A Conservative at the New York Encounter

I LOVE the New York Encounter. It is a highlight in my year. I was there yesterday; the theme is "This Urge for Truth." . In cold, dreary February you walk into mid-Manhattan's Metropolitan Pavilion and find it aflame with positive energy: tons of young adults...intelligent, wholesome, attractive, enthusiastic in their Catholic faith. We see our daughter who is so active in Communion and Liberation, sponsor of the event, her friends and our own family members. It presents a fresh, lively, contemporary and very cool expression of our faith. Inspiring presentations and exhibits highlight works of mercy and hope as well as cultural, artisitic and literary endeavors. A 21st Century Catholic Renaissance! I am especially eager that my children and grandchildren participate. I am a believer...but, like all things human it is less than perfect. So I offer the following scrutiny.

It presents as a rest from the Culture War; it succeeds, but only partially. A common theme is the critique of ideology as rigidity, demonization of the opponent, refusal to listen and dialogue. It embodies this...partially. In the broader, non-pejorative sense "ideology"...an underlying network of assumptions, beliefs, values either explicit or assumed...is a human inevitability. It is best to recognize our ideology at work. The NY Encounter has a pronounced liberal attitude.

This is mostly a good thing. In NY city, it reaches out to communicate with the young, idealistic, progressive. It is unrestrained positivity and immensely attractive to the secular, urban, educated young. This is marvelous. It succeeds so because it avoids elements of our faith that would be dissonant for sophisticated NYC. As such it is intolerant of conservative Catholic intuitions which I myself treasure. This is not entirely bad; but it is best that we recognize a certain intolerance, a soft cancelation of aspects of Reality.

Last year I was thrilled to give a short presentation on Magnificat Home. It was well received as it is very much in the spirit of the Encounter as a work of mercy. Prior to my panel was one on race relations. The participants were inspiring: fervent Afro-American Christians...intelligent, appealing, rock solid in Christ-like values. They shared troubling experiences of racism. They agreed about the persistence of systematic racism. I do not share that judgment. It is unlikely that my views would be voiced, by for example a prominent black conservative, in that conference. It is effectively canceled as intolerable. Systematic racism is assumed and cannot be discussed.

Several years ago we listened to glowing praises of the Pontificate of Francis from our Apostolic Nuncio (understandably!) and hagiographer Austen Ivereigh. That is fine. But it is unthinkable that a respectful critic (say Ross Douthat) be heard or the concerns of the Latin Mass community be voiced.

This year the main event was a congenial conversation between David Brooks and Francis Collins. They are good friends; think highly of each other; agree about covid and the vacines. To his credit, Brooks admitted that the anti-vax movement flows from distrust by the underclass of his type...educated, powerful, affluent, liberal elites. They agreed about the dangers of polarization, tribalism, refusal to listen to the opponent and the need for epistemic humility.

But Collins' views were troubling: a pure rendition of the liberal narrative around covid. He grieved the hundreds of thousands who died due to refusal of the vaccine. He seemed to attribute this failure to a disinformation campaign of the right and the gullibility of the under-educated. He was blissfully satisfied with the NIH he headed; his friend and colleague Tony Fauci; and his happy reconciliation of an evangelical faith with the highest level of science. I found him to be very impressive in his scientific intelligence and his sincere Christianity. But his version was entirely unbalanced by the alternate narrative which was implicitly dismissed as at best ignorant and at worst homicidal. In place of the love fest of friends, I would love to have heard him questioned combatively by a professional journalist (Chris Wallace) or an worthy opponent (Reno, Douthat, Vance).

Collins was the rock-star, the celebrity, the hero of the event. But there are serious problems with his ethical views from a Catholic perspective.

- He supports legal abortion, for example of Downs Syndrome embryos. He funds embryonic stem cell research. He encourages the problematic implanation of human cells into animals.

- At the outbreak of the pandemic when prominent scientests noted the probability that the virus was engineered he colluded with Fauci and the entire establishment to repress this concept. It was CANCELLED as conspiracy theory. Now the alternate evolution and animal market theory of the Chinese is seen as highly improbable. He needs to explain this as he heralds the objectivity of science.

- In the middle of the Covid, Fall of 2020, thousands of scientists signed the Great Barrington Declaration which argued that covid policy should protect the elderly/vulnerable and open the society for the young and healthy, especially the schools. The Collins/Fauci power grid crushed that discussion. In retrospect, many of us agree with those dissident scientests. Okay: Collins and Fauci made a defensible, prudential decision. But cant't we at least argue about it? Not only in the Fall of 2020 but in February 2022 at the NY Encounter?...not likely! I would love to have heard one of those scientests challenge Collins in debate.

- In tune with the conference theme "This Urge for Truth" it would have been good to hear from Collins whether the NIH deliberately or unintentionally funded gain of function research at the Wuhan Lab!

Ironically, outside the conference doors, in the freezng cold, a handful of anti-vax demonstrators were distributing literature. I read it: it raises good questions. It would be good if those could have been directly addressed inside the conference doors.

To be fair: if I attended a conference of a conservative group (First Things, EWTN, Crisis, The Catholic Thing) I would surely detect a corresponding rightwing bias, an imbalance, a failure to hear the other side. But they would not have been so self-consciously open-minded, dialogic, and non-ideological. (Personal aside: Is there any conference where I would be happy in a balanced, integral Catholicism? Yes, two: a Catholic Charismatic Conference and a Communio Conference at the John Paul Institute in Washington DC.)

At an enjoyable family dinner after the event we processed all the good things of the day. I dared not voice my reservations expressed above. It would have been dissonant, disagreeable. I am thrilled that my grandchidren were there to benefit from all the good things. I can only hope they also get to hear other aspects of "this urge for the truth."

Disordered Masculinity

If masculinity is gentle strength, then the defects in it will regard first strength and then gentleness. So, my observation is that defective, disordered, toxic virility takes these forms:

1.  Weakness.  The opposite of virility, fortitude, energy, nobility, heroism...is to be feeble, impotent, indecisive, timid, sterile, defensive and fearful. To become a strong man, a boy needs an itinerary of formation in which he competes, achieves, fails, cooperates and is mentored, disciplined, and above all encouraged. Above all encouraged! A developing boy needs to be strengthened within himself by the  affirmation of his mentors and peers. Our culture, over the last 50 years, has systematically and viciously dismantled all such rituals of passage. So, we are suffering a pandemic of enfeebled men: it is not really their fault.

2.  Violence.  On the other extreme, the testosterone-fueled energy and brute strength of many men...when not mentored, ordered, directed...can explode viciously, violating those around, especially women, children and the weak. And so, we see the abuse of women, particularly, in many ways all over the world.

3.  Lust. Lust is completely different from wholesome sexual desire and attraction, which has about it a tenderness, a reverence, a courtesy, and a nobility. Lust makes the other an object to be misused. Lust is a regression into infantile compulsions about escape, comfort, enclosure. Lust is emasculating and degrading. Lust, since the sexual revolution 50 years ago, has exploded in a pandemic of porn addiction and is rarely mentioned in education, media or even Church.

4.  Disgust for Femininity.  The developing adolescent psyche is competitive, analytic, abstract, isolated, logical, deductive, distanced, hierarchical, binary and aggressive.  By strongest contrast, the female psyche is cooperative, synthetic, embodied, relational, intuitive, inductive, compassionate, democratic, inclusive, and receptive. In the best case scenario, the young man, already well loved by mother and sisters, befriends the young woman; falls in love; comes to cherish and admire her; and to value her way which perfectly completes and complements his own. But, in this imperfect world, the immature, insecure male brain (even of those in their 70s and 80s) is singularly unprepared to understand and cherish the female brain. He will see her as weak, illogical, overly emotional, and indecisive. He will even despise her, in her very femininity.

When we combine any of these four, we have a poisonous cocktail: a man, weak within, who vents his anger on the femininity he despises even as he objectifies her for his own pleasure. This is the cool aid that has been served up by the Cultural Revolution, that has been devoured by Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Roger Aisles and so many others.  It is a sad story!

Holiness is NOT Wholeness

EVERYTHING HAS A CRACK IN IT; THATS HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN. L. Cohen

"Holiness is Wholeness," by German, Jungian priest Josef Goldbrunner, when I read it circa 1968, engaged my fascination with the interplay of psychology, healing and the faith. I found it compelling as it applied Jungian depth pschology to spirituality and pschological health. But the simple identification of the two troubled me, although at the time I couldn't say why. Now, after 55 years of considering their relationship I am certain: holiness is not wholeness! Wholeness is not holiness!

Holiness is closeness to God, in Christ. With such intimacy we become like our Lover. We receive and radiate God's holiness. But this does not always make us whole. Indeed, the norm seems to be that God loves us in our very brokeness, fragmantation and pathology...and strangely often leaves us in that condition. Indeed, persistent trust, serenity and acceptance in that very un-wholeness is a trademark of holiness. Holiness flows from an intimacy in relationship with God, but does not flow inevitably or necessarily into a healing of our psychic pathologies. Yes holiness tends to healing of the heart and intellect, but that flow is not automatic, inevitable or necessary.

Wholeness indicates an emotional-psychological condition that is integral, vital, energetic, positive and healthy. A person could be physically disabled but emotionally whole; likewise one could be emotionally whole but spiritually indifferent to God. Soloviev in his classic portrayal of the Anti-Christ describes him as integrated, wholesome, gifted, generous, charming...pacifist, ecumenist, vegetarian, diplomat, scholar. He is the epitome of wholeness...except for his covert hatred of God. He exemplifies the "unholy wholesome."

Theologically we might agree that as we are created to love and be loved by God, any wholeness that does not open up to the Divine is at best shallow and vulnerable if it is not covertly hostile to God and deeply pathological. Clearly, as holiness moves us into wholeness so will genuine wholeness move us into holiness as the two flow from and move into all the Goodness of trust, receptivity, gratitude, generosity, serenity, sobriety, wisdom and all the virtues. Nevertheless in real life we find holiness often camouflaged under pathology and the unholy disguised by apparent wholeness.

Three examples of pathological saints.

St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, canonized by John Paul as a martyr in 2000, died in his drug addiction. An esteemed physician, father of a large family and active Catholic, he became addicted to pain meds taken during a sickness. He became the classic homeless, pathological addict: he could not kick the compulsion. He was imprisoned because of his faith and went happily to a martyr's death...still in his addiction! He is proof positive that unwholeness can coexist with deep holiness! How many of our homeless, imprisioned and hospitalized are hiding their holiness? Amazing!

Some fifty years ago, my friend/co-teacher Sister Martha Joyce told me that earlier she had cared for an older sister of charity who was in an almost permanent psychotic state, entirely out of touch with reality. But every day, just after dinner, she would emerge for a few minutes into reality. She would smile serenely, and radiate a boundless, mysterious radiance of Joy. Martha was convinced she was a saint. I believed her. I have always cherished that image of holiness!

A trickier, more ambiguous case: Brennan Manning, a favorite of mine. I found his writings to be very inspirational in the 1970s as he was a popular charismatic writer and preacher. He left the Franciscans, the priesthood and the Church to marry. But his alcoholism never left him. It ruined his marriage. It eventually killed him. But he maintained a fervent ministry even in his alcoholism. His relentless message: God loves us as we are! He believed it. But he couldn't beat the habit. In later years he would preach (to Evangelicals) for three days in California, but before flying to a similar event in Boston, he would find a hotel and binge drink for three days. I was happy to learn he was buried with a Catholic funeral in St. Rose, Belmar NJ. His Catholicism, whatever his lifestyle, was indelible. In my view, so was his holiness, however foul, dirtied and unwholesome.

At the moment I was reading Goldbrunner, my generation, and Western Society en masse, was undergoing the catastrophic slide from Christianity into Culture Liberalism. It could be understood as the pivot from holiness to wholeness! It is the triumph of the therapeutic! The decision for personal fulfillment, satisfaction, indulgence and narcicissm! The flight from objectivity into subjectivity! The loathing of law, tradition, authority, paternity! The craving for the motherly as unconditional acceptance and approval! The denial of sin but the desperation to be freed from shame! The flight from suffering, sacrifice, powerlessness as holiness into safety, comfort, security, and "wholeness."

As I write this, I consider the women I have known over the last dozen years in our Magnificat homes: their intractable anxiety, sadness, compulsions, lethargy, passivity. But underneath that: a deep, quiet faith. A capacity for compassion. A humility. It would take a Flannery O'Connor to describe this miraculous holiness so disguised by unwholeness!

Are the Unvaccinated Morons?

My friend thinks so. I disagree. After an impressive career in pharmacy his trust in and loyalty to the medical-pharmaceutial-bio-technical mega-establishment is fierce. He identified the issue: "They think they know more than Faui!" Precisely: they do not TRUST the entire universe of institutions epitomized by the doctor...public health, media, electoral system, the political parties. TRUST!

To allow your body to be pierced by a needle is an act of trust. Intelligent trust. (Disclosure: I myself am strongly pro-vaccine for myself but fiercely anti-mandate as I will not impose my evaluation on the body of another.) Suspicion of this vaccine is not irrational or moronic, but intelligent. Consider the following.

- Our long history of releasing medical treatments which are later withdrawn as they are found to be toxic and even fatal.

- This vaccine was rushed through research so that we will not know for years with any certainty the harmful side effects.

- Blacks are more prone to refuse the vaccine, for valid historic reasons, not for defective intelligence.

- With the omicron the science is clear: the vaccine greatly decreases the severity of the illness, but does not prevent reception and passing on of the virus. The non-vaxed hurt themselves, not others. The indignant, moralistic accusation of "you are selfish because you endanger the vulnerable" was applicable to earlier variants but not the current one.

- Regarding the origin of the virus: with time the probability of a natural evolution has decreased and the lab theory has become almost certain. We now know that in early 2020 many prominent scientists argued that it must have been engineered. That view was cancelled, repressed in Orwellian fashion, by the Fauci network, media, the internet and the powers that be. This was done in the most unscientific fashion, in imitation of their Chinese friends, for the most unscientific of reasons. These include: they themselves were financing dangerous and morally-suspect "gain of function" research with the Wuhan lab, fear that science be perceived in its Frankesteinian dimension, hatred of Trump who was advocating the lab theory, and fear of jeopardizing the immense funding, power and status of the gargantuan network of foundations, grants, journals and organizations.

- "Follow the science" is the sacred mantra. But the science about this baffling virus has been entirely uncertain, tentative and confusing. Decisions, many of them defensible, had to be made and were made for prudential reasons. They were NOT scientific. Many were hysterical. Johns Hopkins just released a study of studies that determined that the improvement in mortality due to all the lockdowns was .2%. Amost nothing! Clearly the cure (with consequent mental health, social, economic consequences) is worse than the sickness.

- Public health decisions are always guided by moral and political judgements. Fauci closed down our Churches but gave a pass to the BLM demonstrations. The secular, leftist bias of the public health field was clearly unveiled.The unvaxed have every reason to be suspicious!

Consider Fauci, "high priest of science," with his blatant secular, leftist biases, as he declared that those critical of him are "anti-science." The self-delusion, the hypocricy, the arrogance, the condescension...breathtaking! His sophisticated moral decadence far surpasses the crude, infantile egotism of a Donald Trump!

Recently, a resident from our Magnificat Home passed away. She had not left our building in over two years since she couldn't get down the stairs. Diabetic, arthritic, hypertense, obese, depressed, often vicious...she stayed in her room except to eat. Her diet was terrible. She used a commode in her room...against regulations! She desperately wanted to stay in our home even as she needed nursing care. I finally got her to the doctor but she couldn't get down the stairs at the doctor's office so went in the ambulance to the hospital. About a week later she got covid; later (from bed sores?) she developed a staff infection which killed her. Iatrogenesis: harm done by a medical intervention. This is well known. But Ivan Illich 50 years ago identified a deeper, broader, more insidious Cultural Iatrogenesis: a dependency upon high technology to the degree that we lose our own ability to heal, to live wholesomely, to suffer and die with dignity. The covid reaponse has been cultural iatrogensis on steroids: the hysteria, the defensiveness, the shut downs, the closing of the Churches and the schools, the abuse of our children, the mandates!

The anti-vax reaction, the anti-madate protests by truck drivers in Canada...all of this is an act of resistance to the Orwellian totalitarianism of the emergent techno-bio-medical-state order imposed by a liberal elite that is secular, highly educated, affluent, techno-idolatrous, careerist, state-ist, dismissive of the moral order, hostile to the powerless-innocent, and contemptuous of traditions around family, gender, sexuality. It is a resistance by the unvaxxed, the deplorables, the Trumpians, the poor in status and finances, the underclass, the reactionaires. It is not entirely coherent or articulate; it is not uncontaminated by crude impulses. I disagree with them on many levels. But they are my kind of people. I love them. They are NOT morons!

Postscript: The vaccination of the young (under 30) is, in my view, unneccesary (they are largely immune) and imprudent (we don't know the long-term consequences.) I see that my grandchidren, even the little ones and those who had the covid, are being vaccinated. It is a parental decision and I do not offer my view (except in this blog which hardly any of them read LOL!). What do I know? I am just a cave man! I get it: they are forced into it: junior cannot go to track practice if not vaxxed. It is coercion. But it is also that they are swept along by irresistable social currents...mimetic, herd-like hysteria, peer pressure, and gullible adulation of (often unscientific) "science." As a father, I may not have adequately immunized my own children against pervasive bourgeois pressures and assumptions. Of my seven children and their six spouses six are (or had been) in education, three in psychology/social services, and two in medicine. (Outliers: a lawyer and a businessman.) They are all successful professionals and I am immensely proud of them. But they are products of their education, their profession and their work world. They are (like all of us) brainwashed into unquestioned assumptions. Of course they could not function fruitfully without being compliant. But my hope is that they retain a distance, a resentment, a reserve about the coercion and manipulation into imprudent behavior. Early in my own happy career in UPS supervision a priest warned me: "Do not sell your soul to the company." I threw myself into my work but always retained an interior reserve, an awareness of the inhumanity intrinsic to a profit-driven, meritocratic, hyper-efficient, techno-manic order. Similar dysfunctions are operative in medicine and education! I hope my offspring similarly retain an intelligent and balanced moral ambivalence, an interior freedom by virtue of an awareness of the coercive forces with which they may nevertheless decide to comply.

Martin Luther King : The Culmination and Consummation of Our Post-War Christian Revival

The standard narrative sees Martin Luther King as the heroic protagonist against the vile Southern racism of Bull Connor and George Wallace. That is correct of course. But I suggest that a broader, deeper, truer understanding of his role in history emerges if we see him additionally as an expression of, even the summit of, the remarkable religious revival our culture underwent after the war. It does not diminish his personal courage and greatness to see him in the context of larger, communal currents.

I would place him shoulder to shoulder with Billy Graham, Fulton Sheen, John F. Kennedy, Jackie Robinson, Harry Belafonte, Thomas Merton, Walter Reuther...and an army of priest/rabbis, academics, polticians, entertainers, union leaders, athletes and ordinary folk that flowed forward with a renewed sense of God's providence in bringing us out of the Depression and War and into prosperity, ecumenism, confidence, unity in the face of communism, as well as a heightened sense of human solidarity and care for the marginalized.

Coming out of the war, Afro-Americans continued to face vicious racism in the South, but on the whole they made immense strides even prior to the Civil Rights movment: average income increased, the family structure was largely secure and improving, inroads were made in all elements of society. The shared trauma of depression and war as well as the renewed vitality of Christianity left our society with a sense of unity between Catholic/Protestant, black/white, Christian/Jew, company/union. The presidency of Eisenhower, a war hero, presented a moderation, a gentleness that united us. Capital/labor enjoyed a growing cordiality as they shared the spoils of a magnificent economy. A spirit of magnanimity moved us into generous aid to Europe and then to the developing world and later a war on poverty.

There was NO CULTURE WAR! Nothing like the relentless, defining, omnipresent, melodramatic Culture War that exploded after 1965! THE WAR was the Cold War: the global contest with atheistic communism that united all of us. There were, of course, cultural skirmishes; but these were intramural level as far as intensity and depth: a marginal counterculture of the bohemian and beat; an extremism of the right embodied by McCarthy and Goldwater; a congenial contest between capital and labor in apportioning the expanding pie of prosperity; and the standard liberal/conservative divide over an expansive-vs-limited state.

The fiercest culture war was specifically civil rights. The impassioned resistance of the historic white racism of the South was, however, easily overwhelmed by the emergent anti-racist consensus that permeated all elite sectors by 1965. Because of this extraordinary unanimity, the victory of King's crusade was virtually absolute going into the 1970s: systemic and sytematic anti-racism replaced its contrary, notwithstanding residues of resistance. Those structures (systematic) and assumptions (systemic) remained stable and intensified over the last 50 years but have also become exaggerated and perverted into CRT and BLM.

What is obvious, however, in retrospect,is that the Antagonist of the Catholic-and-Jew-Friendly Protestant hegemony was quietly, secretly building its resources in key sectors of entertainment, academics, leftwing politics, law, and circles of privilege/affluence. Cultural Liberalism, effectively repressed and restrained by euphoric culture of Christian revival, was prepared to explode violently in 1965 when the corrupting influence of prosperity/affluence had softened and vitiated the moral core of society.

The Great Generation, taking the reins of society in the mid-1960s, was singularly unprepared to confront the sexual-cultural revolution. Their children, us boomers...pampered, narcissistic, entitled... were all too eager to surrender to sexual license, the triumph of the therapeutic, and rejection of authority/tradition on behalf of the Imperial Self.

Tragically, Martin Luther King, iconic of the best of his age, was also emblematic of the worst of the age emerging: his infidelity, sexual compulsiveness and unrecognized misogyny carried within it the coming historical era. His behavior, if reports are accurate, was more abusive of women than his "spiritual brothers" Kennedy, Clinton and Trump. But the Me-Too movement dare not engage him because it embraces sexual liberation which itself is alligned with (now exaggerated) anti-racism. The later...resentful, self-pitying, emasculated, violent...is itself the contradiction of MLK in his Gospel-inspired non-violence, confidence, serenity, courage and virility.

Recently I have taken to the fourth commandment ("Honor Thy Mother and Father") by thanking and praising my own Mom and Dad and their generation for all the love and goodness they showered on us in those years after the War. The goodness in which we abide is largely gifted us from them. The evil flows from our own narcicissm, arrogance, righteousness... and rejection of much that was best in that era.

The mass readings this week have dealt with Solomon. How wise he was, at his best! How tragic his lapse into idolatry because of his weakness for women! How much like his father David in his splendor and his decadence! May we...descendents of the two ancient kings and the more recent King...surrender to what is best in their legacy and renounce what is worst!

Postscript: A similar historical narrative needs to be developed for other developments in the post-war period such as Catholicism and feminism. The Vatican Council is best understood, not as a break with the past, but as a culmination of the marvelous currents that were flowing through the 50s: ecumenism, liturgical reform, biblical studies, resourcement theology, personalism, social justice, and an evangelical re-centering on the person of Jesus Christ. The Catholic spirit in which I was raised was already actually the "spirit of Vatican II" as reflected in its actual documents.

Likewise in regard to femininsm. A common narrative has woman as the oppressed class througout the 50s. My recall of the women of my childhood: happy, confident, co-partnering with their husbands, delighted with their children, grateful to be out of a depression and a war. A number women remained single as some men didn't return from the war. I don't remember them as being careerist, envious of male status, or downcast; but as faith-filled, generous, affectionate and full of life. That generation of fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles adored our generation of women and infused in them the confidence, serenity and energy to make the advances for women in the following decade. Again...what is best of our time flows out of the best of their time, our childhood. We do well to give honor and thanks!

Evangelicalism at War

I was saddened by David Brooks' account (NY Times,Feb. 4, 2022) of the flaming war within the Evangelical Churches. As recently married Catholics in 1973, we threw ourselves into the Charismatic Renewal and thereby became overnight evangelical and pentecostal. Ever since I have been deeply aware of our shared love for Jesus Christ, his salvific act, and his indefectable Word. Additionally, Evangelicals have been our strongest allies in the half-decade Culture War. Discord in Evangelicalism is a wound in the heart of the Church (understood broadly) and a deep sorrow.

I was surprised by what Brooks identified as the three causes of conflict: Trump, race relations, and the handling of sex scandals involving leadership. No mention of abortion, the defining moral issue of our age! No mention of sexuality/gender, the primary polarizing item for us Catholics!

I found myself grateful as a Catholic that, notwithstanding polarization and conflict, our acrimony has not reached the level described by Brooks. I wondered that in the face of fierce political and theological disagreement, there remains a level of serenity. I asked myself why this is.

It occurred to me: while politics is very important to many of us and theology itself is fundamentally constitutive of our identity (and an obsession of mine), neither are the most important things. More important for Catholic identity are: our sacramental life, the life of prayer and contemplation, the love we share with those close to us, our concern for the poor and suffering (including the unborn), and our unity under the hierarchy.

To be clear, the three polarizing realities identified by Brooks are not so much theological as political, moral, prudential. Disagreement over Trump, race and sex scandals is troubling for our Church, but relatively speaking that discord is weaker than what unites us. As a Catholic, I myself have strong convictions about these three issues but none of them is a hill on which I would want to die. What hill would I die upon? The hill of innocent human life, the hill of sexuality/gender as sacral-sacramental gifts...these are at the heart of our faith and I will gladly die on these hills. But let us consider what unites us as Catholics.

1. Our sacramental life is our unity. When we gather at Eucharist, baptism or any of the sacraments we share a unity that transcends political differences: we are Democrats and Republicans, anarchists and power elites, Trumpians and Bidenites...but none of that matters for that one hour mass. It is not unknown but rare and clearly taboo for a priest at mass to endorse or condemn, say, Donald Trump. A powerful Catholic intuition allows us to put aside politics to join together in Christ. This realization that politics is important but not everything is a wholesome, salutary thing: nothing is as nauseating in "woke" culture than the imperialistic invasion of political ideology into every shared sphere of human life from football to the academy awards! Athletics, entertainment, research, and journalism are all themselves analogically "sacraments of unity" that need to retain a certain autonomy and immunity to politicization as they heal and absorb the wounds and traumas of political/cultural conflict.

2. Prayer and contemplation are a rest, a liberation, a recreation, a sabbatical from the combat of politics. Evangelicals, descended from the Reformers, largely lost the traditions of medieval monasticism and are poorer for it. A person of prayer will be able to prudently situate her politics in the scheme of things and avoid inflating ideology into idolatry. Related to this: a devotion to Mary also helps to soften and qualify the tendency of politics to become shrill, indignant, suspicious and enraged.

3. The love we share, as family and friends, is also deeper and stronger than differences in policy and principle. Even those of us with the fiercest convictions are able to relativize them and temporarily put them aside in favor of the tenderness, affection, reverence and loyalty we have for each other.

4. Care for the poor and suffering is another powerful unifer. While broader policy positions of how to address such suffering is a source of disagreement, more concrete actions of mercy are unifying. In my own family we found that our sometimes impassioned political differences seemed to fade when we set to work on Magnificat Home, our residence for low-income women. We are all together in this. As a matter of fact, while I am firmly on the conservative side of things, I would guess that a rather large majority of our supporters are quite liberal. But that discussion never comes up. It has its place, but it is not everything.

5. Lastly, the apostolic authority of our hierarchy is a source of unity and serenity. The Catholic Church has been buffeted with far worse sexual scandals than the Evangelicals. But the divisiveness is less. We are actually united, liberal and conservative, in our disgust with the abuse of young men by ordained priests. The proposed solution to it divides us: is the ordination of married and women priests the answer? Or a revival of classic sexual chastity? These issues of sexuality and gender strike at the heart of Catholic identity and are far more significant than the passing phenomena of Trump, race and recent sex scandals.

The objectivity of the hierarchy is helpful. Lacking this, Evangelical churches are more vulnerable to personality cults. This is why the scandals are so destructive for those communities. By contrast we Catholics are loyalty to the office of priest-bishop-pope regardless of the moral character of the individuals. We are hardly immune to cults of personality: Francis and John Paul both elicited such personal loyalty. And intensive renewal movements are often founded by charismatic individuals including a diablolical character such as Fr. Maciel. But McCarrick is probably more typical: brilliant, energetic, charming, good with money...he manipulated and climbed the clerical power structure to the very top. But his downfall was not heart-breaking for any of us like that of, say, Jim and Tammy Baker.

Part of what our hierarchy has offered us, over the last century, is a remarkable body of social teaching. Brooks mentioned that the Evangelicals lack such. It addresses modernity clearly; it draws upon the moral law; and does so with a level of abstraction that allows a flexibility and variety in prudential judgment so that rigid ideology is avoided. It allows us, for example, in the case that a pope should wander beyond moral law into prudential judgments (on, say, global warming, national boundaries or capital punishment) to respectfully but confidently and peacefully develop a contrary policy opinion while maintaining unity in faith and morals, in our sacramental communion, in obedience to authority.

Pope Francis is examplary of this centripetal pull of the hierarchy. He is fiercely polarizing in his actions and words, but by virtue of his petrine office he unifies us. I count myself among his fiercest critics, yet I am not anti-Francis for four reasons: First, he is our shepherd, our spiritual father, the vicar of Christ...whatever his personal shortcomings. Secondly, in his homilies he manifests a profound, passionate, personal love of Jesus Christ. Thirdly, he is exemplary in his care for the poor and suffering. Lastly, he has a fundamental (if erratic and convoluted) allegiance to the Church and her traditions (in a creative if confused fashion.)

As we surrender ourselves gratefully into Deep Catholic Peace/Unity, let us pray for our Evangelical brethern:

Come Holy Spirit of Unity, of Love, of Truth! Come and heal the divisions among the Evangelicals!! Come and heal the Divisions between the Churches; Come and Heal the Divisions among us Catholics! Come and Fill us with Joy, Hope and Peace!