Illuminations Famed scholar has never been one for
diplomacy
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
Crossing paths with Jesuit Fr.
Robert Taft, an American who has taught at the Pontifical Oriental Institute
here for more than 30 years, can be something like spotting a bright orange tie
or a pair of red Converse sneakers amid a sea of gray suits at a corporate
headquarters. Such flashes of sartorial dissent can be a way to express a bit
of life, of rage against the machine, amid the numbing sameness of
institutional culture.
Its not that in the hallways of ecclesiastical power, Taft,
a famed scholar specializing in the liturgies of Eastern churches, is the guy
with the orange tie. (His most daring fashion touch is a slightly whimsical
beret.) Its that in this gray clerical world, Taft is the orange
tie -- a colorful, larger-than-life tribute to nonconformism, something like a
cross between Fr. Yves Congar and comedian Lenny Bruce. He combines vast
erudition (this is a man who scours liturgical texts in Old Slavonic the way
some people do the sports pages) with a sailors touch for salty
language.
Taft is the kind of man who, during a three-block walk to dinner
on a wintry Roman night, can move seamlessly from singing bawdy English
drinking songs, to explaining why the Orthodox misinterpret the fourth crusade,
to praising the Arnold Schwarzenegger shoot-em-up True
Lies.
Examples of the wit and wisdom of Taft:
On the argument made by some Orthodox polemicists that Eastern
Catholics should choose between being Latins or being Orthodox:
Thats like asking the blacks in Georgia to choose between going
back to Liberia or Gabon. Maybe theyd like to stay where they
are.
On why a particular cardinal chose to stay in Rome rather than
return to the Third World after a curial assignment: He got used to a
toilet that flushes.
On his decision to wear his clerical cassock and regalia for an
appearance last June on CNN to discuss the popes trip to Ukraine:
Yeah, I decided to go in full drag.
Not for nothing did one of Tafts friends write about him in
1993: Those of weaker, less assertive character view him with
understandable alarm.
Dont think, however, that Taft is defined just by
brazenness. This is one of the most remarkable and revered scholars in Rome, a
man who has purchased the right to speak his mind with hard-won competence.
This week, a number of Tafts friends and admirers have
arranged a series of public events in Rome in conjunction with his 70th
birthday. He sat down with NCR for an interview that began in his
office-bedroom across the street from the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, and
then spilled over into dinner at a nearby trattoria.
As a scholar, Taft is best known for careful study of Eastern
liturgies in the original languages (Ukranian, Belorussian, Serbian, Bulgarian,
Macedonian, Greek, Romanian, Armenian, Coptic, Syriac -- you name it). Though
his contributions resist being boiled down to easy formula sentences, one
trademark insight is that the Eastern liturgical tradition is no more static
than the West. Change, albeit cautious and respectful, is a constant.
Taft has also written some 80 formal decisions, called
vota, for the Vaticans Congregation for Eastern Churches. Through
his collaboration with the Vatican, he has shaped the post-Cold War direction
of Eastern-rite churches in manifold ways. In these circles, Taft is a
legend.
As one sign of that status, in 1998 the Ukranian Greek Catholic
Patriarch, Myroslav-Ivan Lubochivsky, made Taft a mitred
archimandrite, the highest honor conferred on celibate religious priests
in the Byzantine tradition. He has been awarded pectoral crosses by both the
Greek Catholic church of Ukraine and the Orthodox church, a symbol of the
respect he enjoys on both sides of the aisle.
Born Jan. 9, 1932, Taft is a scion of the Rhode Island branch of
the American political dynasty that produced the countrys 27th president,
William Howard Taft, and Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, leader of the Republican
Partys most conservative wing in the 1950s. The Jesuit Taft, however, is
not registered with any political faction, and has never made hay of his
pedigree.
I dont need anybody to paddle my canoe, he
said.
He entered the Jesuits in 1949, and with a young mans lust
for a challenge, Taft wanted to take a whirl at studying the Russian Catholic
rite. Ecumenism wasnt yet on the radar screen, and Tafts original
motives were of a piece with Cold War ferment: He wanted to convert the
Russians.
As Taft began to read, however, he discovered that Eastern
Catholics had been kicked around and ignored on all sides, and his passion for
the underdog drew him in. The Eastern churches were treated very badly by
Western Christianity, Taft said. They had been regarded as
second-rate citizens. I felt it was a matter of justice to try to do some
repair work.
Taft was ordained a priest in the Byzantine-Slavonic, or Russian,
rite on June 7, 1963. He arrived at the Pontifical Oriental Institute during
the last session of the Second Vatican Council, and joined the faculty in
1970.
His scholarship is prodigious. His bibliography encompasses some
620 publications, including 14 books, plus seven more edited in collaboration
with other authors. His proposed six-volume history of the Byzantine
eucharistic liturgy, three volumes of which have appeared, is already
considered a classic.
As a Vatican powerbroker, Taft has also played a pivotal role.
In September 1991, he was part of a three-person apostolic
investigation of the Syro-Malabar church in India, which led to the Vatican
recognizing it as a major archepiscopal church, meaning greater local autonomy.
Taft and two other investigators careened up and down India in an old Mercedes
with a papal flag and a rare working air-conditioner, overcoming skepticism and
protest mobs.
Our commission was one more bunch of white men coming to
tell the locals what to do, and they were sick of it, he said. In
1499 the Portuguese arrived, with the Jesuits, and screwed up their lives.
These people had been minding their own business, and all of a sudden a bunch
of Jesuits parachuted in, who dont owe allegiance to the local hierarchy
but to some bishop 5,000 miles away who claims jurisdiction over the whole
world, and started telling them what to do. How would you feel?
In the end, however, Tafts team reached a judgment that
helped heal a profound liturgical division.
Another proud accomplishment is helping to resurrect the Greek
Catholic church in Ukraine from the ashes of the Soviet period, especially
through the re-foundation of a theological academy in Lviv (now on its
way to becoming a Catholic university).
In light of his achievements, theres a sort of conventional
wisdom that Taft could have moved far up the Vatican ladder if he were less
outspoken. Noted theologian Fr. Richard McBrien of the University of Notre
Dame, one of Tafts fans, makes the point: Bob
might have
been a cardinal by now had he followed the Roman pattern of discretion and
curial-speak.
Taft, however, never was one for diplomacy.
If youre a consultor, and you know as much as I do,
why should you keep your mouth shut? he asked.
As they say, the remark is vintage Taft.
As for his 20 years of Vatican experience, Taft said most curial
problems are not created by the people who work there.
They used to teach us in catechism that the system was
invented by God but because its in the hands of sinful men it
doesnt work, Taft said. Thats not the problem at all.
The people that work in the Roman curia arent evil. The problem is the
system.
Taft said that if he were to wake up and find himself pope,
theres a slew of reforms he would try. They would include reactivating
priests who left to get married, new methods for choosing bishops, and
decentralization of decisions. He would also try to make sure people got a fair
shake from church authorities.
I dont buy ecclesiastical fascism, he said.
I think authoritarianism is the refuge of the stupid. It saves you from
the obligation of thought.
Yet a lifetime of dealing with other ecclesiastical bureaucracies
has given him this insight on the Catholic church: As bad as we are,
theres nothing better around.
After 52 years of service as a Jesuit, and 36 years in Rome at the
Oriental Institute, perhaps the bottom line on Bob Taft is that he seems a
happy man, living what he calls an integrated life.
My life and my work are not two different things, he
said. My work is my hobby, its my life, its my love.
What could be better than that?
John L. Allen Jr. is NCRs Rome correspondent. His
e-mail address is jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, January 11,
2002
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