20 / CHRONICLESnlast American Catholics can jump on the bandwagon of allnpopular causes and show to an astonished world that thisnweird, odd, exotic, “un-American” dago-religion can beneminendy useful, nay, that it can serve “progress.”nSome of the new theologians have tried to remain withinnthe boundaries set by the Gospels and have merely misinterpretednthem. It has been conveniently overlooked that OurnLord was of Davidic origin, of royal blood, and thus he hasnbecome a social revolutionary, a forerunner of the Maryknollersnin Guatemala and of the killer-priests of SouthnAmerica. We are told that early Christians were pacifistsn(though, as Harnack proved, Christianity was particularlynstrong in the Roman army), and we are informed that allnmen are completely equal in the eyes of God. (MakingnJudas Iscariot the “equal” of St. John the Baptist is annamusing idea.) And if the exegesis of poverty as a sanctifiedncondition by the new breed of theologians is really correct,nwhy then a “War Against Poverty”? (And what about thenimportant distinction between poverty and misery?) I stillnrecall an American priest thundering that the Vaticannshould sell all its art treasures and give the proceeds to thenpoor. But what would the pious (and impious) Romans saynif the interior decorations of St. Peter were to be transferrednto the homes of Wall Street tycoons, Japanese videomanufacturers,nand Arab oil-sheiks? I had to remind thenthunderingly righteous priest of Christ’s words that the poornare always going to be with us. (Significantly, it was thenPharisees who hurled their “social protest” against MarynMagdalene’s luxurious gift.)nOthers in the American church have gone beyondnPagans and HeathensnWORDS, WORDS, WORDSnThe modern English word pagan comes from the LatenLatin paganus, “country dweller.” Similarly, our wordnheathen, from the Old High German, originally referred tonthe uncivilized rustics on the heath. Both words came tonmean “infidel” or “unbeliever” because the old idolatrynlingered on in the countryside long after Christianity hadnprevailed in the urban parts of the Roman Empire. Innrecent centuries, however, cities have more often served asncenters of secularism. Harvey Cox did not, after all, call hisnmost famous book The Secular Farm Belt. The nationalnmedia, the public schools, the ACLU, and the metropolitannbureaucracies of our “main-line” churches have all donentheir worst, but somehow the faith of our fathers stubbornlynlingers in the hinterlands, making Christian piety a disproportionatelynrural phenomenon in the modern world. An1983 poll conducted by the Des Moines Register andnTribune found that Iowa’s farm folk were much more likelynto hold a discernibly Christian morality than their citifiedncousins. Once the raw farmers in the villages depended onnthe missionaries from such urban centers as Jerusalem,nAntioch, Rome, and Paris to teach them the gospel. But ifnthe faith then preached is to exert decisive influence innAmerican culture again, it may be up to the “pagans” andn”heathens” in the farm country of Kansas, Idaho, andnSouthern Carolina.nnnScripture by declaring that Christ and His Apostles werenprisoners of the spirit of their time. These innovators are,napparently, firmly convinced that they are truly timeless,nwhereas the very opposite is true. According to their ownnadmission, they want to “update” the Church. They are notnready to fashion and form the world and the time (as itnwould be the Church’s task) and, as it is expressed in thenPrayer to the Holy Spirit, “to renew the face of the Earth.”nOn the very contrary: they want to bring religion onto thenwavelength of the present time, disregarding the words ofnKierkegaard: “He who plans to be married to the spirit of thentime will soon be a widower.”nChristianity did not in the least harmonize with the spiritnof the first three centuries A. D., but it nonetheless won out.nThe whole Roman Establishment, society, and the brightestnminds of that period were violently opposed to it. ‘Thenloud complaint that in Christianity, women have such an”lowly” position refers to the “backwardness” of antiquitynwhich profoundly influenced primitive Christianity. Spiritually,nhowever, women are not in the least disadvantaged inncomparison with men: they have equal chances for salvationnand sainthood—which to a Christian is all that reallynmatters. In the Catholic and in the Eastern Church,nmoreover, the Saint of Saints is Mary, Mother of Christ.nEcclesiastically, of course, the situation is different. HerenScriptures clearly assign different roles to the sexes.nIn America’s Catholic Church, however, the question ofnsex roles has stirred controversy which could only havendeveloped in a specifically American situation. NorthnAmerica is North European by origin, and in this culturalnorbit women of all classes have suffered from a curious sortnof isolation and frustration. It is not entirely impossible thatnthe very “masculine” spirit of the Reformers, so hostile tonthe veneration of Saints, has something to do with it.nAmerican matriarchy certainly is a myth. Already Dr.nBenjamin Rush, one of the Founding Fathers, discoverednthat in France women had an infinitely better socialnposition than in either Britain or the United States. Indeed,nwomen in America live, to a larger extent, lives very muchnof their own and on their own. They have penetrated intonareas once reserved for men (politics, business, sports), butnthe advance is limited and has not really improved theirnstatus in human terms. (Of course, nobody really wants tonsee women as coal miners, combat soldiers, or executioners.nHe who loves women does not want to see them asnmud-wrestiers, either.)nFriendships between men and women are rare, andnAmerican males tend to like, love, or desire women innparticular, but rarely in general. 1 well remember flightsnbetween San Francisco and Los Angeles “Reserved fornGentiemen Only.” In an American world of male clubs andnleagues, from the Knights of Columbus to the Free Masons,nwhere misogyny pervaded the old universities and wherenthe trend was away frofn intensive family life, women innAmerica became singularly “unfulfilled.” The general femalendissatisfaction and frustration has spilled over into thenwomen’s orders. Here it also should be said in all candornthat community life for women is even more problematicnthan for men.nIt is not entirely accidental that the Great Catholic Crisisnin America has erupted first in convents and their educa-n