Loyalty

Loyalty: is virile, fierce, steadfast, honorable, courageous, aggressive, protective, self-confident, serene, reliable, forgiving,powerful and yet gentle. Loyalty is everything. Loyalty, in contrast to integrity, is always to a concrete person: this specific king, captain, spouse or friend. Integrity involves moral principles...it is complementary to loyalty. We have become too familiar with corrupted forms of loyalty that violate integrity: police, mobsters or clergymen covering up for the misdeeds of their friends. Such is less than genuine since it violates another loyalty: to the innocent victim of the misdeed. Yet, if forced to chose between integrity and loyalty (which we really never would be), I could not opt for integrity without loyalty since such would be isolated, lonely, moralistic. Loyalty is primary...loyalty infused with integrity...but loyalty first and always. Loyalty: always to a concrete person. Loyalty, first, to our Lord Jesus, and His Father, in the Holy Spirit. Loyalty, next, according to my unique, specific, concrete state in life: this spouse, family, community, boss, and friend. In the Church, thirdly, my loyalty is to this very specific, concrete, limited, imperfect and even sinful pastor, bishop and pope. It is always personal. Inexorably, the prelate thrust at me is a frustration: too progressive or too traditional; too enthusiastic or too staid; out of control or overly controlling; lethargic or hyper-active. But my loyalty is always to a person: not my own spirituality, ideology, theology or style of worship. Jesus himself, Augustine reminds us, did not withhold the kiss of peace from his betrayer, one of the original twelve. Jesus was loyal to us to death, when we tortured and murdered him. Ignatius of Antioch, one of the very earliest post-apostolic writers, exhorts us to gather around the bishop, priests and deacons...the hierarchy, specific individuals with all their warts. Ignatius of Loyola, following his fellow knight and role-model Francis of Assisi, insists on a very passionate, personal allegiance to the bishop of Rome...without conditions about his theology, piety, politics or ideology. Especially today, with our pope, bishops and priests under attack from all directions, let us renew our allegiance, fidelity, support and obedience for these very specific, imperfect persons. God bless them all!