Tag: memory

To Celebrate or Not

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

The past week has seen two historical anniversaries come and go and the reactions raise arresting questions about the different way that Christians and Americans (not always the same) understand the past. The first was the Battle of Lepanto, which prompted Kathy Schiffer to write:

On October 7, Catholics remember Our Lady of the Rosary.

The feast was actually instituted under another name: In 1571 Pope Pius V instituted “Our Lady of Victory” as an annual feast in thanksgiving for Mary’s patronage in the victory of the Holy League over the Muslim Turks in the Battle of Lepanto. Two years later, in 1573, Pope Gregory XIII changed the title of this feastday to “Feast of the Holy Rosary.” And in 1716, Pope Clement XI extended the feast to the whole of the Latin Rite, inserting it into the Roman Catholic calendar of saints, and assigning it to the first Sunday in October. In 1913, Pope Pius X changed the date to October 7, as part of his effort to restore celebration of the liturgy of the Sundays.

The Battle of Lepanto
On October 7, 1571, a patchwork fleet of Catholic ships primarily from Spain, Venice and Genoa, under the command of Don Juan of Austria, was at a distinct disadvantage. The much larger fleet of the Ottoman Empire—a force with 12,000 to 15,000 Christian slaves as rowers—was extending toward Europe.

However, St. Pope Pius V, realizing that the Muslim Turks had a decided material advantage, called upon all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory. Christians gathered in villages and towns to pray as the sea battle raged; and at the hour of victory the pope—who was hundreds of miles away at the Vatican—is said to have gotten up from a meeting, walked over to an open window exclaiming “The Christian fleet is victorious!” and shed tears of joy and thanksgiving to God.

Not sure if that qualifies as micro or macroaggression, but Schiffer’s comments suggest that extricating politics from piety for Roman Catholics is always a difficult proposition.

Then yesterday was the anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America. About this event residents of the United States, free from Italian descent, are decidedly ambivalent:

Columbus Day was Italian Americans’ idea, and many of them want to keep it

After strong lobbying from the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service organization consisting largely of Italian Americans, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Oct. 12, 1937, as the first Columbus Day and “directed that flags be displayed on all government buildings on that date,” according to a front page item in the Los Angeles Times that September.

“Each recurrence of Columbus Day brings to all of us a greater appreciation of the heritage we have received as a result of the faith and courage and fortitude of the Genoese navigator and his brave companions,” Roosevelt said to mark the occasion the next year. (Celebrations in Los Angeles honoring Christopher Columbus were happening as far back as 1932, according to news reports at the time.)

Congress passed the Monday Holiday Law in 1968, establishing the three-day weekend for some federal holidays and adding Columbus Day as an official public holiday. By then, 45 states were already observing it.

Since then, efforts to eliminate or rename the Columbus Day holiday in various states and cities have met strong resistance from Italian Americans, who have said Columbus is an important figure in their heritage and calling such efforts “anti-Italian American.”

In 2002, the Los Angeles City Council voted to allow city employees to take Cesar Chavez Day as a paid holiday instead of Columbus Day, a move that prompted a slew of prominent Italian Americans, including former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, to send a strongly worded letter to city officials. As a compromise, the council allowed city employees to celebrate either holiday. (Although California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated the Columbus Day state holiday as part of a budget-cutting measure in 2009, Los Angeles city and county offices still observe it. The Los Angeles Unified School District does not.)

Perhaps the more important lesson here is the way that Americans want their history. We won’t tolerate any sin or injustice (don’t think the Old Testament). Mix any sordid parts of human exploitation in and you better close down the museum or rename the holiday. In other words, deep down Americans all want a Chamber of Commerce version of history. The right thinks of America as only great all the time. The left wants greatness but can’t handle anything less.

But related and not without significance is apologist’s argument that uses on history to vindicate a specific Christian communion. If you bring up the past, be prepared for the boomerang.

No cherry picking.

Has Anything Changed Since Everything Changed?

Published on by D. G. Hart27 Comments

All of the fanfare surrounding the tenth anniversary of 9/11 left the Calvinistic, dour side of me cold and a bit cynical. Part of the problem was the fixation westerners have, with our base-10 system of math, to give more weight to anniversaries that fall on the five’s and ten’s than, say, to the perfect number, seven. (Is ten years really more significant than eleven?) Another factor is the excess to which American cultural expressions are prone – think the Super Bowl here. When Americans observe anniversaries, birthdays, victories, or even death, they rarely do so with moderation and self-control. Do not discount either the effects of this scribe hearing Christian radio yesterday devoted to 9/11 and how the world changed – FOREVER. It was supposed to be the Lord’s day and devoted to hearing and learning from the word of God. But program managers couldn’t resist devoting the day to the U.S.A.

I certainly understand (or think I can) how the lives of those who lost loved ones changed ten years ago. It also makes sense for New Yorkers to consider how vulnerable their seemingly invincible city was (and still is) to one of the most stupendous attacks in human history.

But what I don’t understand is why we needed to be barraged with a litany of public figures who told us where they were on September 11, 2001, and what they thought in the light of those unbelievable attacks. Even NASCAR drivers got into the act. Over at Yahoo’s sports page some race car driver was featured in a video about his experience ten years ago.

What I find particularly troubling is that these kind of memories set into stone a particular moment without considering what has actually changed over the last decade. By conjuring up all of those feelings from a decade ago, Americans are in danger of continuing to think – which was quite plausible at the time – that they were innocent victims of an irrational and ruthless attack by religious fanatics. And that kind of consideration can lead to the kind of innocence that is so typical of American idealism at its worst. America, so the logic goes, is a friendly and benign presence in the world, and anyone who opposes the United States must be demonic. But if 9/11 showed the world that evil does exist, could it be that the lesson Americans take away from the day is that evil also exists within the souls of Americans? Or is 9/11 simply further proof of our innocence and righteousness?

A better response to the tenth anniversary – better still to conduct it fourteen years out (two times the perfect number) – would be to ask how our minds have changed. In my own case, I have changed my mind about the following:

– the desire for retribution that led to U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was unbecoming and even sinful;

– the United States’ foreign policy establishment may have been wiser to keep an eye on China than Al Qaeda;

– paying $2.29 for a gallon of gas is cheap.

Again, I don’t mean to minimize the loss that relatives and friends experienced from the attacks on 9/11, or the national sense of vulnerability. The good Mrs. Hart reminds me that I said on that morning of September 11, 2001 from our kitchen in Southern California, with tears in my eyes, “I would never say another bad word about New York City.” (I believe I broke that promise the year the Yankees beat the Phillies in the World Series.) The attacks shook me, indeed. But ten years should produce more reflection and prudence than trembling.