I Don't Evangelize

Attraction, not Promotion.  AA Approach

In the sense of articulating our faith with the intention of convincing others...I don't bother. I don't even do the "new evangelization."

You would think, if anyone, I would evangelize:  I am a conservative, evangelical, charismatic, OLME-promising (Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist), John-Paul-emulating, neo-catechumenal-influenced, ex-Maryknoll-seminarian, Communion-and-Liberation-accompanying, 12-stepping, Communio-reading, Trad-friendly, Catholic-Worker-admiring, confirmation-teaching Catholic. With that rich stew bubbling in my Catholic gut I should be preaching like Peter and Paul. But I am not! Why not? Several reasons:

1. One's deepest beliefs, values, longings, passions are opaque, mysterious and almost entirely invulnerable to rational argument. It is futile to try to reason someone into the Faith.

2. Worse than futile, it is counterproductive. The effort to convince  provokes resistance, defensiveness and resentment. For that reason the word "proselytize" has a negative meaning. We can do more harm than good even with the best of intentions.

3. Our faith is so precious and lovely that it can only be shared in an ambience of openness, freedom, trust, joy and beauty.  A strenuous, muscular, deliberate initiative is entirely inappropriate and even a little sacrilegious. The faintest hint of pressure, ulterior motive or calculation is toxic.  Jesus himself told us not to "throw pearls to swine." The point here is the exquisite worth of the pearls and their proper context and framing.

4. The relationship of God with each human soul is inexpressibly precious, intimate, delicate, and reverent. This is a sacred place where we dare not venture. Faith is always a gift, a personal gesture extended by God to this specific soul in a most unique, tender, creative manner. We keep a reverent distance. We pray.

5. The charism of leading others, individually or in the assembly, into intimacy with Christ is a very special one. I don't seem to have it. It is rare in my Catholic world where there is a shyness, a reticence about the faith that is not without humility and reverence.

Clearly what I am renouncing here is the intention to change the heart and soul of another. I cannot do that. I should not do that. I let God do that.

What I love to do, however, is to echo: to resound, acknowledge, praise, reflect, mimic, mirror, magnify and celebrate the Greatness of God in all that is Good-True-Beautiful in his world, our history, and  my life. Such is entirely spontaneous, serendipitous, organic, almost instinctive. It is the opposite of a calculation to effect a person or the society. 

For example: if I wake up to smell that the air is fresh, fragrant, breezy, dry, sunny, and entirely pleasant, I may impulsively exclaim "What a beautiful day." But, if my wife is in a bad mood, or mad at me, or always cranky in the morning, or hoping for rain for her garden...I will not try to make she see the loveliness of the day. I will restrain myself. I will wait. If later she comments, than I will join with her in the jubilation.

Our word "catechize" comes from a Greek root meaning "to resound or echo." So, I love to think of myself catechizing: echoing or resounding the Voice of Christ within the Church and the works of God in Creation and history. I see, hear, receive...and then I respond, emulate, proclaim, exult. I do this with others, always aware of their receptivity and sensitivity. If this is the truer meaning of Evangelize, than i do Evangelize!

My role models: Elizabeth Leseur, Charles De Focault, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Theresa of Liseux...all of turn-of-the-twentieth-century France.

Elizabeth Leseur shared a passionate, tender affection with  her militantly atheistic husband. As her entire social circle was secular and hostile to the Faith, she practiced her religion quietly, even anonymously. She never preached or argued.  People loved to visit and talk with her so attentive, compassionate and affectionate was she. In her memoir she recorded her love for Christ and her immense grief that she could not share it with her spouse. After her death, husband Felix read the diary and underwent a profound conversion. He became a priest and spent the remainder of a long life advancing the legacy of his wife who is now on the path to canonization.

Charles was an indulgent, pampered millionaire; then a daring soldier in North Africa; then a brilliant, fearless explorer of a Sahara unknown to Europeans; and finally a passionate mystic. Emulating the hidden life of Nazareth he eventually buried himself in the middle of the Sahara to live a humble, quiet life of adoration of the Eucharist and service to his neighbors. He was murdered in the desert: unknown, hidden, apparently a failure. Later his writings were found and have had immense influence in generating religious orders and lay movements including that of Kiko Arguello.

The Carmelite mystics Theresa and Elizabeth lived cloistered, hidden lives. Theresa ambitioned to be a missionary but the closest she got was her tender, touching correspondence with a tortured, priest missionary. Both lived sterling lives of prayer and holiness and mysteriously have influenced the entire Church.

Genuine evangelization is, then, not a program, an intention, an activism. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, hidden and mysterious, in the human soul. It happens invisibly, miraculously in the ambience of prayer and holiness. It is that quiet of holiness and prayer that we are called to cultivate, in ourselves and our shared life.

Holy, Humble, Hidden Ones...Elizabeth, Charles, Elizabeth, Therese...Pray for us! Influence us! Help us to quietly radiate the love of Christ in a world darkened by sin and disbelief!

Best Movie Priests

What I am looking for here is a strong performance, within a quality movie, that captures some dimension of the Mystery of the Catholic priesthood. 

The Best

Hands down the standout is the Xavier Barden character in Into the Wonder. Himself deep in the dark night of the soul, he radiates light and comfort to others, like a Mother Theresa of Calcutta. Terrence Malik must be himself something of a closet Catholic mystic so powerfully does he communicate the spiritual anguish, in voice-overs, of the agony of God's absence. Barden's performance is mesmerizing, happily balancing the poignant, sad, ravishing loveliness of the Olga Kurylenko figure. Ben Affleck brings his customary persona to a new depth of despondency and discouragement. The short, discreet adultery scene is the most penetrating, piercing dramatization of the sadness of infidelity: I felt like I was observing my own mother/wife/sister/daughter in the illicit act.

First Team: 

I Confess is a favorite of mine: a thriller by the Catholic Hitchcock, it gets everything right about the Church, the priesthood and specifically the seal of confession. Montgomery Cliff is superb and probably the most attractive priest ever. He returns from World War I with a deep call to the priesthood to become engaged in a murder mystery involving his old lover. At every level it satisfies!

Keys of the Kingdom has the incomparable Gregory Peck as a humble missionary priest in China, persevering in the face of apparent failure. It reminds me of the Maryknoll love for China. It is a parable of Catholic life as quiet, joyful, generous service even with no apparent success.

Romero 1989 has a spectacular Raul Julia as the iconic Archbishop, martyred at the altar in El Salvador. It seems to be true to the real story. A scene of desecration of the Eucharist is unforgettable.

The Mission gives us the tragic story of the failed Jesuit settlements in South America with a dazzling DeNiro as a slave trader, convert and religious brother. Jeremy Irons holds his own, however, as a heroic, virile Jesuit as he faces the raging slaver in prison and elicits confession and conversion. That one confession scene may be the greatest single priest event in movie history.

Monsignor Quiote. the last performance of Alec Guinness, surely on any short list of the greatest English-speaking actors ever, captures the eccentric, delightful cleric from the Graham Greene classic.

Doubt has us square in the heart of the Church of the priest sex scandal with Meryl Streep (the greatest American actress ever!) facing an astonishingly convincing Philip Hoffman Seymour pastor whom she suspects of child abuse. Both are so persuasive that the viewer is left suspended in an unbearable condition of...doubt!

On the Waterfront, in my view THE great American movie, has Karl Malden as the tough, fearless, manly, working-man's waterfront priest defying the mob on the docks of Hudson County NJ (where I have lived my adult life) and mentoring Marlon Brando's unforgettable Terry Malloy. His character is based on the actual Jesuit priest who worked the docks. His fierce, righteous anger from the hull of the ship is a classic.

Black Robe returns us to the historic Catholic missions, in this case rugged, frigid Canada and the French priests who faced torture and death to bring the faith there. Unsettling and inspiring: the strength and fortitude of these men. The movie is realistic, unsentimental and well-made.

Second Team

The Scarlet and the Black1983  has Gregory Peck back as a similarly noble priest, the historic Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty who worked underground to rescue Jews in World War II Italy. It is a real thriller. Peck effortlessly portrays virile, priestly heroism at its best.

True Confessions 1981 is a neo-noir set in 1950s L.A. with Robert Duvall and Robert DeNiro as brothers: one a detective, the other an esteemed monsignor. It realistically shows the dark side of the prosperous post-war Church with its underside of compromise and corruption. This is not inspiring. But it is mesmerizing entertainment and Duvall/DeNiro do not disappoint.

Into Great Silence 2005 is an outlier, a documentary of the monastic life of the Carthusian Grande Chartreuse in the Alps. There is no narrative. The monks are anonymous but interviewed and their faces memorable. It majestically suggests the mystical depth of the life. It  is itself an experience of prayer.

Of God's and Men 2010 Is another documentary about the monastic life, this the Cistercians of Algeria who were martyred in the Algerian civil war of 1996. In the build up to the violence the men know their destiny and discuss it candidly, revealing strength and fragility in their fears, difficulties, hesitancies. They are SO human as they face, in an ambience of love and prayer, their violent death.

Sentimental Favorites 

Feel good movies that capture the optimism of the mid-20th-century American Church include: Bing Crosby in The Bells of St. Mary's and Going My Way; Ward Bond in The Quiet Man (ecumenically balanced by Barry Fitzgerald as the Protestant minister), Pat O'Brien in Angels with Dirty Faces,  and Spencer Tracey in Boys Town.

Movies I Haven't Seen But Need To

Alec Guinness in The Detective and The Prisoner, The Assis Underground, Shoes of the Fisherman, The Cardinal, Monsignor Vincent, Diary of a Country Priest,  the film version of Greene's The Kingdom of the Glory, Father Stu, Padre Pio (coming out in Sept; star Shia LaBeouf converted to Catholicism preparing for the role).

Priest Movies I Won't See

Silence: dark and nihilistic. The Thornbirds and movies about infidelity to the vow of chastity. Most movies about the demonic although I did like Max von Sydow in The Exorcist.

Best Netflix Priest

Father Beocca, warrior Saxon priest friend of Utrid Son of Utrid in The Last Kingdom. Shia LaBeouf

Why Doesn't Someone Make a Movie About:

Charles de Focault? Matthew Ricci? Miguel Pro?

Dear Reader! What do you think? Have I missed any? Over or underrated any?

 

Boundaries, Order, Structure: the Liberal and the Conservative Mind

One of the things I like best about the classic Italian Mafia (at least as we see it in the movies) is the sense of boundaries, of order, of distinct realms of life. If you betray them, they will break your legs and kill you, but they would never think of bothering your family, your wife and kids. That is a different, sacred area. They play hard in their arena, but they implicitly know that their business is not all that counts in life: there is time for family, faith, friendship...set apart from their work.

It is a characteristic of the masculine and the conservative mind to distinguish arenas of life: to keep certain things separate. This can go to an extreme with men (but never women) who live double or hidden lives. But in general it is a good thing. Magic Johnson and Isaiah Thomas would compete ferociously on the court, but then drink and laugh together later. Justices Scalia and Ginsburg were opponents in a different Court but cultivated a rich friendship outside of work. The epitome of this was Grant and Lee at Appomattox: after years of bloody conflict, the group of generals, old friends from West Point, greeted each other with dignity and calm. Grant graciously allowed the Confederate soldiers to keep their horses for the farming; Lee exhorted his men to return home to plant and renounce guerilla warfare. The war was over and there was an almost miraculous return to civility and respect.

Unfortunately the liberal/progressive mind, has no such sense. Theirs is an emotionalism that knows no boundaries or structure. Their feelings, often of compassion and kindness, are unrestrained by paternal intuitions of order, authority, tradition or law. When Alito was being vetted for the Supreme Court in 2003, Senator Ted Kennedy indignantly pressured him about what he would do for the poor, the neglected, the problem of racial inequality. Alito calmly responded that that would not be his job as justice: that he would apply the Constitution and legal legacy to specific laws. Kennedy almost exploded with righteous rage. It was the paradigmatic contrast between the sober, conservative, judicial, masculine mind and the raging, unhinged emotive, activist liberal mind.

The progressive mind knows no boundaries: we are forced to listen to their politics at football games, at the academy awards, at Thanksgiving dinner, and even sometimes at Church. At its worst, as with the Trump Derangement Syndrome, there is an incapacity for maintaining friendship or family bonds with those who vote for Trump

This depravity has reached a new intensity with the pro-abortion protests at the homes of the conservative Supreme Court justices. Here we see a shameless demonstration of self-righteous contempt for foundational structures of our society: the legal system and the family.

There is a law against pressuring and protesting justices to effect their decision. The judiciary has a sacred status as an impartial, non-partisan protector of the rule of law. It is a human institution and far from infallible. But we surround it with a certain reverence and trust its capacity to interpret the law with some degree of freedom from personal and political bias. Protesting at their homes is a flagrant, criminal violation of a precious boundary. The failure of the Biden/Garland DOJ to protect these families and uphold the law is nauseatingly vile.

Additionally, it disrespects the family, something no self-respecting made-man or mafia-don would consider. The well-being of humanity rests upon the family: the fidelity of spouses, paternal/maternal care and protection, filial trust and obedience. The conservative mind respects this. The progressive or liberal mind disparages the family and elevates the autonomous Self to a position of eminence. The rights and privileges of the Self trump everything else. So it is fitting that abortion crusaders would target...families. Not enough to pressure the judges. They are uninhibited in punishing spouses, children and in violating the sacred peace and privacy of the home. 

How are we to respond to this sacrilege? First of all, aware of the mimetic attraction of violence, we must be vigilant not to emulate this unbounded emotivism. Even if we despise the Biden administration as much as progressives hate Trump, we cannot let this toxin  spill over into other arenas of life. For the conservative, politics is important; it is not everything.

So I am motivated to strengthen my own sense of boundaries. To protect my family life, friendships, Church life, and a host of engagements from being poisoned by partisan resentment. Living in a blue area (Jersey City) of a blue state and a mostly-blue family, I find myself with a dual challenge. On the one hand I passionately hold to my moral/political convictions. On the other hand I need to keep them within some control to nourish treasured relationships with family and friends. This is not an easy task.

My Catholic faith is a huge help here. What matters most to me? Not my politics! Not even my family. What matters most is my relationship with Jesus 'Christ. That is everything! And that in turn infuses everything else with a lightness, a loveliness, a strength. With that I am immunized against resentment and indignation. With that I can treasure all that is Good-True-Beautiful in all the different arenas of life, even with my political opponents.

    

The Sentimentality of Cultural/Political/Theological Liberalism

Sentiment is taken as a synonym for feeling/emotion and sentimentalism as an excess of emotion. That cannot be so. What is "an excess of emotion?" How much joy is too much? How much grief? Sentiment is a specific type of feeling: it is artificial, contrived; it is detached from reality. It is not a genuine encounter with the Real, but a subjective indulgence. It is a kind of saccharine fantasy, similar to pornography, a counterfeit version of the real thing.

In most forms it is often entertaining and harmless enough. Classic Disney movies are sentimental: the critters that befriend Cinderella and the pots-and-pans that assist Belle. In the 1950s we loved to watch Lassie, the collie who was heroic, wise, affectionate...and entirely sentimental. The inordinate love of pets is sentimental, a transference of (largely maternal) affection by lonely ones in a world of fractured families and communities. 

But if sentimentality reaches beyond the domain of childhood entertainment and penetrates a politics, a culture and a religion, you have a problem. It is toxic when it masquerades as idealism, ethics, and piety.

The cultural liberalism of post-1965, along with its political and theological cousins, is best understood as a form of sentimentalism. It is a denial of the Real...the real world as sinful, evil and fallen. It is a feel-good, pollyanna fantasy that "I'm okay and you're okay!" That we are good people. That some of us need therapy. That we need to take power from the arrogant, privileged, wealthy, misogynist, homophobic, racist. conservative white men and everything will be okay.

In 1965, in the aftermath of Vatican II, Catholic practice of confession of sin virtually disappeared. There occurred a nearly total loss of the sense of evil and sin. Much of this is due to the prosperity, affluence, safety and indulgence that the Great Generation, relieved of the Depression and War, splurged on the Boomers, the pampered generation.

Liberalism is, then, an effete, soft, non-virile ethos. It is a kind of a contagion, that spreads culturally, largely anonymously, undermining the classic Christian view of life, by presenting a counterfeit as more kind, enlightened, welcoming, affirming. It specifically undermines masculine virtues of chastity, courage, humility and sobriety. It depletes virility of its integrity and energy by a faux-androgynous-sterile feminism that itself mimics toxic masculinity at its worst.

We would be better off to engage straightforward evil as in Nazism, Communism, and Jihadism. These are transparently evil, but at least they are not sentimental, they deal with evil, they are manly, they engage with the actual structure of a violent, vicious world. Liberalism is like the Commodus character portrayed by Joachim Phoenix in Gladiator. Maximus, played by Russel Crowe, deserved a stronger antagonist. Commodus is effeminate, incestuous towards his sister, cowardly, duplicitous and nauseatingly despicable. Liberalism would have us all become Maximus, unchaste and unmanly.

Let's consider the sentimentalism of liberalism in regard to: racism, homosexuality, and the death penalty.

Black Lives Matter

In the aftermath of George Floyd's death, a flood of anti-racist sentimentality submerged the country. He became an icon of holy innocence, of victimhood, of political purity. The police became the Gestapo. Public protest, in the midst of a pandemic that had required social distancing, became virtuous and violence against small businesses and government became acceptable. An explosion of crime happened in our cities and violated mostly the poor, especially blacks. 

This sentimentality presented the Afro-American, especially the black man, as victim, as powerless, as castrated. The white cop as predator, dominant, invincible. It deepened the crisis of masculinity and  paternity within the black community. It encouraged an ethos of victimhood, helplessness, resentment, discouragement, frailty, dependence and entitlement. It polarized the nation: setting poor white against poor black.

I spend my days in the black neighborhoods of Jersey City: I saw no support for this movement. People I know are busy working, surviving, raising families, practicing their faith. Support was seen mostly in the signs posted in affluent, suburban, liberal neighborhoods, by our successful, bourgeois elite who are entirely quarantined from real poverty, violence, and hardship. It does not spring from an actual, concrete, face-to-face encounter with those who suffer injustice. Virtue signaling! A kind of a purification ritual practiced by those who subconsciously are guilty about their unfair privilege and are desperate for relief. 

Homosexuality

 To the saccharine liberal imagination gay love is a lovely thing: monogamous, faithful, adoptive of children, sexually liberated, welcoming and affirming. No psychosis or delusion was ever so comforting, pleasant and fallacious!

Just start with the biological, the empirical. Monkeypox is now considered a societal emergency. 98% of the cases stem from male-to-male sexual intercourse. We don't need vaccines! We need all active homosexuals to abstain for one month. The epidemic will disappear. During that month, no one will die of the abstinence, the hospitals will not be overrun with abstainers. Everyone will be better off, especially the homosexuals. Fauci and the CDC would NEVER suggest such a thing! It would hurt feelings! It would be shaming! It would be homophobic!

That is not the only organic evidence of pathology and disorder. Gay Bowel Syndrome is the degeneration of the muscles/bone of the anus due to repeated penetration of an area not prepared for such. It is a direct result of the unnatural act of sodomy. Biological realities such as these must be viscerally denied by the sentimentality of liberalism. 

What distinguishes the Gay Movement of the 1970s from the previous history of homosexuality is the indulgence, narcissism, and histrionic indignation characteristic of the broader liberal, Boomer generation. No "life and let live" or "don't ask, don't tell" will suffice! The righteous, raging demand is for attention, approval, and "pride": parades, rainbows, month-long celebrations.

Cultural and religious liberalism gushes with sentimentality for the LGBTQ agenda. "All are welcome here"banners hang on Church doors. These, like the BLM lawn signs, are another self-deceiving absolution for the bourgeois conscience awash in cohabitation, pornography, adultery, and a laundry list of disorders. 

Capital Punishment

The repugnance for the death penalty is not the fruit of contemplation of suffering/evil in light of the Crucifixion. It is a sentiment of disgust, a sense of human dignity, from a viewpoint that is secular and forgetful of deep evil. The sentimental naivete includes:

-A confidence that modern prisons are able to provide protection from predators. In the real world prisons are often rife with violence: most men fear prison because they will be raped; gangs operate even across the nation; even guards are sometimes not safe.

-Deterrence is dismissed out of hand. Yet, we know of cases where criminals decided against murder because of the death penalty. Let's assume that a state like Texas executes 10 annually. If we found that between 5 and 15 murders, rapes or child molestations were deterred, would the tradeoff be worth it? I would think so!

-Retribution is misunderstood as revenge and not even considered. The two are polar opposites: the one a form of hatred and resentment; the other an act of justice, sober and truthful. There are crimes that deserve death. Imagine Putin were tried after this war. Does he deserve, in justice, death? I think so. Imagine a gang that serially molests, tortures and kills innocent women and children! Do they deserve, not in resentment but in justice, death? I think so. We will all face retribution at death: some in heaven, some in hell, many in purgatory. But the sentimental, insipid liberal imagination has a romanticized mercy, devoid of wrath/justice/truth, welcoming everyone into heaven. I don't think so!

-There are predators so dangerous they cannot be left in the general prison population. They must be secluded. But solitary confinement is itself a form of emotional torture for many. Might it not be more merciful to put such out of their agony with a swift execution? It is worth considering.

Conclusion

Cultural liberalism, like Maximus, is not a worthy antagonist. It is saccharine, effete, feeble, unchaste. It is sentimental. It has permeated the elite levels of our society. It is even widely influential in our Church. How do we engage it? We do not. 

We do well to disengage. We do well to engage with the real Christ... in his manly, harsh, sober, heroic, steadfast, chaste, just, realistic, truthful love.  

 

Inherently Evil Actions: Letter 10 to My Teen Grandchildren

Catholic morality is clear and definite:  there are certain acts that are inherently, always and everywhere, of their very nature, evil. And can NEVER be done, whatever the intentions or circumstances.

Actions Not Inherently Evil.  You may be surprised by the actions that are NOT inherently evil, but can be good, depending upon the circumstances, consequences and intention. Stealing can be good: if you take from the rich to feed the hungry, like a Robin Hood. Lying can be good: if you tell the Gestapo there are no Jews hiding in your attic but there really are. Cutting off an arm can be good: if a surgeon does it to save a life. Killing (but not the innocent) can be good: if necessary to protect life as in war, police work and (yes!) the death penalty. 

Inherently Evil Actions fall mostly under two categories: violence against the innocent and sexuality/new life. Both uphold the sacredness of human life: at its origin and conclusion.

Violence against, especially killing of, the innocent can never be right. This applies to abortion and  to war. For example, the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima was wrong by Catholic standards because innocent people were directly, intentionally massacred. The justification for Truman's decision was, of course, that the alternative was worse: to end the war without the Bomb would probably have required an invasion of Japan that would have resulted in more deaths, of our soldiers and the Japanese themselves. This calculus of consequences makes sense; but not for a Catholic! We simply cannot target innocents! We cannot participate in the act...Ever!

This same absolute prohibition applies to suicide, euthanasia, torture and others.

Sexuality, which touches life at its origin rather than its conclusion, is similarly endowed with reverence and prohibitions. It is the locus of the creation of a new soul; the deepest expression of the person; and a communion of unparalleled intimacy. It belongs to spousal union, only. Outside of that sacred, protected space, all sexual engagement is always disordered: adultery, fornication, prostitution, pornography, masturbation, homosexuality, pedophilia, polygamy/polyandry and other.

This moral clarity serves a Catholic well: we know with certainty that certain acts cannot even be considered. We live in an ordered, predictable, and intelligent, moral universe. We do not make the rules, but we obey them in filial trust, reverence and loyalty.

(Clarification: in such moral discussion we are condemning the action as evil, not the actor. We know that only God knows the human heart and can judge there. Human actions are normally clouded by ignorance, confusion, and passions of anxiety, anger and desire. Our principle is always: "Hate the sin, Love the sinner.")

Double Effect  is the principle that allows the performance of actions that are not inherently evil but have bad consequences in order to achieve good consequences but only if: the good consequence does not flow directly from the bad; and the good consequence, but not the bad, is intended. Examples: A surgeon amputates an infected leg to save a life. The goal is to save the life; the severed limb is an unintended but accepted consequence. A pregnant woman has cancer of the uterus that will kill her and the baby. The surgeon may remove the growth, even if it has the unintended consequence of destroying the embryo, to save the mother's life. In warfare and police work deadly force is used to protect the innocent. The target must be the aggressor, not innocents and civilians. This allows that the use of such force can result in collateral, or unintended, dying of innocent bystanders; but that cannot be clearly intended or anticipated. 

Relativism is the moral approach that rejects the idea of absolutes, of clear moral principles, of a firm and intelligible natural order. Rather, it is up to the individual to calculate the probable consequences of alternate actions and decide which is best. So, for the relativist, in some circumstances, a nuclear attack,  torture of a terrorist, or premarital sex might be the good decision if the intentions are proper. Even within the Church this fashion is spreading.

Case Studies  How would a Catholic, unlike a relativist, decide the following?

A chaste, young virgin is desired by a lustful, powerful, billionaire psychopath. He tells her: If you will indulge me, I will give $1,000,000,000 to help the poor and homeless. If you will not have me, I will use that same $1,000,000,000 to kill and torture innocent people. He means it! He is a real psycho! Should she consider it?

A strong Russian army is crossing a bridge into a major city to destroy it and many of its residents.  Ukrainian guerillas are set to blow up the bridge, destroy the Russians, save the city and its inhabitants. But then they see there is a 5-year-old girl skipping on the bridge. If they detonate, she will be killed. But it will save countless lives. May they detonate? What if it was a 75-year-old grandfather skipping?

The CIA are certain that a nuclear bomb is set to explode within six hours in NYC. They have a key terrorist in custody. He is unbreakable except...he loves his 12-year-old daughter who is also in custody. If they torture her, he will likely give the information. This may save millions. Should they do so?

 A doctor's friend is suffering a painful, terminal disease and severe depression. He requests aid in committing euthanasia. Death is inevitable anyway. May he cause a "mercy killing?"

Same scenario: the friend is suffering pain. The doctor treats the pain with heavy morphine. This hastens the death, but the death was not the intention. Is this a good act by virtue of the double effect?

How about the death penalty? Is that a matter of prudential action on the part of government allowed when necessary to protect life, as the Church has taught for thousands of years? Or is it now not allowed, as Pope Francis stated in his change to the Catechism? Has Church teaching changed? Was the Church wrong all these years? If you favor or implement the death penalty are you now a bad Catholic, just since a few years ago? That is a huge topic for another day!

If you like this game, I have other cases also. Isn't this fun?

  

The Foundation of Social Justice: Chastity and Fidelity. Letter Nine to my Teen Grandchildren

You, my teenage grandchildren, are interested in politics and social justice. That is very good; so am I. I offer you here a viewpoint you will not get in fashionable politics of the left or the right. 

Social justice flows from its more foundational analogue: personal justice. Justice is one of the four cardinal or "hinge" virtues. (The other three: fortitude, temperance, prudence.) Justice is the habit of giving to each what is his due; it is the inclination to do the right thing. A just life also requires fortitude, prudence and temperance. Personal justice is the basis of and source of social justice.  In this essay we will relate sexual temperance or chastity to social justice. This connection is entirely ignored in normal political science and politics.

Consider the patriarch Joseph of ancient Egypt. He became known for his wisdom, especially in interpreting dreams, and so was elevated by the Pharoh to a position of vast influence from which he did works of mercy and justice, especially providing food for the starving, including his own family, during a famine. Prior to that, however, he showed his purity of heart in resisting the seduction by the Pharoh's wife who falsely accused him and had him unjustly thrown in prison. We see here that the peace and plenty enjoyed by Egypt and its neighbors at this time was rooted in the prudence and purity of Joseph. That is how social justice works. 

The iconic Just Man is his namesake: St. Joseph, father (moral, legal, but not by blood) of Jesus and real husband of Mary. He is chaste. He provides for and protects mother and child. He is silent. He is obedient. He provides order, peace, safety, provision, encouragement and instruction for the growing child. He is the epitome of justice and social justice both.

The stability of the family, and especially the chastity and fidelity of the father, is the very first building block of a society that is just, peaceful, solid. The primary root of violence, injustice, abuse, disorder, poverty: lust and infidelity by men who father children and then neglect, abuse or abandon them. 

The root cause of abortion: men who indulge in sex and then refuse to care for mother/and/child and pressure for abortion. Abortion is a crime against child and mother BOTH. The primary culprit: the man. Abortion is a necessity for men who want to indulge in sexual intercourse but refuse to take responsibility for the fruit of the engagement. It is matricide/infanticide by the toxic, unchaste male.

The Me-Too Movement properly defended women against abusive men, but it did not go deep enough. It did not advocate chastity, on the part of men and women, as the deeper source of reverence and safety. It remained entangled within a radical feminism that impelled women to imitate the worst of masculine indecency and then supported abortion as the backup protection required by that behavior.

Chastity on the part of women is crucial because women exercise so much influence on men. They are often not aware of this, but women exercise greater personal influence than do men: upon children, but also upon men. This is largely an unconscious dynamic. When in college, one of my daughters was spoken of by men friends:  "We would never do anything not wholesome with her. Because she is good." The dignity, purity and inner integrity of a good woman has an inspiring influence on men, even when they may not be so conscious of it or be able to articulate it.

Dolores Hart was a beautiful Hollywood actress, compared to Grace Kelly, who costarred with Elvis Presley at the age of 18. At the age of 23 she left the celebrity life to become a cloistered nun. She has been faithful to that life, is now about 85 years old, and still votes in the Academy Awards. She spoke of Elvis as an "innocent." She recalls that he behaved like a gentleman with her, gentle and respectful. He would approach her and want to talk about the meaning of Bible verses. She is proof that beauty and goodness in a woman exercise an irresistible charm and inspiration upon a man.

The basis for a just and peaceful society is marriage and family, fidelity, purity of heart.  The building block of society is not the individual, but the family. It is libertarianism and really liberalism that isolates the autonomous Self as the center of the world. This is a philosophical disaster. Each of us is born of a specific mother and father, already imbedded in a network of relationships which come to define us. In a primal, foundational way each of us is daughter/son, brother/sister, cousin, etc. Our identity is bound together with our web of relationships. 

Some history: I was blessed to be born in the post-war era, 1947, as the men returning from war were welcomed by women so happy to have them home safe. The Depression and War were over. It was a good time to work hard, make money, raise big families, and practice our faith. The economy was booming: blacks also benefited and Puerto Ricans were flowing into NYC and other urban areas. This peaked by 1965: Civil Rights Movement triumphant, Vatican II bringing a euphoria to the Church, Peace Movement, and an explosive economy. All good news!

Lurking in the shadows, however, was a moral/social catastrophe about to explode after 1965: The Sexual and Cultural Revolution. The word "diabolical" means "demonic" but etymologically means "to tear apart." What happened in the Cultural Revolution was an invasion from the depths of hell: a "perfect storm" of the diabolical. The linchpin was the perfection of the birth control pill: artificial contraception. This tore sexuality away from marriage, family and fruitfulness and isolated it as an expression of personal or mutual satisfaction. Secondly, it deconstructed masculinity/femininity and set male against female in a militant feminism that mimicked a toxic masculinity of promiscuity and careerism. This effected a crisis in masculinity as purity, fidelity and paternity as well as an assault on genuine femininity.  Thirdly, it implemented a genocide of the unborn as abortion became necessary as backup contraception. Lastly, it tore the Church away from tradition, authority and holiness and replaced this with a trust in technology, science and social engineering as a path to happiness. Accompanying this revolution was the destruction of the family and the supportive network of communities...Church, neighborhood, small associations and businesses...and the isolation of the individual in a world dominated by BIG business and BIG government. It is my view that "small is beautiful" (title of a great book) and BIG is BAD!

A case in point: the tragic story of Martin Luther King. A brilliant, courageous, heroic and historic leader of the Civil Rights Movement he was, in his private life, unfaithful to his wife, enslaved to sexual addictions and predatory upon women. With one arm he decisively defeated systemic racism even as he (privately) surrendered to the masculine infidelity that keeps so many women and children in poverty. The Me-Too Movement rightly defends women from predatory men but does not go far enough; it does not advocate chastity and fidelity; it engages sexual freedom, contraception, and abortion. It dare not question the legacy of King. But until the Afro-American community and our broader society honestly acknowledge the dark side of this past there will be violence, inequality and poverty across our society, among all races and ethnicities. This is not, obviously, something that can be spoken openly: it would be viciously cancelled. 

My own work with Magnificat Home has benefited from the fact that our women know I am happily married. They know my wife (your grandmother) and frequently ask for her. Our marriage, and family, make me safe and trustworthy, that I am a "big brother" to them and sometimes a father figure. If I were divorced, dating or in an unhappy, unstable marriage would I be trustworthy? 

Perform a thought experiment with me. In regard to my work: which of the following four sins would be the worst? First, I am a thief, stealing money from Magnificat Home and the residents. Second, I am an angry man, losing my temper, threatening the women and even pushing or slapping them. Third, I am a lazy drunk, often not showing up for work or coming in hungover, inattentive and incompetent. And lastly, I am a sexual predator, seducing the vulnerable women and violating them. Which is worst?

My view is that the last is by far the worst! It is a more profound, intimate violation. It defiles my own marriage and family. It destroys my own identity, mission, and my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit.

So we see again that purity of heart and fidelity to your vocation is the bedrock foundation of social justice and all works of mercy.

You may wonder to yourself: What can I do about the devastation in the Ukraine? World hunger? Gun violence in schools and cities? Global warming? And all the systems of injustice and violence?

You might answer: Not much! Maybe nothing? But that would not be true!

What you can do is: Collaborate with the mission, identity and destiny planned for you by God! Draw close to Him in an intimacy of trust and surrender. Deepen and intensify your prayer life. Cherish and protect your own purity and that of those you love. If you are attracted to someone physically and romantically, pray for him or her. Pray for your future spouse or your vocation. Receive gratefully all the blessings...faith, family, intelligence, health, friendships, etc...from God and prepare to share them generously. Rejoice and be grateful in all things!

In this dark and vicious world, you are destined and invited to slowly, patiently become a radiant source of light, warmth, comfort, peace and justice! God bless you! 

 

What Happened to the Jesuits?

What Happened?

For four hundred years, for the Tridentine-Counter-Reformation Church, the Society of Jesus was the backbone, the Jedi Council, the Navy Seals, the Knights of the Round Table, the epitome of virile heroism, fortitude, intelligence, erudition.

Think: Francis Xavier crossing southern Asia, Matthew Ricci in China, Edmund Campion and scores of British martyrs,  the marvelous reductions of South America (movie The Mission), the brilliant Robert Bellarmine, the fingerless Isaac Joques and the North American martyrs, Peter Claver (who baptized 300,000 slaves), Miguel Pro calmly facing his executioners, Claude de la Columbiere, Walter Ciszek enduring the Soviet Gulag. What group could boast a comparable litany of 20th century theological geniuses: Danielou, DeLubac, Balthasar, Lonergan, Rahner, Chardin,Courtney-Murray, Dulles and more? 

A Critical Mass

Suddenly, with Vatican II, a critical mass of the order surrendered to theological liberalism. What happened?

Arguably I am unfair to the Jesuits. Didn't the same happen to all the orders. Well, no. Not exactly. The Jesuits are different: they fell from such a height to such a depth. Their influence was unsurpassed: both for the good over four centuries and for the bad for now half a century.

The idea of critical mass is essential here. It is not that the entire order changed in this way. They remain, as individuals, mostly erudite, sophisticated, holy men. But their public image and influence...particularly through their prestigious universities...has for the last 50 years been entirely influenced by a minority of gifted, intelligent, passionate progressives. Can you name five American Jesuits who cumulatively wield the influence of  James Martin? A smaller minority of Jesuits, outliers and solitaries, have opposed this direction with equivalent passion and intelligence, in the tradition of the order. But these last have had limited influence. My own impression is that the vast majority, perhaps 80%, live quiet, dignified, pious lives of moderation without clear convictions on the contested issues (contraception, women priests, gay marriage, etc.). They have more sympathy with the progressives and therefore have quietly surrendered the order to them.  

My Love for the Jesuits

I did not get a Jesuit education growing up, but have always felt close to them. I grew up with America magazine. When I was a child, my father participated as a union leader in the St. Peter's Institute for labor relations of the Jesuits in Jersey City. Upon graduating high school I wanted to be either a Jesuit or a Maryknoll Missioner. I went with the later as my enthusiasm was more for the poor and the missions than academia. 

After college I studied theology at Woodstock Theologate, newly moved to Manhattan in 1970. There I came under the influence of renowned theologian Avery Dulles and a mystic theologian Joe Whelan. Both deeply influenced me. At the same time I taught part time at Xavier High School where my supervisor and then spiritual director was Neal Doherty, a classic Jesuit holy man. For most of my adult life I was guided spiritually by John Wrynn, also a quiet, scholarly, holy, Irish-American Jesuit. 

My own spirituality is not particularly Ignatian, but I have been greatly blessed by the influence of these wise, profound men who so love our Lord and his Church. Because of this, the fall from grace of the Society of Jesus (in a critical mass) is a cause of grief.

Two Causes

I see two possible causes for this unhappy development. I am sure there are more. The first has to do with the inner structure of the Ignatian charism; the second with the immersion in elite academia just as it was turning secular and dark.

Individualism. In stark contrast to the intense communal nature of the monastic and mendicant life, the Jesuits have about them a striking individualism.  This is rooted in the core of Jesuit piety: the Spiritual Exercises. These are pronouncedly an extended encounter of the individual with the person of Jesus Christ: very isolated from any community other than the director. The director himself is very non-directive, almost "Rogerian," in that his own subjectivity diminishes in order to facilitate the individual's own discernment of the "spirits" as evident in the movements of the heart which lead to or away from Jesus himself. 

And so, when we think of the great Jesuits...Xavier, Jogues, Miguel Pro...we imagine a lonely, heroic figure, unsupported by a close community. They are self-contained, independent and autonomous, sustained by a profound inner communion with our Lord that springs from the Exercises. Traditionally the Jesuits have nourished a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, especially under the influence of St. Claude de Colombiere. 

Ironically, there is evident here a similarity to the American Evangelical cult of "Jesus and Me" piety which is of course critiqued by a more sophisticated Catholic sense of community and sacramentality.

But this Jesuit individualism has always co-existed, strangely, with a fierce commitment to the institutional Catholic Church, the sacramental economy, the papacy, the Magisterium, the academic tradition and the organizational needs of the broader Church. So what we find in the traditional Jesuit is at once a fierce individualist and a determined "organization man."

To have dinner with a community of Jesuits is an striking experience. One can hardly imagine such erudite, sophisticated, entertaining, charming, gentle, intelligent, cultured, and yet idiosyncratic individuals. There is an evident respect among them, but also a distance. They are priestly, but not clerical, preferring to wear the black and collar on the rarest occasions. They are fraternal. They feel like a group of congenial bachelors. (Disclaimer: most of the Jesuits who have befriended me are Irish-American of a specific cohort: the Quiet Generation, born before or after World War II, a little older than me,  the big brothers I never had as oldest son.) 

My son Paul, when studying at St. Peter's College in Jersey City was invited one night to dine with the Jesuits and the following night, by coincidence, with a small group of Salesian priests. He laughed at the contrast: the former had quality alcohol, excellent food, and an aura of elegance and taste. The later had cheap beer,  dinner out of cans, and a relaxed/rugged feel. He admired both. He felt more at home with the later. 

This individualism was a strength for the martyrs, missionaries, and mystics of the Tridentine Church, but became a liability, I am suggesting, in the encounter with the triumphal individualism of the new liberalism of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. The solitary Jesuit was prepared for the torture of the rack and the loneliness of the missions, but not resistant to the corrosive individualism of Cultural Liberalism. Without a strong communal rooting, the Jesuit had a weak immune reaction to the emergent and corrosive individualism of secular liberalism. 

This vulnerability was heightened by being combined with the second factor: the academy.

Immersion in an Elite Academy Gone Secular

The endpoint of Jesuit life is to "find God in all things." To find God in the world. Thus they are not sequestered in monasteries but involved with the broader society. This requires, of course, a shrewd discernment of the spirits in order to be "in the world" but "not of the world."  And so it is here that we find the crisis of the order in the 1960s. 

For 400 years the Jesuits created their own staunchly Catholic universe of academies: a world unto itself, fortifying the Catholic Church intellectually, set off from Protestant and secular higher education. But coming out of Vatican II the Church, especially the intellectuals, the "best and brightest," surrendered to an intoxicated, euphoric, open-minded (but inadequately critical) dialogue with and embrace of the best in broader society, especially the academy. It became intellectually fashionable to reject the alleged narrow, defensive, reactionary Church prior-to-1960 and celebrate the explosion of new findings, theories and speculations of Modernity. 

The problem: our best and brightest made this passionate act of Trust in Ivy League culture just as it was turning secular, atheistic and dark. The WASP civil religion that had reigned over society, including elite academia, into the post-war period was disintegrating just as the Catholic Church was surrendering herself in a blind infatuation with the elite academia. 

A good friend of mine was a scholastic and young priest in these years. He explained that he got to study theology at a fine German university because at that point in time all the really smart young Jesuits no longer wanted to go to prestigious Catholic schools in Europe but preferred Harvard/Princeton/Yale.

We see here a perfect storm gathering: the individualism of the Ignatian charism left the "best and the brightest" of the young Jesuits particularly vulnerable to the Catholic infatuation with an Academy just then turning dark.

What followed was, in retrospect, predictable. Jesuit moralists played a key role in a gathering of the Kennedy brain trust in the late 1960s that prepared the liberal Catholic acceptance of legal abortion. America magazine tracked consistently to the left both politically and theologically. Jesuit universities, especially the more prestigious, participated in the Land of Lakes Conference, and continued to renounce explicitly Catholic influence in their  uncritical mimesis of Ivy League schools.

Conclusion

Yesterday, July 31, 2022, the 500th anniversary of the conversion of Ignatius, Jesuits all over the world joined with their Superior General in rededicating themselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Let us join our prayers to theirs: that their marvelous legacy of faith and erudition be rekindled and that we may all of us draw closer to that merciful Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of his mother. 

Postscript

Conversation after posting the above pointed to other trends contributing to the trajectory of the Society of Jesus since the Council.

1. Theologically, the Transcendental Thomism of Rahner and Lonergan has been largely influential in the order, for example in the Gregorian in Rome. Those two geniuses were, like their generation, firmly grounded in the Tradition and St. Thomas. But they engineered a pivot towards German Idealism, a Kantian shift towards subjectivity of the Self as knower, as seeker of God, and away from an epistemological realism rooted in the objectivity of Creation. Already in 1968 Rahner and Lonergan both rejected Humanae Vitae and approved of contraception. Rahner's protege, Johann Metz, went on to develop a leftist political theology that influenced liberation theology and other leftist theologies. So we see that this highly abstract theory opened the door to the two primal troubling directions of post-Council Catholic liberalism: sexual liberation and leftist politics. The two are distinct but in the atmosphere of America politics they are allies. So we sense the gravitational pull as Catholics who are lukewarm about Cultural Liberalism will unfailingly vote pro-choice out of their political loyalty to the Left.

2. Over the last five decades, the Order has become increasingly more gay-friendly. This is evident in its elite universities and America magazine. It is noteworthy that in the wake of the priest sex scandal these pushed back fiercely to obscure the overt homosexual nature of the crisis: over 80% of the violations were of post-pubescent males, not so much girls and not so much children. And so they have surely become attractive to religious men who identify as "gay."  This has, of course, intensified the detachment from Catholic traditions of chastity, state of life, spousal fidelity, and celibacy.

3. Pope Francis is himself a good example of the 80% or so of Jesuits who remain confused, uncertain and undecided about the Culture War issues. In his core love for the person of Jesus, for the Church and for the poor he is Ignatian in an exemplary, outstanding manner. But his emotive aversions...against clericalism, the Latin Mass, border walls, global warming, capital punishment, populisms of the right, the Evangelical-Catholic coalition in the USA...fog and confound his thinking. About sexuality he seems at times to be progressive, other times conservative, and often indifferent, as if it doesn't matter. He has in fact NOT reversed traditional teaching on gay marriage, women priests, or contraception. But he has given encouragement and influence to culture warriors of the left, such as Martin and Paglia, so he has in fact been an enabler of cultural liberalism within the Church, if in a convoluted fashion. In this he unhappily images the broader Jesuit Society.

4. It is widely understood that the primary theological contest in the Church since the Council has been between the "Concilio" school of Rahner and the "Communio" school. In the broader Church, the later prevailed decisively throughout the dual pontificate of John Paul and Benedict who were leaders of that school. Other founders of the Communio school were brilliant, prominent Jesuits: Balthasar, DeLubac, and Danielou. We might add Avery Dulles who was not exactly a member of that school but certainly sympathetic with it orthodox, traditional-yet-innovative direction. Yet, with notable exceptions, that entire body of thought has been ignored by the bulk of Jesuits and renounced by that critical mass of progressives. This has been a momentous drama, entirely contradictory of the staunch Catholic loyalty of the Jesuits over 400 years.

5. Interestingly, our beloved Balthasar very reluctantly left the Jesuits in 1950, just before their catastrophic pivot. He was told he could not start the new Community of St. John while still in the order. He obediently did the thirty-day Exercises, as directed, and discerned a very unusual, specific call to leave and start this new endeavor with Adrienne von Speyr. He was the most Ignatian of Jesuits. He attributed his vocation to the Jesuits to a mystical intervention of Ignatius himself. His writings are full of Ignatian themes of call, obedience, discernment, etc. He directed many in the Exercises including some who joined the Society. Adrienne herself experienced mystical encounters with St. Ignatius as a child, before she knew anything about the saints. This move suggests that the charismatic Ignatius, from heaven, may have sensed the emergent individualism of his Society and proactively inspired a new direction.