The Kiss of Peace

Introduction

“The Prince of Peace”

In his oratorio, The Messiah, George Frederick Handel lifts us up to the very dome of heaven, as he sets to musical fire those familiar words: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace” (Is 9:6). What truly inspired fire! It still sends me out of myself every time!

When the Prince of Peace grew up, in the Sermon on the Mount he declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God” (Mt 5:9). But then one day he was heard saying, “You don’t think that I have come to bring peace on earth, do you? No, not peace but division. No, not peace but war” (Lk 12:51).

Disturbing the ancient peace

For almost four hundred years (from the Council of Trent, 1545-1563) up until the Council of Vatican II, 1962, there had been "peace" in the Church. Many of us grew up under that peace. Then along came Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, elected pope in the papal conclave of 1958. He assumed the name of John XXIII. He was 77 years old, and quite rotund. (“The papal election,” he later remarked, “wasn’t a beauty contest.”) The word was out that the cardinals elected him because they figured he would not rock the boat, the Bark of Peter, and he would not disturb the "peace" of the church. Well, this apparently harmless man summoned the entire church to an Ecumenical Council. On the 11^th day of October 1962, the Second Vatican Council opened. To the Council, Good Pope John had invited the Orthodox, the Anglicans, the Protestants, also the believers of other religions, and, mind you, he invited even the Atheists! The new exciting Pope was hoping the Council would be a new exciting Pentecost for the Church. A veritable Pentecost it turned out to be, igniting fires everywhere and setting fierce winds roaring through the magnificent edifice of St. Peter’s Basilica (the Council’s venue) and blowing away “the ancient peace.”

The “peace” of Trent

That ancient peace of four hundred years had been created by the Council of Trent, in which the Catholic Church at Trent was battling the Protestant Reformation and was fighting for dear life. Now when you write a theology as you are being besieged during a time of war, strange as it might sound, you write a theology of peace, i.e. a theology that makes for peace. By that I mean, you write a theology that puts all moral life, all theological life, all intellectual life, all liturgical life into deep freeze: you codify it all, you carve it out in rock, in order to save it all from the attacks of the enemy. (For example, the big altar missal, which we used at mass right up to the very eve of Vatican II basically, came to us from the Council of Trent -- Missale Romanum Ex Decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tredentini). And as a result of the deep freeze, a deep “peace” fell upon the church, but it was the kind of peace that comes because the lid is on everything. It’s natural. It’s human. It’s life.

“A patched up affair”

In T.S. Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral, Thomas a Becket, the famous Archbishop of Canterbury, exiled by King Henry II of England, is returning to England, and some are wondering whether the two have made peace. Someone remarks, “Yes, peace, but not the kiss of peace, a patched-up affair.” The patched-up affair didn’t last long. On the night of December 29, 1170, to the shock of all Europe, some of the King’s knights murdered the Archbishop in his cathedral.

As a result of the deep freeze of Trent, a deep “peace” fell upon the church, but it was the kind of peace that comes because the lid is on everything. It was a peace, which was not the kiss of peace. It was just a patched up affair. When one day the Prince of Peace said, to the scandal of many, that he had come to destroy the peace, that’s the peace he was talking about: the peace that’s just a “patched up affair” instead of the kiss of peace.”

The “war” of Vatican II

Now by the middle of the 20tieth century, the fury of the Protestant Reformation had spent itself, and we were getting tired of fighting the Protestants, and the Protestants were getting tire of fighting us; you can fight only so long and then it gets boring. By the middle of the 20tieth century, nobody was fearing any body anymore, and we were basically at peace. Oh, it wasn’t the kiss of peace, but it was at least peace as a patched up affair. And here too, strange as it might sound, when you are writing a theology during a time of peace, you write a theology of war, i.e. you write a theology that makes for war. When there’s nobody or nothing around to fear anymore, you can start taking the lid off of things; you can start asking questions you were way too pious or way too obedient to ask before. Why you can even invite those Protestant Reformers to Vatican II to speak their mind. No wonder such a Council was bound to disturb the ancient peace of Tent.

How well we remember the countless little battles that broke out among us Catholics shortly after Vatican II (every day it was a new one): battles about what nuns or priests should wear; battles about communion in the hand or in the mouth; battles about Mass in God’s favorite language (Latin) or in the vernacular. And then there were the really big worthwhile wars that we fought about the oppressive maleness in the church, about economic injustice, about the loveless spirit of exclusion alive and well in the very house of God and in the very family of the church.

Things have calmed down considerably since those tumultuous days, either because some of us on both sides of the aisle have opened our minds, have been educated, have grown, and have been reconciled. Or because some of us have simply closed our minds, have given up on the other side, and have set our jaws against each other. And we do it in such a way as to look Christian or religious, either by using polite language on each other when our battles break out into the public, or by using some sort of religious jargon to nail our stand to the very back of God: jargon like, “Just remember, God became a man and not a woman,” or ”Everybody knows that it is an ancient, traditional, and truly Roman Catholic custom to always have the tabernacle up front in the center.” (Makes us wonder why some aren’t for renovating St. Peter’s in Rome!)

At the end of the day, after all is said and done, Vatican II did not cause our divisions; it simply exposed them. It has helped us to realize that the ancient peace really wasn’t peace at all. It really wasn’t the kiss of peace; it was just a patched up affair.

Murder today in the cathedral

When the important people around him told Pope John in so many words that he couldn’t call a Council because that would disturb the peace, he replied, “Why, you don’t think that I have come for peace, do you?” When Rembert Weakland was appointed to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, somewhere along the line he too, like Jesus and the Pope, said sometimes openly and sometimes to himself, “Why you don’t think that I have come for peace, do you?” Back in the early days, when he spearheaded the American Bishops’ Pastoral on the Economy, which speaks about capitalism and justice, and basically about people’s pocketbooks, he inevitably disturbed the peace of some faithful Catholics. They reminded him that the hierarchy should stick to their field of expertise, namely, holy water, incense, and symbols, and that they should leave the rest to the politicians who are experts in this matter, and thus preserve the ancient peace. To their admonition to maintain the ancient peace the Archbishop could only respond, “You don’t think that I have come for peace, do you?”

When it became apparent that he himself was not at peace with the oppressive maleness of his church with its ecclesiastical version of the “glass ceiling” for women, when it became apparent that he was inviting women to fuller participation, he began disturbing the peace of the church, and he could only respond saying, “You don’t think that I have come for peace, do you?”

When he sat down with pro-choice people to hear them out though he himself was by no means pro-choice (very much like Pope John who invited even Atheists to the Council to hear them out, even though the Pope himself was by no means atheist), that destroyed the peace of staunch Catholics who thought the Archbishop was belittling the “know-it-all” quality that characterizes a good church leader, and which silences all dialogue. That dialogue with the enemy was a kind of last straw that broke the camel’s back, and a good size war broke out over it, especially among One Issue Catholics. Again, Rembert could only respond saying, “You don’t think that I have come for peace, do you?”

Vatican II did not cause the divisions in the church at large; it simply exposed them. At the end of the day, that’s also true about the present situation in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee: the renovation of the cathedral has not caused our divisions; it has simply exposed them. It has simply exposed the fact that our peace here is not the kiss of peace but a patched up affair, as much of human peace is, and there is some salvation in simply being reminded of that. But as a patched up affair, our peace here has degenerated into our own kind of “murder in the cathedral.”

Conclusion

The Kiss of Peace that calls

We all have one or the other really outstanding “patched up peace” in our lives with which we are making peace but upon which we really should be making war. We can’t get rid of all the “patched up peace” in our lives; life is too short for that. Besides, life can often settle for less; it can often settle for truce, if needs be, without too much damage. But there is always one or the other outstanding “patched up peace” in our lives that calls for us to make war upon it. That’s because the matter at hand is so important, that it calls for nothing less, settles for nothing less that the “ Kiss of Peace.” And so there is one or the other really outstanding “Kiss of Peace” out there that is calling out to you and me, beckoning us. And the only path to peace will be to heed that call. That’s hard. That’s expensive. That demands a price. But peace is priceless; that is to say, it demands a price, and they only lay hold of peace that are ready to pay the price. What is that really outstanding “Kiss of Peace” out there that’s beckoning you and me?