Making the strange seem familiar....
The intent was simple. The government would encourage the church, allowing it to spread its influence further than it had already. Money, land, whatever was necessary to draw more men to the cloth: it would be made available. The Church would get more power and more influence, while it would accommodate itself to the mild changes and reforms that were occurring throughout the country. The question of how the Church should be treated had been the primary division and cause for dissension between the Liberals and the Conservatives, the current policy of allowing the church more power on a local level while reforming the national system towards progress had provided a working compromise...so far.
On the ground, that meant that more young men were joining the clergy every day, the second and third sons of well to do families, young men with no prospects from poorer villages, the church claimed them all.
And it was true that the influence of the church grew, but not, perhaps as had been forseen or intended...
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Religion and morals, however much they may be faith or immediate knowledge, are still on every side conditioned by the mediating process which is termed development, education, training. -Friedrich Hegel, Shorter Logic
Father Pablo Fierro knelt and felt the total silence that always accompanied prayer. Some claimed to hear the call of God, or at least his presence. Pablo had never had anything but silence from his maker, a uncertain silence which had left him to his own devices.
His face still seemed to sting after the blow he had received from that young woman. He could still see the anger filling her eyes, the sting of her words.
He shuffled back to his small room, turning away from the silence of God and hoping to find his voice elsewhere. Doubt gnawed at him, not letting him rest.
As he had the last few nights after praying, he had read a bit of the works of Hegel that had been all the rage recently among the clergy.
There was something there, certainly, some sort of answer, or at least the right question. The world seemed full of contradictions, but this was the working of the World Spirit, which was clearly, in Pablo's mind, God, working towards the greater synthesis of the seeming opposites, for the world he had created had always, and would always, be a greater whole than the parts which made up its every day self.
But was the proper function of the citizen truly to seek harmony with the state? Was the state truly the best expression of the human need and instinct towards unity? Was not, in fact, the church the best expression of this?
He turned to the Bible next, for perhaps, by combining the two, he might reach a synthesis of his own, some sort of comprehension of what had happened in that school, where he had gone wrong that the people he was supposed to be teaching had grown to hate him.
His fingers leafed through the now well worn bible, searching...searching....
He stopped at the following passage.
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound -Isaiah: 61
He had read this passage before, many times. He almost turned the page in frustration, but he stopped to look at it again. In the present context, when he looked at it again, it seemed to have new, and urgent meaning. This is what he was supposed to be doing, what being a Priest was about. But what did it mean? Was not the text unambiguous? But, he realized, it was, it always had been. Gods words, through the printed page, must always be interpreted, understood, mediated, through his own fallible eyes. The meaning of the text was not in the text itself, but rather in his understanding of it, the meaning was in him, in the context and place of his understanding of it, of the kind of conversation he was having with himself around the text.
He had conversations before, with others, with himself, about this passage, and others as well, but never this conversation, never this context.
He tried, through a supreme act of will, to go back to that moment in the school, and put himself in the context of the young woman who had struck him.
He could not, God help him, how could he? What bridge could connect the world of a Spanish man of the cloth and a young illiterate Indian peasant? They did not even share a language, and she did not speak his and he....yes.. that was it. Before teaching..he must be taught. He must
acquire her context, her understanding.
He left the Church, and set out to the village....
---
Others, who did not understand yet, would say that he roused the sleeping minds of the people of Tampico, and lit a spark therein.
Nothing could be further from the truth. He had merely voiced in a different way what they already had to say. He was not God, he could not create something from nothing, he could but transmit that which he had learned, and have it be understood by a wider audience.
Letters from other men of the cloth had been coming in, fast and furious, a ongoing conversation by which the question of the day was being debated? What was the role of the new, younger generation of priests in Mexico? Was it not to help the Church be what it should always have been, a defender of freedom? Should it not push to get the heavy presence of the government off the necks of the farmers and ranchers that were this country?
Most of the clergy, he found, had, it seemed, come around to this viewpoint: that the cause of human liberty must be advanced. Well, all to the good. But he knew that for some of them, this belief was still an abstract thing, a thing of principles, held together by air. They had not yet put it in context. They were reading his words, but not yet understanding them, they were, he was sure, reading their bibles, but much like his old self, not truly understanding it either. They did not, after all, have the correct context to be able to fully understand the words, to discuss and teach the text to others who saw differently than they did, people who lacked their frame of reference. Not only did they lack the bridge between the Word and the World, they did not see that they had the lack, or the need for a bridge.
That was fine. He was sure, in time, they would learn. He put away the letter he was responding to, and headed downstairs to help the village in its discussion of today's bible passage, printed in the native language. Attendance was up, and he truly felt as though his fellow learners were making progress, why, yesterday, they had been comparing "their" bible to the Spanish bible, as well as the Latin bible, and discussing the differences they were able to see. For the first time since he had taken holy orders, he had felt the presence of God, transcendent and holy, as he had participated in that discussion.