Conjugal Asymetry and Openness to the Other

Between man and woman, and dramatically so within marriage, the delight of complimentarity and mutuality is so often overwhelmed by asymetry: confusion, annoyance, betrayal, violation, dissonance, disappointment, misunderstanding and resentment. This is due to sin. This means that the spouses are continually in and out of reconciliation: granting and asking for pardon. But the asymetry between man and woman points to a deeper reality, prior to sin and even more foundational: that man and woman united do not together form a perfect whole, but are always part of a greater communion, that they always intrinsically open out to a third. The deepest delusion of our culture is the romantic myth that "there is a perfect lover who will complete me." But man-and-woman were created for companionship with a "third"...actually, three distinct "thirds." Already in Genesis, we see the spouses with God, with family including children, and with a task of caring for the earth. And so, every couple, and by analogy every friendship, opens out first to God. In the cool of the evening, Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. Such a lovely image! And so are we meant to walk with Him, to receive Him as our companion. Secondly, every couple opens itself to a broader family: in the present (both families of origin), the past (prior generations), and the future (through their progeny or in other ways.) Lastly, each duality shares a rich, multifaceted mission to the Church and to the world beyond. And so, we see that there is an incompletion, an imperfection, a deprivation built into every friendship and romance...and each relationship can attain integrity and coherence only in openness to God, to the broader family, and to the mission that is given.

Our Inter-Generational Covenant

In an insightful, troubling lecture, (//www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9338997/Reith-Lecture-Were-mortgaging-the-future-of-the-younger-generation.html) Professor Niall Ferguson reflects on our expanding debt in light of Edmund Burke's understanding of society as a covenant between generations. Our extravagant entitlement programs will burden the coming generations with an unthinkable amount of debt. Shame on us, the Boomer Generation! Shame on us who came of age in affluence and indulgence! Shame on us, the Narcissistic Generation! Let us ask ourselves: what is the legacy we leave to our descendants? It will be slavery to debt. The left is delusional in its expansion of the welfare state: if we just tax the rich, everything will be just fine! The right places its faith in a an under-taxed and under-regulated market: let the capitalists play and the wealth will trickle down to everyone! As an alternative to this bi-polar insanity, I recommend a three-point Catholic legacy: immersion in prayer and liturgy, a simple and austere lifestyle, and deep identification with the poor. This is simply our traditional Lenten, penitential approach of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. State and market, as Pope Benedict instructs us, are to be regarded with limited appreciation and suspicious vigilance as we move, always imperfectly and incrementally, to infuse them with the intelligibility of Love.

Sargent and Eunice, Pray for Us!

The Kennedy tribe was playing football. Young Bobby Shriver fell, hurt himself, and started to cry. Uncle Robert Kennedy scolded "Don't cry! Kennedys don't cry." Dad Sargent Shriver picked the little guy up and said "Don't worry! You can cry. You are a Shriver!" Sargent and Eunice Shriver are perhaps the quintisential Catholic Liberals of late 20th century America in that they renounced the Kennedy Legacy. In a brilliant article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31douthat.html?_r=1) Ross Douthat compared and contrasted the Shriver and Kennedy legacies. He identified the essence of the cursed Kennedy patrimony: the dominating patriarchy of father Joseph. Joe disrespected and violated, in ways blatant and subtle, the femininity of the pious, gentle Rose. The entire Kennedy ethos can be understood as dominance of an unrestrained machismo over a violated femininity: unbridled ambition and competitiveness, promiscuity, divorce, addictions, and the litany goes on. The pro-abortion fanaticism is a perverse compensation, a misguided effort to assuage repressed guilt for violation of the feminine. Contrast the Shrivers: Eunice had a career that compared with that of her famous husband and siblings; Sargent reflects, in the football incident above, a paternal strength lightened by "feminine" compassion and tenderness; to the end they championed both care for the poor and for the unborn; Sargent was a daily communicant for his entire life; and the two of them lived out an integral, consistent liberalism as an expression of their Catholic faith.They are numbered among the very few classic Catholic liberals who persevered on behalf of the poor even as they pivoted to resist the assault on human dignity from the sexual left. Tragically, we have no such Catholic liberals today. None! Sargent and Eunice, Pray for us!

Unabashedly a Homophile

While I have been called a homophobe, I am in fact, unabashedly, a homophile. I love homosexuals. I am drawn to them by qualities of intellect and character: intelligence, sensitivity, wit, generosity, wisdom, piety and kindness...to name a few. They themselves are drawn to religion, art, books; they are interesting and challenging on many levels. Throughout my adult life, I now realize, about 30-40% of my best friends have been such.They are gifted, graced and good...loving and lovable! But this homosexual thing is complex, dense, mystifying. What suffering! A dear friend came out to me, in the 70s, and said: "The gay life is a sad one." He died of AIDs. He didn't say that it was sad the way society treats us; he said the life itself is sad. I believe a small portion of this suffering is due to social rejection: research shows that where the stigma is largely removed (e.g. Scandanavia)there are still elevated levels of substance abuse, suicide, depression and violence. The gay lifestyle itself is deeply toxic; while the chaste life, for a Christian homosexual, is a heavy cross, if an ennobling one. The condition itself is associated with suffering and loneliness. A special respect is due. If this attraction is often linked with gifts, goodness,and grace, it also comes, normally, with difficulties: the "father wound," low masculine self-esteem, difficulty in relating in a brotherly way with other men, distance from women, troubles with authority, and inadequacy in paternity. It is, then, a disorder: a suffering, a disability, and a challenge. For me, however, this condition is merely a particular type of concupiscence, not different significantly from the sexual chaos that I share with all men: the longing and the loneliness, the sense of inadequacy, the tormenting frustration, the compulsivity, the waves of shame and guilt,and the sense of powerlessness over my passions. The attraction is, then, a normal, garden-variety problem, not exceptional. I identify with them, while my own chaotic longings take different directions. My closest homosexual friends share my faith and so would clearly agree with me that certain acts are toxic for all of us, married and single, whatever our attraction: those would be sexual exchanges that are sterile and non-unitive. The Catholic principles apply to all of us: it is equally a mortal sin, maybe worse in some circumstances, for a married man to request these actions from his wife. Our judgment is against the actions, not the person. Because we love the sinner, we hate the sin. And so, I am and always will be, without apology, a lover of homosexuals. I cherish them in all their goodness and identify with their pain and struggle. They do not and I do not identify them by their sexual desires: they are neither "gay" nor "queer." They are my beloved brothers. They are like me: gifted in Love, but tormented with weakness and longing.

Not God

My head is still spinning after reading Ernest Kurtz's monumental "Not God: the History of Alcoholics Anonymous." I am thrilled, delighted and amazed that I am not God; that the universe is not God; that everything, except God, is not God; that even the Church is not God. Every person, including cardinals and saints and popes, is not God. Every group, the college of cardinals, each parish and prayer group and religious order, is not God. Only God is God; and Holy is His Name! But the Church is married to God; is the spouse of God; has become one flesh with God. This is really, really, really unbelievable. You can't blame people for not believing this; for not understanding it; for dismissing it as a poetic metaphor of some sort. But that is what we believe: that God actually gives us His very own Spirit; that He gives us His very own Body and Blood; that He actually indwells us, our minds, bodies, souls, emotions, so that we are His temple. The Church is Not-God; and yet the dwelling place of God. I am Not-God; and yet the dwelling place of God. I cannot wrap my mind around this. But it is marvelous!