The McCarrick Legacy

Sadly, the stench of McCarrick hangs heavy over the Church in Rome and America. In 2004 McCarrick with his crony now-Cardinal Gregory gamed the bishops into a casual approach toward communion for pro-aborts by shamelessly lying about the crystal-clear letter from Cardinal Ratzinger obliging them to protect the Eucharist from public scandal by reception by those who obstinantly persist in advocacy of grave evil. Today, Gregory continues that practice as he inherits the role of chaplain to the liberal American elite. Meanwhile McCarrick protege Cardinals Cupich and Joseph Tobin fiercely resisted the clear letter of Archbishop Gomez to Biden on abortion. The testimony of Archbishop Vigano, notwithstanding that he has like many become unhinged by the violence of the Culture War, in itself sincere and credible, stands neither verified nor disproved like, a dark cloud over this pontificate. The Vatican Report on McCarrick opened on the first page with a casual dismissal of the possibility that money influenced his rise: that entirely discredited the document as self-serving and protective of the forces that advanced and protected him. (Other clouds include the unanswered Dubia, the surrender of the Chinese Church to the Communists, and the laundry list of erratic, inconsidered remarks on plane flights and elsewhere: It is a dark day for the Church!) Among the most distressing of McCarricks alleged violations was the use of the confessional for sexual predation. This is a double sacrilige: of the victim and of the holy rite: unthinkable for a Catholic! A similar sacrilege is being practiced: in casual communion for abortion warriors; in masses celebrated by groups dedicated to the moral legitimation of acts always considered immoral by the Church. That McCarrick rose to the pinacle of ecclessial power despite the widespread gossip of his pedestry indicates that the suspicions of an underground "lavender mafia" must be valid. In light of that catastrophy, the militant campaign of Fancis' lieutenants Cupich/Tobin to legitimize gay relations is scandalous. Yet, they along with Gregory may be the strongest American voices in this pontificate. McCarrick is best understood as an iconic Anti-Father. Richard Fitzgibbons suggested that the young Ted McCarrick was deprived of a father's love and went on to compensate. This makes sense. But it took a perverse turn as he used his position as spiritual father to seduce young men. He used his considerable talents to pursue status, power, and influence within the Church and the broader society, no doubt compensating for his interior void. (One puzzles: why would a man with no background in China who is in his 80s insert himself into that delicate diplomacy? Why would the Pope allow it since he had already been disciplined by Pope Benedict? What alternative universe have we entered Alice?) He was perfectly prepared to be the chaplain to Cultural Liberalism as that religion is itself best understood as Anti-Fatherhood. In this worldview patriarchy, authority, tradition, and masculinity in general become redefined as oppression, domination, violence, and misogyny. Femininst rage at the masculine finds its ultimate expression in the destruction of the little one in the womb. Foundational dogmas of cultural liberalism are: tearing of sexuality from fertility, paternity and maternity; and deconstruction of the sexed, binary person into a sterile, androgynous, sexless neuter. And so McCarrick is perfectly expressive of the anti-fatherhood that plagues elite culture and is corrupting our Church from within. Like the Israelites in Egypt or in Exile, our Church is in a dark time, a time of purification. A time for us to draw close to Christ and to encourage each other in the same!

Why Political Liberalism Capitulated to Cultural Liberalism

Son of a union organizer, I still consider myself moderately liberal on most issues: climate, guns, dignity for immigrants, a sturdy safety net, health care for all, etc. As an observant Catholic, however, I am fiercely opposed to Cultural Liberalism and have puzzled: What happened 50 years ago to the decent, Catholic-friendly, family-supporting, wholesome liberalism of the Great Generation? In 1965 if you had predicted that within 10 years one of the two parties would surrender to sexual license, abortion, deconstruction of gender and a malignant individualism I would have replied: Clearly that would the party of wealth, privilege, greed and selfishness; not the party of the working man, Civil Rights for blacks, and care for the poor. My answer: at the core of political liberalism, nothwithstanding its honorable history and residual elements of goodness, is a moral structure similar to that of the sexual revolution: resentment, dependency, envy, entitlement. Psychoanalytically, what is operative in both is regression to infantile comfort, to enclosure in the arms and at the breast of mother. To be clear: I write now as a male, not a generic or neutered individual. The male psyche and trajectory is distinctive: it involves early on a break from mother, a journey of loneliness, hopefull a compensatory bonding with father and brothers. Women do not experience this; it is for a woman to interpret female liberalism (perhaps maternal nurture combined with suspicion of and rage at the male?). As the passage to virility never goes perfectly there remains ever in the masculine soul a yearning to return to comfort, enclosure, and intimacy of the infant; and to flee the stress, conflict, demands and loneliness of manly existence. We see this regression in: - The young man who consumes pornography and masturbates. - The young man who cohabitates, contracepts and avoids commitment, marriage and fertility. - The Black Lives Matter allegation of vicimization and demand for special measures of protection. - The entire LGBTQ narrative of self-pity and rage at moral disapproval of sexual acts that are again neither fruitful nor spousally unitive but narcississtic and infantile. - The compulsion to seek salvation always from the Mother State: medical care, education, how much soda to drink, etc. We identify, here, the reason why political liberalism in its entirety...unions, civil rights organizations, the Catholic academy...capitulated to cultural liberalism. It is the dark side...the "anima" in Jungian terms...of liberalism: pusillanimity, cowardice, entitlement, dependency, resentment and envy.

The Triumph of Biden-Accommadationist-Catholic-Progressivism

Not the inauguration of Biden, but his reception of Holy Communion that preceeded it, brought the Culture War within the Catholic Church to a new place. Over 50 years into this War, things are getting much hotter. We have had a parade of pro-abortion Catholics already: the Kennedys, Cuomos, Kerrys, and Pelosis; but none like Joe. He markets himself as a model Catholic: rosary-praying, mass-attending, nun-loving, social-justice-living, down-to-earth, ordinary, working-class guy. By any standard he is a good guy: likeable, good-natured, charming. In God's eyes he may be very pleasing: it is not for us to judge his heart. But his actions are militantly anti-Catholic: he will fight for tax-sponsored abortions (our money!), for tax-sponsored exportation of abortion, for the Little Sistrs of the Poor to pay for contraception, for Catholic agencies to place our orphan girls with two gay men, for the cancelation of traditional Catholi morality as homophobic, oppressive of women, and hateful. In a fine essay (https://www.crisismagazine.com/2021/biden-the-bishops-and-the-new-face-of-catholicism), Monica Miller points out that with the blessing of Cardinal Gregory, Biden becomes the most influential Catholic in the USA, and possibly the world. His shameless, ostentatious reception of Holy Communion from the Cardinal announced to the entire world that one can crusade fiercely against the Catholic teaching on unborn life, sexuality, gender and marriage and still be a great guy, a model Catholic, a veritable altar boy! Ross Douthat (NY Times Jan. 24, 2021) notes that with Biden Progressive Catholicism becomes our singular dominant civil religion. He notes the unusual number of Catholics in positions of power and recalls the early 20th century hegemony of mainline Protestantism as well as erratic patterns of the last 50 years. Ross might agree, however, to call this phenomena "Catholic Progressivism" rather than Progressive Catholicism because in substance this ideology is a clear renunciation of clear Catholic teaching on all key issues: value of powerless-innocent life, sex, marriage, family, authority and tradition. Such "catholicism" embraces the Cultural Liberalism of Western Elites but flavors it with a sentimental piety: Joe clutching his rosaries and nostalgic about the nuns. George Weigel (https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/01/archbishop-jos-gomez-a-profile-in-episcopal-courage) gives us hope: the American bishops agreed that an inflection point has been reached with the Biden presidency. The stern inaugaraion letter on abortion from Archbishop Gomez, (over the objections of Cardinals Cupich and Tobin and incontrast to the dull Vatican letter) apparently expresses the episcopal concensus. The next move is a bishops' decision on communion for pro-aborts. The battle lines are clearly drawn: Cupich/Tobin/Gregory (the accomadaters) stand against Chaput/Gomez (the Catholic Resistance.) This is not new: In 2004 then-Cardinal McCarrick presided over the bishops argument over giving communion to pro-abortion politicians. Cardinal Ratzinger (with his usual precision and clarity) wrote a letter to him and then-Bishop-now-Cardinal Gregory, after conferring with his collegues at the Congregation for the octrine of the Faith.(https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/worthiness-to-receive-holy-communion-general-principles-2153)It explicitly directed the bishops to refuse communion to a politician who persists, after instruction, in public advocacy for legal abortion. This would apply also to a citizen who voted for someone because of the support for such. This letter carried heavy weight: from the head of the Congregation who happens to be himself the greatest living Catholic theologian. McCarrick (with Gregory's obvious collusion) boldly lied to the assembled bishops: he kept the letter secret and said Ratzinger left the decision up to the bishops' pastoral discretion. Ratzinger had actually stated that denial of communion is "obligatory for the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia." The shamelessness of McCarrick and Gregory is simply breathtaking! The choice is simple, flawlessly binary: - Between Ratzinger and McCarrick; between Gregory/Cupich/Tobin and Gomez/Chaput. - Between reverence for the Eucharist, the slaughtered innocents, and the Body-Bride of Christ and triple-desecration of the same. - Between fidelity to our Faith and capitulation to the Cultural Revoluton. Cardinal Gregory in giving Holy Communion to this abortion militant, who seems to have fooled even himself that he is Catholic, becomes a sycophant. In this act our episcopacy self-castrates and empties itself of all paternal authority. It becomes sterile, emasculated, impotent: increasingly resembling the eunuchs to whom ancient monarchs entrusted their harems because they were weak, neutered, harmless, void of all virility. This is not politics: this is about the identity, interiority, form of Catholicism. Stradling this issue, as many do in confusion with good intentions, is about as viable as it was in Virginia in 1860, in Spain in 1934, in France in 1942. May our American episcopacy be blessed with more like Gomez and Ratzinger who have the courage, clarity, and reverence of their Catholic convictions! May we be cleansed of the McCarrick legacy of deceit, infidelity, capitulation, emasculation and sterility!

Political Ruminations: January 2021

The Senate loss in Georgia and the storming of the Capitol are the best things imaginable for the GOP: definitively, the toxi grip of Trump on the party is broken. I am hopeful that purged and deprived of power a better party will emerge: continuing the best of the Trump legacy, especially the defense of innocent life, of the sanctity of marriage and religious liberty. Add to this a stronger stance towards China and Iran. ANd hopefully advancement of the economic populism which Trump preached but never delivered. I imagine a party that champions the underdogs in the class war against the liberal elite in the cultural/moral, political and economic arenas. I forsee fresh leadership: Tim Scott, Nicki Haley, Ben Sasse, Marco Rubio and others. A huge sigh of relief as Trump finally fades from the spotlight. The impeachment of Trump for incitement to insurrection is an imprudent, unjust and even a violent act. Imprudent because it will iflame the rage of the anti-elite, Trumpian populist movement. Injust because he did not incite insurrection. It was surely not his intention nor in his political interest for such criminal behavior to happen. He did not direct the mob to break the law. We must separate his action itself from its consequences. A major ethical error is to judge an act by its consequences: frequently a perfectly good act results in unintentional bad consequences, just as a evil act (in form and in intent) can have unforseen good results. Imagine that the police were prepared to restrain and arrest the intruders and the invasion failed: there would be no impeachment, but Trumps speech remains the same morally and legally. His behavior since the election is no different than that before and during his presidency: infantile, dangerous, narcissistic, reckless, irresponsible, and entirely vile. But that is not criminal nor impeachable. The fact is that about 48% of the electorate in both elections supported him and they cannot be dismissed. The impeachment is violent in that it violates not just Trump but the huge population that support him. The Covid-influenced election of 2020 with the mass mail-in vote was a huge change. It is new territory. It is not insane for many to suspect it. It is not criminal, or moronic, or immoral for Trump and his base an his cronies to moan and groan about a stolen election. I myself think Biden won fair and square, as did Trump in 2016. The lament of the Right does not compare with the three years of incessant, daily, relentless whining from the Left about Russian collusion which was definitively debunked by the expensive Mueller Commission. That was worth its cost in that it settled the question: Trump did not collude with Russia. A similar bi-partisan commission, preferrably headed by a respectded, moderate conservative, should study the 2020 election to see if anything went wrong and how best to proceed in the future as there will be continued wide use of mail-in ballots. The widespread and unfortnate Trump Derangement Syndrome is itself as significant as the Trump movement. The inordinate rage, indignation, fragility, anxiety and hysteria that accompanies this condition suggests an underlying cause not unlike the pathology of Trump himself. There is a negative or adverse mimesis at work: the antagonist imitates the protagonist in an unconscious engagement an entanglement. Donald is a small, sad person: his bullying, pomposity and bravado hardly cover the inner emptiness, the entire loss of any sense of self-respect or worth or dignity. He seems to be desperately fighting for the affirmation he never received from his father. One need not be a psychologist to see this, it is evident. Similarly, the agony, anxiety, rage and fragility so manifest by those obsessed with hatred towards him seems to be something similar: some displacement of unresolved inner conflicts. Really: the President of the United States does not have the power that Trump-haters give him. The Trump impeachment is a lynch mob: itself frenzied with anxiety and rage, scapegoating the President and venting disgust for the other half that disagree with the liberal vision. The DNC just won all three branches of the executive! They should move beyond their Trump obsession and focus their energies on positive policies: there is plenty to do. Imagine that Biden called for the party to forget about Trump and move on with life and with they hope to accomplish. That would be a move to reunite the country. Is it likely that he has the intelligence, magnanimity and moral fiber to do that? As a staunch moral conservative I am sanguine about our country. The unamimous aversion to the capitol desecration gave us a momentary national unity and a shared sense of the sacredness of that building, those institutions and our constitutional legacy. With Justic Barrett we finally have a court that will not inflict upon us its cultural/moral preferences in authoritarian fashion. I am not intimadated by a Democratic executive: first, it will influence my daily life not even 2%. Secondly, the moral core of the DNC and woke cultural liberalsim is rotten, shallow and fickle: the glorified Self, destruction of the innocent, desecration of sexuality and family, identity politics and critical theory and frightened repression, in a soft totalitarianism, of any disapproving moral judgment from tradition. With Yuval Levin I see this as a time for us all to patiently, perseveringly, calmly and hopefully rebuild our institutions, starting with our own families, communities and extending out to our nation and glove.

Pope Francis: Great Spiritual Director, Terrible Theologian

At the start of this pontificate, Sister Joan Noreen, leader of Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist, disapproved of my critical attitude to the Pope and gave me a salutary discipline: three times weekly to prayerfully read his daily homilies. I was impressed: he is an excellent homilist: has a way with images and words. Last week I read a meditation from him in the Magnificat Home and I thought: this man is a mystic. He has been grasped, at the core of his being, by the person of Jesus Christ. He could not think and talk the way he does otherwise. Additionally, his compassion for the poor is genuine and passionate. But...as a theologian...he is so ambiguous,confused and confusing. He would be a wonderful retreat leader or spiritual director, but he is incompetent as a theologian. It is not just that he has failed to defend and develop the rich legacy left by his two predecessors, it is that he (or at least his impowered lieutenants) have viciously attacked it: witness the destruction of the John Paul II Institute for the Family in Rome! This is a big problem: the first job of our pontiff is to teach us good theology. So: it is complicated! I respect him as our Holy Father; I critique and renounce his dysfunctions in theology; but I revere him for his holiness, his passion for Christ and the poor. It is not easy to be Catholic these days!