I Know My Religious Shit

There are these terrific people from St. Louis, Terry and Ellen, who stay a week at Jenny during our stay.  They've been going there longer than we have and they always bring Father Robert (I'm pretty sure that is his first name), a long time family friend, with them and put him up in his own cabin.  If you know the rates at Jenny Lake Lodge, you will agree with me that Terry and Ellen are building up big time points in their heavenly bank account with their largesse.

Terry usually shows up in the lodge around six in the morning to pick up some coffee for his group and we sit for a moment by the fire and visit about yesterday's golf game and today's hike.  My favorite chat this past summer happened the day after Pope Frances compared the excesses of capitalism to the dung of the devil.  Trust me, the vast majority of the guests at Jenny Lake Lodge are raging capitalists or they couldn't afford to be there, so it was clear that Terry was not pleased that the Vicar of Christ had basically condemned his life style (Actually, he only condemned capitalism's "excesses", not the thing itself.).

"Ya know, Christ hung out with rich people too," Terry said with confidence.

"That's right," I agreed, "like when he was kicking them out of the temple or comparing their chances of heaven to camels getting through needle eyes."  I didn't really say that.  I try really hard to refrain from news and politics of any description when I'm in the Tetons, but it took all my Christian charity to refrain.

I can't say I'm surprised by the conservative reaction to Pope Frances.  Rick Santorum must be going crazy.  Bill O'Reilly as well.  All those folks who want to defund Planned Parenthood, build a wall, and deport children simultaneously must be pissed.  The Pope evidently doesn't agree with them.  He even has suggested the possibility of forgiving abortions.  Has the whole world gone mad?

I am also not in the least surprised by the Pope's pronouncements.  I am the product of a Catholic boyhood.  The sacristy at Our Lady of the Mountain in Estes Park was my second home.  I was trained by Jesuits at Regis (You ever notice how didn't just go to a Jesuit school, you get trained by one?).  I hung out with Fathers Boyle and Maginnis at Ernie's at 44th and Federal.  Tom Steele baptized by first child.  So Pope Frances is what I would have expected of a Jesuit.

All the Jesuits I've known (lots) share some commonalities.  They are, to a man, remarkably erudite.  They are articulate.  They care a lot more about Aquinas and Augustin than they do about passing judgement on others.  In their theology classrooms, God was almost an afterthought.  They understood that there are precious few clear cut moral choices.  They drank great scotch and told ribald stories into the late hours of the night.  They were also deeply spiritual.  They knew the theology.  They practiced what they preached.

Frances is just reminding us who Christ really was.  What he really taught.  Contrary to what they would have you believe, He was not a capitalist.  Nor was he a socialist.  He was a humanist; that's what transubstantiation is all about.  At least that is the understanding I took away from 27 hours of theology and one incredibly gruesome reading of SUMMA TEOLOGICA.  He is saying all these great things, these seemingly liberal things, but if I know my Jesuits there is nothing liberal about them.  He's just speaking truth.

There was this great moment on Colbert's tribute to the Pope show the other night.  When Colbert asked Andrew Sullivan (one of my heroes) how difficult it was to reconcile his homosexuality with his Catholicism, Sullivan responded that it was his Catholicism that forced him to "come out."  Sullivan's Catholicism, he said, trained him to be honest, to be a truth teller, and to have courage.

I am not a practicing Catholic.  Far from it.  But I do know my religious shit.  I have Jesuits to thank for that.