People’s History: Jim Sullivan
Pictured below is Jim Sullivan, this week’s featured elder, in conversation with Claire DesHotels, a Master of Divinity student at Loyola University. Jim and Claire spoke at a November 24, 2019 “People’s History of Vatican II” gathering in Chicago. The following reflection is by Lissa Romell, an integral member of the CTA Chicago chapter. In this piece, Lissa focuses on Jim's words in the context of the stories we create, as individuals and as church.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.” Ezekiel 36:26
“There is a story of God with the people of God. And for this reason, when Paul is asked to explain the reason for faith in Jesus Christ, he does not start from Jesus Christ: he begins from history.” Pope Francis, May 7, 2020
At this moment in history, we are beginning to understand like never before the stories we tell ourselves—the narratives in which we are embedded, often unconsciously. As Catholics, many of us are also acutely aware of the present necessity for individual and societal transformation at a heart-level.
We hear throughout scripture the promise of a new heart, a new spirit. And we know that this is not a one-time deal. It is an ongoing process of faith and grace, the work of making present the beloved community in the here and now. In the process, our hearts are transformed over and over again.
The Second Vatican Council was one such transformation. And one of the hearts made new was Jim’s. This is his story and our story—the story of the promise of God alive in the history of Call To Action and the people of God.
Jim describes growing up “very traditional, sort of scared, a lot of religious in the family, and always Catholic, very Irish Catholic, very narrow.” These were the days when “anybody who didn’t go to Catholic school, you called them ‘a public.’” He remembers, “we thought we had sinned once for going into a non-Catholic church. It was just a church in the neighborhood. I wanted to see what the building looked like and I walked in. And I KNEW that was a sin!”
The narrowness was personal too: “I’m still learning self-acceptance, especially as a gay person coming out and all. Once you divorce that from any religious judgment, that’s a long, slow process. Because you’re not welcome. [I was] completely repressed, [as if] I’m loathsome to even think of anything, you know, the self-loathing, the condemnation. So just completely repressed, years of alcoholism too...”
We are all born and enter into a story already in process. We unknowingly take it on as our own—the life-giving as well as the judgmental, the condemning, the narrow. Yet underneath it all is always the great story of salvation history, the persistence of God’s promise and love for us.
“I was just awed and blown away [by Vatican II]! Every time something came from John XXIII, it was a new sense of freedom. ‘Gosh, is this really the Pope?’ I was used to the Pope—Pius XII was Pope forever. In that era, you grew up and there was only one Pope, there was only one President—that was in the fourth term of FDR. Pius XII for 30 years. So even though he had many good things I later found, the doctrine of the mystical body, more liturgical reform—as a figure, he was like the condemner-in-chief, I suppose I thought.”
“And then all of a sudden this love and openness coming from John, it was just sort of mind-blowing, I didn’t quite know how to handle it. It’s not like I had these expectations, you better do this or that. I was just, ‘Oh my God. Is this church too? How wonderful! I’m not sure I’m ready for this much freedom.’ You know? Because we’re used to a life so structured and so defined.”
And God continued inviting, renewing...
“I went to Dominican-established schools even through high school and then to all of a sudden go to a Catholic college, and the priest, a nice old guy, says ‘Jimmy, do you really think God is going to send you to hell for eating a piece of bacon? That’s not my God.’ What do you mean ‘your God?’”
“It was liberating but it was scary. ‘You mean it’s this open-ended?’ It took me another 30 years to realize, I mean another 40 years, might make it 50, to say ‘You mean, God really loves me the way I am?’”
And God’s love persisted...
“Then [there was] the move toward Franciscan theology too, Richard Rohr and original blessing as opposed to an obsession with original sin. You know the theories of incarnation and atonement. God wasn’t forced to do this, God would want to be with us as response to sin. God’s response is love because that is the nature of God. The nature of God is pouring out love that has a tendency to want to be shared and to spread itself.
“My whole orientation is that way, toward a more open and loving church and toward a more open definition of church. Embracing others and walking together, and being on the path together. It’s slow but it’s a happy thing in that it seems after all these years, it’s still a live thing. There’s still possibility for growth. This is a live undertaking. There are fellow pilgrims here and we’re walking toward growth and we’re walking toward freedom.
“Years ago it was super uptight about sex and rigorously clerical. That’s why I’m proud of the Irish. You know, Ireland overwhelmingly passed gay marriage. And Varadkar, the prime minister of Ireland [at the time], is openly gay. And during the abuse scandal early on, the Vatican tried to quiet the criticism of the institutional church, and they threatened under Benedict to withdraw the papal legate—like Ireland is no longer recognized by the Holy See. And the parliament and government of Ireland responded: “Phfff” (laughter). Really. Like ‘we don’t care.’ So that’s sort of beautiful how the most clerical of all cultures has this freedom.
“Sometimes I get stuck on ‘oh everything is so slow.’ It’s inspiring that the Irish church, the people have turned around so. And they’re very loving and believing people. They’re, I think, very faithful people. But they have, in the space of about a generation or so, become so independent and affirming of gospel values and not worrying about clerical authority and ecclesiastical structure so much.”
We can sense Jim’s story interweaving with our salvation story, this story of ongoing creation of the beloved community, of clear vision and hope—a relational story of our interconnectedness with each other and our triune God.
“I believe in the priesthood of the laity. I believe that God is between us. A priest friend sent me something in Spanish about how God is between us. That’s a new understanding—it’s not God is with us, he’s that ghost in the chair over there, he’s the other person. Entre, I think the Spanish word can be translated not just among, like he’s one of the people, but between. He is in this interaction between us.
“I’m getting to believe that Eucharist can be broadened too... that there’s a form of Eucharist that can take place without a priest, when we’re gathered. I’m not up to argue, the theology is developing for me. There’s a form of Eucharist there, when God is present in community.
“The institutional church is dying in some ways. A new church has to be born. Who knows what it’s going to look like? It goes back to my idea with my own kids, ‘Come on now! Church is more than that. You’ve got to broaden your own idea of church.’ And, somehow, out of that [is] this birthing of new church.”
From Vatican II, we’ve gained “a potential for growth and future and new life, [and the] church is losing structures that are too authoritarian, that deserve to die. I long for a more inclusive idea of church among the people. There are a lot of places within the church where it is inclusive and there are inclusive parishes. There are a lot of people in the church reaching out but, in a way, it’s up to the people to recognize that as church and to embrace it and join with others.
“One of my passions for the future—for everybody—is, you gotta have a bigger idea of church. People [are] always saying ‘the church says.’ Dang! Aren’t we church? Come on, let’s pick up the ball.”
The ball is indeed in our court. God is ever-ready to renew our hearts and spirits. Conscious co-creation of our story as the people of God has never been more urgent. For as Pope Francis reflects in his Urbi et Orbi meditation on the Gospel of Mark:
We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying “We are perishing” (v. 38), so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this.
