Cousins: Underrated!

Cousins Rock! They are tremendous! But immensely underrated, unappreciated, and ignored! In the sad new order of fractured families, low fertility, high mobility of all sorts, transience and fluidity...it is a loss, a poverty that so many of our young do not have cousins, do not know their cousins, or do not cherish them.

Cousins are natural: they are GIVEN to you like your DNA, your grandparents, your heritage. In sharp contrast to friendship, they are not chosen, not merited or achieved, not transitory. They are permanent, stable, reliable in a world of change and chaos. You can live 1,000 miles away and not see a cousin for 20 years but then at a reunion (probably funeral) you realize you still love your cousin. You belong to each other, naturally, without effort. You share blood, history, culture, faith, attitudes, mannerisms and a litany of intangibles. You will always belong to each other, without deliberation or voliton. It is the nature of things.

Cousins are more distant than siblings and therefore ordinarily there is less competition and conflict. With this distance (within closeness) there is an aura of fascination and attraction. You are close enough to be intimate but distant enough to be exotic. Younger cousins look up to older ones, intuitively; older ones mentor and guide the younger ones, instinctively. The taboo on cousin romance so strong in our own culture (but not universal) allows boys and girls to be friends in an innocent, free way without all those complications. This enhances the male/female relationship with an affection, tenderness and reverence that is wholesome and spontaneous. I would suggest that a male who has had good relationships with female cousins is less prone to disrespect women. Likewise, a girl with good boy cousins is comfortable with the opposite sex and confident in herself and her worth as a woman.

We parents and grandparents like to see the cousins together because we know they are safe, they care for and challenge each other, and they implicitly enforce our family values. I am myself an expert on the topic: I have 12 first cousins, three are double cousins (which is doubly cool!). I love them dearly! My seven children are close to their 31 first cousins. Our 24 grandchildren delight in each other and are even close to their second cousins. I realize I live in a special world: the rich get richer! I count my blessings!

But the outlook is dismal for the emerging order of sterility, individuality and cousinlessness! I would suggest that the decline of cousinhood correlates with, and partially contributes to: deaths of despair, widespread addictions, isolation, careerism, technologism, scientism, materialism, consumerism, abuse of women and children. Search for social science research on the significance of cousinhood and you will find nothing except the issue of marriage to cousins. (The evidence suggests very low genetic risk. But I favor our taboo because the longterm health of the social order and specifically our Catholic religion is enhanced by broader outbreeding and less inbreeding.)

Even the Catholic Church is disappointingly inattentive. I have searched in vain for the patron saint of cousins, so I have designated my own. First, of course, St. Elizabeth cousin of Mary and St. John the Baptist second cousin of our Savior. I include also Jesus, Mary and Joseph who surely had cousins and were cousins. But my favorite is Blessed Charles de Foucault who may soon be canonized. He was a ravishingly handsome, wild, adventurous, French Legion womanizer. His holy female cousin prayed for him. When he converted, it was big! One of the biggest! He eventually buried himself in the Sahara desert, lived a humble life of service, and many years later his journals were discovered and inspired many orders and movements, including the NeoCatechumenal Way. I give credit to his holy cousin.

A highlight of my daily routine is my prayer to these patrons for my own cousins and those of my wife and children. It is a big, beautiful world when it is populated with plenty of cousins!

The Trifecta of Feminine Charm

Three essential qualities, uniquely coinhering in a woman, make her irresitably charming, fascinating and captivating for the masculine heart and intellect: radiant beauty, interior goodness, and vulnerability. The first, beauty to the eye, entails a "radiance"...a mysterious, indescribable luminosity that exceeds the harmony and delight of proportion and eminates from a mysterious, hidden depth of goodness. Feminine beauty is especially rich and complex. For instance, three distinct types present themselves. The beauty of "petitieness" or smallness or cuteness. Such arouses in the larger male a propensity to protect, provide, cherish, even pamper. This is analogous to the fierce maternal response to the small, especially crying baby. The urge is primal and powerful. The fierce paternal instinct is aroused by the petiteness of the woman: think of Audrey Hepburn and the much larger Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday, Judy Garland or Natalie Portman. In contrast to this would be the more contemporary "fitness" model of beauty: the athletic, firm, fluid, assertive femininity popular in action movies starring confident, impressive Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Lawrence. Think Brigid Moynihan or Jane Fonda videos. Such beauty appeals not to the paternal instincts but to a man's desire for a fitting, competent partner in his adventures and conflicts. Quite different is beauty that is voluptuous or curvacious: such is sensuous, comforting and appeals to a regressive propensity of the male to return to the pleasure of enclosure in the maternal. The classic hourglass figure is so compelling because it combines the tiny (waste, legs, arms) with fulness in the maternal dimensions so it appeals to both what is strong and what is weak in the normal male. The three styles of beauty are contrasting but not mutually contradictory: my own bride of 50 years for example is much smaller than me; but has always excelled me in energy, industry and work ethic; even as her 70-year-old body still curves at the exact right places. Interior, deep goodness is far more dense, complex and mysterious. Primarily this entails compassion, sensitivity, generosity: the maternal impulse to give life, protect, nurture and comfort it. Add to this love for God, intelligence, energy and intensity, serenity, fun and humour, and sincerity or authenticity. Any or all of the above gives a woman a boundless fascination for the masculine heart and intellect. Lastly, and perhaps suprisingly, is vulnerability, even as fragility, sensitity and (properly understood) dependency. Like petitieness, vulnerabiltiy arouses the fierce virile urge to protect, provide and nurture. A woman who was perfectly beautiful and good and entirely independent would be quite a boor. A man needs to be needed; needs to be a hero; needs to have a purpose. Paradoxically, such "weakness" is in tension with the goodness, strength, nobility mentioned earlier. The woman is at once stronger, holier, more resilient and devout than the man; even as she is his equal partner in the Adventure; even as she is vulnerable, precious and in need of his virility. It is marvelous; it exceeds exact formulation. The three qualities of femininity may be seen as expressive of the three transcendentals: the Beautiful, the Good and the True. The first two are self-evident: the last, the True is fitting as the woman is transparent of the vulnerabiltiy that characterizes all persons and indeed all created being. A short abbreviation for this would be to understand a woman as a man's P.A.L.....equal in value and dignity, but delightfully Precious, Admirable and Lovely. Another shortcut: a woman, to a man, is Loveable, Loving, Lovely. The confluence of these three qualities, especially when Goodness deepens as Love and Holiness, becomes an efficacious sacrament in sanctifying the wild heart of the man.

Praying for Derek and George

Our Catholic response to EVERYTHING is: to pray. So, now in the wake of the Derek Chauvin verdict we pray for him and his victim. Only God can really judge the heart of another. Only God can judge any heart: as St. Paul said, we really cannot even judge ourselves. The human heart is opaque, complex, boundlessly mysterious. But we need to make practical decisions such as guilty/not guilty. My view is that our legal system, like our electoral system, remains fundamentally sound, although not infallible. The thrice-guilty verdict is reasonable. Was the jury intimidated by the surrounding threat of violence to a degree that they could not deliberate soberly and fairly? It is possible. But I will assume the basic validity of their decision. That Chauvin did not testify; that there was no strong effort by the defense to illuminate his state of mind and motivation; no sign of remorse or acknowledgment of something like a paralysis of anxiety or confusion that may have mitigated the gravity of his intent...all this suggests that his state of mind probably was "deranged." It seems that he is the sterotypical "bad cop" we know from the movies: a violent, angry man; possibly a sadist and a sociopath. One study indicates that 4% of the population is sociopathic; but 40% of applicants to the police force are such. We do not know for sure. Uncertainly surrounds the event: what was Chauvin thinking and intending? What was the actual cause of death: the experts are in disagreement. But one moral certainty predominates: both these men are desperately in need of God's mercy. Neither is a saint. Chauvin was guilty of an act that was hideously violent by any objective standard. His subjective guilt remains a mystery. He is the most hated person in the country (even more than Trump) and is now going into a prison experience that can only be a personal hell, or at least purgatory. If he is the moral monster he seems to be he needs our prayer even more. His victim, George Floyd, has been declared by Nancy Pelosi to be a saint in heaven, looking down as marytr/patron of the BLM cause. This does not help him. We cannot calculate an equivalence between them, but there is a parralism. Derek's defense argued futilely that his high state of intoxication caused or contributed to his death: not impossible; but we will never know for sure; the jury reasonably ruled otherwise. Certainly it was his pattern of decisions that created the situation: illegal intoxication, apparently a criminal act, resisting arrest. It must be clear that any resistance of arrest immediately creates a life-threatening situation as the police carry lethal weapons and they are forced to use force with all the dangers involved. George was a lifelong criminal, a drug addict, a man who fathered children with various women and then abandoned them. He was charming, dearly beloved by his family, evoked all our sympathy with his excruciating calls for his mother in those horrendous minutes. But he is not a martyr for justice. He was a poor sinner like Derek. He deserves our prayers. They both do.

Another Short Tale of the Anti-Christ

(Inspired by the original by Soloviev). Act 1: The Empire As the world moved futher into the 21st century, the decadence of the West deepened. The Biden and following regimes advanced Cultural Liberation: sexuality was definitively detached from spousality/fecundity and redefined as subjective and recreational; masculinity/femininity and maternity/paternity entirely deconstructed as living social forms; the incompetent and powerless ruled out as inhuman and devoid of human rights; the State expanded as provider or guarantor of all needs and preferences. The family was redefined as a free, voluntary association of any combination of people who so self-define themselves, particularly those that share unrestricted sexual goods. Intermediate communities and organizations were further dIluted and diminished; expanding global corporations, in alliance with the State, assumed more responsibility as it controlled a technological order that had become cancerous in its unrestrained growth. Society was increasingly polarized between the Winners and Losers: the former were the competent who benefited from connections, education and achievement and worked to maintain and enhance the meritocratic-bureaucratic-technocratic order. The later were those unable to ascend the careerist ladder and became entirely dependent upon a State which guaranteed a minimum level of health care, food and lodge and entertainment. Peace reigned and was strenghened by widespread, really pandemic, use of now legal narcotics which were readily and easily available. Pornography and self-sex expanded and largely displaced residues of oldfashioned romance. Postraumatic hysteria about the coronovirus of the 2020s was manipulated by the powers to enhance a reliance on and compliance with the State which expanded its control well beyond masks and social distancing to regulate all areas of life and ensure harmony and monotony. The cost of this arrangement was so enormous that large cutbacks in defense were enacted and the national deficit and debt exploded beyond measure. These developments necessitated a reliance upon the global loaner, singular military power, and agressive empire of East Asian Communism. This power had expanded around the globe with no countervailing challenger. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church continued the policy of accomdation initiated in the pontificate of Francis: Communism contolled the Church through most of the world while Cultural Liberalism and the bipolar economy in the USA and Europe was blessed by the hierarchy. To be sure, the deal meant the Church was allowed to administer the sacraments but never to challenge in any fundamental way the system. Additionally the Church maintained its system of schools, hosptials and other institutions in exchange for compliance. The magisterium, its dogmatic and moral teachings, were preserved intact and inviolate but marginalized: moral commandments became ideals to be easily dismissed when inconvenient; dogmas became symbolic, mythological to be intepreted by the individual. Museums were dedicated to preserve traditions of dogma, morality and liturgy. The traditional family was disparaged as narrow, repressive, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic and racist. For example, children who referred to their "father" or "mother" were shamed as narrow-minded bi-polars. Grandparents were restricted to de facto concentration camps, offically called nursing homes, and separated from younger generations. After early century success in the engineering and control of coronoviruses, the regime used the threat of pandemic as a rationale for the permanent quarantining of the elderly. The regime realized that the strongest threat to its control was any connection with tradition and authority. The young were vigorously instructed to pity the backward, reactionary and bigoted thought patterns of the elderly. Grandparents had been decisively cancelled. The State in alliance with Capital, Entertainment and Education maintained a steady state of hysteria by the studied control of coronavirus pandemics. Masking, distancing, quarantining and lock-downs were all implemented so that the isolation of the individual and the dissolution of all permanent social bonds (family, friendship, all kinds of community except the virtual) were intensified. The power of State and Capital enhanced. Deaths of despair were commonplace as euthanasia and assisted-suicide were encouraged, abuse of narotics and alcohol widespread, and depression/anxiety universal. A monotonous, dull sadness descended upon the entire globe...with some exceptions. Act 2: The ResistanceThe resistance had disappeared, had gone into hiding. The heart of the resistance was an alliance of evangelical Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants. Despite differences in theology and liturgy, they shared a deep love for their Crucified-Risen Lord and encouraged each other in hidden, prayerful, hopeful resistance to the Empire. Across the globe there were four distinct economic classes: the powerful elite, the one percent who ruled the Communist East and the Liberational West; the managerial class (about 20 % of the population) who inherited privilege or climbed the meritocratic ladder to affluence by ability, industry and above all allegiance to the mainbtenance of the global, bureacratic Empire; the Dependent Class (40%) who served the Empire in servile work and were rewarded for their compliance by security and all the pleasures of entertainment, recreational drugs and sex. Finally, almost 40% or the world's population lived in dire poverty in desolate areas (deserts, mountains, jungles) far removed from the urban centers of the Empire, including the global South, Siberia, northern areas of Canada. The heart of the resistance were "Nazarene Communities" which deliberately structured themselves as a reversion to the culture of the Holy Family (Jesus, Joseph and Mary) in Nazareth in a life of praise, humility and joyful service. Many of these Nazarean communities of resistance had been birthed in the late 20th: Pentecostals, Catholics of all stripes (Latin Rite home-schoolers, charismatics, Neo-cats, Catholic Workers, Communio and Communion and Liberation groups, among others), traditional Orthodox and Coptic communities. Also in communion were smaller groups of Orthodox Jews, devout Muslims and Hindus, and even a smattering of atheists who renounced the Empire. They had returned to the land and lived lives of simplicity: low technology; physical labor of farming, gathering, hunting and fishing;and close bonds of community. Large families, often 10 to 12 children, were normal and an advantageous in the struggle to survive. In sharpest contrast to the Empire of Androgy and Promiscuity, there was a revived cult of masculinity/femininity, of paternity/maternity. The men were fit, athletic, virile...largely as a result of their hard living conditions. But additionally, under the banner of St. Joseph, they dedicated themselves to chivalry, valuing above all chastity and courage, as well as humility. Pornography, contraception, co-habitation and such were unknown. From childhood boys were trained in martial arts along with a dedication to non-violence. While they had only simple weapons, they became renown as fierce warriors in the conflicts they faced with local war lords as well as the occasional imperial troopers who would attack, but never defeat them. Women were comparable strong as they worked side-by-side with the men and developed a Katnis-like blend of ferocity, fearlessness and radiant femininity. They lived among the very poor and were welcomed by them in a kind of a happy marriage. Many of the poor joined them and all supported them. They retained their heritage and culture and handed it on directly to the young in small education groups and shared it as well with the poor around them. Over the years, a powerful, profound and passionate culture developed which retrieved the heritage of the nations and strengthed itself in resistance to the Empire. Act 3: The Anti-ChristTowards the end of the 21st Century, while the hidden, quiet Nazarene Resistance was growing in strength, the Empire faced crisis. Tensions were growing between the now-overgrown elites: Asian communists resented the affluence of the Liberal West, ancient ethnic and racial animosities were rekindled, and threat of nuclear-biological-chemical war hovered ominously. Even more seriously, however, a dark, cold monotony and unexpressed sadness had descended upon the entire world. By now procreation was entirely technological so the old-fashioned delight of romance, love, family and community was unknown. Sex and gender had become entirely fluid and subjective: sophisticated drugs and surgery allowed for all manner of experimention in sexual excess. Purposelessness and nihilism permeated. Deaths of despair struck most of those in the upper tiers of society well before midage, either by overdose of drugs or assisted suicide. The sheer monotony, coldness, and futility of the entire technological-bureaucratic order had smothered any motivation, energy, or hope. Then: the Unique One appeared. He was extraordinary in every way. His parents were Asian (combination of Japanese and Chinese...very unusual!) on one side, and Mexican (combining Native American, African and Spanish blood) on the other. He was, in short, a mixture of all the global races. His intelligence, athleticism, and energy had all been enhanced by the latest scientific developments in genetic enhancement. He was really a kind of superman, by virtue of his genetics, his education and his personal charisma. Additionally, he was multi-sexual: by advanced surgery and chemistry his genetic masculinity had been reconfigured into a volitional fluidity so that he was able to experience the widest range of sexual experiences: not only male-female, but trans, lesbian, gay, multi, and others. He had vowed (as had become common in that culture) to a life of sterility as well as promiscuity and experimentation so that he would never under any circumstances commit himself fully to another, lest he limit his personal possibilites. He had a photographic memory and had, by the age of 24 completed doctorates in law, psychology, theology and advanced genetics. He spoke 20 languages fluently. But most impressive was his charisma and charm: he exuded a warmth, a fascination, an enchanting and fascinating attractiveness. He was a pacifist, internationist, psychologist, ecologist and a lover of animals. He thoroughly understood all the religions of the globe and was astute in affirming the strongest values of each of them. Above all, he was a Man of Peace. In his career as international peacemaker, he took the globe by storm. He was clearly the solution to the crisis: he appealed to all groups even as he brought a sense of optimism, of energy, and of purpose to a world gone dead in spirit. What was not known was that his powers were enhanced to such a boundless degree by a compact he had made with the Underworld of Darkness. He had been promised such powers and eventual coronation as Empire of the Globe in return for one favor: that he destroy all reminders of the Crucified One. Act 4: The Persecution and the Martyrdom in Ecstasy Eventually the Unique One was installed as Absolute and Final Emperor. Scientific experiment advanced in developing a potion that would ensure his immortality. He brought peace and consolation to the entire world controlled by the Empire. In accord with his vow to the Underworld, he finally initiated a crusade to eliminate any images, icons or remembrances of the Crucified. Imperial Troopers were dispatched all over the world to find and destroy such. This included especially crucifixes with the bodily image, stations of the cross, rosaries, scapulars and ...above all...the Eucharist. When the troopers pushed into the wilderness, they faced the fiercest opposition: men and women of the Nazarene Resistance would eagerly suffer, even painful deaths, rather than give up their icons and images. So passionate was the conflict that the Emperor found it necessary to abandon his pacifism and inflict the most extreme torture on the resisters. A propaganda campaign, along with the targeted release of vicious coronoviruses, convinced the entire Empire that followers of the Crucified were responsible for the loss of life and the terrible suffering. Around the globe, it became a badge of honor to unveil anyone honoring such images. A new form of torture, retrieving an ancient one, was utilized: resisters were crucified themselves along with sophisticated drugs and surgery which increased the pain. The reasoning was classic: this would surely terrify everyone into betraying the Crucified. But an unexpected phenomenon developed: the Ecstacy of the Martyred. A clear pattern emerged: just as the pain reached an unbearable point in the crucifixion, the resister would exclaim fiercely: "I am a sinner, in need of your mercy!" and then "Jesus, I trust in you!" followed by "Father, forgive them!" followed by a scream of ecstacy "I love you!" and finally a most serene passing. This pattern presented a dilemna to the Emperor: it aroused a fascination among the people who had never witnessed such heroism, generosity, surrender and love. Slowly at first, but then more virulently support and sympathy for the Nazarenes increased. Neurological and chemical analyses concluded that each act of faith corresponded with drastic changes in neural and homonal activity but the process was not able to be replicated outside of the actual martyrdom and act of faith. Act 5: The Apocalypse With every such martyrdom, the Emperor himself entered more deeply into a flaming, deperate rage. He realized that the more violence he inflicted, the more the martyrs were glorified and the more the people attracted. He realized no natural, scientific or political effort could defeat what was clearly a supernatural phenomenon. He therefore called upon the Prince of Darkness himself and requested reinforcements in his battle against the Crucified. He asked for the power to anonymously and entirely condemn all resisters and believers to a painful and immediate death, wherever they were, unknown and unseen by the world. Lucifier, himself befuddled by the events, approved of the strategy and surprisingly Heaven allowed it. Darkness covered the earth; a frigid cold descended everywhere; and then fires exploded among all resisters, torturing and then consuming all. A surprise happened: the consumation was not entirely hidden, among the non-resisters of every class and place there was an intuitive understanding of what was occuring and each personally was confronted with a decision: to suffer with the Crucified or to torture him. In a single moment, every person on the earth made that eternal decision. All were consummed, some going into desolation and darkness and others into Glory, and the Final and General Judgement initiated. At that same moment, however, a monumental suprise occurred: the Emperor in observing the glorification of the martyred was enveloped in the fiercest fire of rage, envy and despair. The Prince of Darkness smiled. But then: his gaze turned from the vile images of the afflicted and in the sky he saw the figure of Christ with his wounds. To his right hand was his Mother, Mary most Holy. She looked upon the Emperor with the deepest sorrow and compassion. This reminded him of his own mother who was a secret Christian and had prayed over him in his infancy and childhood. He also saw the figure of Saint Joseph who reminded him of a favorite uncle who had mentored and encouraged him. At that moment the faintest movement of the Holy Spirit awoke with him. It was something he had never experienced. But in a suprise even to himself, he surrendered to this motion and cried out for Mercy to the Crucified. In that minisecond he saw his entire life: all his pride, all the violence and hatred he had inflicted. He cried again for Mercy. He looked into the eyes of the Crucified and saw the question: "Do you trust in me?" He answered "Yes." Another question: "Do you forgive?" Again he answered "Yes." Immediately he, and the entire cosmos was consummed by a purifying fire from heaven and entered into Glory. Act 6:The Eschaton PostscriptHowever, there was another, still greater surprise in store. With the conversion of the Anti-Christ an immense cry of Joy issued from heaven from all the angels and saints. None of them had anticipated such a glorious finale to history and earthly existence. But almost immediately, especially among the greatest sinners among the saints, a new hope exploded: if the mighty and evil Anti-Christ could be saved, could there not be a second hope, a chance for those sinners and demons condemned to hell? This sentiment spread rapidly and reached the ear of our Blessed Mother. She was moved with compassion. She turned to her Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Triune Three were disarmed by the plea. They had not anticipated it. History and existence had culminated as they had always intended. But the idea of a post-history-and-reality Drama had never been discussed. The Father decided to let the Son decide; the Son looked at the Holy Spirit who smiled affectionately. The Son nodded. And the Father announced: all the damned would be given another chance! And so the damned were summoned from the dark, deep, cold realm of hell. A common musunderstanding is that the damned suffer fire, but actually it is cold of isolation and loneliness far worse than any fire. Every condemned soul and angel was again confroned anew with the kind but holy face of the Savior and asked to decide: remain in frigid hell, or undergo the fierce, purging fire of Divine Love. What happened next? We do not know: it has not been revealed to us! (In addition to Soloviev, this imaginary, dystopian exercise is happily indebted to: Rod Dreher, Star Wars, Ivan Illich, Joseph Ratzinger, Kiko Arguello, Hunger Games, Ralph Martin, Ross Douthat, the Schindlers and Communio community, the Catholic Worker, St.John Paul II the Great, the iconoclast controversies, St. Stephen and the other Martyrs.

The Sacred Sources of Sexual Shame

"It is the Church's fault: they made me feel guilty about sex, treating it like something bad and dirty." This is the standard accusation thrust at the Church by the architects of Cultural Liberalism: Mead, Kinsey, Hefner, Marcuse, and the dismal litany of the heroes of the sixties. It is a false narrative. It is a lie from hell. I have spent about 30 years in Catholic schools: sex is rarely mentioned. From the pulpets: sex is rarely mentioned. The occasions I can recall are factual, sober, reverent. Okay: there is of course the warning, especially to adolescents, about the dangers of unchastity: any religion worth its salts instructs its youth thus. I was NOT taught to be embarassed about sex. If anything, it was the "null curriculum"...avoided and not adequately addressed. Then I have to ask myself: Why at the age of 13 was I so profoundly ashamed of my flaming, surprizing sexual desires? My shame was not a result of socializaion: it was my instinctive, intuitive response to the boundless fury and intensity of the feelings. For a long time I thought I was different, weird; but now into my 70s I look back and think I was pretty ordinary. This sexual, romantic urgency is like nothing else on the earth. Sex is a "daimon"...a power, a force overwhelming to everything natural. The sheer power, fascination, obsession, enchantment, and desperation is such that embarrassment, shame, guilt, and fear are appropriate. Gustav Siewerth in an essay on Original Sin (reprinted in Communio Spring 2020) offers a refreshing and relieving insight into sexuality after original sin. His broader treatment of original sin rejects that we were left depraved or corrupted. He prefers not to understand it, primarily, as a tendency to evil or sin. Rather, it is loss of the original grace of communion with God in which we enjoyed boundless peace, joy, and peace. The union with God was intended as the source of our joy and energy so loss of such resulted in a weakening of acceptance of the good, a diminishment in our rejection of evil, and an overall loss of personal integrity in every dimension. So, it is not an actual evil as much as a diminishment and a vulnerability to temptation. Nevertheless, our foundational dignity in the image of God is preserved and so is our infinite desire for the Good, the True and the Beautiful. Original sin does not reside in our sensuality, but in the overall integrity of the person. And so, romance and sexuality retained, in themselves, the freshness, goodness, generosity and worthiness inbued in them by creation. But Siewerth helpfully illuminates two dimensions of sexuality, even before sin, which infused them with a more-than-natural ferocity and fascination. First, since we are created not as separate, autonomous individuals, but as participants in the human race and other communities, the impetus to procreate was intended, by God, to have an overwhelming power, a force so fierce that it would not be restrained by an individual's intellect and will except for the presence of God's grace. And so, we see, that even without sin romance/sex is extravagant, excessive, reckless by its God-intended nature. Secondly, he notes that in the Garden all the natural, finite goods were not just finite goods but gifts from God and therefore imbued with a mystery, a transcendence, an interior depth. So, a rose: it is the smell, the perfect shape/color, but it is much more. The rose has a magic and mystery infused into it since it comes from God. So: in the garden, every flower, sunrise, smile, task accomplished...every finite creature and event is mystifying and mesmerizing because it opens up to God. Adam and Eve "went crazy" with Joy...all the time...in a manner that far exceeded what we mean by intellect and will. Now enters sin: romance/sex remains the magnificent creature it always was. But our own capacity to appreciate the good and our ability to resist evil so weakened that this fierce force becomes very dangerous if not revered. The human soul is now vulnerable to the world, the flesh and the devil and needs the kind of vigorous protection provided by a rigorous ethic and the strenth provided by the sacramental economy of divine love. The good news: our sexuality is still and always will be a magnificent Mystery of joy, generosity, fecundity and hope. Sin has not spoiled that!

Elites and Counter-Elites; the Saints and the Laity

Historian Peter Turchin (see "Could Be Even Worse in Dec. 2020 The Atlantic) is confident things will get worse for us because of "elite overproduction": we have too many who aspire to be elite but not enough elite positions. This causes unrest, anger, and the emergence of "counter-elites" who oppose those in power. He gives Trump and Steve Bannon as examples of an emergent counter-elite. The concept of "power elite" was developed by C. Wright Mills in his book of that title in 1957 and has become fundamental to our understanding of society. As an economic leftist in the 1950s Wright saw the interlocking, sometimes competing, elites (labor, capital, military, cultural, etc.) as collaborative in the capitalist-military dispensation. We have always had a variety of distinct, sometimes adversarial elites: wealthy Republicans, union leaders and social activists, intellectuals, bishops, and so forth. As we face the increasing strength and cohesion of hegemonic Cultural Liberalism, the idea of "counter-elites" becomes significant. Trump and Banon are an incoherent, angry populist response as they ally themselves with conservative Evangelicals and Catholics. In Sunday's NY Times, Ross Douthat asks "Can the Meritocracy Get God?" He answers in the negative for two reasons: the fierce individualistic ethos of autonomy and the rigid secularist aversion to anything transcendent or supernatural. His pessimism is understated: St. Jude (patron saint of hopeless cases) would not waste his prayers on this group. But the emergence of counter-elites is a promising possibility. I can think of three who will matter: conservatives in the elite culture, strong lay leaders in the Church, and the "not-power-elite", the holy ones. Within the elite class there is a vigorous, intelligent, confident cadre of strong conservatives. Douthat is himself a good example: intelligent, very well informed, rooted in a solid Catholic piety, he is able to draw what is best from the dominant culture while challenging the worst in a calm, confident and often light-hearted, humorous manner. At every Ivy League or prestigious school it is usually possible to find a remnant of such beautiful minds and souls. I am happy that my oldest grandchild will be attending Columbia University in the Fall for a number of reasons but perhaps the strongest is my hope that she discover for herself this island of wisdom and holiness. Second is lay leadership in the Church. Our hierarchy is in deep crisis for many reasons. Pope Francis with his ambiguity and confusion has heightened the crisis. Clerical leaders are in the awkward position of balancing loyalty to the Vatican and the unity of the Church with allegiance to our legacy and its clarity. Gratefully, we have Sarah, Mueller, Burke and a few others who speak clearly, but most bishops are quiet in the confusion. Providentially, in the half century since the Council we have seen the emergence of strong lay leaders, often in the renewal movements, who proclaim the faith boldly with fidelity to tradition and in a fresh, current fashion: Kiko Arguello, Ralph Martin, Reno and the First Things crowd, David Schindler and his faculty at the John Paul II Institute, even Raymond Arroyo and EWTN! These and others offer a countervailing elite so desperately needed by our Church in crisis. Last, but by far best: the holy ones, the saints. These move in the polar opposite direction from the upward-meritocratic-ladder: they deliberately descend to the bottom rungs of society, the hidden, marginal, forgotten. I recall a holy woman who asked that she could go to the poorest country in the world, find the most marginalized region therein, and the most desolute city, and the most miserable family in that city...and serve that family. Here we have: Mother Theresa burying herself in the slums of Calcutta, Charles de Foucault hidden in the desolute Sahara, Dorothy Day with her soup line, Kiko with his guitar and dogs and gypsies, Brother Andre and Father Solanus answering their doors and saying their prayers. This is the non-power elite: hidden, humble, peaceful, hopeful. They flee power and prestige, seek silence and solitude, associate with the lowest and poorest, and they become a light to the world! Their influence will countervail that of all the other elites. And there is no lack of opportunity there!

A Prayer at Eucharist

I need You; I want You. I love You; I adore You. I thank You; I trust You. I repent to You; I abide in You. I l receive You; I exult in You. I remember You; I look forward to You. I rest in You; I move and act in You. I delight in You; I hope in You.

Beware the "Angel of Light"

In his classic, prophetic "A Short Tale of the Anti-Christ"of 1900, the great Russian Soloviev imagines the emergence of a remarkable world leader, a unifer of all races and religions, a man of peace, a vegetarian,an eco-activist, an icon of all that is liberal and enlightened. One problem: he has no use for Christ as Savior. He is an "angel of light." He becomes an agent of peace and harmony around the globe. Eventually, the consensus of support and approval for him is resisted only by a very small contingent of eccentric, marginal "true believers" who face off in an apocalyptic confrontation. The tale recalls the traditional warning of the saints: beware the "angel of light." To the altruistic, idealistic, more virtuous among us Satan appears, not in his moral decadence, but as an angel of light, as an image of the ideal and the perfect. He appeals at once to what is enlightened and aspirational even as he sureptitiously awakens pride and eventually a refusal to receive the Crucified as Savior.. This tale throws light on our current politics. Donald Trump NEVER presented as an angel of light: he was breathtakingly transparent in his decadence, shameless and uninhibited in his self-centeredness, disrespect for women, ethnophobia, absolute regard for truth, crudeness and verbal violence to whoever offended him. In this he was refreshing: disarmingly candid, utterly free of hypocricy or pretentiousness. He was unequivocally, as a person, an angel of darkness. I could NEVER vote for him because I considered him a horrific role model for my grandchildren. Paradoxically, however, he exercised an inverted influence on them: so vile was he that our young recoiled from him in disgust and became vulnerable to deeper, darker moral toxins, but ones supernaturally camouflaged by appearance of the Good: angels of light. The liberal over-culture is currently euphoric and intoxicated with the agenda of Joe Biden. He is so appealing by contrast to Trump: warm, working-class, Catholic in a histrionic manner, anti-racist, pro-reproductive-rights-of-women, ecologically concerned, caring for the marginalized and immigrants and poor. He is, clearly, an angel of light. At a closer look: he advocates the genocide of the unborn, and coerces Catholics and others to support it with taxes. He advocates contraception and forces everyone to support it through the Obamacare mandate. He has utter contempt for the consciences of Catholics and others and for their religious liberty regarding the meaning of marriage and family. He supports the deconstruction of gender and the mutiliation of the young who suffer from gender dyphoria. He is spending money recklessly and inflicting a huge debt upon our young who will pay for it. He disparages those with different political views as racists, homophobes, yada yada yada. He does all this with a warmth, a pat on the back, a joke and a smile. The hypocricy is unbearable! He seems even to have deluded himself in a kind of moral senility. Biden is not along: our elite culture is replete with such influencers. Consider Michele Obama: wholesome, beautiful, articulate, intelligent, confident,idealistic. Ruth Bader Ginsberg, especially as played by Felicity Jones: charming, delightful, feminine and yet aggressive, idealistic. Consider almost all our movie celebrities: georgeous, confident, sexy! Our culture is populated mostly by angels of light, seductive and appealing but interiorly dedicated to the works of darkness.

My Favorite Clause: The Flexibility Clause! (or: What I Learned at UPS)

Amidst the chains of a Bureaucratic Universe...the suffocating, emasculating, smothering, infuriating, dispiriting chains...how do we keep sane, free, virile, light, sovereign, noble? The anwser is: The Flexibility Clause! I learned this marvelous principle in my 25 career in United Parcel Service. The principle is straightforward: all the regulations, protocols, rules, dictates...all of them...(but not the moral law itself of course!)...can be displaced by a simple prudential decision. Another word for "prudential decision": common sense! Yes...all the rules can be simply disregarded as needed: flexibility, prudence, common sense reign! UPS management had two codes: the official and the actual. Officially, the "tightest ship in the shipping business" complied with all laws, regulations, correct work protocols, and the dictates of "science"... in this case sacred Industrial Engineering. But actually, management was a macho, quasi-martial culture in which we were fighting an unending war with weather, traffic, accidents, the union (teamsters), recalcatrant workers, and human error...a war to get each package from point A to point B in the precise time designated. What was really valued was decisiveness, toughness, courage, determination, confidence, flexibility, and street smarts. The real code was not "obey the rules" but "get the job done, whatever it takes, and don't do anything stupid and don't get caught breaking the rules." And so, this unofficial culture gave us a freedom, an empowerment, a masculine confidence to make decisions and do what was necessary to fulfill our mission. As a package car driver I was out one Christmas season with my helper and my supervisor on an icy, snowy, dark night. We realized we had missed a stop halfway back the hill we had just come down. The supervisor was driving: he kicked into reverse, sped in reverse up the icy hill with all that blind spot behind him. The act was reckless and dangerous. I would not have done that. But I was thrilled by the daring. To an intemperate extreme he embodied the determination to deliver that package on time. When I supervised tractor trailer drivers my biggest challenge was a anxious, conscientious, actually quite decent guy who compulsively obeyed, literally, every work protocol. He always drove the designated speed limit, not a mile over, even if all traffic was speeding; he covered every item in his vehicle pretrips, if a highway sign said "construction: 30 miles an hour" he would do the 30 even in the middle of the night when no work was being done. As a result, he was always one to two hours "overplanned", that is, above the time determined for his work. He was the epitome of the official policy but the nemesis of the actual culture. I liked and respected him. He had integrity, consistency and logic on his side and I could not lean on him. And so: I exceed the speed limit on a habitual basis; I park in illegal spaces here in Jersey City all the time; as I keep poor financial records I feel free to make up my numbers for tax purposes; I have never sung "Happy Birthday" while washing my hands no matter what Dr. Fauci says. Which brings me, of course, to the last year of pandemic, paranoia and paralysis. For me, the hysteria and phobia around the virus has been far worse than the sickness itself. Of course I accept prudential, reasoned measures like masks in public, social distancing, ban on super-spreaders. But the safety-obsession, the protectiveness, the paralysis is beyond common sense. Most of the front-line workers "showed up" nobly and did their jobs, even facing danger, without complaint or pretension. Two groups, however, disgraced themselves: our Catholic bishops and the teacher's unions. The Catholic bishops closed our Churches, suspended the sacraments, condemned the sick and elderly to face death without the Annointing and be buried without family. They showed not the faintest faith in their own sacraments. They complied in a cowardly manner. Our Church has never, in my lifetime, stooped so low. The teacher's unions have caved to an irrational anxiety and disregarded the needs of the young. Seeing this, who would want to be a bishop or a teacher? As teh tenacles of the systematic, totalitarian, governmental-capitalistic-health-care-network grow and expand and strangle our freedom, we need a revival of the Flexibility Clause, and the freedom, confidence, virility and transcendence it grants.

The Culture War is Over

It is cut-and-dried, straightforward: the Culture War is over! We lost. It took over half a century. We lost. Cultural liberalism is firmly in control of virtually the entire superstructure of our society: ALL the powerful, influencial institutions and agencies are in its grip. It is pervasive and profound, systemic and systematic. All of the traditional arenas of freedom, of rest from the political...art, entertainment, academia, religion, athletics...are now incorporated into a totalistic, totalitarian system. It is "soft" but all the more systemic and perverse. The final straw has been the incorporation of global capitalism, including professional sports, into the dynasty. Am I overreacting to the current post-Trump, Biden-euphoria of the Left as they spike the football and do their victory laps? Possibly. The pendulum will swing back. And we do have the Judge Amy Barrett Court as well as lots of red states and conservative activity. But the conservative movement is fractured and incoherent. I was strangely saddened by Sunday's NY Times Piece by Ross Douthat. He argued what Catholics on the left and right have said for decades: a coherent pro-life, anti-abortion policy requires a strong, enduring safety net for mothers facing stressful pregnancies. The DNC is irrevocably wed to legal abortion; and the RNC is incapable of mounting a real crusade to support mothers-and-infants at risk. This realization discouraged me. Perhaps it is that I am old and tired. I am now entirely pessimistic about our society and indeed our world. Globally things are worse! Communism in China is surging with the energy from hell that exploded in Hitler and Stalin at their worst. Jihadist Islam, in both Shiite and Sunni forms, is entirely repressive of human freedom and is inhibited mostly by its own rivalry. It is inconceivable that Biden and his people are capable of the moral character to confront Communism in the way our parents did. Worst of all, The (Catholic) Church and the Churches are divided and incapable of a clear resistance to the Empires of Darkness. Pope Francis has installed a Quisling column that colludes with the totalitariams of Western Liberalism and Chinese Communism even as he assumes the pose of a crusader for the causes so dear to the cosmopolitan elites (death penalty, climate, immigration.) Does this mean that we surrender? Absolutely Not! That is unthinkable! No! Like Churchill, "...we will go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and grwoing strength, in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the filelds and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender." We shall never surrender! Our faith and values are more precious than life itself. But the war has shifted to a new phase. It is time to go into hiding; to go small; to go underground; to switch to guerrila warfare; to swim among the underclass, quiet and anonymous, where we have support. It is time to cherish and safeguard our legacy and resources. It is time to detach. It is time to draw closer to our God and to each other in truth, in holiness, in courage. It is time to wait, to wait for this leaden, lifeless regime to fall under its own weight, as did Nazism, Soviet Communism, Rome and all the arrogant empires. It is time to attend to our own souls; to our families; to our Churches; and to those closest to us. Above all, it is time to protect our young from the lies that pervade; to hand on our legacy; and to Hope in the midst of a chiaracuro of light amidst the prevalent darkness.

The Dark Empire Coalesces

2020, a historically momentous year: global pandemic, Black Lives Matter, the demise of Trump and ascension of the Democrats in the executive and legislative branches, a Republican party traumatized and unhinged by the Trump phenominon, imperialist aggression from Communism out of China, and a Catholic hierarchy polarized, incoherent, emasculated and subservient to the expansive totalitarianism of Communism in China and Cultural Liberalism in the West. The most ominous development may prove to be the radicalization of global capitialism: its embrace of Cultural Liberalism. Capitalism has always been deeply ambiguous morally to my mind. Positively, it means free markets, initiative, rule of law, industriousness, and all the associated freedoms. On the negative side, it inflames greed, materialism, consumerism, addictions to work and buying, meritocracy, and marginalization of the weak and incompetent. In its later stages it dissolves communities of locality, family, and Church. Back to the positive: Reagan Conservatism represented a fairly harmonious marriage of business and late-Calvinist Christianity in "the American Way." Personally I worked as a supervisor for UPS in those years and found my career in an iconic capitalistic enterpise to be mostly (but not entirely) congenial to my family and religious values. As a Catholic, however, this synthesis seemed to me to be interiorly conflicted. In 2020 the deeper reality of large scale capitalism is presenting itself: materialistic, individualitic and deeply coherent with the hedonism and secularism of Cultural Liberalism. And so we are witnessing the alignment of the dominant powers and principalities of the West: all the cultural elites (academia, media, entertainment, sports, etc.), big government and now big business. We might add big unions especially in the face of the shameless selfishness of the teacher's unions in the pandmic. We are living under a soft totalitarianism, as Rod Dreher suggests. The pushback from the right is fragmented and impotent. A thoughtful, promising minority (Douthat, Levin, Reno etc.) of intellectuals advocate a Catholic-friendly combination of cultural conservatism and economic populism. But theirs is a weak third voice, drowned out by the Trumpian rage and a residual "low-tax" Republical establishment that will be energized by the coming Biden tax increases. Meanwhile the American episcopacy, betrayed from within by the Cupich-Tobin forces, is incapable of speaking with a clear, firm voice. I find myself newly bereft of my customary optimism. But I am not without Hope...and hopes. The path ahead, it seems to me, is to go small, hidden, humble. To go into hiding like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda when the Empire took control. To go the way proposed by St. Benedict and Pope Benedict and Rod Dreher. To go the hidden way of Nazareth with St. Joseph. That will be my next blog.

The Passions of the Passionate Jesus

"Passion" is from the Latin "pati" which means "to suffer, endure, undergo." It took the meaning "to be affected or acted upon" and later an "emotion, desire, feeling considered an affliction." Eventually it was used of intense sexual and romantic desire but can refer to any overwhelming emotional movement such as rage, joy, or zeal. It differs from "affection" in that it is more powerful and intense, suggesting loss of control to the movement. And so today, being Good Friday, we contemplate the Passion of Christ. By this we mean, immediately, his suffering and pain: the scouraging, crown of thorns, nails, gasping for breath on the cross, the shame and contempt, his feeling of desolation and even abandonment. However, this passion must be understood as derivative and expressive of two primary passions. The first is indicated by Jesus' words: "I thirst!" His thirst was surely physical, dehydration; but more deeply his thirst was for souls, for us, to bring us into union with him and his Father. He is passionate for us; he craves us; he is nuts-crazy-insane-out-of-control. He is not sane and rational in our regard: he is out of his mind in love with us. That is why he surrendered himself to "The Passion." However even his love for us is not absolutely foundational; it is secondary, derivative of and expressive of The Primary Passion: His love for his Father; his urgency to glorify his father; his yearning for his Father; his reception from and giving to, eternally, his father. This is good news for us because it means that he doesn't need us; although he loves us. This leaves us free. We can accept or reject his love; either way he is fine, infinitely delighted in union with the Father in the Holy Spirit. We might consider an analogue: In a happy family, the best thing Dad can do for the kids is love Mom. The conjugal love between the two is already complete and satisfactory; not deprived or needy. The children flow out of, express and enrich the love, but are not necessary or needed. This leaves the kids free, in the right time, to leave Mom and Dad to live their own vocation as they are not, never were "needed." By contrast, a codependent or needy Mom or Dad might smother a child and block the move to freedom and maturity. And so: the Father and the Son are passionate, intense, extravagant, ardent in their desire for us. Even as they do not need us. That is why Jesus came and suffered and rose and ascended and sent the Spirit. As we open our hearts to receive this passionate love, we are ourselves inflamed with Passion: longing for God, and also thirst for souls, an urgency to love others and bring them into the abiding, eternal, delightful Love of the Trinity.

A Complicated Ideology

Politically and culturally my worldview is complex, nuanced, and sometimes contradictory. I am a mixture of: conservative Culture Warrior (at least 40%); residual old-school (pre-1965) political liberal (20% or less); First Things Neo-con (20%); and "smallist-anarchist" in the tradition of subsidiarity (strong 20%). Cultural Warrior: The defining global drama of my lifetime has been the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and the global, imperial Cultural Liberalism that resulted. And so my entire adult political life is formed by defense of innocent, powerless human life, of sexuality (spousality, paternity/maternity, family) as sacred, of tradition-authority-and the Holy. Secondly, I remain in part Political Liberal in the image of my union organizer father and the hayday of Catholic liberalism (1945-65) in its defense of the worker, the the civil rights of blacks and farmworkers and all the underpriviled. Thirdly, in my adulthood I became a Neo-Conservative in my support for the free market economy, democracy, rule of law and constitution, and civil rights as less than perfect but so far superior to the alternatives available. This entails an aversion to isolationaism and libertarianism and endorsement of a strenuous American global presence to countervail Communism now resurgent in China. Lastly, as a >Smallist-Subsidarist-Anarchist I harbor a suspicion of "gigantism" in government and industry both and a preference for the little, the immediate, the concrete. Influences in this regard include: Ivan Illich, Schumacher, Ellul, Berry and the Communio school of the Schindlers-Hanby and some of Dorothy Day and Rod Dreher. I am no utopian but I am keenly aware of the negativities (without denying the positivities) of inhuman biggness, meritocracy, bureaucracy, technocracy and the entire culture of scientistic control. I am vigilant in care of my own soul, as well as family, Church and intermediate communities, as mega-corporations and the expansive state grow cancerously and devour immediate communities of all sorts to leave the individual isolated, unrooted and vulnerable. This strange mix leaves me ambivalent about our national politics. It leaves me free to embrace what is good in the different policies. It leaves me skeptical about both parties and without a real political home. It is firmly rooted in my Catholic faith and enhances my sense restlessness in my journey to heaven. It allows me to participate energetically in our ambiguous culture even as I detach in love. It focuses my energy to my Church and family and immediate communities organically connected to them and liberates me from over-dependence on the mother-state as well as smothering global capitalism. My most profound and passionate aspiration is that my children and their children and others around me carry forward this vision of life.