Hands down, number one on my list of "Most Underrated Catholic Thinkers of the 20th Century" is Ivan Illich of Cuernavaca: the learned, creative, anarchistic, controversial, eccentric genius, mystic and iconoclast. He is unknown today, except among a small group that recalls the fierce arguments he provoked in the 60s and 70s about Catholic missions, education, medicine and the nature of our entire bureaucratic, technocratic civilization. In the wake of the catastrophic summer of 2018 (death penalty revision, McCarrick, Pennsylvania report, Vigano), his message rings ever more lucid, profound, and inspirational. By a serendipitous, providential, personal coincidence, I recall, half a century ago, my summer of 1968 (the year our society imploded with the explosion of the Cultural Revolution) when I studied Spanish at Illich's center in Cuernavaca and was captivated by his breathtakingly radical critique of modernity and American Catholicism. Paradoxically, his critique was far more drastic and deep than anything coming out of the then-fashionable movements (anti-war, civil rights, incipient feminism, anti-capitalism, "Spirit of Vatican II," and the illusory sexual liberation of the pill); even as his was a deeply if eccentrically, really medieval, Catholic sensibility and spirituality. I am ever grateful that his influence on me was to grant some critical distance from the underlying pathology of modernity even as he deepened and enriched my Catholic faith. His message is essential for us for several reasons:
First, he called for a poor, de-institutionalized, humble Church...unburdened with schools, hospitals, and the entire complex of social agencies. In this vision, the Church (as hierarchy, as institution) could focus attention on the Word of God, worship, and simplicity/holiness of life. This vision appealed to me but for 50 years I rejected it, thinking of all the good done by Church agencies, especially for the poor and suffering. The events of Summer 2018 convinced me that the negatives of a bloated, bureaucratic Church outweigh the positives. The rise and persistence of Maciel/McCarrick/etc. is partly due to the big money they fed the Vatican bureaucracy and their expertise as ace administrators of mega-institutions. It is now clear that we will be better off as Church if the hierarchy releases control of the agencies of corporal mercy into the hands of the laity. Recall: the apostles surrendered custody of food distribution to the first deacons so that they could be free of distraction to attend to the Word of God! Something like that needs to happen today. Patiently, the laity have to take responsibiilty for acts of corporal mercy and justice and return the clergy to their proper work. Our own small Magnificat Home, in which we provide a home for 55 women, is an example: we have no organizational or legal tie to the institutional Church even as it is our faith that moves us. Similarly, Mother Angelica (as told in the biography by Raymond Arroyo) made a brilliant move some years ago when the American bishops and the Vatican were both considering moves to gain control of her television empire by invoking her vow of obedience: she convened an emergency meeting from her hospital bed and had control surrendered to an independent lay board. Whatever one thinks of EWTN, for sure it is better off free of episcopal or papal control and the pope and bishops are better off without that concern.
Secondly, as he became more controversial in his advocacy for drastic cultural/social revolution, he freely gave up his priestly powers for a deeply theological reason: he saw that the priest at the Eucharist convenes believers of all ideological and political persuasions: left/right, libertarian/anarchistic, socialist/capitalist, etc. If the priest is a fierce advocate for a specific policy or program, he becomes polarizing and divisive. Illich decided his vocation was to advocate his ideas and so he surrendered his liturgical privileges, freely and happily. He did, however, maintain his fidelity to his vows of celibacy and prayer of the liturgy of the hours. His lucid, definitive distinction between our Catholic faith and our political positions is sorely needed today when our Pope and his lieutenants have adopted a collection of policy positions (environment, immigration, death penalty) and consecrated them as sacrosanct in a leftist clericalism that is mercilessly divisive, arrogant and offensive.
Thirdly, in a broader, deeper critique of modernity itself he rejected the "giga...mega" nature of bureaucracy and technology in its cancerous overgrowth in that it inherently disables and dis-empowers the individual and local community in their own autonomy, agency and integrity. He advocate "tools of conviviality," preferring bicycles to airplanes and superhighways, face-to-face dialogue to school institutions, concrete and traditional self-care to technologies of medication and surgery. He saw that indigeneous peoples of Latin America were more active, free, convivial and communal in their traditional ways of housing, feeding and protecting themselves without the Western "necessities" of huge electrical, plumbing, and cultural systems. He understood that even those at the high end of our modern hierarchy...the rich, powerful, expert, credentialed...are bereft of the basic human competencies of caring for self, family and community. With Ellul, Schumacher and others, he called for an almost Amish or Luddite return to a humane smallness to restore agency and dignity. Surely, his diagnosis is pertinent to our current political-cultural crisis of alienation manifest in the Trump phenomenon.
Fourthly, Illich came to NYC in the 1950s and fell in love with the cultural, spiritual vitality of the urban, underclass Puerto Ricans. He seems to have also felt a contempt for the hegemonic Irish Catholic American Church that was so prosperous, fecund, confident and expansive at the time. This animus became pronounced and militant in the 1960s when he waged a fierce campaign against the North American (Cardinal Cushing, Maryknoll Father John Considine) plan to flood Latin American with missionaries. Enamored of primitive, Hispanic spirituality, Illich viewed the mission crusade as the crudest cultural imperialism as arrogant, superior Americans imported the church-rectory-convent-school complex and all the baggage of toxic American materialism, consumerism, and technology. Retrospectively, I for one see an exaggeration in his disgust with our own culture and his infatuation with that of Hispanics. Nevertheless, there is a powerful truth here: those closer to nature, tradition, family, location and tribe inherit an intuitive moral sense that has been largely lost in an industrial society of scientific control and arrogance. The Illichian perspective is especially helpful for those of my generation who grieve the loss of the flourishing Catholic world of our childhood and youth: full churches, large families, lots of vocations, expansive institutions. That Catholic world of 1945-65 was not as bad as Illich thought; but it is not as good as the nostalgic conservative imagination confects it. Illich is a positive correction: the Kingdom of God is coming, but not completely here; it was not here in the 1950s and is not here now; but it is coming. He helps us to cleanse our memory: remembering all the good but regretting the bad and hoping for ever more!
Lastly, his critique of modern medicine was the most drastic and problematic part of his legacy. I for one gratefully take my six daily pills (aspirin, Vitamin D, crestor, etc.) and appreciate the colon surgery that removed a cancerous growth the size of my fist. He refused medical care for his cancer at the end of his life. He suffered and died a "natural death" without the comforts of medicine. I cannot follow him there. But I admire his heroism and his belief that suffering is largely unavoidable and that we err in expecting complete relief from science and technology. He believed and lived the Gospel Truth: the resurrection comes through the crucifixion.
He was a great man! His was a magnificent intellect! May we emulate him! May his thought help us to purify our Church and heal our culture!May he pray for us!
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