Hell and It's Population: Revisited

The argument has revived: Is there a hell? What is its population?

In a recent book David Bentley Hart mounts a powerful argument that a loving God cannot possibly tolerate an eternal hell. My theologian son found it to be persuasive. I will not read it; I am not bright enough to handle his argument. He may be the smartest living Christian theologian; actually, a little too smart. Eastern Orthodox, not Roman Catholic, he defers to no authority other than his own reading of scripture and the fathers. Lots of intellect; but not much humility or obedience! This is not the "kneeling theology" of Balthasar! He is an outright universalist in his bold denial of hell. We Catholics rejected that view milennia ago.

More pertinent for us, Bishop Barron by endorsing Balthasar's more moderate and Catholically correct suggestion that we "dare hope" for the salvation of all (granting the existence of hell, but hoping it is unpopulated) has provoked a fierce reaction from traditionalists as well as charismatic Ralph Martin.

I have strong sympathies with the "dare to hope" view which is uninhibited in its proclamation of the vast superiority of God's mercy to our sinfulness. Balthasar said (as I recall): "It is infinitely improbable that man's finite freedom, in the face of God's Mercy, would choose hell." As I consider that statement, I find it problematic. It does glorify God's mercy, but it minimizes the gravity of our freedom in a way disconsonant with Catholic tradition, especially about responsibility, merit, reward and retribution. Ralph Martin is on to something: I would place myself halfway between Barron and Martin on this one.

Martin (in Will All Be Saved?appreciatively quotes Balthasar on the dual streams throughout scripture: one that God wills the salvation of all and the other that we are responsible for our Yes or No and we can destroy ourselves by rejecting God. Agreeing that the two must be kept in tension, Martin finds that Balthasar (and Barron and company) have effectively collapsed the second stream and inflated the first. Martin is right, for a number of reasons.

The "dare to hope" school emphasizes that Jesus fierce statements about hell are exhortatory rather than predictive. This is true of course: Jesus purpose is to move us to repent and avoid hell. But if they are entirely emptied of any predictive substance, they risk becoming empty threats. Imagine the child, warned by Mom that there will be no ice cream if he doesn't eat any veggies or meat! If he is confident that she will be merciful and invested in the nutritional value of the ice cream he will dismiss the threat as impotent. Padre Pio, told by someone that he didn't believe in hell responded "You will when you get there." Perhaps a Pascalesque wager is appropriate. Since we don't really know if hell is populated, we need to make a calculated gamble: do we gain or lose more in leaning into which direction? The safter wager is to assume a populated hell and let that motivate us. It seems prudent to leave the traditional architecture of the last things in place.

As in almost all things theological, we do best to go to John Paul and Benedict, both huge admirers of Balthasar. On this specific issue, the population of hell, they clearly take a different, more traditional positon. In Crossing the Threshold of Hope John Paul mentions Balthasar's "dare to hope" viewpoint but responds in the traditional vein that justice requires a proportionate consequence to deep evil. In a catechesis in 1999, John Paul clearly stated that hell is a state of life (not a physical place) which we can choose by our freedom. He restates the doctrine that hell is already populated by demons. He conspicuosly does not "dare to hope" for the salvation of all. He sees it as a final, eternal state, not temporary or transitional.He strongly states that it is a possibiltity for all of us. He acknowledges that hell is a Mystery, that we cannot rationally explain it in light of a loving God, but he takes the many gospel warnings, from Jesus, at their word: there is a hell and it is populated and we are all in danger and it is forever. The tension...between Mercy and our responsibility...is clearly upheld; neither pole is vitiated.

Likewise Pope Benedict in a conversation with German priests was asked about the disappearance of hell, purgatory and heaven from preaching and catechesis. He agreed that it is a problem. His analysis was that this inattention is due to a Catholic defensiveness against the Marxist allegation that we obsess ourselves with the afterlife and ignore life here on earth. He pointed out that communism in its messianic utopianism has destroyed life on earth and suggested that more contemplation of the last things would enhance our capacity to tend to the earth and our brothers and sisters.

Clearly, both popes unequivocally affirmed the existence of a populated, eternal hell. But is is worth noting that it is not a theme that is repeated often in their own teachings and writings. They are not preoccupied with hell. With impeccable orthodoxy, they leave the tradition in tact.

As a self-identified catechist, (and an amatuer, wannabe theologian), I evaluate theology for its catechetical value, clarity, strength. In this regard, Benedict in particular is the theologian-catechist par excellence! No one combines such erudition, depth, holiness, clarity, simplicity and availability to the layman. Balthasar's "dare we hope" theory is confusing. It doesn't really work in teaching, let's say, 14 year olds. It makes sense as theological speculation, but doesn't translate well. It contradicts commonsense, not just Catholic, intuitions about reward and punishment. In this vein, consider "lex orandi, lex creendi" {the Church believes what it prays). While the Church does pray "that all men be saved", I have never heard, even in informal private prayer much less in public liturgy, an intercession for the soul of Hitler, Stalin or Mao. Christ died for each of them; even if they were the only men who ever lived he would have suffered and died. Theologically it is logical to pray for them. But psychologically, it is abhorrent. Their evil is too deep, dense, horrific. It would be a vile act to pray thus: imagine there is a descendent of their victims present. We just do not do that. We never think about it; but we don't do that.

Intuitively, we carry a moral sense that the good must be rewarded and the evil punished. It just must be so. The secular, liberal mind has entirely repressed this sense of retribution, merit, wrath and justice; it has subsitued a soft, emasculated ethos of unmitigated acceptance, kindness, mercy and inclusion and entirely canceled the virile, paternal valuation of responsibility, accountability, authority, retribution and reward.

Pope Francis is an example. Thoroughly emotivist and incoherent in his thought, he told the Italian mafia they were headed to hell if they didn't repent, and then (allegedly) reassured his atheistic journalist friend that God would never allow for an eternal hell of suffering. In assuring his friend that truly evil souls merely cease to exist he articulated "annihilationism." I myself find that view appealing and intelligible: that the evil cease to exist as the good enter eternal life. The problem: that is not the clear and constant teaching of the Church. The Church clearly believes in the inherent immortality of the soul and an eternity of punishment, of separation from God, for the unrepentant. I admit: it does not make sense to me. At this point, I meekly defer to the authority of the Church.

Pope Benedict did speculate that perhaps the damned are very few: rare are the souls so devoid of good that there is nothing there upon which God's mercy can build. This is vintage Ratzinger: gentle, balanced, clear, orthodox. This is a moderate, balanced "daring to hope."

The Catholic consensus is that there is a hell but the population is unknown to us just as we do not know for sure if any soul, even Judas or Hitler, is damned.

Too much speculation on the question is not helpful. Avery Dulles, in his usual magisterial style (First Things, May 2003) hit the nail on the head: Best that we not know: If there are few we will fall into presumption, if many we may despair. He finds Balthasar to be orthodox in"daring to hope" since the Church does pray for all to be saved. But he acknowledges that his view is "adventureous" and dissonant with much of tradition.

Dulles acknowledges a significant shift in Catholic theology with Vatican II's stronger sense of God's grace being powerfully operative beyond the boundaries of the visible, institutional Church. We are rightly more optomistic than prior to the Council. But I would add that that postive shift is accompanied by a diminished sense of sin, of the demonic and of spiritual combat. This is the aspect that Martin and the trads rightly advocate.

He also recalls a provocative suggestion by Maritain: that at some future point the souls in hell receive a new blessing whereby they are relieved of suffering and they transition into a kind of eternal limbo, grateful to God but lacking in the beatific vision. Think of it like this: after about a kazillion-badillion years of tormenting fire (metaphorically speaking), with Justice and Retribution more than satisfied, God's benevolence kicks in and hell gets air conditioning, regulated temperature between 68-72; nice swimming pools and a lovely beach. Like spending the rest of infinity at a good Mariott on a Caribean island: it ain't heaven but it ain't terrible! This theory is entirely without basis in Scripture or tradition but is not itself heretical and tenable as a speculation. I like the idea: it retains the immortality of the soul, the eternity of hell, and the final triumph of God's mercy and benevolence. It is imaginative!

A similar speculation was advanced by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and more elaborately by Gil Baile: the possibility that at the moment of death (or before death, or after death?)each soul encounters the wounded, crucified, merciful Jesus Christ and makes a final decision to repent of sin, forgive the enemy, and receive forgiveness. This "eschatological event" offers a final dispensation of grace, offers grounds to hope for all, upholds the reality of hell as well as the final mercy of God. I find it to be a happy thought: it inspires me to prepare even now, in the smallest decisions, to prepare myself to make the right choice at the final dramatic encounter.

My own favorite "hell quote" is: "The gates of hell shall not prevail." Here Jesus clearly has hell in defense. He has come to invade, destroy, and empty hell. We are with him in this offensive. We are aggressive, not passive; we are confident, not anxious; we are finally, with his grace, Victorious!

The Logic of Synodality: Secular Progressivism

I stand corrected: in a recent essay I described "synodality" as lacking any shape, definition or purpose. But Carlo Lancelotti, writing on DelNoce (not on synodality) in Humanumenlightened me: there is indeed a logic to it, that of atheistic progressivism. DelNoce realized that modernity has replaced traditional metaphysics and religion with a Marx-like trust in "the direction of history" as an inevitable, irresistable progress into a glorious, liberated future out of an oppressive, ignorant past. In our present, this does not take the shape of an integral hegelian dialectic, but of an evolutionary technologism rooted in the science and expertise of the elite that increases its control over life in all its contigencies and liberates us from a dark past. To be sure, the project of synodality as intended by the Vatican is not explicitly atheistic, but it is animated by that interior spirit, a trust in change, in discontinuity with a rigid past, in a romantic if vague future of liberation. This is identical with the "Spirit of Vatican II" which presumed a superiority of the enlightened, educated, scientific present over the superstitions, rigidities and oppressions of the the past, tradition and authority.

Such is the polar opposite of Catholicism, the religion of memory. Our core belief is that the Eternal was revealed, once and for ever, in the person-life-death-rising of a single man, Jesus Christ. Such will never be surpassed. All of subsequent history is an unfolding of the meaning of that drama. For sure there is fluidity, novelty, creativity,and surprise as we move forward in history, but it is always an unraveling of dimensions of what is already given in Christ. So, our practice is one of constant remembering: contemplating the words and works of Jesus, in light of the history of Israel, and unravaled in the journey of the Church as well as our own specific itineraries.

For example, the actual, historical Vatican Council II was an exercise in resourcement, a return to the sources, scripture and the fathers/doctors of the Church. A remembering. A retrieval, But in a new context so with new and serendipitous revelations, but always in the light of the deposit of faith.

Catholic life and practice, in all its symphonic splendour, is a constant refrain: remembering and rediscovering anew in the present what was already given but now overflowing organically, extravagantly, magnanimously. This occurs in Eucharist, scripture study, the prayer of the Church, the rosary and all the devotions. It is an Eternal Event, ever new but ever ancient.It is not synodality.

The Simple Joy of Daily Mass

What I love about daily mass: quiet, anonymous, invisible, alone, peaceful. I don't talk to anybody; no one talks to me. I have been going to daily mass in my parish for almost 5 decades: I know almost no one by name; I doubt they know me. I like it that way. To be comfortable, I require a 10 foot perimeter of social distancing: the covid has helped with that by moving us out of chapels into huge churches.

Yes, I know liturgy is all about community, sharing a meal, communion with each other in Christ. I don't really care: I want my solitude. Yes I am old, ornery and eccentric!

I think of my mother who recalled that when she was raising us, her nine children, her only break all week was that hour when she walked up to Sunday mass, prayed quietly and walked home alone.

I think of the conversion of Dorothy Day. Hers was an intellectual turn that resulted from her reading the saints and Catholic theology and practice. She was baptized on a rainy, gloomy day and walked home alone. For years she personally knew almost no Catholics, even as she went to daily mass, prayed the rosary and read voraciously. She was deeply Catholic but entirely solitary. Her friends were the radicals, anarchists, bohemians...whose world she had abandoned...until Peter Maurin walked in. But she always remained something of a misfit in the world of radical politics and that Catholicism. Lonely!

Of course I love Sunday mass; the liturgy of Holy Week. I value the Latin mass with its chant, solemnity, and memories. I love charismatic liturgies with singing in tonques, inspired preaching, lively praise music. I also found delight in the Neocatechumenal Eucharist: the exhortations, echoes, and Kiko's rousing guitar music.

The core shape, the form, the interior logos of the Eucharist is sublimely simple: we listen to the Word of God; then the priest offers bread and wine, consecrates, and we receive. My all time favorite Eucharists are the ones we learn of by priests in prison, as in communism, who are smuggled a drop of wine and a crumb of bread and they reverently, secretly consecrate and receive. The entire, immense, infinite, eternal, boundless Eucharist is right there, in those few words and simple, minute elements.

So, I am basically a low-brow, no-frills, guy in liturgical style. There are a number of reasons why I cherish silence, anonymity, calm.

- Bascially an introvert, I cherish my solitude.

With my work, large family and close friends I have plenty of fellowship, maybe too much.

My Irish-Catholic DNA: a friend reminded me that in the centuries of poverty and oppression by the English, the Irish celebrated simply, quietly, without ostentation and left all the bells and smells to the high-church Anglicans.

Mostly where I worship I am demographically a minority, surrounded by Asians (mostly Philipinos), Latinos and a smattering of blacks and whites.

We moved into Jersey City as adults, after our marriage, and therefore do not have the network of connections from growing up here. We have always been "strangers" or immigrants here.

Don't imagine that I am in a mystical state at mass. Most of the time my mind is meandering and ruminating: writing my next blog essay, critiquing our pope or president, thinking about my day, fixating on my biggest work worries (enough money? bedbugs and hoarders, psychiatric situations, relationship challenges), or daydreaming about that georgeous actress I saw in a movie the previous night (today that would be Gene Tierney in Laura...I can't imagine how JFK could leave her for a life in politics?!?!).

But the good thing: the words of the priest, the readings and prayers, as well as the visuals (paintings, stained glass, stations, stations, etc.) intrude on my obsessions and compulsions and draw me to ponder the love God has for us as shown in the Gracious Act of our salvation.

For daily mass...routine, calm, quiet, anonymous, invisible, alone, patient, inspiring, protective, secure...THANKS BE TO GOD!

"The Apostle" and Authority

Classically, Kierkegaard contrasted the Apostle with the Genius. The Genius is naturally brilliant, born that way, and generates insights, discoveries, intuitions and creations from shear ability, erudition and reflection on experience. By contrast, the Apostle has no such distinction but is called from on high, is entrusted with a message and a mission from above; his own talents and abilities are not what is revelant. Indeed, the deficiency and lowliness of the Apostle may be in striking contrast with the sublimity of the message he delivers.

The Apostle speaks with "authority" from on high, not on the basis of his own expertise or worthiness. Again: the authority of the message may contrast with the poverty of the deliverer. All authority is from on high; all earthly authority comes down from heaven, however personally unworthy the recipient may be. So, Kierkegaard exemplifies: To say that I honor and obey my father because he is wise and kind would be an expression of filial impiety. I honor and obey my father because he is my father, whether he is wise or foolish, kind or mean. That is reverence for authority. Another example: driving down the highway I am waved to the side of the road by a police officer. I pull over obediently. I do so not because of his integrity, kindness, or wisdom. I pull over because he is a policeman; he has authority. In the same spirit I confess to a priest; his personal worthiness is irrelevant.

The distinguishing constituent of modernity and especially cultural liberalism, is disparagement of authority. Liberalism is individualism. It is the Protestant renunciation of Tradition and Church authority. It is the nominalist denial of interior form, of formal causality, of structure and boundary. It is the Enlightenment exaltation of reason uprooted from faith. It is the idolatry of the autonomous, isolated, lonely individual.

Catholicism is above all a religion of authority: that of the hierarchy, Tradition, scripture and of Jesus Christ. However here we do well to distinguish between apostolic office (priest, bishop, pope) and apostolic charism (the annointing of the Holy Spirit). As Catholics we defer to the objective apostolic authority of the office even where the charism is lacking; as we obey the traffic signal of a vicious, mendacious, promiscuous, racist, sociopathic police officer.

Authority really makes sense only in a two-tiered universe: where there is a higher, heavenly realm, that visits us and remains with us and leaves a hierarchical order behind it: bishop, state, father/mother et al. Without the supernatural, we are all equal; it is one against all; and authority is basically oppression and control.

Apostolic Preaching, by the apostles themselves and by saints like St. Anthony, is the Spirit-empowered speech that changes hearts, immediately. It is rare.

I consider where I have experienced it. I don't know it in its pure form by which hardened sinners are miraculously converted. But surprisingly, my strongest encounter was with the Charismatic Renewal within the Catholic Church. Ironically, the early leaders (Martin, Clark, Scanlon, etc.) drew upon the pentecostal and evangelical traditions and there fierce sense of biblical authority to bring to the Catholic Church a retrieval of apostolic authority just when the mainstream liberal Church was backing away from all forms of Catholic (allegedly triumphalist) authority. In that atmosphere of worship, thanksgiving, expectancy and love I experienced that teaching as apostolic and authoritative.

Years later, I experienced something similar in the Neocatechumenal Way and the catechesis of Kiko Arguello. It was a distinctive formulation; contrasting with the charismatic and traditional tridintine Catholic; but orthodox as well as pure, powerful and fruitful. Around that same time I became familiar with the 12-step program and strongly sensed an analagous "apostolic authority" in the practice of powerlessness, surrender, accountability and transparency in the Catholic-like rigor of AA meetings, sponsorship and practice. It has a strong internal form, structure, and sense of authority.

More recently my wife and I have benefited from participation in Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist, an association of the faithful, guided by a holy consecrated virgin (formerly religious sister) named Sister Joan Noreen. Sister Joan has submerged herself entirely in the life of the Church, specifically the Eucharist, also devotion to Mary, the daily prayer of the Chruch, the teachings of the saints and popes, and simplicity of life. Her talks are predictably inspiring: she speaks with the authority of holiness, with the apostolic charism because she is herself surrendered (not perfectly of course) to the Holy Spirit.

Apostolic preaching/teaching like this is rare. The traditional Catholic teaching with which we were raised prior to 1965 benefited from a residual apostolic authority because it echoed the teaching of the Church but it usually suffered from being didactic, dogmatic in a formal-lifeless sense, and not rooted in holiness and prayer. Most theology since 1965 suffers from being intellectist and academic, not rooted again in prayer and holiness of life. Ordinary parish preaching spans a scale: tends to be reflective, related to the scripture of the day, exhortatory of a life of love, inclusion, forgiveness, and humility. At its best it breathes freshly from a life of prayer and obedience; often it is trite, monotonous. At its worst it is anti-apostolic, exultatory of the indulgent, narcisstic individual and covertly hostile to Church authority as it clothes itself in the appeal of psychological sentimentality.

From a Catholic perspective, we may want to moderate the fierce Kierkegaardian antinomy between the authority of the apostle and the wisdom of the genius. At its best, Catholicism marries the two in a delightful harmony: Augustine and Thomas, Dante and Michaelangelo, John Paul and Benedict, DeLubac, Balthasar, Giusanni, the entire Resourcement/Communio tradition...these are at once apostolic (obedient to tradition and hierarchy, grounded in prayer and holiness of life) and wise in drawing from natural gifts, erudition and dialogue. In the Catholic Church we receive the Revelation from on high which in turn opens us to welcome all that is True, Good and Beautiful in Creation by our Triune God.

Synodality: a Bad Idea

"Synodality" is not an idea, it is not even a word The Vatican has declined to define it. Correctly, because there is no form, no logos, no shape, no integrity, no purpose to the thing. It is a Heraclitian explosion into fluidity as an escape from what is viewed as a Paramendian entrapment in ecclesial rigidity.

It is a construct of the active imagination of Pope Francis. It is a "process" of dialogue, accompaniment, openess to the other, the marginalized, the oppositional. These dynamics are all integral to a wise, virtuous life. But detached from tradition, doctrine, stabilty and form they become confused, aimless, futile and destructive.

The "process" seems to be a passive-aggressive expression of the regressive-infantile impulse of our Pope to "make a mess." It is coherent with his aversion to doctrine, clericalism, form, expressive piety, boundaries and clarity/consistency of thought.

It is a revival of the "Spirit of Vatican II" which dismissed the actual documents of that inspired Council in favor a Dionysian infatuation with novelty, endless openness, and destruction of the old.

I expect that the Holy Spirit will avoid the entire thing. And we do well to do the same.

The Holy Spirit likes to visit humble, anonymous, hidden souls to impart a charism and mission that is clear, powerful, certain, fruitful. Such folk are among us but they will not be flocking to the "synodal process." We do well to seek and associate with such.

Who will be given over to synodality? Activists, social engineers, careerists, bureaucrats. It is not a good group. In his heyday, McCarrick would have been the point guard. Stay away from them.

Best case scenario: it will be a collosal waste of time, energy, and paper. It will produce a vague, innocuous document that will be ignored by everyone. Think the Amazon Synod or so many of our own episcopal documents.

Worst case scenario: it will produce a Babel of chaotic, competing voices, with one national synod contradicting another. Think Germany and Poland. Our Catholic unity, always preserved by a strong papacy, will be underminded by a Pope who deliberately weakens the office, unconsciously,trying to destroy what he despises in Catholicism as given.

A priest-professor who teaches Church history reminded me that actual, historical synods were called in chaos, confusion, and conflict not for openness and novelty, but for decisiveness, clarity and certainty. And so, eventually, post-Francis, this "process" may inexorably lead to a real Synod, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to determine the truth with decisiveness, authority and infallibility. That is my kind of Synod!

"Synodality" is the polar opposite of the clarity, certainty, form and definitiveness of a real Synod. Synodality is a bad idea! Strike that: it is not an idea. It is a bad process...passive-agressive, infantile-regressive, futile, sterile,confused and confusing, polarizing and destructive.Stay away from it!

Stephen Dubner's "Turbulent Souls: A Catholic Son's Return to His Jewish Family"

This is simply the most gripping, tender, heart-rending memoir I have ever read.

(Aside: The only book in its league is Kate Hennessey's "Saved By Beauty", the poignant inside story of the relationship of her grandmother Dorothy Day with her mother Tamar. Both books describe the journey of the children of iconic, saintly Catholics away from that faith.)

Stephen Dubner, of NY Times Magazine and "Freakenomics" fame, is a brilliant investigative journalist in the mode of Malcom Gladwell. He unravels the story of his parents' conversion to Catholicsm from Judaism during WWII, before his birth, and then relates his own reversion back to Judaism in his adult life.

His family and life is very different from my own but his story touched me in so many places. His parents married in 1946, the same year as mine. They raised 8 children, my own parents 9, in strong Catholic families. I was oldest, he the youngest. His upbringing resonated with my own and the way we raised ourown children: the rosary and devotion to Mary, altar boy and all the sacraments, admiration for Dorothy Day (they moved to a farm), pro-life and charismatic movements, connection with Cardinal O'Connor of NYC, Rabbi Finkel and Father John Ostereicher of Seton Hall University, quotes from Buber, Heschel and others.

Both parents underwent a profound, passionate conversion to Catholicism; and a total break with their Jewish past. Stephen was raised in an intense if parochial rural Catholic ambience, completely ignorant of his parents' past. His mother Florence, later Veronica, was raised in a constricted, secular Jewish family which she escaped in adolescence for the glamorous world of ballet. Talented and beautiful, she performed at Radio City and was launched on a fine career when she broke her leg. At that very time she had encountered Catholicism...and it was love at first sight. Calmly she decided that she was not interested in celebrity or success but in holiness. She was an intelligent, stable, resilient and immensely formibable woman.

His father, Sol, later Paul, Dubner, was quiet, thoughtful, conscientious, charming, handsome, drawn to music, writing, newspapers and baseball. He was close to his mother who died at an early age because (many thought) she worked so hard, alone, in the family restaurant, while her husband sat in the synagogue reading and talking Torah. Sol's father was deeply pious, in a simple manner. And Sol was alientated from him. Durding the war, Sol fell into a deep depression as he found himself as a solitary Jew in military service in the Pacific. He encountered Catholicism which brought him new life. As they war ended the two fell in love and married. It was an enduring, touching romance that never faded. Throughout the marriage, he wrote simple, heartfelt love letters. Example: "God made two perfect women: our Blessed Mother and you."

Paul worked on and off for newpapers and had some articles published, as he worked part-time jobs and for the Church, but was not a success financially. They moved from the city to the country for a more wholesome environment for the kids. Veronica was frugal, resourceful and indomitable. She tolerated no complaining: "We had a choice between money and kids and we chose kids and you can't complain because if we chose money you would not be here." In midlife, Paul's depression returned with a vengeance and tormented him to the point that he got shock treatments. Veronica's faith and support were unfaltering. They connected with the charismatic renewal and Paul experienced a miraculous emotional healing. His death of heart attack later was itself another intrusion of the supernatural (or bizarre, if you prefer).

Despite the extraordinary example of his parents, Stephen never took to Catholicism, although he always retained a sense of God and a fairly clear moral compass. For example, he describes his creepy feeling about receiving the Eucharist as he pictured this sad, suffering man coming into him. There does not seem to have been an emotional revolt or renunciation. He seems to have had a mild tempermental allergy to things Catholic, especially the charismatic emotionalism. In college he started a rock band and was (much like his own mother) on his way to success, cutting albums and travelling the country, when he realized he didn't want the celebrity of a music career. He walked away with no particular direction in mind.

Around this time he is getting interested in Judaism, and his parent's history. A dynamic, observant Jewish acting coach named Ivan enters here and has a huge impact. Sternly, but paternally, he admonishes him (in so many words): You are a Catholic or you are a Jew but you are not to wander aimlessly in this morally chaotic world.

And so his search into Judaism and his family past begins. He does a magnificent work of investigative journalism in revealing his family history. It is mesmerizing! He discovers that he is indeed, deeply, interiorly, passionately a Jew.

Marvelously, his tender love for his rediscovered Jewish family does not diminsh his affection for his Catholic parents and family. For his brothers and sisters (three practicing Catholics, four have drifted away) his love is effortless, fluid, wholesome, heartfelt. But his relationship to Mom and Dad is fascinating.

He felt he did not really know his father. His search into Judaism is largely a search for Dad as well as an inquiry into his coversion. Paul was a loyal, devoted father but the distance is understandable: Stephen was the last of eight and could hardly have gotten the attention he desired. Paul was hard working and conscientious but unsuccessful and prone to depression and so probably unavailable emotionally at key periods of the young Stephen's life. By reconnecting with Paul-Sol's pre-Catholic life Stephen was discovering his father. The Jewish past had been a complete blank for the young Stephen. When Paul converted, his father sat "Shiva" for him, declaring him dead and that his name was never to be mentioned again. For the most part, the family complied. Paul's prior life was dead to him. Stephen set out to revive that life...and did so superbly. Later in the narrative there is a jubillant reunion of all the Dubner's, Jewish and Catholic.

His relationship with mother Florence-Veronica is equally interesting and complex. At one point the author describes his mother as a formidable mountain that could not be ignored; in contrast to his father who is a vapor, mysterious and intangible. She is a force to be reckoned with: confident, steadfast, unwavering...especially in her faith. She is, understandabley, less than happy with the trajectory of her youngest son's life back to her origins. But the mutual affection and reverence between mother and son remain. I had the sense that her presence, however loving, was so strong for Stephen that to form his own identity (religious, ethnic, masculine) he had to detach, although with love. And so, he found in Judaism a more masculine (search for father) way without the fierce maternal presence.

Most significantly, no one could explain to him the nature of his father Paul's conversion: he had confided to no one. But mother Veronica gave him a Catholic devotional that had impacted Paul during the war. There Stephen found his answer: Paul was drawn to the Blessed Mother. The author does not go into pop psychology: but there is a perfect synmetry here. Paul in his longing for mother was satisfied in Catholicism; Stephen in his yearning for father was drawn into Judaism. It is possible that what drew Paul out of Judaism into Catholicism pulled Stephen out of Catholicism back to Judaism: Mary, a strong Jewish mother. This is not to reduce spirituality to psychology, but to recognize them as deeply intermingled.

Never have I seen such a self-aware, tender (to self and others), and intelligent description of the journey out of Catholicism. As a conservative Catholic, I grieve the "loss of faith" of any Catholic. But as a charismatic I have come to respect and celebrate so many who have moved out of a lifeless, formalistic Catholicism into a fervent evangelical or pentecostal embrace of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit (even as I hope for a further step, a reversion to the fuller Christ-centered symphony that is Catholicism.)

In the later stage of his conversion, when his relationship with mother Veronica is most tense, he meets with Cardinal O'Connor, a prolife hero to Veronica who had publically quoted Stephen from the pulpit. The Cardinal explains the positive, newer Catholic evaluation of Judaism: it is not an archaic religion that has been replaced, but an enduringly valid and living covenant of the Eternal God with His chosen people. Furthermore, he explains that if Stephen is moving into Judaism with an informed conscience, having prayed and studied and discussed, and is confident it is God's will, then he surely should make that decision. That wise counsel, shared with Mom, leads to mutual reconciliation and serentiy.

Around the same time, wise surrogate Jewish father Ivan introduces Stephen to Rabbi Asher Finkel, brilliant scholar and magnificent man who taught me at Seton Hall. After telling the story of the parent's abandonment of Judaism, Stephen expects the customary Rabbinic condemnation. The Rabbi-Scholar-Mensch shakes his head in wonder and proclaims: "It took great courage for your parents to make that journey. They have passed that courage onto you. It is not for us to question why Ruach, the Spirit of God, does one thing with this person and another thing with that. It is for you to surround yourself with people of good influence and grow ever closer to God."

I cannot imagine better counsel for all of us! This is a happy, inspiring story. God bless the Dubners...Jewish and Catholic!

Three Theologies; One Catholic Church

Since the Council, Catholicism has been a three-way theological contest between Progressives, Traditionals, and the solid center, the "Communios" or the "JohnPaulBennys" who follow those two popes. It resembles the three paths of Judaism: Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. But there will be no schism, no split, no parting of the ways. This is because the forces for unity in the Church are many, powerful and deep. These include: the person of Jesus, the sacramental/litugrical economy, our devotional life, the hierarchy, and the social ethos.

Actually, Judaism itself has a similar underlying unity which is not ideological or intellectual. Imagine a large Jewish family that gathers for a wedding, funeral or such: the group includes some Hasids, a few wealthy Republican businessmen, a pornography director, some militant Zionists, agnostic/atheists of various flavors (Marxists, Freudians, Nietzcheans), and a handful of laidback, easy-going pothead indiffernists. But at the funeral there is something that unites them all...something mysterious that cannot be precisely defined...it is blood, memory, tradition, culture including food, music, erudition, humour, and a multitude of intangibles.

And so, something similar with Catholicism.

First, of course, the fascination with and love for Jesus, the person of Jesus, in his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit, even as that is understood in disparate ways.

Secondly, the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist. First of all, of course, is baptism, which indelibly bonds us to one another in a way that no power in heaven or on earth can eliminate. Example: every five years our Maryknoll College Seminary class of 1969 gathers; we have gone on very different paths; many of us would disagree fiercely on theology and politics; many, probably most, no longer practice the Catholic sacramental life. But there is a deep communion of respect and affection, rooted in our shared history. The reunion climaxes, always, with a Catholic mass, celebrated in a casual but reverent way by one of our classmate priests. It is personal and intimate and quite deep. No one would imagine to suggest an alternative: not a group sharing, not a bible study, not a 12-step meeting, not a hootnany. There is a deep, unarticulated sense of the sacredness of the mass: even as we would lack a shared understanding of it.

Thirdly, there is our devotional life, notably centered on Mary. Joe Biden, notoroious renegede, ostentatiously presents his rosary beads as proof of his authentic Catholicity. It is persuasive, if for many of us, infuriating.

Fourthly, there is the hierarchy and priesthood. Those of us at both extremes rage at the perceived failures and disloyalties of priest, bishop and pope because they are so important to us, especially as sacramentals of unity.

Lastly, there is the Catholic social ethos. To be clear the sexual teaching of the Church in relation to the Cultural Revolution is the polarizing nexus of the last 56 years; but the social compassion for the poor, suffering and marginalized is a unifying factore. We all want to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, even as we propose different ways to do that. Example: in my own large, Irish-Catholic extended family, we are fierce in our political-theological differences. About 20 years ago the tone was not so nice. (My own writings were banned from the family webpage by our Matriarch!) However, since our family joined together in the Magnificat Home project (homes for low-income women) a pronounced serenity came upon our family. Over the last 12 years I cannot recall any really nasty arguments with my siblings. We avoid the contested issues; and enjoy our deep, affectionate family bonds.

And so, I suspect I am not alone in being of two minds about the Church: my deliberative, cognitive mind is fiercely combatative in the Culture War; but other dimensions of my heart, intellect and spirit relax and enjoy the deep, satisfying currents of affection, memory, humour and Catholic life that unite us.

The Demise of the Nation State; Surging Tribalism; Competing Empires

I am suspicious of the emergent rightwing nationalism exemplified by Trump. It strikes me as mostly a raging, anxious, incoherent tribalism. The nation state seems to be fading in significance and power in relation to two more powerful forces: surging tribalism and the competing empires. The Trump phenomenon is, at its worst, a tribal, white identity politics, fueled by alienation, fear, frustration, anger, suspicion. (At its best it is a populist Christian resistance to liberal totalitarianism; but that is not our train of thought here.) The Democratic Party has become in large part an alliance of disparate tribes: black, gay, labor, transgender identities that mimic authentic, traditional tribal legacies and collaborate with the hegemonic liberal/professional elite. Globally we see the outbreak of tribal-ethnic conflicts everywhere: the Sunni-Shiite war throughout the Middle East, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Ukraine, Ethiopia, Kurdistan, and so forth. Politics always has been and always will be competition between and cooperation with waring religious/cultural/ethnic tribes.

At the same time, however, we are witnessing unending international war between competing empires: Communism (in various national forms, but especially Chinese), Shia law (in the alternate Shia and Sunni expressions), secular liberalism (the West), and Christianity (expressed expecially as Catholicism and Pentecostal-Evangelicalism). A fifth force, populist nationalism, is emergent around the globe, notably in Russia, but is of its nature self-restricted, even when expansive and aggressive, and not imperialist in its essence in the way the other four empires are. Liberal Christianity, as in mainline Episcopal and other Churches, in its endorsement of sexual liberalism is, in my view, not an authentic branch of the Christian empire but the chaplaincy of secular liberalism.

Our own country has become so polarized that it is no longer a UNITED States of America. It is divided in heart. It is no longer coherent as a Christian/Liberal Empire. It is decadent and in decline. Increasingly, it seems to me, our allegiance goes to our local, actual tribe (in my case, ethnic, urban, working class and poor Catholic) and the overarching Empire we support (again, for me Catholic.) The Catholic-America romance of the post-War period is over. We grieve it for all the good it advanced. But we move on into the new world order.

Neoconservative?

I never considered myself a neoconservative until the catatastrophic collapse in Afghanastan. I didn't know how much I loved the Pax Americana until I saw its imminent dimise. When Bush invaded Iraq I judged that it failed to meet the criteria of a just war. In the 1990s I thoroughly agreed with D.L. Schindler's blistering critique of the neoconservative Catholicism of Weigel, Newhaus and Novak. But now, in the context of the demented, feeble incompetence of Biden and the xenophobic, nationalistic isolationism of Trump, I am nostalgtic for the heroism of the FDR/Churchill generation, the purposefulness of Eisenhower/Nixon/JFK, the decisiveness of Reagan/Bush Jr.

The expression "neoconservative" first referred to Marxists who became disenchanged with communism and came into the light during the Cold War. Coming out of the 60s it referred to a movement of Jewish secular leftists into a conservatism that rejected incipient pacifism for international/military strength, the socialism of the New Left for free enterprise and limited government, and cultural liberalism for more traditional, if not necessarily religious, morality. More negatively it became associated with the pro-Israel, interventionist advisors who encouraged Bush to invade Iraq. a "neoconservative" has been defined as "a liberal who has been mugged by reality. This is about right: the position entails a certain disenchantment with the naive romanticism of the Left and a discoverty of the power of evil, understood as sin/communism/terrorism/crime.

By an interesting analogy, in Catholicism a similar trajectory occurred by an influential cohort of theologians who strongly endorsed the changes written by Vatican II but vigorously resisted the more extreme implementation of them in the alleged "spirit of Vatican II." The most famous and important of these is Joseph Ratzinger. He was the youthful golden boy of the liberals at the Council but was horrified at the violence, chaos and nihilism of 1968. He did not change is core theological beliefs but these positioned him in an entirely new posture going into the 1970s. He was a key founder of the Communio journal with DeLubac, Balthasar and others as a counterpoint to the progressive Concilium school of Rahner, Kuhn, Schilibeeckx and others. I believe Avery Dulles followed a similar path: steadfast in his foundational Catholic faith, he also transtioned from a "relative liberal" to being a "relative conservative" as the culture and Church around him transformed going into the 1970s. I myself followed this same path: leaving college in 1969 I had strong liberal sympathies but within a few years I became a stolid Catholic and passionate culture warrior under the influence of some holy, learned Jesuit theologians (mystic Joe Whelan and forementioned Avery Dulles) as well as the cursillo and charismatic movements.

The theology of these liberal-turned-conservatives might be described as "neoconservative." It sprang from the resourcement theology of the 1940~50s which informed the Council with its dual dynamic: a "conservative" return to the sources, scripture and the Fathers, beyond a sterile scholaticism and an openness to the new, to all that is ennobling, true, good and beautiful in modernity, beyond an anxious late-Tridintine defensiveness. After the council, this school of thought was developed by Balthasar, Ratzinger and Woytija as the Communio school and implemented by the powerful dual pontificate. So todays Church is a three-way contest between the progressives who break with tradition in favor of cultural liberalism, the surging traditionalists who want to retrieve the past and even cancel the Council, and the resourcement-communio-neoconservatives who honor the Council in as a continuous development of the Tradition. Pope Francis is viciously hostile to the traditionalists, discontinuous with and discouraging of the "communios" and erratically supportive of the progressives.

Returning to the "neoconservative" title, I must...at the end of the day...reject it in light of the argument between two competing neoconservativisms: that of Weigel/Novak/Neuhaus (First Things) and that of father-and-son-Schindlers-and-friends. Both are orthodox Catholic, both followers of St. Pope John Paul. They differ in their evaluation of the American project. Former are positive about our constitutional founding and the entire liberal order of markets, limited government, rule of law, democracy, human rights and so forth. The later are more deeply, really metaphysically critical of the liberal order as fundamentally anti-Catholic in its founding and development and inherently prone to an individualistic, isolating culture and polity. By this logic, the pathologies of the USA today...atomization of the individual, abortion, sexual license, mega-government and global corporations, demise of the family and intermediate communites...are all rooted in, or at least encouraged by an enlightenment founding that was residually Christian but in a diminished, deist, rationalist, minimist fashion. On this matter, I agree with the more negative judgment. I cede the "neoconservative" title to those with a more positive view of our national legacy. This includes, by the way, Reno (current editor of First Things) who has endorsed the Trump project, although in a sophisticated and nuanced "Catholic" fashion, as well as the standard three-pillar (strong military, free markets, moral conservativism) of Reagan, Paul Ryan and the Republican establishment.

With all that said, while I grieve the passing of the 1945-2021 world order, I cannot yearn for the Pax Americana since our national culture has become so decadent and divided. My allegiance goes less to my nation than to my locality (urban, ethnic, working-and-poor Catholic), my tribe (Catholic) and my empire (Catholic).

Confessions of a Sad Neo-Conservative

In the wake of the catastrophe in Afghanastan, with Trump,Biden and their cronies outdoing each other in the disparagement of "nation building" and the arrogance-ignorance of the Neo-Conservatives, I confess: I am a Neo-Conservative, and not ashamed to say so.

Granted: our imperialist adventures in Iraq and Afghanastan surged from a prideful, unrealistic presumption about the superiority of our way of life, after the fall of Soviet Communism, as well as a secular underestimation of the power of primitive religion. Nevertheless I remain a staunch internationalist, it is intrinsic to my Catholic faith, and insist that much of the underlying motivation was solid: the altruistic impulse to share our Western values...rule of law, rights of women, democracy, freedoms of speech-religion-assembly-etc...and our Hellenic-Christian-Roman legacy, and to engage, restrain and ultimatly defeat our antagonists, totalitarian Communism and Sharia law. These later two are pure evil; they must be confronted. I prefer overeach, on our part, to weakness.

Conservatives and Progressives are joined in an orgy of righteous indignation as they ridicule our conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanastan. I am not so sure. I do not see simplicity: I see complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty. I see that we were fighting two wars: an unjust imposition on the local culture; and containment of an evil empire. Both are there; I cannot simplify the thing in a certain judgment.

Our conflict with these two empires is long term. Biden's pride in ending our war in Afghanastan may prove short-lived if it again becomes a beehive for terrorist groups. For certain: our war with militant Islam is not ending soon.

We have lost a sense of the "Heroic"...a cult of virility, sacrifice, and generosity to death. People ask: what if your son died in Iraq? My response: "I would be proud of him. He is a hero. His life shines a light on the rest of us for his courage and generosity. Even if the decision for war was problematic." The efforts in Vietnam and the Middle East were riddled with mistakes for sure. They came from mixed, impure motives...as do almost all human actions. But they do not compare with the vile, vicious violation of dignity intrinsic to our two antagonists.

My allegiance is to my Catholic faith. Mine is not a casual, relaxed faith. It is militant, expansive, confident, extravagant. I want to share it with the whole world! That is why I am such an internationalist. Sharia and Communism are determined to exterminate Catholicism. I meet their dedication. Unfortunately, we in the USA and Western Civilization are in a life-and-death civil war with Cultural Liberalism which saps our capacity to defeat our enemies. Cultural liberalism is itself an indulgent, sterile, emasculated ideology incapable of withstanding the primal religious energies of Islam or the vicious atheism of Communism. But it does absorb our energies as we have become a divided nation: really two nations, two minds and hearts.

In these long wars, we will suffer defeats. We will fail. We will strike out. Vietnam was a failure; so was Iraq; so was Afghanastan. Certainly mistakes were made; miscalculations; based on falacious assumptions; with mixed motives. But the shrill, condemnatory, disparaging tone pervasive on both sides of the political spectrum itself lacks a Linconesqe, Niebuhresqe sense of irony, tragedy, humility, ambiguity and uncertainty.

Not so much the loss but the abandonment of our allies in Afghanastan is unspeakably dishonorable. I am so ashamed to be an American. But the service of our military remains heroic and noble; it was given generously for justice, whatever mistakes were made. We do well to: take inspiration from the courage, religious zeal, persistance of the Taliban; refrain from righteous indignation; steady ourselves for the long wars with Communism and Sharia law; engage in our own Culture War, with faith, hope and love, as we strengthen, purify and share our precious legacy.