Uncertain Trumpets: Cardinal Cupich and Pope Francis

Two events of recent days have scandalized me. Both were symbolic gestures and included the exchange of platitudes but also created an ambiguity about the Church’s teaching that is stretched to obfuscation.

The first symbolic event was when the pope sent a new nuncio of Venezuela. In case you don’t pay attention to Latin American dictators, there was a presidential election in Venezuela that almost everyone but the victors considers fraudulent.

The novelist and journalist Jaime Bayly commented on the new nuncio and said he was very disappointed in what the Vatican has done. When the whole world is concerned about the electoral fraud and the repression that has followed it, when there are people filling the streets with protest about the legitimacy of the government of a man who is undeniably a throwback to the military regimes of the past in Latin America, when Maduro has appeared to be isolated in the corrupt practices of a failed state, the pope decides to send his ambassador to shake hands with Maduro.

Bayly, who is a man who pulls no punches, as the cliché goes, emphasized the smiling archbishop who very submissively presented his credentials to a very happy Maduro. “Why now?” asked Bayly, “What was the haste to get the nuncio presented when Venezuela has been without a nuncio for three years.” When Maduro would most profit from a papal gesture of recognition, the Vatican came through for the dictator. The clip of the happy archbishop and Maduro is not just embarrassing, it is scandalous. What was the point, asked Bayly, except to say that Maduro has power and will apparently maintain it and we are his friend. 

The second scandalous event was Cardinal Cupich’s invocation at the Democratic National Convention. The prayer was a very wordy batch of political pablum that made me remember Proverbs 10:19, “In the multitude of words, sin is not lacking.” If you think I exaggerate, see for yourself.

We praise you, O God of all creation. Quicken in us a resolve to protect your handiwork. You are the source of every blessing that graces our lives and our nation.

I’m sure God has heard almost an infinite number of prayers, but the “quickening of resolve to protect your handiwork” must have thrown off even some of the angels. “Where is he going with this?” was probably their response.

We pray that you help us to truly understand and answer the sacred call of citizenship. We are a nation composed of every people and culture, united not by ties of blood, but by the profound aspirations of life, freedom, justice, and unbound hope. These aspirations are why our forebears saw America as a beacon of hope. And, with your steady guidance, Lord, may we remain so today.

The cardinal is giving a history lesson to the Almighty here; I would think the Good Lord knows what kind of nation we are and about the forebears, etc. Was His Eminence dipping into an anthology of political rhetoric for his vocabulary for the prayer? “The sacred call of citizenship” sounds like political discourse more than disciple language. The cardinal wants America to continue to be a beacon of hope. He could have quoted Pope Pius XII, like Ronald Reagan did, but he probably thought that would be too je ne sais quoi.

In every generation, we are called to renew these aspirations, to re-weave the fabric of America. We do so when we live out the virtues that dwell in our hearts, but also when we confront our failures to root out ongoing injustices in our national life, especially those created by moral blindness and fear of the other.

The cardinal now sees the election in terms of a shift of generations? A project he compares to re-weaving a fabric. He tells God that we do this knitting when “we live out the virtues that dwell in our hearts,” making it seem that the potential for goodness is the same as a virtue. But His Eminence also wants God to recognize that we knit America together by “confronting our failures to root out ongoing injustices in our national life, especially (emphasis added because it seems logically egregious) those created by moral blindness and fear of the other.” This might be code language because ongoing injustices not created by moral blindness, etc., are hard to imagine. 

Is the cardinal playing this chord because he feels it will resonate with the crowd at the DNC, particularly since they have caricatured the opposition party’s positions on race and immigration. Where is the reference to respect for human life? The pro-abortion mantra of so many speakers is about injustice also, to our very species. Did the cardinal pass by the Planned Parenthood chemical abortion pill giveaway trailers on his way into the convention?  Did the cardinal pass by the Planned Parenthood chemical abortion pill giveaway trailers on his way into the convention? Tweet This

Qui tacet consentire videtur, Your Eminence, your failure to mention anything in a hall echoing with rhetoric celebrating the destruction of the human fetus as a freedom could look to some as silence giving consent. Perhaps you only wanted to ignore one of the principal themes of the politicians, some of them claiming to be Catholics, because of the awkwardness of calling out sin to its face. But that is not leadership.

We pray for peace, especially for people suffering the senselessness of war. But as we pray, we must also act, for building up the common good takes work. It takes love.

This is nothing more than a nod at the news. “It takes love” is a rhetorical bromide, and as Oscar Wilde said about cliches, it makes the whole world kin. The cardinal is saying this to God, remember, even the part about acting for the common good. May the Divinity take note! No danger of seeming to take sides here. 

And so we pray: May our nation become more fully a builder of peace in our wounded world with the courage to imagine and pursue a loving future together. And may we as individual Americans become more fully the instruments of God’s peace.

This is political platitude disguised as a prayer. Make us a nation of peace, he could have said, make us instruments of your peace.

Guide us, Lord, in taking up our responsibility to forge this new chapter of our nation’s history. Let it be rooted in the recognition that for us, as for every generation, unity triumphing over division is what advances human dignity and liberty.

The new chapter in our nation’s history trope sees this election as pivotal and presumes that our Higher Power presumes that we would all be in agreement on the outline of the next chapter. The cardinal asks the Lord to “let it be” part of a recognition of unity triumphing over division. These are rhetorical terms devoid of content or definition. Nice words to make people think what a nice preacher is up there, he doesn’t make anyone feel uncomfortable. How prophetic is the utterance of a cascade of high-sounding phrases with no immediately apparent application! Does the cardinal remember that somebody already tried to kill one candidate or see that the slanderous avalanche of personal insults that is now political repartee and reportorial standard has reached modern heights?

Let it be propelled by the women and men elected to serve in public life, who know that service is the mark of true leadership.

Propel is an odd word to use, but remember we are asking God for this. 

And let this new chapter of our nation’s history be filled with overwhelming hope, a hope that refuses to narrow our national vision, but rather, as Pope Francis has said, “to dream dreams and see visions” of what by your grace our world can become.

Again, we hear that we are on the verge of a new era. That sounds ideological. And “overwhelming hope” is invoked, and Pope Francis is quoted as quoting, without acknowledgement, a verse of Scripture. He could have footnoted Joel 2:28-29.

We ask all of this, trusting in your ever provident care for us. AMEN

And, needless to say, confident in God’s infinite patience with human obfuscation, hesitation, and timidity in the face of conflict. The whole thing calls to mind what St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:8. “For if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle.” From leaders as comfortable with ambiguity to tolerate and even to appear to encourage dictators and political chicanery, we can only expect poor and ambiguous results. 

“In our day we have no ruler, or prophet, or leader,” said the prophet Daniel (3:38). Indeed.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]