Vol. 150: Religion vs. science

Oh, for the good old days

You know the joke: The Pope summons the College of Cardinals (presumably via Zoom). “I have good news and bad news,” he tells them.

“First, the good news. Our gracious heavenly father, Jesus Christ, has sent word that he will soon return to Earth for the Second Coming, at which time he will preside over a meeting of all the world’s Christian denominations for the purpose of uniting them into a single Christian church.

“Now for the bad news: He wants to hold the meeting in Salt Lake City.”

Pope Leo XIV came close to convening such a meeting in Turkey last week when he joined with Eastern Orthodox Christians to commemorate the 1,700^th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which assembled more than 250 squabbling bishops from throughout the Roman Empire in 325 C.E. There they ratified the Nicene Creed, which kept Eastern and Western Christians from killing each other until the Great Schism of 1054, when they split again over the primacy of the Pope.

Leo’s gesture was a heartwarming reminder of the good old days when religion really was a matter of life and death. At least until the Enlightenment of the 18^th Century, religion was how most people explained the world. Since then, of course, faith has been supplanted by science, which gathers data through rational observation and experimentation, rigorously testing hypotheses to establish facts and draw conclusions.

Faith moves mountains?

So, if you’re wondering whether Jesus really walked on water, or Moses really spent 40 days and nights on Mount Sinai, or Mohammed really galloped off to heaven from Mecca, it’s a simple matter to consult Wikipedia or ChatGPT for the answer. A psychologist might explain, for example, that these events didn’t literally happen, but such fables reflect the high esteem in which Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed were held by their contemporaries.

In the old days, Popes spent more than a century dispatching armies of Crusaders to recapture Jerusalem from Muslim rule without success (although they slaughtered thousands of unarmed Jews en route); today, Jerusalem is governed by armed, militant Jews, with nary a peep from the Pope. Instead, last week Pope Leo devoted his time to soothing the feelings of Muslims, Eastern Orthodox Church leaders, high ranking clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church, and even King Charles III, the titular head of the Church of England, which split from Rome in the 1500s. Leo’s unspoken message was: We all share the same moral code, and beyond that, our differences are irrelevant. So why kill each other over mere matters of ritual?

In the old days before science took over, people believed that the power of faith could move mountains; today, they call an excavator. In the old days, if your town was infested with rats, you summoned the Pied Piper; today you call the exterminator. In the old days, men settled arguments by dueling and jousting; today they consult Google. In the old days, adulterers were stoned to death; today they get couples counseling. In the old days, Popes condemned homosexuals to hellfire and damnation; now at least one recent Pope (Francis) publicly wondered, “Who am I to judge?” In the old days, if you were stricken with bubonic plague, that was God’s punishment for your sins; nowadays, you would seek a cure from an expert medical authority, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Uh, scratch that.

Actually, the fact that Bobby Kennedy has become America’s leading medical officer without so much as a medical degree suggests that many Americans today would rather rely on faith than science. But at least since the Enlightenment, the problem of all these religions in a shrinking world boils down to this: Rituals that may be a matter of life and death to true believers may be meaningless to outsiders. Three jokes I have collected from the past century— all dealing with encounters between Jews and Catholics— should demonstrate my point. Then I promise to say no more on the subject.

Joke #1 (which I’ve traced back as far as 1900):

A Jewish man crossing a street in New York is hit by a trolley car. An Irish cop arrives at the scene and perceives immediately that the victim’s wounds are mortal. But he fails to perceive that the victim is Jewish, so he summons a Catholic priest to perform the last rites. The priest bends over the victim and intones, “Do you believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost?”

The victim moans: “I’m dying, and he’s asking me riddles?”

Joke #2 (probably just as old; I’ve traced it back to 1910):

Abe Shapera, a Russian Jewish immigrant, arrives in America with barely a cent to his name and desperate to find work. So he’s overjoyed when he lands a job as the janitor in a convent.

He pursues his tasks assiduously. After a few weeks, he seeks out the Mother Superior to ask how he’s doing.

“You’re doing fine,” she replies. “I just have three requests.

“First, please don’t wash your hands in the holy water.

“Second, please don’t hang your hat on the crucifix.

“And third, please stop calling me Mother Shapera!”

Joke #3 (I heard it in high school in the ’50s; presumably, it’s older):

During the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century, the Vatican was seized by paranoia, due to its inability to tell the Catholics from the Protestants. The Pope’s advisors urged him to designate Rome as an exclusively Christian city, by which they meant a Catholic city. This would have involved banishing not only the Protestants, but the Jews of Rome as well.

The Pope was reluctant to take such a step. “The Jews have lived in Rome for a thousand years,” he said. “We can’t just kick them out suddenly for no reason.” But his advisers were adamant: Rome must be made purely Christian.

“Well,” the Pope replied, “let’s at least give them the opportunity to demonstrate that they understand Christian theology.”

In due course the Vatican sent an emissary to the Jewish quarter, inviting the wisest member of the community to engage in a dialogue with the Pope concerning Christian theology, with the understanding that if he failed this test, the Jews would have to leave. The Jewish elders, of course, were panicked by this prospect because none of them understood the first thing about Christian theology. So they assumed they had no choice but to pack up their things and depart.

Their meeting was about to break up when Moishe the Tailor, sitting unnoticed in the back of the room, spoke up. “What’s the big deal?” he said. “I’ll talk to the Pope.”

The elders were astonished, because Moishe not only knew nothing about Christian theology, he didn’t know anything about Jewish theology either. But they figured, what do we have to lose?

So Moishe the Tailor went off to see the Pope. Since he spoke no Latin, and the Pope spoke no Yiddish, they had to communicate in sign language. The conversation went as follows:

First, the Pope waved his right hand repeatedly over his head from left to right. Moishe responded by pointing just as insistently at the floor beneath them.

Then the Pope raised a single finger. Moishe responded by raising two fingers.

Then the Pope reached beneath his priestly garment and produced an orange. Moishe in turn reached beneath his robe and pulled out a matzah. That concluded the dialogue.

The Pope’s advisors rushed into the room, asking, “What is your decision?”

“Obviously, the Jews must stay,” the Pope replied. “They understand Christian theology perfectly. First, I waved my hand, saying that Christianity embraces the entire world. He pointed at the floor, saying, ‘Yes, but its center is here in Rome.’ Then I raised one finger, saying, ‘We believe in one God, the Father’; he raised two fingers, saying, ‘Yes, but you also believe in the Son and the Holy Ghost.’ Then I brought forth an orange, saying, ‘The world is round.’ And he brought out a matzah, saying, ‘Yes, but it appears flat’.”

Meanwhile, back in the Jewish quarter, everyone was packing their things when Moishe returned. “Everything’s all right,” he assured them. “You can unpack your bags. I told the Pope a thing or two.”

“What do you mean?” the astonished elders asked.

“First,” Moishe explained, “he waved his arm, saying, ‘The Jews are going to get out.’ I pointed to the floor, saying, ‘Oh no, you don’t. We’re staying right here.’

“Then he pointed his finger at me, saying, ‘I’ll poke your eye out.’ I pointed two fingers at him, saying, ‘I’ll poke out both your eyes.’

“And then we had lunch.”

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s new memoir, The Education of a Journalist: My Seventy Years on the Frontiers of Free Speech. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com