Happiness is...Liberal Euphoria at Maryknoll College Seminary, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, 1965-69

For over 54 years, I have been remembering, always with joy and gratitude, this "Camelot" period of my life. So I read with interest the horror stories of  fellow conservative culture warriors, somewhat younger than myself, notably Larry Chapp and Fr. Stravinskas, about the toxic, progressive atmosphere they found in seminary in the 1970s. How different was my four year "durational event!"

To start, ours was college, not theological seminary. Our curriculum offered only small doses of theology. We studied philosophy, sociology, and English as majors.

More importantly, it was a very specific time and place and cast of characters.

Time.

When we arrived in September 1965, the seminary was a strong, vigorously functioning system, bursting with the masculine energies of young men. I took to the semi-monastic routine like a duck to water: study and reading, sensible routine of communal and personal prayer, wholesome meals, moderate portions of manual labor, recreation including sports, and a little free time. Silence was practiced from 10 PM until after morning praise. Sound sleep. Good friendships and tons of camaraderie. During our four years together there, the system fell apart. By our senior year: communal prayer was effectively optional, many did not attend, some lost their faith, a few worked and hung at a local bar, others dated, many gravitated into leftwing social activism or psychology as a religion. The class a few years behind us was openly contemptuous of all things traditional. None of this affected me: I retained my posture as a good seminarian: studying, praying, lots of reading, enjoying my friends, and holding to a very comfortable routine.

1965 was the high point, the pinnacle (and the last gasp) of the Great Post-War American Catholic Revival. Catholicism was surging with confidence and energy: thriving economy, large families, huge Catholic institutions, full acceptance into society, defended in its working class interests by unions and the Democrats. Bishop Sheen, Thomas Merton, the Kennedy family, Notre Dame football, Father Patrick Peyton and the family rosary, missionary surge into Latin America, virtual unanimity about the Cold War. Maryknoll was the epitome of this virile confidence and energy: the American Catholic missionary presence around the world. In the early 60s the Society was ordaining close to 50 priests a year. The iconic building in Ossining and the athletic fields around it were exploding with virility.

The weird thing was that we had zero contact with women for four years. But that served me well in a way. I was extremely girl shy: self-conscious and awkward with women. Later, when I re-entered a world with women I quickly discovered that I was excessively, actually insanely,  fascinated by and attracted to them. Happily, I immediately fell in love and married a princess of a woman; this mitigated the effects of my dysfunction. So it was on the whole a good thing for me to be sequestered away from women in that period of early manhood. The "latency" period of sexuality, which usually predates puberty, was in my case extended to the age of 22. I highly recommend this: the more latency the better. I have encouraged my own children to emulated this by postponing serious romance until after college. On the whole they have replicated my happy path: abstinence throughout adolescence, and then throw yourself madly into one romance with one lover.

Immediately after the Council, we were in the "eye" of a perfect storm of interacting revolutionary movements: civil rights,  antiwar movement, the defining cultural-sexual-contraceptive shift, massive change in the Church. Explosive intellectual energy, especially in Catholicism, but from all directions of the society. For one, like myself, interested in ideas-understanding-argument, it was the most exhilarating time. I consider it an immense blessing to come of age, enter early adulthood, in those specific years. I would not exchange the timing for any other! This was pre-Roe so The Culture War had not engaged; there was not yet, in politics or theology, the hard binary of conservative/progressive that emerged in the 1970s and after. One could still entertain and merge traditional, liberal and radical perspectives in creativity without interior contradiction or exterior censure. The overwhelming atmosphere was liberal, experimental, innovative, and creative without being reactive against the past. A euphoria of novelty prevailed. Immense optimism. 

Place and the Priests

The college was a spacious, pleasant, sequestered place; but what mattered was Maryknoll. This is a magnificent Society of priests, and was reaching its pinnacle of vigor as we arrived. The "Maryknoll Type" (of the post-war period) was clear: confident, virile, energetic, generous, altruistic, pragmatic, intelligent but not academic or metaphysical, largely Irish and working class, softly patriotic but zealously internationalist, obsessed with the poor and suffering, pious in a low-key and quiet mode, liberal leaning in politics and theology but practical-moderate rather than ideological. 

The Maryknoll fathers who taught and formed us were "stand up" men of fine moral caliber, common sense, modest piety, gentle virility, and intelligence. Thoroughly American, they were pragmatic rather than theoretical or academic. They had chosen a missionary life but then been chosen, for their intelligence, for graduate studies to form younger men. They were competent in their fields but not enamored of the work; most later returned to their prime vocation, missionary work. Part of the Great or Silent generation, they had about them a certain autonomy and individualism, in the tradition of Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits which them resembled in many ways. They imagined themselves in a foreign land, possibly unaccompanied, working in a new culture, in a certain solitude. Think John Wayne in The Searchers, Gary Cooper in High Noon, Gregory Peck in Keys of the Kingdom, or Marlon Brando On the Waterfront. We are dealing with the Quiet Hero, like our fathers who had returned from the War, but didn't talk about it. Emotional availability was not their strength. And so, along with immense affection, gratitude and respect, we consider two limitations.

Emotionally, they did not befriend us. The mood resembled a Prep School, with teachers distant and removed. I noted that later, after college and novitiate, theologian seminarians seemed to be finally accepted in as partners, equals and friends. There were exceptions in our college, Fr. John Bergwall, an extraordinary man who suffered severe multiple sclerosis, was cared for and befriended by a number of our class.  Celebrity-Priest-Psychologist-Author (later laicized and married) Eugene Kennedy was an influence on many of us, including those who became psychologists. I was alone, as far as I know, in my visceral distaste for him (even in my most liberal days I was instinctively a culture warrior.) And so, as I look back over the years, I feel a missed opportunity: as 18-22 year old males, we were unconsciously eager for closeness to strong men. We did not get that. I personally  was fortunate to be befriended and mentored by our lay librarian, Pat Williams, who wonderfully "elected" me as family friend and protege. That for me was a singular blessing in my early manhood!

Secondly, our priests were devoted to their task but were not intellectuals in the sense of being infatuated with with ideas, theories and argument. They seemed to be largely oblivious to the colossal cultural argument and revolution exploding around us in those years. Therefore, there was go real guidance or protection in the chaos, confusion, and invasion by cultural liberalism. For example, I was myself mesmerized in my last two years by Ivan Illich and his blistering critique of the missionary effort in Latin America as a kind of toxic, cultural imperialism. This was, of course, a direct assault on the very purpose of Maryknoll. He was at the time quite controversial. I do not recall any priest engaging him, affirming what was helpful and identifying what was imbalanced in his argument. We were left to ourselves to sift through the barrage of new ideas, especially from psychology and politics. The result is that most of us succumbed, in varying degrees, to the "Spirit of the Time" and swallowed the cool aid of progressive theology, politics, and therapy-as-salvation. In this, Maryknoll and specifically our instructors were emblematic of an American Church and the Great Generation who had no answer for the Cultural Revolution.

Spirituality

In regard to prayer life, the culture there was at best steady and low key; at worst, monotonous and uninspired. There was energy the first two years around the changes in the Church: informal liturgies and guitar music; ecumenism; spontaneous prayer; attention to Scripture; and other. I remember a traditional custom at the time of walking around the building, after supper, and praying the rosary together in groups of 2 or 3. That is a fond memory!  In the last two years however, piety was being diminished by progressivism. The intense intellectual questioning was a distraction from and often an attack upon the simplicity of faith. There were holy, quiet priests; their hallmark was modesty and humility; they were not influential. The life of the intellect was overstimulated; the life of the praying, childlike heart lethargic. I recall no memorable homilies, retreats or conferences. Again typical of the broader American Church, our Maryknoll mentors were practical, active men. Metaphysical depth and rigorous academic scholarship were not hallmarks. Nor did the Irish Catholic background lend itself to evangelical fervor, charismatic enthusiasm, or a steady mysticism of prayer.  

Maryknoll in its founding and early days, especially of mission to China, was the epitome of classic Tridentine Catholic piety, sacramental and especially Marian. In the wake of the Council, there was an unfortunate diminishment in such fervor. It was replaced, in quick order, by messianic political activism and salvific therapy.

The seminary became a barren place in regard to prayer, as I recall. Just a few years later, my own spiritual hunger would draw me to a series of flaming spiritual encounters. Nothing of that sort occurred, to my knowledge, during our college years. We graduated in 1969 with a faith diminished in fervor and depth; a loss of the innocent idealism and piety with which we entered in 1965. We were products of our age.

My Class

About 100 of us arrived that September as a very specific self-chosen cohort: we aspired to give our lives, including celibacy-obedience-frugality, in service to the Church and the poor overseas. Obviously, we were all: idealistic, altruistic, prayerful (but not ostentatious about it), confident, risk-friendly, adventurous, internationalist, gregarious, pragmatic, competent, from thriving Catholic families. Together, we received an extraordinary double blessing: first the wholesome, stimulating, protective seminary routine still in place; secondly, together we were to live through and process the most cataclysmically turbulent times one could imagine. We were an entirely homogeneous group: I recall no awareness of class distinction, ethnic/racial tension, or cultural divide. We did have jocks, nerds, and the regular stuff. 

But a specific dynamic in our program had great positive effect. We lived in rooms of three or four; but once a quarter we would change roommates. It was assigned, by the administration, and seemed to be random. But we would not repeat roommates and could not choose them. The result was, we got to room with lots of our classmates; and therefore made friendships with almost everyone in the class. This was extraordinary: by senior year, I had roomed with almost everyone or their best friends. This created an overall unity of friendship within the class. Imagine: we are making friends constantly; enjoying a vigorous schedule of study, prayer, work, recreation; and at the same time coping with the greatest Cultural Revolution in human history, all in a safe, wholesome environment, undistracted by romantic/sexual attractions! Although it was the 60s, we had no sex, no drugs, and very little Rock N Roll! DOES IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT? Do you see why I loved my college? I'm sorry: nobody had a better college than we did. I don't care about Princeton or Notre Dame! In 65-69, I would always go with Maryknoll College Seminary!

Going into the Future

Were those the best years of my life? No Way Jose! The best was yet to come! My marriage and family; my faith journey with two Jesuits,  mystic Joe Whelan and  theologian Avery Cardinal Dulles,  Cursillo, Charismatic Renewal, the Nuptial Mysticism of Balthasar-JP-Benedict; new and precious friendships;  continued theological/cultural study along with catechesis of the young; the actual reality of being friend to the poor, to which we then aspired.

It is striking how much of Maryknoll College resonated in my later life, even secular employment. I supported my family for 30 years in UPS, a company that has been called quasi-martial, but is really more resembling of a Catholic religious order. The brown uniform, obsession with honesty-urgency-integrity-efficiency-partnership, an ethos of service, sympathy for the labor movement, preference for simplicity over privilege-status-ostentation. The founder, Jim Casey, was Irish, a lifetime celibate, who donated billions to the Casey Foundations that honor his mother and serve poor women with children. He seemed to replicate in this corporation the culture of a strict parochial, nun-run school.

I have always been happy and comfortable in retreat houses, rectories, monasteries, friaries. Our residences for women use abandoned convents; and we are aware of emulating the holy women who lived there before us. 

I cherish the paradoxical relation of this early period and the remainder of my adult life. I exulted in the freedom, innovation, excitement, serendipity of youthful liberalism in a time of immense creativity and turbulence. Only a few years later I assumed the posture of a conservative cultural militant. And yet, underneath there is a consonance between the two. I have never disallowed my liberal-radical youth, in the manner of a converted communist. Rather, I am the same person with the same Catholic faith.

It was, of course, the world around me that changed, more than myself. That post-Council period of four years was short-lived: the excitement, euphoria, innocence was not to last. By 1970 the progressive cultural left was solidifying: we had Roe, dissent in the Church from the left, and eventually a vicious political polarization at every level.

In college I had remained rooted in Catholicism including its traditional elements: steadiness in liturgy and prayer; the neo-Thomism of Maritain and Gilson; the eccentric, brilliant, maverick mysticism of Illich; the catechetical mentoring by Pat Williams; practice of the acts of mercy by the Catholic Worker, and other. 

The more liberal loyalties of my youth also endured into my maturity: concern for the poor, appreciation for theological creativity that is organic and in continuity, passion for small Christian community, political sympathy for labor-solidarity-subsidiarity that refuses still to venerate Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump. 

I like to align myself with a theological cohort, older than myself, that advocated for renewal at the Council but then pivoted to confront the attack on Tradition sometime around 1970: Dulles, Neuhaus, Ratzinger, Danielou, DeLubac. Today my hero is Cardinal Mueller, the impressive adversary of the Francis  project, who was the chief theologian under Benedict but also friend of Gustavo Gutierrez and liberation theology. In such figures, we find a vital Catholicism that is at once liberal and conservative, in the very best senses.

Conclusion

The exciting era, the wholesome routine, the precious friendships, the fine Maryknoll fathers...this was a distinctive, unrepeatable blessing, a breathtaking convergence of people, place, time. I can never be grateful enough!

The Anti-Catholic Legacy of Pope Francis

 The undermining of our faith from within the Church does not always take the form of explicit heresy, contradiction of received doctrine. It can be more pernicious by implicitly attacking deep, underlying, tacit assumptions of the faith; by a disordered emphasis on some dimensions of faith and a neglect of others, an underlying imbalance. Jansenism, Quietism, Montanism, and many other troubling movements have been dogmatically correct.

Pope Francis is technically heretical on three points: capital punishment, communion for the remarried, and now blessings for gay couples. Capital punishment is a non-issue as all Catholic majority countries and all developed countries, except the USA, already forbid it. In addition, even those of us who uphold the traditional teaching do not find it prudentially advisable in, say, New Jersey in 2023. The other two, on the other hand, are monumentally significant as they impact our understanding of sexuality and marriage. 

Francis has framed these deviations, corruptions of the Tradition as enhancements on behalf of compassion and mercy. This has immense appeal as it aligns precisely with the values of the cosmopolitan, progressive elite of the West, even as it contradicts the basics of Catholic life. But the greater damage is to underlying, broader pillars of our faith: 

1. Truth as intellectual and moral clarity and certainty.

2. Sexual chastity as the foundation of our personal and communal lives.

3. Virility as paternity in all its traditional virtues and values.

4. Reverence and affection for the received Church, including the hierarchy with all its flaws, and humility before Tradition as mediator of Revelation.

5. Detachment of the clergy from political ideologies. 

In fairness and balance let us first recognize the strengths of this Pope.

- His intense, profound love for Jesus Christ, our Savior.

- His passionate love for the poor, lonely, marginalized.

- His strong, intuitive Catholic loyalties: sense of the devil, love for the liturgical year, etc.

- His gift with words, in creatively expressing the above values.

For an ordinary Catholic or even priest, the above might qualify him for canonization. But he is also pope. And reverence for the papacy requires a candid evaluation of how he has used that office to undermine the faith. 

1. Anti-intellectualism, Emotionalism, Sentimentality, Vitalism.  

His favorite theme:  "The real lives of people greatly transcend ideas, theories, dogmas and rules." One could hardly imagine a stronger contradiction of the classic Catholic understanding of faith and reason, as brilliantly restated by our two previous pontiffs. His is a diminished "Kantian" view of the intellect as subjective, constructive, abstract, and detached from The Real.  Francis is suspicious of thought, law, tradition, dogma, moral certainty and clarity. He replaces it with emotion, especially his own. He has immense confidence in his own sentiments. Unilaterally he prohibits the death penalty: without argumentation, without deference to tradition, without consultation with the bishops. He does the same with communion for the remarried and blessings on gay couples: no turn to the past, no consultation with the college of bishops, nor sustained and reasoned argument. This suggest a lack of humility before the past, a narcissism camouflaged from sight. Worse, it is abetted by his sycophants, chief among them Cardinal Fernandez and hagiographer Austin Ivereigh, who attribute to him an exaggerated papal sovereignty that exceeds and contradicts tradition. We find ourselves in a new Church, vulnerable to the shims and preferences of an individual unbound by tradition and revelation.

2. Asexuality.

Persistently, systemically Francis has not only ignored but undermined John Paul's catechesis on the human body. (Eg. his destruction of the John Paul Institute for Marriage and Family in Rome.) But he is not really a sexual liberationist. More strangely: he is indifferent to sex. He wants to change the topic. Let's not talk about that! Let's talk about how much God loves us! Enough about chastity, abortion, fidelity, and mortal sin! There is about him an asexuality: a disinterest, no sign of romantic passion, no dread of lust/covetousness and their catastrophic consequences, no valuing of chastity as intimacy with Christ. He has no stomach for the Culture War against the Sexual Revolution: he is happy to concede that fight as his libidinous energies appear to be repressed and sublimated to his real interests: the environment, immigrants, and freedom from clerical rigidity.

3.Anti-Virility as Non-Paternity.

Avoiding stereotypes, we can recognize that in our Catholic tradition, paternity/virility, at once in communion with and contrasting with maternity/femininity, is associated in a fluid, creative manner with a complex of virtues including: chastity, humility, gentle strength, loyalty, courage, clarity and certainty of conviction, respect for law-tradition-authority, emotional sobriety and serenity, prudence, justice, readiness for combat, devotion to the greater good.  Maternity as an ideal is closely identified with nurture, compassion, kindness, acceptance, personal and concrete generosity, emotional intelligence, interior serenity, prayerfulness, strong bonding with others especially family and other women. Each person, obviously, embodies all these virtues; and it is edifying to encounter courage in a woman and compassion in a man. At the same time, the good of the community requires a differentiation and a deliberate nurturing of the distinctive virtues of each sex. Western society and the Catholic Church are in the midst of a crisis of masculinity: young men are not being formed for paternity. And so it should not surprise us that we have a pope who is, not feminine, not homosexual, but effete: sentimental, emotional, resentful, emotionally not sober, impulsive, inconsistent, incoherent, repulsed by law-tradition-hierarchy, and reactive against masculinity as toxic. He strongly embodies virtues of compassion, acceptance, welcome...but without countervailing values of justice, wrath, combat, accountability, clarity/certainty, deference to authority, including that of tradition. I know nothing of the dynamics of his family of origin, but his personality suggests an inordinate female influence unconditioned by the paternal. And so, in his key decisions and overall governance/teaching, he channels the "spirit of the age" which is devastating our Church and society: anti-virility. 

Francis has asked his theological commission to find ways to "demasculinize" the Church. He has done that already in his person. Consider the mission of the hierarchy: to image the super-masculine love of The Bridegroom for his bridal Church and the super-paternal love of the Father for his children. The preeminent paternal figure on the earth, the Pope (which means father) is crusading against virility. IT DOES NOT GET ANY WORSE THAN THAT1  

4. Contempt for the Received Church, for the Clergy, for the Latin Mass

Pope Francis is obsessed with the clergy/hierarchy as rigid, doctrinaire, superior, moralistic, fearful, with hearts and minds closed to the poor and suffering. There surely is some truth to this: we know our priests are like us with all the same failings. But in his world this loams large: he pontificates about it endlessly. He is possessed of a contempt for the actual, real, concrete Catholic Church. His filial affection and reverence for the Church, as she is, is compromised gravely. He is doomed to frustration: younger priests are increasing more conservative and becoming more so during his pontificate. His pontificating is futile. Priests ordained since 2020 identify conservative in proportion of 80%; those ordained before 1960 identified as progressive at 60%. In part, Francis is caught in a generational dissonance: with his cohort, he was deeply impacted by the changes of the 1960s. Young priests today are in reaction against the same. He despises the Latin Mass and is brutally repressing it because he sees it as embodying the past as oppressive, reactionary, ignorant, arrogant. Adopting the classic progressive model, he posits a negative, repressive pre-Francis Church in contrast to the enlightened "Syondal" Church which is his own handiwork. In contrast to Benedict and John Paul, his purpose is not to protect, preserve, share, and develop (reverently, without deviation) the Deposit of Faith (an expression he despises, significantly), but to transcend and enlighten a dark Church. He is not a humble servant of Tradition, but an arrogant, self-righteous improvement of it.

5. Global, Geo-political Emperor

His devaluation of doctrine, of intellectual-moral-theological clarity and certainty, leaves his job description depleted. Not to worry, he has replaced it with a new mission: Chaplain-Czar of the New World Order: open borders, free immigration, environmental protection, no death penalty, redistribution of wealth, unity of religions, end of wars. The ironies: First, he harangues endlessly about ideologies yet he is the strongest clerical advocate of a specific ideology in recent memory. He has aligned himself against traditionalist movements on behalf of national, family values. He presents as a populist but despises right wing populism and sets himself as protagonist against it. He condemns clericalism but his superior, condescending posture on complex, prudential issues is a clerical violation of the valid autonomy of the secular.  He has indeed positioned himself as chaplain-czar of the Global, Progressive Elites, in many ways distant from the poor and working class he supposedly champions.

Pope Francis is popular and influential in the offices of global corporations, European secular politicians, and the NY Times. He has done incalculable damage to our Church. We are now in a de facto state of schism. The Austrian /German bishops declared that priests may not deny blessings to gay couples; they are readying formal prayers (against the direction of Fiducia Supplicans). Bishops in other nations have already directed their priests to give no such blessings under any circumstances. This Church is a train wreck.

He is our Pope, our spiritual father, Vicar of Christ. Our reverence for him requires candor and truth. He is our brother-in-Christ, with pronounced strengths and weaknesses. He is a nightmare of a pontiff.  Our only hope is in Christ, in the Holy Spirit, with Mary and the saints, in heaven and here on earth.

Come Lord Jesus!

Priestly Blessings on "Irregular" and Homosexual Couples?

 1. A Confusing Nothing-Burger.  

In terms of explicit moral principle and intellectual clarity, Fiducia Supplicans is a nothing. There is no internal form, no intelligibility, no logic, no meat; it is vague, vacuous, ambiguous, indefinite. Classic Francis! In this it resembles "snodality," a phantasm of incoherence. On the one hand it clearly, painstakingly restates standard Catholic teaching: a gay relationship is not a marriage, it cannot be celebrated by anything like an official liturgical ritual, it is not to be associated with a civil ceremony suggesting a blessing on that. Then it states the obvious: any sincere person, involved with sin and disorder, can ask for and receive a prayer of blessing understood as seeking of God's help and expression of his Mercy. Nothing new there! But then it becomes confusing and incoherent: it approves a blessing "of the couple, of the relationship." So: what is it blessing? It talks about affirming and strengthening all that is good, true and wholesome in the relationship. That sounds fine. But if the relationship itself is sinful, how can we bless it?

If my friend,  a mobster with pious Catholic sensibilities, asks me to light a candle in Church for his bank robbery that afternoon: that he and his goodfellas work well together, that no one is injured or killed, that he use the money well for his family-community-Church, that the funds stolen harm only the rich and not the poor...do I do so?  I don't think so! If I love him, I assault him: "I'll have NOTHING to do with this! Are you nuts? This is a crime and a sin: against Christ, your own soul, your family and everyone! You are on the road to hell! I will have to report you to the police, especially for your own welfare!"

2. Sentimental.  Francis and his cohort are worried about feelings: "Oh no! The gays feel rejected! The divorced feel excluded! The porn producers and users don't feel affirmed!" And so this new declaration is intended to say:  "If we can't change Catholic teaching  we can avoid it, diminish it and tell you that you are okay just the way you are."  In a League of Their Own coach Tom Hanks exclaims in consternation to his female ballplayers: "Crying!?!? There's no crying in baseball!" I want to scream at Pope Francis: "Feelings!?!? This is not about feelings! This is about truth, goodness and evil, virtue, heroism, moral integrity, intellectual clarity, purity of heart, fidelity!"

(The saccharine, effete sentimentality also calls to mind the affirmations of faux-self-help-therapist Stuart Smalley, played hilariously by Al Franken on "Saturday Night Live" of the 1990s: "I'm smart enough, I'm good enough, and doggone it, people like me!"  His flamboyance suggests a sex/gender ambiguity; his friends all have gender-neutral names; and his father complains "You would drink too if you had Liberace as a son!")

3. The Asexual Pontiff. 

Francis has conspicuously ignored John Paul's catechesis on the human body, sexuality, gender, marriage and family. More accurately: he has attacked it by destroying the JP Institute for Marriage and the Family in Rome. But he is really not a sexual liberationist either. He is something stranger: non-sexual. He has no apparent interest in sex. For him, it is no big thing: chastity, fidelity, covetousness and lust are overrated; they are small change! The real issues are care for the poor, global warming, immigrants, capital punishment. His implicit, but not stated message in this recent document and throughout his papacy: Don't worry about sex and lust. It's not a problem. Hey...we all have some problems. His agenda is not to reverse our teaching but to ignore it, diminish it, deflate it. 

This is strange and troubling. He shows no awe or reverence before the sacredness of sexual, gendered love. He has no fear or dread of the devastation caused by lust and concupiscence. He wants  to live in peace with the sexual revolution which devastated the world of his early adulthood. He wants those in sexual sin to relax, feel accepted and know they are loved just as they are. He wants everyone to feel happy. And to rally around his geopolitical agenda.

4. An Emasculated Papacy.  

 About his own person and his clique there is an effete, demasculinized flavor. If not a dominant gay culture, there is clearly  a friendliness to such. But more importantly: a lack of paternity, of virility, of virtue. Instead we have: emotionalism, resentment, sentimentality, lack of clarity, aversion to law and tradition, obsession with feelings-acceptance-inclusion,  a soft pacifist flight from agonistic combat, and passive-aggressiveness as the hallmarks of this papacy. These are not feminine in the wholesome sense, but an effeminacy as a deficiency in virility. And it characterizes the authoritative declaration before us. This is a serious, even insulting claim. But if it is true, it must be said for the good of the Church. This plague of effeminacy afflicts much of the Church, but until now has not been so overt in the Vatican.

5. Cunning: The "Spirit of Fiducia Supplicans" as a Trojan Horse

The guile here is obvious: there is no explicit heresy, but the intent clearly is to approve, in an amorphous, unspecified fashion, gay unions. This is done not by clear, direct contradiction, but by a tone of tolerance and acceptance. Already the progressive elite, media and clergy are proclaiming a major change in teaching. Now the declaration will be used to push further,  ignoring the explicit prohibitions in the document, in the blessing and embrace of sexual disorders "in the Spirit of Pope Francis."

6. Irregular Relationships...Abuse of Self and the Other

Significantly, these new priestly blessings are not reserved for homosexual unions, but for those in "irregular situations." What would they be? Cohabitation/contraception, adultery, casual hook-ups, anonymous sex, incestuous unions, open marriages, porn/masturbation, sexual-emotional-physical abuse, pedophilia, and beyond "couples" to threesomes, free-sex-communes, polygamy/polyandry, sadism/masochism, and why not beastiality and necrophilia? All such disorders and sins have a common core: ABUSE. Abuse of self. Abuse of the other as an object of pleasure: be that girlfriend, hook-up, porn star, etc.

With her customary insight and defiance of convention, Patricia Snow in an article entitled "Self Abuse" (current issue of First Things) draws surprisingly from D.H. Lawrence (of all people!) and his infamous Lady Chatterley's Lover, to make the straightforward, sober, lowbrow, commonsense, Catholic case against masturbation: it is widespread and "ordinary," it is isolating and lonely, it is toxic, it is a sin.  Don't do it! But don't get all nervous, shameful and guilty about it! Just don't do it!

Homosexual, especially male, relations are especially abusive: they entail acts that are inherently dominant/submissive, violent and biologically toxic. The gay culture is saturated with anonymous, impersonal, extrinsic, sterile, desecrating acts. I once heard a doctor speak of his sexual addiction: he tired of women and tried men, then he wanted two at a time, than he wanted identical twins. We see here the masturbatory, dopamine-fueled compulsion out of control: obsessively he was using a series of increasingly intense triggers to arouse and satisfy his imperial cravings. In this pursuit he was brutally using, abusing and desecrating his so-called-partners. 

To "bless" or tolerate or minimize such decadence is to be an "enabler" of the addict. Imagine my in-law came to me, without any contrition,  and said: "I am unfaithful to my wife (your daughter or sister); I am in love with my mistress; I indulge her and that is why we can't pay our debts; that is why my wife is depressed and in therapy and our kids out of control." Would I say "Let's pray a blessing, informal and non-liturgical of course! So no need for an exacting moral inventory or some alleged moral perfection?" Would I say: "I wouldn't worry about that! Sex is overrated! More pressing: You are not voting for that party that denies global warming are you?" I would, of course, punch his lights out! 

Fidducia Supplicans, along with the entire Francis agenda, is toxically enabling of sexual chaos!

7. Creeping Clericalism

Self-righteously the great crusader against clericalism, Pope Francis practices a more disguised, but dangerous form. Resentful of a clergy removed from the ordinary, he advances an imperial colonizing of the properly secular/lay by an unrestrained hierarchical arrogance. Disrespectful of the sacred/secular and Church/state binary, he abuses his papal authority to cross boundaries and impose his sociological ideological preference on complex, prudential, secular issues like immigration, climate, and the death penalty. About these he has no competence;  as they are the domain of the secular, governmental authorities and their advisors and electoral protocols.

On the current issue, he is pushing priestly ministry beyond its correct domain into lay areas.  The priestly realm is the liturgical/sacramental. An entirely different reality is the spontaneous, organic, random, shared prayer in the midst of secular life: family, friendship, work, afflictions. No one is happier in such prayer as myself! I do quite a bit of it. It is unregulated, creative, spontaneous. The other day in the ER, we asked homeless Miguel what he needed. He quietly, soberly said "I need to stop drinking. I was in a program but have now relapsed. I am registered to enter a 7 day program tomorrow but have problems with transportation." Reverend Cindy and I prayed with him and for him. We gave him our phone numbers; he didn't call. That was not a clerical exercise. Of course a priest could do the same, but by virtue of his baptism/confirmation, not ordination. Such prayer is unsupervised, free, serendipitous. It is entirely lay!

There is no need for the pope to intrude in this zone of liberty and institute a new "quasi clerical-but-not-liturgical blessing." It is an anomaly; a contradiction. It is not sacramental or liturgical; but it is priestly. It is an incoherence. It has no intelligibility or form. It is sentimentality. But it is also deceitful and disguised: a covert plot to normalize sexual disorder.

8. Sleeping with Lucifer

This pontificate has adulterated itself by sleeping with the Communist Party in China and with Sexual Progressives in the West. There is a compulsion to accommodate, to "make nice" with what is intrinsically disordered. A moral incapacity to recognize and decisively renounce Evil! An aversion to clear ethical judgment, to decisive moral action, to agonistic combat with evil on behalf of the good. This was seen in his tepid, irresolute response to Putin's invasion: he imagined himself as above the fray, transcendent in his universal-inclusive-reasoned-mercifulness. He repeated this in regard to the Gaza situation, seeking to please the Palestinians and their sympathizers by avoiding a hard judgment against Hamas. This incapacity for authoritative correction, combat, and contradiction flow, as noted above, from a weakened paternity. Much of this papacy resembles the recycling by the son, indulged by Mom,  of resentment at the father experienced as distant, weak or abusive. And so we find a paucity of virile qualities but a drag-like exaggeration of female attitudes (inclusion, acceptance, etc.) corrupted in an enfeebled man.

9. The Powerful Mimetic Energy of the Gay Movement

A serious, self-respecting gay-friendly ethicist should be enraged by this document: explicitly it reaffirms Catholic teaching that homosexual acts are not moral. But the cultural/theological wars are hardly fought over logic, but by deeper, darker cultural dynamics. The day after the declaration was released, the NY Times featured a picture of a gay couple receiving a blessing from the El Cid of Catholic gay liberation, Fr. James Martin S.J. In accord with the declaration, they are casually dressed with no liturgical symbols. But:  the picture is in the Times! Next to it is a picture of the two men after their civil wedding, kissing each other on the lips. The message is unambiguous: millions will see it and be certain that the Church approves of homosexual practice. A single picture outweighs a thousand words. Ironic: this blessing is supposed to be private, quiet, anonymous, but Fr. Martin, a magnate of celebrity culture, exploits it within 24 hours on a global level. 

In her essay, Patricia Snow observes that sin itself is not the biggest problem; rather, the conviction that sin is not sin is a problem; it disallows repentance. And so, homosexual practice itself is immensely overrated: in homophobic circles that hurl it as disparagement; and in progressive culture with its "pride." Homosexual activity is a mundane, garden-variety form of self abuse: in form it is identical to porn-using masturbation, the hook-up, the extra-marital affair, cohabitation. All of these and countless others use and abuse the other in self-abuse. The pervasive support for the gay life flows from the undiagnosed pandemic of self-abuse, that is seen as "normal." We see that the photo engineered by Fr. Martin will encourage many into sin: "Whoever leads one of these little ones who believe in me into sin, it would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their neck and be thrown into the sea."

The "gay" condition, however, is far more dense, complex and perverse than the sin of the flesh. It involves: self-indulgence, sexual addiction, narcissistic/histrionic traits, borderline aspects, self-righteousness, disparagement of the order of Creation and Christ's Church, a mysterious sadness/loneliness, and the despair of unchastity and sterility, however denied.

10. The Anti-Magisterium

The clear intent of this declaration, however contradictory of its actual words, is to accept blessings of gay unions and grant moral approval to "gay" self-abuse. It contradicts the teaching of previous popes, of the entire Tradition, and even of the recent document out of the Vatican. We now have two contradictory magisteriums. This is a clear binary: on gay blessings it is thumbs up or thumbs down. There are no other logical options. Within days we have the usual suspects (Cardinal Cupich) lauding the change; in Kazakhstan, Zambia, and Malawi bishops sternly forbade their priests to do such blessings. Such a division within Catholicism is unprecedented within recent history.

We will now have a dividing of the sheep and the goats. In such a war, there is no Switzerland, no neutrality. But I suspect the majority of bishops will follow their irenic, "people-pleasing" impulses and make no comment, for or against. In fact, this will be an allowance, a tacit collaboration, a codependency. 

Conclusion

This declaration does not greatly trouble me. We cannot be distracted or disturbed by such nonsense! The mass readings today dealt with the births of Samson and John the Baptist: all muscle and bone, fierce, fearless, pure (except for Samson's engagement with the seductive Delilah) men. The meditation in Magnificat has Cardinal Danielou assuring us that John the Baptist always comes with but before Christ: in birth, in public ministry, in death, in the Return, and in our daily life. By contrast we have Herod, fascinated by the Baptist, but subservient in his incestuous craving for his brother's wife. In the short term Herod had John killed. But we play the long game.  We wait patiently, serenely, joyfully with  Mary the Immaculate, serene in expectation,  and with the Baptist, all ferocity and passion, for the King, the Lion of Judah:  Come Lord Jesus!

Dread: at the Bed of the Sick, and Elsewhere

 For 6 months now we, my wife Mary Lynn and I, have been visiting the sick in our local hospital; we continue to experience DREAD before entering the room. It is dread; it is not fear of some consequence; it is not dispersed anxiety. It is specific but unspecified; it is precise; it is dark and ominous; it is mysterious; it is present but not identified.

The word dread today indicates great anxiety or fear; but traditionally it also indicated awe and reverence. Rudolph Otto classically described the "holy" as evoking a primal, archaic sense of both fascination and dread. We are drawn to the holy; but we also fear it. Moses before the burning bush is haunted by it, drawn to it, but in fear of it. The truly holy is so so so good that we are in awe, a distinct kind of fear or dread: we fall to our knees, we take off our shoes, we prostrate ourselves.

And so it is with visiting the sick: is very very good; it is fascinating; it is terrifying in an incomprehensible manner; it is holy!

It has been for us an exhilarating, elated experience. At least half of the patients we visit immediately welcome us warmly as chaplains, representing spiritual or pastoral care. Of the rest, most warm up to us after a few moments of conversation. If we visit 20 or more patients, perhaps two decline the prayer; but we are fine with that, wish them well, and more often than not they thank us for the visit; they leave us with their own, non-theistic blessing. In other words, even the very worst visits are pleasant. Mary Lynn records the names of those we visit and we talk about and pray for them during the week. It is an extraordinary blessing for us.

Yet, we continue to feel the Dread. It does not go away. We do not "get used to the thing." What is this?

Fear of the Unknown

Our mentor in chaplaincy, Reverend Cindy Wilcox, sees that we fear the unknown. She is correct. Every room we enter is the unknown: we are not invited by the patient. We have no idea of what we will face in terms of attitude, suffering, religious faith. Clearly, we dread the unknown. It is threatening. That is the first reality.

Suffering and Faith: the Private, the Intimate, the Sacred

But there is more. Perhaps there is nothing more intimate, private, and properly secretive and protected, aside from the matters of marriage and family, than sickness, of body and soul, and relationship to God. These two things are Sacred. They are to be revered, protected, cherished. They are shared only with those we trust: family and faith member. To walk, as a stranger, into the sick room  to engage both the pain and God is on the face of it scandalous and sacrilegious. Who am I to be so bold as to intrude on what is so holy: so precious, intimate and terrifying? My friend Steve, when he heard what we are doing every Thursday morning, said nothing, but had a horrified look on his face. That is a sober and wholesome response!

And yet, we enter each room serene and confident, if terrified, for several reasons.

First of all, we are sent there officially by the hospital. We have been vetted and accepted, officially, as volunteer chaplains. The hospital realizes the value of making such contacts available to patients. My wife is a nurse and she knows very well the stress and demands on nurse, doctor, and aides. Normally the staff has no time to give personal attention or spiritual care. Therefore we are on an official mission. The patient in the hospital is being visited throughout the day by all kinds of people: nurses, cleaners, medical specialists, aides, etc. So another visit is not so intrusive as it would be if we were knocking at the door of their personal residence. The nurses and staff welcome us warmly and clearly appreciate our contribution. Sometimes we wish we were medical professionals with clear and accepted purposes. But we know the value of what we do.

But even more important than the approval and mandate from the organization is our personal Catholic faith. We know that in our sacramental life, baptism-confirmation-penance-Eucharist, we are in communion with the Person of Jesus Christ. When we enter the room, we are not alone, we bring him with us, notwithstanding our personal failings. We bring no specialty, competence, service...just our faith in our Lord. We also know, with certainty, that every human heart yearns for God....and is seeking Him in some way, even if it is disordered. "The protagonist of history is the beggar" we learn from Monsignor Luigi Giussani. We enter the room as a fellow, pilgrim beggar; eager to join with a newfound brother/sister in begging for God's mercy. If there are no atheists in foxholes, there are very few in hospital sick beds. We have an additional advantage, we introduce ourselves as a married couple. Our marriage of almost 53 years brings with it a heightened presence of Christ that patients seem to intuit effortlessly. "Wherever two or more of you are gathered in my name, there am I in your midst."

Dread Before Suffering, Deprivation, Desperation

I have known this dread elsewhere. It is familiar; and not restricted to the sick bed. Some 15 years ago I would visit a boarding home in Newark NJ on Monday nights. I had befriended the residents and would bring brownies and soda, talk casually for a while, than share a 10 minute prayer. It was a miserable place, eventually closed down by the State. The people were endearing and delightful. But driving to the place I felt the dread as I ruminated: "Why am I going to this horrible place? I have no purpose! I am not a psychologist or nurse or social worker or activist! I hate going there!" But then I would recall: "I received our Lord this morning in Holy Communion. In some way I am bringing him." The dread dispersed within two minutes of my entrance; the visit was always a Joy; I left every Monday elated. 

But what was the dread? I think it was my sense of the loneliness, deprivation, suffering of the place. The sense of human misery. The sense of the evil of human suffering. I think it was a sensitivity to a reality. 

The miracle was that within a few moments of conversation, there was a real bond, a communion, a sense of solidarity. That became intensified in the shared prayer. That was the same dynamic we now experience in the sick room.

The Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail

These words of Jesus assure us that there is indeed a hell, a hell on earth, a hell of loneliness, desperation, despair. But that hell is vulnerable. When we approach the gates of hell, in the name of Jesus, we are victorious. The gates and walls fall like Jericho. We triumph in gentleness, confidence, serenity, tenderness. We move quickly into Joy. But upon the approach, we cannot avoid dread.

The Dread of Eve in Paradise

Consider the seduction and sin of Eve in paradise. She is without sin, innocent, immaculate by nature. How then, we ask, can she sin? A thesis: When she encountered the Serpent, who was of course Satan, she would have felt:  dread. She herself at that time was free of what we know as sin, death, anxiety, suffering. But in this creature she would have sensed death, not biological death, because this angelic creature is immortal, but the death of separation from God, absolute loneliness and isolation. In her very innocence and purity, she would have shuttered at this void of Evil. The cunning tempter would have anticipated this vulnerability. Brilliantly he exploited this momentary moment of weakness: he suggested that God was not to be trusted; that he had lied. He assures her that if she eats the fruit she shall not die. In this, he proposes a bogus salvation from the dread of death: grasp this appealing fruit, turn away in distrust of God, and become yourself godlike. And so, we suggest that God allowed a testing, as he later did with Job (and with each of us), a moment of dread, before death as Evil as Godlessness, so that Eve and then Adam could choose between life and death.

Jesus' Dread in the Garden of Gethsemane, and His Descent into Hell

In another garden Jesus was to engage the dread of Evil in its greatest possible intensity and depth. Taunted by Satan and death, his three best friends asleep, he was overwhelmed with dread. My own opinion is that in that garden Jesus descended into hell: he experienced the greatest possible separation from the Father as isolation, loneliness, deprivation and evil. He entered into hell freely, purposefully, serenely, trustingly. He exited the garden triumphantly. He entered into his passion...freely, purposefully, serenely, trustingly...and death. His passion was the passing of a triumphant King. He had nothing but gracious words, for his executioners and all us sinners. He decisively defeated dread.

Mary's Dread at Calvary

If the dread of Jesus in Gethsemane was the greatest ever; the second would be that of his mother the next day. Watching her son's torture and death and then receiving his limp body, she would herself have entered in an incomparable manner into the dread of evil, of hell, of death as separation from God. By a singular grace, her purity and trust was superior to that of Eve and Adam. She suffered patiently, trustingly, hopefully. So close was she to her son that she shared in a distinctive way in his passion and death. But then, by Easter morning, so close was she to him that she would have known clearly (I suggest) that he was Risen. No need, in her case, for an appearance.

Aragon's Entrance into the Paths of the Dead

Engagement with dread is graphically presented in Lord of the Rings when The King, Aragon, enters the mountain of the Paths of the Dead. It is a ghostly, ghastly place. It is the unknown. It is death itself. Aragon, with regal fortitude and dignity, boldly confronts these ghosts, beckoning them to their own liberty, and that of the broader world. It is an extraordinary image of Jesus' descent into hell and the advance of us, his disciples, into the darkness of Satan.

Dread as the Pathway to Life

We cannot avoid dread: of death, loneliness, desperation, Satan and his reign. But like Aragon and Jesus, we are impelled by the fire of the Holy Spirit, flaming within us, to combat through the dread, into the darkness, to bring the warmth and light of Christ's love to our brothers and sisters suffering the deathly, hellish loneliness and isolation of separation from the love of God.

Theological Intelligence

It is not the greatest, but certainly not the least of the many forms of human intelligence. I would define theological intelligence as: the ability to receive, engage, understand, and explain in concept and word the great Mysteries of God and of  human life in relation to God.

It is more valued within Catholicism than anywhere else. We have a rich, extensive legacy of theological reflection which draws from both Greek philosophy and the Revelation of Jesus Christ as preserved in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. The core of this legacy is that our Creator, a Trinity of infinite love, is absolute Truth, Goodness and Beauty and has filled Creation (analogously) with Truth (intelligibility), Goodness and Beauty. We humans ourselves are created in the divine image, as spirits or persons with heart, intelligence, will, freedom and the capacity to know and love. We are created to "know, love and serve God here on earth and forever in heaven" (in the incomparable words of the Baltimore Catechism.)

The goal of human existence is to receive, engage, respond to and commune with the communitarian, dramatic God of endless Truth and Beauty and Goodness. This eventful encounter crucially entails the intellect, but it is not exhausted by that. It also involves the heart, will, body and community. The entirety of Creation is intended to be given to and received by the human community and the human person. Our engagement with reality is essentially, but not only intellectual: it is volitional, mystical, aesthetic, dramatic as well. To understand is already and always also to delight, to suffer, to choose and commit, to exult and to adore. The life of faith is the encounter of myself, as Freedom, with God and others as Freedoms; and this involves a dense symphonic interplay of contemplation, reception, thought, decision, action and communion. Understanding, judgement and decision are at the heart of this drama; and it expresses itself in action. 

Catholicism is the most intellectualist faith as it contemplates the Eternal Logos, the Word, in which all existence finds purpose, meaning and intelligibility. This Logos, Jesus the Christ, is a Person, and is supra-intelligible, Mysterious, far surpassing the capacities of the finite human mind. So our faith is not rationalist in a reductive sense: our intellect does crave union with the Infinite but is incapable of achieving that without faith as receptivity of divine grace and revelation. Faith is, primarily, much more than cognition and intellection; but it is a deeper form of intelligence, again intuitive, an act of Trust and reception from above. So faith is the total engagement of the human spirit, heart-intellect-intuition-will, with the Revealing Trinity in a communion of surrender that entails the active intelligence but also far surpasses it. So faith is neither fideism (a pure act of faith), nor emotion (Schilermacher and liberal Christianity), not an autonomous, ungrounded rationalism.

Theological intelligence is integrated with and coinheres with related forms of intelligence: spiritual, moral, social, emotional, aesthetic, legal, scientific, musical and other.

The most important is spiritual intelligence as the capacity of the human soul to receive God and heavenly things, in a non-conceptual, intuitive, mystical fashion. The mystical dimension, which is deeper than the mere emotional, is primary; it is the basis for the theological. It is the union of the human heart and soul (and thus the intellect and will) with God. Sound theology is only as good as the underlying spiritual union that nourishes it. Very much of academic theology is abstract, unrooted in adoration and prayer, and therefore superficial and sterile, however erudite and complicated. On the other hand, a holy person may have little theological ability. St. Joseph Cupertino was apparently slow intellectually: but he was a genuine mystic, casting out demons, levitating during the Eucharist, bilocating, healing people. When he was dying, someone spoke to him about God's love; he replied "Say that again!" in the manner of a little child who is delighted with the simple repetition. Good theology can only flow from a theologian at prayer, "on his knees" (in the words of Balthasar.) Holiness is the making of the saint; intelligence flowing from holiness the making of good theologian.

Moral intelligence is again intuitive before being intellective or conceptual: it is recognition of and attraction to the Good, and aversion to Evil. Here the will especially interacts with the intellect as our decisions for the Good enhance our intuitive moral intentionality. Theological ethics will, of course, draw from this deep, intuitive current to express with clarity and accuracy principles by which we choose the Good and renounce Evil. But again, primacy is on the knowing of the heart which instructs the intellect. 

And so it is with social, emotional (empathy, gratitude, delight), aesthetic (Beauty in music, art, architecture, etc.), and even legal and scientific intelligence: prior to the conceptual articulation, there is an intuitive, mystical event of encounter with the Real, something that is far more than mere feeling.

John Allen, in his newsletter Crux, is advertising an advanced form of artificial intelligence that consumes encyclopedic quantities of theological material from Church documents, historical sources, theologians. I do not doubt that this machine, using a sophisticated logarithm, can summarize these sources more completely and accurately than our greatest living theologian. But....it is a machine, not a person. And so, there is no spiritual, moral, social, emotional interiority. There is no heart. It is the human heart, along with the intellect and will, that mediates the heart and mind of Christ. The artificial theological intelligence is mechanical, sterile and impersonal.

A marvelous fact of the Mystical Body of Christ, as well as humanity at every level from family to the globe, is that the many types of human intelligence are dispersed among us so that each of us enjoys some, but not all. Together, we build a world that is true, good, beautiful, just, hopeful. For example, I myself am well below average in intelligences dealing with: athletics, mechanics, animals, gardening, fashion, the physical and biological sciences, carpentry/plumbing/fix-it-stuff, music, computers, engineering. I am above average in intelligences dealing with: theology, philosophy, culture, history, literature, politics, morality, law, math, and some kinds of social and emotional life. Our strengths and weaknesses beautifully work together for the common good.

Theological intelligence is important for the Church as a body. But it is not required for every person. Ignorance in this area is no problem for most people as long as they have a spiritual union, however unclear, with God; and they have a moral conscience; and they use whatever intelligence they have generously for the community. 

We are in a strange dilemma now with  Pope Francis who has strong spiritual and moral intuitions but is challenged in theological intelligence. Last week he told the German Church: Get away from all these committees and get back to adoration and to the streets to care for the suffering. That is the best spiritual direction I ever heard! But he has no clue that the train wreck called "German Synodality" is the fruit of his own loopy, convoluted fantasy about "synodality." He is in many ways an exemplary disciple of Christ and priest, but he is a catastrophe as a pope, whose job is to be the worlds most important theologian. His capacity for theology is about the same as mine for mechanics; that does not make me or him a good or a bad person; it does make him a weak pope and me a terrible mechanic!

Across our society today there is pervasive theological ignorance, an incapacity among Catholics to think with clarity, depth and accuracy about God and the things of faith. It is especially striking that so many entirely intelligent people of apparently sound moral character show an incapacity to comprehend simple theological realities, despite years in Catholic schools. It seems similar to color blindness or inability to hear a tune...things that afflict people randomly.  There are other levels to this reality. 

First of all, many are good, holy people without interest in or capacity for philosophical thinking. Just like not all of us have to be able to do statistics or calculus. That is fine as long as there is a critical mass of sound theological thinking guiding the community.

Secondly, there was a catechetical crisis in the Church after Vatican II as we threw away our old catechism and had nothing in its place. It is not clear that the overall level of theological literacy was so much better before the Council as it was largely mechanical, rote, unreflective, and not always rooted in intuition and prayer. But the dual pontificate of JPII and B16, and especially the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in large part addressed this deficit.

Thirdly, more profoundly, the Catholic demographic in the post war USA experienced a euphoric wave of prosperity, security, and esteem and so surrendered to an ethos of bourgeois consumerism, careerism, and materialist trust in science and technology. And so, there has been a loss of prayer, a sense of the sacred and the sinful, and the eternal and transcendent. A superficiality that is at once lazy, restless and eventually nihilistic.

Lastly, this retreat from the spiritual to the material was pronounced at the upper, elite levels of society, especially the academy. Accompanying this was a diminished attention to the properly philosophical or metaphysical and so theology was drawn increasingly to the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology. Emotional healing was sought in psychotherapy; and communal liberation in the political activism of the left. Theological intelligence surrendered to woke models of Marxist and Freudian liberation. 

During these years since the 60s, there has, however, been a faithful remnant. In the 1970s for example, I benefited from studying under Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J. who represented theological intelligence at its pinnacle/ arguably he is the greatest American Catholic theologian of the century. At the same time, Joseph Whelan S.J. taught my mystical theology, more from his own holy manner than his excellent scholarship. He introduced me to Balthasar and then we receive John Paul and Benedict. These three are for me, the defining Catholic thinkers of the 20th century. That body of teaching was applied brilliantly to our American culture by David L. Schindler and his collaborators. I was blessed also by my association with fine theologians at Seton Hall University, including my friend Fr. Tom Guarino, heir of Dulles, my son John Laracy and nephew Fr. Joseph Laracy and other scholars in the tradition of Fr. Stanley Jaki and Monsignor John Osteriecher.

Dulles, Whelan, Schindler, John Paul, Benedict and Balthasar have gone on to their reward. Their accumulated theological work, all of it interconnected, is monumental. It may equal that of the early fathers and doctors and the medieval scholastic scholars. May they pray for us...our theologians...our priests, bishops, popes..that we all surrender to the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit! 

What's the Problem with "Synodality?"

When the "Synod on Synodality" was announced a couple of years ago, I calmly resolved to ignore the silliness. That was not possible: all you read about in the Catholic press, even from otherwise sober, prudent bishops and leaders, is this annoying, nonsensical neologism, surely the "worst word of 2023." In this it resembles Donald Trump. Almost 8 years ago I agreed with an opinion piece by David Brooks suggesting we ignore the stupidity coming from the mouth of that man; I completely agreed; but it was impossible, he is everywhere, especially in the liberal media which is obsessed with him. Like The Donald, synodality is the elephant in the room, sucking all the oxygen and leaving a toxic odor!

On the positive side: we cannot too strenuously affirm the value of listening. I have been quietly working on my listening: at Church to the prayers of the priest which I tend to ignore as my mind ruminates; to those I love and want to share with me; to those I hate for their views; to people who suffer homelessness, addictions, pathologies; to wise voices; to those in error. So, if this papal campaign were entitled "Campaign for Dialogic and Listening Encounters" I might sign on. Unfortunately, it is more than that.

1. First of all: a Synod for the Catholic is an authoritative gathering of bishops, in union with the Pope, to address an issue of morals, faith or governance. It is an exercise of the apostolic authority they received from the apostles, including Peter. This Synod is no such thing. It is a listening exercise between bishops and laity. That could arguably be a positive more: IT IS NOT A SYNOD. Redefining the word implicitly shifts away from apostolic, hierarchical authority to a democratic model for the Church. It is subtle, but decisive. This is seen clearly by Burke, Strickland, Mueller, Zen and a small remnant.

2. Secondly, this eagerness for a new "Synodal Church" springs from the hatred of Pope Francis for an imagined non-synodal or pre-synodal Church that is legalistic, dogmatic, clerical, privileged, condemnatory, distant from the suffering. This pontiff is not a reflective, intellectual in the mode of our popes of recent memory, he is an emotional, impulsive type. This does not make him a bad person; it makes him a trainwreck of a pope. He despises conservative priests, rightwing Americans and politicians, Latin mass communities, pro-life activists, metaphysics and dogmatic theology, spiritual boquets with rosaries numbered in the tens of thousands, and any expressions of clerical privilege. There is, of course, some basis for his antipathies: we are a sinful Church and there are problems with the above. But his vivid, emotional, obsessed imagination has contorted them into cartoon figures, larger than real life, like Joker, Penquin and other characters out of Gotham City. So we see that "synodality" is code for a contempt for the Church as she really is today, in her flaws.

3. The binary, synodal-vs.-non-synodal, is a stereotypical progressive mime: "in with the new, out with the old." It is a rephrasing of the notorious "Spirit of Vatican II." It positions itself as the enlightened Present in a posture of superiority, condemnation and disdain for a past that is ignorant, oppressive, and violent against its victims. By contrast, authentic Catholic reform is always a return to the sources, primarily our salvation in Christ and the Scriptures, as well as the fathers, doctors, mystics, martyrs and the philosophical tradition of Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Newman and others. The ACTUAL Vatican II, as interpreted authoritatively by two participants (both young, brilliant, saintly,  one a German peritus and the other a Polish bishop), was just such a return to the sources.

4. As articulated by Pope Francis and his lieutenants, synodality is void of content. They insist, with apparent sincerity, that there is no hidden agenda other than an eagerness to listen attentively to all, especially those who are far from the institution of the Church. To the extent that this is accurate, the process is vacuous, empty of intrinsic form or meaning. There is no meat! Nothing into which we might sink our spirits, hearts, intellects. It is reminiscent of the psychologiocal and human potential movements of the 1960s, popular in California, involving Rogerian listening, encounter and sensitivity groups, and relentless narcissistic obsessing. By contrast, real renewal movements, often started by charismatic figures, offer a rigorous itinerary of teaching and practice that draws from Tradition in a novel, contemporary style: Charismatic, Neocathechumenate, Communion and Liberation, Focolare, etc.

5. Notwithstanding the insistence of the Father of Synodality and his collaborators, which includes the mainstream bishops participating, this process is perfectly engineered for exploitation by those who hate the (actual, real, concrete, present) Church and want a new Protestant Revolution. It privileges those distant from and in dissent from the Church. It subtly, implicitly, covertly evokes the classic Hegelian-Marxist dynamic of thesis/antithesis, of oppressor/oppressed, of powerful/powerless. It is a Trojan Horse, apparently open and harmless, but in reality a lethal tool in the hands of those who despise the masculine priesthood, the sexual ethos of chastity and fidelity, the authority of the bishops, and the sacredness of Tradition.

I cannot collaborate in Synodality. I love the Church as she is. Yes, in her humanity she is sinful. This includes pope, bishops, priests. But so am I. It is not for me to judge her; not for me to reform her; not for me to assume a superiority in moral judgement. It is for me to work my own inventory of sin. It is for me to repent and become holy, by participation in the efficacious sacramental economy, by acceptance of the infallibility of Scripture-Tradition-Magisterium, by forgiving a sinful Church and asking for forgiveness for myself, by renouncing Satan and his kingdom, and by ever-deepening engagement with and emulation of the Mystical Body of Christ, Mary and  the saints, in heaven and here on earth, along with my fellow sinners.

My Intellectual Mentors Ivan Illich and Baron von Hugel: Radical, Polyglot, Secular, Traditional, Liberal, Lay, Mystical, Erudite, Eccentric

No one else thinks exactly like me. My thinking does not fit neatly into any broader school of thought such as is represented by a journal. It is strongly  Catholic but also "catholic" in incorporating disparate influences. It is in part that my restless, voracious intellect has wandered widely into diverse arenas of Catholic life and thought. It is also the influence of these two brilliant but eccentric and unknown thinkers.

Many Influences

I was described by a friend, in my young adulthood, as a "mendicant theological student." That might describe much of my adult life: a passion for depth, intensity, and clarity in my Catholic faith.

Growing up in the thriving 1950s American Catholicism of Bishop Sheen, Thomas Merton, Fr. (the rosary) Peyton, Flannery O'Connor, and the Kennedy's, I came of age in the tumultuous 60s with its procession of social and ecclesial movements: labor, anti-communism, civil rights, development of the third world, peace, hippies, new left, feminists, ecumenism, social justice, liturgy, scripture, Jewish-Catholic dialogue, a host of humanistic and therapeutic psychologies, the consequential Vatican II, the sexual-cultural revolution, basic Christian communities and others.

I have been taught by or taught with: Convent Station Charities, Christian Brothers, Diocesan priests, Maryknoll Fathers, Jesuits, Caldwell Dominicans, and Felicians. I have benefited by friendship, hospitality and direction from Benedictines, Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and hermits of Chester NJ and Livingston Manor NY.

I have participated in: Maryknoll College Seminary, Woodstock Jesuit School of Theology (along with Union Theological, Jewish Theological, Teacher's College, and Columbia), Cursillo, Charismatic Renewal, Marriage Encounter, Catholic Worker, Communio conferences, Communion and Liberation gatherings, Our Lady's Missionaries of he Eucharist, 12-step meetings, the Recovery Program (of Dr. Lowe), Jewish-Christian studies at Seton Hall,  CCD and confirmation preparation, and the Neocatechumenal Way. 

Yet I have never fully given myself to any of these, reserving an exclusive allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church, which is host to all of them. I enjoy many intellectual companions among family and friends, but none (not even wife and children) share all my constitutive convictions. For example, the Charismatic Renewal was an important influence. We did share this as a married couples, but in different manners. But among perhaps 100 family and friends with whom I discuss religion, culture and politics, I can think of two or three that share this engagement. Consider: how many of my theological/political conservative allies in the Culture War share my enthusiasms for the Catholic Worker, Charismatic Renewal or the Neocatechumenate? Very few! So there is a slight loneliness here.

Illich and von Hugel

Some of my strangeness comes from the influence of these two towering intellectuals who are today entirely unknown, in the academy and in the Church. They are quite different but share striking characteristics which I have found enchanting.

Illich is the brilliant, controversial monsignor who voluntarily laicized to pursue vigorous advocacy for radical social change. He was a fierce critic of modernity as alienating and debilitating in its inhumane, "giganticness" of bureaucracy and technocracy in the Catholic missionary effort, schools, medicine and other.

Von Hugel was the autodidact aristocrat, influential as a "modernist" thinker who deferred docilely to the Vatican's repression of that movement and studied the mysticism that he himself exemplified.

What makes them both fascinating for me is:

1. Traditional: Both European aristocrats were deeply Catholic and extremely well versed in the history of the Church so they critiqued, and appreciated, modernity from a clear, broad, deep perspective. Both were old world polyglots, fluent in many languages and the cultures they carry.

2. Mystical: In unique manners, each drew from a profound communion with God in Christ within His Church.

3. Radical:  Illich especially articulated a most broad, profound critique of Western modernity in its surrender to the enslaving regime of technocracy. His critique was far more penetrating than that of the Catholic New Left of his time.

4. Erudite. Their learning was encyclopedic. Hugel was known as the most learned European of his time. Yet he had no formal schooling, but learned entirely from tutors and on his own. Illich studied both history and theology but most of his learning was on his own and informally in accord with his advocacy of "deschooling society."

5. Outlaws. Both got in trouble with the Church; both reconciled but assumed their unique, lay postures.  Neither were professional theologians. Hugel was a modernist. Illich was beckoned to Rome in the summer of 1968 (when I myself was studying conversational Spanish at his amazing institute in Cuernavaca, Mexico) to account for controversial views. He disagreed with the Church on birth control, about their failure to condemn nuclear weapons, and in the theology of the priesthood. His negative view of Catholic missionary activity in Latin America as cultural imperialism (invasion of the Irish-American Catholic parish system) was perhaps the biggest concern. But both reconciled with the Church to pursue secular endeavors dear to their hearts.  

6. Lay. Each represented what Balthasar would call a "lay" style. They were lay in two ways: distinct from the academy and from the clergy. Neither pursued a university academic career but operated outside of those institutions with a striking originality and freedom of thought, drawing from a mesmerizing range of sources. Hugel was a layman, father, and aristocrat. This may be one reason why he emerged from the modernist crisis unscathed: as a non-clergy he did not threaten the Vatican, as an aristocrat he was very well connected. Illich was a priest and influential monsignor but critiqued the hierarchy (in a blistering America article "The Vanishing Clergyman.") He deliberately surrendered his clerical rights and privileges (while remaining faithful to his vows regarding celibacy and prayer of the office) in order to pursue a lay mission of social advocacy that he recognized as incompatible with the role of a priest. 

7. Secular. They both enjoyed a range of appreciations of culture and learning far beyond the domain of religious piety and scholastic theology: popular and native cultures, cinema, science, literature, secular philosophy and such.

8. Liberal. In the classic sense of "free" these two were uninhibited by religious anxieties to engage in dialogue and secular culture, entirely "catholic" as open to all that is good, true and beautiful.

9. Eccentric. Each genius was entirely unique, distinct, creative and original. They themselves exerted influence, within small circles, but seemed to emulate only their Savior, in his Triune Communion, and a broad range of other intellectual giants, ancient and contemporary.

10. Unknown. This is the strangest thing of all: in the Church and academy today they are entirely unknown. They deeply influenced those fortunate to be close to them, but never became pop intellectual stars. This endears them to me all the more. 

 Conclusion

They also bear resemblance to perhaps the only Catholic thinker of the 20th century to excel them in erudition, insight and the co-inherence of wisdom and holiness: Hans Urs von Balthasar, another European aristocrat, polyglot, mystic, whose thought ranged beyond theology into culture. His education was not primarily theological, but in German culture. He despised the seminary scholastic theology and drew from the fathers, doctors and Scripture as well as thinkers in all fields to develop an original theological synthesis that was deeply traditional and yet creative. 

These two eccentric were not my primary mentors in my Catholic vision. In college the Neo-thomism of Maritian and Gilson gave me the definitive answer to the great "masters of suspicion," Marx, Nietzche, Darwin and Freud. This view was sharpened a few years later by two Jesuit theologians: the saintly Joe Whelan and the erudite Avery Cardinal Dulles. But I consider that my theological maturity came from Balthasar, John Paul, Benedict and the David Schindler school at the John Paul Institute. This group developed in greater ontological depth Illich's critique of modernity, even as it was rooted in  a classic Catholic mysticism.\

Recently, however, I recall Illich and Hugel reverently: they awaken a freedom of spirit and thought, a sense of agency and creativity, a distinctly "lay" identity in the God-given world beyond the boundaries of the sacramental Church.

These two endearing, eccentric, brilliant, Christ-and-Church-and-life-loving "saints" (in no canonical sense) are an inspiration to me. My hope is to emulate them: in passion for Truth, in freedom of thought, in wisdom, in a sophisticated devotion to Tradition, in love for life, and in the friendship of the Trinity.   

A Radically Conservative Liberal

Liberal, Conservative, Progressive

I am coming out...I am actually a liberal! I confess!

Truly, I have always been. My last 50 years on the conservative side of the Culture War has been itself an expression of an underlying liberality, a defense of our freedom of religion, of the most powerless including the unborn, of the foundational holiness of sexuality-marriage-family.

I am thrilled that of late the cultural/political left has taken the moniker "progressive" leaving the honorable word "liberal" (free) to return to its true meaning. Conservative is opposed to progressive, not to liberal. 

"Progressive" is the religious belief that modernity, however defined, is essentially superior to what came before. Normally, there is a point in time when reason triumphed over superstition, ignorance, fear, and bigotry: the Enlightenment, The Revolution (American, French, Russian, Scientific, Industrial, Cultural/Sexual), ("Spirit of") Vatican II, the new synodal Church, etc. Progressivism is a contempt for the past as negative, oppressive, inferior. This can take the Darwinian form of evolutionary progress as advances in science/technology; or the Marxist overthrow of the oppressor (capitalist, male, white, hetero-cis-normative); or the Nietzchean will to power of the lonely Self; or some mix of the three.

Conservatism is a filial gratitude, reverence, reception, trust in a Gift given prior to some alleged "modernity." Genuine reform, for such, is not a renunciation of the past in condescension, but a pious listening ever-again to the sources of true liberation: the Scriptures, the saints/doctors/fathers, the Greek and Roman legacies, the martyrs/hermits/monks/missionaries, the Deposit of Faith. In this view, the changes in history, including the modern, are measured against a transcendent, handed down Revelation that happened in a specific place and time but is itself transcendent of time and space. 

"Liberal" properly understood is Freedom: of religion, speech, political activity, economic initiative in communion (with God) in the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. It is sexuality/gender as generous, generative, chaste, self-donative, abiding, serene, noble, heroic and delightful. It is the rule of law, the common good, the care for our most vulnerable and needy. It is friendship with each other in openness to the Transcendent and Eternal.

Faux Liberalisms

Disordered, decadent, vacuous, despairing "Progressivism" in its various forms has posed as a counterfeit liberalism:

Cultural Liberalism as the sexual chaos and violence unleashed by the contraceptive rupture of sexuality/gender from nuptial union, fidelity, chastity, and new life.

Neo-Liberal Economics as an individualism that isolates the person, subtly deconstructs family and community, privileges international corporations and the investor class with diminished government/tax, unregulated markets, and an underlying ethos of careerism, materialism, and consumerism.

Libertarianism as the isolation and exultation of the monadic Self unhinged from family, faith, community.

Political Liberalism, of the post-WWII Democratic Party, of FDR and JFK, with its forgetfulness of subsidiarity, exaggerated trust in Big Government, class resentment and vulnerability to the seductions of Cultural Liberalism and identity politics.

By contrast with these counterfeits, authentic conservative liberalism offers:

- Freedom from sexual fear, guilt and shame into an ethos of purity, gratuity, interior peace,  fruitfulness, and stability.

- A personalism that roots the person in nurturing, wholesome bonds with family, religion, tradition, the future and the eternal as well as communities and organizations that express and fortify these bonds.

- Freedom that fulfills and exceeds itself in donation and communion with others in the True-Good-Beautiful.

- A balance between a strong but limited state that protects the Common Good and the most vulnerable and an economics of agency and initiative founded upon the solidity of virtuous, happy family life.

So progressivism is illusion and idolatry, whether of science, class war, or the Imperial Self. It is contempt for the past and a disconnect with community, tradition, authority and the Eternal.

Conservatism is exultation, within community, in the Eternal...the True-Good-Beautiful...as graciously given. That ancient Visitation is not static, like a museum display, but Ever-Alive: effervescent, serendipitous, eventful, miraculous, surprising, creative, extravagant. To be grasped by this ancient-but-ever-new Mystery is to be liberated, gracious, serene, elated and pregnant with hope. The conservative and the liberal indwell each other; they are mutual, synergistic dimensions in the Act that is life, that is anticipation of and participation in Eternity. 

Memores Domini

For about a dozen years, I have been pondering, with intuitive awe but cognitive dissonance, the vocation of my daughter, Margaret Rose, in the Memores Domini. This vocation to live "the memory of the Lord" is fascinating, but does not fit our received Catholic categories. It is a life of the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity and obedience) as a lay person in the world. I explain it incoherently to others: "She is like a nun, but not a nun." Or more accurately for the informed: "It is close to a secular institute, but not exactly."  They accentuate their lay or secular character by avoiding religious terminology like "vow" and "consecration" and yet their lives are given over totally to Christ in the literal practice of these three evangelical counsels, within community, yet much in the world.

Giussani and St. Benedict: the Incarnation

In the current Communio ("Memores Domini: Living the Lord's Memory in a Post-Christian World," Summer 2023), Father Antonio Lopez, a Communion and Liberation priest-theologian deeply involved with this community, has shed a great deal of light. Within a deeper meditation on "memory of the Lord," Father Antonio describes the life as distinct from, but enriching of the married, clerical and religious lives. The life is a total, nuptial, virginal surrender to Christ the Bridegroom in the profession of poverty, chastity and obedience. It is entirely lay as non-clerical, removed from the sacrament of Holy Orders. It is Not in any way an official representation of the Church. It is also lay as distinct from the traditional religious life, understood as removal from the world into an alternative monastic, itinerant or even active religious life. 

This life is a specific expression of the broader charism received by Monsignor Luigi Giussani and carried by the Communion and Liberation movement. Lopez helpfully compares Giussani with St. Benedict and the monastic vocation. Stress is placed on the primacy of the Incarnation. The entrance of the Logos into the world has, in fact, consecrated all of life to God. The presence of God, after the coming of Christ, permeates the entirety of life. And so we find in Giussani a pronounced positivity. This positivity flows, of course, from the original goodness of Creation; from the Incarnation; from the redemption by Jesus on the cross, the resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. This positivity flows from engagement with Christ within the Church, the historical, flawed, hierarchical, magisterial, sacramental Church. But the world, even as separated from God by sin, is itself a desperate hunger for God. And so, the Christian, overflowing with the graces of baptism/confirmation, nourished by the Eucharist and the Word and the community, moves in the world with sublime confidence, joy and vigor. A distinctive theme in Giussani is the primal goodness of desire, even when disordered, as a longing for God.

The obvious difference between Benedict's monk and Giussani's memores is, of course,  that the former moves away from the world into the monastery; the latter moves into the world, confident that the world, even as sinful, is thirsting for this Word of Life. It is a retrieval, in a sense, of the primal evangelical energies of the original, persecuted Church that did not yet know the "states of life" (clerical, religious) that Catholic history was to delineate.

Engagement with, Detachment from "the World": Secular Institute?

We can trace a pattern in the history of Catholic spirituality. The desert fathers/mothers fled a post-Constantine society viewed as sinful to build an alternative. In the middle ages, the mendicants maintained a distinct "consecrated" life as they penetrated directly, evangelically, into the world. This tendency was carried along into the modern era with the vigorous active orders which entailed consecration (as separation from the world in community, dress, vows, etc.) but vigorous service within society as in missions, education, and acts of mercy. 

The Secular Institute, recognized by the Church after WWII, presents a new form: "consecration, secularity and mission." They are consecrated to Christ, by the vows, in a life of secularity, in the world, bringing the light of the  Gospel to every aspect of society, without the traditional trappings of the religious life. 

The Memores Domini, as I understand it, is really a form of the Secular Institute but distinct in that there is no public vow, received canonically by the bishop. Rather, Lopez explains, it is a private association, approved and guided by the hierarchy, but not officially associated and representative of it. We might see this "private" rather than "public" profession as an accentuation of the lay or secular quality of the community. They are a secular institute but more secular.  There is a distance from the canonical, hierarchical Church. This can be a loss, but also a gain. Distance suggests a lack of closeness or intimacy with the bishop and hierarchy. But also a freedom of movement as there is no public identification with the hierarchy. 

Holiness of Secular Work

Similar to the secular institute, there is a pronounced sense of the sacredness of lay work. As they make their evangelical "profession," so most are strongly dedicated to a career "profession" as an arena of service which often entails education, certification and lifelong dedication. It is understood, Fr. Lopez explains, as a now-redeemed participation in God's creation: in stewardship of the earth and Adam's primal "naming" of the creatures as an evocation of their inherent goodness. In this they resemble Opus Dei. In this they contrast with the Neocatechumenal Way which accentuates strong community and family life with an apparent diminishment of the relative value of career and service in the public arena. 

Giussani and Kiko (founder of the Neocatechumenal Way) also strongly differ in their view of the world: Giussani's Italian, Renaissance-like confidence and positivity contrasts sharply with Kiko's apocalyptic, dystopian view of Western society and even (implicitly) of the institutional Church. Kiko's is a sharper sense of sin: if Giussani lives in Christmas, with an eye towards the Paschal Mystery, Kiko lives in Holy Week, remembering the Nativity. At its worst, CL fails to make clear, decisive judgments against a world turned away from God and so abstains from the Culture War; at its worst, "the Way" is suspicious, defensive, and in flight from a threatening world. As extremes, they represent the perennial tension within the broader, always inclusive Catholicism as engaged in a world created good, redeemed, and remaining largely in bondage to sin and the demonic.

Vows? Promises? Profession?

Their "profession" of virginity (along with poverty and obedience) is a total gift and therefore subjectively or interiorly a "vow" in the classic sense. But exteriorly, it is not canonically accepted. Therefore, should the memores have a radical change of mind, there is no impediment to marriage. The transition back into normal lay life of marriage, freedom and ownership is not hindered by any ecclesial barrier. 

It would seem, likewise, that the memores is free to initiate (business, organization, association) and advocate (policy, politics) as there is distance from the official Church. This calls to mind the voluntary laicization of Monsignor Ivan Illich in the late 1960s. An influential, controversial clergyman, he voluntarily relinquished his clerical prerogatives for the freedom to advocate controversial social policy. He remained faithful to his vows of celibacy and the daily prayer of the Church. He returned to the lay state in terms of his activism, but remained interiorly consecrated to virginity and daily prayer. His state was similar to that of the memores, although he retained, of course, the indelible character of ordination.

Privacy of Profession 

The evangelical promises or profession,  are interiorly intended as final, total and binding, but are not so externally or canonically.  They are made in private, with the association; even immediate  family do not participate. This was, for my wife and I, a strange thing when we accompanied Margaret to northern Italy for this life-defining event. In our experience, marriage, ordination and solemn vows are all occasions for family participation, not exclusion. We did not, and do not, entirely understand the purpose of the privacy. We peacefully accepted it, of course, and immensely enjoyed the entire trip, including visits to families of the movement, as an extended celebration of her profession. 

In considering this privacy or distance, I do see some meaning. There is an inviolable privacy to every person's vocation in Christ. For example, the marriage is public, before the assembly, but the consummation is, obviously, private and secretive. It is holy, like the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem temple which only the High Priest could enter. But even in marriage each spouse retains an interior solitude or privacy which is accessed only by Christ himself. So our distance from Margaret in her profession was itself symbolic of an interior movement of her...away from embedment within our family, into a new family or community,  to her mission within the Church and the world, and into intimacy with Christ. It is analogous, then, to the departure of the child to the spouse and into a new family; or of the priest/religious who leaves the family for a new life and community. And so, Margaret Rose has been very close to us with regular phone calls and periodic visits and maintains a steadfast sense that she is our same daughter; and yet there is a mysterious, indescribable detachment as she has gone away, almost like the Irish monk who embraces a "white" and probably "red" martyrdom by departing Ireland for pagan Germany in the 6th century or the Maryknoll missioner who in 1930 goes to China, possibly never to come home.

A Durable, Perennial Form?

Margaret is thriving, joyous and vigorous in her life form. Her own personality and temperament are remarkably consonant with the positivity of Giussani, CL and Memores Domini. I have no doubt that she will live out her live quite gloriously in this vocation. This brings me great joy. And yet, I wonder, beyond her life: is this a durable form within the Church? Is it a perennial, like the monastic or mendicant or active religious orders? Or is it an annual, which blooms beautifully for this season, but then fades with the passing of time? Only time will tell of course. There remains an obscurity about the life.

There is a superficial resemblance to what we might call the "modern nun." Many religious sisters, after the Council, abandoned the apparatus of the religious life (habits, convents, etc.) and adopted a lay style, even as they retained their evangelical vows, prayer life, communion with others, and service to the poor. I have known so many. They live admirable lives. But the form is not durable. There are no new vocations to this religious form which is clearly not a perennial. It does not procreate itself. 

The essay from Fr. Lopez is a major contribution toward a clarity of definition of this vocation. It flows from a spirituality of the Incarnation which rivals in positivity those of Benedict, Francis, Dominic and others. It is a total self-giving in nuptial intimacy with the Bridegroom (poverty, chastity, obedience) as it is starkly secular or lay in its immersion in the world and work in immense confidence and positivity. Perhaps it will take up what is best in the life form of the "modern nun" and crystalize it into a hard, distinctive, durable form of Catholic life.

I am left, after reading this essay, with a more lucid understanding of this vocation as evangelical, virginal and lay. Evangelical in the sense, primarily, that it flows from intimacy with the person of Jesus and secondarily that it is an urgency to share this love with others. It is virginal as a total gift of self, to the Bridegroom, surrendering marriage-freedom-ownership, in total, mystical, mutual- possessiveness of the Beloved and unrestrained service to the Church and world, within a community of the same. It is lay as immersed in a graced but flawed world, and in communion with but clearly detached from the hierarchy and traditional religious life.

They benefit from an evangelical "rule of life." This has been lacking in the style of the "modern nun" who abandoned traditional convent protocols but was left without a hard form, aside from the subjective but fragile intentions for prayer, community and service. Such were vulnerable to fashionable, progressive ideologies including  feminism and leftwing social activism. Their rule includes community prayer, silence, the sacramental life of the laity, regular direction and instruction from leadership.

 Context Within the Broader Communion and Liberation Movement

Memores Domini is intelligible only within the broader organism, Communion and Liberation. Birthed in the 1960s, out of a charism granted to Monsignor Giussani, it was in part a response to the secular liberation movements of the time. Deliberately, it self-identifies as a "movement" unlike other ecclesial associations. That era, and the entire post-war period, the lifetime of our boomer generation, has seen a parade of movements come and go: worker priests, Cana, civil rights, peace movement, hippies, farm workers, ecumenism, liberation theology, feminism, gay liberation, moral majority, and so many more. Most of these left deep influences on the society and Church but not an enduring form. 

And so, the obvious question: Is CL (and Memories Domini) a passing movement or a durable form, an annual or a perennial in the life of the Church?

The perplexity is that, for better or for worse, it is a soft, not a hard form. It is similar to the charismatic renewal or the peace movement rather than Opus Dei, Regnum Christi or the Neocatechumenate. Participants gather fluidly, enthusiastically in "schools of community" around the writings of Giussani and the NY Encounter, an annual, eclectic gathering that fairly explodes with youthful, contagious positivity. But organic life requires as well a skeletal, muscular stability as well as fluidity and flexibility. 

The lucid, profound theological presentation by Fr. Lopez is a marvelous step towards clarity and permanence. It remains to be seen if the movement and the particular association will develop practical forms to preserve, protect and advance this splendid charism.