In recent weeks Pope Benedict XVI has unnerved liberal Catholics as well as many Protestants and Jews with two pronouncements. The first removed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass which since Vatican II has been replaced by a more accessible version of this core Catholic rite. The second pronouncement reasserted that the Roman Catholic Church is the one and only true church through which salvation can be achieved. Many people, both within and outside the Catholic community, are perplexed and apprehensive that the Pope is taking the Church back to its exclusivist and even intolerant pre-Vatican II days.

But perhaps something very different is transpiring. Anyone familiar with Pope Benedict’s work knows that while he is indeed a deeply traditional thinker he is not some pre-modern religious fanatic. He is a genuine intellectual and theologian. Strikingly, in these pronouncements, he repeatedly points out that these decisions are “continuous with Vatican II” and that he remains “deeply committed to ecumenical dialogue” and the “mutual openness” necessary for such dialogue to be “truly constructive”. As if to make clear that he not be misunderstood regarding these commitments, the Pope approved the document on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul — a major ecumenical feast day.

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Do all major religious traditions basically carry the same message of love, compassion and forgiveness? Yes, of course and it also true that all major religions carry a message of hate, harshness, and resentment.

Every major religion can be read and understood at the lowest moral and ethical levels and at the highest. A narcissistic person interprets religion as constantly affirming and buttressing one’s ego and so a practicing meditator who is a narcissist will be someone who doesn’t share very well but who doesn’t share with calmness and centeredness. An ethnocentric person reading religious texts will produce ethnocentric interpretations of reality that affirm the superiority of his group and so a religious practitioner who is ethnocentric will be someone who shares generously but who does so only with members of his own group. A world centric person will discover that religious stories and rituals reveal and inspire an empathetic solidarity with all human beings, while a cosmic centric person will see religion as infusing an interdependence of all sentient beings.

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The craziness around Halloween is hard to ignore and as with anything “sacred”, be it a day, a story, an object, it has multiple meanings. These days, as with so much in our polarized public culture, each meaning has its own advocates who ardently believe they have the whole truth. There are our religious fundamentalists who oppose Halloween because of its pagan origins and occult and satanic symbols and believe the holiday undermines Christian values with its embrace of devils, demons, and goblins. Just as seriously, there are Wiccans who oppose Halloween for its offense to real witches by promoting stereotypes of wicked witches. (Opposition to fun often makes strange bed fellows.)

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Ah…the recently invented liberal war on Christmas, a war created and nurtured by a few conservative media folks like O’Reilly, Limbaugh, and Malkin, with the support of religious or is it political leaders like Dobson, Robertson, and Bauer, who seem to like nothing more than to exacerbate the animosity between Americans and exacerbate a culture war that itself is a product of a minority of ideologues on both sides. What a shame that a season that should be about Light and Love and Life has become one more place for our religious fundamentalists and secular fundamentalists to play out their insecurities and fears, and their inability to even imagine that there is some partial truth in the opinions of those with whom they disagree. It seems that the only way those inflaming our culture wars can be right is if those with whom they disagree are not only completely wrong but are seen, in some paroxysm of paranoia, as out to destroy them and so need to be destroyed. Of course, the fierceness of their absolutism simply masks their own repressed uncertainty about their own views.

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