Phantom at the Sanctum Sancturum

In the post-Vatican II ecumenical era, Christians and Jews sip cider together at Seder meals. A Christian considered still in the Dark Ages is one unfamiliar with an unleavened matzo on Pesakh (Passover).

The Vatican II Ecumenical Council was, in a sense, a fluke. Cardinali Angelo Guiseppi Roncalii, a rotund and jovial Venetian cardinal, bought a roundtrip ticket to Rome for the papal election after the death of Pope Pius XII, which he did not get to use. Giovanni XXIII was a temporary papal choice given his age until the favored Archbishop Montini (who followed as Paul VI) can be officially elevated to the Vatican See.

John pulled a couple of fast ones. First, he convened an ecumenical council, opened the doors and windows of the venerable but ancient institution for fresh air (after the triumphalism of Pius XII), fortunately and unfortunately catching our curiosity in the springtime of our juventud. Second, he chose John for a name, a no-no since the antipope of the 1400s’ schism, deftly satisfying the conservatives who would not give Antipope John the time of day. Giovanni naming himself John XXIII seemed to deny his earlier namesake’s official recognition. Not so, the liberals countered. There was no John XX, and, therefore, Giovanni Viginti Tres just faithfully continued the count, including John XXIII of 1415 CE.

No matter. This tracing of Roman Catholic lineage is actually more for my anemic Methodist historical sense that is twice removed from its Roman See roots (after the English-Anglicans and the American-Episcopalians). Methodists bridge the span between the episcopacy of the Protestant Reformation and the laity of the Congregational reforms in Europe, transported to the New World, a sentiment suited to the recalcitrant Tories and uncertain democrats in the American Revolution. Thus, from the American Midwest, where mighty Methodists are from, would come missionaries of American exceptionalism and “manifest destiny,” an endeavor Methodists have been known to excel.

Our title plays on Broadway’s Phantom of the Opera where Victor Hugo’s character Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, is lead role. Long after we abandoned the pretentious Methodist slogan of “open heart, open minds, open doors,” (it isn’t) comes a reality clip from the Jon Stewart comedy program of a Methodist Church allowing the Muslim faithful to use its facilities for worship and prayers.

In the tradition of balanced reporting, the program also presented the opinion of an evangelical preacher who vowed undying love for Muslims in the manner of the Christ but “sharing sanctuary was tantamount to allowing the devil to preach from the pulpit.” It would be chicken doo-doo (reporter’s term not printable) for the Evangelicals if there was a mosque hosting Christian prayers. Sure enough, there is, in New Jersey. Double “Holy Dung,” my irreverent Hindu Bro intones over this delightful fluke.

Two events occasion this reflection. One is a trip to Situ in Shenyang where the members of the Korean community are rabid proselytizers in the realm and beyond. Our trip to Jilin’s Yanbian (Korea in China) last year surprised us with a First Baptist Church on Main St. in U.S. Dixie lookalike downtown Yangi. Evangelical outreach to secular and proletarian Zhongguo, at a time when consumerism induces a hunger for the escapist shadows of Mt. Olympus, dismays ideological CPC stalwarts. Episcopalian Bishop John Spong battles the archaic irrelevance of theistic transcendence within his own communion well after the enlightened faithful have all sought refuge elsewhere.

The second event occurs today in my Social Economy class where I will thunder across the classroom green board with six Ur images of human inventions on the culture pole of the economic-political-cultural continuum of the social process. One of those comes from the wildness of the awesome ruah, the desert wind. (For the other five, we’ll just have to give a Humanities’ lecture series at AMP when we return, wouldn’t we?)

The human task is 6,000 years old in a planet 4.5 billion years of age. Retelling the human story and recreating the global mythology, of the mysterious and marvelous human journey, is the burning pedagogical task. Part of that story is the profoundly human response from the desert. Spirit singularity of reality is firmly adhered to, embodied and lived-out by the people of the book—the Torah, the Biblos, and the Koran. The mirage in the desert is the ultimate enemy, as illusion in contemporary psychology is a bane to human existence. Only reality is actually radically real!

The conflict between Jews, Christians and Muslims is one among kin of the same Ur. The conflict is in the myth, not the reality. Images at the holy of holies (there are five others in my mythical repertoire), that be of the Rabbi, the Parson, or the Imam, need not be aliens to each other in the inner sanctuary of reality. No chicken-doo-doo kidding!

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[I] Vergara is a regular contributor to the [/I]Saipan Tribune’[I]s Opinion Section[/I]