I was intrigued by a recent article in The NY Times entitled, “Mexican Church Takes a Closer Look at Donors,” which looks at the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico. Apparently it receives large donations from Mexican drug lords. It’s convicting for several reasons, and certainly made the ash on my head yesterday feel a little bit more real. The first element I found convicting, especially during the season of Lent, was the idea of “an acceptable offering and sacrifice.” The article opens by pointing out that the Roman Catholic Chapel in Pachuca, Mexico has a plaque that honors its patron Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, commander of the crime syndicate called Zetas. The plaque bears a quote from Psalm 143, and there is an inference that this is all deeply wrong: “How dare they take that dirty money!” Father Coogan, a priest in the area, bluntly explains why the church has taken the drug lords’ money, “Hey, the guy who owns the factory, he’s a bastard, but we take his money, so why not take the drug money?” He captures exactly what makes the Psalm quote on this drug lord’s plaque so stunning: it brings one back down to Earth. The church has traditionally understood Psalm 143 as one of penance; the opening verses are in the form of a general confession reminding us that everyone, even the purest of givers, without God’s grace and mercy, is actually – to quote Father Coogan – a bastard. On our own, we have more in common with the Zetas than we do the righteousness of God.
The story also evokes the theology of the cross powerfully. The cross reminds us that when it comes to good and evil, in an ultimate sense, we have no idea what God is actually doing. We don’t see or understand the things of God. Elvira Rodriguez Lopez’s quote says it best (rubbing the Pharisee in me the wrong way), “the mysteries of God are great and that all donors should be thanked.” Amen! The cross reminds us that God works in evil things, through suffering and character flaws, even local drug lords to lead us into Christ’s arms. That we can give thanks for all things, even the Zetas, because God is responsible, and he makes the mess in order to clean it up his way, for his is The Power and the Glory (ht Graham Greene).
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24 responses to “The Power and The Glory and Luke 19”
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I think the Swiss bankers felt the same way about the Nazis. God moves in mysterious ways, our rationalizations to confirm.
Oh, this is rich.
I can't tell exactly what either MC or MS mean, but it does bring up an interesting ethical debate. If a drug lord gives you the money to feed 1,000 hungry people, is it better to refuse? Who is helped by your refusal? It seems like the only help is that it helps you claim some sort of moral superiority, which is, I think, what Jacob is getting at…why not feed the hungry people, with the knowledge that any money you might get from anyone would be horribly stained by human-ness…
hm… what one man calls hypocrisy another calls the justification of the ungodly. sounds right to me.
Well, Nick, that would all be fine, if God were not there, and able to work without the aid of drug lords. To accuse someone of "moral superiority" for refusal to take money that is known to come from cold blooded killers and is,in fact, the direct fruit of systematic murder, may itself be a form of high handed "grace-judgment" of the highest order. Hey, I'm from Alabama, and our slave lords feed a lot of people who might have starved to death in Africa, but instead helped build a bunch of beautiful Episcopal churches. Praise God?
This long history of a cozy, "non-judgmental", relationships with the power elite, back to the conquistadors, is exactly why the RC church is so hated by a large segment of the population in Mexico and throughout Latin America.
The Lord did not separate the wheat from the tares,but determined that they should coexist until the Day of Judgement.Michael ,I thought Lawyers defend all.
Let's say that I am walking along with you and I pull out a gun and kill the first person we come to on the street, take her purse, hand it to you and say,"Preacher, take this and go feed the poor." Are you trying to "separate the wheat from the chaff" or being "judgmental" if you refuse the money? God ,after all, has worked through my evil to put this blessing into your hand.
Nick, there is more than moral superiority involved. It's important to think of long-term consequences, not just short-term. If in the long run we can make a difference in how much power drug lords have over a community, then refusing good things in the short run is the right thing to do. Accepting money from a person necessarily legitimates that person's means of acquiring it. To think otherwise is to take a fatalistic view of crime, in which your own endorsement, secret or not, means nothing.
It is one thing to acknowledge that deep down we're all bastards. It's another thing to say there's nothing to be done about it, so let's just take the money.
This – to me – seems to stem from a very wierd confusion of the two kingdoms, and I'm not sure I can disentangle everything.
It seems to stem from the idea that there is no virtue in civic righteousness.
Yes, God separates the wheat and the tares *in his church* at the end of age – but the actions of the church seem to serve to give a boost to the fortunes of the givers in this world (see the excerpt on Amado Carrillo Fuentes).
Much better to accept every donation, on the proviso that it is given without a need for recognition, and pray for the souls of those who give.
I've got a nice can of Old Chub awaiting me at home – I'll toast Michael Cooper tonight.
Nick – an "interesting ethical debate" is one thing, but to simply say to the purveyors of systematic death and corruption "Praise the Lord and pass the offering plate" is really a bridge too far.
Chris E and Jameson are both entirely right and have given very clear accounts of what is confusing people. There is a big confusion of the Two Kingdoms going on and when the RC church (or any church) becomes regularly entangled in regular systematic murder it is complicit in it — that's the harm being done.
Drug Lords are businessmen as well as murderers. They make choices with their money based on shrewd business sense. They are BUYING something when they "give" that money — they wouldn't give it otherwise. They are buying moral legitimacy via implicit church sanction.
StampDawg – "Moral legitimacy by implicit church sanction" doesn't exist. We think it does, or at least, that it ought to. This sometimes takes the form of clergy not marrying people who are living together, or who are already divorced, or refusing communion to a "notorious sinner." But this is an ethical black hole, isn't it? Who can we ACCEPT donations from? Obviously, you'll say that donations from a liar don't come freighted with the same weight as donations from a drug lord. MC – I'd probably react to your gift the same way I'd react to the drug lord: take the money and call the cops! Actually, that's not true. For myself in the actual world, I wouldn't take the money…I'd be terrified to get involved. But in an "interesting ethical debate" I would! So…what's the dividing line? Actual civil crime? What level of moral turpitude prevents one from donating to the church?
If the goal here is to be intentionally provacative and to just have an interesting debate, then I get it, though a bit begrudgingly. But if we're seriously going to suggest that this sort of thing is all ok under the guise that the ground is level at the foot of the Cross, then we've crossed a very uncomfortable rubican
I agree, Matt.
In my defense, I did note that I wouldn't actually do it. But fair enough, there are MANY good reasons not to take donations from drug dealers. StampDawg brings up the classic: they're buying something with their money; it's not a donation at all. But I remain convinced that those reasons are all very wise "first use" reasons, (and therefore no different than the reasons a daycare might refuse similar donations) and that the third use "because they are bad people and taking their money makes us bad, too" reason is untenable.
I still find Nick's answer unsatisfying. If I'm a minister taking donations from Tony Soprano or Stringer Bell, I am complicit in his criminal circle, and that is a different animal altogether from acknowledging that every parishioner and congregant is a sinner. If that makes me an advocate of the "third use," then so be it.
I have changed my views on this. If the money is earned in a corrupt manner for "the sake of" builiding a Church, to accept that is wrong as this is being complicit in the motivation. However, if money earned impurely is given to the Church as a form of atonement to do good, then I think this has merit. The money has to go somewhere after it leads the criminal's hand so it might do some good.
I think stampdawgs discussion of the two kingdoms is the best way to approach this ethically. However, the reason behind the post was to discuss the idea behind the article: is any offering truly clean. If they quit taking money from the drug lords would that somehow make them more righteous. Absolutely not.
My church was built by and has plaques dedicated to J.P. Morgan, John Noble Stern, etc. We call them bankers and buisnessmen, but the truth is one could just as equally call them criminals. It is a known fact that Morgan was a low-church believing Protestant Episcopalian and at the same time a ruthless tycoon, can't one also be a model of Catholic charity and a ruthless drug lord (simul iustus et pecatur).
The point was before God no one and nothing is righteous before his judgement seat and God actually works through darkness and suffering, even slavery in AL and Swiss bankers.
A history professor of mine, who was from an aristocratic Southern family, told the story of a large group of KKK men coming into her church, in full white-robed regalia, during the offertory, and depositing a large sack of cash at the alter, then processing out. Her father, the warden, insisted that the church refuse the money and made it known why. I suppose he was a judgmental Pharisee and a practitioner of the dreaded "third use", but I still think he was one hell of a Christian.
MC you have missed the point of the post. It is not to discuss the ethic of taking drug money or not, nor is it to endorse drugs-although in the words of Rick James, "cocaine is a hell of a drug"-murder, or the Klan. The point was to put you, ME, Nick Lannon, your history professor, and the Zetas on the same page.
Also to make that cruciform point that we don't know what God is doing, but what the devil intends for evil he uses for good. Blasting the 3rd use was never on my radar.
While I have no doubt that we are all sinners before a holy God, and, being a crusty Presbyterian at heart, I don't flinch from acknowledging that God uses the Assyrians, Nazis, KKK, etc. of this world to accomplish His providential will, against their wishes, this does not mean that we join hands with them and slap memorial plaques on our churches in their honor. I couldn't care less about any discussion of "third use"…that was just a little throw away dig 😉
Luke 16:9;>)
Matthew 6:3,4