Today’s readings: Numbers 11,25-29; James 5,1-6; Mark 9,38-43.45.47-48
If there is a sphere of human existence where elitism is totally abominable it is precisely in the ambit of religion. Indeed, religion is that expression of faith that simultaneously professes the greatness of the Godhead and humanity’s ultimate dependence upon it. Christianity formulates this dependence both in terms of our having been gratuitously created by God and also in terms of our sinful nature, which utterly needs a saviour.
St Paul does not mince his words: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3,23). Here there is absolutely no room for religious elitism for the simple reason that, from the word go, we are all in the same predicament and on the same level.
Yet I am wont to believe that my form of worship is more acceptable and pleasing to God than that of others, particularly those whose faith differs from mine, but also those who share my faith and yet are deemed to be inferior to me. When the efforts of others do not conform exactly with our own ideals or our own modus operandi, we may immediately find fault with them because we fail to understand the fact that, when God chooses someone to serve him, he is not contemporaneously relegating all the others to a second-class association with himself.
When the efforts of others do not conform exactly with our own ideals or our own modus operandi, we may immediately find fault with them
The fear that women’s rights might be suppressed in Afghanistan is a very real cause for concern that has, as its basis, a doctrinally charged system of inequality. As George Orwell, writing in a different context, rightly put it, “(but) some – are more equal than others” (a phrase that actually pre-dates Animal Farm).
The huge efforts of the Catholic Church in the last century to offer an ecumenical embrace is a most welcome thrust of the spirit of God to help overcome religious elitism that can grip any institution of faith. While upholding the truths we believe, inter-religious dialogue too, especially with Jews and Muslims, has been inspired by the same outlook.
Closer to home, a strange phenomenon we have been witnessing in both secular and Catholic media in recent years is a tendency to present Pope Francis as being at loggerheads with the rest of the Church. Sometimes he is portrayed as being highly orthodox, fighting to eradicate all the moral evils that have tainted the Body of Christ on earth. But at other times much is said to discredit him as though he has deviated from authentic Church teaching.
Even his claim to papacy is portrayed as being illegitimate, or at the very least, dubious. Any form of discourse that is aimed at subverting the papacy or relegating the pope’s teachings to some kind of heretical interpretation of the faith may, despite ostensibly good intentions, turn out to be a very apt diabolical tool to fragment the Church. Peter can never be divided from the Body of Christ.
In a very Christ-like fashion, Jesus reprimands the disciples’ sense of entitlement over and against others by two manoeuvres, one more startling than the other. First, after assuring a reward to those who treat with kindness those who belong to him, he puts forward the image of a child as one who must be treated with exceptional care and respect. Not only are the disciples not to impede the spiritual development of “outsiders” to the group, but they are not even to impede the growth in faith of the most vulnerable and impressionable (which is what giving scandal would amount to). Second – and this is particularly striking – Jesus does demand an action of exclusion and rejection; however, it is not the ostracising of other members of the human race. Rather, it is the severing and elimination of the sinful members of one’s own body. This, indeed, is a healthy severing.