The Serenity to Accept the Things I Cannot Change...

The Church is not going to change. The Church is, always was, and always will be filled with and run by sinners: chauvinists, power-mongers, social climbers, misogynists, homophobes, pedophiles, thieves and the like. It is a Church of sinners…always was and always will be. The Church in her inner form, her essence, her soul…cannot and will not change. She cannot contradict herself. She is the bride of Christ and the body of Christ: this cannot change. Yes, she can develop and grow…but only in accord with her inner self and all its constitutive elements. What has emerged with stark clarity in the current, double pontificate, and in the face of the sexual revolution in the West, is that conjugal, nuptial love is singularly iconic of the Church’s relationship with her groom, the Lord Jesus. By conjugal or nuptial we mean a love that is: sexual, romantic, gendered, heterosexual, conceptive or fruitful, faithful, exclusive, free, unitive, sacrificial, chaste and generous. The Church has always known this, but never so clearly as today. For over 40 years, since the issuing of Humanae Vitae, there has been a steady consolidation, retrenchment, and intensification around this icon of nuptial love: papal teaching on the theology of the body (John Paul) and the agapic-erotic nature of love (Benedict); the ecclesial movements and their fierce loyalty to the magisterium; a quiet, gentle renaissance of the consecrated life; and an episcopate and presbyterate increasingly confident in the face of a hostile culture. So, it is time for the “spirit-of-Vatican-II” progressives to give up the fight; to accept what they cannot change; and to surrender. The war is over. The Church never has and never will accept sterile sex or women priests. It is a waste of energy to protest, complain, and whine about this. It is time for the liberals to accept this reality and to stop wasting their energy (and ours) in the effort to change the Church. They can stop and take a deep breath. They can stop fighting against reality. They can enjoy serenity and peace. They can recoup their energy and redirect it in more productive directions, especially their own personal conversion and sanctification. They can love it or leave it. Since they can’t beat us, they can join us. If women priests, contraceptives and gay marriage are really important to them, they owe it to their own integrity and that of the Church to move on to another community of faith. If they love the Catholic Church more than they want women priests and contraception, it is time for them to relax and live calmly with the reality of the Church, a reality that they cannot and will not change. As they age and approach death, may they be granted this peace and serenity!

Evangelical Humanism

In his masterful Not-God: the History of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ernest Kurtz identified two sharply contrasting currents in the history of spirituality in America which defined AA and the 12-step approach: the evangelical/pietistic movement with its sense of sin, the holiness of God, need for conversion, and sense of God’s initiative; and the liberal/humanistic viewpoint with its optimism about human initiative and sense of our participation in God’s work on earth. AA, coming out of the evangelical Oxford Group, was fundamentally defined by the former: sense of powerlessness, trust in a Higher Power, “bottom out” experience, and need for surrender. But in a significant if secondary way, it was influenced by the liberal/humanistic tradition, especially through William James: tolerance of pluralism, rejection of identification with religion in favor of spirituality, humility in working one’s own inventory, refusal to judge others, allergy to perfection and absolutes, the “live and let live” attitude, and a most optimistic trust in the workings of the “program” although always through the grace of God. It was then, fundamentally an evangelical movement, although anonymously, with a healthy infusion of liberal humanism. A Catholic will recognize that the polarization and fragmentation into these two competing visions is a development of a Protestantism that ripped Christianity out of its organic setting within an efficacious sacramental economy, an apostolic magisterium, and especially communion with Mary, the mother Jesus shared with us. Mary embodies, perfectly, an evangelical humanism: she is both an absolute aversion to and an antidote to sin; she is God’s workmanship and yet the greatest exercise of human freedom; she is the pinnacle of human liberty as surrender in love; she is the incomparable marriage of the human and the divine. By a most felicitous confluence of grace, human ingenuity, and American culture, Bill Wilson, Doctor Bob and their fellows gave birth to a distinctively catholic, which is to say both evangelical and liberal, spirituality…even if its catholicity was implicit and anonymous. This bipolar model suggested by Kurtz is most promising: any authentic Christianity will wed the two currents into an organic, integral, kind of evangelical liberalism. An authentic Christian humanism, in other words, will always rest itself upon the saving work of God within us sinners. Christianity is always bad news and good news: the bad news is that I am a sinner desperately in need of God’s mercy; the good news is that God’s mercy is offered to me by Christ in his Church. Much of what passes for liberalism today is a flight from the reality of our sin and need for salvation...and therefore an inability to accept that salvation and the renewed humanism that flows from it. By contrast, genuine evangelical humanism flows from the primal, original reality of sin (“hit bottom”), the encounter with The saving Person, and a flourishing humanism and culture as a result. And so, borrowing from the typology of Kurtz, we identify two poles which indwell and inform each other: an (evangelical) awareness of sin and salvation and the (humanistic) affirmation of the dignity of the human. But let us consider, in light of this bipolar model, five current movements within Catholicism: the Way of Kiko Arguello, the charismatic renewal, Communion and Liberation, the Catholic-Evangelical dialogue, and the dual pontificate of John Paul and Benedict. The NeoCatechumenal Way of Kiko is rigorously and starkly evangelical in its insistence that we are, all of us, entrapped by a fear of death, a fear which we are unable to overcome, except through the Gospel of the Risen Lord. Like the 12-steps, these new communities encourage personal stories or witnesses of how one had “bottomed out” before meeting Christ. Discarding any façade of righteous moralism, the emphasis is on how desperate life is prior to entering the Way. In addition, Kiko views modern western culture as dark and futile with few redeeming features. While he is flawlessly loyal to the Church, especially the Pope, and works only with the permission of bishop and pastor, he takes a dim view of the status of the Catholic Church as largely powerless against the dark currents of the broader culture. Interestingly, however, as a brilliant artist and musician, he has singlehandedly created an impressive corpus in both areas. Instinctively, then, he is a kind of a Renaissance man, contributing to a new, revitalized cultural humanism rooted deeply in Christ our redeemer. By contrast, Monsignor Giusanni’s Communion and Liberation movement is a refreshingly optimistic, enthusiastic, and confident humanism even as it is rooted in a classical Catholicism centered in the encounter of the sinner with Christ our savior. The realities of sin, death, fear, and cultural/ecclesial decline are acknowledged but not emphasized as the encounter with Christ releases powerful, contagious currents of joy and hope. This is an Evangelical Humanism with the emphasis on humanism, a humanism bursting with a greater-than-natural exuberance of faith, hope and love. The Charismatic Renewal was largely an infusion of evangelical and Pentecostal practices and sensibilities into Catholic spirituality. It brought a powerful evangelical impulse to a Catholicism that was leaning heavily towards a liberal humanism after Vatican II. At the same time, however, it flourished in an array of exuberant, joyful practices including expressive praise and music. Since that eruption in the late 60s, we have seen the Evangelical-Catholic dialogue and alliance, pioneered by the esteemed and recently departed Father Neuhaus, Cardinal Dulles, and Chuck Colson. Here again we find an evangelical sense of sin and salvation, along with a critical-prophetic perception of modernity, that fructifies in the high culture of First Things. Finally, the double pontificate of John Paul and Benedict can be understood as a profoundly evangelical humanism. Both have asserted the dignity of the human person in the face of Nazism, Communism, secular liberalism, and Islamic terrorism. Both are coldly sober about the reality of human sin on the personal and cultural levels. Both proclaim a genuine humanism rooted in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Fatherly Correction

Recently, I had occasion to offer a fatherly correction to my adult daughter. She listened quietly and then responded: “That’s good. I’ll take that.” She said it with her characteristic clarity, confidence, and energy. I was delighted, as always, with her positivity. The recent Vatican directive to the leadership of our religious sisters is just such fatherly advice. Sadly, it is not always received as such. A priest-theologian-missionary friend of mine, a man of some stature in the Church, a good man whom I admire and love dearly, wrote about this action with these words: “an all-out assault…outrageous for its arrogance and its patriarchy…pernicious…abhorrent disregard for the Biblical prophets…idolatry of doctrine, power, and hierarchy…inauthenticity of the call to retrenchment masquerading as renewal.” I respect his chivalrous intent: to acknowledge the goodness and good works of our sisters and shield them from what he perceives as an assault. But it is hardly an assault; rather, it is fatherly discipline. How unfortunate that the perception here is one of suspicion, distrust, melodramatic victimization, and righteous resentment. As my beautiful daughter (with her sisters) is my pride and joy, so our consecrated women are the pride and joy of our Church, of our Holy Father, of our cardinals, and of all of us. But they are not above fatherly correction, on occasion. May they receive this correction with filial trust, docility, humility, confidence and energy! May God continue to bless them in all the good works they do for the very least! May God bless our Holy Father and his co-workers and all of us in our different works!

First, I Am a Son

“How many of you married men believe that your first task is to provide for your wife and children?” the speaker asked at the Catholic Men’s Conference. Hundreds of hands went into the air, mine included. “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!” He vehemently shouted. “Providing for your family is the job of our heavenly Father. It is NOT your first priority. Your task, first and foremost, is to be a son of the Father!” “Wow!” I thought. “That is deep…and true.” First and foremost, now and always, I am son of the Father. This is before being provider, achiever, husband, father, leader, brother, worker or grandfather. First and foremost, I am a son. This means I am receptive. I am grateful. I am docile. I am loyal. I am obedient…in any and all circumstances. If I invert my priorities and focus first on my identity as provider, father, or achiever, I am vulnerable in two directions: If successful, I may become self-reliant, proud, and arrogant. If I fail, I am prone to discouragement, despair, and self-loathing. In the meantime I am paralyzed by performance anxiety. All are toxic. If however, I am first and always son of my Father in heaven, then I share in a steady Joy and confidence; I am hopeful in failure and humble in success; I am reliant on others and generous to those in need; I am active but always out of a prior receptivity; I am obedient, but not subservient, to those in authority; even as I wield my own power in quiet confidence and gentle tenderness. This message is most urgent for our young men in today’s society and economy. We now facing an ominous crisis in masculinity as our young men are not being offered the mentoring and itinerary of formation they need to assume virile identity and responsibility. Our economy is meager in employment opportunities, especially for young men. Our young women are greatly outperforming their counterparts in school, profession, emotional maturity and occupational focus and confidence. We are drifting towards a matriarchy as women, who always are preeminent in the family, are surpassing men in much of the workplace; as virility is undervalued in its spiritual and emotional meaning; and our young men are plagued with indecision, insecurity and anxiety. The very first building block for genuine masculine strength and confidence is intimacy with our Father. The young man who is close to his Father, who is cherished, guided and strengthened by Him, will face failure, unemployment, and disappointment with serene joy and will receive success with humble confidence.