A Kingdom in Retreat

Christianity as a social order, a kingdom, is in retreat, embattled and overwhelmed by four enemies: Cultural Liberalism of the West, (mostly Chinese) Communism, militant Islam, and neo-fascisms (like Putin).

Christianity in it's pure, strong form (Catholicism, but also its cousins Orthodoxy, Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism) is in agonistic contest with four worthy adversaries who are formidable because each is itself a perverse, heretical offshoot of Christianity. Each grasps and exaggerates valid elements of the true Gospel but contaminates it with evil elements to create a toxic, virulent, powerful and evil kingdom.

To be sure, the Kingdom of God, proclaimed by Jesus and the Church, is not synonymous with any particular social order, culture or government. It lives with, within and against every social order. Every particular social reality...family, culture, club, parish, school, bowling league, political party...is finite, fallible, vulnerable to the Kingdom of God and that of the Evil One. The Catholic Church left us by Jesus (and in varying degrees related Churches) is blesssed with the abiding presence of Christ by virtue of its efficacious sacramental economy and inerrant magisterium, but in its human dimension is vulnerable to all evils. In fact, because "corruption of the best is the worse", it may be in some ways more prone to evil.

Certain regimes and organizations are particularly evil: think Hitler and Stalin. Others, in Camelot-fashion, can embody...imperfectly, temporarily and provisionally...a high order of goodness: I think of the original Benedicines, Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits; 13th century Europe; and the surge of life in post WWII USA.

Currently, the West (Americas and Europe) is largely impotent before militant Islam (the shameful withdrawal from Afganistan), imperialist Communist China and the expansive fascism of Putin because it is invoved in a brutal culture civil war between authentic Christianity and Cultural Liberalism. The government of the USA at the moment rests in the hands of a handful of octogenarian cultural liberals (Pelosi, Biden, Sanders) who have embraced the cult of sexual sterility, identity politics, deconstruction of gender, bio-techno-authoritarianism and cling to power with a narcisstic obsessiveness when they should have handed such to their children (and now their grandchildren) decades ago.

The Church herself has been immensely weakened and polarized by the crusade of Pope Francis to align her with Cultural Liberalism by downplaying truths around marriage, family and unborn life and embracing the agenda of climate change, immigration and the death penalty. The Church is in exile, like the Jews in Babylon... homeless, powerless and vulnerable. We are in a terrible vocation crisis, with many of our priests coming in as missionaries from Africa (the hope of the future) and elsewhere.

It is worth considering how each of the antagonistic "kingdoms" is in fact a heretical, derivative, perverse and disordered outgrowth of Christianity.

Cultural Liberalism, including its disguise in progressive Catholicism, presents itself as a more enlightened, up-to-date Christianity in its "love" for the victim, especially the persecuted minorities and the LGBTGQ community. Rene Girard taught us how the Gospel transfigured religion from a mechanism of sacrificial scapegoating of a victim into compassion for the victim in the person of Jesus Christ. Liberalism exaggerates that dynamic; disconnects from tradition, the natural order and Church authority; and creates a new religion out of a fetish with alleged victims (BLM, LGBTQ), rescapegoating Church tradition as imagined strawman of privilege, whiteness, heteronormality, and such.

Islam is a form of Arian Christianity whereby Mohammed and his followers accepted much of what is best in Judaeo-Christianity (fervent monotheism, the moral code of the commandments) but rejected what didn't suit them (the divinity of Christ, his salvific death, forgiveness of the enemy)and combined it with a warrior ethos of violence and permission for polygamy/misogyny.

Communism is the atheistic, materialitic version of Christian salvation history. The inevitable dialectic of conflict between oppressor/oppressed becomes the efficacious process of final salvation. It is a heightened form of concern for the poor elevated into an idol, with all the violence and sacrilege that flows from such depravity.

Neo-Fascism, as a crude, anxious, angry nationalism, in the person of Putin (or the milder, narcissistic, incompetent and more harmless Trump)often seeks to align itself with a form of traditional Christianity or Catholicism. We saw this in Franco, Diem and a host of Latin American authoritarians. It is capable of harnessing the energies of the faith against its enemies (Communism, Liberalism, Islam) into a fearful, xenophobic, ethnocentric, reactionary irrationality. This last is the least toxic of the four as it preserves more of authentic Christianity. But again, "corruption of the best is the worst" so it is itself a powerful, toxic temptation.

Embattled, vulnerable and threatened as we are, what is our plan?

I again recommend a combination of the "Benedict Option" of Dreher and the "Christian Strategy" articulated inFirst Things by Adrian Vermulle: the two are in tension but not contradiction and nicely complement each other. The first movement is one of retreat, to consolidate ourselves, in our immediate families and closest communities. By the second, we engage with the broader society in very targeted and specific ways, in the manner of Daniel, Esther, Joseph of Egypt. We avoid the contaminated identification with any specific party or ideology, retaining a certain transcendence and freedom, even as we eagerly serve the common good, protect our interests, and collaborate with the doing of good even with our ideological adversaries.

I cite as an embodiment of these two movements our Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett. She is, in my view, the best political event in the USA in the last 50 years. She is a woman, a mother, an adoptive mother, Catholic, charismatic, pro-life, brilliant, independent of party and ideology, gracious and charming. She grew up and lives within a charismatic, Catholic comminity which exemplifies the Benedict Option: evangelical, communitarian, counter-cultural, passionate, "thick" Catholicism. At the same time she has studied and taught at Notre Dame, one of the most prestigious universities in the nation. She is "in this world" but "not of it." She is an inspiration and a source of great hope. She may well play a historic role in the near future in overturning Roe. She is our Ester, our Judith!

May our Lord bless her, her family and community, her work at this important position!

May He lead each of us to retreat to prayer, worship, family and community; and to re-engage our culture with wisdom, zeal, compasson and courage!

A Papal Rash Judgement: "Corrupt!"

The advocate of Pope Francis, Austen Ivereigh, offers a passioned defense of why the Pope is so hard on the Latin Mass in "Limits of Dialogue" Commonweal, January 20, 2022. Unwittingly, he may have unveiled a moral defect that is at the core of this papacy.

He cites an article written years ago in which Bergolio distinguishes between "sin" and "corruption." Sin is a weakness that allows for some openness to repentance. The sinner must be treated gently and mercifully, accompanied with encouragement, affirmation and minimal judgement. Corruption is a deeper level of evil in which the sinner has encrusted himself in a hard shell of righteousness, arrogance and superiority. Here there is no opennes and no possibility of accompaniment, mercy or dialogue. Rather, the corrupt must be directly condemned as such, in the hope that that assault might awaken some contrition. Ivereigh cites Francis' treatment of the mafia, whom he condemns to hell if they do not repent.

This binary of sin/corruption is quite original with Francis. It is not standard in Catholic moral thinking. I cannot imagine John Paul or Benedict hurling this accusation, even at the nazis, communists and cultural liberals they engaged. Bergoglio is nothing if not creative. Ivereigh, who loves this pope so, seems to understand him. This distinction explains much of this pontificate. For Francis, sinners include pro-abortion Catholic politicians, active homosexuals (and most sexual offenders) and apparently the Chinese communists. By contrast, the corrupt include, in addition to the Sicilian mafia: the Latin Mass movement, conservative clerics (Chaput, Burke, Vigano, etc.), possibly the old-now-destroyed John Paul Institute for the Family in Rome, and the entire Catholic-Evangelical pro-life alliance in the USA.

This view of "corruption" is not entirely without precedent in our tradition. The basic comparison is, of course, to Jesus' own condemnation of the Pharisees and Sadducees. There is, however, an obvious spiritual danger is positioning oneself as Jesus in relationship to those groups.

Likewise, every Christian community with any identity and boundaries will define what is unacceptable: the practice of "shunning," "excommunication" and the issue of Holy Communion for abortion advocates. However, such Catholic judgments are objective, about a practice or a belief, not about the heart and soul of another person. Here is where Francis is troublingly innovative: in place of objective, intellectual judgments he shows the liberal propensity for personalizing judgment and making broad-brush disparagement of entire groups.

This explains why Pope Francis is so polarizing. It is not just the position that he takes (obviously, any papal decision will offend some group or another), but the veiled resentment which he harbors for the objects of his condemnation. Bad enough that he wants to control and curtail the Latin mass, but worse is his (and his people's) contempt for them as arrogant, superior, and self-righteous.

His response (or lack of) to the infamous Vigano letter of August 2018 is exemplary. Notwithstanding the subsequent trajetory of the now-activist Archbishop, his letter was largely credible, factual and open to verification/falsification. It clearly demanded a Vatican response. None came. Instead, shortly thereafter, the Pope talked about those who give voice to the accusations of the Great Accuser, Satan. Clearly, he was speaking of Vigano. He dismissed the objective, factual allegations and personalized the Archbisop as demonic in his heart. As corrupt!

It seems that this innovative concept of "corruption" allows Francis to vent his emotional contempt for his adversaries and veil it in a Jesus-like stance of indignation at corruption. He may be suffering, unknowingly, from the condition he attributes to them: indignation veiling resentment. He may be guilty of rash judgment, a violation of the eighth commandment ("Thou shall not bear false witness") and, in my view, easily the most practiced sin in the world.

At this point in my reflection, a troubling irony presents itself to me for my own candid scrutiny. In my recogntion of this sin of the heart...self-righteous, indignant, resentful condemnation...Am I not myself judging? Rashly? Resentfully? Indignantly? Are we, including me, caught in Girardian cycle of mimetic spiritual violence, of indignation and rash judgment?

Ouch! I am really not sure. There is an objective basis for this judgement and I am prepared to defend it. But do I exercise it humbly, lovingly, compassionately, soberly? Well, not really! I must take this to prayer! Even as I increase my prayer for the Holy Father and all the bishops!

Lord, cleanse our hearts of sin, of corruption, of rash judgment! Make us wise in mercy, humility, compassion, love!

In Praise of My Mentors

I am in amazement at the sublime, luminous personalities that have influenced me.

1. In Maryknoll College Seminary (1965-69), sequestered safely from sex-drugs-rock-and-roll, we had admirable Maryknollers as our professors but I was not close to any. In one memorable "evaluation" I was told candidly that I "was a nothing"...not a leader, nor a trouble maker, nor an athlete. I received it calmly, even humorously as these things were commonly quite negative. But I was befriended by Pat Williams, lay and married librarian, voracious reader, creative thinker, ex-Marine, ex-prize-fighter, a confident, very virile and fascinating character. He saw something in me. We spent hours talking: he did the talking, I (happily) the listening. He wakened my intellectual curiosity an enhanced my self-esteem.

2. In my junior year, under a fine philosophy professor (Fr. McGinn MM) I studied both medieval and 19th century philosophy. The former led me to read Gilson, Pieper and Maritain and I became enamoured of classical Catholic philosophy. The later was, according to Fr. McGinn, the father of our contemporary world: he declared 20th century philosophy as a series of footnotes on the geniuses of the prior era: Marx, Hegel, Nietczhe, etc. I accepted this. And my visceral hatred of these (the nihilism of Nietczhe, the mega-system of Hegel, the materialism of Marx) was as intense as my infatuation with the tradition of Thomas. Intellectually I was set on my path: fiercely Catholic, militantly anti-modern.

3. This trajectory was strengthened in the summer of 1968 (exactly as the Cultural Revolution exploded) when I studied conversational Spanish in CIDOC, the think tank of Monsignor Illich in Cuernavaca, Mexico. This strange genius fascinated me because he was a genuine, if eccentric Catholic mystic even as he was ferociously counter-cultural, iconoclastic and militantly oppositional to modernity as technology and bureaucracy. He was far more radical than the Catholic Left or the Sexual Revolution even as he was brutally negative about institutional Catholicism. His radicalism flowed from a barely articulated medieval sensibility and profound prayer life. These appealed to me as did his critique of the Church and world we shared. I could not follow him all the way into his anti-clericalism or a kind of romantic utopianism that was finally unrealistic. But he did leave me with a salutary, ambivalent suspicion of institutions even as I went on to spend much of my life loyal to such.

4. Even as I was courting my bride-to-be, 1970, I had the privilege to study Catholic prayer and mysticism with Joseph Whelan S.J. at Woodstock Jesuit Theologate just then relocating to Manhatten. Probably because I was at that moment rather madly in love myself, I sensed in him an extraordinary, mystical, enchanting love. He was a real mystic. My best teacher ever. I learned that to love Christ is to love the Church. I learned about Baron von Hugel, his expertise, the layman, genius, mystic, modernist (but never disciplined by the Church). He introduced me to Balthasar and his pivotal essay "Theology and Sanctity" which located that discipline within prayer. I came to know a new, mystical depth to my Catholicism.

5. Just a few years later my wife and I made Cursillo, in which we encountered the Divine Person of Jesus as our personal savior and then Charismatic renewal, in which we experienced concretely the action of the Holy Spirit as well as a new, vigorous, exciting kind of Evangelical Catholicism. This was a major influence on my life. It intensified my inherited Catholic faith. It set me in opposition to the liberal direction of society and within the Church. It conformed me, in the face of abortion and the surge of Cultural Liberalism, into a militant Cultural Warrior. It strengthened my identity as a Catholic and it lightened me about career success. Ralph Martin, arguably the preeminent leader of the movement, exercised a strong influence on me and continued to do so as he moved in a more Catholic direction, following John Paul II and studing the Catholic classics in spirituality. I see him as a strong, prophetic figure like Illich, even as I do not follow him in all ways, particularly his harsh renunciation of Balthasar and his "dare we hope" stance.

6. With the papacy of John Paul II I found my primary mentor. His entire corpus (christology, political theology, ecumenism) but especially his catechesis on gender and sexuality became the light guiding my path. I came to know the Communio journal and its school of thought: Ratzinger, Balthasar, the Schindlers and the American branch. This body of thought became for me a bottomless, expansive, thrilling horizon of meaning and truth. As I continued a career in UPS and raised my family, my favorite moments were when I would slip into the library at St. Peter's College and read the current Communio.

7. Moving our of middle age crisis and into later middle age (approaching the turn of the milennium), I discovered two complementary spiritual communities that very significantly (but not absolutely) relieved me of persistent patterns of compulsivity and lack of freedom. The 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Neocatechumenal Way of Kiko Arguello. Both movements firmly asserted our powerlessness and the need for "higher power" or Christ. Both came to me at a perfect time. Both offered a refreshing transparency, a strong network of support and accountability, and immense hope for increasing interior freedom and joy. I participated for a time, occasionally, but did not become fully involved in either. Nevertheless, I greatly benefited from both and count Bill W. and Kiko as very precious mentors.

8. A little later, circa 2010, transitioning into later life, we had the good fortune to participate, as a couple, in Sister Joan Noreen's Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist. This was especially beneficial as it enriched our marriage, as had Charismatic Renewal, but not so much other influences on me specifically. Sister Joan, just recently deceased, was a spiritual woman with a gift for inspired teaching. She synthesized the heart of Catholicism (Eucharist, Mary, the daily prayer of the Church, simplicity of life) and presented a clear pattern of life. It was...is...perfect for us as it highlights what is most important to our faith and embodies it in a simple pattern. This has been a great blessing: a pattern for our later years.

All of the above, built upon the foundation of faith I received in the post-war period from a typical ethnic, Catholic, working class (father a union organizer), liberal (of that period) family of nine that was blessed with a deep Catholic piety and an unusually happy marriage. I remain in many ways a standard, ordinary Catholic of the 1950s mode. But the trajectory of my adult life has been towards a deeper Catholicism...oppositional to the liberal hegemomy, counter-cultural, subversive and quasi-bohemian.

Other influences on me are the following.

- Avery Dulles taught me theology at Woodstock and impressed me with his perfectly balanced, nuanced, orthodox-but-open-to-renewal approach. He served as a balance to the more radical influences.

-E. Michael Jones, the cranky and eccentric conservative and brilliant cultural historian taught me how historic existence is forever combat among competitive ethnic-cultural-religious tribes.

- Gil Baile, protege and populizer of Rene Girard, introduced me to his brilliant theory of mimesis and sacrifical violence.

- Dorothy Day and Mother Theresa (both of whom I met personally) surely inspired me in my work with Magnificat Home although I am no anarchist-pacifist and nowhere near the sacrifical depth of Mother.

- The Friars of the Renewal and particularly Father Benedict Groeschel have been a delight and encouragement to me and my family over the years.

- The journal First Things has been for many years a stimulation and encouragement, even as I am not quite the neo-conservative that Fr. Neuhaus was nor the pro-Trumpian that Reno is.

- In recent years, through our daughter Margaret Rose, the Communion and Liberation Community and the legacy of Monsignor Guiasani has been a delight, an encouragement and a companion. They bring an Italian neo-Renaissance positivity, confidence and richness that balances my sometimes strident, evangelical "culture war" pugnacity.

- John Rapinich, my best friend, my little-big-brother, was a bohemian Catholic. A friend of Kerouac and the Beats, a brother to us through the charismatic renewal, later a zealous NeoCat. John was a bibliophile, an artist, a sensitive spirit, a fierce Catholic. He was a delight and an inspiration.

I can say, as much as anyone else, that I "stand on the shoulders of giants." This year I am 75 years old. My mentors are mostly deceased. I am not lonely, for I live in the aura of all these great ones. My defining earthly hope, of course, is that the legacy I received may also be accepted by my chldren/grandchildren, and passed on, even as they move on to other riches unknown to me. I feel like Chingachook looking into the horizon and praying:

GREAT SPIRIT AND MAKER OF ALL LIFE, A WARRIOR GOES TO YOU SWIFT AND STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW SHOT AT THE SUN. WELCOME HIM, AND LET HIM TAKE HIS PLACE AT THE COUNCIL FIRE OF MY PEOPLE. HE IS UNCAS MY SON. BID THEM PATIENCE AND ASK DEATH FOR SPEED, FOR THEY ARE ALL THERE BUT ONE. I CHINGACHOOK, LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

David's Filial Love for King Saul: Reverent and Tender

This past week we have been hearing at mass about David's relationships with Jonathan and Saul. Such reverence! Such tenderness! The friendship with Jonathan culminates at the later's death when David announces he loved this friend more than he loves women. From David that is saying a lot! But even more touching is his loyalty to Saul, who in his jealousy had been seeking to kill David. We are told earlier in the week that Saul goes into a cave to relieve himself, unaware that David is hiding in that very spot. Saul is entirely vulnerable and defenseless. David considers taking advantage but then sternly renounces the temptation. He zealously affirms his reverence for his Lord. What is more implied than stated is: his tenderness to this aging king in his weakness and vulnerability. It is hard to imagine a more powerless posture. David could easily kill the one who is pursuing him. But he instead surrenders to tender mercy and deep reverence...for the very one seeking to kill him. Then in today's reading, learning of Saul's death, David grieves passionately and sincerely, oblivious of the threat Saul had been to him.

This reading touched me. It brought to mind Pope Francis and Cardinal Tobin, my own Church superiors whom I perceive as persecuting things that are precious to me. I do of course respect them for their office; but I entirely lack the heartfelt filial tenderness and reverence that David demonstrates. This reading is a call to me to repent of coldness, resentment, argumentation...into reverence for their sacred identity and tenderness for them in their own personal weakness.

David is, of course, by far the greatest king of Israel. We hear repeatedly of Jesus as "son of David" and we imagine him as victorious, heroic, messianic King. But we see here that David's royal dignity is rooted in a prior filial love and loyalty to his own King who was himself envious and vicious.

May we today emulate David in his humility, affection and loyalty. And so enter into our own regal dignity!

The Primacy...Over the Culture War...of Peace, Joy, Communion

My son John told me that his professor-mentor David C. Schindler does not favor "culture war" as the defining metaphor of our Catholic participation in society. This gave me pause. Schindler is possibly the smartest philosophical mind in the Western Hemisphere. He must be on to something. But for my entire adult Catholic life I have defined myself as a culture warrior. In my 75th year, I was facing an identity crisis!

It took me a while, but then it hit me! He is right! Sure, we are all, from our confirmation, soldiers of Christ, in a relentless spiritual battle between the two Kingdoms, and the Culture War is ALWAYS with us. But that is not primary! What is primary? Our baptismal union with Christ...the indwelling of the Holy Spirit...our communion with the holy ones...the final victory of life over death, of good over evil...our perpetual, invulnerable Peace and Joy and Love. So...yes we wage persistent, intense warfare...we do so out of a more profound serenity, confidence, restedness, fortitude, patience and hope.

What I see in Dr. D.C.Schindler (and his father and their school) is the quintessential Christian philosophical mind: wonder before the splendor, gratuity, superabundance, radiant goodness-truth-beauty of Being in all of Creation as willed by the Creator. He seems to be advocating a "politics of abundance"...that the errors, evils, dysfunctions, pathologies of our society are all so real...but pale in comparison to the raw, innate, inexorable Splendor of the Real. Such is an economics/politics/culture, not of scarcity and competition, but of super-abundance. Such a posture of trusting-grateful-hopeful-reception allows for an interior serenity, a decisive confidence, an energetic exuberance.

Such hyper-positivity flows inexorably from the Event of Jesus Christ, properly understood. From his death-rising-ascending-sending-eventual-returning surges the flaming-gentle-powerful Holy Spirit overflowing with joy-comfort-guidance-fortitude-prudence. In light of this, everything...economics, politics, culture...is transformed.

Yesterday's Magnficat profiled St.Otto of Bamberg in the early 12th century who somehow maintained good relationships with the feuding kings and popes but is particularly known for advancing the Truce of God and the Peace of God in the violence of the time. By the Truce the Church declared that certains times, feasts and seasons, were to be free from warfare. By the Peace, certain places, such as Churchs, were designated as free of violence. These strong initiatives created places of peace that allowed business, culture and society to flourish. This is the politics of abundance; the primacy of peace.

In our own time, to put flesh on this we need only consider John Paul II, the iconic cultural warrior of our age. He combated Nazism, Communism, and Cultural Liberalism with a ferocity and steadiness emanating from the deepest serentiy, calm, and confidence. He radiated joy, love and hope as he engaged with the evils and errors of our age. In a more quiet register, his partner Joseph Ratzinger did the same. These two embody the primacy, above and within the Culture War, of the Peace, Joy and Communion of the Holy Spirit.

Non-Professional, Amateur...and Proud of It!

In Magnificat Home we are entirely uncredentialed, non-certified, lacking in expertise, degrees and status. We happily provide a home for over 50 women. Many of them suffer psychiatric conditions (bi-polar, schitzophrenic, etc.) and almost all deal with serious anxiety or depression. In large part, our own residents...themselves dealing with mental illness...manage our homes, drawing on a humble wisdom that comes from suffering, poverty, family life, and faith.

We are "amateur"...a word whose root is "love"...we do it because we love it. We are "lay": ordinary, without special competence or training, not members of a status-embued elite. We are "vernacular"...treasuring the ordinary, common sense, untutored prudence, faith and church, life experience and especially the school of family/marriage/parenthood.

I myself have always ambitioned to be an amateur psychologist, servant of the poor, theologian, Church leader, catechist, cultural historian...not to mention father, friend, brother, husband, cousin and uncle. I LOVE all of the above: but have no expertise, credentials or status. Additionally, I harbor an (Ivan Illich inspired) resentment of expertise, credentials, and professional status. Over 50 years ago my mentor Illich taught me that our technocracy of specialization, "science", expertise, regulation, and bureaucracy has largely paralyzed us in the exercise of our own agency in caring for ourselves and each other. So yes, I am passionately "amateur" and viscerally anti-professional! I try to follow Mother Theresa and Dorothy Day and do not trust careerists.

At the beginning of our work at Magnficat Home one of our founding fathers, a dear friend and generous soul, himself an accomplished pharmacist, argued that we would need certified mental health professionals to screen our residents. This for me was a life-or-death issue that struck at our very identity: NO! We are amateur, lay, vernacular and we will draw upon our own experience and wisdom. More recently a successful social worker, who is also a Catholic married deacon, told me frankly that I was myself crazy for gathering such a group of unstable, dysfunctional people into homes without licensed professionals. I listened quietly and realized how completely he is blinded in his professionalism to our charism and work. Just this past weekend a resident had gone off her meds, was hearing voices, and decompensated to a state of mental incompetence. A friend of our home, a volunteer with a doctorate in psychology who visits and has a good relationship with this woman, came in generously to see if she coud persuade her to get back on her meds. The effort failed. But then her (over)valued professionalism kicked in: she insisted that the woman was not safe in our home without a professional presence. Well we called the Crisis Unit who brought her to the hospital to get her back on track. Three cheers, of course, for the psychiatric professional who intervened! But I enjoyed a frank exchange with our doctorate friend: I was offended by her negative evaluation of our home, and she herself was less than thrilled when I told her I valued her kind heart and generous friendship but not so much her "expertise" and her low estimation of our vernacular, humble wisdom.

To be clear: I am not an absolute Luddite. Our homes have flourished largely through the generosity of family/friends who freely provide services involving law, psychology, accounting, architecture, finance, and other. Our number one rule is that our residents comply with doctor's directions. I work happily, every day, with social workers, counselors, psychiatrists. My daughter is a doctor in psychology; another an MSW in social work. I number about ten mental health professionals among my nephews/nieces. I am proud of all of them. And yet, I insist upon the primacy of common sense, ordinary prudence, and the wisdom of tradition, faith and life experience.

More than anything I despise the cult of "safetyism" that surrounds expertise, science and technology. Covid has occassioned a crippling hysteria and a desperate dependence upon "science" for safety. I have come to hate the word "safe" and "safety." In one local parish (where they currently require masks at daily mass), the pastor ends the liturgy with the exhortation "Be Safe." I must supress the urge to jump up and shout "No! I cannot live safely, defensively, in fear! I will be fearless, reckless, and not-safe! I will roll the dice! I will live freely!"

Someone said: "The safest place to be is in God's will. If God wants you in the middle of the battle with bullets whizzing by your ears, that is the safest spot for you!" THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!

Prepare a Place Where Love May Dwell: Sister Joan Noreen R.I.P.

Sister Joan Noreen had a stroke while praying before the Eucharist...a fitting finale! We attended her funeral Saturday in Birdsboro Pa. It was a warm, lively affair: filled with her large Italian-Irish family and members of Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist, the lay Catholic community she founded. Formerly a religious sister, she left her order to live as a consecrated virgin and give herself over to her charism and community. What she offered was nothing innovative, but a simple synthesis of classic Catholic life as centered in the Eucharist, devotion to Mary, simplicity of life and prayer. For almost a decade, Sister Joan has been our spiritual mentor. (Who will succeed her?) We especially appreciated the practice we learned from her of praying the Liturgy of the Hours as a couple. Recently, during this dreary winter (humid, cloudy, gloomy), not to mention the Covid blues, the ongoing catastrophes of American politics and the Catholic Church under Pope Francis, I find myself bouyed daily, with sober joy, as we pray the psalms and hear the readings with the Church in her ever-refreshing liturgical rythyms. She was a holy woman with a precious gift of distilling the spiritual teachings of the Church (eg. St. Elizabeth of the Trinity) for us. She had very good taste in bringing in male teachers (Fr. Francis Martin, Father Pio) for retreats to balance her own pronouncedly feminine style. She was So inspiring! She was a stong-willed woman. I enjoyed locking horns with her from time to time. She taught always with authority...like the apostles, like Kiko in the Neocatechumenl Way or Ralph Martin in the charismatic renewal. What she said was not to be discussed or disputed, but accepted docilely. But my argumentative nature would break the spell of docility. Early in the pontificate of Francis she insisted sternly on unquestioning reverence; I dissented, advocating loyal, respectful opposition. She gave me a stern penance: to daily read one of his homilies. Complying docilely, I found him to be a creative, gifted homilist; something of a mystic. But I could never adjust to his theological incoherence. I never got a chance to see if her views changed. I questioned why she had us fasting on Thursday when Catholics traditionally fast on Friday and Wednesday; I was skeptical about the 10-minute period after reception of Communion when she insisted Christ remained present sacramentally in the yet undigested host; I did not agree that the Church teaches clearly and always that we are to pray TO the souls in purgatory.

Her brother spoke with striking elegance of her family background: modest ethnics, rich in beauty, taste, faith and love. He stressed: everything she did was done with intensity, attention, diligence and as a welcoming of God's presence. He described the granola she hand-made for him one Christmas: the toasted almonds, crisp cocunut, dry fruit, choise raisins...I could taste it in my mouth as I almost squealed with delight in the glory of all God's creation! I will never again be so cavalier about granola in all its splendour!

"Prepare a place for Love to dwell" was the phrase he spoke that I cannot forget. This was her life: absolutely her prayer life but also her meticulous, detailed work and all her relationships. She "prepared a place for Love to dwell." This short phrase has been resonating in my mind ever since.

It is for us to prepare this place, that it may welcome Love...Love as Person, from above. The "place" must be, of course...serene, beautiful, simple, welcoming, quiet, reverent. The "place" is first of all our own soul, heart, intellect. But it is also everything concrete that we do: our work, relationships, physical place, conversations, reading, demeanor and manner.

And so, when we are so prepared, we welcome this Guest: Love. The very person of Love: Jesus and his Holy Spirit. It is not that we ourselves activate our own powers of love, but that we receive this presence from on high; we allow it to flow in and through us; and touch others.

Sister Joan herself zealously, digilently prepared always a place for Jesus. She has now gone to the "place" prepared for her by Jesus. May we ourselves likewise prepare...in our hearts, decisions, actions, relationships, work, family...a place where Love can dwell!

Non-Judgmental: Overrated; Judging: Underrated

I have been told appreciatively that I am non-judgmental. This is, of course, a high complement in today's world. I cherish the remark as it sometimes comes with a recognition of my strong moral judgements, as expressed in this blog. My ideal is to love people and hate the false, the evil, the ugly (as I judge them). I sometimes decline the complement, as given, and respond: "Actually, I am extremely judgmental; especially of you. My judgement of you is fierce, clear, definite: you are true, good, beautiful, intelligent, inspiring, charming, fun."

We are all of us judging all the time: what is good and bad, what is hopeful, what is advisable, what is dangerous. All judgments! All are fraught with feelings of various sorts but are intellectual decisions. As human beings it is our dignity, created in God's image, to judge and decide, to use our intellect and will, to pursue the good and renounce the evil. We absolutely must be judgmental, all the time."To know you is to love you" the old song goes. To love and to know or judge are not opposites, as like/dislike, but infuse each other: I value, cherish, care for, revere, and even desire you, not just in feeling, but because I see and know and judge your goodness.

Frank Furedi, in "The Diseasing of Judgment" (First Things, January 2021) chronicles how modernity has elevated "nonjudgmental" to be the highest value, strikingly so in education, psychology and child-rearing, and poisoned standard concepts (judgment, authority, an objective moral order) as sources of pathological authoritarianism. It is the triumph of the sentimental as feelings, cut off from the real, the moral, the interior form. It is the idolazation of the Imperial Isolated Self in his sacrosanct "self-esteem." It is moral emotivism; epistemological agnosticism; spiritual nihilism.

Our life project: to deepen, clarify, intensify our judgments. Perhaps the most striking blessing of aging is this gradual, steady growth in judgment of the real, the true, the good, the beautiful.

Among the greatest judgments I have accepted is what I received from the 12-step-program of AA in midlife: it is good for me to work my own inventory, not that of others; to sweep my own sidewalk, not the one across the street. This is itself, obviously, a judgement. It is not that I do not judge others, but I do so in a specific spirit: aware of my own failings and God's mercy; eager to be gracious to them; purposefully focusing on their strengths and goodness; taking delight in all that is admirable, lovely, inspiring; and exercising mercy to what is weak, needy and miserable. This is, clearly, not really nonjudgmental, but solidly, deeply judgmental, in tune with God's truthful, merciful judgments of me.

The Emasculating Narrative of Victimhood

I can think of nothing worse to tell a developing young man than this: "You are a victim! You are weak and powerless before hostile forces that wound and control you. I pity you. You are pathetic." That is a lie straight from hell. It leaves the young man discouraged, emasculated, resentful, and weak. It is a self-fulling prophesy. It is the narrative underlying both the LGBTQ and the BLM mythologies.

This is not to deny the realities of racism and homophobia. Both are real. Both can be systematic (deliberate, organized) and systemic (pervasive in an less conscious and deliberate manner). Both need to be renounced. Both are part of an aggressive Dark Kingdom with which we are engaged perpetually in combat. But neither deserves to be inflated into a monotonous monstosity that deprives our youth of their dignity and agency.

The LGBTQ myth is that the homosexual is born with attractions that are entirely wholesome and that a vicious social homophobia has shamed him into a "denial of who he really is." He is, then, an innocent who is viciously despised and wounded by a society and Church that is systemically if not entirely deliberately hateful and destructive. He is victim. His deliverance is in claiming his victimhood; acknowledging his inclination as wholesome and unproblematic; and defying hostile homophobia. If the Christian is the sinner who acknowledges his sin; the Gay is the homosexual who claims his victimization and proclaims the moral goodness of his sexual activity.

The BLM view misconstrues "black" as oppressed and "white" as oppressor. With broad brush it informs the young man: you are feeble and without agency before hostile powers; all authority (father) figures across society intend your harm and are never to be trusted; in this hostile world you will lack the resources, competence and energy to prevail as a good man, husband, father; you are right to shrivel with discouragement and despair and rage with indignation and stew in resentment. This is the worst possible falsehood for a young man to accept.

It is astounding that the Church has been so passive, tolerant, compliant with these ideologies and has failed to uveil them for the monstrocities they are.

In 1998 John Paul II stood in the scorching sun for several hours as Fidel Castro harrangued thousands about how they were victims of Yanqui imperialism, colonialism, militarism, yada yada yada. When given the microphone, John Paul spoke for two minutes. His message: "You are not victims. You are protagonists of your own personal and social histories."

That's what I'm talking about!