
Sr. Durstyne Farnan, an Adrian Dominican sister from Michigan, said the deal to establish a loss-and-damage fund revived the spirits of climate activists who had given up on government representatives for failing to commit to fighting climate change and find solutions to mitigate its repercussions.
« The final outcome document is hopeful. Many were doubting that COP27 would not come out with statements and commitments to fund loss and damage, just transition and climate mitigation, » she said.
David Munene, programs manager of the Catholic Youth Network for Environmental Sustainability in Africa (CYNESA), said the loss-and-damage financing is « a step towards what we have been fighting for years. This has been on the agenda for the last 27 years, yet no action has been taken. So it’s the right time. »
Fr. Vitalis Anaehobi, the secretary general of the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa, said the agreement brought hope to the world that one day it would be able to eradicate the effects of climate change by preserving the environment.
« This is a great success for all people of goodwill who wanted COP27 not to end in words without concrete actions. With this decision, I can rightly say that COP27 has achieved what many others failed to do, » he said.
Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, added that the agreement was a good sign and a motivation for climate activists. « The final negotiations represent a modest step forward. »
A new Vatican role, praying at Sinai
Catholic and faith-based actors were among the estimated 45,000 participants at COP27, which began Nov. 6 in the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
They spent the 15 days under the Egyptian sun praying, lobbying national delegations, hosting presentations and demonstrating on the streets outside of the Sharm el-Sheikh International Convention Center, site of the global climate conference. They pressed world leaders on a host of issues, especially around climate financing and a commitment to a broad phasedown of coal, oil and natural gas to prevent catastrophic warming of the planet.
‘Any implementation of climate solutions must be anchored on the following three pillars: justice, equity, and solidarity.’
—Statement from 13 Catholic institutions present at COP27
According to climate scientists, limiting global average temperature rise to 1.5 C, while difficult, remains possible and requires countries to slash total emissions nearly in half in the next seven years and to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. While every fraction of a degree of warming puts more lives and ecosystems at risk, scientists have said surpassing 1.5 C could trigger dangerous and irreversible tipping points.
The world has already heated roughly 1.1 C. Under current national climate pledges, the world is on track to heat 2.5 C above preindustrial levels by the end of the century, though an analysis by the International Energy Agency found that if all proposed pledges are fully implemented, the trajectory would be lowered to 1.7 C. Nations are on track to deplete the remaining carbon budget that would result in 1.5 C warming within the next nine years.
COP27 was the first for the Vatican as a formal party to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and to the Paris Agreement. The new status meant the Holy See delegation had a seat at the negotiating tables and a vote on the final outcomes, which under U.N. rules require unanimity.
The Holy See delegation, led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, on several occasions met with fellow Catholics to discuss priorities and strategies. On Nov. 18, the conference’s final scheduled day, 13 Catholic institutions present at COP27 issued a statement to the Holy See delegation expressing their concerns with the global response to climate change.
The statement outlined key asks for a final document, including the loss-and-damage fund, a rapid and just transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and more inclusive participation, such as expanding the Vatican delegation in the future.
« We emphasize that any implementation of climate solutions must be anchored on the following three pillars: justice, equity, and solidarity, » the statement said.
Rodne Galicha, executive director of Living Laudato Si’ Philippines, told EarthBeat he hopes the lessons the Catholic Church learns from the synod on synodality can be incorporated into how it engages in future climate conferences, especially including the voices and stories from the peripheries where climate change is often felt the fiercest.
« Being officially part of the [U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change] process, we will be assured as a synodal and inclusive church that our ecological and social concerns are articulated and acted upon, » he said.
Outside the convention halls, other Catholics traveled to Mount Sinai, where God is believed to have appeared to Moses and given him the Ten Commandments. There, the group prayed for God’s intervention to change the hearts of world leaders to fully commit to fighting climate change.
« Our going to Mount Sinai was our opportunity to claim our roots as Christians. To touch the source of our faith and the source of our hope from the top and to pray that COP27 would be a game changer for climate change, » said Farnan, who also participated in climate justice demonstrations in Sharm el-Sheikh. « Going to Mount Sinai inspired us to continue to advocate for just transition, adaptation, and curbing of methane in an unprecedented time. »
Chiti said there remained « serious resistance » from developed nations to a loss-and-damage fund at the time he and others ascended Mount Sinai on Nov. 14.
« I genuinely believe God intervened and saved the situation for us, » he told EarthBeat. « I believe in miracles, and at the time, we needed one to get us over the line. »
With COP over, time for action
While COP27 saw nations reach a breakthrough on loss and damage, it also displayed impasses and incremental progress on other climate issues, a disappointment for civil society groups after the conference organizers billed it as an « implementation COP. »
The final text did not include a call and timeline for a phaseout of all fossil fuels, and instead repeated language reached in 2021 in Glasgow for « the phasedown of unabated coal power and phaseout of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. »
Nations did agree to a program to rapidly scale up mitigation efforts, with twice-annual meetings through 2030, and reiterated that countries that haven’t aligned their climate plans with the 1.5 C goal should do so before the end of 2023. A « global stocktake » on progress on the 1.5 C is expected at COP28 next year in the United Arab Emirates.
« Incremental progress is defeat. We can’t negotiate w/ physics. It’s a #ClimateEMERGENCY, » tweeted Tomás Insua, executive director of Laudato Si’ Movement.
COP27 also did not see developed countries deliver on their pledge to mobilize $100 billion annually to the Green Climate Fund by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries and has pushed that timeline back to 2025.
A Global Shield fund was launched to help countries facing climate disasters. In addition, negotiators called on multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to mobilize private financing toward « significantly increasing climate ambition » and to reform their practices and priorities to simplify access to climate finance.
By the end of the summit, 150 countries had joined the Global Methane Pledge to slash emissions of methane — a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide but with a much shorter lifespan — by 30% by 2030.
Nations like Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo reached new alliances to protect rainforests critical for absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Over the past year, the U.S. and the European Union, two of the largest historical sources of emissions, have passed major climate legislation, and voters in Australia and Brazil have replaced leaders resistant to climate action with new heads of state who have vowed to make climate change a priority.
And the final text included the first-ever reference for a COP to the « right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, » which followed a similar resolution passed by the U.N. general assembly in July.
With COP27 concluded, many religious leaders and Catholic actors are now urging world leaders to implement the issues that they agreed to in Egypt to save lives and livelihoods.
« My worry is that many things have been agreed on before but have never been implemented, » said Munene, who called on world leaders to now move to implement the loss-and-damage fund.
« My prayer now is that they stick to what they agreed to and implement it because people have lost many things, including lives, livelihoods, shelter and properties, due to the effect of climate change, » he told EarthBeat.
The Jesuit priest Chiti said that implementation of the deal depends on countries translating their commitments into real actions and by ensuring they immediately keep their financial promises to save millions of families suffering from climate change.
« Getting the [loss-and-damage] fund established is one thing. Finding the money and getting it to those who deserve it is another, » he said. « My hope is that modalities of the fund will be quickly worked out and the money found quickly to compensate those who have suffered already and many who are now suffering due to loss of food, homes, cultures and income. »
Harper of GreenFaith warned religious actors from overcelebrating the limited progress out of COP27, with the details of the loss-and-damage fund still up for negotiation — including which countries would foot the bill. He called it « disappointing beyond words » that the final deal did not include an agreement on phasing out fossil fuels, whose burning are responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions.
« Until there is measurable progress towards phasing out coal, oil, gas and deforestation, we cannot afford the luxury of premature celebration, » Harper said.
Republican control of the U.S. House was finally decided last week, causing Speaker Nancy Pelosi to announce that she will be stepping down from leadership in the Democratic Party. The GOP caucus confirmed its current leadership in both chambers even as the Democrats have decided to elect an entirely new slate of leaders in the House. What do these changes portend?
To look forward, we should first look back. The speaker’s gavel in the House will pass to Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who has the unenviable job of trying to unite a caucus that is fiercely divided, reflecting the divisions within the GOP generally and already hobbling their efforts in the Georgia Senate runoff. They are already at one another’s throats over rules changes the Freedom Caucus is demanding as the price for their support for McCarthy when the full House elects the new speaker in January.
The fault line between the GOP factions is not a particular policy, but a particular style of politics, Trumpian or not. There is, so far, no bridge that crosses the chasm between traditional conservative pols and the conspiracy theorists in the Freedom Caucus. To be sure, traditional conservatives like McCarthy believe in supply-side economics, which at least dabbles in fantasy, but with such a narrow majority, he will have to contend with the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the caucus, people who think the 2020 election was stolen, that climate change is a myth and that the white nationalists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are heroes.
What is likely to unite the Republican ranks is a determined focus on their common enemy. Look for a series of House investigations into President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, and into Attorney General Merrick Garland’s every decision and into accusations of voter fraud. Smart money is betting Kari Lake will be stalking the halls of Congress pleading her case! (I hope so. It guarantees more SNL cold opens with Cecily Strong playing the failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate.) What you will not see is legislation that can pass the Senate and get signed by the president.
For the Democrats, the look back is far less fraught. Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be the first, and only, woman to have served as speaker, but she achieved that role not by blowing up the old boy network that controlled congressional politics for so long, but by beating the old boys at their own game. In Pelosi, Republicans found someone who epitomized the « San Francisco Democrat » they began anathematizing in 1984, when the Democrats held their convention in the city by the bay. What they had not bargained on was that Pelosi represented San Francisco but she was from, and of, Baltimore, a working-class, ethnic city in which politics had been the vehicle for enfranchisement for her Italian forbears.
And, if you did not know until last week she was Catholic, you did after her retirement speech from the well of the House. Not only did she quote Scripture, she listed being « a devout Catholic » alongside being a mother and grandmother and « proud Democrat. » The whole speech reflected the incarnational sensibility so prominent in Catholic thought and spirituality.
Pelosi was a workhorse, not a show horse. Her time as speaker coincided with the rise in social media, but she never clamored for the spotlight. She raised more money than anyone else and she counted votes more accurately. A realist par excellence, she was a master at making sure individual members got something they wanted in major pieces of legislation they might be inclined to vote against. It is doubtful the Affordable Care Act, or the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2021, would have made it across the finish line without her help.
Obviously, I wish Pelosi had been more willing to move her party to the center on abortion. At least she opposed efforts to make the issue a kind of litmus test for membership in the party. I fear even that small concession may be on the chopping block in the years ahead.
In Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Pelosi has a most worthy successor, someone who is better at communicating the party’s message than she was, but someone who also works mostly behind the scenes and whose intelligence and negotiating skills have already earned him widespread support. He has been willing to take on the more party’s more extremist candidates, shutting down efforts to challenge some House incumbents last year and earning the ire of fellow New Yorker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a courage that will be essential to recruiting and defending the kind of Democratic candidates who can win swing districts needed to recapture the House.
I would rather be holding the hand Jeffries has been dealt, even though he will begin his leadership in the minority, than the hand McCarthy must start playing early in the new year. The divisions within the Democratic Party are most about policy, and those can always be negotiated. I am not sure how one negotiates with the Freedom Caucus wing of the GOP — and neither is McCarthy.
One thing is clear. The next two years will be performative. In the absence of legislation, there will be posturing. President Biden should use what leverage he has to get the lame duck session to pass anything critical like raising the debt limit. Continued Democratic Party control of the Senate will allow him to appoint judges who can get confirmed and will prevent the GOP from rolling back his legislative accomplishments to date. Then stand back and watch the Republican Party factions eat each other alive.
In a nearly unprecedented move by a bishop, a retired head of the Diocese of Albany, New York, has asked the Vatican that he be « returned to the lay state, » or laicized.
Bishop Howard Hubbard made the request as he faces numerous lawsuits under New York’s Child Victims Act. Hubbard is accused of sexually abusing multiple children, which he has repeatedly denied, and covering up allegations of sexual abuse by priests.
In a statement released Nov. 18, Hubbard, the longest-serving bishop of the eastern New York diocese, said he had hoped that in his retirement he « might be able to continue to serve our community as a priest. »
« I am not able to do so, however, because of a church policy that prohibits any priest accused of sexual abuse from functioning publicly as a priest, even if the allegations are false, as they are in my case. »
Bishops may remove a cleric from active ministry pending the outcome of a canonical investigation, but it’s not clear what specific policy Hubbard is referring to.
A Nov. 19 statement from the Albany Diocese said there is no diocesan policy that forbids an accused bishop from sacramental ministry and that it is Hubbard « alone who voluntarily removed himself from any public celebration of the sacraments. »
Kathy Barrans, director of communications for the diocese, told NCR Hubbard has not been engaged in public ministry since he announced he would voluntary step back from ministering publicly in 2019.
Hubbard said in the statement he had asked the Vatican « for relief from my obligations as a priest and permission to return to the lay state. In whatever time I have left on this Earth, I hope to be able to serve God and the people of our community as a lay person. »
In addition to the civil lawsuits accusing Hubbard of sexual abuse, the 84-year-old is being investigated under Vos Estis Lux Mundi (« You Are the Light of the World »). Issued by Pope Francis in 2019, Vos Estis is a set of laws that include a system to evaluate reports of abuse and cover-up by bishops. New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, as the metropolitan archbishop who oversees the Albany Diocese, is responsible for investigating the claims against Hubbard.
Citing protections under the First Amendment, the New York Archdiocese has been trying to block the disclosure of more than 1,400 pages of internal records related to its Vos Estis investigations of Hubbard. The records are sought in connection to one of the Child Victims Act cases against Hubbard, the Albany Diocese and a deceased former priest, according to the Times Union. The archdiocese’s motion is pending in the Supreme Court in Albany.
If Pope Francis approves Hubbard’s request to be returned to the lay state, the prelate would be only the second accused U.S. bishop and eighth accused bishop worldwide to be laicized, according to BishopAccountability.org. A laicized cleric is barred from all priestly ministry but may give absolution to someone close to death. The former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was laicized in 2019.
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, knows of two instances of bishops believed to have requested laicization — one bishop in Paraguay who was elected president and a Canadian bishop who was convicted of possessing child pornography. She noted other bishops may have requested laicization for reasons other than sexual misconduct, such as to get married.
Barrans said she couldn’t answer questions about the Vos Estis investigation of Hubbard because the case is being handled by the New York Archdiocese. The archdiocese did not immediately respond to a number of questions from NCR.
Jennifer Haselberger, a canon lawyer and church whistleblower, said it’s not clear how the Vos Estis case will proceed given Hubbard’s request for laicization.
But she said in typical cases involving abuse, accused priests are given the opportunity to seek laicization rather than going through a canonical trial. « That is a favor granted, rather than a penalty, and spares the church and the priest the necessity of trial and conviction, » said Haselberger. « It also avoids the possibility of an appeal. »
She said in such cases laicization can be approved within a few months, whereas a trial can take years.
Hubbard, who led the Albany Diocese from 1977 until 2014, said in his statement that he will continue to fight allegations.
« I hope and pray I will live long enough to see my name cleared once and for all, »
he said. « Serving our Church and the people of the Albany Diocese has been the greatest blessing of my life. »
He concluded by saying that while the pain of being falsely accused is great, « it can never approach the devastation experienced by victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy or others in a position of authority in our society. »
« I also continue to pray daily for the children, adults and families who have suffered that they will experience healing and reconciliation. »
Before becoming bishop, Hubbard was known as a « street priest » who walked the largely working-class South End of Albany collecting food donations and driving people with addictions to detox. He founded a recovery program for adults and teens struggling with addiction and was founding president of a program for individuals with developmental disabilities.
Allegations against Hubbard first surfaced in 2004, when he was accused of paying a teen for sex in the 1970s and of having a sexual relationship with a young adult male, who took his own life in 1978, according to BishopAccountability.org.
Hubbard hired an investigator, who issued a report saying there was « no credible evidence » of misconduct.
In 2019 and 2020, under the New York Child Victims Act — giving survivors of child sex abuse a two-year window to sue after the statute of limitations lapsed — five lawsuits accused Hubbard of abusing four boys and one girl in the 1970s through the 1990s. All five lawsuits assert Hubbard abused the victims in concert with one or two other Albany priests, according to BishopAccountability.org.
An additional lawsuit against Hubbard was filed in 2021, claiming he sexually assaulted an 11-year-old boy shortly after he was installed as bishop, and in 2022, two brothers said Hubbard joined in some of the sexual assaults inflicted on them by the former priest Gary Mercure, who was sentenced to prison in 2011 for raping two altar boys.
Hubbard denied all the abuse allegations, but in 2021 admitted in a deposition that he had covered up allegations of sexual abuse against children by other priests. He claimed he did not report allegations to law enforcement because he was not required to do so by law and out of concern for « scandal and respect for the priesthood. »
Jeff Anderson, whose firm has filed numerous lawsuits against the Albany Diocese, said he believes Hubbard’s request for laicization was spurred by the Child Victims Act cases.
« This is the true power of bringing light, heat and scrutiny through statute of limitations reform, » said Anderson in a Nov. 18 statement. « The survivors can now have a sense of relief that for the first time there are consequences and some accountability. This is just the beginning. »
The Nov. 19 statement from the Albany Diocese said that « prayers continue for all impacted by this news. »
« The needs are many, from the abused, to those in our family of faith who are angry that this happened, also those who don’t understand, and to the abusers. As the body of Christ, we are called to pray for all. »
Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, who succeeded Hubbard in the Albany Diocese, issued a statement the day of Hubbard’s announcement.
« Whatever considerations and circumstances may have led to this decision, most probably after a difficult process of discernment, we offer him our prayers and our hopes for happiness and well-being, » Scharfenberger said. « This news may be shocking and painful for clergy and laypersons who know and love Bishop Hubbard and have appreciated his many years of ministry. I offer Bishop Hubbard my own prayers and fraternal assistance. »
Doyle said Scharfenberger’s omission of alleged victims in his initial response « is quite telling. »
« With no acknowledgment of the many victims naming Hubbard as an abuser, he is implicitly conveying his lack of respect for these allegations, » she said.
« In Hubbard’s case he often allegedly teamed up with other abusive priests to molest children, » added Doyle. « If the allegations are true — and statistically an overwhelming majority of allegations are — Hubbard not only tolerated abuse in the Albany Diocese, he encouraged it and facilitated it. »
Once upon a time, a wicked queen asked, « Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all? » Unfortunately, the magic mirror could only speak the truth; instead of naming the woman admiring herself, the mirror named her stepdaughter, putting little Snow White in mortal danger. Although the queen tried three times to murder her, Snow White survived, married the handsome prince and became the fairest queen in the land.
This classic story depicts royalty, poverty, servitude, danger and finally, punishment for evil and the triumph of innocence and beauty over cruelty. It’s all about image, innocence and evil — about whose image is the most beautiful and the woe that flows from jealousy.
In the hymn Paul quotes in his letter to the Colossians, he describes Christ as the image of the invisible God in whom all the fullness was pleased to dwell. Snow White’s beauty reflected one culture’s sense of the best they had to offer. Paul’s depiction of Christ is based on behavior rather than appearances; he describes Christ as being like God rather than appearing like what any culture would want or imagine a god to look like.
We have no description of Jesus. We can assume he looked like a Middle Eastern man of his time and dressed in the clothing that distinguished observant Jews. The only hint we have about his appearance comes from Isaiah, who described the suffering servant as so startlingly disfigured that he no longer appeared human (Isaiah 52:14).
Luke tells us that as Jesus was dying, his torturers sneered and jeered at him, insisting that if he were of God, he should be able to save himself as he had supposedly saved others. Then, the mother of all insults was the sign posted over his head proclaiming his crime: « This is the King of the Jews. » It’s not an appealing picture.
Truly, the only touchstone between Jesus and the fairy tales is the suffering of the innocent. God sent Jesus no handsome prince or saving angels. This king of the universe died, nailed down and rejected by civil and religious authorities. To the Romans, he meant next to nothing. To the religious elite, he presented a moral and perhaps even a mortal threat. To most of his disciples, he had become a danger and an apparent failure.
Yet, some of the most powerless people around saw something else. The lamenting women continued to accompany him, offering him the only thing they could: their loving and brokenhearted presence.
The saving grace in this scene is revealed when the dying Jesus interacts with the God-fearing criminal who shared his sentence. Somehow he, more than any other man, grasped a portion of Jesus’ own faith. Flying in the face of appearances and reason itself, the man said, « Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. »
The request, « Remember me, » resounds with scriptural significance. The Exodus happened because God remembered the covenant and acted (Exodus 2:24). When Jesus broke and blessed the bread of his self-giving, he told his disciples to do the same in remembrance of him. Remembrance is a form of calling on real presence. Jesus promised his crucified companion that he would not only share his death, but also his life.
The title of this feast is superlative. The images we typically create for it are flush with symbols of royalty and high priesthood; greatness and grandeur are the order of the day. Nevertheless, the Gospel we hear today reflects none of that. Today’s Gospel portrays an apparently impotent Christ: defeated in the eyes of the world and dying in the sight of an impotent or uncaring God.
If we ask which of these images, the royal or the shattered, better reflects Christ, we must choose the one from the Scriptures rather than the human imagination.
As we think about the Christian message, especially on a feast like today’s, it’s too easy to fall into a fairy tale mode and recall Christ the King as the ultimate happily-ever-after story. This flies in the face of the Scriptures. It strips Jesus’ death of its depth and risks portraying his love as shallow as that of a prince enchanted by prettiness.
On the solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe, let us remember the real Jesus: Rejected and mocked, he was powerless to stop the violence. Let us remember that he reigned through active love even as he suffered and died. When God raised him, even though he still bore the marks of suffering, it was the love that continued to reign.
Faith insists that love is the only power capable of overcoming evil. As living images of our God, it is that love and that alone that we are called to remember and make present again.
There are lots of ways to evaluate and express what matters most to you. Last week, the electorate in this country expressed what matters to them at the polls, casting votes for representatives and elected officials who reflect principles and policies aligned with what matters to voters. This week, the American bishops gathered in Baltimore to elect a new slate of conference leaders and discuss topics that reflect their priorities and interests.
While I might typically use my column this week to engage with and analyze the results of those two groups’ expressions of, at least partially, what matters to them, I want to do something different this week. As it happens, this is my 100th column for NCR, which has led me to reflect on the themes about which I have written over the last few years.
It also provided me with an opportunity to reflect on what a privilege it is to write a twice-monthly column for a publication as important and impactful as NCR. While having regular publication deadlines hanging over my head every other week can be daunting at times, especially when I’m not settled on what topic to address, I find myself renewed in gratitude for this part of my work and ministry.
To be honest, I never imagined I would be a national columnist. That I am is really thanks to Jesuit Fr. Matt Malone who, as editor in chief of America magazine at the time, invited me to join the masthead as a columnist in 2013. For four years, I wrote for America until the publication redesign and production schedule changed and there was an understandable restructuring of staff writers and contributors. I’m grateful to all my former colleagues and editors at America.
About a year later, I was approached by NCR’s then-executive editor Tom Roberts, who invited me to consider joining the team at NCR.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to come out of « columnist retirement, » as I viewed it at the time, but conversations with him and other NCR staffers over several months — and the Holy Spirit’s role in prayer discernment — led me to say yes, and now here we are 100 columns later, looking back over what feels like a blink of the eye.
Although I have written on a range of topics over the years, regular readers likely will detect some recurring themes. Among these are climate change and the environment, systemic racism and LGBTQ issues. All these topics are for me not only social concerns and justice issues, but also theological matters that are personally and professionally important.
I am regularly surprised when I find myself returning to one of these three areas, feeling often that I have already said what I needed or could say on the given topic. And yet, I can’t seem to quit discussing them.
Looking back on my columns about the environment, I am reminded of a piece that felt in the moment intuitive but was received by some as provocative. In September 2019, I wrote, « Climate change is the most important life issue today. » The thesis was simple: Logically, it does little good to expend tremendous energy and resources advocating for particular categories of human life without concurrently working to address the global climate catastrophe. What good is an end to legal abortion or euthanasia or capital punishment if there is no inhabitable world in which human persons can live?
It occurred to me then and still strikes me now as preposterous that so many church leaders would spend as much time and resources on single « life issues » as they have while ignoring the unifying and global concern of accelerating climate change, which is a threat to all life.
Within the American context, this might rightly be categorized as yet another rejection by some church leaders of the magisterial teaching of Pope Francis in « Laudato Si’, on Care for our Common Home. » We have a lot more work to do, and if the Catholic Church wishes to maintain any semblance of credibility, especially among millennials and Generation Z, church leaders must prioritize care for creation.
Systemic racism was the subject of my fourth column at NCR, but it was hardly the last time I would write about the topic. That particular essay, titled « The bishops’ letter fails to recognize that racism is a white problem, » expressed disappointment at the inadequacy of the U.S. bishops’ first teaching document on the sin of racism in almost 40 years.
I had written about racism when I was a columnist at America, but it has become more and more a focus over the last few years. I’ve written about some of the ways I experience white privilege; about how structures of sin in the church (clergy sexual abuse) and society (police violence against people of color) bear striking resemblances. These and other observations led Ave Maria Press to ask me to write a book about racism and privilege for white Catholics.
That we have witnessed church leaders denigrate social movements seeking racial justice, even as Pope Francis has decried racism as a virus, undermines their own pastoral and moral authority. Such comments have emboldened many lay (white) Catholics to question the reality of systemic racism and minimize the Christian responsibility to work for racial justice.
It is shameful that many church leaders are not living up to their full vocation to proclaim the Gospel in word and deed, choosing to acquiesce too often to financial, political and social pressures and interests instead.
The last of the three major areas I have found myself returning to time and again are LGBTQ issues, especially the experiences and realities of our transgender siblings.
For example, I have written about the boogie man of « gender ideology, » that vacuous expression used to support transphobia in the church; about how bishops have been increasingly issuing dehumanizing and factually errant statements that put already vulnerable people into greater danger; about how we should use preferred pronouns of individuals on account of our Catholic faith, not despite it; and how the anti-LGBTQ policies and views of many church leaders are simply wrong and sinful.
So many people have been ministering to and advocating on behalf of LGBTQ folks in the American church for years. Among these are courageous and holy women religious like Dominican Sr. Luisa Derouen, who has worked for decades with the trans community, and Loretto Sr. Jeannine Gramick, the co-founder of New Ways Ministry.
But both the articulation and the perception of church teaching pertaining to the existence (let alone the full flourishing) of LGTBQ remains offensive and dangerous. Theological work still needs to be done to overcome antiquated notions of human personhood that rely almost exclusively on ancient and medieval worldviews without regard for all that we continue to learn about ourselves, the world and God.
As I look back over my first 100 NCR columns, I feel grateful for the space to participate in the important and ongoing discussion about these themes and others. Despite all my scholarly work, teaching and lecturing, and book publications (and podcasting), it is perhaps this column more than anything else that has generated the most comments and feedback (mostly good, but occasionally disgruntled) from colleagues and strangers alike in recent years. I want to thank you, the readers, for being a part of this ongoing conversation and allowing me to share some thoughts with you a couple times a month.
Let me also take this occasion to thank my colleagues and editors at NCR, especially Executive Editor Heidi Schlumpf, for the opportunity to continue writing about these and other issues that I believe are important not only to me, but to the church and world.
It has been a great journey to the first 100 columns Here’s to the next 100!
