For the past two weeks, the attention of the entire nation and much of the world has been focused on the tragic events at Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado, resulting in the senseless death of 14 students and a teacher, physical wounds to many others, and emotional trauma to the hundreds of faculty, students and family members affected by this massacre.
The news media have been filled with commentaries offering a diagnosis of the cause for this violent outbreak and a prescription for its remedy. All, I suspect, have some valid insights. Let me add still another.
It seems to me that there is a growing polarization both within our world and society wherein individuals and groups are categorized and stereotyped either as good or bad, rich or poor, native or foreigner, liberal or conservative, winners or losers.
More and more, tolerance, moderation and a commitment to healing, reconciliation and the search for common ground seem to be in short supply. Not that we must always agree with one another or see eye to eye, but we must seek to understand each other by listening to one another instead of labeling each other and by being sensitive to each other's needs, concerns, viewpoints and contributions.
Many cultures
We, in other words, must make dialogue, community building and respect for the dignity of each person priorities in our personal, social and ecclesial lives. In particular, we in our Church and nation must address aggressively and constructively the challenge of multi-culturalism.
In the United States, Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of the population. Currently, Hispanics number 27 million (about 10 percent) of the total population. By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that 23 percent of the U.S. population will be Hispanic. Of even greater significance is the fact that after the year 2030, Hispanics will count for 60 percent of the population growth, while the non-Hispanic white population will have no growth and a decline in number.
A similar growth in the Asian population is projected. Today, 7.2 million Americans are Asian-Americans; by 2050, it is estimated that 12 percent of the U.S. population will be Asian.
This phenomenon, coupled with the continued strong presence of the Afro-American community, will mean that approximately half of the U.S. population and the Catholic Church by the mid-21st century will be non-white, and we will experience a growth in Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.
Implications
Obviously, this new reality will have tremendous implications for how we adapt in relating to this shifting racial, religious, ethnic and cultural mix. Will it be one of cultural colonialism and religious arrogance, or one of cultural pluralism and genuine religious dialogue and tolerance?
There are those, for example, who believe that the present economic globalization will result automatically in a cultural globalization, and in the homogenization of diverse strains wherein western culture (American and European) will be the dominant strain.
Such a vision, especially for its proponents in the United States, assumes that in the cultural war between globalism and tribal societies, between tradition and the information age, between ancient truths and revolutionary ideas and technologies that are shattering society shaped by those truths, the new ideas and technologies will triumph and have a made-in-America look.
As R.C. Longworth of The Chicago Tribune notes, most Americans see our nation and its ideals as positive and benign, and conclude that these ideals -- democracy, a free economy, consumerism, untrammeled communications, tolerance and equality between the sexes -- can only benefit the rest of the world. So, frequently, we in the United States see ourselves as missionaries, proselytizing our creed, expecting -- even insisting -- that everyone become just like us.
Different view
It comes as a shock, therefore, to learn that not everyone wants to be just like us, that many people around the globe, and even within the United States, feel threatened and frightened. Indeed, some are furious at what this revolution is doing to their lives.
In a world where half the people have never placed a telephone call, the idea of global communication is not exciting, just frightening. The appearance of even modestly dressed women on TV screens is deeply offensive to societies where no woman can be seen unveiled. The principle of free speech and individual choice is subversive in many places where parental or tribal authority has governed life for millennia. The moral relevance and tolerance of diversity that are hallmarks of America are challenges to societies that are governed by one accepted truth, like Islam.
Thus, we in the United States would do ourselves a favor by toning down the triumphalism that so frequently permeates our current status as the world's only superpower and by recognizing that we cannot -- or at least should not -- act like some colonial power that seeks to embrace less enlightened people and to make them as happy as we are. Too often, this embrace will become a fatal squeeze, and those other people, fighting for their lives, will strike back.
World church
Similarly, we in the Church must be prepared to shed our Euro-American cultural and intellectual superiority and become more catholic, in the root sense of this word: namely, embracing the whole of human experience.
It was Father Karl Rahner who first used the term "world church" implicit in the very word "catholic." He stated in 1979 that "the Second Vatican Council is, in a rudimentary form, still groping for identity, the church's first official self-actualization as a world church."
However, as Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee noted in the recent address to the Canon Law Society of America, "For many in the west, world church is still a rather frightening concept, one they feel was not intended by Vatican II. Many in the West have not yet come to terms with the idea that Catholicism is shifting now to Asia and the Third World, and that the future world church will not be dominated by western nations, but will be predominantly non-white, a coalition of a mixture of many races and cultures. Many in their heads may understand this is the direction the church is moving, but they have not yet come to accept it in their hearts....The church of the West, for the most part, is very much in denial. To many in the West, the very idea of a cultural pluralism does not seem to be a phenomenon compatible with Catholicity."
Changes ahead
As we approach the new millennium, therefore, we in the Church should not abandon the intellectual and cultural heritage of the Euro-American West; but we must be open to the intellectual, cultural and spiritual traditions, both written and oral, of Asia, Africa, Native America and Oceania.
We need not be afraid of these multicultural challenges; indeed, we can be tremendously enriched by them and the whole process can be mutually beneficial.
But to do so, we must both strengthen our own comprehension of the western intellectual tradition of our Judaic-Christian heritage, and muster up the humility, sensitivity and courage to put on new lenses which will enable us to correct our western -- and especially our American -- myopia.