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A great big hola to everyone today, and welcome to another edition of All Things Catholic. I’m your host, Deacon Rudy Villarreal, and together we will explore what it means to be Catholic. If you have a question that you’d like me to address, send it to me. You may use the comment form on the website or by email to rudy@deaconrudysnotes.org. I invite you to share this podcast with everyone, you know!
The election is over! Regardless of the outcome, we need to find some time and make some space for licking our wounds – for healing. Advent, which begins in a few weeks, is an excellent time for self-reflection – as individuals, as a church, and as a nation.
Speaking of Advent, I love the 1947 classic movie, Miracle on 34th Street, directed by George Seaton. You know, the one with Natalie Wood. On Kris Kringle’s first day working at Macy’s, he is in the employee locker-room chatting with Alfred, a boy who works as a janitor. Mr. Shellhammer, the toy department store executive, comes to touch base with Kris. He shows Kris a list of toys that Kris needs to “push,” then he tells Kris to come upstairs when he’s ready.
After Mr. Shellhammer leaves, Kris says to Alfred, “Imagine, making a child take something he doesn’t want just because he bought too many of the wrong toys. That’s what I’ve been fighting against for years, they way they commercialize Christmas.” Then Alfred says, “Yeah, there’s a lot of bad “isms” floating around this world, but one of the worst is commercialism. Make a buck, make a buck. Even in Brooklyn it’s the same. Don’t care what Christmas stands for, just make a buck, make a buck.” <1>
This scene really jumps out at me and has stuck with me all these years. As Alfred tells us, there “There’s a lot of bad ‘isms’ floating around this world…” <2> Too true!
So, in a nod to one of my favorite movies, we will talk about “isms” today. What is an ism? Well, another word for “ism” is ideology. Now, the word ideology can have all sorts of effects on people, from total indifference to the pejorative. If we’re going to spend some time discussing ideology, then we should know something about it.
What is “ideology?” In their article, “The role of ideology in politics and society,” for the Manchester University Press, Kevin Harrison, Lecturer in Politics at Manchester College of Arts and Technology, and Tony Boyd, who taught Politics and Modern History at Loretto College, quote the American historian David Joravsky who defines ideology this way, “When we call a belief ideological, we are saying at least three things about it: although it is unverified or unverifiable, it is accepted as verified by a particular group, because it performs social functions for that group.” <3>
That’s an interesting definition. People accept as “true” or “reality” their ideological perspective. Now at some level, ideology isn’t a bad thing. Ideologies give us a logical or conceptual framework to live our lives. For example, I expect that it is my responsibility to work, earn money, provide for my family and save for my retirement, and contribute to my community by honoring my religious and civic duties, like tithing and paying taxes. These ideas I espoused reflect my ideology born and raised in the United States and my beliefs as a Catholic. By that, I mean my pursuit of education, faith formation, continuing education, and work are all oriented toward my desire as a Christian to achieve human flourishing – to be the person God made me to be.
Others in the United States might not agree with my belief. They might suggest that work should be provided or that some form of government subsistence payment should be given to everyone, and then you build on that with work. Some secularists and anarchists would reject my duty to my church and my country, just as there are libertarians who would suggest that our duty to state should be reduced to the smallest conceivable action.
Regardless of your perspective, if we can come together and work toward solving problems and making our countries safe and productive, then we reflect what Harrison and Boyd call a “relaxed” ideology. I like to think President Ronald Reagan and Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil were good examples of a relaxed ideologies of sorts. They were flexible enough to work together to try to get something done. Harrison and Boyd suggest that there was a sort of “ideological consensus” in British politics from 1945 until the early 1980s. <4>
But the highly polarized situation we see in the United States is evidence of what they call “restrictive” ideologies. Politicians and their supporters are so entrenched that they hardly seem to compromise on anything. As a result, little is done, or worse, the changes are so dramatic based on what party is in power that the economy and everyday life are continually disrupted.
Why are we discussing ideologies in a podcast on what it means to be Catholic? Excellent question!
As Christians, as baptized believers who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we are encouraged to look to the human Jesus as a role model for living our lives. Jesus is the exemplar par excellence of human flourishing. As Christians, I suggest to you that while we might engage an ideological perspective to shape the practicalities of life, we should be careful as we play on the beach of life as the waters of ideologies pool around us. If social media offers a clue, then sadly, too many Christians have been swept out to sea by the current of our time’s dominant ideologies. This is exactly the opposite of how Jesus behaved.
Remember that Jesus was a Jew, and he did not come to disband Judaism, but to fulfill it. But the people of his time were quite entrenched in their thinking – in their ideologies – than to be bothered with the fulfillment of prophecy. So, Jesus challenged their ideologies.
After healing an invalid by the Sheep Gate, the man got up and walked off with his mat. The people criticized the man for carrying his mat on the Sabbath. Jesus challenged the preconceived idea about work, carrying things, or even walking to a neighboring town on the Sabbath not because it was an offense to God, but because it was part of the “rules” totally disconnected from honoring God (John 5:10-12, Acts 1:12).
Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors – with people who the Jewish leaders said were not “kosher” (Mark 2:16).
Jesus healed on the Sabbath despite considered to be “work” by Jewish leaders (John 9:16, Mark 3:4-5).
Jesus worked against ideologies, especially entrenched or “restrictive” ideologies. His approach to life was practical and therefore revealing God’s pragmatic nature.
If we are working to be more like Jesus, we cannot allow ourselves to over-indulge at the ideological buffet. We’re supposed to bring our faith into the world – to help shape things in a Christian way and, most importantly, to introduce people to Jesus Christ. As I said in our last episode, “Faithful Citizenship,” “Each of us is called to participate in the electoral process to the best of our abilities, guided by our consciences and the virtue of prudence. We should do our best to encourage our political parties to promote the dignity of the human person, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity.”
The election cycle in the United States is coming to a close, but our work is far from complete. We must work to influence party politics to be more practical, more pragmatic. We need to address the real problems confronting our people. As I also mentioned in our last episode, the bishops of the United States in their document, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, wrote, “When necessary, our participation should help transform the party to which we belong; we should not let the party transform us in such a way that we neglect or deny fundamental moral truths or approve intrinsically evil acts.” <5>
My brothers and sisters, let’s use the examples of party politics in the United States and Britain to regroup, inoculate ourselves with the Eucharist against restrictive ideologies, and go out in the world to bring a message of hope into an ever-increasingly dark world.
Do you got it? Do you get it? Good! Now go make disciples! May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! +Amen!
You’re listening to All Things Catholic. What are your thoughts? Leave a comment – I’d love to consider what you’re thinking. If you’re on the web page, just click the podcast’s title, then scroll to the bottom, and you should be able to post a comment. Do you have a question that you’d like me to address? Please send it to me using the comment form on the website, or send me an email to rudy@deaconrudysnotes.org.
This episode was produced by deacon rudy’s notes. Our theme music was composed by Silent Partner. You can find all sorts of helpful information on the website at www.deaconrudysnotes.org. I’m your host, Deacon Rudy Villarreal. All Things Catholic will be back next month, and don’t forget to tune in for the weekend edition where we break open the Word. Peace!
Notes:
<1> Miracle on 34th Street, directed by George Seaton, featuring Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn (20th Century Fox, 1947), Box Office (1947).
<2> Ibid.
<3> Harrison, Kevin, and Tony Boyd. “The role of ideology in politics and society”. In Understanding political ideas and movements, (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2018) accessed November 3, 2020, https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526137951.00011.
<4> Ibid.
<5> United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Forming Conscience for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States, (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2020), no. 5. Adobe Digital Editions PDF.
