Our Stable Catholic World

Now well into my 77th year, I reminisce and wonder: has the Catholic lifeworld of my own childhood and youth...not the broader social world in all its technological-cultural-political-social change...but the immediate, concrete, experiential, formative cocoon...been basically replicated or replaced in that of my children and now grandchildren? 

In the current season of Easter, May and Spring, our immediate family is celebrating three first communions, one confirmation, two graduations, and the funeral of a dear cousin as we await two births. In the midst of this Joy, I gratefully conclude: the three worlds are essentially the same. A wise, powerful Providence is clearly and firmly in control: protecting, preserving, strengthening, and guiding us and our way of life.

Basic Structure of our World

1. Spousal Communion is the core, the skeletal structure of the formative cocoon: stable, faithful, bi-gendered, prayerful, open to life, companionable, hetero-erotic, romantic, energetic-synergetic, fruitful, inclined to request and give forgiveness, receptive of and generous to the community and Church. The anchor of the family is the tender, attentive mother, rooted in her threefold love (God, spouse, children), who subordinates career ambitions to the care of the family, and is herself supported by and collaborative with her husband who is confident in his own masculinity and authoritative paternity.

2. Church, Roman Catholic and catholic ("embracive of all that is true-good-beautiful"), is the enclosing "womb" that shelters, protects, and guides the smaller family.  Four generations, including my parents, are all firmly embedded within Christ's sacramental, authoritative, hierarchical, militant,  Marian "Communion of Saints." Notwithstanding immense technological change, the sexual revolution, the culture wars, societal decadence, breakdown of the family, and ominous world events...ours remains a "Hobbit" world: modest, happy, secure, comforting, trusting, filial, innocent, childlike and child-centered.

3. Schooling. All of us...my siblings, children and grandchildren...take to school like a duck to water. Without any tiger mothers, we all perform beautifully, fluidly, happily and mostly free of undue stress. There is something in our cultural, family DNA that predisposes us to flourish in the world of education...lots of books at home? respect for and trust in authority? a home environment of conversation, especially with the attentive mother? This is, of course, a key to success in the broader society which is so centered on education and credentials.

Similarities and Differences

1. Sports. My father's generation loved sports...handball, golf, and watching football and baseball. My own cohort did not know organized athletics, but played casual, free, unmentored sports. My own children played lots of unorganized sports but also formal activities of little league, basketball, and especially high school track. But my grandchildren, with the broader society, play organized sports from an early age. This is a mixed blessing. It is guarded and safe...arguably to an extreme. It includes a bonding of parent and child. But it is a loss of the spontaneity, freedom, risk-tolerance, experimentation and adventuresome of play and competition free of adult supervision. The high parental investment makes it less available to bigger families.

2. Work is a component of all three life-worlds but was more important to my generation of big families, less affluence and a memory of real poverty in the Depression. Through high school we all worked: paper routes, caddying, library, baby sitting, bus boy, etc. For us three brothers, caddying filled up our summers and garnered for us the respect of our parents as we made good money for that time and our age. Our children and grandchildren give more time to athletics.

3. Politics. My family of origin, with a union organizer father, was passionately committed to a Democratic liberalism (FDR, JFK) that was at that time very Catholic-friendly: pro-family, pro-life, pro-working man, patriotic, internationalist, anti-communist, pro-civil-rights, concerned for justice and the poor. In the wake of the sexual revolution of the 60s, I diverged from most of my generation (as did my brothers, but not so much my sisters) in reaction to the new cultural liberalism, even as I retained my allegiance to social justice concerns. Our own children in large part share my values: conservative on moral issues of life and sexuality, but more liberal on economic justice; disgusted by both Trump and Biden; more opposed to the anti-Catholicism of the DNC but uncomfortable with classic Republicanism of low taxes, low regulation and trickle-down-economics and the MAGA cause. There is a near consensus among the 15 adults in our family: a plurality cannot vote for Trump or Biden, while a few of us will vote (reluctantly) for one or the other. A basic continuity holds about politics.

4. Romance and Sexuality. We are all of us, across the generations, "late bloomers." Without any explicit instruction, we predictably wait for romance until about the end of college or early adulthood. This happens in an organic, spontaneous fashion. In my view this is wholesome as I ascribe to the thinking of psychologist Eric Ericson: genuine intimacy is available only when identity is firmly established. And this occurs, especially for the male, after adolescence. This works towards a stronger marriage and family structure.

5. Career. Our family leans heavily into the human services of education, psychology and medicine. Even our ex-JAG-lawyer son works in distributing medical benefits to veterans. 

6. Location. We moved into Jersey City when we married; raised our seven children there; and none of us remain there. We are unattached to any location. Our children are dispersed: three in NJ and four in other states. Interestingly, five of our six in-laws remained near their childhood homes and their parents; two in the same house in which they were raised. I have a slight jealousy for the location-loyalty of Wendel Berry and the Jersey City firemen/policeman with whom my children grew up. Mostly I aspire that my children find, wherever they live, the Church and all the good things that accompany that.

7. Neighborhood. Raised in a modest, urban, working class neighborhood, I deliberately preferred the same for my children. This turned out to be a congenial place to raise a family: strong Catholic parish and schools, warm neighbors, diversity, lower income people, freedom from the pressures of aspirational suburban life. Our youngest daughter lives similarly in York, Pa; our oldest in Bayonne NJ, near our home in Jersey City. The rest live in suburban  areas, ranging from modest to more affluent. As such they face the pressures of middle class life but they seem well aware of these and reactive against the worst aspects of it.

8. Class and Finances. Coming of age in the Great Depression, my parents knew real deprivation and were entirely happy with their modest resources in raising the nine of us in the 1950s. My father got a better paying job as union organizer for the UAW by the early 1960s and our family, with the broader society, enjoyed security and a touch of affluence. I, with my siblings, enjoyed an extended education, but retained a loyalty to the poor and working class and a quiet antipathy to affluence, prestige, and status. My children and their spouses seem to retain this viewpoint. They are all thriving at a modest, middle level of the professional class as teachers, nurses, psychologists, etc. 

9. Culture War. This did not exist for my parents and in my childhood and adolescence. In my early adulthood I reacted strongly against the social revolution and maintained, intellectually, for the rest of my life the posture of a culture warrior. Our children share our values, but express them in a variety of ways. Our younger son and his wife are more radical and countercultural, by disposition and participation in the Neocatechumenal Way. The rest of our children are comfortable in the mainstream; critical; but with less of an edge than I have. In this they mirror a combination of my wife and myself.

10. Fertility. Our children retain our Catholic love for big families. To my knowledge, neither my mother nor my wife experienced miscarriage. But our children have had perhaps ten, along with 27 births and now 2 pregnancies. A miscarriage is always a mystery of great sadness. Our hope, of course, is that our grandchildren retain this love for new life.

11. Internet and Smart Phones.  Our children have been fighting a battle we were spared: "screen time." My overall impression is that they are well aware of the dangers; that they are reactive against them; and while there is no final victory, harm has been minimized by restraints and vigorous involvement in studies, sports, Church and family life.

12. Piety.  As a child we prayed the rosary every night after dinner, like many Catholic families of the time. Early in our marriage, as we started our family, we were deeply impacted by the charismatic renewal. However that prayer group disbanded and we raised our children in a standard parish. It is, for me, a faint disappointment that we did not pass on the charismatic dimension as we lacked such a community. But the evangelical energy we received moved us to direct our children to a rich banquet of experiences, especially high school summers, including evangelical and catechetical programs, pilgrimages, immersion/service trips, world youth days, and other. We were convinced that the negative forces across our culture had become so powerful that the combination of family-parish-school was not adequate to form a resilient, vigorous faith. This succeeded: our children and now their spouses all share a vibrant faith as well as an openness to the renewal movements. At least to some degree, the next generation seems to be following a similar itinerary of faith

13. Cousins and Extended Family. Connection to a broader, extended family provides identity, comfort,  delight and a sense of belonging. This is an invaluable resource in a society that increasingly isolates the individual and the nuclear family, inducing dependency on the immense impersonality of the state and corporation. Especially enjoyable is the friendship shared across the generations with cousins.

14. Gender. Masculinity/Femininity and Paternity/Maternity are alive and well across our generations. Among my greatest delights as father/grandfather is to observe the organic, natural, gradual but irrepressible development of manliness and womanliness. The women prioritize their motherhood as they all excel in their chosen careers; my sons and son-in-laws are intensely involved with their children;  a wholesome partnership informs each couple.

Conclusion

My wife and I share a primary life ambition: to hand on to our young the Catholic faith, way of life and heritage that we ourselves received. Aware of the human frailty of this faith and the ferocious anti-Catholic energies active in our society since the 1960s, we are all the more grateful to see the hand of God at work in a marvelous cosmos of faith: friends, family, priests and sisters, neighbors, organizations, and other. We are particularly in awe of our children-in-law, the wise choices our children made about spouses. We are endlessly surprised and delighted as we encounter the underlying stability along with the creativity and freshness of our younger family members.

Catholic Weird

One of the many great things about being Catholic is all the weird stuff. What other religion has stigmata, bilocation, demonic possession and exorcism, incorruption, scientifically verified miracles, locutions, levitation, visions, hermits,  anchorites, consecrated virgins, dark nights of the soul, Marian apparitions, confession/absolution/reparation for sin with the seal of silence, souls in purgatory, indulgences (plenary and partial), particular and and Last judgements,  relics (first, second and third class), bleeding hosts, and other?  Imagine how boring it is to be a universalist, content that everyone is saved! 

How ironic! We have the magisterial intellectual legacies of St. Thomas, Cardinal Newman and Balthasar. And these geniuses all recognize this other stuff that is bizarre, random, frightening, gratuitous, unnatural, illogical, unpredictable, mysterious and awesome.

The institutional Church goes to great lengths to downplay the miraculous. The great mystics warn against fascination with ecstasy; but they do not deny it. Bishops are reluctant to pay any attention to the appearance of the supernatural; but sometimes they cannot avoid it. The Carthusians in Vermont buried a monk of great holiness in their customary way: placing the body directly into the ground without a coffin. They realized the body was not corrupting. They stood over it and prayed for the natural decay lest they be distracted from their rigorous silence and prayer by attention.

I love to teach this stuff to my 6th grade CCD class. They are rightly fascinated! It is an excellent antidote to the deadly monotony of secular, empirical, disenchanted modernity. How flat, fatiguing, arid, and discouraging is the universe of evolution, technology, mechanism, and bureaucracy!

How blessed are we Catholics to live in an enchanted, mysterious, ultimately inexplicable cosmos: in the midst of the dramatic clash of heaven and hell; the invasion of the supernatural when least expected; the horror of pure evil; the splendor of Holiness; the agony and ecstasy of genuine love; the commingling of humility and magnanimity; the stability of gratitude and worship; and the triumph of Hope! Thank God for Catholic Weird!

The Five Realities that Structured 'A Catholic-Boomer's Moral-Political World

 Coming of age in the early 60s as an adolescent with a sensitive, serious conscience, my worldview was structured by five recent and current realities, five "Dominions from Hell": the genocide of the Jews, Soviet Communism, American slavery and Jim Crow, the Axis fascisms, and world hunger and poverty.

The Holocaust.  The deliberate massacre of 6 million innocents, including women and children, because of their ethnic/religious identity, is beyond human comprehension: it is not natural, not human; it is supernaturally evil. This is further confirmed in that it targeted the very people that gave us the scriptures, our Savior, Mary, the apostles, patriarchs, prophets, Pentateuch and first saints. Real antisemitism is more than a political or psychological reality: it is Satanic. Already in high school I learned from Monsignor John Oesterreicher (The Bridge) that Nazi hatred of the Jew was not a development of historic Christian anti-Judaism, but a neo-pagan hatred of the God of the Jews and of Jesus Christ the Jew. This event remains, for me, after the death of Christ and the original sin of Adam and Eve, the most significant and sinful historic event in human history.

Soviet Communism takes second place among the demonic dominions. The decisive geo-political reality of the first 42 years of my life was our conflict with communism. In late adolescence and throughout adulthood I would learn of the failings of Western, democratic, liberal capitalism. But in childhood I learned and still see that communism is a pure form of evil in its hatred of God and systemic destruction of the human person in his freedom, rights and conscience. In that bipolar world, the USA and its allies were never perfect, but always substantially the actor for good against evil.

Slavery in America of Africans, and specifically the deliberate destruction of the black family, rivals the previous two in purity and profundity of evil. Jim Crow, even in my childhood, in our South, continued this legacy. I came of age when the Civil Rights Movement was cresting and it is to the credit of our society that it destroyed this system of evil, due to an aggressive federal government but even more to the virtually unanimous moral consensus of our Judeo-Christian culture. KKK was iconic of this vicious racism but that group despised Jews and Catholics as well so our historic racism was never construed in my mind as a white/black binary. Rather, the fearful, vile racism targeted ethnics, Jews and others as well as blacks. Our Catholic memory of persecution by bigoted WASPs evoked a sympathy for the cause of Martin Luther King.

Poverty and Hunger of the Undeveloped World.  This was, at that time, seen as an evil of a different sort. This suffering around the globe was lamentable, but not clearly due to any human agents. Therefore, this was not a pure, moral and spiritual evil. However, our own newfound prosperity aroused a moral urgency to share our resources and technology to work against this suffering. And so, especially in the early 60s, there was a fervent crusade in the global Catholic Church as well in the USA (Peace Corps, etc.) to share our wealth and help the less privileged. As I read the NY Times "News of the Week in Review" every Sunday I followed two plots: the Cold War and the crusade to assist poor countries (and keep them free of Communism at the same time.)

Axis Imperialist Fascisms of Germany, Italy and Japan had recently been defeated at the time of our childhood. Interestingly, this was not much mentioned. Our uncles and family friends, who had served in that war, never spoke of it. We knew of it more from the movies. But there was an abiding, unspoken sense of pride and honor: in John-Wayne-fashion, our men had defeated these evil empires. It was as if a faint halo of virility, honor and heroism was over them. Never a touch of pride or bravado. Silence and humility. I was born two years after the war: I do not recall derogatory comments about our recent enemies. It was past history. Like last years football championship.... Life moves on. The current opponent was international Communism. It was a regrettable necessity that we were forced to cooperate with authoritarian regimes in that cosmic conflict.

These five evil realities were real to me but quite distant. My immediate world was sheltered from all of the above. Catholic, parochial, patriotic, prosperous, confident, clear, certain, fertile, hopeful, secure...carefree and happy and sheltered by a remarkable network of institutions: large family, strong Church, powerful government, expansive economy, powerful unions that defend workers, the Democratic Party, NATO, and United Nations. And so, if the world had five reigns of terror, we were peaceful and protected by a different Kingdom, one of light and goodness. That world of interlocking, essentially good (however imperfect and flawed) institutions has surrounded me and mine with remarkable peace and prosperity since my birth. 

We seem now to be emerging into a new era, of chaos and violence, more similar to the 1930-40s than 1945. In year of our Lord 2024, approaching 77 years of age, I ask: Does the worldview and ideology of my youth still serve? Or do I need to adjust in view of change? Notwithstanding the monumental, especially technological, change in these years, we clearly are facing the same demons that attacked us in the 1930-40s.

Antisemitism. To my surprise and horror, since Oct. 7, 2023 and the Hamas attack, our world is again invaded, from hell, with a surge of hatred for the Jew. Far more than a compassionate sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinians, in the West, this new expression replaces the racist nationalism of the Nazis with a neo-Marxism, simple and absolute, that sees everywhere and only the oppressor/oppressed binary: white/black, male/female, straight/gay and now Jew/Palestinian. Clearly antisemitism is not the same as anti-Zionism or anti-Judaism; but nor are they entirely detached from each other. The state of Israel and by implicit extension the Jewish people are impersonalized as an embodiment of the despised "powerful." The "woke" paradigm erases all complexity, contingency, and freedom and Hamas becomes the victim and their captives (symbolically) the culprit. With Hamas and Hezbollah we are back with Hitler and Himmler. 

Communism, in its Soviet expression, has simply been replaced by a capitalist-friendly Chinese form that is even more totalitarian in its enhanced technology of control and equally ambitious in its imperialism. We are again in the Cold War.

Racism, decisively renounced by the Civil Rights Movement and the overwhelming consensus of our society in the 1960s, has by some diabolic miracle resurrected itself after 50 years of steady progress in race relations (contemporary with a color blind class/culture of poverty with inordinate black participation) culminating in the presidency of Obama. We face the perverted inverted perversion of "anti-racism," Black Lives Matter, and Critical Race Theory that again erases the person on behalf of an abstract, ideological binary of white-on-black. The spirit of slavery and Jim Crow has now covertly taken over our progressive, godless elites who posture with lawn sides in condescension to the underclass of "deplorables." 

 Global Poverty remains persistent and urgent but has a more complicated, confused nature than what we perceived in the innocence, confidence and positivity of our 1960s prosperity. It is undeniable that global, technological, market economics has lifted millions out of hunger, including in China. We also see more clearly that corporate capitalism, for all its efficiency in the material domain, has a systemically corrosive effect on the family, traditions, faith, morality and authority as it isolates the autonomous individual, inducing a passivity and dependency upon big tech, big state, and big business. That challenge remains but has become more convoluted and difficult.

Fascisms, of nationalist nature, are again resurgent around the globe. The most vile expressions are the totalitarian imperialisms of Russia and Iran; both uncompromisingly evil. However, as in World War II and the Cold War era, other populist nationalism are a more ambiguous, dense mixture of the good and the bad. Think: Brexit, Franco, Trump, Diem, the Shah of Iran, Salazar, Orban and Meloni. These populist movements are in part wholesome reactions against the "totalitarianism of relativism" of the pretentious "enlightened" secular, neo-Marxist elite and protective of the integrity of the family and the gendered person, powerless life, religious liberty and other human freedoms. At the same time they easily lean into ethnocentrism, bigotry and authoritarianism. Often, we have no option but to work with them to minimize the negative and enhance the positive.

Today's world is essentially like the one in which I was raised: we face the same demons. There have been immense changes: fall of the Soviet empire, the rise of Islamic terrorism, developments in technology including weapons of war, environmental damage, bioethical challenges, and the complicated influence of the internet and social media, especially upon our youth. All of these are small compared with the single, defining event of my lifetime: the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. 

This event (from hell, in my view) destroyed the post-war Christian Pax-American Pax of the West and created two opposed cultures: the traditional Christianity of the underclass and the secular, technology-worshipping, sexually-liberated, neo-Marxist progressivism of the elite. We are now effectively two competing  cultures, divided over the nature of the person, gender, sexuality, abortion/euthanasia, authority, faith and freedom. We are now fighting an exhausting Civil War as we face our traditional demons: antisemitism, racism, communism, fascisms, and poverty. Our world today is more dangerous and ominous than at any time since World War II.

I remain a Roman Catholic, a patriotic American, a strong internationalist; even as I am the culture warrior I became in early adulthood. It remains to be seen if we, now a divided and conflicted society ourselves, have the moral vitality our parents demonstrated in their time in the conflict with these five global demons. 

Our call is to fight this battle, on all these fronts, and leave the outcome to God's Providence!

Progress (Modernity), Chaos (Post-Modernity) or Drama (Catholicism)

 Among Balthasar's greatest contributions: announcement of the Dramatic structure of human existence, against competing models of progress and chaos. For him life is always the clash and confrontation of freedoms: our own, God's, the angels and the demons. We are engaged in an ongoing drama, at times tragic and then comic, as each of us personally engages the freedoms of other humans and the domains of heaven and of hell. This is combat, but not chaos. There is movement, in freedom, but no mechanical inevitability as progress. Each of us faces constantly the decision: for life or for death; as did the good and bad angels, our parents Adam and Eve and every spirit, human and angelic, in Creation. This drama reaches climax and conclusion: for each of us at death, for all of Creation with the return of Jesus.

Progress: Modernity

Modernity, starting with the rationalism of the Enlightenment, is built upon the myth or dogma of progress: that humanity is moving forward and upward, into a this-worldly utopia, entirely without the supernatural, through human agency and reason. Three of the four great "masters of suspicion" structure this narrative: Marx, Darwin and Freud. 

Marx took the Hegelian "dialectic" of history, materialized it, and posited an inevitable, inexorable, conflictual  movement into freedom through the revolution of the oppressed against those in power. In the industrial society of his time, Marx asserted the victory of the working class, the proletariat, over the capitalist class. In time, however, this economic model was superseded by the cultural one: the liberation of racial groups, sexual minorities, women and similar groups.  And so, the "arc of history" is always the resistance of those oppressed, their capture of power and liberation.

Darwin's discovery of biological evolution was, of course, exaggerated into a philosophical meta-narrative whereby the human race is developing, not just physically by survival of the fittest, but culturally and spiritually by the advance of science and technology.  This stream of Progressivism replaces the combat model of Marx with the quasi-mechanical, inevitable development of science, reason, and education.  In this story line, human reason, over time, overcomes ignorance, superstition, religion, authority, tradition and so-called-revelation. Gradually but inexorably, human reason and agency attain happiness and liberation from physical vulnerabilities (sickness) and intellectual/spiritual failings (religion).

Not so much Freud, ever the sober realist, but a school of his followers identified human integrity and happiness with liberation from inhibitions of guilt and shame around sex. Here we have the famous "triumph of the therapeutic." This story has human sexuality as inherently wholesome and uncomplicated but violated by societal negativity and repression. Here we have Cultural Liberalism pure and simple.

These three "liberation movements" are distinct but entirely compatible, they work to support each other and together compose the Progressivism that exploded upon the West in the 1960s and has reigned as the hegemonic, elite culture since then.

Post-Modernity: Chaos, Nihilism, Will to Power

Nietzsche, our fourth "master of suspicion," shared with the sober realist Freud an immunity to the illusions of progress. With a depth and clarity of insight that eludes progressives, he saw that the "death of God" brings us no earthly utopia, but "war of all against all"...descent into the abyss of chaos and meaningless, reliance upon the bare, naked human will, and nothing else. He thus resists the systemic optimism of evolutionary theory. His raw religion of power absorbs easily the sexual license of cultural progressivism.  as well as the tribal resentments of cultural Marxism. But he strips these ideologies of all comfort and leaves the sexual libertine and the raging revolutionary both  to face the boundless abyss of despair and meaninglessness. In the long run, Nietzsche is our primary antagonist: brutally honest and real, free of illusion and delusion. 

Balthasar: Catholic Drama

Against the delusional optimism of rationalistic modernity and the despairing-raging irrationality of post-modernity, Balthasar proclaims the Eventful Drama of human salvation and damnation. In an Act of gracious, free, unbounded generosity the Triune-Event-Communion-of-Love CREATED us other free, rational, relational spiritual agents, angels and humans. We, all of us, are engaged in a Drama of Freedom, with each other, with the kingdoms of heaven and of hell. Wounded by earlier exercises of this freedom, we nevertheless engage freely with each other and the two conflicting dominions in decision, combat, collaboration, communion, surrender, agency, assent, reception, donation, affirmation, disobedience, defiance, disbelief, faith, hatred and love.

Conclusion

In today's gospel (John 6;60-9), the disciples complain that Jesus teaching is hard. Many return to their former way of life and no longer walk with him. Jesus asks the twelve: "Do you also want to leave?" Simon Peter, impetuous-volatile-unreliable-honest, answers: "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."

Each of us, every day, hears this same question! May each of us, whatever our Peter-like failings, answer with such clarity and conviction!

The Vatican Document on Human Dignity

With a sigh of relief, we, the faithful, receive the Vatican's recent document on human dignity: Not too bad!

Cardinal Fernandez is doing a little better with this document. It is, on the whole, a reasonably accurate and fair summary of Catholic thought on this immensely significant reality of human dignity.  

It is a tedious, boring read, like most Church documents, as it mostly quotes earlier statements. Not recommended for leisurely or spiritual reading. It is mercifully short and succinct.  To it's credit it quotes quite a bit from earlier popes, not just Francis. John Allen in his Crux publication has been advertising a theological artificial intelligence that can access thousands of Church documents to address any particular topic. I suspect that that application could produce something like this current document. It is a decent survey. But it lacks the personal touch of charm and inspiration we find in the encyclicals of John Paul and Benedict and even (by some miracle) The Catholic Catechism. It does not carry the fire of the Holy Spirit to inflame us with zeal and courage.

It's strengths:

1. Not once did I read the nauseating "s" word that begins with "syn" and ends with "ality."  Additionally: there are no exhortations "to make a mess;" no defamation of rigid, retro priests; no mention of "accompaniment;" and no blessings of "irregularities." This shows that the Holy Spirit remains with the Church; that the Catholic Church maintains integrity, stability and resilience even in the worst of times; that there are resources of prudence, common sense and intelligence, however under cover, in the scandal-plagued Vatican! 

2. There is a refreshing clarity and intensity in the rejection of gender ideology, surrogate maternity and related issues. The fact that the LGBTQ crusade is so upset with the document, that the Biden White House disagreed with it...these are very good signs.

3. Even more important is the very clear statement about the created nature of the human person as male/female. This is stated with force. It is applied to gender ideology but has obvious implications as well for other hot issues, particularly homosexuality and the masculine priesthood. 

4. It also provides succinct, but very significant explanations of the philosophical and scriptural foundations for human dignity and rights. It alludes frequently to the United Nations statement on rights which asserted such without any solid foundations.  Clearly, one aim to provide such a footing.

Weaknesses:

1. There is no mention of chastity and fidelity  to one's (marital or religious) vows. This is a glaring deficit: personal purity/loyalty are the expression, the protection, the embodiment of dignity. The Sexual Revolution is specifically an assault on chastity as dignity. Yet, the document fails to engage precisely  here.  This failure is emblematic of the Francis Project: first,  to renounce the stern, vigorous, traditional sexual ethos clearly announced by his three predecessors in the face of the Cultural Revolution; second, to avoid agonistic combat and seek peace through surrender to all opponents including Cultural Progressives, Chinese Communists, imperial Russians, and terrorist Islamists. Peace at any price! No war is worth fighting, dying for! No heroic ideal here!

2.  Contraception, masturbation and pornography are not addressed. Pope Paul VI clearly predicted that societal acceptance of contraception would lead quickly to abortion, abuse of women, homosexuality, and the breakdown of the family. This is precisely what happened across the globe, but especially in the West. A culture of sexual sterility requires backup abortion, normalization of "self-abuse" (including its manifestation in homosexual acts), deconstruction of gender, and toxic individualism. Our youth especially are facing a pandemic of pornography and the assault on self-dignity that is lust. 

3. Homosexuality is the thorniest issue for this pontificate. Cardinal Fernandez, in presenting the document, was asked about the language of "disorder" used by the Catechism in regard to the practice. H refused to defend this language, answering that a different word might be preferable but that the act cannot match the infinite beauty of heterosexual ones which bring forth human life. He, Francis and this document lack the charity, clarity and courage to call a sin a sin. (Note the irony that the gay-affirming Catholic group that works to normalize homosexuality calls itself "Dignity.")

4. There is no recognition of the supernatural, the demonic in the global assaults on human dignity. We Catholics know we are dealing with powers greater than ourselves and we will not prevail on our own agency, but only by calling for heavenly intervention. This is a failing coming from the office of doctrine.

5. "Who is the audience for this document?" This question hangs over the document. Coming from the Vatican office of doctrine we would assume it addresses  the Catholic Church, especially bishops, priests, teachers and thinkers. In its foundational affirmations from revelation on the "image of God" there is assumed a Catholic faith or something close to it. At other times, however, as so often with this pontificate, the posture is that of "global chaplain" in giving binding guidance on policy matters like immigration, environmental concerns and other.  This is a creeping clericalism that assumes some vague papal infallibility on matters that are vastly complicated, nuanced, unpredictable and removed from the specific God-given expertise on faith and morals.

6. Unfortunately, this propensity is glaringly evident in the forceful repetition that the death penalty is unacceptable in ALL circumstances. This absolute statement  directly contradicts the unchanging teaching of the Church for many centuries. It was done without any "synodal consultation" by the fiat of Francis. One wonders if the African bishops would agree. The issue is marginal, however, as all Catholic majority and all Western (except the USA) countries have banned it. It is practiced by Communism and Islam, hardly the audiences for this document. 

7. The "seamless garment" model is apparent in the document: a long litany of violations of human dignity are lumped together in a confused way. Key distinctions are not made; priorities are not set. Most troubling is the failure to contrast inherent moral evils which must be absolutely renounced and defeated from complex, ambiguous policy issues which allow difference in prudential judgements. Inherent moral evils that are always and everywhere wrong include: sex trafficking, abortion, genocide, deliberate targeting of civilian populations, torture, euthanasia and assisted suicide. Quite different are those issues which admit of different approaches: hunger, homelessness, medical coverage, immigration, gun control, and crime. The Francis pontificate has been heavily influenced by Cultural Liberalism in its obsession to downgrade the first category (especially those dealing with sexuality and innocent life) as they impose an ideological rigidity regarding the second category. The "seamless garment" approach allows the Vatican to mush all the issues together and thus allow different factions to advocate according to preferences: the cafeteria approach. No one is offended; everyone gets along!

8. The section on war is the worst instance of this confusion and indecision. A nod is given to "the need for self defense and protection" but then the document quotes Francis: "...no war is worth the tears of a mother who has seen her child mutilated or killed; no war is worth the loss of life of even one human being..." Actually, if the Vatican were to ("synodally") consult with the Ukranians or the Israelis they will hear from the vast majority that their war is worth fighting. There are many, many wars worth fighting, dying and killing for. In this world there always will be. This section is not only self-contradictory; not only histrionic, indignant, hysterical;  but it reveals an underlying viewpoint that is naive, sentimental, Chamberlain-esque: that if we are nice to others (Hamas, Putin, Beijing, etc.) they will be nice to us.

Conclusion 

My math shows 8 weaknesses to 4 strengths. Not an outstanding score! But every human statement is prone to limitations and inadequacies. It is a decent, accurate summary of our Catholic view on human dignity. 

May the Holy Spirit protect Pope Francis and his Vatican and guide it into all truth!

Why the Novus Ordo Mass Requires the Latin, Charismatic, Neocatechumenal and an Extravagant Banquet of Devotions

Eucharist: Our almighty, perfect, absolute, everlasting, infinitely Good-True-Beautiful, eventful Trinity...present in a simple rite, a few words and gestures, and elements of bread and wine.  This is incomprehensible for our finite intellects! This is incommensurate with the fragility, finitude, weakness, disorder, instability and sickness of  wills, hearts, intellects, and emotions. The thing is impossible on two levels: objective and subjective. Objectively: no human act, no creaturely reality can fittingly express God. Subjectively: so distracted, inattentive, agitated, restless, compulsive and obsessed are we, in so many ways, that we are incapable of a fitting reception and response. 

Nevertheless, Christ choses to give himself to us...body and soul, humanity and divinity, crucified-and-risen...in these few simple gestures, words and elements. So we, the Catholic Church...the Bride of the Groom, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit...say "yes"..."fiat"..."amen" as we receive, cherish, celebrate, enjoy, protect and share this Incommensurate Mystery!

Subjectively: We hear the words "this is my body...take and eat...in memory of me." We do so...aware that our thankful but weak reception and response are infinitely asymmetrical, incommensurate, and inadequate. We can only pray that over time, by God's grace, we might walk a patient path that honors the encounter...of thanksgiving, receptivity, praise, charity, hope, compassion, zeal, and joy.

Objectively: We receive with filial gratitude, from Mother Church, this miraculous treasure in its humble, earthen vessel. For us: the Novus Ordo, the Vatican II Catholic mass. We painfully recognize that no imaginable rite of words, gestures and things can fittingly represent God. But he himself chooses to come to us in this simplicity, indeed indignity. And we obediently receive, participate, eat, drink and adore.

Novus Ordo form of the mass, universally practiced by the worldwide Roman Church for almost 60 years, is authoritative, efficacious, authentic, and valid. It is also blatantly inadequate...as an expression of the inner form/substance/essence/Mystery of the Eucharistic Reality...in several ways:

- It lacks sense of the sacred, the solemn, the awe-inspiring, the adorable. It is deliberately casual, informal, vernacular, relaxed, ordinary. It discards silence in favor; it replaces altar with table; it prefers the living room to the sanctuary, the chapel, the cathedral. Along with this:

- Aesthetically it is banal, monotonous, philistine. It is low (Protestant) Church and low brow. The  newer Church buildings feel like clean, new, high school gymnasiums. The music is, for the most part, winey-moany-groaney, effeminate, sentimental. (I much prefer the solemnity of Gregorian Chant, the piety of old Catholic hymns, the vigor of charismatic Praise-and-Worship music, and the martial virility of the Neocatechumenate.) Translations emulate the secular and avoid the traditional and ancient.

- Too many words! Too verbal! We sit and listen, non-stop, to prosaic, common-use American English until our minds go dizzy and we get nauseous. There is no break for silence, Latin, crusader zeal, solemn chant, praying in tongues, holy laughter, ecstatic worship. The entire rite is cerebral, white bread, suburban, bourgeois, middle class! Along with this:

- Too priest-centered! Paradoxically, the liturgical movement intended to retrieve a sense of community. What resulted is that we sit and listen to the priest. He reads scripture, gives homily, says almost all the prayers. We sit and listen, like a bunch of hyperactive, high-testosterone junior high boys stuck in the classroom learning poetry from a 75-year-old nun. Worse: priests with a narcissistic trait feel obliged to entertain, to tell jokes, to charm and enchant. And so we endure the annoyance of embracive greetings, personal stories, clapping in Church, and amateur performance.  By contrast: the Latin mass offers: an aura of quiet,  ongoing chant from the choir, incense, a legion of aged altar "boys" moving around in perfect harmony; the Charismatics offer robust music, praying in tongues, prophesies, apostolic preaching, miraculous healings, heartwarming testimonies; the Neocatechumenate offers echoes, admonitions, and crusader music that would stir the heart of an El Cid. In none of these forms is the persona of the clergyman so pervadingly monotonous and oppressive. 

It is not the fault of the priests. Many are humble and holy and find a way to hide themselves and allow Christ to radiate in the liturgy. The problem is systemic. So we see that our Church needs other expressions, other forms to manifest other dimensions of this incomprehensible Mystery.

Latin Mass retrieves that sense of the sacred and the solemn: the unusual language, the calming-prayerful-inspiring chant, the genuflecting-kneeling-reception-on-tongue. It maintains a sense of community with previous generations over the centuries. It is deliberately NOT casual, informal, user-friendly. The priestly action is, of course, the heart of the rite, but it is symphonically complemented by music, incense, many participants around the altar. It is largely non-cerebral and non-verbal and so appeals to the human spirit, senses, emotions as well as the intellect. There is plenty of exercise: standing, sitting, kneeling, genuflecting, sitting, etc. It is even good for the body!

Charismatic Worship, offers similar benefits in a strikingly different style: tongues, prophesies, exuberant music including swaying and lifting of the arms, testimonies. Again: the priest is the center actor, the Alter Christus, as he is surrounded by a superb cast of supporting characters. From the Pentecostals and Evangelicals there is an enhanced reverence for the power of the Word of God.

Neocatechumenal Way even more deeply strengthens the Liturgy of the Word. A small group meets previous to the liturgy to prayerfully, carefully read the three scripture offerings and prepare admonitions or exhortations. After the readings, participants share "echoes" or personal testimonies on how the Word impacts their actual lives. After this, the priest delivers a succinct homily, highlighting the key message. Historically we Catholics have been weak in our reception of the Word. Unhappily, the Liturgy of the Eucharist which follows is not strengthened but weakened in this "Way" as the ancient, received model of solemnity and sacrifice is rejected in favor of a "Passover-meal" model that became fashionable at the time of the Council. 

Eucharistic Devotions are essential to Catholic life for two reasons: objectively no single rite can adequately express the Reality; and subjectively our reception/response at that rite is woefully inadequate and requires an entire way of life, a culture. So, we need: adoration, processions, 40-hour-devotions, frequent visits to Church, holy hours, daily mass, solemn protocols of silence/genuflecting, signs-of-cross, fasting, daily office, rosary and frequent confession. We need to build our personal and social lives around that simple, short daily and weekly liturgical rite.

Pope Francis, tolerant of the charismatics and Neocatechumenate, has brutally repressed the Latin Mass. This is a rash judgement on his part; a huge mistake; a scandal; a narrow, authoritarian repression. One of his very worst decisions. He has crushed a wholesome, salutary and even necessary expression of the Eucharistic Mystery. History will judge him harshly on this.

Pope Benedict will be remembered as the great pope-theologian of the Eucharist. His Spirit of the Eucharist, which echoes in his personal voice the masterpiece of the same title by Romano Guardino, is a classic. He encouraged the Latin Mass as a corrective to the Novus Ordo. He valued the Neocatechumenal Way but directed that they be more integrated into the broader Catholic liturgical practice by attending the ordinary parish liturgy once a month. This was, in my view, a prudent, balanced, corrective pastoral directive. However, Kiko Arguello rejected it as a threat to the integrity of his "   ?   " (way? association? movement? cult?). In this suspicion he shows a fundamental schismatic impulse: a disparagement of ordinary, parish Catholicism. While he does not question the validity of the ordinary mass in the manner of the most extreme, sedevacantist Latins, he clearly devalues ordinary parish worship. He seems to fear that such integration and diminishment of the detached position of his innovative Catholic association will destroy it. To his satisfaction, of course, Benedict resigned and his successor Francis is not so demanding.

To Conclude:  Catholic life is an entire culture, a Eucharistic symphony, that infuses every aspect of life, and finds expression in boundless creativity, richness, and diversity. With Benedict we do well to "catholically" welcome the many valid expressions of the Eucharist, integrating them into the broader ecclesial life, but cherishing each for its distinctive beauty.

The Chiaroscuro of Dark Apocalyptic Times: 1930s and 2020s

 After 75 years of national and (for the most part) global peace and prosperity (1945-2020), we have entered a new, dark, even apocalyptic time: horrendous violence in Ukraine and Gaza, the ominous emergent Chinese Communist Empire, environmental troubles, and domestic politics of unprecedented divisiveness, decadence and discouragement. We seem to be entering a dark era, more similar to the first half of the twentieth century. Consider especially the 1930s:

Worldwide Depression with the accompanying impoverishment, despair, suicides and mental breakdowns; the bookends of two world wars; emergent anti-Christs of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini; fratricide in the Spanish civil war; suppression of Church by the masonic state in Catholic Mexico; Jim Crow and the KKK in control of our South; contempt for poor, urban, Catholic ethnics among the WASP elite of our northern cities.

My maternal grandfather lost his job, suffered a breakdown, attempted suicide, and died mysteriously in an institution, leaving his wife poor with three children. My paternal grandfather, having lost the family diary farm, was unemployed with six children until he got a job with a New Deal program. My oldest uncle, Frank, was a young, emergent labor leader with the UAW, getting beaten up by Henry Ford's union-breaking goons on strike at Edgewater, NJ, and fighting communists for control of the union. Dark days!

At the very same time, we have an alternate reality at work: quietly, humbly, hopefully, anonymously at study/work/prayer: Father Solanus, Brother Andre, Father Maximillian Kolbe, Padre Pio, Karol Wojtyla, Father Leopoldo, and thinkers like Danielou, Congar, Balthasar and DeLubac. 

An even greater radiance comes when we consider women quietly in service and prayer: Faustina, Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Dorothy Day, Catherine Dougherty, Katherine Drexel, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Caryll Houselander, Adrienne von Speyr, Elizabeth Anscombe, Raisa Maritain, Josephine Bakhita, and Etty Hillesum.

Our time, like that decade ninety years ago, is one of chiaroscuro: a cosmic, apocalyptic clash of the dark and the light. In the darkness, the light shines all the more.

May we consider these quiet, radiant flames of faith and hope. May we emulate them and bring that warmth, clarity, light and encouragement now to our world!