Grieving the Death of Pax Americana

I just celebrated my birthday...and the death, in the Afghanastan debacle, of the world into which I was born 74 years ago...a world then basking in the afterglow of the recent victory over the Axis imperialisms...a world serene, secure, confident, energized, expansive, generous, and hopeful...a world protected by a powerful, Christian USA which was containing Soviet Communism, rebuilding Europe, and helping to develop most of the globe. August 2021 may exceed June 1989 (the fall in Poland of Soviet Communism) as the defining geopolitical event of our time.This is a sad day! I grieve.

The collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban without a fight undressed the American Empire to expose its impotence, incompetence, sterility, passivity, shameless mendacity and moral vacuity. The Taliban are, technologically and culturally, straight out of the 7th century BC; but they have a moral core, a cult of virility and heroism, a religious purpose for which they will fight and die. They posses what we, in my lifetime, have lost.

Graduating high school, 1965, I entered college seminary for the Maryknoll Fathers, the epitome of Catholic, American, masculine idealism, confidence, and purposefulness. In the following years I imbibed the leftwing critique of American power, arrogance, consumerism, and materialism. More specifically I partially accepted Ivan Illich's more deep and devastating evaluation of Irish-American Catholicism and the entire technological project of modernity. His views were, however utopian and entirely unhelful for actual life.

Moving through my adult life, I deepened and intensified my Catholic convictions including a passionate aversion to cultural liberalism as well as the technocracy, bureaucracy, meritocracy, consumerism, and materialism of bourgeois late-Protestant America (by reading Communio). At the same time, however, considering the alternatives (communism, Sharia law, fascism) I developed strong neo-conservative sympathies for the liberal project of human rights, rule of law, free markets and enterprise, democracy (by reading First Things). I was ambivalent on America: at once negative about its underlying anti-Catholic, Calvinist, individualist, technocratic soul; but defensive of it as the world's best option. The fall of Afghanastan is symptomatic of the liberal regime of Biden: the very worst side of America has prevailed... the cowardice, impotence, mendacity, and disloyalty. We have betrayed those who risked their lives for us. We are unworthy of trust. I am ashamed of my country. The world has become dark.

The world today is an arena in which four ideologies compete: communism, Islamic fundamentalism, secular liberalism, and traditional Christianity. The USA is no longer a nation with a heart and a soul; it is two nations with two hearts and two souls. It is two different peoples who hate each other; or more precisely, they hate what each other stand for. We are so engaged in the Culture War with each other that no ally can trust us for anything. Our generals are focused on the rainbow flag and incorporating Critical Race Theory: they cannot be relied upon. Many of our military men are still heroes as were our fathers and uncles in a different time...these include Southern Evangelicals, Catholics, Afro-Americans. But the military, the last conservative holdout, is at the highest levels capitulating to cultural liberalism as it did to the Taliban.

Our primary antagonist is Chinese communism. The outlook is bleak: not so much militarily or economically, but culturally and morally we are decadent. If we cannot contain the Taliban how will we contain Communist China when we lack a moral core, we lack heart and soul, will and intellect. We are soft, indulgent, narcissistic.

Our relationship with the other two opponents is more complicated: we must fight against but also along side of liberals and Islamists both. Over the last week, the Taliban have been surprisingly cooperative as we airlift out of Kabul. It is in their interest to obtain the collaboration of Afghans who can operate the technology and bureacuracy we have left there. It is in their interest to maintain the respect of the world. It is in our interest as Americans to have them as a ally against China. It is in our interest as Christians, as John Paul showed at Cairo and Beijing, to work with them against secular liberals on abortion and related global issues. Likewise, it is in our interest as Christians to ally ourselves with secular liberals in defense of women's rights, rule of law, democracy, and all the freedoms.

On the micro level, the Benedict Option becomes more pressing: it is urgent that we join together...passionately, intimately, profoundly...in communities of faith, hope and love.

The Singular Weakness of St. John Paul II: Too Holy! Too Innocent! Too Wholesome!

Extravagance in goodness is not itself, of course, a deficit; but it can lead to some blindness in the practical order of sin in which we all live. Someone (Balthasar?) critiqued St. Therese of Lisieux as being so innocent, so personally unfamiliar with serious sin, that she was almost another "Immaculate Conception" and therefore lacking in what is for most of us a fundamental of the spiritual life: remorse, contrition, repentance. My suggestion here is that something similar occurred with St. John Paul: from early in his life he preserved an innocence, a freshness, a wholeness, a generosity and freedom of spirit that shielded him from the normal ravages of sin.

An analogy: when I sought to be promoted into supervision in UPS from my driver job I had lunch with a higher level manager who I thought to be my godfather. He was very direct with me: "You will not make a good supervisor. You are conscientious and industrious and so you have no idea of the psychology of the bad worker. You will not know how to deal with him. The best supervisors are often those who were themselves the troubled employee." I understood: it wasn't negative or positive, it just is what it is. My subsequent career verified his view: I was never a good disciplinarian. Years later I myself promoted two workers to part-time supervision: one was the hardest worker in the airport, the other was the laziest but smart. Guess which was the better supervisor? The lazy one!

And so John Paul was not the best disciplinarian either, because he didn't know, within himself, the compulsivity, shame, nastiness, guilt, impotence of sin. His personal experience of concupiscence was diminished because of his physical, emotional, moral and spiritual health and vigor. In our tradition, the two appetities are the concupisible (desire, longing, lust, gluttony) and the irasible (anger, rage, etc.). These are wounded and disordered by virtue of original sin, with Mary the exception. But it is an evident fact that some special people enjoy an unusual innocence, a effortless goodness, a gracious freedom. St. Therese and John Paul are probably the greatest of these.

Interestingly, John Paul engaged personally and intimately with the two great evils of the mid-20th-century, Nazism and Communism. Later he encountered the cultural liberalism of the West as well as the explosion of Jihadist violence. But these evils were exterior to him and seemed to evoke in him a deeper, more passionate and persistent surrender into the Mercy of Christ. This made him a Great Saint. But led to some defects in his governance and teaching in the world as we find it. This is evident in three areas.

Most significantly, his failure in regard to the priest sex scandal, especially his misplaced trust in Maciel, McCarrick and others. I suspect the fact of widespread abuse of teen boys by priests was incomprehensible to the Pope. He saw the best in everyone. And he saw the best in Maciel and McCarrick but seemed not to suspect the worst. But the worst was there. I believe his failure here was emblematic of the broader problem: many bishops, vicars, and decision makers are themselves relatively wholesome and naive and were easily conned by world-class predators. An important book for me was "The Sociopath Next Door" which described the widespread presence of such (4% of the population) and their invisibility to most of us, especially the more innocent and virtuous among us. We need more prosecutor-policeman-cynical types in our hierarchy.

Secondly, his catechesis on sexuality and nuptiality is breath-takingly, life-transformingly beautiful; but it shows little awareness of the ugly side...desperate erotic longing, addictions, shame, guilt, splitting of the personality, violence and degradation. Likewise, his inspiring view of married life is unbalanced by the monotony, annoyance, aggravation of the thing. He sees so clearly the good, not so clearly the ugly.

Lastly, his teaching on the death penalty and war moves dangerously close to pacifism, even as he is not so reckless as Pope Francis with his bumbling intrusion into the Catechism. He regards capital punishment as virtually unnecessary in contemporary conditions as there are alternate paths to protection, rehabilitation and deterence. But he specifically does not address retribution. Retribution is an act of justice whereby an evil done is "balanced" by a proportionate punishment. It is closely related to but distinct from protection/rehabilitation/deterence. It is required by the existence of poweful, objective evil. Practically, its exercise diminshes the dynamism of revenge, but it is entirely distinct. In itself it is a requirement of justice. For example, at the particular judgment we will ourselves demand the purification/punishment of purgatory, partially as a necessity of justice, it would be simply wrong to enter the glory of heaven without retribution for our wrong-doing. This view is entirely inconceivable to our contemporary consciousness: soft, demasculinized, indulgent, presumptuous, secular, bourgeois. To be sure John Paul was not this way, but his deep immersion into Mercy, a Mercy illuminated by Truth, but somewhat dim in its view of evil and the requirements of justice. Likewise, his horror of war, so widely shared today, seemed to dull a clear-minded vision of communism/jihadism and the need for military force to deter it.

John Paul was close to the pure, holy heart of our Blessed Mother Mary and so shared in her innocence and freshness. His body of teaching represents a significant enrichment of our Catholic legacy, but is not immune to criticism.

Is Jorge Bergoglio Liminal? Is Pope Francis Emotivist?

Discussing Victor Turner's concept of "liminality" (mentioned in earlier blog essay on "Gay and Catholic?"), my daughter Bernadette provocatively suggested "Pope Francis is liminal!". She knew that as a fierce critic of the pontiff I might dislike the idea. But no! I recognized immediately, the person of Jorge Bergoglio does indeed have strong liminal traits. They do not serve him well, however, as pope.

A liminal is one who has transcends social categories, types and steriotypes; is no longer controlled by social systems and expectations; moves freely, lightly, delightfully, serendipitously in a different zone; is often a mystic, saint, artist, genius or eccentric. Examples: Mr. Blue, Heather King, Dorothy Day, Zorro, Saint John Paul, Caryl Houselander, Solanus Casey, and so many others.

Bergoglio is liminal: deeply pious and conservative with strong iconoclastic urges to disrupt what he sees as stale, sterile traditions; an enemy of liberation theology who went on to develope his own "people's theology of liberation"; the first Jesuit pope who was for a period banned from living with his fellow Jesuits because he couldn't get along with them; a sometime bouncer, janitor, chemist; a self-styled populist pope who has positioned himself globally as the antagonist of the emergent national populisms; a religious man who disparages forms of popular piety; a despiser of what he sees as clericalism who is himself clericalist in his proposal of a global political ideology; a consistent defender of the unborn who criticizes those who obsess about the issue; a despiser of status who has magisterially used media and the papacy to become a global rock star.

Cardinal George of happy memory commented on his election: "We chose him because he is his own man." This is exactly right: he is his own quirky, incoherent, unpredictable self. He is not a creature of the Curia or of the Right or of the Left or of anything; he is a complex bundle of contradictions, ambiguities and surprises.

Three liminal traits inform him. First, he is mystically grasped by the love of Jesus Christ. This shines through his sermons. It irradiates his life. It is very inspiring. Secondly, he is siezed by a love for the poor, marginalized and suffering. Here again he is inspiring. Thirdly, he is a dazzling combination of traditional Catholic piety and a progressive impulse to "make a mess." Here he becomes often confusing.

His fascinating, delightful and inspiring liminality serves him poorly as pope because of an accompanying negative trait: he is emotivist.

He acts and speaks from his heart, not from a clear intellect. His theology is incoherent, contradictory and random...it flows from his mood of the moment. On Tuesday he will tell the Mafia that they are going to hell; on Wednesday he will assure an agnostic that God would never let anyone go to hell. On Thursday he forbids the Germans to bless gay marriges; on Friday he represses the Latin mass. His theological legacy will be the five dubia that hang over his pontificate, unanswered.

Additionally, he is unrestrained, indiscrete and uncharitable in the expression of his feelings. We all know he despises Latin mass people and traditionalists as rigid, judgmental and negative. We all know he has contempt for clerics who are formal and distant from the people. We all know he disparages American political and cultural conservatives although it is unlikely he knows any (Couldn't he at least befriend George Weigel?).

Regarding the Culture War that has spread from the West to the entire globe he seems to have internalized the liberal contempt for "rigid orthodoxy" so he bends over backward to minimize and mute the gospel of chastity to endear himself with the Church's despisers. Thus his destruction of the John Paul Institute as well as his appointment of champions of the LGBTQ crusade! His appointments may be the worst element of his legacy.

Lastly, his emotional but intellectually challenged mode of operating has moved him to neglect his properly ecclesial ministry in order to propose a global political ideology around global warming, open borders and the end of capital punishment.

What we end up with: in Pope Francis an emotivist papal catastrophe!In Jorge Bergoglio a liminal personality who is free, generous, refreshing and inspiring!

Worst Historical Events of my 74 Year Historical Period

In a more sober, sad mood, I continue to celebrate my birthday pondering the evil events of my lifetime.

1. The Cultural Revolution after 1965 was the defining catastophe for the West and the globe: rejection of Tradition, authority, religion; genocide of the unborn; rupture of sexuality from marriage, family, fertility and meaning; deconstruction of masculinity/femininity; eventually surrender to nihilism and despair.

2. The triumph of Communism in China, its global expansion, its brutal repression of religion and freedom, its Cultural Revolution, its allies in North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.

3. The demise of the robust (if less than perfect) post-war American and European Catholic Churches in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, sexual liberalism, and a decadent culture of materialism, consumerism, and indulgence.This includes the surrender of a critical mass of Catholics to the Democratic Party's regime of sexual licence and annihilation of the powerless/innocent.

4. The breakdown of the family as well as intermediate communities (neighborhood, civil, voluntary, ecclesial), the isolation of the individual, and the expansion of the mega-state and global corporations.

5.The polarization of American society into the haves/have-nots, rich/poor, the secular-liberal elite and the reactive populist lower class.

7. The explosion of a violent, regressive, misogynist but fervent Islam across the globe including terrorism and persecution of Christians.

8. The malignant growth of technological, scientific, bureaucratic, corporate and governmental institutions of inhuman size to the detriment of the persons, communities and the environment.

We live in dark, evil times. Weighing the good with the bad over this period I would have to give the advantage to the bad...except that the number 1 on the prior list, the lives of the holy ones, far outweighs the darkness. The win goes to John Paul, Mother Theresa and the communion of saints.

Greatest Historical Events of My Lifetime (last 74 years)

To celebrate today my 74th birthday, I consider with thanksgiving and praise the greatest events of my historical period.

1. The lives of the holy ones. John Paul and Theresa of Calcutta stand over this time as the twin domininating figures. I saw the Pope twice and met Mother. They loom over my life as the leading lights. So many others: Solanus Casey, Katherine Drexel, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doughterty, Adrienne von Speyr, Caryll Houselander, Madeleine DelBrel, Stanley Routher, John 23, Padre Pio, Oscar Romero, Paul 6. In addition, all the martyrs who suffered persecution and death especially in Islamic and Communist countries. So many of these, so invisible to us, so holy!

2.Vatican II, for me as Catholic, is not disruptive or discontinuous, but an event of immense significance in organic continuity with the Church of the centuries...the fathers and doctors, Trent, Vatican I...and particularly the developments during my childhood after the War including Resoursement theology, personalism, phenomenology, the ecumenical, liturgical, biblical movements. The Council recevied definitive, authoritative interpretation in the pontificates of John Paul and Benedict and the development of their (and Balthasar's) Communio theology.

3.The lay renewal movements which enfleshed the vision of the Council: for me personally the charismatic renewal and for my family the Neocatechumenal way and Communion and Liberation as well as the more modest, local Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist.

4. The global reach of the Pentecostal and Evangelical movements. Even, as in South America, where this entailed a loss to the Catholic Church, I herald it as so many came to know Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior. The fervor, zeal, enthusiasm of these movements is glorious.

5. The fall of Soviet Communism and the attainment of freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, etc. thanks to John Paul, Solidarity, and Ronald Regan.

6. As an American, the dazzling triumph of the Civil Rights Movement and the deconstruction of overt systems of racism.

7. The 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonmous as a spiritual, communal path to interior freedom and serenity for those entrapped in addictions.

8. Finally, with reservations, we must acknowledge as blessings, if mixed blessing, the enormous advancements in technology, especially medical, but also communications, computers, engineering, and the benefits of global capitalism, free markets and initiative. As we appreciate them, we also see the darker consequences.

This has been an exciting, momentous time to life: Thanks be to God!

Distinctively Catholic Political Positions?

In a provocative, interesting but troubled piece, (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/opinion/catholic-church-politics.html) conservative Walther Matthews makes a strong case for the current relevance of Catholic social teaching. It makes a fatal assumption: that there are "Catholic" political positions or possibly even a latent Catholic ideology.

There are three parts to his argument. In the first he recalls the ultra-conservative Catholic periodical Triumph of the 1960s and its startlingly radical approval of the violence of the Black Power movement as a justifiable resistance to the "souless tyranny of secular liberalism." In the second section, he asserts that there is a third way, a distinctively Catholic position, as alternative to the two mainstream options of conservative/progressive. Finally, he calls for the strengthening of a Catholic culture as the sourse of this new politics.

While critical of the tolerance for violence, Matthews seems to approve of the radical Triumph critique of the reiging secular liberalism in a systemic way. On the far left we find such an absolute renunciation in the pacifism/anarchism of the Catholic Worker. Currently, the Benedict Option of Rod Dreher mirrors this harsh negativity about the West.

The second part, the heart of the article, takes a different approach: he advocates a distinctive Catholic approach to the various issues. The tone here is positive by comparison with the beginning: that a moderating Catholic approach will bring together, purify and correct what is best of both alternatives. This seems less than realistic. But more problematic is the very assertion of a "distinctive Catholic political position." The Church proposes no political position, party or ideology. The Church teaches moral truths, but the application is almost always complicated in politics. There are three political positions that are intrinsic to our faith: the protection of the innocent and powerless; the protection of our freedom to live our faith; and the protection of the family. On all other issues that are not intrinsically evil (genocide, infanticide, slavery, torture, etc.) it is a huge mistake to baptise some option as Catholic. Health care, war, immigration, guns, death penalty...and all the rest...are dense, complex, ambiguous, uncertain issues about which perfectly good Catholics can have a wide variety of views. At the Eucharist, we kneel with anarchists, Visigoths, libertarians, tea party people, Tradinistas, and so forth. It is divisive and clerical in the worst sense to sacrilize some policy or ideology as Catholic.

A case in point is his comparison, negatively, of EWTN's dismissal of BLM sympatizer, Gloria Purvis, with Mother Angelic's admiration for the Civil Rights movement. He implies that Purvis view is the Catholic one. That is a problem. Racism is surely a sin. But the allegation of systemic white racism in the USA 2021 is disputable to say the least. There is not Catholic position on this: neither the affirmation not the denial of it. The bishops are prone to wade carelessly into such muddy waters in a presumptuos clericalism that assumes their competence in such practical matters. EWTN has a problem: they are not the hierarchy but a quasi-ecclesial body that presumes to be avoice of Catholic orthodoxy. My view is that their weakness is precisely in politics as when Raymong Aroyo moves back and forth between Fox News and the World Over. His witness to the faith is muddied by his alliance with the Right.

Matthews' argument is strong in the first and last section. Our world has gone into deep darkness. We face three competing totalitarianisms: Jihadism, Communism and Secular Liberalism. We fight to protect our the practice of our faith, our children and the innocent/powerless. We have no global vision to offer. We are genuinely post-modern: minimalist, defensive, humble, concrete, local, personal. We cannot detach from national and global politics but we do so with painful realism, with small expectations, with an eye always on the next life.

Fragility

"White Fragility" as proposed by "diversity trainer" Robin DiAngelo is an imaginative and provocative concept.

I myself am neither white, nor racist, nor fragile. That statement in DiAngelo's universe is absolute certification as a white, fragile racist.

I do not think of myself as white. I am Catholic, as distinct from Protestant and other faiths; I am Irish-German in contrast to Italian, Russian and other Europeans and to Africans, Asians, and others; I am old not young; American in contrast to foreigners (not a bad word); Republican not Democrat; Conservative not Progressive; masculine not feminine; and so forth. My skin is not white especially in the summer. I have never lived in a binary black/white, oppressor/oppressed universe: not in the parochial ethnic, working class of my childhood; not in Jersey City nor in UPS nor in Catholic education nor in my Church nor in my boarding homes. I am fascinated by ethnicity, culture, class, religion and personal history: color of skin is not of interest. Again, that confirms me to DiAngelo as a racist.

I am not fragile. Fragile means vulnerable to being damaged or broken; weak, brittle, passive, fraile. It can mean in this context insecure and defensive. I am none of the above. I am serene and confident and assertive that I am not racist.

The opposite of fragile is strong, robust, firm, resilient, supple, steadfast. These are all qualities I receive with my Catholic faith, a faith which bonds me with men and women of all backgrounds, skin colors, cultures and classes.

However, the idea of fragility is a useful one in the current climate. The age of Trump was (I hope past tense is accurate) the time of fragility: the rage at him from the left echoed the anger of the underclass and made almost everyone tense and angry. The emergence of "cancel culture" on the left is a result of interior fragility: the inability to hear opposing opinions; the intolerance of dissonance; the avoidance of vigorous disagreement and respectful conflict. Ironically, I find that those who advocate or even sympathise with Black Lives Matter and Critial Race Theory, who have swallowed whole this idea of white fragility, cannot discuss the issue: they cannot hear my narrative and interpretation, they must construe me as indileberately racist, and cancel me.

At the root of this insecurity is the solipism and individualism of liberalism: it is not rooted in tradition, authority, community; it is an autonomous assertation and therefore itself fragile. By contrast, my Catholic faith and values are perennial, authoritative, communal and stable yet fluid and flexible.

Conservatives, however, are not immune to fragility. On the Right it can take the form of brittleness: insecurity, defensiveness, narrowness. It too is anxious in an entirely different way.

We are in a pandemic of fragility, insecurity, anxiety. It is good for us to be kind to each other and seek, in prayer, inner serentiy, steadiness, patience and strength.

Gay and Catholic?

Can one be openly gay and faithfully Catholic? Great question! On this I go non-binary: Yes and No! The determinant is chastity.

Since hearing Eve Tushnet speak in lower Manhatten several years ago I have been pondering this question. She is fascinating: openly lesbian, Catholic and chaste. Raised in an atheistic, liberal Jewish family, she came out as lesbian at an early age; attached herself with enduring affection to the gay/lesbian community; converted to Catholicism and is deeply committed to chastity. She is unique, an outlier, but has a special mission and message for our age as gay, Catholic and chaste.

Let's be clear on our terms! What does it mean when one says "I am gay!"? This can include several affirmations.

1. I am attracted to my own sex.

2. I am not ashamed. I will not be shamed.

3.This is an important dimension of my identity and I want to be known and loved for who I am, including this.

4.I want to be in community with those who share this and with those who love and accept us.

5. There is nothing morally wrong with same sex intercourse.

6. So I feel free to engage in it, whether promiscuosly or monogamously, without regret and will encourage others in the same.

Clearly, the last two (5,6) are directly contradictory of chastity as understood in the Church. However the first four, in themselves, are not. Clearly, there are tensions and ambiguities in the integration of those four affirmations into Catholic life but I think that Tushnet is doing so successfully. A small, emergent community of such gay, chaste Catholics would be very salutary for the Church. They would present the ideal of chastity in an attractive way to the gay movement and indeed the entire world of cultural liberalism. At the same time, they might bring the fresh air of openness, relaxation, peace and hope to a Catholic conservatism so tensed up in a posture of anxious, angry defensiveness and prone to negativity judgmentalism.

Here is an even more interesting question: how about an openly gay priest or bishop? This would be challenging in many ways. But my thought is that if he were clearly, passionately, convincingly (if not perfectly) chaste in the mode of Tushnet it would be a good thing. Again, his aclamation of the gospel of chastity would be stiking. The message of acceptance for those with this condition, the deliverance from shame, would be powerful. A certain relaxation and mutual acceptance of each other in our very weakness would be healing.

The virtue of chastity is a difficult challenge for so many of us; virtually an impossibility without the grace of God. But it is a message of great joy and hope.

For me homosexuality is a great Mystery...awesome, sacred, frightening, intriguing...in three manners. It is a cross, a suffering, a frustration, an agony. It comes with rich charisms including empathy, depth, generosity, sensitivity, tenderness, wisdom. It also comes with disorder, confusion, weakness and an inclination (conscupiscence as shared by all of us) to sin. The Catholic conservative has obsessed about the third and not revered the first two. The cultural liberal seems indifferent to all three in the urge to homoginize the condition into dreary, sterile, indulgent, secular, individualistic, bourgeois mediocrity.

Eve Tushnet reminds me of Dorothy Day.Both bridged two worlds usually incompatible with each other: the Catholic Church and the radical left; both were outliers, misfits in both worlds; both shattered steroptypes in a refreshing freedom of the spirit.

Both exemplified what anthropologist Victor Turner called liminality or luminosity: transcendence of customary social categoriez into a zone of light, lightfulness and freedom. Both gave a us a fresh, serendipitous expression of our faith in its depth and novelty. They join a cohort of radiant, splendid eccentrics like Heather King, Zorro, Ivan Illich, Alyosa Karamosov, Charles de Focault, Caryll Houselander, Robin Hood,Catherine Dougherty, Kiko, Albasette, Giassani, Mr. Blue, Adrienne von Speyr, Edith Stein, and Etty Helusun. But above all my little-big-brother-in-Christ John Rapinich: Way-walking, God-praising, poem-writing, art-doing, wife-loving, beatnick-befriending, Rush-listening, book-reading, self-teaching, Jewish (by his mother), New-York-knowing, eccentic, beloved friend who died with his boots on, dancing and limping vigorously into the Glorious Kingdom! Call them Bohemian Catholic!

Emulating them, let us tenderly, generously embrace each other in our shared weakness as we encourage each other in pure love.

Shame, the Homosexual and the Church

Shame is the very worst! It is by far the most pernicious, toxic and lethal of the negative emotions. Anger, guilt, anxiety, sadness...all manifest themselves and tend to elicit comfort, correction, support, and compassion. Shame by its nature escapes into dark secrecy and attacks the core self cut off from any help. What is shame? I will define it as: "A sense of unworthiness in your entire self, not guilt over a specific wrong act; a disgust for yourself that comes from a perception of being repulsive to others."

Notice the contrast with guilt which deals with a discrete action and can be easily handled by contrition, confession, and amends. Shame on the other hand is a vague, global conviction of being abhorrent in your entire person. From it there is no escape. It can only be absorbed by love, we learn from John Paul.

That sainted pope developed a radiantly positive phenomenology of shame as a protection of our dignity that has been wounded but not destroyed by sin. That salutory purpose is not what we really experience in shame. Rather, we feel horrific: rejected, worthless, repulsive. The opposite of loved. Shame is dark, destructive and itself without worth as it degrades the person. Sure, we might say, for example to a star athelete who gives a poor performance, "You should be ashamed of yourself." But said in love it really means: "You are so much better than that! Come on: get with it! Live up to your potential." To really shame someone would be: "You are no good for anything and you never will be." That is shaming. That is worse than hatred.

Notice my definition has it as self-hatred from a perception of rejection by others. It is not always caused by such a rejection but can be due to a subjective misinterpretation. We seem to have a powerful propensity, from an early age, to experience negativity or shame even when it is not present. Some little ones are extremely embarassed about something apparently without triggers from others. My 3-year-old grandson Timmy is to-die-for cute: sometimes we laugh with sheer delight and most tender affection but he runs out of the run crying uncontrollably. His older brother 5-year old Philip protects him and tells others not to laugh. Notice: he is shamed; no one intended to shame him; but he experienced it. This is very important.

When I was 13 years old, every day when I started my paper route with the bag around my neck I had an involuntary erection. I was mortified with shame: mortified! I would gladly have died rather than go out in the the public as such a despicable spectacle. The thing is that I wore baggy pants and my dimensions were modest so the thing was entirely invisible. More to the point: I recall no input from family or school or Church that this was so disgraceful. I vaguely recall around 6th grade a Christian brother alerting us that our bodies would soon be undergoing changes that were normal and that we shouldn't worry. But he was not specific and I didn't understand. My father and mother both radiated a quiet positivity around sexuality, masculinity and femininity; I wasn't shamed by them. My intense shame seemed to be self-generated, not inflicted by a hostile other.

This brings me to ponder the shame of the homosexual teen boy. If I was so mortified under benign circumstances, then his condition is a perfect storm of shame. The statistics about suicide, emotional turbulence and related strife provided in the recent America article by Fr. James Martin SJ are well known and deeply troubling. Some of the shame-arousing factors that can accompany homosexuality include:

- A sensitivity that is empathetic, aesthetic, spiritual but can also receive perceived contempt with agonizing pain.

- A lessened sense of masculine worth associated with: weak connection with Dad and father figures; poor body image; inability to bond well with other males in things like athletics (the "sports wound").

- A culture that glorifies aggressive machismo and undervalues masculine tenderness. A tradition of homophobia. A environment of insecure, often hostile peers who find a vernacular of contempt available in language around homosexuality. (In this regard, it is undeniable but unmentionable that the concrete practice of same-sex intercourse, void of the face-to-face mutuality and dignity of the spousal embrace, entails a a dynamic of domination and diminution and has a natural, repulsive aspect to it.)

- A religious tradition that sees such acts as inherently sinful.

The burden of shame on the teenager is, when you think of it, horrific. Shame is horrific. I would not wish shame on anyone. It has no good purpose. It can only be absorbed by love.

In this light I can understand the gay identity as a defiant acclamation: "I am who I am. I will not be shamed! I am not ashamed! And you will not shame me!" To that I can only respond: "Amen! Do not take the shame! Good for you! I stand with you!" In light of that I can understand the campaign of Fr. Martin, Cardinal Tobin and others to embrace those who have suffered such shame. I am all in...I will march and protest for the Campaign Against Shame. The sin of shaming someone is thousands of times worse than many sexual sins.

But wait: it is not quite so simple. Because the performance of these acts is not a pathway to freedom and joy; they are in themselves not good acts.

Shame is itself the core cause of most sexual misbehavior. Acting out sexually is often an escape from an underlying shame, as well as associated insecurity, anxiety, sadness and despair. Such behavior becomes compulsive as the behavior, after temporary release, increases the underlying shame and leads to more addictive behavior. For example the exhibitionist, I understand, is almost never violent and is not really a threat but is acting out interior shame. So the problem: if we affirm the toxic behavior we are not really absorbing the shame, but ennabling it.

So we have a dilemna. Catholic groups that welcome the LGBTQ movement, like Dignity, are ambiguous in that that are encouraging behavior that is, in the long run, itself shame-inducing. Meanwhile, groups that offer a Catholic option, like Courage, are accused of shaming. My suggestion is that the Church (which is not to say all members) does not shame. Maybe we are like the delighted grandparents who laugh with joy but the little guy feels so embarassed. Nevertheless, this line of thought does lead us to consider: does our language, manner, tone signal the love we have for our brothers and sisters with this cross (and charism)? Or are we ourselves didactic, defensive, anxious, judgmental, shrill?

May our loving Savior absorb ALL our shame! And may we love each other out of our shame, in all truth and affection!

How to Listen to God? Part 2: In the Holy Spirit with the Church

We listen to God because our own spirits are created to commune with God's very own Holy Spirit, in depth, in silence, in Mystery.

By our baptism/confirmation and sacramental life our spirit is in union with the Holy Spirit...our constant counselor, permanent companion, interior strength, initiation of eternal life. The Holy Spirit is ever guiding, protecting, inspiring, delighting, exulting in us. The Holy Spirit is deeper than our own deepest self, which is created to abide in and with the Spirit and the Son and the Father.

The Holy Spirit is not limited by Church boundaries but seeks to indwell every created person. When we speak with a non-Catholic, even a pagan or an atheist, we can sense the presence and workings of God's Spirit in all that is Good, True and Beautiful in that person. The Holy Spirit in action and presence is like the very wind: unbounded, free, extravagant, omnipresent, serendipitous, ecstatic!

But the Holy Spirit is quiet, gentle, deferential...like Elijah's soft breeze, not the fire or the storm. It must be invited, welcomed, even sought after. It will never intrude. It will not shout over the noise and the chaos of our lives. It waits for us to be still and welcoming.

The Holy Spirit is especially happy to come when we are empty, poor, desperate, depressed...if invited...as strength when we are weak, as hope when we despair, as counsel when we are confused, as decisiveness when we are procrastinating, as JOY when we are in sadness.

As Catholics, we listen to God in solitude and silence, but never as isolated, we are ALWAYS in union with the Church. If God speaks to me and it really is God (not some inner psychic voice) then it is encouraging, strengthening, inspiring, and delighting...for me and also for others. If it is from God, it heals and helps me and the Body of Christ both. We are part of each other...like when we take water, food or medicine it is for our entire body, for our thriving in all out parts and in our entirety.

So we listen to God together: at the Eucharist, rosary, daily prayer of the Church, on the telephone chain, on retreat or pilgrimage, in small and spontaneous movements to God with others. We are moving towards God, in God's own Spirit, with each other.

So we hear God when we converse with each other under the influence of the Holy Spirit: in tender affection and reverence...in truth...about the liturgical readings...about the doctrines of the Church...about this or that saint...about what has touched me today...about my moment closest to Christ...about what I think God is saying to me...about what is happening, good and bad, to the global Chruch.

Living, breathing, con-spiring in the Church, as it becomes habitual and second nature...is like sailing is to the sailor: you hardly think about it, all day your are moving across the water, you monitor the sails or the motor or the rows from time to time but often you are just sailing along, relaxed, napping or talking or eating together, all the time breathing in the fresh, salt air and the splash and the sunshine...moving steadily and smoothly over the waters of this life into the heavenly Kingdom. How Glorious!

How to Listen to God? Part 1: What is Listening?

What a great question: "Okay, prayer is a conversation with God, our PAL, in the way of Praise (and thanks) Ask (and intercession) and Listening. The first two are clear, but how do I listen to God?"

Difficult question to answer. Reminds me of a discusion in a 12-step group. "Okay. We need to surrender to Higher Power. But what is surrender? How do you do it?" No one could quite answer the question. It is interior, mysterious, spiritual, inexplicable.

It is like riding a bike or swimming: no one can really teach you how to do it, they can teach you how to try. So you try and fall; you try and sink; maybe 10 or 20 times or more. And then, magically...incredibly...you do it! You can ride! You can float! And it becomes natural.

Even a natural action like swimming or riding a bike requires effort, but strangely the effort itself does not suffice. At some point, something beyond our deliberation, intention, decision happens serendipitously: suddenly our body/mind synchronize with the bike in movement or the water and something new and surprising happens. What Joy! Even more with listening to God: we try and we try and we try...maybe hundreds or thousands of times...and startlingly, ecstatically, it happens.

What is it to listen? You are alone, quiet and a strange sound disturbs you. Is it a mouse scurrying about? Is someone at the door? Is something wrong? What do you do? You listen! You clear your mind and your senses. You hold yourself quiet and still. You wait...and listen. You wait, expectantly, for any unusual sound. You hear a dog barking in the distance...normal. You hear a horn on the street...normal. You hear the purring of the air conditioner...normal. But you wait...and listen. And so, the prayer of listening: you still yourself, especially your manic-monkey-mind, as much as you can, and you wait. You ask: Lord, do you have a word for me? And then you wait...quietly, patiently, expectantly.

Imagine someone is talking to you and you are really listening. What are you doing? Well, you mind is quiet, empty, expectant and receptive. You are looking into the eyes, following the expressions as well as the movement of lips and mouth; you are feeling the emotion; you are fascinated by the narrative or the ideas or the experience being shared. You are out-of-yourself and entirely into the other. Well, normally, God does not come to us so concretly in this way. So how does He speak with us?

Mysteriously, quietly, in different ways, often not so clearly. If we are asking Him daily "What do You want to tell me" then He will answer. Mysteriously, quietly, surprisingly.

In the quiet of our hearts.

In conversation with others when we hear something that inspires, corrects, encourages, directs us.

In an event, an encounter, a dramatic experience...in which our heart/intellect/soul opens to an exquisite, unbounded horizon of Truth, Goodness, Beauty.

When reading scripture or daily meditation or spiritual reading or the life of a saint.

At mass or in Church.

Listening to God is like anything else...playing handball, speaking Spanish, singing a song...the more you do it, the better you become at it. Early into our marriage I had a problem: I was chronically indecisive. "Should we go to dinner or to a movie? I don't know, what do you want to do?" "I don't know, what do you want to do?" It was some strange disability. Most of the decisions were entirely inconseqential, without moral content. Terrible! Then I read: "Decision making is like anything else: the more you do it the better at it you become." Bingo: All I have to do is make decisions, many of them, and I will become decisive.Not to worry so much about good, bad or indifferent: just make decisions. And that is what happened: I became decisive over a time. So it is with listening to God: try it, over and over again.

Listening...really listening...to another person or to God...requires an interior receptivity, an eagerness, a joyous expectancy, an openess. Such receptivity itself requires an interior quiet and serenity: a freedom from anxiety, activism, work-addiction, resentment, sadness. It requires sobriety...mental, emotional spiritual. It requires inner healing.

Lord Jesus! Breathe into us Your Holy Spirit! Make us quiet and serene, that we may truly listen...that we may receive You and Your Word and welcome the Other in Joy and Love!

Such a great question1 More thoughts to come.

Who is Fleckinstein?

"Fleckinstein" is often a Jewish name which pleases this philo-semetic, gentile Catholic blog.

More to the point: the Fleckinstein Philosophy Reading room in Maryknoll College Seminary, Glen Ellyn Illinois, was named to honor Fr. Norbert Fleckinstein, esteemed Maryknoller, professor of philosophy and dean, who died at an early age in a drowning accident, apparently trying to rescue his brother, also a priest, in 1962. It was a spacious, sunny, bright area with walls lined with dusty philosophy journals. In 1965-9 no one ever entered the place...no one...except for me. It was like I was Robinson Crusoe on his island or a hermit alone and hidden up on the holy mountain. I spent countless euphoric hours there, safely sequestered in semi-monastic bliss from the sex-drugs-rock-and-roll mania of the 60s. In comforting solitude, infatuated with ideas, I read philosophy, culture, theology, psychology and literature. For example, in my junior year I studied medieval culture and 19th century philosophy; under the influence of Gilson, Maritain and others I came to see the infinite superiority of Thomas and the 13th century synthesis over the disoriented moderns like Hegel, Marx, Nietzche, and Schiermacher. Happiness is...the Fleckinstein Reading Room! By senior year my nickname was Fleckinstein. I have always liked it. So when I started a blog, that name was an obvious choice.

Fleckinstein is a passionate exercise in the Truth: shameslessly binary; good/bad, true/false, beautiful/good. It is serious: this is not whiffle ball, it is hardball. This is not inclusive, accompanying, accomadating, sentimenal, lukewarm, bourgeois, Rahnerian Catholic Lite. Fleckinstein is not personal, pastoral, empathetic, kind or sensitive to feelings. It is just about the Truth. This is high octane, red meat, Uber-Catholicism. It is a masculine, paternal voice. It is confident, clear and authoritative because it stands upon a firm, foundational Tradition...the take-no-prisioners Tradition of St. Paul, Athanasius against the Arians, Dominic against the Albigensians, Ignatius against the Protestants. It is not for those with sensitive feelings. That you are reading this now, dear reader, makes you part of a very small elite (maybe 6 to 10).

Fleckinstein is the alter-ego of a double life. He is best understood in the tradition of Zorro, Batman or Spiderman: by day a genial, easy-going, mild mannered boarding home director who enjoys his walks, pious devotions and large family and friends. At night, at the keyboard, he transforms in a Culture Warrior: fierce, merciless, determined, zealous! Exultant in the True, the Good, the Beautiful! Contemptuous of the false/bad/ugly!

Fleckinstein is not for everyone...that is for sure. But Fleckinstein is grateful to you, dear Reader, for the precious and rare gift of your attention!

Contempt

My problem: for some years now I am gripped by contempt...deep, intense moral contempt...specifically for our civil and ecclesial leaders and the values/ideologies they embody. This is troubling! It is not just me: both sides of the class/culture wars harbor visceral contempt for each other. This is a big deal! A marrige counselor said: "A resilient marriage can rebound from addiction, adultery and even abuse, but not contempt; if the spouses are speaking with contempt for each other, the marriage is already dead." The health of our families, communities and organizations requires a basic respect for and trust in leadership, however flawed and imperfect. Our civilization and Church have entered a deep darkness!

What is contempt? It is far more than disapproval, distaste or disagreement. It is aversion to what is ugly, evil and false. It is best understood as the opposite of reverence or respect. We are created for intimacy in the True, the Good and the Beautiful. Our purpose is to delight in, protect, share, serve, and revere the True/Good/Beautiful. The flip side: we must despise the false/evil/ugly. Like reverence, contempt is far more than a feeling: it is emotional, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, volitional, social, personal-communal-institutional. It is an interior-exterior act of the entire person: body, heart, intellect and soul. Our love for the good will be as deep as our disgust for the bad: our YES is only as strong as our NO!

Raised in the post-war period, I learned contempt for Soviet Communism, Nazism, and later in my teen years American slavery and racism. I knew Protestants and Jews were different from us Catholics but I had no bad feelings for them. Son of a union organizer, I recognized Republicans, conservatives and captitalist as our adversaries, but in a peaceful, wholesome sense as in an athletic competition; Eisenhower was not one of us but he did lead us to win the war so he was basically okay; and that extended to his entire group.

Over the years, however, I have developed an extended "contempt list":

First, Cultural Liberalism, progeny of the Sexual Revolution, especially as institutinalized in the Democratic Party. Joe Biden is particularly revolting as a Catholic who has betrayed his legacy and disguises it as a good natured, ordinary, even pious working-class Joe.

Secondly, the horrific Communism of China and North Korea, but also Cuba and Venezuela.

Third, the progressive conspiracy within the Catholic Church to destroy our precious legacy. This includes Pope Francis, in his inconsistency and incoherence, and especiall his lieutenants.

Forth, Donald Trump and most of the Republican Party that panders to his shameless narcissism, shocking incompetence, disregard for truth, disrespect for women-immigrants-and all who disagree with him.

Fifth, more recently, Critical Race Theory, Black Lives Matter and the blanket allegation of systemic white racism as: scapegoating of the police, viciously polarizing, and destructive mostly of black communities and specifically of the black man who is imagined as passive, victimized, and impotent.

It gets worse however. My moral aversion to both Trump and Biden extends, of course, to those who support them. They are collaborators, ennablers of systemic, aggressive evil. This means, obviously, most of my family and friends, almost everyone I know. I find myself surrounded by a hidden web of the ugly, the false, the bad. This is only somewhat mitigated by the fact that many voted out of contempt for the opposite side: not fo much for Trump as against the liberal elite; not so much for the Biden program as against the Narcissist! Understanding these subjective intentions, both sides did nevertheless vote for a morally obscene program (although not equally so).

What to do about this fierce, profound contempt? A bourgeois, accomadist moral mediocrity would say: "Relax! Chill! Trump is not that bad...Who is perfect? Don't worry about the slaughter of the innocents; at least the liberals care about Mother Earth!" Such is not an option for me: the falsehood, the evil, the ugliness is just too thick, deep, despicable!

As I reflect, however, I see two rays of light:

First, I realize that when I deal with a specific, concrete person, the contempt dimishes immensely as I am more aware of the person's beauty and charm, goodness and virtue, pain and suffering, inherent dignity and worth. I am aware of the presence of evil, but not overwhelmed by it. Actually, the false/bad/ugly present in a specific person arouses not aversion but tenderness. For example, a number of women have told me of their abortions: I feel only sadness and care, never disgust or moral judgmentalism. I can speak with a contraceptor, a drug dealer, a smoker, a hedge fund manager, a Nietzchean and even a Democrat and my moral disdain is more than overwhelmed by delight, admiration, comraderie and compassion. (Disclaimer: This is not evident in this blog since Fleckinstein is not addressing a person, but an idea or movement and therefore unrestrained in his contempt.)

Secondly, I see that my contempt has to be brought, with all things, to Jesus crucified and risen. In Him I encounter: his absolute holiness, truth, beauty and goodness; his hurt and suffering for me; and his undying love for me, even in those aspects of myself for which I myself have contempt. This changes everything! My own self-identity is transformed: I feel the attraction of the holy; I grieve my sin but moreso I rejoice in His love. And I look with enhanced esteem and tenderness on my brothers and sisters, even as I renounce the evil which afflicts them and myself.