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Coronavirus and Catholic Exceptionalism
 
As fears about the new coronavirus continue to wreak havoc on our daily life, we may resent the limitations placed upon our religious practices. For people of faith this is understandable, as religious practice is a sacred, irreplaceable part of life. Restrictions may feel like an excessive imposition on all that provides us a sense of sacredness and spiritual consolation. This feeling is not unusual and is experienced by many people to one degree or another. But there is a shadow side to this, that may lead from resentment to active defiance, and that is the belief in some quarters that religious practice is an extraordinary exercise of conscience, and so is not bound by limiting social norms. But this is not true. We need to support these directives, without equivocation. The defiance by some religious leaders needs to be called out, in the context of the Gospel and the faith tradition that guides our Church and our spiritual lives. As important as sacraments and religious practice are, they do not exempt us, Catholics or any others, from our responsibilities toward the whole of society. (Fair warning, the rest of this may sound a bit like a screed, so please bear with me. First, a bit of background for context.)
 
There is a historical tradition peculiar to the American Catholic Church. Past generations of American Catholics, while still religious and cultural minorities of almost entirely European immigrants, came to practice a type of “parallel society” as a Church. This was a time when Catholics were suspect, believed to be loyal to a Roman monarch, the Pope, and as such, were not thought of as trustworthy American citizens, lacking fidelity to the ideals of republican, constitutional government. As a result, over time, American Catholic Church leadership embraced structuring the Church along the lines of societas perfecta, or the church as a “perfect society within itself.” This was an older doctrinal theory, imported from a European model, essentially defining Catholicism as self-governing, and therefore not in need of substantive engagement with, or controlled by, secular civil authority. The word “Catholic” became emblematic in itself, a modifier that could be plunked in front of anything that described a secular idea or institution, and there would be a Catholic variant. Catholic schools were not just a school, but an antidote to the secularism of public schools. Catholic hospitals offered alternative medical ethics against the libertine practices in non-religious hospitals. Catholic alternatives developed in music, publishing, media, arts, professions, and even the more recent development of the experimental Ave Maria Catholic residential community in Florida. These all are attempts to live, if not outside of, then at least alongside but disassociated as far as possible, from the secular world. The phenomenon is not unique to Catholicism. Similar sentiments guide other practices, such as Amish and Bruderhof communities, or in religious schools of any denomination. Many of these share an ideological heritage with the notions of societas perfecta.  
 
The efficiency with which societas perfecta was practiced in American Catholicism was truly stunning, for a time. Only in the past 50 years have those structures weakened, but not without resistance. The sexual abuse crisis, though never reducible to one cause among the many causes that underlay it, shone an unsparing light on what happens when institutional leadership comes unmoored from overarching norms, seeing themselves and their structures as unencumbered by any competing claims or accountabilities from the existing social order. We should have learned this much from the abuse crisis experience, and perhaps future generations yet will, but right now it appears the learning is stalled. For residual tendencies to societas perfecta remain in parts of our Church and broader religious culture. We see elements of this in contemporary struggles to control the boundaries between governmental authority, ecclesial authority, and personal religious conscience. In many ways these are necessary conflicts to better define the relationship between Church, religious practice, and state oversight. Everyone needs to understand and abide by the rules. But on the extremes, things begin to unwind, and social cohesion is, as a result, threatened.
 
We are witnessing this dynamic emerge in the coronavirus crisis. Decisions to suspend or restrict sacramental ministries are met with consternation or outright defiance. One example: recently, two professors from St Paul Seminary sent an email to Archdiocesan priests criticizing the Archbishop’s decision to suspend Masses and restrict sacramental ministries, in doing so curiously citing the example of St Charles Borromeo’s diligent service to plague stricken Italy in the 16^th century as an exemplary witness to heroic virtue. One might usefully wonder if Borromeo, a man known for his overarching concern for the welfare of his people, would do what he did if he had the understanding we now have of the ways plague was transmitted. Perhaps if he were here today, the saintly qualities that formed his moral character might tell us that we best serve our neighbor by not risking giving them a lethal virus, and that the risks we assume in delivering sacramental ministry, or in organizing public religious gatherings, is potentially and supremely un-neighborly, in that we may unwittingly give to another what may be for the giver a mildly annoying viral episode, while our neighbor could suffer severe or fatal consequences. This potential is a result of our need to defy convention in favor of an idea about religious purity.
 
That this letter was submitted in such a public way by prominent members of the seminary staff was remarkable, but yet not surprising, if one interprets this crisis through the lens of societas perfecta. There remains an underlying simple logic to it, but it is an ahistorical logic, taken out of context from the faith tradition it claims to uphold, one that remains several steps removed from the more demanding logic witnessed by the Gospel ministry of Christ. One might wonder if these types of arguments, that are intended to support defiant behaviors within the ranks of the clergy, reflect more of a desire to dramatically and publicly present one’s personal religious ideals for public consumption. If so, this is no longer about serving the actual needs of the people. The “Saint” part of Charles Borromeo would, I believe, object to such behavior.
 
Here at St Timothy, I have asked that all of us support the directives of the Minnesota Department of Health and our state government leadership to the full. That means staying at home and avoiding unnecessary outings, not gathering in groups, and maintaining the recommended distances as we encounter others. This is done out of a desire to slow the spread of the virus, and protect as best we can those who are more vulnerable to its consequence. This desire, though, is not only of calculated clinical concern. It has a theological analogue, which is like saying there is another side of this which offers us a wellspring of rich religious and spiritual convictions that everyone can practice and grow from. The analogue is incarnational doctrine, which is a mouthful way of saying that God is one with us in the flesh, in the person of Jesus, and so we are one with God and with one another. This is what we remember and celebrate especially during the season of Christmas. But not only then. Because at any time living out incarnation faithfully means giving something substantial of ourselves to better meet the needs of others as if they are our own. This more often than not calls forth sacrifice from us. Now, in this time, we are asked to sacrifice religious practices. Yet in the grand scheme of this epochal moment, this ask seems to be a small and temporary thing, one that pales in comparison to the roulette-like possibility of going our own way and by doing so debilitating someone else, or even ending someone else’s life by not doing our best to support these directives.
 
Practically speaking, this means we do not do parking lot or drive by communions, or drive up confessions, or continue with regular communion calls and visits, or promote devotional processions in the neighborhoods, or plan ways in which we can get together for the distribution of palms. (We are keeping palms, by the way, and if they are still in good shape, will plan to distribute them at Masses when we gather again.) This giving up of these things is how we support the greater cause, as St Charles Borromeo similarly sought to do over 400 years ago, with the means available to him at that time. These are the means available to us. We do well to use them to the best of our ability, and know that in doing so, we share a deep spiritual communion with God and one another.
 
But incarnation it is not all absence, loss, and sacrifice. We will come to a time when we experience a revived, even more resilient faith, not of our own making, but a deepened faith, tested certainly by sacrifice and absence, yet gifted us entirely by the grace of God. That is the logic of incarnation-what is freely given is returned, overflowing and in good measure, in ways that will surprise and delight us. So when we do assemble again in celebration of the Eucharist, we will do so with a truer sense of ourselves as faithful Catholics, who loved God and our neighbor with our best efforts throughout this crisis, sacrificing something of importance so that others might have the best chance possible of living and staying healthy. We are partners with Christ in this, and though our ultimate destiny with Christ is not of this world, while we are here, we embrace the world as Christ did, and does. We are not about creating a parallel world of religious or moral purity, never touching nor being touched by the broken, suffering world around us. Instead, we are agents of incarnational transformation in the very difficult, suffering-laden reality we occupy. This is the manner of our Lord’s revelation of the nature of God, to take on, to integrate within ourselves, our very bodies, the contradictions and suffering the world produces. And to know that our world changes, for the better, when we give of ourselves for a greater good, because from our small gift, God makes great things grow, and the suffering time will yield to a time of wellness and healing. So we give something that is of ultimate importance to us, and do so generously, without expectation of self-gain, without any interest in promoting a way of life, or defending an institution. This giving is a subtle, but real, transformation, a growth in faith and trust that an incarnate God will bring fulfillment by the means of a faithful people who are united to Christ. St Charles Borromeo might say such is the stuff of exceptional faith.  
 
Fr. Joe