The pope as Rorschach test

Papal tours are like Rorschach tests: observers tend to see what they want to see.

Pope John Paul II addresses many of the same subjects wherever he goes – from eternal life to family life, from human economics to holy sacraments. But the full texts of his Cuba sermons show that he remains much more interested in the Good News than the evening news.

Nevertheless, John Paul is enough of a diplomat to know that calling the U.S. trade embargo a "monstrous crime" would make headlines. This policy, he said, "strikes the people indiscriminately, making it ever more difficult for the weakest to enjoy the bare essentials." He aimed more critical words at Cuba's aging Communist regime. But the pope had much more to say about Jesus of Nazareth than Fidel Castro of Havana.

The pope spent much of his time addressing the ties that bind parents and children and the forces that threaten to tear them apart. It's wrong, he said, for human materialism – communist or capitalist – to crush fragile homes.

"The family, the fundamental cell of society and guarantee of its stability, nonetheless experiences the crises which are affecting society itself," he said, in his first mass. "This happens when married couples live in economic or cultural systems which, under the guise of freedom and progress, promote or even defend an anti-birth mentality. Children are presented not as what they are - a great gift of God - but rather as something to be defended against."

Meanwhile, the "idols of a consumer society" tempt many people to flee Cuba and divide their families, he said. When poverty dims hopes, "anything from outside the country seems more attractive." Also, many Cuban educational policies yank adolescents out of the home and require them to attend distant schools. The goal seems to be to insert government into the role of parents. The result is a litany of woes, said John Paul.

"These experiences place young people in situations which sadly result in the spread of promiscuous behavior, loss of ethical values, coarseness, premarital sexual relations at an early age and easy recourse to abortion," he said. "All this has a profoundly negative impact on young people, who are called to embody authentic moral values for the building of a better society."

Teachers, artists, scientists, social workers and public officials may increase their efforts to meet this crisis, said the pontiff, speaking to an audience of young Cubans. This is good, but they cannot solve the root problems because questions of morality, beauty, identity and truth cannot be answered merely in terms of money, power and information. Young people must have spiritual guidance, he said.

"The church seeks to accompany young people along this path, helping them to choose, in freedom and maturity, the direction of their own lives and offering them whatever help they need to open their hearts and souls to the transcendent," he said. "Openness to the mystery of the supernatural will lead them to discover infinite goodness, incomparable beauty, supreme truth – in a word, the image of God, which he has traced in the heart of every human being."

By the time he reached the Placio de la Revolucion, where the flock of 200,000 chanted "libertad, libertad," John Paul had returned to the central theme of his papacy – that true freedom is rooted in eternal truths, not human power. It's impossible for a government to mandate atheism or to separate public policy and personal moral decisions. Nations are changed one person, one soul, at a time, he said.

"If the Master's call to justice, to service and to love is accepted as good news, then the heart is expanded and a culture of love and life is born," he said, in the final mass. "This is the great change which society needs and expects, and it can only come about if there is first a conversion of each individual heart, as a condition for the necessary changes in the structures of society. The attainment of freedom in responsibility is a duty which no one can shrink."

The truths are out there

It is the Most Rev. Frank Tracy Griswold III's custom to begin his day at 5 a.m. with prayer and yoga, a heels-over-head ritual that symbolizes what some call his Zen-Benedictine approach to faith.

The graceful, bookish cleric didn't stand on his head in the National Cathedral during the festive rites in which he was installed as the Episcopal Church's leader. But the new presiding bishop did challenge his church to wholeheartedly embrace the ambiguity of modern life.

Each person must discover "the truth which is embodied in each of us, in what might be called the scripture of our own lives," he said, in his sermon on Jan. 10. With their legacy of "graced pragmatism," Episcopalians are uniquely gifted at blending the "diverse and the disparate," the "contradictory and the paradoxical," the "mix and the muddle," he said. In a flock committed to finding the "via media," or middle way, "different dimensions of truth, different experiences of grace, can meet together, embrace one another, and share the Bread of Life."

Here is a postmodern credo for the next millennium: The truths are out there.

The problem is that there are so many people with so many truths and so many of them clash. Thus, Griswold faces a challenge: promoting unity in a deeply-divided church in which, if he has his way, the only Gospel truth will be that truth is essentially personal and experiential and discovered in compromise. Thus, the only heretics will be traditionalists who insist that scripture and church tradition contain transcendent, eternal truths that must be defended.

But some issues defy compromise. Consider this biblical commandment: "I am the Lord thy God. ... Thou shalt have no other gods before me." On the other side are those who teach that the God of Christianity is merely one image of an older god or gods and who, on occasion, use rites blending Christianity with other religions. The "via media"? Thou shalt only occasionally have other gods before me? Or there is the issue that haunts Episcopalians and other old-line Protestants – sex. On one side is the biblical teaching that sex outside of marriage is sin. On the other side are those who insist this teaching must change. The "via media"?

Griswold has sought compromise on this and other related issues. But the former bishop of Chicago has made his own stance clear. He has ordained priests who are sexually active outside of marriage and was one of more than 100 bishops to sign a 1994 statement saying sexual orientation is "morally neutral" and that the church must recognize "faithful, monogamous, committed" same- sex relationships. He is active in efforts to modernize church liturgies.

The new presiding bishop has said that his love of ambiguity is rooted in his education, which took him from New Hampshire's high-brow St. Paul's Episcopal prep school to Harvard University and then on to Oxford. His critics note that these settings have consistently served as Anglicanism's laboratories for theological innovation.

Griswold says his goal is to find middle ground between different truths. Others are more blunt. In a new book called "Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity," gay Episcopalian Bruce Bawer describes a titanic struggle between "legalists" who preach a faith based on law and compassionate Christians who base their faith on love.

"Legalists," argues Bawer, view "'truth' as something established in the Bible and known for sure by true Christians." Others see "truth as something known wholly only by God toward which the belief statements of religions can only attempt to point the way."

Griswold states this another way. Those who are committed to compassion, conversation and true communion accept the reality that "absolute truth is beyond our accessibility," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Broadly speaking, the Episcopal Church is in conflict with scripture," he said. "The only way to justify it is to say, well, Jesus talks about the Spirit guiding the church and guiding believers and bringing to their awareness things they cannot deal with yet. So one would have to say that the mind of Christ operative in the church over time ... has led the church to in effect contradict the words of the Gospel."

Japan II – We are the world

TOKYO – The Rev. Wes Calvery came to Japan 44 years ago during a wave of missionary work that washed over a proud, broken land.

It was almost impossible to get wary Japanese – steeped in centuries of Shinto and Buddhist traditions – to go anywhere near foreign churches and foreign clergy.

Today, young people flock to his Sharon Gospel Church west of Tokyo for one reason: to get married. They want a wedding that looks and sounds like the ones in movies and on television. They want flowers, candles and white lace. They want to take vows that talk about love, more than duty, and their future, more than their ancestors' pasts.

"They tell me that they want to be able to understand what they're saying in their own wedding, instead of just repeating a lot of old language that they think is gloomy and intimidating and has nothing to do with their lives," he said. "In other words, they think traditional Japanese weddings are old- fashioned. ... They don't want to just go through the motions."

But there's the rub. While missionaries say Christian ministers conduct 40 percent or more of Japan's weddings, few of the brides and grooms are Christians. Only 1 percent of the Japanese population is Christian, a statistic that has changed little in recent years. Thus, many missionaries debate whether it truly helps their cause for so many brides and grooms to go through a new set of motions, speaking vows that they may only think that they understand.

The bottom line is that it's easy to get cynical about the role of religious rites and symbols in Japanese life, said reporter Junko Tanaka, who covers America and American trends for NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). A ceremony may only be a ceremony.

"I don't think the wedding trend has any profound meaning," she said. "It is a very superficial and commercialized trend. ... Young people think it is 'cooler' or 'more fashionable' to have a wedding in church, in a wedding dress, rather than having one in a shrine or a temple in a kimono."

Yet religious rites, centering on religious vows, have meaning even if they take place in chapels attached to luxury hotels. The ministers at the altars are real. The brides and grooms are real. The parents in the pews are real. These are real weddings, even if the participants think of them as mere fashion statements.

Then again, this may not be as big a change as it appears at first glance. It is perfectly normal in Japan for people to embrace different, even conflicting, religious practices at different times in their lives. As the saying goes, the Japanese are born Shinto and die Buddhist. They may practice one faith, neither or both. Today they may blend in elements of Christianity.

The big news is that this cafeteria approach is becoming more popular worldwide. In the United States, millions of nominal Christians now dabble in Buddhist meditation, read books by self- help gurus, devour entertainment created by Hindu wannabes and wonder, from time to time, about reincarnation. And note this irony: a growing number of American pastors are beginning to decline to do weddings for people they believe are not practicing Christians. We are the world.

Yet Calvery remains convinced that it makes sense for missionaries – in the context of Japan – to risk performing weddings for non-Christians. After 10 years in this line of work, his "wedding chapel" has evolved into a full-fledged church complete with worship services, education programs and other ministries. He also noted that he now requires a counseling session with parents before each wedding, as well as with the bride and groom.

"The whole area now accepts our chapel as a regular church - - one that just happens to do 400 weddings a year," he said. "I don't have to push my Christianity on people. Now they are coming to me. And in each and every one of those 30-minute weddings, I get 10 minutes to preach to people I would have never seen in my church, otherwise."

Japan's lady in white

TOKYO – She smiles down from rows of advertisements that frame the ceilings of Japan's crowded commuter trains and from giant posters in shopping malls.

She is the woman in white and she is everywhere in Japanese media. In these glowing images, it is her wedding day and she is joyful, lovely, passionate and modern. She wants a Christian wedding.

"Everyone wants the white dress. It's America and Cinderella and all the movies we grew up with. It's what a Japanese girl yearns for," said Kumiko Ishii, a Tokyo native who spent her high school and college years in California. "That white dress makes her feel like a princess. ... So she wants a wedding in a Christian church and they say the Christian vows and there's a Christian minister. There's a cross on the wall, but for most Japanese girls that doesn't mean anything. It's just a design."

There is a saying here that people are born Shinto and buried Buddhist and, in between, their true religion is Japan. Now, another custom is being added to that timeline – the Christian wedding. Only 1 percent of the Japanese population is Christian, but at least 40 percent of the weddings use Christian rites. Some say the figure is much higher.

Ishii is a rarity – a young Japanese woman who was married in a white dress because she is a Christian. She grew up in a highly secular home and converted as a young teen-ager. Today, she is married to a Japanese rock musician who is the pastor of Committed Japan, a church that operates out of a coffeehouse and appeals to Tokyo's version of Generation X.

Getting married in an elaborate white dress, surrounded by candles and flowers, appeals to young Japanese women more than being bound into the up to 12 layers of a Japanese wedding kimono. The traditional ceremony also symbolizes centuries of arranged marriages, silent, subservient wives and husbands who do not even take vows to be faithful.

"For Japanese girls, the Christian wedding is so romantic. It's like a dream," said Ishii. "But it's like Christmas in Japan. It doesn't mean anything."

The trend began with Japanese movie stars and spread into chapels attached to hotels. At first, missionaries refused to marry non-Christians in real churches, so entrepreneurs stepped in. Today, one major wedding company goes so far as to buy the altars, pews, windows, pulpits, pipe organs and other furnishings in old Anglican churches and move them from England to Japan. The package of wedding, reception, photographs and the participation of a legitimate minister costs the Japanese equivalent of $10,000 to $20,000, or much more. The minister is paid between $100 and $200, for about an hour's work.

Japanese pastors often refuse to do these rites. That's fine, since most customers prefer a Caucasian minister in their wedding pictures. Some observers predict Western funerals will be the next growth industry.

Few missionaries are totally comfortable with all of this. Many will only marry two Christians. Others will also marry two non-Christians, since they are at least members of the same faith. Others will marry a Christian and a non-Christian, hoping the non-Christian will convert. Some will marry non-Christians if they consent to a full series of counseling sessions about the meaning of Christian marriage. Others will marry those who agree to a single 30-minute session. Some missionaries do these weddings – period – since this allows them chances to preach to a captive non-Christian audience.

"There is a thin line between doing these weddings to pay the bills and doing them as a means of outreach," said the Rev. Michael Hohn, a German Lutheran who leads the Christ of All Nations Church just north of Osaka. "It is a good business. This helps many missionaries stay in Japan. You can put away a lot of money for retirement or to put your children through college. ... I, myself, want to do everything I can to make sure that the people I marry understand the vows they are taking. Otherwise, I don't know what we are doing."