The Silence of the Men at Christmas

From St. Joseph we never hear a word: before, during or after the infancy narratives. He is quiet, peaceful, docile, receptive and obedient to the messages from heaven. Zechariah, a temple priest, is struck mute for the nine months that Elizabeth carries John the Baptist: a leader and teacher, unable to speak a single word. The Magi quietly follow the star and then disappear into the East: we don't even know what they were, kings, magicians, astronomers, or seekers of some sort? The shepherds, accustomed to silence, listen in awe to the music of the angels. The only masculine noise comes from the envious, infanticidal, pro-choice (that is, his own choice, of course) Herod as he massacres the Holy Innocents. The imagery is stark and lucid: the good men are quiet, the evil one is loud. We see here that virile virtue is rooted in quiet, silence, interior peace and docility. And yet, paradoxically, the masculine, or paternal role, is also one of teaching, of passing on the tradition, of articulating the law and giving discipline. Clearly, masculine instruction that does not emerge from the profundity of silence can only be noise, dissonance and violation. My sister once told me: "You should be more like our father: less talk of the talk, more walk of the talk!" Now there is some ego-deflation for you. She had a point. How often I have prayed during a homily: "Lord! Just let him shut up!" I read about a Pentecostal minister, accustomed to hearing the voice of the Lord, who ascended a pulpit before a huge congregation, prepared to deliver a message, when he heard, from heaven, a clear voice: "Be quiet." He obeyed. He stood before the crowd for close to an hour without saying a word. They sat quietly gazing at him. Suddenly, a sound of weeping broke the silence. Soon, the Church was filled with loud sobs and cries: the sinners were weeping about their sins and the love of Christ. The silence of the preacher provided the peace and clam in which the Holy Spirit could work. Lord! Give us men a Spirit of quiet, of peace, of docility!

Scandalized by the Church

Pray for me. I want to serve God but I see my Church going in another direction. I lack serenity. These words were spoken to me humbly and sincerely by a dear friend, a decent, generous man who has given his life to the work of the Church, especially among the poor. He is scandalized by the Church. He is in torment. His pain is genuine, innocent and childlike. I had nothing to say. But I pray for him. He is, I realized, emblematic of so many others who are scandalized by the Church. The representative of God on earth, this Church seems to them to desecrate what is most worthy and holy. It is not so for me. Through no effort or merit of my own, I have always seen the Church as a society of sinners, loved onto death by our Lord. Every new abominable revelation pulls me deeper into the heart of the Church: identification with miserable sinners and desperation for the Mercy of Christ. Lucidly, I see unveiled in the economies of Church dogma, worship and morality, the inexorable logic and irrepressible dynamism of Christ's love for us sinners. As I pray for my friend and so many like him, I urgently need to humble myself, in the Church, before this adorable Mercy; and honor the sensitivity, fragility and earnestness that lends itself to such painful spiritual trauma.

Catholic Answers to Careerism

From a Catholic perspective, there are two contrasting responses to careerism, the conviction that one's worth is found in professional success. The first would downgrade career and profession to the lower status of a "job," a mere means of providing our material necessities, in order to free time, energy and attention for the higher values of family and Church. This was St. Paul's attitude, for example, to his trade of tent-making: it provided his necessities in order that he could be free to preach the Gospel. This might be called an "apocalyptic" view of work as it implies that the things of this world are passing away and become devalued in deference to the coming and transcendent kingdom of heaven. Something like this was common at UPS, where I worked, among the truck drivers (not the managers) who worked long hours to provide for their families but did not glamorize their work as many prized more highly their participation in Little League, voluntary fire department, Church or community work. This view seemed to prevail, in my experience, in the early days of the Charismatic Renewal and also the Neocatechumenal Way. At least in my part of the world (NYC and Jersey City) these have predominantly attracted unsuccessful, low-income working class people and even the unemployed and disabled. The Gospel preached to these, the "poor of Yahweh," the "losers" in the competitive arena of the market economy, is a radical, unworldly one of evangelical faith, hope and love. The great value of this approach is that it radically rejects careerism; it transcends the "winner-loser" divide of our meritocracy by unifying all of us in an ecclesial community of adoration, faith and love; and it rejects, lucidly and emphatically, the "ways of the world" in favor of heavenly concerns. A second approach finds in work and career itself a religious vocation or profession. This might be called an "incarnational" approach since heavenly values themselves take flesh in work. The happiness of this approach is that work itself becomes worship of God and service of out brethren. This view is especially pronounced in movements like Opus Dei and Communion and Liberation, which seem to attract highly educated, professional, service-oriented people. In this approach, work and career themselves express one's deepest religious aspirations. My own children are reflective of this: psychologist, theologian, physician's assistant, teacher, social worker, lawyer and nurse. The challenge of this path is to remain "in the world" without becoming "of the world" especially in the privileged, empowered status that comes with competence and expertise and distances us from those who are unable to achieve success. Sustained attention to the needy and dedication to service are, happily, the pathway to meeting this challenge. My life has reflected the first option, the "apocalyptic," as I spent 25 years in quite a decent "job" (not really much of a career) in UPS and just over half that much time in low-pay, low-status service as religion teacher ("catechist" actually) and manager of a residence for low-income women.

Careerism

Careerism is the conviction, often not consciously acknowledged, that one's own worth, and that of others, is primarily or significantly rooted in occupational achievement and success. Our society is a meritocracy in which status and worth are considered to be earned rather than ascribed according to the class of our birth family. As society becomes increasingly technical, complex and specialized, achievement in school and work take on elevated importance. There are many problems with this development. First of all, our society is increasingly polarized between "winners" and "losers" with a huge gap between them. The "winners" are those who obtain technical expertise and become valuable in the marketplace: lawyers, architects, doctors and professors. "Losers" fail at this and fall into low-paying, low-status jobs. Typically, "losers" bond with their own kind and create unions (frequently, non-marital) that are financially insecure and vulnerable to the disrupting and chaotic dynamics of poverty and all the fruits of the sexual revolution (co-habitation, mothers without husbands, divorce, etc.) "Winners" also marry their own kind and enjoy two good salaries as well as the benefits of the more disciplined sexuality of traditional marital stability. This trend is aggravated by the depletion of the bank of low-skill, high paying, manufacturing-based, union jobs that enriched our working class in the post-WWII decades. Secondly, the emerging gap is intensifying the crisis of masculinity as young women are increasingly outperforming young men and the latter are prone to insecurity, indecision, immaturity, discouragement, moral impotence and an incapacity for genuine spousal, vocational and paternal commitment. This crisis in virility or paternity is, in my view, the defining calamity of our age. Thirdly, young women, as they excel in the marketplace of success, imbibe an ethos that is "macho" in the worst sense and become alienated from the inherent worth of their own femininity. Their maternal instincts are resilient and irrepressible so that the "crisis of femininity" is nowhere near the gravity of the "crisis of masculinity." But our young women are over-achieving and over-stressed and deprived of the support, rest and peace that they deserve and need. Nervous, restless and anxious, they are unable to provide our families and communities with the fruits of feminine restfulness: peace, joy, and the well-being of beauty. Fourth, the anxiety about performance in the workplace, now shared by men and women, depletes the instincts and energies germane to procreation as children, especially more than one or two, are perceived as threats to career advancement, rather than blessings. And so, the contraceptive or sterile ethos, monotonous and toxic, comes to dominate. Fifth, career success, in contrast to the fruitfulness of the marital or religious vocation, is seen as a self-achievement rather than a partnership with God in which we are responsive and receptive rather than autonomous and initiatory. Insidiously and subtly, then, professional advancement can corrode one's trust and reliance upon God. Sixth, obsessional focus upon one's individual professional advancement can inadvertently distract from relational bonds: marriage, family, Church and community. And so, we see some of our most successful people, often seen as "role models," leaving in the wake of their triumphant procession the wreckage of broken marriages, families and friendships. Seventh, those of us who, for whatever reason, cannot perform at all in the marketplace, become devalued, are marginalized and become invisible like people in boarding homes. Eighth, all of us, winners and losers, lose a sense of our own fundamental worth as children of God, regardless of rank and rating in the marketplace. Careerism, largely unrecognized, is a fundamental spiritual sickness of our society. Lord, in your mercy, deliver us from careerism!

Feminine (not Feminist) Responsivity to and Receptivity of the Masculine Priesthood

You have to either love it...or hate it: the male priesthood. In the world in which I came of age, everyone loved priests: every boy wanted to be one at some time or another. Women, but especially mothers, especially adored priests. The admiration and affection was reciprocated: every priest loved his mother, motherhood in general and women. The greatest joy for a mother was to have her son become a priest. Cathoic culture largely energized out of a sexual but chaste dynamic of mutual attraction and admiration between priests and mothers. The weak spot in all of this was that lay men, fathers and husbands, were busy with other things and largely marginalized in regard to church life. Priests, many of them veterans of the war, were remarkably secure in their masculinity as well as their chastity and were tenderly, deeply appreciative of femininity and maternity. And so there was a marvelous interaction of affirmation and admiration: the woman in awe of the male priest and the priest honoring the femininity of mothers. All of our great Catholic women saints, canonized and uncanonized, reflected this profound self-confidence in their value as women and responded gratefully, appreciatively to the masculine priesthood: Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doughterty, Adrienne von Speyr, St. Faustin, St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, and the list goes on. The idea that a woman would be a priest was as thinkable as that a man would be inseminated by another man, would conceive, give birth and nurse a child. The profound sense of gender difference was infused with admiration and reverence. This changed in the gender revolution of the 60-70s with the emergence of feminism as resentment: resentment at difference, disparagement of femininity as such, and envy of the status and privileges of masculinity. Flight from Woman, the profound book by Karl Stern, illuminates modernity as a disgust with femininity as such. With this contempt for femininity, women had no option other than a mimetic rivalary with men: we want everything that you men have, especially the priesthood. Paternity, as life-giving and protective, became reconstructed as paternalism, as oppressive, selfish, destructive. I have spent my entire 65 years with pious, practicing Catholics and I have never met a woman that wanted to be a priest. I doubt that the thought would even occur, in a real way, to any of my daughters, sisters or friends. Neverheless, an ideology of deconstructed gender, of homogeneity, and an unrecognized disparagement of the feminine spread like a pandemic throughout the 70s so that today many well-intended, intelligent Catholics despise their Church's priesthood as chauvinist, misogynist and unjust. The truth is the opposite: the Catholic Church is the strongest champion of women and of femininity. Indeed, the Church understands herself, and each of us individually, men and women, as feminine...and passionately loved by Christ our Groom, especially through his donative, sanctifying, authoritative masculine priesthood. You have got to love it!

Warrior Beauties

"You are the Glory of Jerusalem, the surpassing joy of Israel; You are the splendid boast of our people." Judith 15:9 The morning prayer for today associates our Blessed Mother with Judith, the fierce beauty who delivered her people by cutting off the head of the invader Holofernes. We have here a distinctive icon of femininity: beautiful, maternal and yet fierce, fearless and relentless in combat. We find the same image in the popular contemporary movie "Hunger Games" in which Katniss, the heroine, is herself an almost invincible competitor, hunter, and fighter even as her aggressiveness is entirely framed and infused by her maternal protectiveness, first of her little sister who is originally chosen for the pathological gladiator contest and later for a younger competitor whom she shields. Like Judith, her virility is expressive of her maternity. I think of the women in my life (wife, mother, sisters, daughters, friends): beautiful, sublimely feminine/maternal, and yet strong, confident and competent due to an inner character of steal. Our Catholic Church has always honored such virile femininity: St. Joan of Ark who delivered the King; St. Catherine of Sienna who instructed popes, kings and cardinals; St. Teresa of Avila who mentored St. John of the Cross. It is interesting that the Protestants reject the book of Judith, as well as Maccabees with its martyr-mother, as non-canonical: in that non-catholic, de-gendered version of Christianity (no Mother Church, no fatherly pope or priests), there is no place for such powerful, quintessentially feminine figures. Such women, and countless consecrated women throughout the ages since the very first virgin-martyrs, do not need a husband or father to protect them, not because they are "empowered women," but because they are in the deepest mystical union with the Great Bridegroom Himself, our Savior. I recall the joy with which I watched my daughters compete in athletics. Clare, the most skilled, played high school basketball with a remarkable athlete named Angela Zampella (who went on to set records at St. Joseph's University and play professionally in Europe.) Clare herself was a fierce, determined competitor, but Angela was extraordinary: strong, focused, and relentless on the basketball court. Yet, neither of them ever sacrificed any of their feminine graciousness: they appeared inviolate and immaculate in regard to resentment, jealousy, whining, self-pity or revenge. By some miracle, they were virile and yet feminine. It strikes me that the Church has always recognized that as we become who we are created to be, precisely as men and women, we become more like angels in that we combine the strength of virility with the tenderness of femininity, but always in accord with our constitutive gendered identity. Although by profession I manage a residence for women, I do not much worry about them because I sense about femininity a profound resiliency, connectedness, and gentle strength. I worry about us men: we are insecure and therefore prone to extremes of violence and cowardice. And things are getting worse as our culture becomes increasing matriarchial and younger women out-perform men in almost every arena. How are we men, in our fragility, to relate to such powerful women. A clue in given in the book of Maccabees by the marvelous mother martyr who exhorts her sons to accept torture and death rather than renounce their faith. We men, as we contemplate our heavenly Mother, the great female saints and the marvelous women who surround us, can be ourselves aroused to such tender yet courageous fidelity.

The Celibacy of Adolph Hitler

Were Eva Braun and Adolph Hitler just friends or "lovers" in the full sexual sense. In "Eva Braun: Life With Hitler," German historian Heike Gortemaker assembles all of the evidence on this question. She presents the testimony of those closest to the two of them as it was left to us in the post-war investigations,in conversations, and in written memoirs. It is definite: we do not know. Half of their friends and collaborators are sure they were abstinent, the other half equally certain they were physically intimate. There is not hard evidence either way. Hitler's sexuality will probably always remain in the closet. In public, even with close friends, they demonstrated no signs of tender affection. Gortemaker stresses forcefully that Hitler himself rejected marriage in order to cultivate, quite self-consciously, a celibate image: as "Furher" he sensed that as father and spouse of the German Volk, he must transcend the ordinary bonds of marriage, wife, family and children in order to be available, as a transcendent demi-god, to the people themselves. He particularly realized that as a celibate he would elicit a stronger response from women, including mothers, as a symbolic spouse and father to their children. Surprisingly, in light of the evidence, Gortemaker concludes that he had a "normal" sexual relationship with the attractive blonde. This involves a leap well beyond the evidence which is absolutely inconclusive. My own guess would be that they did not consummate their love because my presumption would be that a man so deformed, in his soul, will, emotions and intellect, by hatred and megalomania could hardly have been "normal" in his sexuality, which is always infused by emotion, will, purpose and passion. To me, it is more probably that he suffered some form of impotence in the area of genuine man-woman intimacy. For my purpose, however, the more significant reality is his brilliant intuition of the moral/cultural value of his public celibacy. He realized that only as a celibate could he transcend the particularity and limitation of normal marriage in order to consummate a mystical, spiritual union with the Volk. We see here a perverse image of the celibacy of our Savior and as well as that of His mother, and that of the consecrated-evangelical life and the Catholic priesthood. Genius that he was, he realized that his transcendence of normal sexual, married life would equip him for an extraordinaryly broad and deep spiritual union with the nation. Gortemaker holds that many of his most loyal collaborators held to belief in his celibacy, even if it was an illusion, because it was constitutive of the overall messianic myth of the "Fuhrer." We have learned from Rene Girard that we are made to imitate God and that if we do not imitate him in the loving, filial manner of His Son, we will do so in the hateful, disobedient manner of Lucifer. And so, we find in the celibacy of Hitler, real or not, a perverse imitation of the genuine self-sacrficial, all-inclusive, transcendent-yet-incarnate-unto-suffering-and-death chastity of Christ, his priests and those who consecrate themselves, women and men, to Him.

Women Voting for Obama

The appeal of Obama for women is rooted in some of the structural dynamics of femininity, but at a deeper level, springs from a wounded feminism, specifically a suspicion of and alienation from masculinity. First, the maternal instinct seeks to care for the poor, weak and needy and looks to exercise this through the government. The appeal here of the Democrats is evident. Secondly, the feminine impulse is to include, welcome, and affirm everyone while the masculine, paternal instinct is more adept at boundaries, demands, standards, laws, conflict, and distinctions. A woman thinks more intensely with her heart and emotions and goes intuitively towards the person and that person's suffering. She is not equipped by nature and biology to distinguish abstractly, for instance, that criticism of an action, even if it offends the actor, is not hatred, but can be a form of love, albeit of a more masculine, paternal kind. So, we can understand that a femininity, alienated from the masculine, is drawn towards a tolerant, non-discriminating liberalism. Thirdly, single women especially voted overwhelmingly for Obama but women in general supported him because they are sympathetic to the dependency of women, abandoned by men, alone with children. Our society, oblivious to the value of subsidiarity, has progressively weakened all intermediary communities (family, Church, ethnic community, voluntary organizations, etc.) and increasing left the naked individual to the whims of the two mega-machines: the global corporation and the federal bureaucracy. Of these, the later is clearly more caring of the weak and needy, especially the woman alone with children. Fourthly, childbirth and sexuality are, for a woman, exquisitely delicate, sacred, protected and private. It is contrary to the feminine nature to battle in the public arena over these issues. Therefore, the default position of a femininity uninformed by complementary and countervailing masculine values, is to retreat to the private realm and abandon the public arena to the deconstructing militants. Lastly, an overwhelming majority of women have accepted the contraceptive view of sexuality that overwhelmed our culture in the late 1960s: that sex is not essentially oriented to union and conception within marriage, but is a personal, self-fulfilling, private and recreational activity; that it is necessary for happiness; that "protection" from its natural consequences in the form of contraception, sterilization and back-up abortion are natural human rights. This last dynamic, the need for "protection," is where we clearly see distrust of and resentment towards the masculine. The requirement (think Georgetown law student Sandra Fluck)that all women have access to such protection unveils a distrust of the male: a deep conviction that he will impregnate you and then abandon you and that a state that would protect the unborn is actually one that is hostile towards the mother, hypocritical, chauvinist and oppressive. Obama himself is a perfect icon of the emerging anti-male matriarchy of our culture. He is in so many ways an intelligent, pragmatic, and realistic politician: consider his move towards the middle in foreign policy and economics. But on issues about innocent life and gender he is absolutist and fundamentalist. He was unabashedly in favor of the legalization of partial-birth abortion. He is the product of a broken marriage and was raised by a cosmopolitan, anthropologist woman and he clearly inhaled her sense of abandonment by the father. All his father figures were themselves stuck in an adolescent rebellion against the father figure experienced as oppressive: Saul Alinsky, Reverend Wright and a string of others. So, we see that the Obama administration, rooted culturally in sterilized sexuality, abortion, and liberationally-reconstructed marriage, is at heart an expression of a femininity that has been abandoned and abused by men. It's most zealous advocates are themnselves promiscuous, unfaithful men who realize their lifestyle depends upon it: Bill Clinton, the Kennedys, John Kerry and the list goes on. But if the Democratic Party expresses a wounded, perverse feminism, the Republican Party is the opposite: a disfigured masculinity not fully appreciative of and generous to the feminine. To its credit it defends innocent life, marriage and religious liberty; but in economics it favors achievers and in foreign policy it swings between the quintessentially machismo extremes of aggressiveness and indifferent isolationism. From another viewpoint, the two parties are opposed versions of an insecure, ungenerous masculinity: the one aggressive, arrogant and selfish; the other impotent, castrated, indecisive and submissive to mother. At the deepest level, the conservative/liberal polarization of our cultural is the development of a Protestantism that had renounced both the feminine/maternal (Marian, consecrated life) and masculine/paternal (Petrine authority)dimensions of our Catholicity. Culturally, the current Democrat/Republican polarization is symptomatic of a deeper, sadder moral/spiritual/emotional divide: between man and woman. Furthermore, the depth and breath of this suspicion, resentment and hurt indicates that the culpability extends far beyond these obnoxious liberal celebrities mentioned above: the distrust of our women is the responsibility of all us men. Our women distrust us because we have failed to love them with the gentle but strong, faithful and sensitive, pure and courageous love shown by our Bridegroom sacrificially on His cross. This election, becomes then, an occasion for us men to examine our conscience and repent of our own failure to appreciate, affirm and protect the women in our lives.

November Perspective on Politics

The month of November is extraordinarily rich, liturgically, for us Catholics and a good time for us to suffer the recent presidential election. The month starts with the feasts of the saints and souls so our attention is drawn to the last things of death, judgement, and the eternity of heaven and hell. The month ends our liturgical year and our mass readings, especially from Revelation, are preoccupied with the final times, the tribulations and final confrontation between the beast and the Lamb. The middle of the month revolves around Thanksgiving, surely the most religous and uplifting of our civil holidays, especially if instructed by something like Lincoln's 1863 declaration. And we end the month by entering into Advent, anticpating the coming of the Christ Child and, of course, His second coming in glory. Within this overall framework, we can maintain our serenity and confidence as we ready ourselves for a continued assault, unprecedented in American history, upon our liberty, mission and identity. With this election, the malice and contempt of our elite cultures for our Catholic sexual ethos has reached a tipping point. If you had told me 20 years ago that our govenment would be forcing us to pay for sterilization and abortificents, and that we would be closing adoption services (because of requriements that we place children with homosexual couples) and programs for women victims of the sex trade because we fail to provide "reproductive services"... I would have thought you were crazy. The worst pain, however, is the betrayal: that so many Catholics, including intelligent, well-meaning people, supported this regime that despises our way of life. Nevertheless, within the broader ecclesial, liturgical perspective our situaion is not exceptional. Mexico in the 1920s, Spain in the 1930s, France in the 1780s, Poland under the Nazis and all of Eastern Europe under the Soviet empire...just to mention a few...suffered adversity that makes our own seem relatively minor. Nevertheless, we need to adapt ourselves to the reality that our nation has become, in its key institutions, bitterly anti-Catholic; and that our own Church is painfully divided between those who understand, cherish and defend our ethos and liberty, and those who are complicit with the enemy.

A Confident Catholicism

"I cherish and live my Catholic values within my family and in my own life but I cannot go out and tell two men who love each other that they cannot get married." These are the words of a woman very close to me, an intelligent, devout and serious-minded Catholic who is quite extraordinary in her generosity towards those in need and who recently voted for President Obama. She has an intense, quite feminine, aversion to anything oppressive, dominating, judgmental or arrogant. She has contempt for Republicans. She sees politics primarily as the arena in which to defend the rights and needs of the poor and needy against the greed of the rich and powerful. And she relegates values regarding innocent life at its beginning and end as well as marriage and sexuality to the realm of the private and the familial. She has almost exactly the same beliefs and values as mine; the crucial difference is that she reserves the life and sexuality concerns to the domain of privacy. The weakness of this approach has two sides: it fails to recognize and engage the aggressive, militant, evil forces that have now become dominant in the public realm of our culture; and it is reluctant to vigorously share the life-giving values of our faith which are necessary for the common good and especially the well-being of the weak, poor, and powerless. In 1970, about 70% of Afro-American births were to intact marriages; abortion was statistically insignificant as it was illegal in most of the USA. Today, in NYC, 60% of such conceptions are aborted and the majority of those delivered are to single mothers. Possibly one out of ten are born to intact marriages. This is a calamitous, tragic, devastating development of the last 40 years. It is not due to the slave trade of centuries ago, it is due to the sexual revolution of recent decades. Indeed, it is precisely the poor who are suffering most from the pandemic of contraception, abortion, divorce, cohabitation, pornography and male infidelity. The answer to this culture of death is the Catholic understanding of integrity, chastity, fidelity, and fertility. Our Catholic faith is inextricably mixed with our ethos of marriage and sexuality. The Catholic impulse is to share this pearl of great price, this wealth, this most gracious gift: not oppressively, arrogantly, and judgmentally; but gratefully, zealously, vigorously, and sensitively. The Catholic impulse is as militant and apostolic as that of violent Jihadism or revolutionary Marxism. The liberal, especially the Democrat, Catholic, however is excessively shy and insecure about her values in the public realm. Consider: who more truthfully loves the 60% of black pre-borns who are destroyed in the womb: the pro-life demonstrator or the liberal who doesn't want to think about it? Who loves the homosexual more: the one who condones sodomy as morally equivalent to the conjugal act or the one who cautions against something that is toxic, physically and spiritually, for all of us: men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, those who are married and those who are single? The Catholic impulse, inexorably, is to assist the poor and weak: materially and spiritually. The two are inseparable. I cannot hand a hungry person a piece of bread without some sense of gratitude to God, without a deep spiritual regard, without a remembrance of Eucharist. The current administration is dominating us and directing us that we cannot do public works of mercy unless we violate our consciences and implement the agenda of sexual liberation: the bishops closed down the outstanding program of service for women who are sexually trafficed because they would not provide "reproductive services;" adoptions services are closing because we are required to place children with homosexual couples; and we now face the human services mandate that threatens to close down our entire network of services unless we provide the technology of sterilization and death. We are in desperate need of a virile, assertive, confident Catholicism that is not shy and reticent but celebrative and exhuberant, precisely in the public square, about the BEAUTY and SPLENDOR of faithful and fecund sexual love...that is honorably, nobly, and unabashedly protective of every single female and her newborn.

The Greatest Warrior in History: On General Petraeus, King David and Uriah the Hittite

On a men's retreat recently, Catholic evangelist Jesse Romero heralded King David as the greatest warrior in history. This is open to debate. Exempting the Lion of Judah Himself, a top ten list might include: Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Patton, Robert E. Lee, Genghis Khan, Lawrence of Arabia, Hannibal (not Lecter), Rommel,George Washington, and many others. The tragic fall of our most celebrated American military hero of the last half century, General David Petraeus (fittingly nicknamed, even earlier, "King David"),casts a clear light on the subject. Honorably, he resigned when the infidelity came to light. He realized that this act was not a private one, but public in a cosmic manner: betrayal of his wife, their children, his paramour, her husband, the broader community including many military couples who looked to him as a role model, and the CIA and his country in that he made himself vulnerable to blackmail. It is perhaps the constitutive error of liberalism that sex is private, not communal. And so, I offer my recommendation for "Greatest Warrior Ever": not King David, but his more humble foil, Uriah the Hittite. Uriah, whose name in Hebrew means "God is my light," was one of David's 37 "mighty men of war" who fought closely and valiantly with him. He was himself a member of a minority, the Hittites, traditionally despised by the Israelites, which suggests that he was vulnerable to persecution despite his courageous service for Israel. (This calls to mind a family friend, an outstanding young man of Arabic/Muslim background,who suffered contemptuous discrimination during his service in the Marines shortly after 9/11/01). Uriah was in the front line of battle when David was in his palace, sleeping into the afternoon and lusting for Uriah's beautiful wife Bathseba. Summoned home, he sustained the oath he had made to abstain from sexual intercourse while involved in the holy war for the people and God of Israel. His chastity reflects his virile loyalty to his King, his comrades, his (adopted) country and his God. Even when plied with liquor he stays on the porch and remains continent, which is to say faithful and loyal in a virile, militant manner. What a contrast to his lecherous, cowardly King! Deceitfully, David instructs General Joab to murder Uriah by withdrawing his troops, without Uriah's knowledge, precisely when he is in the front line of battle. Uriah dies a hero, giving his life for Israel and his King who betrayed him, as well as a martyr to chastity. But the two, courage and purity, heroism and martyrdom, are inseparably linked in the seamless flow masculine virtue. The inverse is also unavoidable: David's sexual vice leads to cowardice, deceit, betrayal, murder and even treason as he jeopardized the victory of his army for his own private goal. Sexual sin is NEVER private, it is always the most communal of vices in that it breaks the most intimate, enduring, and sacred of bonds. Note also that in this story Bathseba herself is in the background and even the adultery itself is not the main issue: what dominates the tragic drama is the betrayal of brother by brother. This is always at the heart of adultery: when I covet my neighbor's wife, I betray my neighbor. Sexual sin, as betrayal, is never enclosed in a safe cocoon of consentual pleasure, but invariably erupts into violence: consider the abortion shaol that emerged from the culture of sterile, pleasurable sexuality! The roots of masculine infidelity, cowardice, impotence and indecision are precisely pornography, masturbation, contraception, and non-marital cohabitation. And so for inspiration and guidance we look to the Hittite, the abstinent, the courageous, and the loyal Uriah who loved his wife, his country, his King and his God unto death. One take-away here is the primacy of man-to-man loyalty: we all need close, intimate, candid, and loyal friendships with other men in which we can unveil or weaknesses and temptations, receive the support and maintain the accountability that we need. Other than the Lion-Lamb of Judah himself, none of us will be loyal without a network of support. Uriah the Hittite, Pray for Us!

A Visit from Heaven

(Disclaimer: Whether the contents of this private revelation are indeed divinely inspired I leave to the judgment of the Catholic Magisterium. It is, in any case, a quintessentially November, month of the souls, dream and may not be unrelated to my idiosyncratic propensity for purgatory jokes.) In the dream, my father, Ray Laracy, was smiling down upon us from heaven. He was quite happy and didn't even seem concerned with developments on earth. He had been in heaven for quite some time as his stay in purgatory was very short and surprisingly pleasant. It turns out that he had only one sin to repair. It seems that his drinking habit was no real problem as he was close to the norm for many Catholic saints and mystics; plus he was a little nervous and needed some relief; plus he was so affectionate and loving after he had a few. Life in heaven, for him, wasn't so different from life on earth, just much better. He catches 6:30 mass every morning and it is over promptly by 6:48: no homily. He normally makes breakfast, as he did for us his children all those years, for his mother, Aunt Grace, Aunt Agnes and any of his brothers or Friday-nighters that stop by. It is always bacon and eggs and toast with butter. He is able to play 18 holes of golf and 4 or five games of handball and not get tired. Hi golf game is now in the middle 70s and a single game of handball can run up to an hour since he and his friends rarely miss the ball. His afternoon is free for nap and reading. Drinks start at 4 PM and at that time he enjoys the company of our Lord, and the Blessed Mother and all the saints. Purgatory was a big surprise for him. He spent the entire time with Republicans, learning to love and appreciate them. He did not expect St. Peter to tell him that his sole sin was rash judgment against Republicans whom he considered to be universally greedy and arrogant. He was delighted to find so many of them to be unexpectedly generous and goodhearted. Greed was common among them but not nearly as bad as he had expected and the poor and working classes were hardly immune to envy and greed. More Republicans were doing time in purgatory for sins against the flesh because they know better; liberals in general do less time for these sins because many of them just do not know better. MLK and JFK both did reduced time by reason of ignorant consciences. Catholics do a lot of time for sexual sins, again because they should know better. The place is packed with Catholics who contracept but almost no non-Catholics who do the same thing. It is sort of like the old days when the place was filled with Catholics who ate meat on Friday. Unfortunately, missing mass on Sunday is still a big deal for Catholics while missing a service for Protestants or synagogue for Jews seems like a minor matter. It really doesn't seem fair but he seemed unperturbed. He really likes Herbert Hoover's sense of humor and Ike had become a regular golf partner since they both like to move along at a good clip. Ronald Reagan is a ton of fun and Richard Nixon is a character-and-a-half. He felt bad for the Rockefellows who spend a long time there. John D. the first is still there. There is a very large section reserved for that family. The only families with larger plots are the Pharohs of Egypt, the Herod family, and the Kennedys. The Laracy plot is modest and entirely dedicated to the bias against Republicans. Ray is pleased that his sons and one daughter have been happily redeemed from this bias, during their time on earth, and he encouraged me to assist my other sisters who are a little slower with this task.

The Church and Her Movements

Recent tensions between Catholic clergy and the Neocatechumenal Way (NW) bear striking resemblances to the more serious break between Newark’s Archbishop Gerity and The People of Hope, a charismatic covenant community, in 1985. These features are probably emblematic of constitutional aspects of enthusiastic renewal movements that inevitably make for conflict with the established Church of parish, seminary, and chancery. The covenant community movement of the 1980s and the Neocatechumenal Way share these features: 1. A highly negative spiritual evaluation of the broader dominant secular culture against which they take a more stridently counter-cultural stance. The Sword of the Spirit got in trouble with our Archbishop for emphasis on traditional distinctive gender roles. Likewise, a NW priest is likely to inflame fires of controversy and resentment by preaching against contraception. 2. Similarly, they hold a relatively low opinion of the spiritual health of the established Church in the face of such a hostile culture. Their premise is that a stronger antidote is required than normal parish life. 3. An exalted self-consciousness that God is doing something previously unprecedented in their specific way or movement. In this they resemble Joachim of Fiore, the 12th century Franciscan who perceived the mendicant movement of St. Francis as initiating a new stage in Salvation History. Interesting, Father Joseph Ratzinger’s second dissertation was on St. Bonaventure’s rejection of just this view of history. While less extreme than Joachim, the enthusiasts resemble their liberal theological antagonists in this sense of discontinuity: “spirit of Vatican II” enthusiasts who see in that council a radical rupture with the past, the liberationists who find definitive redemption in some combination of Marx and Freud, and of course post-moderns who worship at the altar of Nietzsche. 4. Flowing from this ecstatic embrace of what is seen as a radically new and profound divine initiative, be it Kiko or Marx, is a discontinuity with the Church of the past as well as the actual, concrete Church of the present. These various forms of enthusiasm have little interest in the teachings of the Popes Pius, of St. Teresa of Lisieux, Father Garrigou-LaGrange or even Romano Guardino. Likewise, they are strongly tempted to sit in harsh, rash judgment of the normal Catholic parishioner, cleric and institution as spiritually challenged. 5. Like the Protestant reformers, the return to the “origins” of the early Church affects a sense, more or less explicit, that the Church lost its way, usually with Constantine. The Church of the centuries, that of Aquinas, Augustine and Pascal, has little to offer in comparison with that of the Apostles and their contemporary imitators. This calls to mind the Mormon belief that the chosen people disappeared for a few millennia and showed up in North America after a period in limbo. 6. The efficacy of the sacraments themselves, operating ex opere operato, becomes de-emphasized in comparison with the more empirically effective dynamics of the renewal process whether that be baptism in the Holy Spirit, prayers of healing and deliverance, scrutinies and steps along the Way, or the political and psychological liberations of the left. 7. An alternative hierarchy emerges which is imbued with greater spiritual authority than that granted the institutional representatives with whom they compete. 8. An extraordinary degree of spiritual authority is granted to lay, non-ordained and minimally trained leaders in the form of “shepherding and headship,” scrutinies, and a range of counseling and group dynamics. This spiritual intimacy can bear great fruit especially in comparison with progressive infatuation with individual autonomy and initiative. But it often operates without the safeguards in place for centuries in the Church (e.g. the seal of confession, the practice in religious communities that a spiritual director or confessor not decide on the status of a candidate, etc.) 9. An element of secrecy can emerge as the lay leaders try to shield their precious charism from a hierarchy that might misunderstand and even destroy it in its fragility. This is more pronounced in The Way, with its mysterious processes, than the Charismatic Renewal which expressed itself more normally in publically open conferences and more readily available literature. 10. An anti-intellectualism can develop as the teaching of the founder(s) is granted a prophetic authority, docility and obedience are expected, and skepticism and criticism are perceived as disloyalty. This is ironic since the founder(s) (specifically Kiko himself and charismatics like Ralph Martin and Steve Clark) are themselves brilliant thinkers and self-educated in a manner that is broad, deep and eclectic. Their thought is spiritual, intuitive, practical and fruitful in a manner not available in the academy. Notwithstanding the intellectual brilliance of the leadership elite, the followers are hardly encouraged in critical thinking as part of the catechetical process. The comments here are offered by one who deeply loves both movements and views them as the hope of the Church of the future. They are movements of the Holy Spirit but also human endeavors and therefore in constant need of criticism and conversion, like all of us and like The Church herself.

A Wholesome, Virile, and Sanctifying Same-sex Love

My primary goal in life is to deepen and strengthen my love for Jesus Christ, my Savior, Lord, Captain, Brother, Friend and God. Since He and I are both males, this love can accurately be described as a same-sex, or homosexual, love, although a chaste, non-erotic one. This decision for communion with Him finds many paths: prayer, sacraments, marriage, family, and work. An important one for me is the development of strong, holy, intimate friendships with other men. Much of my life is taken up with relating with women: wife and family and the women I work with at our residence for women, Magnificat Home. My goal here is to relate to each, (and every relationship is specific and rich and unique) in freedom, reverence, care, sensitivity, appreciation, generosity, purity, and a gentle/tender strength. I have become convinced that the pathway to such wholesome, holy relationships with women is my relationships with men: primarily with our Lord Jesus Himself, but also with a rich network of friends and family. I need love. I need fatherly and brotherly love. When I receive, abundantly, such love, my life overflows with goodness and generosity. The health, vitality, purity and fertility of my heterosexuality rests upon a more primal, foundational love that is male-to-male: my filial love for my heavenly Father, my fraternal love for my Lord, and my friendships with male family members and friends. Especially when I receive Holy Communion, I know that I am imbibing Our Lord Himself and His own love for women, a love that is exquisitely sensitive and appreciative, ecstatic, heroic, reverent, generous, and sacrificial unto death. Infused with the uber-virility of our Lord, I am able to cherish and revere each woman with whom I relate. It is a good thing for us to speak about homosexual love in this deeper manner: non-erotic but intimate, virile, strengthening and sanctifying.

The Gift of Stability

It is no wonder that Rome is called the "Eternal City!" The Churches, the cobblestone streets, the buildings, the masterpieces, the bones of the martyrs, the clergy and papacy...everything professes stability, permanence, fidelity, reliability, and endurance. This is awe-inspiring; especially for one coming from a culture of pervasive, relentless technological change. Consider: a humble mason laid this cobblestone 800 years ago and since then Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius Loyola and today I myself tread on the same stone. It is easy to believe in the Incarnation in Rome; it seems obvious that the Eternal has entered and self-expressed in time and matter. My nephew was ordained a deacon in St. Peter's Basilica, just feet away from the place where St. Peter's bones lay. This is what Pope Benedict calls "communion between the generations." This is Tradition. It causes me to question: What am I leaving as a legacy for future generations and for my own descendants? Have I absorbed my own heritage and expressed in in a form, however modest, that will transcend time and history and endure into the ages?

Roman and Catholic

"I had to choose between being Roman and being Catholic; and I chose Catholic." So said Father Richard Rohr. I could not disagree more! Today we leave for Rome. In Rome, I hope to become more Catholic: more deeply baptized into Church history, ritual and belief; more closely united with St. Peter and Benedict his successor and the apostles and their successors. In Rome, I hope to become more catholic: open to and embrasive of the multiform splendor of all God's creation and all His people.

Why Are We Here?

In a recent note, Gil Baile offers this: "We are here to ready ourselves for our ineluctable entry into the infinite Trinitarian drama of selfless love, which is our destiny. (Long sentence warning) To aid in that preparation, we have been placed in the midst of a family and society not of our own making and choosing, and in an utterly fascinating and materially challenging world, which provides the beauty and blessings, the hardships and responsibilities, by which the latent and sin-crippled capacity for self-donating love might sufficiently develop that we experience our posthumous encounter with the Trinitarian mystery, not as a hellish annihilation of our habitual self-centeredness, but rather as the fulfillment of a deeper longing which, in this life, we habitually refract into a kaleidoscope of personal aspirations, worldly desires, and fleeting fascinations." The dominant concept here is "preparation." We are readying ourselves for something infinitely greater!

Saintly Cowards and Holy Families

Today's "Saint of Today and Yesterday" is the Korean martyr St. Catharine Yi whose daughter, Saint Magdalene Cho, was also a martyr as well as a consecrated virgin. Yesterday's was St. Ignatius Kim, another martyr, whose son St. Andrew Kim was likewise martyred. The first theme that emerges here, and throughout the stories of the saints, is that holiness runs in families. And so, I pause to pray for myself and my family, and families, including all my in-law connections: Come Holy Spirit, make us holy, all of us! I am particularly heartened by these two saints, however, because their weakness is so obvious. Catharine at first vigorously resisted her daughter's call to virginity and was won over after many years. More pertinent for me, however, is Ignatius. Under torture in prison, his courage weakened and he apostasized. Subsequently, he was encouraged by his fellow Christians to renew his faith. He did so and was subsequently tortured and died in a heroic and holy manner. Now this is a saint I can emulate as I have long considered myself a "coward in recovery." My tolerance for pain is very low. What I see in Ignatius, however, is that he was strengthened by the faith, patience, love, hope and pardon of the community, of the Church. And so, in my own weakness, I place my trust in my Savior and the grace he gives me in the Church. Come Holy Spirit, inspire those of us who are cowardly with the gift of courage! Saints Ignatius and Catharine, Magdalene and Andrew, pray for us!

Hermit

A number of fascinating themes prevail in the lives of the minor saints, as described daily in the meditative journal Magnificat. Among these is the prevalence, in the ancient Church of the fourth to the thirteenth century, of the hermit-to-bishop pattern: a penitent sets off into the wilderness to seek conversion and holiness; he becomes a holy man after years of prayer and fasting; and he becomes an influential and saintly bishop. In the daily readings, this intinerary repeats itself every few days. It seems to have been the "ordinary" manner in which God guided and blessed His Church. What does this have to do with us today? The most pertinent point, for me, is that my daily "hermitage" is the key to my day and my life: my time spent alone with God...early in the morning, at mass, walking and praying the rosary, visiting the Blessed Sacrament, shared prayer with my family and friends. Everything else...everything!!!...all my engagements, tasks and relationships...everything!!!...flows out of this primal friendship. On the macro-social level, we see a contrast of this hermit-model of the episcopacy with that of the CEO-bishop of today, who is responsible for a complex network of institutions (universities, hospitals, schools, parishes, and other) valued in the billions of dollars. I wonder if we have not become over-institutionalized! I wonder if Ivan Illich was right years ago when he advocated the simplification, de-bureaucratization and impoverishment of the Church! I wonder if Obama is not doing the Lord's work (albeit without a conscious clue) in his oppressive contraception-sterilization mandate in forcing the eventual de-institutionalization of the Church! Maybe the bishops, the Church and each of us will be better off with a return to simplicity and poverty: a return to the hermitage!

Emulating the Bridegroom

With a typically fine performance by Sally Fields, the movie "Not Without My Daughter" portrays the actual story of an American woman, married to an Iranian doctor, who travels to that country after the Khomeni revolution in the 1980s and becomes hostage to her husband and his family. The husband is a fascinating study: he is sophisticated, educated and a most tender, sensitive husband and father. But re-connected with his Islamist family, he reverts to his fundamentalist roots and becomes violently oppressive. I asked myself: Is it credible that such an intelligent and decent person could become so tyrannical? I answer in the positive: because of the mimetic dynamics at work. Re-submerged in the intense climate of Islamist pressures, he is incapable of resistance. I think this is true of most of us: in a different place, with distinct friends, influences and pressures, we can take on an entirely new identity. We are what we imitate; we become what we look at; inherently and essentially we are echoes, icons, resonances and reflections of what we gaze at with admiration. In the film, the husband is a large, strong man so that when he beats his petite wife, it becomes especially brutal. I contrast this with St. Paul's exhortation: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church by giving his body for her! Or, I think of a third alternative: the husband as indifferent, irresponsible, preoccupied, and inattentive to his bride. May we Catholic men, all of us, attend with exquisite care and vigilance to our precious, beautiful women and to the Great Bridegroom who has modeled for us the pathway of gentle, vigorous manly self-giving!

Viva Cristo Rey!

Would that every Catholic over the age of reason in the USA in 2012 could see the remarkable film For Greater Glory! The movie narrates, apparently with reasonable historic accuracy, the heroism of the Cristeros and martyrs (some now beatified and canonized) who resisted the brutal suppression of religious freedom by the Mexican Calles government in the 1920s. Perhaps most poignant is the father-son-type love between the agnostic-but-militant-in-defense-of-freedom general of the resistance, Enrique Gorostiesta, (played unusually well by now-seasoned Andy Garcia)and the the young martyr, now Blessed Jose Luiz Sanchez del Rio, who is tortured but refuses to mouth the words "Death to Christ the King." Particularly despicable is the spectacle of his godfather, an influential and accomadationist mayor, who exhorts him to apostasy and stands by while he is tortured. A little research unveiled facts more shocking than the drama portrayed by the movie. It appears that the actual torture/murder of the young martyr was witnessed by two childhood friends, one of them being the notorious Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionnaires of Christ who died in the disgrace of sex abuse. But it gets even worse: Maciel was nephew of a now-canonized bishop, Saint Rafael Guizar Velencia, who supported the Cristeros, was known as "bishop of the poor," and died in hiding. His body was found to be incorrupt 12 years after his death, except for his left eye which he had offered on behalf of a sinner. It appears that this saint died of a heart attack, shortly after giving his 18-year-old nephew Marcial a severe reprimand for complaints from neighbors about the noise he made in his home with students in his religion classes. Seminary directors at the time are reported to have blamed his death on his nephew's behavior. The chiarascoro here of heroism, holiness and profound evil could hardly be more shocking! Returning, however, to the film and the political reality of USA 2012: Perhaps our bishops could require this of all communicating Catholics? Could viewing of this epic replace Sunday mass obligation sometime in October? Could we have general penance services in which all Catholic who have voted Democrat in a national election would be required, as penance, to view this film? Might we, with God's grace,today emulate the strength, courage, fidelity and holiness of these Cristero heroes and martyrs?

Reviving Catholic Anarchism

The Catholic Anarchism of Dorthy Day and Peter Maurin is looking better and better every day, so dispiriting is this campaign season. The deepest tragedy is that a party that represents a clear, direct, absolute attack on values at the heart of our Catholic faith continues to elicit the loyalty of about 50% of Catholics. The alternative, the Republican Party, is itself a disappointment. While it is defensive of innocent life, the natural family and religious liberty, it is itself enamored of individualism, the corporate market place, and American exceptionalism and blind to Catholic values related to solidarity with the poor and our fundamental communal nature as persons. As the left idolizes the State and the right does the same for the impersonal global market, the micro-communal anarchism of Day-Maurin becomes very refreshing. As I become more cynical about the State and the Market, about the Left and the Right, about an American culture that is late-Protestant and deeply if unconsciously anti-Catholic, I cling more passionately and tenderly to my Christ who comes to me in sacrament, family and the poor who are close to me. Dorothy and Peter: Pray for us!

Dorothy Day: Political Role Model for Liberal Catholics?

In its typical ignorance of Catholic life, the NY Times recently identified Dorothy Day as a role model for liberal Catholics who vote for Obama in their concern for the needs of the poor and social justice. This does a deep injustice to Dorothy Day. A radical anarchist (albeit a Christian one), she had deeper suspicion of big government, even 80 years ago, than the most zealous tea party advocate of today. She never voted; did not pay taxes; pretty much did not comply with the State. In the realm of sexual morals she became a staunch conservative, strongly disapproving, for example, the decision of a protege to leave the Catholic Church in order to remarry after a divorce. It is unthinkable that she would have voted for a regime intent on imposing the sexual revolution on the young and unborn. She received communion daily, confessed weekly, avidly read the lives and writings of the saints, and was a loyal, obedient daughter of the Church. It is inconceivable that she would support the Obama regime in its cultural offensive against the Church's active role on behalf of the least. Nevertheless, unintentionally, the Times may have a point in seeing her as a role model: precisely in her refusal to vote. Dorothy Day would no more have voted for the Romney-Ryan ticket than for the Party of abortion, sexual license and religious oppression. This is the honorable option for a conscientious liberal Catholic who is loyal to her Catholicism as well as her liberalism. It is entirely understandable that such a voter must reject the Rand-like individualism and mega-capitalism of the Republican Party as incompatible with Catholic social thinking. So the decision to boycott this election is an entirely honorable one, even for one who is not so radically anarchistic as Dorothy was. It would send a message to the Democrats that they cannot take the Catholic vote for granted as they treat Catholic values with contempt; it will alert the Republicans that Catholic support for their party applies to the moral-cultural values but is critical of the endorsement of individualism and mega-capitalism and an inadequate concern for the poor. Dorothy Day, pray for us, especially for those of us who are liberal and Catholic!

Passion

The Latin root of our word passion, "passio," means to suffer, to receive, to be acted upon or afflicted. We think, of course, of The Passion of our Lord, the epitome of torment and affliction. Our more common use of the term refers to intense affection, longing or desire. Here again, however, the root meaning of reception or passivity is prominent: we suffer or are afflicted with passion and desire, it happens to us rather than coming from our will. In both cases then, that of suffering and that of desire, the key is passivity or reception. For instance, we "fall in love" but do not "jump into love" in that it happens to us involuntarily, almost like an accident, as if we walk into a manhole because we are not looking where we are going. In this sense, we can see that existence itself, existence as a creature, a finite, non-necessary being, is also passion: we do not initiate, choose or opt for our existence. We are "thrust into" life: involuntarily. We can, of course, assent to our existence, or not: but the initiative is beyond ourselves. Likewise, we do not determine our own identity, constitution, place in time and history: all of this is given to us, suffered by us, afflicted upon us...our genetics, family, social class, range of abilities and disabilities and so forth. That we exist is passion...and who, where, what, and how we exist is also all passion, reception as gift and/or affliction. In an even profounder way existence is passion in that we are always in desire: we are always longing for something even when we are unable to define the object of our desire. When we are able to define our desire (this goal, that person), we eventually find that obtaining that object does not quench the desire, as it re-emerges in in a new restlessness, a new emptiness, a new longing. And so we see that existence as a man or woman is always desire or passion, desire or passion that is finally insatiable, desire or passion that is infinite. That is to say, our desire is for God, the infinite, the absolute, the all-wonderful. This is where the whole thing becomes deliriously delightful: when we learn that God, who is without lack or need or limitation, is Himself passionate for us. The Passion of His Son revealed this to us: that suffering or affliction was not an end in itself, but a gesture indicative of a far, far, far grander Passion: His, or Their (the Three), passion for us. He came among us, at the will of the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, to bring us into Their life. So we see, as Father Philippe instructs us, that suffering is not a stopping point, but a passage way. We do not abide in suffering, we abide in love. We abide in desire...our desire for God...and His, Their, infinitely greater desire for us.

Off By Himself

"He took him off by himself, away from the crowd." Jesus (in Mark 7), before healing the deaf and dumb man, takes him away by himself. Jesus is alone with the mute; the mute is alone with Jesus. Thornton Wilder observed that the child needs the undivided attention of his mother, for a short period of time. But then, after "attention has been paid," he returns to his childhood world, of play and fantasy, where the mother is not needed or wanted. So it is with each of us: like the mute in the gospel and the child with his mother, each of us needs that one-on-one with God, that solitude, that precious, calming, healing intimacy. Then we return to our endeavors, refreshed and energized. And by analogy, we need that short, one-on-one immediacy and attentiveness with our spouse or lover, child or parent, friend, boss and subordinate. Take me away by yourself, Lord. Heal me. Restore my health and strength and return me to my community and my endeavors!

We Are Blind to Evil

A shocking aspect of the priest sex scandal is that decent, intelligent, even holy authorities have been hoodwinked by the deceit of the predators. Father John Hardon S.J., a man known for his sanctity and erudition, assured the Jesuit superiors that a serial pedophile was not a threat to innocents; Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons MD, a widely respected, solidly Catholic psychiatrist, assured the bishop that another predator was safe; even Pope John Paul the Great underestimated the depth and breath of the scandal and was deceived by the cunning Father Maciel of the Legionnaires. We are exhorted by scripture to be "wise as serpents but innocent as doves." It appears that these three icons of fidelity and innocence, and so many others, failed to be "wise as serpents" and to be adequately vigilant against evil. In the political sphere we will soon see that 50%, more or less, of Catholics in the USA will vote for a party unambiguously committed to the legalized destruction of innocent human life, the deconstruction of marriage and family, and the suppression of religious liberty in the public sphere. On the right wing, even an intelligent, wholesome, committed Catholic like Paul Ryan appears to have been seduced by the radical individualism of Ayn Rand, to be incapable of an accurate critique of the consequences of unrestrained mega-capitalism, and to lack a profound identification with the poor and marginalized. I have been puzzled by the gospel in which Jesus, after preaching in Nazareth and favorably impressing the people, provokes them, in a seemingly gratuitous manner, taunting them that it was not an Israelite that Elisha healed but Naaman the Syrian and not a Jew that Elisha fed but the widow of Zarapheth. I now realize that Jesus was not impressed by their approval, but read their hearts and consciously evoked their rage. The best of us seem to lack this sensitivity to evil. And each of us is blind to our own sin: the first words out of Adam's mouth after his sin were "She made me do it!" Fortunately, we Catholics are blessed with the sacrament of confession where we systematically and regularly exam ourselves for our own sins, begging the Holy Spirit to remove our inherent blindness, enlighten us, and move us to contrition. Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil!

The Nativity of Our Blessed Mother

This morning, a precious feast day of our Lady, I had the good fortune to ponder pages in D.C. Schindler's magisterial "The Dramatic Structure of Truth" on Baltasar's understanding of the mother's smile, the "super-positive" glance/movement of love which awakens the love/joy/consciousness of the infant. It is my view that the mother's love is the most powerful created, earthly love, surpassing in intensity even that of the father or of spouses/lovers. However, he notes that were the mother/infant love isolated unto itself, the mother would smother the infant as she would not be able to "allow" this little beloved her own space, identity and destiny. What opens this passionate love to a horizon of freedom is another love: that of the husband. Since the mother is loved as bride, wife, companion her self, she is free to allow the little one to be herself. And so we see that the awakened love of the infant flows from the bi-polar love of father-and-mother. Yesterday I watched my two grandsons while their father took her mother to the hospital for a procedure. I was happy to watch them; but I was more delighted about something else. I was able to assist in that their father was freed up from their care to attend to his wife. Their mother received the affection and attention she needs and deserves. Because of this, her love for them will be freeing and strengthening, rather than controlling and smothering. After we played a messy water game in the kitchen and were cleaning up, I mentioned that we would tell mommy that we made a mess but then cleaned it up. Four-year old Luke corrected me: "No, not mommy. We have to tell daddy. Daddy is the boss of the messes; mommy is the boss of the hittings." He already recognizes a pluralism in the home, a division of powers (like our federal government): daddy disciplines about messes, mommy about fights. In this home there is no monolithic, totalitarianism of the mother or the father, but a diversity, a wholesome pluralism, a communal difference in love, much like the Trinity.

A Passionate Hatred

If we are to love, let us love intensely; and if we are to hate, let us hate passionately. I am proud that I myself hate with such passion: hate not a person, but a thing, an institution: The Democratic Party. As I write this, that party prepares for the Obama speech and the conclusion of their convention. I haven't watched a minute of it. I cannot. It would make me sick. I am not a cradle Republican. I was born and raised a Democrat. The party came with my mother's milk and my father's provision. And so, when the Party betrayed the Church, in the 1970s, I took it very personally. Think Michael Corleone and his brother Fredo. I don't hate Democrats; I love them. Everyone I work with in Jersey City is a Democrat; so are my mother and (most of) my sisters; so are almost all of my college buddies. I am quite good at distinguishing the person (whom I love) from the party and the political ideology. My love for the person is saddened by their allegiance. But I can only repeat: "They know not what they do." And with the years my contempt and fury at the Party grows deeper, stronger, more sober and clear. On my deathbed my admonition to my children and their children will be to love, tenderly and intensely, our family, our Church and our God. But it will also be to hate and defeat our enemy, The Democratic Party.

The Faith of Others: An Agnostic's Testimony

"Even though I didn't believe in God, I liked that my husband did. It made me feel safe..." Recalls Colleen Oakley in "An Agnostic's Guide to Marriage," this past Sunday's (Sept. 2, 2012) Modern Love essay in the NY Times. She was surprised at his insistence on including the Lord's Prayer in their wedding ceremony; and doubly surprised that she took comfort in his quiet, inarticulate faith: "...my husband's unobtrusive believe in a higher power was surprisingly attractive. He believed that an omniscient being watches over us, that when we die we would be together with each other in an otherworldly place, and that praying for people was an important part of caring for them. He didn't go to Church, he didn't read the Bible every night (I had actually never seen him with one in hand)and he didn't feel the need to force his opinions on anyone else. He was Christian-lite: just enough for me to respect, and more important, to live with." Some years later, just before the birth of their first child, she is again surprised by her husband and her own reaction: He remarks over pancakes that he no longer believes in God and probably never really did; she quietly agrees with his conclusion but inside is disturbed and grieved by a loss. A few months later, she finds herself suggesting that they look into churches in order to provide a spiritual base for their child. The husband resists but defers on the condition that "in our family we should always be honest with him about our beliefs." Contemplating those words, she concludes: "Our beliefs. Our family. Suddenly I didn't feel so alone, after all." Her's is a rich testimony, a witness to faith, although it is the nay-saying faith of an agnostic. First of all, she acknowledges the attractiveness of a quiet, steady, and gentle faith. Second, she emphasizes how comforting the faith of others can be, especially where we ourselves are skeptical, suspicious and uncertain. Thirdly, she chronicles the unhappy trajectory of "Christian-Lite" in that faith is like a muscle or a talent: use it or lose it. If we handle the Bible, go to Church and talk about our faith, it will become strong; if we do not, it will atrophy and disappear. Lastly, she concludes in a note of comfort and happiness, realizing that she is not alone as she is part of a family and a family that shares beliefs. Dear Colleen (I always loved that name): you are part of a much greater family than you realize, and also, in seed and by desire, a faith grander than you can even imagine!

Reverence

"Deepen our sense of reverence" we pray in the mass collect today. Reverence is: awe and wonder before that which is immensely good, worthy, precious, and valuable; surpassing joy mixed with humility; deeply quiet and peaceful receptivity that, expanding the intellect, heart and soul, moves into adoration and self-donation. Reverence is the constitutive posture of a creature before the Creator and His creation. It is the heart of every religion. For a Christian, reverence finds its concrete focus in the person of Jesus, born, active, crucified, risen to glory, and now present to us as Lord and Savior of all of creation. It is also the form or essence of the two commingled dimensions of human life: family and marriage. Primarily, reverence is always filial: awestruck and grateful before mother and father, elders, family, ancestors, authority, tradition and all that is received as gift. All traditional religions are founded upon reverence. In that sense, modernity, understood as autonomous, controlling technocracy has the interior soul or form of anti-reverence. The second domain constituted by reverence is the love between man and woman, within marriage quintessentially and beyond. As a man, I reverence the woman in front of me precisely in her femininity, as different from me: as virginal, bridal, maternal; as lovely, delicate, powerful, wise, delightful, and worthy in a way that fascinates, awes, attracts and humbles me, in my own masculinity, with its own informing strengths and weaknesses. Contemporary feminism, egalitarianism, and sexual liberation all spring from a failure of reverence. Deepen our sense of reverence, O Lord!

A Catholic Soap Opera:Sensationally Erotic and Agapic, Theodramatic, Communally Liberational, Pnuematically Sacramental, and Romantically Mystical

This melodrama looks into the lives of Catholics in a modest but enlivened suburban parish. Blessed with a series of gifted, holy pastors and a variety of renewal movements, these folks are passionate about their faith: everyone seems to be going to bible study groups, prayer meetings, adoration, confession, retreats and pilgrimages. But all of this piety does nothing to dampen the fires of eros, which are burning contagiously, in all their enflamed, random, spontaneous, chaotic polyformity. Everywhere there is the agony and ecstacy of sexual passion: the young priest in love with the older divorcee he is counseling; the happily married tennis coach infatuated with his star player; the bright, homosexual adolescent in love with his literature teacher; the promiscuous college student; the professor-internet-porn-addict; the two couples, stalwart parishioners and friends of many years, who discover that they have mutually fallen out of love with their own and in love with each others' spouses; the super-competent school principal who is frigid with fear of tenderness; the parish council president whose homophobia, misogyny and ideological rancor veils his own masculine insecurity and desperation for paternal tenderness. The list goes on. But the key protagonist in all of this is Father Joseph Luigi Karol. Approaching retirement age, Father Joseph radiates an extraordinary holiness: gentle, confident, humorous, intelligent, and madly joyous. With doctorates in clinical psychology and theology (expert in the nuptial mysticism of John of the Cross), he had left the academy many years ago to minister to the broken hearts, minds and souls of the penitentiary and the insane asylum. (Sidebar: casting for the role of Father Joseph is the key to the entire production. This role demands a seasoned, older actor: think vintage Alec Guiness, Paul Newman, or an older and wiser Jeremy Irons, a Daniel Day Lewis, an Anthony Hopkins or a sanctified Al Pacino.) He himself is under a cloud of shame as he had been "outed" by the media as the longtime confessor of a notorious pedophile priest. Not known to the public is the degree to which, operating under the seal of the sacrament, he had lessened the damage inflicted, even finding discrete ways to protect and heal the victims. Additionally, the maverick priest is under the disapproving gaze of the chancery where anxious, suspicious bureaucrats are unnerved by the joyously free-spirited holy man. But most important for the drama: Father Joseph has an extraordinary gift: an inerrant sense for the ennobling, sacrosanct seed that is the heart of every human desire and longing. Intuitively and effortlessly, Father Joseph cherishes, protects and guides each specific human love in all its fragility, vulnerability, delicacy and disguised nobility. And so, regardless of the immorality, illegality, or even perversity of the erotic longing, Father Joseph does not condemn, scold, prohibit or dictate. Quite the opposite, he presses the desire deeper: he pushes it forward, recklessly, unveiling its profundity. He enables the Lover to move fearlessly towards the Beloved, allowing that desire to open to its truest identity as the longing for God.

Great News from Pope Benedict: Agapic Love is Erotic; Erotic is Agapic!

This news is better than good, better even than great, it is FANTASTIC! Agapic love is erotic; erotic love is agapic. Pope Benedict, and Dietrick von Hildebrand, are our teachers here. God, in his generous, overflowing, creative, redemptive and sanctifying love does not only give to us, but he desires us. From the cross, Jesus thirsted. Blessed Mother Theresa understood that he desires us, thirsts for our love, yearns for our own delighted and desiring response. His absolutely agapic-generous love is also erotic-desirous. And the inverse is also true: our erotic- needy love is also, in seed, agapic and generous. When we seek God, appreciate Him, and abide joyfully in Him, we satisfy his desire; we are ourselves generous. What this means concretely for me is that the check-out line in the supermarket is much more than a near occasion of sin; it is an occasion of grace. As I view the desireable faces and figures on the magazines and am aroused with restless desire, I recognize not only my own need and longing, but the seed of generosity. And so, renouncing lust and covetousness, I move through the emptiness into an act of giving: praying for Angelina, Jennifer, or Penelope I recognize my own poverty as well as theirs; I offer us to God; my need becomes absorbed into the surpassing fatherly-spousal-inspiring love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and I become myself a Lover, of these lovely creatures and of our Creator Himself!

Catholic Politics: Mortal and Venial Issues

The mortal/venial polarity is a familiar one for Catholics. A mortal sin, of course, is a grave, lethal offense that kills the life of God in the soul; a venial one is slight, pardonable, and harms without destroying the life of God in the soul. With regard to the Church's social teaching and political judgment this distinction may be helpful. Here "venial" might refer to issues about which there is no defined Church teaching, which allow for a diversity or catholicity of opinions, in which essential evil is not engaged, in which prudential judgment, involving subjectivity and indeterminacy, is involved. We Catholic can, will and must disagree and argue about these issues without breaking the bond of love, faith and truth that unites us. These include most political and economic issues: immigration, health care, taxation, size of government, gun control, global warming, warfare and the death penalty. There are, however, a very few issues about which the Catholic view is absolutely clear, about which all of us must agree, about which prudential calculation and subjective values do not pertain. In the current situation there are precisely three such mortal issues: the protection of innocent life, the sanctity of marriage and family, and religious liberty. A Catholic vote for the party of abortion, gay marriage and mandatory financing of contraception is a mortal act: it strikes a dagger in the heart of the Church, it kills the sanctifying life we share, it tears apart the Body of Christ.

Liberal Dogmatism

Religious dogmas are accepted by faith; scientific theories are tested by reason. So, as Catholic I accept that Mary was assumed physically into heaven; I do not seek to test that truth. Liberals have contempt for conservatives as anti-reason or anti-science because they themselves accept, on faith as dogmatic creed, a network of scientific theories which are entirely problematic and unproved: We humans evolved from apes; man-made global warming presents a clear and imminent danger to human flourishing; there are too many people on the earth; people are born homosexual; oral contraceptives are very good for women; masturbation is healthy and normal; humans need sex; men and women are alike in intellect and all important ways; parenting by a homosexual couple is equivalent to that by a man and a woman; the unborn fetus is not human; liberals care about the poor and conservatives do not; gender is a cultural construct subject to personal choice and social experimentation. These twelve dogmas are accepted, uncritically, as absolutes by liberals. To express reasonable, scientific doubt about them is to be stigmatized as dogmatic, ignorant, bigoted, and irrational.The shoe is on the other foot. The deep human need for certitude, for firmness in truth and faith, for dogma, when denied and repressed, will re-express itself as violence. We Catholics are self-aware that are belief in dogma, say the Assumption, is an act of faith in a supernatural revelation. As a result, we understand that many are not given that gift so we do not despise them for that. Additionally, we can consider scientific theories (say, climate change or the origins of homosexuality) with a certain lightness. The liberal, by contrast, unaware of his dogmatism, can only view dissent and skepticism about such issues as hatred and ignorance.

Eucharistic Appetite or Anorexia?

The wedding banquet has been prepared by the King, but the guests are disinterested and apathetic or even hostile and homicidal to his agents. (Today's gospel: Matt 22.) There is one person I know who would have gone, enthusiastically, to the feast: Marylynn my wife. She loves good wine and food, she loves to dance and to dress up, and she loves to go to Church, especially for a wedding. "She has a good appetite. God bless her!" This old saying has frequently been applied to her. It recognizes appetite as a gift from God, a marker of vitality, of zest for life, and of appreciation for Creation in all its splendor and desireabilty. The opposite of appetite is anorexia, a mysterious and devastating condition. It's origin is understandable as an obsession with thinness on the part of an adolescent woman, uncertain of her value, bombarded by the media-and-peer message that only thin is beautiful. But at the advanced stage it becomes diabolical: a disgust for food, for the feminine body, and for life itself. Consider this contrast between appetite and anorexia as an analogue for our participation in the Eucharist. Jesus was clear: "If you do not eat my body and drink my blood, you will not have life within you." The word for "eat" used in this text was not the one normally used for human dining, but for animals as they bite, gnaw and devour flesh. By Catholic custom we speak of consuming, not eating the host as we distinguish from normal digestion in that we do not devour God, but are ourselves assumed into His life. Such language is important. We do not take communion, but receive it...as a gift from the One who initiates and accomplishes the entire Act. Likewise, it is NOT bread and wine that we receive, but body and blood. Actually! Literally! This is NOT metaphor or symbol or poetry. Jesus' choice of words, so different from our pious custom, indicates that He wants us to devour him, aggressively, desperately, passionately. Here there is no room for passivity, apathy or indifference. I think of my sons or my old buddies from UPS in a Portuguese restaurant, downneck Newark, being served Rodesia (a smorgaboard of meats): a glint in the eyes, saliva flows, hormones are exploding, the teeth tear into the flesh, stomach chemicals are percolating to receve the feast, there is laughter and good cheer. Now that is appetite, not anorexia. And so I have little use for Catholicism Lite: a piety of effete, non-gendered, under-sexed, apathetic, skeptical, unaggressive, anorexic gentility. If we are to be Cathlic, let's really be Catholic: as aggressive, meat-eating, blood drinking, passionate lovers, enflamed with desire! Let us hunger and thirst, desperately, for Christ in the Eucharist!

The Queenship of Mary: Influence, Not Control

Mary, whose regal dominion we honor today, is not in control. Instead, she exercises influence. Control implies domination, a lessening or even elimination of the freedom of the other. Influence, by contrast, enhances freedom. Contrast: "He controls her" with "She is having a good influence on him." The male has a penchant for control: possession of of the TV remote; power struggles; competition. The business world exalts control: the controller has controls in place. Technology is the exercise of control over nature. The female is more facile in the emanation of an influence that attracts and yet respects the inner liberty of the other. But anxiety often traps women into the compulsion to control, out of concern for the other. Mary our Lady was not in control: not of her son, not of her husband Joseph, and certainly not of the Father and the Holy Spirit. She allowed herself to be under their influence, all of them. In turn, she exercised influence. May we today, release control, and surrender to her influence. After that, may we influence each other: awakening love, enhancing freedom, inspiring zeal and magnanimity.

Saved by Deep Loveliness

Miguel Manara, the protagonist of a short play of that title by Oscar Milosz, is a notorious womanizer, bored and sated with vice, whose life is completely changed by the love of Girolama, an innocent-but-wise 16-year old whose striking physical beauty is excelled by her inner goodness. She knows and yet loves Miguel, in all his sinfulness, and he in turn conceives a heart-changing love for her in her feminine splendor. He is converted...saved by her deep loveliness. Under her influence, he goes on to become a saint. Our lust-plagued world will be saved, this play suggests to me, by Beauty, by deep, feminine loveliness. Charles DeFocault was similarly converted by the chaste love of his lovely,prayerful woman cousin. St. Augustine was saved by the prayer of his mother. Our Guys, the story of the horrendous Glen Ridge rape, noted that boys who had sisters were disinclined to cooperate with the assault. Recall that Jesus, in his own passion, was comforted and supported almost entirely by women: those at the foot of the cross; the wife of Pilate who was the only one to advocate for him; and the three encounters we recall in the Stations including Veronica, Mary and the women of Jerusalem. If he received and welcomed this feminine touch at Golgotha, so much more may we, who suffer a different kind of passion, seek and relish the healing touch of womanly beauty. With Dostoevsky, we know that we will be saved by Beauty: specifically the radiant femininity of our wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, family and friends.

Companions in Holiness; Sinners' Support Group

There are a lot of people who pray for me: my Mom, wife, family and friends. I have a decent laundry list for intercessory prayer myself. At least 2 or 3 times daily I pray spontaneously with a prayer partner. So, I, gratefully, find myself immersed in a web of holy relationships: we pray with and for each other; we encourage each other with thoughts from scripture, the saints or the Church; and we share our weakness and sin. It could be called a "sinners' support group" or a "sanctity circle" or even a "saints-in-the-making workshop." It parallels our liturgical participation as an informal analogue but the two interpenetrate each other so the formal and the informal flow into each other forming a single Christian life pattern. This web of holy relationships is miraculously powerful as a synergy is released in the interchange: the resulting energy is far greater than the total of all our efforts. It is the work of the Holy Spirit! It pulls us deeply into the Kingdom of God, in disregard for our blatant sinfulness and weakness. It effortlessly overcomes evil, temptation and guilt. It spreads with a mimetic contagion. It is glorious!

"Not Everyone Can Accept This."

Jesus warned us that "not everyone can accept this, but only those to whom it has been given." He says this immediately after explaining God's view of marriage: "What God has joined together, let no man break asunder." In his time, and markedly in our own time, not everyone "gets it." It requires a gift from above, a grace, to understand the deepest nature of marriage, family and sexuality. It is painfully obvious that many of our contemporaries haven't received this gift. Happy are those of us who have received this blessing! It is not for us to judge others who not so blessed. This suggests to me a certain relaxation in the intensity, or at least the negativity, of the culture wars. This does not mean that we simply capitualte to the the spirit of the age, forces of bogus-liberation regarding marriage issues like cohabitation, divorce, and gay marriage. It does mean we relinguish righteousness and anger. It means that we be ever more grateful and joyous that we are granted this understanding and the miraculous ability to live this mystery.

Shall We Dance?

Imagine that I am offered, by God, another life and any gift I want: wealth, power, good looks, athleticism, intelligence or whatever. I know exactly what I would choose: to be able to dance like Fred Astaire, with Ginger Rogers, of course. In the history of this created universe (I cannot speak for alternate universes or a multiverse!), there never was and never will be anything quite like these two dancing together. Lightness: when they move together, there is a miraculous, even supernatural lightness that is simply heavenly. The normal rules of nature, the gravity and heaviness of the material, the antagonism between body and soul, flesh and spirit...all of this is suspended and we witness the wedding of the heavenly and the earthly, the material and the spiritual, the masculine and the feminine, and the love embrace of intellect, passion, will, spirit and all that is carnal. Their movement, together, quintessentially represents the Catholic vision of reality: the Theology of the Body; flesh as expressive of spirit; the beatific, nuptial and expressive purpose of the sexual, gendered, humble yet splendid human form. They show us what it was like, before sin, when Adam and Eve walked and talked and sang and danced with God at twilight in the Garden. They show us something of the bodily splendor that Jesus and Mary share today in heaven and (in hidden, and yet manifest manner) on earth. They show us our carnal identity and destiny. They inspire us to open our hearts and minds and bodies to the love that infuses the universe; to steadily if slowly become gracious, free and light. Their professional partnership was fluid, fruitful and inspired by heaven. Apparently, their personal relationship was loving, joyous and reverent, but also dense, intense, and complex: not without the tensions of sexual-romantic attraction, professional rivalry, and class dissonance (Rogers was higher on the ladder.)But when they danced, it was heaven on earth, for them and for viewers of every generation. That he was older, and not classically handsome or sexy, enhanced and elevated the romantic erotic dimension, freeing it of libidinal tension and gravity. He is masculine as wise, experienced, sober, fatherly, transcendent, admiring, directive, confident and strong. This paternal-and-yet-romantic balance seemed to liberate in her a feminine, filial trust; a serenity and innocence; graciousness, spontaneity and fluidity. Effortlessly, she becomes docile, receptive and responsive to his admiration and delight (as we are all invited to be in relation to our heavenly Father and Spouse.) As in traditional portrayals of the virgin Mary and the older, fatherly Joseph, eros attains new depth, richness,intensity and range as it it sublimated into chaste, paternal-filial tenderness and loyalty. God bless Fred and Ginger and us all!

Al Smith Dinner: A Catholic Sensibility?

I scratch my head in puzzlement: "Did he really invite him? Did Cardinal Dolan really invite our President to the Al Smith dinner? Why would he want to break bread, drink wine, and share jokes with the one who deprives us of religious liberty, would destroy all our institutions of corporal mercy, decimates innocent unborn life, and deconstructs sexuality and marriage? Why honor our worst enemy? " Is it because the Cardinal is, deep down, an unrepentant New Deal, liberal, big-government Democrat, like most of our bishops of the last 80 years? Is it because he is by nature jovial but naive, clueless as to the toxic political consequences of honoring this incumbent candidate in the midst of a campaign? Is it because he is a compulsively irenic reconciliator, like Cardninals Bernadine and McCarrick before him, who wants to be friends with everyone? Is he afflicted with the classic "Hesburg" Catholic inferiority complex, with a desperate need to be approved by the pretigious and powerful? Or worst of all, is he another tolerant cleric, lacking in guts and fortitude, turning a blind eye to evil and thereby enabling it, as so many bishops did in the priest sex scandal? Is it all of the above? It is, in any case, a disappointment for those of us who treasure religious liberty, value defenseless human life, and honor marriage and family. Nevertheless, there is another, more positive way to look at the invitation. It reflects a Catholic sensibility in regard to civility, love of the enemy, and the non-ultimacy of politics. First, regarding civility: our politics has become sadly polarized as left and right increasingly demonize each other. It is a good thing, a Catholic and catholic and inclusive thing for political enemies to sit down, joke and enjoy each other. Even if we must return to warfare the next morning. Secondly, we are told to love our enemies. For a Catholic in 2012, President Obama is clearly the enemy: therefore, we invite him to dinner and honor him and love him. This is a very Catholic and catholic thing to do. Finally, for the Catholic, politics is not of ultimate importance. It has significance, but not absolutely. More important for each of us is our concrete, immediate opportunity to love our neighbor. You can tax me to death, take away my religious liberty, close down my institutions, and install a regime of sexual license and annihilation of the innocent, but you cannot deprive me of my interior freedom, my life of faith hope and love. Whatever your politics, I will still love and honor, you, beloved enemy Obama, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. In this regard, it is a Catholic thing to honor an Obama. Would we do the same for Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Hussein or Bin Laden? The Al Smith dinner this year is a richly ambiguous event. I am myself very much of two minds about it. We are exhorted to always speak truth in love. We see here that love is present. Is truth? St. Ignatius of Loyola directed us to always put the best possible interpretation on the actions of others. This goes doubly in the case of bishops. In that light, I am working very hard to appreciate the Catholic sensibility of Cardinal Dolan.Cardinal Dolan is intelligent and articulate, he is fierce in defense of our values, he has a sense of humor and a Catholic sensibility about what is of ultimate importance: That we love each other! My hope is that he has the guts and intelligence to use the moment to issue a stern message to our President and our country. I imagine him echoing the spirit of another leader who faced such a threat to liberty: We love and honor you Mr. President, but we will fight, for our liberty, for our defenseless, for our youth and families...relentlessly and tirelessly, unto the spilling of our blood...we will fight you..."by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy...We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." Now that is a Catholic sensibility: a blend of civility, humor, agapic love for the enemy, and Godly, militant zeal!

Catwoman and St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross

In the blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises, Anne Hathaway, as Catwoman, steals the movie, despite an ensemble of outstanding performances. She owns every scene in which she appears. First of all, she is as smart as can be: two steps ahead of Batman, the police, and the bad guys. Second, she is tough as nails, effortlessly besting three of four thugs at a time, and then gracefully walking away, every hair in place and serene as can be. Thirdly, she is breathtakingly beautiful, in an elegant gracious manner. She is not sexy in a needy, manipulative, seductive, I-need-a-man way. So, fourthly, she is independent, competent, and self-sufficient without a man. Fifthly, she is good...at the end of the day; although far from perfect. She is, after all, a cat burgler. But most importantly, in regard to the movie, she is light-hearted. There is a heavy, masculine, aggressive tone to most of the movie: the fights, the chases, the soundtrack, the ominous, muscular and dominant villain Bane. But Catwoman brings a distinctively feminine sense of lightness to the entire thing. It is when she appears and makes coy, witty comments that we, as viewers, realize, somewhere in our brains, that this is, after all, a comic strip; it is fun and funny; and we don't really have to grieve too deeply about the diminished potency of Batman or the fate of poor Gotham. Catwoman is an analogue, a image or icon, on a lower level, of our saint for today: St. Theresa Benedicata of the Cross, a.k.a. Edith Stein. She was a towering intellectual. As a protege of the great Husserl, she was considered a brighter light than her classmate Heideggar, who is probably the most influential philosopher of the 20th century. She was courageous: facing martyrdom in a concentration camp with serenity, exuding calm and consolation to her fellow prisoners. Physically, she was lovely to behold. But her spirit was even more splendid. She wrote and spoke brilliantly on the female psyche in a vein similar to that of her fellow mystic-phenomenologist, John Paul II. She was good: a consecrated virgin, a pure soul. But most of all, in regard to the drama that was her life and the life of that dark century, she brought a distinctively feminine lightness, a joy, a radiance of hope into the darkness of the Shaol. Liberated women! You go girl! We love you Catwoman, Anne Hathaway, and Saint Theresa Benedicta of the Cross!