For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Esther 4:14.
Today's ceremony was held on the next to last day of Black History Month.
The House chaplain, Father Patrick Conroy, noted that the Bible's book of Jeremiah says, "Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, making his countrymen work for nothing, not paying them for their labor."
Conroy called the historic marker in the Capitol's Visitor Center's Emancipation Hall "a small acknowledgement of those sins."
Senate Chaplain Barry Black, who is African American, said the ceremony should be a reminder that "in eternity, many who are now first will be last, and many who are now last will be first."
WASHINGTON — The Rev. Patrick J. Conroy invited all the members of the House of Representatives and their families to the holiday reception he was hosting last month as the chamber’s chaplain. He put out hot cider, cookies and a not-quite-functional chocolate fountain, and for the benefit of the children he picked up his folk guitar to perform “The House at Pooh Corner.”
The Rev. Patrick J. Conroy, the House of Representatives chaplain.
The Rev. Dr. Barry C. Black, the Senate chaplain.
Amid the well-organized cheer, though, Father Conroy noticed one subtly disquieting scene. It was apparent that two of his guests, representatives from opposite sides of the partisan aisle, and both sent to Washington to do the nation’s business, had never even spoken directly to each other before.
Nearly five months before that Christmas party, the chaplain of the Senate, the Rev. Dr. Barry C. Black, offered the opening prayer for a rare Sunday session. The Senate was deadlocked along partisan lines on a measure to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. The imminent prospect of a default on government bonds or a downgrade of the federal credit rating had not been enough to overcome the fierce dispute between Democrats and Republicans.
“Save us, O God,” Dr. Black pleaded in his prayer, “for the waters are coming in upon us. We are weak from the struggle. Tempted to throw in the towel. But quitting is not an option.”
In these two episodes, one private and the other very public, one can grasp the unusual and supple roles being played by the House and Senate chaplains. At a time when Congress is stunningly unpopular, with approval ratings in various recent polls around 12 percent, Father Conroy and Dr. Black serve as pastors to what must be one of the most reviled congregations in the country.
That harsh reality puts these clergymen in the position of trying to nurture civility within this fractious flock and trying to explain to a skeptical public that all is not as dire and broken as much of the citizenry plainly believes. They encounter senators and representatives not through speeches and sound bites but as participants in prayer breakfasts and Bible studies, or in casual moments in the Capitol’s cloakroom or restaurant or gym.
Very different paths brought the ministers to their respective roles. Dr. Black, 63, a Seventh-day Adventist, spent 27 years as a Navy chaplain, rising to the rank of rear admiral, before being appointed to the Senate position in 2003. He is the first African-American to be a Congressional chaplain. Father Conroy, 61, a Roman Catholic from the Jesuit order, had devoted much of his career to college chaplaincy and social-justice work. Named to his House post last May, he is even newer to the job than the chamber’s 87 first-term members.
“I’m dealing with a Crock-Pot,” Dr. Black put it, referring to the Senate’s reputation for deliberation. “He’s got a microwave.”
In the current session of Congress, the contrast between the appliances has been less evident, with showdowns over the debt ceiling and the payroll tax extension and dozens of filibusters and cloture votes. A deeply divided electorate seems to agree only on its disdain for Congress, and President Obama appears to be designing a re-election campaign that will cast Congress as villain.
“I’m a little more philosophical,” Dr. Black said in an interview last month. “I have a long view of history. We’ve had secession from the Union. I was in Alabama in the 1960s, drinking water from fountains labeled ‘Colored.’ It took 50 years to pass meaningful civil rights legislation. So I see things as cyclical in terms of polarization.”
Over in the House, Father Conroy prepared for his job in part by reading “American Lion,” Jon Meacham’s best seller about Andrew Jackson. The bitter rivalry between Jackson and Henry Clay in Congress has provided him with some assurance that “it’s not an unprecedented thing in American politics for there to be recriminations and a lack of civility.”
Particularly as a Jesuit, though, Father Conroy said he looked to the order’s founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, who taught the importance of recognizing “godliness in the other.” (In the saint’s time, that meant Protestants, not the Tea Party or liberals.) The chaplain has also been striving to understand why the House can seem so resistant to that generosity of spirit.
“One of the things that’s true today that hasn’t been true of the past 30 years is that there are fewer civilizing forces,” he said in a mid-December interview. “The members’ families don’t live here. It’s easier on Friday to get on a plane and go home. So Congressman A’s spouse isn’t friends with Congressman Z’s. Or their kids don’t play together. You have no social bonding at all. The only relationship those congressmen have is as opponents.”
With its six-year terms and polite protocols, the Senate is at least in theory constructed for friendship and compromise. But it is also, as Dr. Black pointed out, the arena for two parties, two philosophies, two historical narratives, two analytical lenses. Its rules regarding filibuster and cloture put obstructive power in the hands of a determined minority.
“I’m amazed there’s as much civility as there is,” Dr. Black said. “I am gratified to see people of faith, who may be re-enacting the Thrilla in Manila in the chamber, holding hands at a prayer breakfast. I have a unique window that the general public doesn’t have.”
What both chaplains yearn for is a public with perspective on itself. The warring senators and representatives of Washington did not wind up there by accident or coincidence. Somebody elected them. To put it scripturally, Father Conroy said he finds himself thinking of Luke 6:41: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
“The American Congress,” he said, “represents the American people. Is it any surprise they got what they voted for? It’s easier to blame Congress than to look in the mirror.”
The Senate doesn’t do it on purpose, but it begins every day by acting out a drama in three parts and with the moral arc of a Shakespeare tragedy.
Act one is a prayer. Barry C. Black, the Senate’s chaplain, asks God for unity, wisdom and cooperation, pleading for the Senate in a voice as slow and solemn as a hearse.
Act two is the pledge. Lawmakers from both parties both pledge allegiance to the flag of one nation, indivisible.
Act three is the plot twist. After all the talk about unity and cooperation, the leaders of both parties stand up for their part of the morning ritual.
Which is denouncing one another as enemies of progress, abusers of the public trust, and raw sewage in the great river of American ideas.
“Do nothing, and protect the millionaires.” That was Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the Senate’s number-two Democrat, one day this week. He was accusing Republicans of abandoning the middle class during the economic crisis.
“This whole thing is a charade.” That wasMinority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He stood stood up after Durbin, to ridicule the Democratic plans for economic recovery. “I think the American people deserve better.”The bitter turn of this daily ritual has been particularly notable this week, as the two parties returned to fighting after an ultra-brief experiment with cooperation. Both had pledged to find common ground on the issue of jobs. Then both remembered there was almost no common ground to find.
In his office, tucked away down a quiet Senate hallway, the Senate’s chaplain said he doesn’t take it personally — this week or any other — when his flock goes back to squabbling.
“I don’t take it as any kind of litmus test on the efficacy of my intercession,” Black said.
The Senate has begun its working sessions with prayer since 1789. It has never been an easy job preaching peace to a flock whose main job is to fight one another: Peter Marshall, chaplain in the 1940s, said he was the Senate’s equivalent of parsley — mainly there for decoration.
Black, who has the job today, is a Seventh-Day Adventist who rose to the rank of rear admiral as a Navy chaplain. His job now is bigger than giving the Senate’s morning prayer: He counsels senators privately and leads Bible studies for the Capitol’s cooks, cops and janitors.
But Black still takes the parsley role very seriously. He writes his opening prayers in a Capitol office with stunning views of the Mall’s monuments — reminders, for him, of how God has helped America through past crises.
“There’s something about this view that drives home to me the sovereignty of God, and the unstoppable nature of providence,” Black said in an interview. “Like the coming of morning, [it] will not be restrained.”
His prayers, generally, ask God to instill senators with virtues of good government. Often, there are nudges toward bipartisan cooperation — in a Congress that has seen very little of it so far.
“Lord, infuse them with a spirit of reconciliation,” Black prayed Sept. 13, “that will break down divisive walls, bringing harmony and cooperation.”
“Give them also a spirit of unity,” Black said the next day. “And the wisdom to have respect, one for the other.”
“Today, enable the members of this body to experience your presence, and to receive your wisdom,” Black said Wednesday. “May they receive these blessings — aware of your counsel that to whom much is given, much is required.”
But often, there are few senators in the chamber to hear him. And those that are there often don’t seem to have listened.
The proof of that usually comes in “Leader Remarks,” when the two parties’ bosses come out to utter the first complaints, accusations and deprecations of a long day. This tradition of tit-for-tat “Leader Remarks” dates to about 1986, when C-Span cameras began broadcasting from the Senate.
Up in that office overlooking the Mall, Black said — slowly, solemnly — that he never feels as though he failed when he hears the day’s debate turning bitter again.
“These statements that are usually being read,” he said, “have obviously been prepared before the prayer.”
On Thursday, the Senate’s prayer was done by a guest chaplain, Silvester S. Beaman of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Del. Beaman, like Black, also called on God to awaken the Senate’s better angels: “Use the collective resolve of our United States Senate as your instrument, bringing wholeness and peace.”
Then, right on schedule, the Senate demonstrated that wholeness and peace were not on its agenda.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) stood up to give a speech denouncing House Republicans for a budget bill that would cut more funds than Democrats want. It was “so wrong,” Reid said, and “very, very unfair.”
“We really are at an impasse here,” Reid said, talking about the bill. Continuing disagreements threatened to shut down the federal government at the end of the month. “Not just because of what we’re doing. But because of what they’re doing.”
As soon as he finished, McConnell was waiting to speak.
P.S..
When the health care bill was being debated in the chamber, the people at my Bible study were from both sides of the aisle.
- Chaplain Barry Black
