A Spiritual Loneliness

In recent years I have become aware of a particular loneliness within myself: it is sad but quiet, peaceful, gentle, prayerful, and even sweet.

It has nothing to do with the pandemic: I abstained from Covid-phobia; I was out and about every single day all day for the last year and a half.

Perhaps it is a sign of aging. Perhaps it is a preparation for death, the final loneliness. Perhaps it is a quiet participation in the hermetic vocation, about which we read so much daily in the Magnificat, even as I live a gregarious, active life.

It is connected to the papacy of Francis. For almost my entire adult life I delighted in a constant, euphoric communion with John Paul, Benedict, as well as the entire Church on earth and of the ages. I have lost that. Much that is beautiful and sacred to me is scorned by the current Pope. But he is my Pope. I have no choice but to suffer a disappointment.

More concretely and specifically, however, I have over this period suffered a sense of separation, of rupture with at least a handful of those very close to me. Happily, in almost all cases we remain close to each other and mutually respectful and affection. Nothing like a full rupture. More like a significant disagreement on something of importance. Helpful feedback recently from my nephew made me aware that I am passionately engaged with what I have received as True, Good and Beautiful and also craving of intimacy with those I love in those realities. Result: it is a deep loss to differ with someone I love on what is sacred.

Like everyone, I am myself a distinctive combination of many forces. The traditional Catholicism I received from my family was intensified by the charismatic renewal, the Communio theology of Benedict and John Paul, and a lifelong desire to serve the poor. Secondary influences include: walking for a time in the Neocatechumenal Way, friendship with Communion and Liberation, 12-step spirituality, my work as a supervisor in UPS, the conservatism of First Things, Rene Girard mediated by Gil Baile, and others. It goes without saying, of course, that first and foremost is my marriage and family. Recently I realize there really is no one exactly like me: I enjoy a unusual number (I think) of intimate intellectual/spiritual friends with whom I share many of these realities. But with no one do I share all of them. For example, I can think of only three among my circle who share the charismatic experience, something that was important to me. Conservative friends may not be too passionate about service of the poor; and viceversa. And so, I stand alone in a way.

As mentioned, there is a peace, a sweetness to this solitude. It comes to me as an invitation to (in the words of my nephew) "detach with love." To renounce inordinate attachment and free the beloved friend to be himself or herself, rather than the fulfilment of my longing. It comes as an invitation to prayer, to quiet communion with our Lord Jesus, who alone can share with me in intimacy the fullness of Truth and Good and Beauty that I crave so desperately.

What Happened to Retribution?

More than a decline or demise: retributionhas disappeared from contemporary discourse. The term is no longer understood: it has become conflated with revenge which is its opposite.

Revenge is a personal intention of harm to another out of hatred because of some wrong inflicted. It is a sin as a direct contradiction of charity. Restitution is the act of justice by an authority (as received by God) to restore the moral order, to compensate for a wrong done. It is inherently a good act. There is, however a connection between the two: without retribution, revenge will burn disastrously; but with proper restitution, the anger and wound is partially healed and vengeange is calmed.

As if by magic, restitution has disappeared from the modern mind. Consider Catholic discourse on the death penalty: John Paul, Francis and the Catholic Catechism omit it. It is as if there were no such thing. It is the null curriculum. However, for over two millenia retribution has been a basis for the death penalty. Avery Dulles stated at the time of John Paul that if he the pope were to declare that the retributive justice could not be the basis for the death penalty then he would be renouncing a firm tradition of over 2000 years. They do not engage it and thus they deny it implicitly.

To be clear: I myself would not make a strong, clear argument for capital punishment based on reparation, but I would insist, on the basis of Catholic tradition, that it be considered. Tempermentally I am disinclined myself to revenge, but I do have a strong sense of retribution, that the right order be restored. Perhaps it is that I am an oldest son; or conscientious and thoughtful; or that I have for my entire life been a ground-level authority...teacher, supervisor, director...and responsible to maintain the public order.

Substantial concepts, related to retribution, that firmly stuctured Counter-reformation Catholicism have largely disappeared in the Vatican II Church: merit, purgatory, indulgences, temporal punishment due to sin. This gestalt of concepts which formed the Catholic response to the Reformation surely deserved to be recontextualized within a stronger theology of grace, faith and mercy. But not to be thrown out so that they are not intelligible.

Jesus instructed us on our final fate: the sheep receive eternal reward; the goats damnation. Retribution pure and simple!We see here that the concept includes reward as well as punishment. In this life, by analogy, those infused (from above) with authority exercise similar retributive justice in the ordinary arena of home, school, work, and society.

John Paul's weakness here in his strong dismissal of capital punishment was, to me, his single theological flaw.Perhaps this is related to the failure on his part and that of the broader Church to respond firmly to the sexual abuse? Francis of course has gone qualitatively beyond him into a real heresy. Even the work of Balthasar needs to be corrected for catechetical purposes although with less fervor than shown by Ralph Martin. Yet there is widespread indifference, except for certain eccentric conservatives. (That would be me!)

So, why has this simple, fundamental idea become unintelligible? Several reasons come to mind:

1. The prevalence of a soft, cheap concept of Mercy. That of John Paul was not soft or cheap as it was infused with justice, truth and holiness. But he did have a blind spot for retribution. Francis and his movement are a different story: he has absolutely (?) renounced capital punishment as well as criticized life imprisonment. He is living in an alternative reality.

2. Decline of the masculine psyche. Retribution is a concept of justice which is natural to the male, paternal, authoritative mind. It is alien to the feminine and the maternal. Our culture and especially our Church have both become entirely demasculinized and so the concept is strange.

3. Liberalism and individualism have become the very air we breathe, intellectually, so we do not think in terms of the corporate, the communal. So punishment now focuses on the protection (and deterrence) of the individual and rehabilitation of the individual. Instinctively, we do not think about a "public order" that must be restored. The libertarian,the therapeutic, the bourgeois have entirely triumphed in the last 50 years.

4. A pervasive philosophical nominalism, a superficiality, a lack of ontological density has left us with a failure to see the FORM. By this I mean to see the interior essence, the deeper inner meaning of a thing or an action. Catastrophically the Cultural Revolution vacated precious, sacred realities of their inner meaning: sex and gender, authority, tradition, fidelity and chastity, just warfare and the litany continues. And so, there is an incapacity to see the form of retribution as distinct from revenge, as rooted in authority and an objective moral order.

Strangely, I experience a distinctive sadness and loneliness on this precise issue. Partially it is that I am dissonate with my mentor, John Paul. Add to this the heavy-handed intrusion by Franis into the Catehism which has been widely accepted. And then just the frustration of seeing so clearly a reality that is invisible to others. I miss Avery Dulles!

Looking for a Catholic Unicorn: the Dilema of Liberal Catholicism

"Finding a young candidate for the priesthood who wants to follow Francis and live celibacy is like looking for a Catholic Unicorn." Fr. Thomas Reese S.J.

Fr. Reese hits the nail on the head: he identifies the fragile, incoherent, unstable and parasitic nature of liberal Catholicism with his metaphor of a Catholic unicorn.

In a thoughtful, much-read piece last week he suggested that his colon surgery may be the beginning of the end of the pontificate of Francis. I think this speculation is silly: we watched my mother, who recently passed at 101, snap back a number of times through her 80s and 90s when she should have been down for the count. Franics is like my mother, a tough old bird. He is more than capable of a resurge. He may be around for quite a while. If so, I hope he will do more good than harm. His is a strange papacy. It is like watching film noir. His two immediate predecessors were like a Jason Bourne movie: when things get terrible, Bourne gets smarter, tougher, stronger. So,everything from JPII and B16 (not the Vatican) was unerringly, serendipitously inspiring, hopeful, truthful. Their predecessors, in living memory, were solid, steady, safe, grounded. But Francis is like the noir genre: you just don't know what is coming next! Noir is thrilling because the good characters may turn evil; the worst might turn to the good; the femme fatale may finaly surrender to love or hatred; the ending could be happy sad and nihilistic. In that sense, Francis is like the rest of life: we just don't know the outcome. It is high drama! (But not always in the best sense!)

Back to the Reese piece: the rest of the article point on: he regrets that the papacy has been a failure in that Francis has not recreated the clergy/episcopacy in his own image. Even as more than half of the current cardinals were appointed by him, the American bishops who support him are only 20 to 40 of about 240. The triumph of his vision requires a successor in his likeness but even with that Reese identifies the deeper problem: most of the younger priests are in the mold of John Paul. New, liberal bishops will find for themselves that most priests, including the most trustworthy and reliable, are of a conservative mode. Hence: the dilemna of liberal Catholicism is that it is not procreating itself.

The liberal Catholicism of the last half century since the Council has three features: First, the sterilization of sexuality and the disenchantment of the Mystery of masculinity/femininity (and ultimately of romance itself). Second, a break with tradition which it disparages from a posture of enlightenend superiority rather than filial reverence, loyalty and gratitude. Thirdly, a search for salvation from the leftwing politics of the expansive state as well as a turn to psychology as religion. Because of its embrace of sterility it is not fruitful; as it breaks with the past it has no organic future. And so the surge of expectant energy in the Church has been in overwhelmingly "conservative" and in tune with John Paul: young priests, new orders, lay renewal movements, return to tradition, home schooling, and so forth. The recent repression of the Latin mass shows the anxiety and insecurity of the liberal psyche.

The "Spirit of Vatican II" generation, now in their 70s and 80s are retiring to nursing homes. They were, to me, a noble generation in their embrace of the poor and suffering, their ecumenical spirit, their enthusiastic openness to new ideas. The young could learn a lot from them and I hope they do. But the dark side was the break with tradition, the weakening of the Catholic sexual ethic and the accomadation to the Cultural/Sexual Revolution. And so a sadness hangs over them: they leave no legacy.Yes there has been a resurgence of liberalism under Francis, but his advocacy has been inconsistent and so he has disappointed.

He himself is a puzzling combination of conservative and progressive and in that he is emblematic of the Church herself, although his is an incoherent synthesis.

St. Thomas says the human will protects the good that is present (conserve) and seeks the good that is absent (progress). Being in itself is stable and yet in movement: continuing the Good/True/Beautiful even in movement towards it. As is the Church! But for Catholicism there is a primacy of the given, the actual, the received: life itself as created gratuitously and salvation as definitively given in the Gracious Act of Jesus Christ. Growth, movement and liberation always flow organically out of the primacy of Gift. The Resourcement Theology that was cooking in the Church quietly after the war and birthed the Council (DeLubac, Ratzinger, Danielou) was the epitome of Catholicism as rooted in tradition and yet organically fresh and creative; it continues in the legacy of JPII and B16 and the Communio community.

There is inherently a tension between tradition and progress. We might think of the prodigal son and his stay-at-home brother: the later was close to the Father, always, but with a terrible attitude; the former strayed but did come back to receive the paternal embrace. We will always have both types: the explorers and the homesteaders.

The Church, like every community of value and purpose, is like an onion with different levels of depth, intensity and involvement. The inner core give their very lives for the cause; the outer layers are less engaged. And so the inner core of Catholicism will always be the saints, with Mary and Joseph, who give their entire selves to the Bridegroom, whether anonymously and quietly, or in the vowed or ordained vocations, or otherwise. But the Catholic Church is the opposite of a cult in that it seeks to include and welcome, even those who rebel. So the Church will always have the inner core of true believers and the outer layers of accomadationists, those who straddle, a foot in the Church and one in the world. For example, the Church is highly valued by liberal activists: the cultural side of liberalism despises the vigorous, rigorous sexual ethic, but the political side sees that it is the strongest consistent force in the world defending the poor and suffering. So social justice warriors will tend to a parasitic dependence on the Church, even as they reject essential interior beliefs.

And so, the accomadating wing of the Church will always be with us; and sometimes they are right; and sometimes they will prevail (like the Arians over Athanasius); but they will be dependent upon graces and riches...Marian, hierarchical, liturgical, anonymous...that they are unable to recognize as they hold themselves above the Tradition. They can be at times resentful; and at times sad and discouraged. Let us hold them in tenderness and esteem, as we fight them in the relentless Culture War.

Pope Francis Restricts Latin Mass: Big Mistake!

Yesterday was a sad day: we are in grief over the loss Thursday of our Grandaughter, Gianna, in the 17th week of pregnancy. What can we say? It is a sadness. A mystery. It can only be suffered and surrendered to Christ.

Then the Pope's restriction of the Latin mass: Another sadness!

I understand the clerical frustration with the Latin mass community. They are a counter-culture, in tension with the mainstream Church establishment and often defiant and dismissive of it. They can manifest the spiritual immaturity of all renewal, alternative movements: distrust of the system and authority, arrogance, self-righteous indignation, stubborness. There can be a schismatic, propensity there: there always is in enthusiastic, intense religious sub-communities. It goes with the territory. Clergy can make a reasonable argument that they will benefit from discipline, boundries, regulation and "holy obedience?".

At the same time, they are fervent in their love for Christ in the Tridintine mass, Tradition, Thomism, Catholic customs and piety. They preserve the splendor of the old mass as mainstream liturgies have become often insipid. They are reverent, pious, protective of much that is best in our past as so much of that has been forgotten and discarded. They are good Catholics, in an offbeat fashion. I like them. I am friends of the local community. They have been good to our Magnificat Home work. As a group they are quirky, interesting, intelligent, informed, often sophisticated, interesting, full of life, love and faith. They are currently hosted in a poor, inner city parish. That pastor, in negotiations with myself, bemoaned: "Nobody gives much money! Not that groupand not that groupand not that group!You know who gives money? The Latin mass community!

Every alternate Catholic community, including all the renewal movement, is a child of the Church; and each struggles like an adolescent with obedience, trust, loyalty. Each is prone to spiritual indignation and pride. But the underlying cause of such separation and resentment is: the feeling of being unloved. Now that may or may not be caused by the authority figure. But in this case, I fault the Pope. I am in the corner of the traditionalists.

How I prefer the affectionate, sympathetic embrace of them by Benedict. Francis has a blind spot here: he is blind to their love, loyalty, and genuine piety. He is defensive, arguably paranoid, as he sees them as an assault on his configuration of the Vatican II Church. He sees only rigidity, separateness, reaction, formalism and an offensive piety. He is admirably transparent and candid: he hates them. He is NOT a loving father...not patient, long-suffering, tender or affectionate.

There is irony here: the liberal branch that he represents prides itself on "inclusion" and "diverstiy" but typically is intolerant of and even "canceling of" disagreement from the right. It is analagous to Biden's current effort to repress vacine criticism on Facebook: his authoritian heavy-handedness verifies and intensifies the already pandemic suspicion of the establishment (medical, political, media). It further polarizes and divides: feeding distrust and resentment. I fear that Francis' heavy handed repression will have the same result: increased distrust and division.

In this case, I must say: Francis is a bad father, a bad pope. The truth will set us free: in his betrayal of the persecuted Church in China, in his destruction of the John Paul Institute in Rome, and in his repression of the traditional mass...we are facing a form of child abuse. To deny this would be to be an ennabler. It is what it is.

We live in dark times. In our mega-Archdiocese of Newark we are now ordaining maybe one local candidate a year. We are Israel in the desert, wandering around with no promised land in sight. We are in exile, in Egypt or Babylon, bereft of homeland and temple and priesthood. We are in some kind of corporate dark night of the soul. Are we Job being tested by Satan? It helps to be clear who we are and where we are. So we can bring it to the Lord.

Pope Emeritus Benedict on the Priest Sex Scandal

The fierce criticism of someone dear to me moved me to re-read Benedict's 2019 statement on the priest sex scandal. I found more there than I grasped on a cursory, initial reading. I liked it!

1. Vintage Ratzinger, it is a modest, unpretentious offering. This is neither an infallible papal ruling nor an exhaustive historical analysis. It is more like an old timer, in his rocking chair, going back in memory, to the war or the depression or something.

2. In line with this, I found the anecdotal style charming. Some of them seemed more personal than global in nature, but those put me in touch with the person. For example, he recalls that in some seminaries his writings were banned: he was cancelled before "cancel culture" was born.

3. This piece surely is one of the last of his writings and valuable for that alone. He is, in my view, one of the three GREAT Catholic theologians of my lifetime: with his friends John Paul and Balthasar. These three are in a class of their own, lapping every competitor. This is because of sheer intellectual genius-energy-stamina-erudition, holiness of life and a happy blend of continuity with Tradition and creativity-freshness of spirit. He is the least of the three in terms of the total gravity of his work. His theological corpus would have been far greater if he had not served pastorally, but his influence would not have been so great.

4. He is, however, the superior catechist: his writing is sweet, crystal clear, and available to the ordinary Catholic. There are a handful of Catholic writers who combine theological orthodoxy, docility to the Holy Spirit and a charm, a sweetness, a gentleness of manner: Cardinal Newman, St. Francis DeSales, Caryl Houselander, Heather King. Anything they write has a taste of delightfulness. Joseph Ratzinger in in this club.

5. Expectedly he writes about the sexual revolution and the concurrent disorientation of moral theology as the climate in which the scandal erupted. I for one would have been shocked if he neglected this. The surge of priest abuse 1965-85 is undeniable.

6.A particular irony surrounds him: the most quiet, soft-spoken, humble, meek and gentle of men, he is at the same time among the most hated of Catholic thinkers. Before becoming Pope, he was referred to as "Ratzi the Nazi." A more unjust, vile slander I cannot imagine. It was related to his genius and his orthodoxy. His brother said of him: "He does not look for a fight but he will not back away from one." Hans Kung, a theologian of comparable natural genius, said of him when he became Pope: "He is very sweet, and very dangerous." At the Council he was known to everyone as the young, brilliant, liberal-but-grounded Ratzinger; as Pope he became with his older partner THE definitive interpretation of it.

7. He provides technical detail of why the canonical procedures in place were inadequate to the catastrophe: they were inorinately directed towards the repentance of the accused and to protection of his rights. He would know as he was given, by John Paul, primary responsibility for the review of the cases. He describes this as his "every Friday penance exercise." He may know as much detail as any living person by virture of this task and his other positons in that decade.

8.Correctly, he identifies a root cause as the loss of God in our lives. Here, as in other things, he simply echoes the unchanging proclamation of the Church: God alone is our Savior. Sin is the cause of all evil. In particular he emphasizes loss of reverent love for Christ in the Eucharist: this love has been the untiring theological theme of his life.

9. Specifically he speaks of the mission of the Martyr in testifying to the Truth and he happily expresses gratitute for his own little family where he finds daily such testimony. So simple, so thankful, so joyful! He is indeed living the "Benedict Option" which Dreher named after the ancient monk but I always identified with this holy Pope.

10. Lastly, most striking and...for me...troubling. He thanks and praises his successor Pope Francis for all he has done. I swallowed hard when I read this. Francis is a complex case...he is many things...but prominent among them he is theologically the anti-John-Paul-and-anti-Benedict. Why does he praise, so sincerely, an adversary who has set back so much of his work? Could it be that he is suffering some dementia or that he is unaware of events since his retirement? I think not. His thinking is clear. More likely it is a combination of the following: One, his esteem for the Chair of Peter is such that he reveres the workings of the Holy Spirit in that office notwithstanding the failings and mistakes of the occupant (which only he of all the living would understand.). Two, he is grateful to be relieved of that heavy burden. Three, his concern for the unity of the Church urges him to a gracious act of peacemaking. Four, like the dying Thomas Aquinas he is approaching the Thone of Grace and sees so much of our theological/cultural/political wars as "straw" by comparison. Five, he no doubt appreciates the strengths of Francis, strenghts which are strikingly different from his own.

For me personally, he is a tremendous example and an inspiration: to be loyal to our current Pontiff and to be (this doesn't come natural to me) humble, meek, and charitable in my theological convictions.

The Wounded Priest

Three of my dearest priest friends died in recent years, each of them shamed and stripped of priestly perogatives because of credible sexual allegations. Each cherished his priesthood; each was gifted in extraordinary ways; each was a cherished collaborator of mine in different periods of my life; each was very close to my heart; each did much good. Yet a sadness hangs heavy over their memory. They lived and died without a happy resolution to their suffering. It is a Mystery!

Perhaps that is why I find myself this morning considering a type I know and love well: the wounded priest. This is the priest who quietly suffers his sadness, a sadness which is deep, mysterious and incomprehensible even to himself. It may involve anxiety, depression, social nsecurity. It may manifest itself in dysfunctional, toxic or self-destructive behavior: typically alcoholism in the Church of my youth; homosexuality in the Church of the last 50 years. It is a sadness that does not resolve itself: largely invulnerable to therapy, 12-step work, good friendship, sound theology, and even prayer. A psychologist might suggest a kind of "structural damage" to the psyche: a deep disorder immune to cure and even treatment.

In an earlier essay I wrote about the "Maverick Priest." Many mavericks are wounded, and many wounded are mavericks; the two coincide in many priests. But they are quite distinct. A maverick need not be wounded and a wounded need not be maverick. There seems, however, to be a common sensitivity, depth and vulnerability underlying both.

The wounded priest is quiet: Not a dissenter; Not a Culture Warrior; Not a Social Justice Crusader. Those types are aggressive, confident, indignant, (self?)righteous, strong in judgment against injustice exterior to themselves. The Wounded Priest is mute, introverted, humble, meek.

At its best this sadness moves into the desolation of the spiritual "Dark Night" and becomes a path to sanctity. Classic examples: the striking Javier Bardem priest in "To the Wonder", "Diary of a Country Priest," and the clerical alcoholics in "Power and the Glory" and "The Edge of Sadness." In such cases, there is no moral victory of the will over weakness! On the contrary: the suffering persists; the protagonists remains a victim to hostile forces beyond his control. Rather, in a mysterious manner, there is an enduring, a surrender, a serene acceptance of the "wound in the flesh" (St. Paul) such that the misery prevails but a gentle, subtle Mercy emerges. A wise young man (my nephew Brendan) once told me: "Some things just must be suffered."

Oftentimes the wounded priest becomes more of a deficit than an asset to his bishop or superior as he, like the maverick, does not fit into the system. His suffering may involve a negativity that can be contagious. He may have to be sequestered where he an do minimal damage.

An emblematic figure for me is the late Brennan Manning: ex-priest, gifted writer and speaker, he left the priesthood to marry and then divorce, and finally succumbed to alcoholism. To the end however he fiercely prolaimed the Gospel of the love of Christ for each sinner, preisely in his sin. He pushed Catholic theology to the limit. But I cherish his message. There are among us many who are so broken that there really is no hope, in this life (there is always Hope) for wholeness and healing. His last years entailed evangelization behyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church. But I understand he had a Catholic burial at St. Rose's in Belmar. That last Eucharist sealed his life and his message.

It is a Mytery of suffering and tragedy...the Wounded Priest. Futile suffering, failure and frustration, incurable pain. We do well to pray for them:those who have passed and those here with us even now.

The Spiritual Seductiveness of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung

It was the late 1990s, a theology course at Union Theological, NYC, was reading Joseph Campbell; almost everyone was enchanted by him. I was nauseated! I could smell his contempt for the historical religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. His was a sophisticated but thinly disguised apology for paganism. I was not surprised later to learn of his reputation for anti-Semitism. But I imagine his was not such a politically incorrect hatred for Jewish blood as much as a radical anti-Judaism, a disgust for the love of the transcendent God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. Campbell was himself a disciple of a greater genius, and a darker figure: Carl Jung. In the study of the religious psyche, Jung is the GOAT: greatest of all time. (On further thought, maybe William James could challenge him?) However, he had also surrendered himself to diabolical forces: the occult, drugs and sexual sin. He is a fascinating, provocative but ominous figure. He exerted an immense influence in Catholic and Christian circles in the 1970s and continues to do so today, largely through his disciples like Campbell, Rohr, Jordan Peterson and Alexander Shaia.

The appeal of Jung is that he uses the language of Christian theology to propose an alternate gnostic spirituality which, usually implicitly, renounces the transcendent God of the Bible and Tradition in favor of an introspective exploration of the Self in all its archetypes, experiences, longings and travails. Jung is fascinated by religion and Christianity, but incapable of the simple act of faith in a God exterior to his own narcissistic psyche. He replaces the Trinity with his own 4-figured paradign that seems to be retrieved by Shaia. Campbell is worse: he hates that God as he glamorizes all the archetypes and idols proposed by the pagans.

In figures like Rohr and Peterson (Jordan, not Danny, and certainly not Ed or Eddy or David) we have a muted, modulated gnosticism. For example, Peterson has deep, solid intutitions about the nature of virility and our current crisis but he is unable to cross the threshold into simple faith in Christ. Rohr offers a rich stew of Jungian psychology, Catholicism, 12-step work and other stuff. He is immensely talented and charming. He may be growing beyond the hatred of institutional Catholicism that so offends red-meat Catholics like myself.

To be sure, what is offered within Catholic circles today is not the dark occultism of Jung or the shameless paganism of Campbell, but a more appealing, muted and disguised mixture. For example, a hip retreat house might offer a mouth watering smorgsboard (for the spiritual seeker who is lukewarm in his Catholicism) of: the Enneagram, mindfulness training, Zen Christian meditation, non-binary eco-organic-wholesomeness, and so forth. Now any of these offerings are in themselves innocuous and arguably wholesome in their right place and correct degree: like the daily walk or swim or fruit-veggy drink or vitamin regime. The problem develops when any (or any combination) is offered as an alternative "spirituality"...as a practice/belief system capable of organizing your life in place of traditional faith and practice. In that case they overreach and become in effect idols. This is done in a quiet, anonymous fashion: not a direct challenge to Orthodoxy, rather a compelling and fascinating distraction.

The new-agey, Jungian diet is a kind of spiritual vegetarianism. Now normal vegetarianism is entirely wholesome, assuming dietary needs like protein are satisfied, and apparently much healthier for the human body and the globe. A Catholic certainly can be a vegetarian, but not in an absolute or ontologial way: because we eat the body of Christ and drink his blood, literally. When Jesus clearly proclaimed this truth...this dogma...many left him. So today many Catholics are afflicted with an aversion to things like eating a body and drinking blood, to a sacrfice in its bloodiness, to poverty-chastity-obedience, to authority and tradition. So, what is offered to such sensitive, searching spirits is a bloodless, meatless, sacrifice-less, vow-less, authority-less "spirituality" without religion {"religio") and all its bonds, demands, boundaries, laws. This Jungian alternative offers itself to the idealistic as more enlightened than traditional faith in its simplicity and demands.

At the end of the day, what do we make of this veggy burger, lite, meatless Catholicism? It is hard to say. On this I come down as non-binary: it may not be clearly good or clearly bad. It seems helpful and inspiring for many "on their journey." But anyone who has feasted on the rich wine and meat of Eucharistic Catholicism will find it too watered down.

A Time to Declutter

What a great week! First my son Paul went crazy cleaning our shore house garage leaving it neat and usable. Then our pastor-landlord got a huge dumpster and we cleaned out all kinds of junk from our attic at Mary's Place: old matresses and box springs, heavy sinks, clothing, broken chairs. What a relief! We have about 50 women residents in our two homes and at least half a dozen are serious horders or clutterers. Big problem: especially when the State inspects and we get cited and they refuse to clean up. If such a woman relents and accepts the assistance or leaves the place then the best feeling in the world is clearing the place out. Ecstasy!

That brings us to today's Gospel, Mark 6:7-13. Jesus gives clear, direct, strong directions to his apostles: in their mission they are to have no money, no second tunic, no food, a pair of sandals. Nothing else! Minimalism to an extreme! The Church as poor, austere, simple, decluttered, trusting, precarious, fluid and free! We have come a long way from that.

Last night we were discussing at dinner the decline of Catholic schools in Bayonne where four of my grandchildren have attended the single remaining parochial grammar school. A few years ago that city had a robust seven parish schools and two full high schools. Our family has always been heavily invested in Catholic schooling so we shared a quiet grief at the trajectory. But today's gospel made me wonder: maybe Christ is decluttering his Church? My mind wandered to the itinerant missionaries of the Neocatechumenal Way. They practice that primitive apostolic style literally, relying, like beggars, upon the generosity of those to whom they offer the Gospel. I think of Ivan Illich's prophetic call over 50 years ago for a poor, deinstitutionalized, powerless Church. I recall Ratzinger's fortelling at that same time, of a small, humble Church. I ponder the McCarrick Event: rise to the highest ecclesiastical level of a sexual predator due to his expertise in politics, administration, fund-raising, and navigating the Church bureaucracy. It is time for the Catholic Church to declutter.

This is not easy! There is a resistance within us to getting rid of stuff. MaryLynn, my wife, and I are members of a pious association, Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist. Most of our practices are simple and straightforward: daily rosary, mass, prayer of the Church, etc. The most challenging and ellusive is: simplicity of life. After quite a few years, our lives remain busy, cluttered, complicated. How are we to simplify? We will need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So will the Church!

The Legacy of Slavery in the USA: the Good (Womanly Faith) and the Bad (Manly Infidelity)

The good: the sublime Christian faith universal among black American women. It is amazing! Over the years I have known hundreds of black women and have been close, in work/Church/community, to dozens. Every single one has strikingly intense, deep faith in Christ. I cannot remember a single exception...not a atheist or agnostic, nor a Nietzchean/Darwinian/Marxist. Not a single woman with whom I could not pray to Christ. This is true also for those who are addicts, borderlines, psychotics, criminals and the homeless. The evangelization of our black slaves stands as one of the greatest missionary accomplishments in Church history. Based on its persistence it may exceed that of Mexico, Ireland, even Poland or the Philippines. Mostly non-Catholic. But one wonders: who brought the good news that was so deeply accepted? Baptist and Methodist ministers? Pious slave-owning women? Mendicant preachers? Simple white farmers? Whoever it was, they surely have a special place in heaven. Black Christianity is a rich, resilient, profound faith: seemingly strenghened by centuries of oppression, suffering and violence. Black women, in the worst circumstances, manifest a serenity, a sense of humor, a generosity, a seasoned wisdom, a confidence, a humility, a courage. If we were to vote for the most superior group of humans among us, I would nominate American black women for their faith.

Now the bad news: the fracturing of the masculine psyche under slavery and the resulting culture of marital infidelity. As a young man, when I learned about American slavery what shocked me more than anything was the fracturing of black families. That was, for me, inconceivably evil. The only comparable reality I encountered was the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis. Both represent for me absolute proof of the existence of supernatural, diabolical evil. The lasting consequence, however, has been a widespread destruction of virility as paternity. The male psyche is far, far more more fragile, vulnerable, taut than the fluid, resilient, supple, tough feminine spirit. Consider John Steinbeck's class "Grapes of Wrath": as things get worse for the migrant farm workers the women get stronger in their care for the suffering and the men fall apart in crises of identity. And so we live now with generation after generation of young boys growing up without fathers because of male infidelity and promiscuity. Even as the women carry faith, family and community with extraordinary strength. Feminine identity, faith and purpose are largely spontaneous, organic, fluid, effortless...in the context of a minimum of love and safety. But the masculine identity/mission/purpose is a long, difficult, complex, delicate itinerary requiring sensitive coaching, discipline, encouragement, fraternity. Lacking this we end up with a thug or a wimp. This is the root cause of inequality, impoverishment, and the entire Culture of Poverty: male infidelity.

Critical Race Theory compounds the tragedy: it emasculates and infantilizes the black man as victim of "The Man"....as implicitly impotent, passive, incapable of protecting wife and children. A similar dilemna hangs over the progressive agenda of special treatment including quotas and the entire "War on Poverty"...which elicits dependency, entitlement and a furter emasculation.

Making things worse is the broad slander of police as predators upon passive black men. Of course there are racists, sadists and sociopaths among the police and the code of blue loyalty too often tolerates them. But in general, sytemically, our police safeguard our most vulnerable, deal with our most dangerous, and then are stigmatized as systemically violent. This ideology seems prevalent, not in the black neighborhoods of Jersey City where I spend my time, but in sequestered, homogenous, zone-protected, suburban enclaves of bleeding-heart, limousine liberals and their prestigious school districts staffed by the covid-phobic, CRT-indoctrinating, parental-choice denying teachers unions.Privilege indeed! Shame, shame, shame on them!

Is there a solution? Not an easy one. Policies that contribute to education, employment, and mentoring of young men are certainly helpful. But they are better off not race-based but directed to all who are afflicted by the Culture of Poverty. Progress will largely be incremental and concrete: as specific young men find mentors and father figures, opportunities for advancement, motivation to be faithful, chaste, holy and virile.

"Do Not Blush About His Bride, The Holy Church"

Blessed Charles de Foucault, notoriously a lover of women in his sinful youth, gives us these striking words in today's Magnificat meditation. The Church..first and foremost, always and everywhere...is a Woman, is uber-hyper-mega-super-sublimely Feminine. The Church is Bride of Christ, our Mother, and at the same time a Whore. To know and understand the Church, you must know and understand femininity in its mysterious depth. Root problem of so much of our Church's depravity and superficiality: denial, fear, ignorance, disgust and flight from The Feminine.

In his classic, must-read Flight from FemininityKarl Stern showed how the unhappy philosophical legacy of enlightenment rationalism flowed, strikingly in Descartes and the rest, from a disparagement of the feminine as intuitive, empathetic, mystical, nurturing and a obsession with a toxic, unbalanced masculinity of certainty, clarity, proof, power and control.

Our Church has similarly suffered from a clerical, immaturely masculine theology that is in flight from the feminine. Our clergy is masculine and men come, only with difficulty and much time, to an understanding and appreciation of femininity. So, to the degree that our priests are immature, they fail to know the Church. To think theologically, "with the Church" there are two necessities: love of prayer and love of women. Both are essential. Both are in short supply.

Why is it so difficult for men to understand women? First, they are so different...so, so, so different. The adolescent male psyche is crazy with desire for woman but has not the faintest clue about the interiority of a woman. This takes many years to achieve and normally requires a happy marriage, daughers or daughter-surrogates, chaste feminine friendships, as well as prior grounding in sound mothering and a network of sisters-cousins-aunts-grandmothers. Not all men have benefited from such. Secondly, all of us retain a largely unconscious resentment-rage against the "bad mother" who frustrated, contradicted, punished us in early childhood. Thirdly, our libidinal craving for the feminine is, randomly, out of control and carries with it fear, shame, guilt, frustration and sadness. Forthly, some men fail in the oedipal passage and remain enmeshed in the maternal, as "momma's boys" or homo/metro-sexuals and incapable of wholesome desire and appreciation.

And so, it is the lack of EROS, of tenderness, delight, reverence, delight in the feminine that underlies Catholicism's clericalism, moralism, legalism, dogmatism, ritualism...not to mention its pedophia, misogyny, and general sterility.

Women themselves intuitively understand the femininity of the Church as they live, love, breath and pray in and with her. The few women I have known who advocate for women priests themselves evidence a feeling of discomfort with their own sexuality. I recall a marvelous sister of charity, a real servant of the poor here in Jersey City, a talented and idealistic woman, who resented that "her feminine organs kept her from the priesthood." I was shocked and saddened by her disparagement of her own sacred womanliness. A woman with a wholesome sense of her bridal-maternal-sororial sublimity surrenders herself effortlessly into the Marian depth of the Church.

Arguably, the great accomplishment of resourcement and communio theology...DeLubac, Balthasar, John Paul, Ratzinger...is the recovery of the erotic, the nuptial, the sublimity of masculinity-femininity as a radiance of the love of Christ the Bridegroom for His Bride, sometimes prostitute, our Mother the Church.

Let us not blush for her!

We Are Like Sheep Without a Shepherd

These words from my college friend Tim struck a cord with me: those of us who were enflamed...with love, zeal, courage, hope...by John Paul and Benedict have endured the current pontificate as sadness, discouragement and heartbreak. But, true to my reputation as a cock-eyed optimist, I have avoided the "adjustment disorder" afflicting traditionalists by the tested Marine strategy "adapt and overcome." I have a chipper, bouyant attitude because...

First of all, we have absolute confidence that Christ is firmly in charge of his Church, precisely in the thick of the decadence, chaos, incoherence...as He was when He, abandoned by his apostles, performed his "Graious Act" on the cross. Regular readers of Fleckinstein know my "Fr. Burke Principle": Father "no-work" Burke, our pastor throughout my childhood and youth, was almost never around except when he he scurried about the Church and sacristy, manically and aimlessly, in a phantom-of-the-opera-esque cape. But... the work of the Church proceeded symphonically through a marvelous cadre of flawed but faith-and-love-filled priests, sisters, brothers and laity. This primordial experience left me with absolutle certainty that Christ is serenely in control of His Church, regardless of the clergy. So...if our local priests are a coven of sexual deviants, our pastor a psychotic cleptomaniac, our bishop a malicious psychopath, our cardinals a conspiracy of Masonic Satanists and our pope an Arian Visigoth...still, inerrantly and efficaciously, our Lord through the workings of His gentle Holy Spirit, in the mysterious Communion of Saints, is dramatically ,in Word and Sacrament, working out our holiness.

Secondly, the legacy of John Paul and Benedict is very powerful and resilient. An entire generation of priests, especially the brightest who studied in Rome, are under their influence. Even if Francis succeeds in recreating the episcopate in his image, these heirs of the apostles will be dependent upon the proteges of his two predecessors as their most intelligent, reliable, competent, zealous co-workers. Add to that the fierce energy of the renewal movements and we are moving forward with exhuberance.

Thirdly, given our weakened papacy and episcopacy, I have found wisdom, purpose and encouragement in an "alternate ecclesial elite" of mostly lay folk. First, the "communio theologians" who carry on the work of the dual-pontificate, especially the Schindlers and their colleagues at the Washington D.C. John Paul Institute for Study of Marriage and Family. (Even as the Vatican desimates that Institute in Rome.). Secondly, for almost half a century I have been guided and energized by charismatic leaders like Ralph Martin and Neal Lozano. In recent years I have been heartened by the evangelical energies manifest in the Neocatechumenal Way and Communion and Liberation. Thirdly, the First Things crowd offers an always-challenging high-brow banquet of thought in the best Catholic/Evangelical traditions. Forthly, I am indebted to the remarkable Gil Baile who has repackaged Rene Girard, along with Balthasar and John Paul, in a congenial, breath-taking synthesis. Fifthly, a more low-brow but solid menu is regularly served up by The Catholic Thing, EWTN, Crisis Magazine, New Oxford Review, and others. Lastly, on broader cultural-political issues there is a vibrant school of younger thinkers who draw upon our Catholic heritage to offer alternatives to mainstream Republican-Democrat toxicities: Ross Douthat, Patrick Dineen, Rod Dreher, Yuval Levin, J.D. Vance, and others.

Lastly, regarding Pope Francis: in the words of my grand-niece: "Let me tell you something, he ain't terrible." He is a weak, but not a terrible pope. He has his bright sides: he is genuine, spontaneous, authentic; he loves Christ; he cares tenderly for the poor. He has conservative instincts that serve him well if inconsistently. I have enjoyed malicious delectation in the frustration of the progressives such as the synodality-maniacs in Germany. He could be worse.

So I am not despondent. Sometimes I have to caution myself against a slide into triumphalism!

The Agon of Jacob

AGON: A Greek word meaning competition, as in an athletic contest or a dramatic conflict between protagonist and antagonist.

Jacob's all-night wrestling match with God, today's first reading (Gen. 32) is among the most puzzling, bizarre, and mysterious of biblical events. First of all: if you have ever really wrestled with someone, you were exhausted after about 3 or 4 minutes of absolute exertion. It is unthinkable that one could wrestle all night. Secondly: Jacob prevails against God. And God seems to congratulate him for his feat; but then he wounds his sciatic as a reminder so he is limping afterwords. What is going on here? It makes no sense! We know that God is almighty and that our salvation is in surrendering to Him. So why is Jacob honored for his resistance? It reminds me of Fight Club: the point was not to win the fight, not to get victory or triumph; the point was just to fight. IF you are strong or weak; undefeated or always defeated; it did not matter! What matters is to be in the fight.

So: I read the story in this way: God engages us, throughout our entire lives (all night), in agonistic struggle. Life is conflict, war, competiton. Relentless. Exhausting. Merciless. We struggle with events that attack us...with friend, family and foe... with our own interior chaos that never really goes away....with our antagonists in the Culture War...with the world, the flesh and the devil! We are always in La Lucha!

So, it seems to me, this is why God is so pleased with Jacob, even as he leaves him a wounded sciatica as a badge of honor. If he is to be one of the three great Patriarchs, he must be battle-tested. He fought all night. He became a "made man." He was strenthened by the test, by the "agony." May we also be so tested; tried; strengthened; honored!

Good Liberalism. Bad Liberalism.

This is a fun game. I will describe a type of liberalism. You, dear reader, will say either "Good Liberalism" or "Bad Liberalism." You will like this game. As a regular reader of Fleckinstein, you will be very, very good at it.

Liberalism as the flowering of Christianity and the fierce acclamation of the infinite worth of every person, large and small, competent and incompetent, born and unborn, regardless of ethnicity or race, as created by an almighty and all-loving God.

Liberalism as liberation of the individual from all bonds of tradition, family, obligation, gender, community and faith.

Liberalism as pursuit of the Liberal Arts, the interior freedom received from scrutiny of the Good, the True and the Beautiful.

Liberalism as a disconnect with the past as superstitious and ignorant and a boundless confidence in future progress through science and technology.

Liberalism as rooted in the moral order, "natural law," the mysterious Logos that indwells all of Creation.

Liberalism as individualistic autonomy, independence, and unrestrained choice.

Liberalism as personal communion...in the Good, the True and the Beautiful...in a rich symphony of communities from family, through Church, neighborhood, city, state, nation and humankind.

See how much fun that game is? Well, by now you detect an underlying theme: good liberalism is a personalism flowing out of communion, with a range of communities, with Creation as Good-True-Beautiful, and with God and heaven. Bad liberalism is loneliness, isolation, individualism. Bad liberalism promises a false liberty by way of a Disconnect: from others, from the past, from God. Bad liberalism leads to despair, ennui, sterility and sadness.

Now lets consider three prevaling liberalisms: political liberalism, economic liberalism and cultural liberalism. The first two have problems. The last is a catastrophe. The first, political, is vulnerable to the last. The second, economic, also lacks a healthy immunity to the toxicity of the last.

Political liberalism is that of the Democratic Party. It has a strong sense of solidarity with the weak, the poor, the marginalized; it identifies with the victim; it uses government to correct injustice and assist the suffering. Its heyday coincides with my childhood: 1945-70...FDR, Truman, MLK,JFK, LBJ. Its two weaknesses manifested after the Cultural Revolution. First, a weak sense of subsidiarity in an unbalanced trust in big government and an inattention to mediating institutions. The earlier positive achievements (relief from the Great Depression, victory in the war, Civil Rights, the American Peace and triumph in the Cold War) left a blindness to the dysfunction of dependency on the Mother State, deterioration of other levels of community, and the culture of entitlement.

Economic liberalism is libertarian in its fierce defense of the individual's rights in the face of state tyranny, as in communism or the expansive progressive state. This is Milton Freedman, Ronald Reagan and the pre-Trump Republican establishment. In face of the Cultural Revolution it embraced moral conservatism in its concerns for Life, marriage and family, and religious liberty. It also had two weak spots: an individualism that obscured solidarity, including with the poor, and a similarly weakened sense of subsidiarity that allowed the expansion of mega-global-corporate capitalism and neglected to protect family, local community, the working and poor classes. Unlike political liberalism, it embraced moral conservatism; but its immunity was weak due to individualism, avarice, tolerance for gigantism in the private sector and indifference to the needs of the worker and the poor.

Cultural liberalism is sexual license: the severing of eros from chastity, fidelity, marriage, family and the religious vows. It is the ultimate liberation of the monadic Self as a god-unto-her-or-himself, unrooted and undirected in a vast, empty, meaninless void of a universe. It is futility, sterility, disenfranchisement, and despair. But it is powerful. It completely devoured political liberalism in a hostile takeover about which the Catholic Great Generation (apparently exhausted by Depression, wars with Japan and the Nazis and the Communists, and ensuring world peace) had very little clue.

Liberalism, as we know today, in its various expressions is LONELINESS Nevertheless, I for one, as son of a union organizer, cannot give up the pure, good meaning of the word. Rather, I crave a genuine liberalism as freedom, a freedom that breathes from the riches of our past, that rests in a "catholic" {i.e. universal) communion with all that is good and true and beautiful, that values all the freedoms and cherishes especially the little ones and the poor ones. This is the liberalism of John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict, Edith Stein, Jacques Maritain, Dietrich von Hildebrand and many more. May we emulate them! May they pray for us!

My Favorite Prayers at Holy Communion

Jesus, come into my heart! Possess me! Bring me, by the gentleness and strength of your Holy Spirit, to our heavenly Father!

Jesus, I surrender myself to you! Take care of EVERYTHING!

I need you; I crave you; I am desperate for You!

I want You! I choose You!

I love You! I adore You!

I thank You! I trust You!

I repent to You! I abide in You!

I receive You! I exult in You!

I remember You! I look forward to You!

I rest in You! I move in You!

I am quiet in You! I speak in You!

I delight in You! I hope in You!

Neutrality in the Cultural War: Viable?

At least a strong plurality, probably a majority, in society and the Church, keep on neutral ground, "Switzerland," in the Culture Wars. Most of the hot issues are fought out between militant, passionate minorities of 10 to 25 percent on each side. The remainder largely abstain as they are ambivalent, confused, indecisive, indifferent, or simply lack the stomach for the fight. In the broader society this has benefits: it contributes to civil peace. The margins have to appeal to the moderate middle to get anywhere. Neither side gets a full boat. Reason, moderation and negotiation come into play. Imagine if both sides on issues like gun control, immigration, and climate control numbered 40% or more! We would plunge into full scale culture conflict and become a balkanized country. (I know, we are already!)

Within the Church it is a different matter entirely. Unity is constitutive of the Church, but unity in Truth. We cannot have one gospel for Germany, another for Poland; one liturgical-moral-doctrinal legacy in San Francisco, another in New York. Furthermore, the crucial theological and moral issues ARE binary: God is three persons or one person; Jesus is human-divine or human or divine; women can or cannot become priests; sterile, non-unitive sex is essentially wrong or it is not. One side is right; the other side is wrong. If women can become Catholic priests than they should! Absolutely! And not 50 years from now, but yesterday! And the refusing Church is indeed hateful, ignorant, misogynist, legalistic, retroactive and phobic. But if women cannot become priest, they cannot. Simple! No one can make them priests: not the Pope, not synodality, nothing!

Priests by a large majority keep a distance from the Culture War. Occasionally you will hear a sermon about abortion, but very very rarely will you hear on Sunday about homosexuality, cohabitation, contraception, pornography and masturbation, and the masculine priesthood. These are taboo topics...on both sides...and there are reasons for this. I have know a fair amount of Jesuits and Maryknollers over the years: about 90% avoid these issues. Their hearts burn for the poor and the suffering, they are very uncomfortable with the sexual and life issues. My spiritual director of many years, John Wrynn S.J. of happy memory was non-directive with me, neither endorsing nor challenging my fierce conservatism, but one day he quietly said: "I don't know why women can't be priests." He is typical: uncertain, he has no dog in the fight.

Why are so many neutral, abstaining from the fight? Great question. A number of vectors come into play.

1> Most people are not philosophers: they lack the ability and/or interest to pursue theoretical principles. So they don't really care about these issues that exploded in the 60s with the Sexual Revolution. Morally, most people are emotivists: they decide and act on the feelings of their heart, not the reasoning of their intellect. This is even more true of women and so of the de-masculinized Church we have become. In the context of World War II, all the loss of life and resources we sustained in the wake of Pearl Harbor, few Catholics thought twice about the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Every felt good the war was ended without further bloodshed and most liked Harry Truman. About abortion most Catholics might say: "I don't like it and would never do it but I FEEL uncomfortable with the government telling a woman she can't have one. So I am peronally averse but politically pro-choice."

A second motive is to keep the unity of the Church, to prevent schism or a mass exodus. Saint Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae but did not enforce it. He kept the Church together, even though there was a de facto schism. Priests and bishops avoided the topic. The result: over 90% of Catholic women of child-bearing age went on the pill at some point. The Church retreated, ceded the ground to the Liberation forces, and has been losing the War ever since. The recent letter of Cardinal Ladaria cautioning the American Bishops to proceed with caution and avoid a split Church reflects this pastoral concern. Both John Paul and Benedict were extraordinary: they relentlessly persisted in proclaiming the gospel truth, always gently and patiently.

Thirdly, and closely related to the previous motive, is a pastoral sensitivity in priests to keep close to those who cannot accept or understand Catholic teaching on these topics. The culture has pulled most far away from the Catholic way. So, for example, a typical priest finds that most couples seeking matrimony are already living together. What to do? Most soft-pedal and play good cop: pre-marital chastity is offered as a suggestion, an option, an ideal. Hardly any mention of "living in sin." Priests want to love and be loved; they want to give and receive acceptance; they have little taste for tough love.

Forthly, the crucial issues of gender, sex, and unborn life have always been, for Catholics, sacred, delicate realities that are surrounded by silence and discretion. These are not things we talk about: not because they are bad, but because they are holy. And so, when the Sexual Revolution exploded after 1965, the Great Generations of Catholic in power at the time were entirely unprepared: so they avoided the conflict. Result: the Revolution succeeded, entirely, even within the Church.

Lastly, these moral-religious issues have become unhappily politicized. Traditionally the Democratic Party championed Catholic concerns: the working man, the poor, marginalized minoritites, a more robust sense of the common good, solidarity and a limited but assertive state. Implicitly, for example, the party of my childhood was quietly, but firmly, pro-family, pro-life, pro-religious liberty. A Copernican Revolution occurred circa-1970: the Democrats betrayed Catholics for the liberated, secular elite; the Republicans gathered up conservative Evangelicals and Catholics into a political stew that included (traditionally Catholic) cold war militance and (questionably Catholic) low taxes, preference for the wealthy, and a failure to critique mega-capitalism in favor of a moderate subsidiarity. And so, Catholics were quite comfortable backing gun control, generous immigration policy, and an expanded health care system; as they were uncomfortable with a pro-life movement that they perceived as arrogant, indifferent to the poor, and too close to the wealthy.

Pope Francis is a good example of this neurality: he seems to be ambivalent. Last week the Vatican sternly forbade blessings for homosexual couples; this week he wrote a sappy, saccrine letter to Fr. James Martin commending him on how Christ-like he is in being close, compassionate and caring. No mention of truth, justice, sin or holiness. His position is untenable: conservatives feel entire abandoned by him, progressives resent that he has disappointed him.

The neutral position is entirely untenable. The forces for sexual liberation are so militant that to abstain is basically to surrender. Their aggression is increasing. The war is raging ever more viciously. We live in apocalypic times. It is time for us to revive the legacy of John Paul: as he quietly, confidently faced and eventually defeated the Nazis and the Communists, it is now for us to persist in the Truth...confidently, calmly, affectionately, fiercely, hopefully.