The Many Miracles of Rick Ankiel

by Jason Wojciechowski

Do you remember when Rick Ankiel was awesome? I do, by god. Twice, in fact. I remember when he was a 20-year-old phenom pitcher, throwing 175 innings, striking out ten men per nine, and matching the .382 slugging percentage that Rookie-of-the-Year Rafael Furcal pounded out. I was 18 at the time, doing my level best to finish my first year of college without utter academic disaster, drinking Bombay Sapphire while composing papers on Russian literature, but we all keep one eye on the game.

Hats off to you
Photo by chetthejet

As it happened, maybe Ankiel could have used a little chemical depressant in his system. I won't even rehash his 2001. It was painful to watch. It was painful to hear about. It was painful to have in the back of my mind as something I knew was going on even while I didn't have a ton of time to consume baseball. I'm not anything like a Cardinals fan, but hey, Mark McGwire was slugging .492 with a sub-.200 batting average while J.D. Drew hit like a Hall-of-Famer (specifically Mickey Mantle, given the time he missed due to injury), and I've always been a fan, for different reasons, of both guys. Plus, Craig Paquette was on that St. Louis team. So what I'm saying is that I rooted for Ankiel just a few percentage points harder than your typical non-Cardinals fan might have otherwise, and felt just a few percentage points more pain than your typical non-Missourian.

Signage

A troubling story out of Olympia, Washington highlights one of the real disappointing aspects of American culture and politics today.

In protest of a nativity scene on Capitol grounds, atheists in Olympia, Washington, put up an obnoxious sign celebrating the winter solstice and actively dumping on the religion of every single person who does not believe what they do. As you can read, the sign celebrates the winter solstice (Fine, you want to celebrate a winter holiday, that's OK with The Common Man, though it should probably be pointed out that the solstice was used as a holiday for early religions for countless years before you decided it was a secular day.), while calling religion "myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." Dan Barker, the founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (who put up the sign), despite his sign's cartoonishly ridiculous hyperbole, said "It's not that we are trying to coerce anyone; in a way our sign is a signal of protest. If there can be a Nativity scene saying that we are all going to hell if we don't bow down to Jesus, we should be at the table to share our views." Later, he commented, "When people ask us, 'Why are you hateful? Why are you putting up something critical of people's holidays? -- we respond that we kind of feel that the Christian message is the hate message. On that Nativity scene, there is this threat of internal violence if we don't submit to that master. Hate speech goes both ways." Reports indicate that, amazingly, he said this without a hint of irony. There is a threat of internal violence emenating from every single depiction of a cute little baby boy lying in a manger with his mother, father/Joseph, and ox and sheep. That ox, man, he's an intimidating bastard.

Look, The Common Man has no problem with atheists. He does not understand them, as he thinks atheism is the antithesis of logical thought, but he hopes that atheists would provide him the same respect for choosing to be Catholic as he has for their beliefs (or non-beliefs). But often today, The Common Man has been befuddled by the growing phenomenon of evangelized atheists, who see it as their mission to spread their non-religion as obnoxiously as possible. Christopher Hitchens, of course, is the most visible face of this movement, but Barker and his organization appear to be fighting the same battle, using the same in-your-face, belittling, and, frankly, mean tactics. It's not that religions themselves have not been guilty of the same behavior in the past (and present), just that it is sad to see any group casually and cruelly dismiss the beliefs of another.

The story of the atheist sign, however, continues, as it was stolen from the Legislative Building less than an hour after it was put up. After some time, it was found in a ditch and dropped off at a local radio station. There is no word, of course, about the religious views of the thief (though The Common Man is sure you can guess) who violated the eighth comandment, but this kind of childish display is just as bad as the taunting of the atheists, and only does nothing to soften the debate.

Two weeks ago, Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight.com wrote that he thought Republicans lost the election this year because, in part, they have forgotten how to persuade. The rise of talk radio, according to Silver, has fooled conservatives into believing that stimulation is the same as persuasion, "almost uniquely to radio, most of the audience is not even paying attention to you, because most people listen to radio when they're in the process of doing something else. (If they weren't doing something else, they'd be watching TV). They are driving, mowing the lawn, washing the dishes -- and you have to work really hard to sustain their attention. Hence what [David Foster] Wallace refers to as the importance of "stimulating" the listener." Silver goes on to argue that the McCain campaign focused on stimulation rather than persuasion, mistaking creating a spectacle for converting hearts and minds.

Silver's theory certainly sounds plausible to The Common Man, but The Common Man would humbly suggest that conservatives are not the only group who has forgotten how to persuade. Indeed, Americans seem to have become so enamoured of the shrill, incoherent simultaneous back-and-forth that they hear on radio and see on television that they have begun to accept provoking a response to be the same thing as persuading an audience to agree with their position. Persuasion is a manly art, one that seems to be rapidly wasting away. The Common Man hopes that the recent success by the Obama campaign to win over reluctant voters inspires other groups to attempt dialogue, rather than shallow, showy, but ultimately counter-productive displays like the ones above.

Hello...Newman

Since this past Easter, The Common Man has officially been Catholic (as opposed to a virtually Catholic, which is a little like being "near-beer" in that you get the same beer-belly of guilt but none of the benefits of consumption, such as beer buzz, the feeling of invincibility, and the miraculous ability to eat an entire pizza and a plate of cheese-fries at 3 AM). And he's proud to be Catholic. But before he became Catholic, stories like this kept The Common Man and the Church at arm's length from one another.

According to the Associated Press, a Greenville, SC priest, Jay Scott Newman, sent a letter around to his parishioners, telling them that they must do penance before receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama. Newman, obviously forgetting Kang's short-lived campaign slogan "Abortions for all!" (which he and his campaign team quickly changed to "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!") claims that Obama is "the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president." He went on to say,

Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.

What The Common Man has learned, however, is that while Newman is being terribly narrow-minded and dead wrong about the tenor of an Obama administration and the relative merits of an Obama presidency versus a McCain one (certainly a vote for John McCain would have violated one or several Catholic tenets), he is an outlier within the church. Already, his own diocese has contradicted the priest, saying "Father Newman's statements do not adequately reflect the Catholic Church's teachings. Any comments or statements to the contrary are repudiated." Indeed, whenever a priest goes off the reservation and says something ridiculous, it seems as though it gets picked up in the mainstream press. Meanwhile, obscure protestant bigots around the country are allowed to say what they will without media attention.

The Common Man doesn't know where the fascination with Catholocism and the Catholic priesthood has come from, and why the media's obsession with the laity is largely focused on Catholics. Perhaps it has roots in a 19th and early 20th Century anti-immigrant backlash that mythologized the Pope and popularized the idea that Catholics were somehow subserviant to the whims of the pontiff, like the orders of a Catholic George III. Or maybe it's that Catholics, for all their success in this country, are still a minority (though a growing and not a very marginalized one). Or maybe it's the Latin. Or the incense. Or the pretty robes. It doesn't matter. The Common Man doesn't necessarily need the media's hyper-focus on Catholocism to be rectified (because all powerful organizations should be watched and questioned), but wishes that others were subject to the same level of scrutiny.

Meanwhile, American bishops have indeed been active in drumming up support for the anti-abortion movement. Last Tuesday, according to the AP, "the nation's Catholic bishops vowed...to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights." The Common Man hopes they do, and that their efforts bring about some kind of consensus between them and Barack Obama. Indeed, while reasonable people can and do disagree on the issue of abortion, surely all can agree that it would be better for everyone involved if there were fewer of them. And perhaps by working together, instead of throwing around heated rhetoric, these disparate groups can come together to promote more comprehensive and useful sexual education and to better educate parents on how to keep their children from having unplanned pregnancies. Anyway, that's what the Obama-supporting The Common Man is going to pray for before he takes Communion on Sunday.

In This Corner...

Today has been a day of celebration in the Catholic Church, the day The Common Man and his mackerel snapping brethren commemorate the founding and continued existence of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the official papal church in Rome. The Basilica was founded in the fourth century, and was originally a gift of Emperor Constantine I. It is, by all accounts, a wondrous building with a unique architecture that the world is lucky is still standing.



Indeed, sometimes The Common Man has a hard time believing Christianity is still standing after 2000 years. After all, Christian churches have, throughout their existence, brought a large amount of suffering on themselves with their schisms, their wars, their persecutions. If it weren't for the awesome guy who founded it, The Common Man thinks that it may well have gone by the wayside years ago.

And, as if to confirm that is the miracle of Christianity's continued existence, comes this CNN story out of Jerusalem. In preparation for a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Greek Orthodox and Armenian monks were engaged in negotiations for who would be in the procession. When negotiations broke down, Israeli police had to be called in to break up the ensuing battle royale.



It was Brother against Brother in some monk on monk violence as, apparently, dozens of holy men scrapped over who had the right to enter the church. The Armenians, commemorating the discovery of a relic they believe to be the cross of Christ's Crucifixion, wanted to get into the church, built on what many believe is the site of Christ's Crucifixion and resurrection. The Greek Orthodox monks, who are claiming some kind of right to the church and the site, wanted to ensure that the Armenians couldn't make any claim on the site for themselves. According to one Greek Orthodox monk, "We were keeping resistance so that the procession could not pass through ... and establish a right that they don't have."

Think about that for a moment. Two thousand years after Christ's church was founded, the various factions are fighting in the street over who owns his church. Indeed, this petty infighting saddens The Common Man, as it trivializes Christ's sacrifice and desire for his church to be one. And it only gives the entire name of Christianity a bad name. In a time when Christians are being persecuted for their beliefs, how can Christians persecute themselves? Particularly when the rabble beating the snot out of each other is composed entirely of men who are supposed to be holy.

And the really terrible thing is, you know it was a terrible fight. After all, we're talking about Christian monks. Were these Shaolin monks, a bunch of monks fighting in the street would be awesome (and directed by Ang Lee). Instead, you got a bunch of scraggly, scrawny, bearded buys tugging said beards as hard as they can. That there is not fighting that pleases the Lord. Rather, it's the fighting that makes the Lord wish he were only selectively omnipotent, so he wouldn't have to know about it.

Their sissy-fighting has turned one of Christianity's greatest churches into a commodity that must be possessed, not honored and revered. And in doing so, commodifies both the death and resurrection of Christ. Then again, after 2000 years of bloodshed, maybe that's the Christianity that Christianity deserves.

Indian Giver

Christianity (or at least the Christian nations) rightly gets blamed for a large share of the problems in the globe today. Indeed, it was in the name of spreading Christianity to the furthest corners of the globe (tough to do, of course, because the globe is spherical) that colonization became so fashionable in the second millennium. Of course, economic and political gain were major driving forces as well, but the positive p.r. line was that Jesus's word needed to be taught to the "heathens." And, of course, the displacement of peoples, the redrawing of borders, the cultural (and literal) extermination of peoples, and the playing of one ethnicity off against another that followed played a huge part in ruining the Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia that we see today. And through it all, the most visible face of the Western colonial powers was usually those of the Christian missionary. Also, given that the crusades and Spanish conquest of the Americas led to (probably) the largest level of religious violence in history (not Christianity's best hours), The Common Man can understand a certain level of animosity toward Christ and his teachings, and toward Christian churches in general, throughout the world.

With all Christianity has done wrong, perhaps the greatest testament to the religion (and to its founder) is how it continues to thrive, even in the places that were once oppressed by it. Indeed, it's impressive how fast church populations are growing in Africa, and how they are maintaining their numbers in atmospheres hostile to them (China, Egypt, Afghanistan, etc.). Yet, for all Christianity gets put upon for its failures in the past, and as much as its dominance in the West is taken for granted, it's amazing to realize that Christianity is often on the receiving end of violence as it attempts to grow further in these hostile areas.

In particular, Pope Benedict's decision to declare Sister Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception the first Indian saint drags this phenomenon, kicking and screaming, into the light. St. Alphonsa was born during a premature labor, brought on when a snake wrapped itself around her mother's neck in the night. She suffered severe eczema for over a year and was permanently disabled after severely burning her feet. Though she apparently suffered greatly in life, St. Alphonsa, according to Catholic Online she "is usually noted for her acceptance and love of suffering and pain" because of its connection to Christ's suffering. "It is a rare spiritual height for the Christian soul than a passive fatalistic resignation to one’s problems or pain," the article continues.

Yet, the suffering that Alphonsa endured and apparently welcomed is also being meted out upon Christians in India by a hard-line element of Hindus, particularly those in the state of Orissa. These attacks, according to the Associated Press, "have left dozens of people dead, dozens of churches destroyed and thousands of people homeless, many forced to live for days in thick forests until they could make their way to safety." Since the August assassination of a conservative Hindu leader (by Maoist extremists having no connection to the state's Christian population), "groups blamed Christians and set fire to a Christian orphanage. That has been followed by mob attacks on churches as well as shops and homes owned by Christian. At least 28 people have been killed." And the problem is spreading and becoming more entrenched, as right-wing Hindu parties are becoming legitimate parts of state governments.

The attacks undermine a) just how weak any minority population is in the face of fervor and b) Christianity's struggles to gain a foothold in the Roman Empire is mirrored today in the struggle of Christians and their martyrdom for their faith in hostile environments. It seems, indeed, to be the nature of any "other" to encounter resistance within a dominant culture. And The Common Man isn't sure whether that's reassuring (as many people seem to have outgrown the competition) or scary (considering all the new and exciting ways people have learned to kill each other in recent years). Either way, this problem deserves greater public scrutiny whether it's in India, Michigan, or England, where the other is unfairly attacked (physically or otherwise) for trying to secure its right to exist. Perhaps by framing the issue in terms of what is happening to Christianity, the West can be roused to act (or to pressure others to act).