Bishop Theodore McCarrick: Counsel for the Defense

>Whereas McCarrick is the most despised person in our Church;

Whereas Girard has shown us the role of the scapegoat in resolving mimetic envy-chaos-violence;

Whereas Satan is the Accuser but the Holy Spirit is the Advocate;

Whereas I love to champion the pariah

...I will defend him.

I deliberately call him "bishop" although he has been stripped of all status and privilege because by his three-fold ordination (deacon, priest, bishop) he has on his soul an indelible seal that nothing can ever erase; not his sins, not the Pope, not the archangels. This could be a problem for him: if he does not repent that mark will doom him to a deeper place in hell.

It is just over three years since the scandal erupted and we fell into the catastrophic summer of 2018. Time to take a deep breath and consider him and his place in our Church. At the very beginning of that summer Bill McGurn of opined in the Wall Street Journal that he might become for our time what jpreacher Johann Tetzel O.P. was for the age of Luther: the spark that started a forest fire. At that point I agreed with my friend, esteemed theologian Father Tom Guarino, who took a calmer approach: that such scandals are common throughout Church history and it was wise not to overreact. By Labor Day I was convinced McGurn was right. The Vigano testimony that ended that summer was, in my view...notwithstanding questionable elements and his sad, subsequent decline into rightwing lunacy (dementia? stress?)...credible and NOT convincingly contradicted by the Vatican's whitewash of a report.

But for me it was much more than McCarrick that made 2018 the Summer from Hell. The Pennsylvania Attorney General's report was released and traumatized many. Not myself so much because I sensed it was prosecutorial in an overly hostile manner and not fair to the Church. Worse was the trajectory of the Francis pontificate: his dismantling of the John Paul Institute for the Family made evident his renunciation of the legacy of that sainted pope; he betrayed the persecuted Chinese Church and handed control to the diabolical, tyranical state (a development with which McCarrick strangely involved himself); he high-handedly changed Church teaching on capital punishment with an incoherent, convoluted statement that besmirched our prized Catechism. McCarrick became the symbol for our ecclesial decadence not because he practiced homosexuality with adult seminarians, but because he rose to the pinacle of power and prestige even as the Vatican received a steady flow of credible reports. By Labor Day it was evident our Church was sicker than any of us could have imagined.

First of all, he was not a serial pedophile. There is at least one highly credible allegation of abuse, over the years, of a child-then-adolescent. This is morally inexcusable and despicable; horrifically damaging; and indicative of psychological pathology and moral depravity. It does cry out to heaven for vengeange. However, over the decades, this was not his M.O. He practiced homosexuality with adult males, seminarians in their mid-to-upper 20s. The moral gravity comes from his use of power and authority to exploit the younger, vulnerable men. As all predators, he groomed the more insecure, less confident as his victims. The priest-bishop relationship is especially delicate as the prelate is far more powerful than a boss: he is more like a superior who is also your uncle or father and the untouchable, trusted and esteemed patriarch of the family. Nevertheless his victims were adult, intelligent, gifted men who were training for the priesthood. They were not powerless, pathetic or passive and not candidates for our pity. Furthermore, it is probable that he did practice sexual acts but most of what he did seems to have been sharing a bed without intercourse. This is what was well circulated for many years. I remember reading about it and thinking: "Weird. But not immoral in an obvious, grave way. Some sort of fetish. Who is perfect?" This may be part of the reason this behavior was widely rumored and tolerated. As a sexual predator, Bishop McCarrick was not a heavy-hitter, in the league of, say, Fr. Maciel. Mostly he practiced a mild form of adult-male-consensual homosexuality, something increasingly adovcated as wholesome within the Church.

Secondly, as part of the "lavender mafia" his secrecy was implicitly an acceptance and affirmation of Catholic teaching on homosexuality. To this day he does not admit to it. Clearly, he sees it as wrong. Indeed, the fact that this covert culture remains so well hidden is itself a testimony to the correctness of the moral disapproval of the lifestyle. By contrast, what we are facing today is a fierce, militant campaign by the lieutenants of Pope Francis to morally approve of homosexual acts. We might assume that they (Cupich, Tobin, etc.) are living impeccably chaste lives; nevertheless their shameless, even scandalous promotion of sterile, non-unitive sex is more toxic for the Church than McCarrick's hiddens sins since it blatantly contradicts the moral law. It may lead many more of the little ones into sin than did our disgraced ex-Cardinal. McCarrick was on the whole faithful to the doctrinal/moral tradition of the Church. A cynic will view that as his careerist instincts under the conservative pontificates. I am not a cynic.

Thirdly, while fully acknowledging his moral depravity in this area, we cannot entirely nullify the good that he did. Yes, a man can be deeply evil in one arena and still do great good in another. Martin Luther King comes to mind. It is puzzling! I lean to believe that he loved Christ and the Church, sincerely. He did an immense amount of good work, fully using his extraordinary energy and ability. This cannot be erased. I know of priests to whom he showed much kindness. Perhaps his awareness of his own failings softened his heart with mercy to others.

Lastly, we do well to consider the depth of his jpathology, the split in his person, and avoid judgment of his heart. His homosexual urges seem to be rooted in a deep father-wound. He came of age well before we had treatment, therapy and 12-steps, for sexual addiction. He had no hope for recovery. His was a split personality: a gifted, pious, accomplished priest...and a pervert. There was no bridging of that abyss. He had to live in denial. It is unspeakably tragic. It seems that to this day he is incapable of honesty, contrition, openess to mercy. We can hope that he has reconciled to God in the confidentiality of the inner forum and confession. But his conversion seems at best incomplete.

We need to pray for Bishop Ted McCarrick!

Homosexuality is Not the Problem

It is not a big deal, homosexuality. It is a mundane, garden-variety, low-level libidinal discombobulation. I will speak for us men: probably 90% of us are afflicted with a range of sexual disorders which we indulge in varying degrees. Of the 10% who are blissfully free of these tribulations, at least 8 of the 10 are probably low in erotic energy. This is not a condition to be envied! I will take my high-testerone vitality along with the accompanying, relentless agonisic struggle with lust.The 2% who are pure enjoy some combination of emotional health, moral virtue, fraternal support and a supernatural charism of chastity. They are blessed indeed...and rare! (Aside: I always thought my father was of the 2% blessed: virile yet innocent, tender and faithful to his bride. I am still trying to get there.)

In the hierarchy of concupiscence, I would locate homoeroticism at the lowest level of seriousness. The worst are sins against charity. So I will list the lowest level (wrong), the second level (very bad), and the third level (horrendous, vile, despicable). All sins against chastity, including the lesser ones, are grave because they violate the sacrality of the masculine-feminine body in the profound dimensions of interiority, intimacy and fecundity. Objectively, there is a range in seriousness. Subjectively, of course, this is the most opaque, mysterious, and unfathonable of all human arenas: we dare not judge the human heart, but we are obliged to judge right from wrong.

The lowest level would be those that do not directly or deliberately violate love, the font of all virtue. Examples: impurity in look and thought, use of pornography, masturbation. Such disrespect the natural dignity of the sexed, gendered body but more particularly offend the holiness of the body as "temple of the Holy Spirit" for the baptised. Also in this group: those who in the passion of romance surrender to eros, aware only of affection for the beloved, often intoxicated with joy and unaware of anything bad. Such are also ignorant about the profound dignity and dangers of eros. The Church in the sacrament of confession is very merciful to such sins as they often arise in conditions of diminished freedom and deliberation: infatuation, anxiety, insecurity, ignorance, mimetic compulsion, depression and inebriation. Same-sex actions between consenting adults may fall at the high end of this low group: basically a mutuality in masturbation if not abusive or dominating. They might be roughly equivalent to contraceptive intimacy in marriage. Personally, my disapproval of homosexual fornication is weaker than that of heterosexual sin because my paternal instincts make me protective of the woman: if two adult men choose that option it does not effect me emotionally at all.

The second level offenses are very bad as they directly violate charity or the sacred. Examples: adultery which violates matrimony, fornication by priest or religious which offends the vow, prostitution which objectifies and abuses the woman, intentional seduction for pleasure, and public-contraceptive cohabitation which infantilizes the male while disrespecting the woman and giving public scandal.

The most vile actions, which call out to heaven for revenge, entail a disrect assault upon the innocent and vulnerable: rape, child abuse.

Returning to homosexuality: This attraction is often, but not always, accompanied by deep compassion, creativity, enhanced aesthetic and liturgical sensibility, generosity, intelligence, a superior sense of irony and humor, and genuine love for God and Church. This is why so many such men are drawn to the priesthood and have served with distinction and holiness. This eventuates, of course, when the man is free of compulsion and generally wholesome psychologically and spiritually.

Likewise, frequently, but not always, this attraction is accompanied by weakened masculine self-confidence, a disconnect with the father, an insecurity with other men, an aversion to authority (exercising it and complying with it), obsession with appearance and youth and narcissism. So here we arrive at the heart of the problem: not the sexual attraction nor even the sin itself! The problem with the gay movement is the narcissism, the underlying insecurity and emptiness, the demand for moral approval, and the rage against paternal disapproval. To be clear: homosexuals, male and female, that I know live their lives peacefully; they are fighting no culture war; they are good to me and I am good to them. There is mutual respect and affection. There is no problem. But on the broader social level, the gay movement is an irrational, ferocious and absolute demand for approbation. It simply cannot accept the traditional religious censure of sterile sexuality. It is a desperate ultimatum: you approve these acts, you bake my wedding cake, or you will be cancelled as a hateful, ignorant homophobe. What we are dealing with here is not debate or disagreement, but the anguish of a child who feels despised by his father. This is very painful, very difficult.

The Catholic gay liberation crusade of Fr. Martin and Cardinals Tobin and Cupich under the protection of Pope Francis, is a compassionate, but misguided response to this anguish. It is indulgent and ennabling. It is not paternal because it is not truthful. A wise father will remain peacefully in the truth as he holds his tormented son close to his loving heart.

Conversion: Synodality? or Confession of Sin?

Cardinal Tobin's recent piece (in Comonweal) on Pope Francis' "long game: synodality as conversion of the Church" helpfully clarifies the opposite ways traditional and progressive Catholics use the word "conversion."

"Conversion" traditionally means the confession of sin, turning to Christ for mercy, forgiveness and the grace to sin no more. All of us are sinners...Mary as the only exception. The Church is make of sinners and therefore sinful in her corporate humanity. But the Church is also the continued incarnation of Christ; His Body and Bride. In her heart, her inner form, her essence...the Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. She is (...get ready for this!...) a perfect society! Yes...in her Marian heart, her efficacious sacramental system, her infallible magisterium, her communion of the saints...she is Perfect. As sinners, our conversion is to "lean into" this Communion of Holiness; to continually turn from sin to the fount of Mercy and Holiness, Jesus our Crucified and Resurrected Lord.

An example: imagine a young man tormented by urgent same-sex attactions. As a traditional Catholic he will accept: intercourse is a sacred language of love reserved for the spousal bond as man-woman, exclusive, permanent, fruitful. He will accept his suffering as a wound in the flesh, a cross to be borne. His is a garden-variety form of concupiscence, neither better nor worse than those that afflict heteroseuxals. He will maintain his dignity as a child of God nothwithstanding his limitations. He will gratefully receive pardon for any impurity and confidently ask for the grace of chastity. He will seek support in the sacraments, fraternity, and therapy as needed.

However, that same young man might take another path. Indulging his narcicisstic inclinations, he might assert his Imperial Self; renounce the moral logic of conjugality; and proclaim his Pride (especially in June: Pride Month and also month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus...thanks to my pastor for instructing me on that!). He will self-identify as "gay" and insist that this decision be approved, especially by the Church.He will demand that the Church change its teaching, that it "convert" from homophobia to "love."

So here we see the underlying logic of "synodality as conversion." Cardinal Tobin is not calling homosexuals (along with heterosexuals) to turn from sin to chastity and fidelity. He, along with Fr. James Martin and much of the posse of Pope Francis, is calling for the Church to convert and change. So we see the underlying ecclesiology of the progressive mind: they do not see a Marian, perfect, efficacious, infallible Communion in holiness. Rather they see an institution that is reactionary, homophobic, moralistic, legalistic, arrogant, exclusive, white-privileged and pathetically un-woke. They see an institution that desperately needs to be enlightened by they themselves who are superior in all those respects. They intend, not to be themselves remade in the image of the Marian Church, but to remake the Church in the image of their own selves.

Cardinal Tobin is euphoric about synodality because he imagines that through this endless series of conversations the Church will "evolve" or ""progress" to his own views. I understand his thought because like him I am a boomer who came of age in the 60s. That was the age of encounter and sensitivity groups, Maslovian self-actualization, Rogerian self-acceptance, endless dialogue and narcissism on steroids. It was a "romanticism of the self" with absolute confidence in the innate goodness of ones own passions and desires. No doctrine of original sin here! With Rousseau the problem is "systemic"...all the retrograde traditions and dogmas. Fr. James Martin SJ is the most shrewd, clever and convincing of persuaders: he flawlessly disguises his agenda. Tobin is indeliberately more transparent. Pope Francis is a different kind of fish. He doesn't have a clear, coherent agenda so he is a scourge for serious conservatives and liberals both. He is confused and incapable of coming out on either side of this blatantly binary question: sterile sex...good or bad? So he throws the question into the process of synodality, implicitly hoping that the Tobin-boomer trust in dialogue and progress will save us. It will not!

Let's hope Tobin, Francis and Martin get back on the confession line with the rest of us and leave the "conversion of the Church" to Christ!

Culture War: What Do We Do About Fredo? Catholic Immuno Response

What to do: When an intimate, an insider, your very own blood turns against the family? The Michael Corleone approach is not an option for Catholics! We can't take the Bidens, Kennedys, Kerrys out on the lake and toss the bodies into the water. Much less can we do so with made men like Cupich, Gregory and such. What to do about betrayal of our values from within?

Fifty years into the Culture War now, am I tired? Of course I am! But capitulation, fatigue, even retirement...not options! I will fight the Culture War to my last breath. To live is to fight: to defend what is True and Good and Beautiful. It is like the Hatfields and the McCoys; like the Jets and the Sharks; like the Saxons and the Danes! With God's grace I will die with my boots on: running the good race, fighting the good fight.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow Catholics in combat with our adversaries is not fatiguing. It is invigorating, energizing and refreshing...like a good basketball or handball game. To be an American Catholic is to fight: Calvinist prohibitionists, Marxists labor leaders, Southern Fundamentalist bigots, secular Jewish pornograhers and movie moguls, WASP capitalists, and the eugenicists in the Ford/Rockafellow Foundations and Planned Parenthood. To live is to fight the good fight.

How often have I wondered: Why don't they just go up the street to the Episcopalian Church with is dying for members? Their theology is Anglican: their sexual ethics, sacramental practice, eccessiology...Everything! Personally I have little esteem for the denomination of Henry VIII with their watered-down, go-along-to-get-along, will-you-like-us sentimentality. But I do see an integrity in those who believe with that Church and leave ours to join it. It would be nice and neat if others would follow: they could have all they want of woman priests, sterile sexuality and reproductive freedom and we Catholics can just be Catholic. But it is not that simple.

The progressive Catholic seems to be conflicted: deeply connected to the Church of his birth, but driven to transform it to a more enlightened form. The sense of allegiance is genuine. But they are also like parasites: drawing life from the host but also working to undermine the life form in its integrity. The Church herself also exists in the tension between a maternal concern to welcome and include and a paternal steadfastness in Truth. The Church's response to the rejection of Humanae Vitae is emblematic: there was no crackdown or mass expulsion, but those loyal to the magisterium, expecially John Paul and Benedict, continued patiently and steadfastly to announce the truth. So what are we to do?

My answer: the Catholic Immuno Response! We all know about our immune system and herd immunities. The more we are in contact with germs and infections, the more our immune systems attack the invaders and we become stronger and healthier.

A decade ago the liberal Catholic project seemed to have failed in the face of the gentle steadfastness of John Paul and Benedict.That death notice was premature as it has resurged under Francis. It makes sense that the compulsion to accomadate to and collaborate with dominant elite values is a permanent ecclesial temptation. But this perenial parasitic pest serves a providential purpose: it arouses us to affirm the truth, in season and out, in good times and bad, steadily, gently, sweetly, energetically,confidently. If it doesn't kill us, it makes us stronger. Thank God for all the Fredos around us, who betray our values and arouse us to fierce loyalty. Let us pray for patience! Let us use this provocation to grow in Truth and Love! Let us pray for the Fredos among us!

Cardinal Tobin on Pope Francis' Long Game

Cardinal Tobin's panegyric to his mentor in the current Commonweal (https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/long-game) confirms my deepest suspicions and is deeply troubling.

First, he sets Francis as the ideological adversary of Trump and other emergent right wing strongmen. In other words, he heralds him as the champion of a specific new world order, oppositional to the emergent global populism. This is a HUGE mistake! Catholicism is NOT a political party or ideology. Around the Eucharistic table we gather with many with opposing political views as we celebrate, nevertheless, our unity in Christ as well as our freedom to argue and fight vigorously over all kinds of issues. It is a huge mistake, made often, for the Church to identify with an particular party or ideology. About 50% of American Catholics vote Trump. This pattern may prevail across the globe. There are plenty of good Catholic reasons for this. But in this piece Tobin polarizes the Church by alienating the 50% who disagree with Francis and himself. Deeply disturbing! "Diabolical" in the etymological meaning: that which tears us apart.

Related to this is his enthusiasm about "a pope from the Southern Hemisphere." Now what is the meaning, culturally or theologically or philosophically, of being from the Southern Hemisphere. Tobin thinks it is important. Southern hemisphere includes much of South America, some of Africa, many Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand. Is there an inner meaning, a form here? I don't see it. As Latin American, he would seem to have more in common with Central America (mixture of Spanish, native American and African) than with New Zealand or South Africa. North/South hemisphere as a cultural or spiritual category is about as meaningful as white/black or fat/skinny.

What is significant about his Argentinian background? Several things: He has the common South American aversion to North American capitalism. He prefers a strong Peronesque central government. He espouses a "mysticism of the poor and the people" that is not Marxism but a kind of romanticism, appealing in many ways. Generally however, his political views (like those of the cosmopolitan, white-more-than-black Barack Obama) line up perfectly with liberal elites of North America and Europe: urgency about global warming, pro-immigration, anti-death penalty. Add to this his undisguised disgust for many popular traditions of prayer (Latin mass, multiplication of rosaries, "clericalism") and we have a paradox: Selfconsciously "the people's Pope," he is in politics and piety stridently, even scandolously anti-populist.

Last, and worst, he waxes eloquently about synodality. The German experiment with synodality threatens to split the Church with the worst schism since the Reformation and Cardinal Tobin wistfully, dreamily fantasizes about the "journey of synodality." The unity of the Church is essential to its identity, destiny and splendor. Tobin and Francis would destoy all this for their Siddartha fantasy. The irresponsibility, the recklessness, the disconnect with our Catholic legacy and indeed with reality is breathtaking! Heartbreaking! You have to wonder: what are they smoking? Are they back in the 1968 Age of Aquarius?

Long game indeed!

Don't Like the Permanent Diaconate!

I never did like it: not in 1968 when it was restored in our country, not over the subsequent half century and not now. I have been biting my tonque all these years: trying to be duly submissive to the Church. But I am done! Don't care who knows or what anyone thinks: I don't like the permanent diaconate. In the post-Council euphoria of 1968 I, like many, attributed a high degree of infallibility to that Council. I deferred. They must know what they are doing. It is an ancient, revered institution! So I kept biting my tongue. But now, over 50 years later, I am coming out. One of the contrarian benefits of the Francis pontificate is that its startling incoherence and fallibilty have shaken me out of my quasi-ultramontanism, my exaggerated trust of Pope and Counci, so that I can think critically about pope, priests and Council.

The permanent diaconate is not a tragedy. Actually, it is fairly harmless. But it is annoying: like a mosqito buzzing around your ears in the middle of the night, like high humidity, like a close-talker who has bad breath. This is what is so annoying:

First, the early talk was of the ordained deacon as a "servant" ... a kind of personalization of our faith as service of each other as did the original seven in distribution of the bread. Now that was SO annoying: we are all of us...each and every baptised/confirmed Catholics destined for a life of service, of one shape or another. To designate them as somehow special servants was SO irritating.

Secondly, they have always appeared to me as glorified altar boys up on the altar. They are not essential to the Eucharist, but an additional "frill" like incense or organ music. In my day I was a dutiful altar boy but was never really comfortable in vestments on the altar. Maybe it is my personal hangup?

By the way: this is not about the men themselves who are deacons. It is about the institution. Deacons I have known are predictably solid, mature, reliable, devout Catholics; accomplished but humble men devoted to marriage, family and service of the Church and community. They are fine even exemplary. Not very often inspiring from the pulpit, but nor are priests.

Lastly, and most importantly, they obscure the state-of-life contrast: marriage or ordination/vows. One lecture on the Theology of the Diaconate dismissed a question from a layman: "Who are you...one of us or one of them?" The question was disparaged as invalid, but it cuts to the heart of the matter: are you lay/married or ordained/vowed? There is a binary quality to this. There are two states of life in the Church and they both involve a final vow and they are best when pure and undiluted. The married deacon is first and foremost married, committed to wife and family, and should be lay not clerical. The ordained priest/bishop is "married" to the Church; as the vowed virgin is "married" to Christ and emblematic as the Church as bride. When there is a mixture, a merging of the two they both lose a quality of purity, clarity and integrity.

The pragmatic argument is, of course, that with shortages of priests around the globe there is need for assistance to priests in things like marrages, baptisms, funerals, communion services, and so forth. But there is no need for ordination to these tasks. It is theologically coherent that lay people, men and women equally, be designated to perform these functions when necessary, in mission or emergency circumstances. It would not have to be a life-time, sacrosanct "sealed" sacrament.

In the more robust renewal movements since the Council we have seen the emergence of inspired lay leadership, unordained, spontaeous, fluid, guided by the Holy Spirit but not institutionalized. Even the new Vatican guidelines about Catechists seem to me an unnecessary "institutionalization" that is restrictive and repressive, even as it obscures the fundamental sacramental nature of ordination including its masculine and vowed nature.

We will do well to quietly put away the permanent diaconate. We do well to highlight the primacy of the marrage vow in ordinary lay life. We do well to clarify the spousal nature of ordination and the vowed evangelical life.

Reviving Love for Our Bishops

Our high school religion provoked us: "What would you do if you learned your mother was a whore?" After we processed the disturbing feelings...disgust, anger, shame...Father suggested gently: "At the end of the day, your mother is your mother. No matter how bad, you love her." Pause and then: "That is the way it is with the Church. One day you will know your Church is a whore. But she is still your mother. You will still love her.

Since the catastrophic Summer of McCarrick 2018 I have suffered very low confidence in our papacy and episcopacy and the suspicion that the legacy of Uncle Ted lives on in his proteges including the circle of Pope Francis. This has been a sadness and a dissonance since my Catholic faith is constituted by, among other things, trust in our hierarchy. I have maintained allegiance, but with little zeal, affection or joy. That changed yesterday: my heart and mind were changed by, of all things, an oped from the National Catholic Reporter. (https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/editorial-why-we-support-bishops-plan-deny-communion-biden).

The piece...contemptuous of the American bishops, sarcastic, condescending, arrogant, self-righteous, frenzied to near hysteria, hyper-political...was so vile that I was personally insulted. It angered me and aroused a fierce protectiveness of the heirs of the apostles. I felt the affection, loyalty and zeal I missed these past years. It is as if you called my mother a whore. The fact that she is a whore does not matter, I will fight you all the more in her honor.

For a lifetime I have observed our bishops, mostly from some distance. I find them to be almost always decent, competent, prayerful, intelligent men. Those named by John Paul and Benedict are, on the whole, theologically sound. I blame most of their failings on the system: they are responsible to maintain a mamouth bureaucracy and the demands of that stewardship distract from gospel leadership. The Church must and will grow small and poor. She will be purified. In the meantime, I respect and sympathise with our bishops. I will support them with my loyalty and prayer, even as I withold financial support for the malignancy of ecclesiastical institutions.

I am heartened and encouraged by the desperation of the NCR. They clearly see that the American episcopacy as currently composed remains faithful to the legacy of John Paul and Benedict. While weeds will continue to grow with the wheat, neither the confusion/incoherence of Pope Francis nor the perversity/duplicity of McCarrick will prevail. Christ is with his Church to the end of the age.

Turning Point in Catholic Education: 1965

In 1962, my frend Merrill, graduating from St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City, was accepted into Columbia University. Asked about his high school transcript in his college interview, he responded: "You will not get it. The Jesuits don't want us to go to secular universities." His guidance counselor, hearing he applied to Columbia said: "The Pope wants you to go to a Catholic college. Do you think you are smarter than the Pope?" When Merrill added that he was considering entering the Jesuits, Father responded "That is good my son." Six years later, Merrill was teaching as a young Jesuit at Fordham Prep, across the river, and the school was boasting euphorically about the number of Ivy League schools their graduates attended.

A drastic sea change had occurred: the Catholic ghetto walls crumbled like Jericho and working class ethnics rushed out of their urban neighborhoods into the suburbs, up the economic ladder into the upper tiers of the middle class and beyond, and into the Ivys and other elite institutions. I like to identify 1965 as the turning point: the end of the Council, the culmination of the Civil Rights movement, a surge in the anti-war movement, the start of the Culture Revolution and the year I graduated high school and went to college. There was, of course, good in this change: inspired by the Council, the Church was now fully engaged with the broader culture. My time in college was a quasi-permanent low-level state of intoxicated euphoria as I devoured books on culture, the social sciences, theology, philosophy and politics. The problem was that we jumped off the ship into a now-shark-infested ocean: at that very moment elite culture was turning viciously anti-Catholic. Pretty soon Catholics were contracepting, divorcing, co-habitating, aborting, same-sexing and pornographing at the same numbers as the broader now secular, relativistic, nihilistic culture.

A precise date for the change in Catholic higher education is the Land O' Lakes Conference, headed by Fr. Hesburg in 1967. A small cadre, largely from Notre Dame and the better Jesuit schools, declared their independence from any authority, ecclesiatical or otherwise, external to the academic community itself. Ted McCarrick, then president of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, was a signatory. Ironically, at this very time Notre Dame was accepting money from major secular foundations to sponsor summer institutes addressing the alleged population explosion and the desperate need for contraception. In other words, the Catholic University divorced itself from the Church but fell into an illicit affair with the now hegemonic liberal elite. Why did this happen?

Answer: the Catholic Inferiority Complex, exemplified by Fr. Hesburg himself. Emblematic of so many to come, Hesburg retained a staunch Catholic identity and piety even as he accomadated to and enabled the new regime of abortion, sexual liberty and a thinly disguised contempt for tradition and authority. He was amazingly successful in cultivating the rich and powerful, in rising to positions of prestige, in gaining widespread recognition and adulation. He seemed to crave such attention, no doubt out of a deep sense of insecurity, and did not seem to worry that he was betraying core Catholic values. In my high school years, I remember reading the renowned Fr. John Tracey Ellis on the intellectual inferiority of Catholics in America. This was a complciated stew: American pragmatism and anti-intellectualism, a largely uneducated immigrant population, the history of anti-Catholicism, the preoccupation of bishops and priests with building institutions. Clearly, Catholics were weak intellectually. But Ellis was not calling for a surrender to liberalism: he highlighted that Princeton and other elite schools were reviving the study of ancient and medieval philosophy, something that should have been done by Catholics. Earlier, his colleague Fulton Sheen, arguably the most influential-saintly-brilliant Catholic intellectual of midcentury America, had argued at Catholic University against the ambition to be a Catholic Harvard. But Hesburg, McCarrick and their cronies allowed this reality of intellectual inferiority to lead them down the most disastrous path: a craven emulation of an elite academy that was turning dark.

And so, for the last half-century, an ambiguity, a split personality, a fierce tension characterizes Catholic higher education: fidelity to the faith against a desperation to fit into elite society. This is pronounced at college level, largely influential at the secondary level, and not so strong in elementary schools.

At high school level, this contradiction is strongest at elite Catholic prep schools and academies which ambition to send graduates up the ladder into affluence, influence and prestige. My own 10 years of teaching were mostly in lower tier schools: St. Mary's H.S. in Jersey City served a mixed population of the urban working class; Immaculate Conception H.S. in Lodi run by the Felician Sisters was the least prestigious all-girls Catholic school in the area and attracted less ambitious, more pious ethnic families that valued faith, safety, discipline, and moral values more than upward mobility. But my own children went to "better" shools in Jersey City: St. Peters Prep and St. Domininic Academy. There I felt the tension as a Catholic parent. I will always be grateful that in these schools my two sons and five daughters flourished: psychologically, academically, socially, athletically. But the catechesis was weak. Already there was a draw towards the liberal values. The main problems: First, a failure to evangelize, to introduce the students into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Secondly, a watered down sense of the sacraments. For instance, the schools had Eucharisitic chapels that were ignored: one daughter told me she felt self-conscious, stupid if she visited the chape to pray as if she was doing something shameful. She was not an insecure person. Third, a weakness in catechesis of chastity. Lastly, a leaning politically to the left. Thish seemed to compensate for the implicit acceptance of the meritocratic system, even as it emulated the very values of those at the top of the achievement ladder. It is no wonder that a typical product of 12 or 16 years of Catholic education is, 5 or 10 years later, co-habitating, contracepting, abstaining from mass and confession, and voting consistently pro-choice.

In the red-blooded, straight-up conservative Catholic circles that I favor (charismatic, pro-life, Marian groups, First Things, Communio, EWTN neo-cathemunal way, etc.) there is a strong tendency to avoid the accomadationism of Catholic schools in favor of home schooling at the lower level and hard core secular universities at the upper tiers. I sympathize with this. At Princeton, Rutgers or Columbia the student encounters the godless culture in its naked shamelessness as a contrast to the Catholic offering. This is better than the watered down Catholic Lite available at most Catholic schools, especially the "best," since the Land O'Lakes Conference.

The approach my wife and I took, with happy consequences: we treasured the parish and local Catholic school, notwithstaning their weaknesses, for what they offered, but complimented that with exposure to more intense, hard core, counter-cultural Catholic engagements: charismatic events, catechetical summer programs, overseas immersion experiences, World Youth Days, and so forth. Currently 15 of my 19 grandchildren who are of school age are in Catholic schools; 5 of my 13 children/and/spouses work in such; and my own children have spent a total of 126 years in Catholic schools. That stands out as one of our very best decisions. I am grateful for this splendid past! Notwithstanding the challenges, I remain hopeful for the future.