Root Causes of Racial Inequality (2 of 3): Letter 32 to Grandchildren

 By every measure, blacks in the USA suffer far more than whites: income, health, incarceration, education, mental illness, life span, etc.  What causes this severe inequality? There are four suspects, four possible culprits: racism, moral weakness, class and culture. 

Racism. The major cause surely is racism, but not current racism; rather, racism of the past. The prior letter argued that the 300-year-old system of racism was decisively overturned in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s; that, notwithstanding residues of white racism, very rapidly a systematic/systemic pattern of anti-racism prevailed in all major institutions and broadly across the culture. However,  previously, the abominable sin of slavery and then Jim Crow destroyed the black family: specifically depriving the father of his family and the family of their father. 

When I first learned of this historical fact, perhaps at the age of 13, I was horrified by the sheer, grave, boundless evil of it. Only the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis compares with it. There have been many genocides and atrocities but this one was close to home. The slave system destroyed fatherhood, which is the very iconography of God. Unthinkably Satanic!

This damage to black family life, culture, masculinity and paternity is not easily or quickly repaired. We have a moral obligation to heal, as well as we can, the unthinkable damage done to the family and masculinity. We need policy and practice to ameliorate the wounds inflicted. But it is surely not fixed by any amount of money in the form of reparations, quotas, preferential treatment or the welfare system. 

Indeed, the confidence and authority of the black father has been undermined, not strengthened, by social systems of dependency, entitlement, grievance, resentment and victimhood. These social systems emerged in the 1960s, precisely when the Civil Rights Movement attained victory, and concurrent with an even worse moral calamity, the Sexual Revolution. This later intensified the already troubling tendency of the black male to insecurity, infidelity and promiscuity. So we see: at that precise moment when racism was overturned, two poisons infected the black community: sexual chaos and habits of entitlement, dependency, grievance and victimhood. At this historical point, the 1960s, we see a certain divide within black America: into an emergent, prosperous black middle class and an under-society of poverty. This, we will see below, is the problem of culture, the real culprit of the crime of inequality.

Moral Weakness.  We all enjoy stories of those who pull themselves, "by their own bootstraps," out of poverty to success, by sheer determination, will power, courage, and hard work. This is "the American Way." Arguably, it is more true today than ever as we have developed into a meritocracy,  in which achievement, effort, talent, and determination are rewarded, regardless of race, ethnicity or class.  Like every social order, our own has a hierarchy of class; but unlike the rigidity of caste systems, ours is remarkably fluid, with continual movement of individuals up and down the ladder of status and wealth. Many rise by way of effort and talent; others descend due to misfortune, discouragement, addiction, bad decisions, companionship and habits. The famous 1 per cent is a social fact, but there is constant movement in and out of that club. Among other consequences, this makes for a pervasive anxiety since no one can be certain of retaining their current status.

This "success by will power" narrative appeals especially to a kind of American conservative individualism. The affluent and powerful, who have "won" at this game (or aspire to) congratulate themselves and look down upon the less fortunate as lazy and incompetent. It is rooted in a Protestant and especially Calvinist sensibility that fell into subjectivism and individualism when it rejected the objectivity of the Catholic sacramental (efficacious) system, the authority of its (infallible) Magisterium, and the emphatically communal nature of Catholicism. Deprived of the certainty of the sacraments, of a trusted and objective authority, of immersion in a strong community, the Protestant, now isolated, sought other sources of consolation. So, for example, they discovered the "born again" experience in which the one time salvation experience carries an absolute assurance of final beatitude. In another direction, they revived an ancient belief that vice brings failure and virtue brings success and proof of internal goodness as well as salvation. So we find in our country the popularity of the very  "prosperity gospel" (Joel Osteen) which weds belief in Jesus to capitalistic good fortune. This ethos underlies much of traditional Republicanism; the Catholic sensibility is allergic to it.

So, as a Catholic I have little sympathy with this narrative of individual success. While admiring determination, talent and effort, I am aware that achievement is never wholly private, isolated and individualistic. Rather, it flows from a rich, often unacknowledged web of relationships, opportunities, connections and synergistic interactions. Therefore we cannot perch from positions of privilege and patronize those who suffer unemployment, sickness, addiction and incarceration for their moral inadequacy.

 Class.  Every society is structured by hierarchies of class. The worst example of this is Communism which expects to produce a classless, proletarian society but has given us ( in Stalin, Mao and Xi) the most vicious, violent and oppressive human societies ever. In a healthy society, every class and group enjoys security, prosperity, peace and its own prerogatives as it fulfills its specific responsibilities. Imagine feudal society at its best, around the 13th century in which every class had important jobs to perform but enjoyed its own benefits: knights and aristocrats, clergy, monks, peasants, craftsman, etc. The expansive, prosperous USA of the post-war period (1945-65), the world of my childhood, had a "Camelot" (however passing) quality to it: labor unions were strong, capitalists rich and happy, women mostly grateful to have their men home from war and out of the Depression, the Afro-American community growing more prosperous, Puerto Ricans finding opportunity in big America cities, and urban ethnic Catholics becoming comfortable bourgeois suburbanites.  There was a big pie and everyone got a decent piece of it. Since then, the expansive middle class of my childhood has shrunk and left some with obscene levels of affluence and others with horrific circumstances of impoverishment.

In the more than 50 years since then, the pie has gotten bigger but the sharing of it quite unequal. More and more we are divided into haves-and-have-nots, winners and losers. The rich are richer and the poor poorer. There is movement up and down the ladder as there really are "winners" and "losers" due to talent, effort and hard work. But most people are limited by the circumstances of their class. At the lower end: bad education, health care, employment opportunities, wages, job security, and living conditions. At the other end: the opposite! Most are trapped in their social/economic class. Those in poverty, even the talented and well-intended, have the cards stacked against them. Those in the upper tiers, even when indulgent and incompetent, are protected by family shields of privilege.

This class structure is not ethnic or racial: it applies to all. So whether black/white/brown or whatever shade, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. The basic inequality of our society is class, not race based. Proportionally, more blacks are trapped in the lower classes and that explains the racial divide. More blacks are stuck there because of the destruction of the family and fatherhood during slavery and Jim Crow.  But the worst thing we can do in this situation is to favor one race or ethnicity and set it against the others. We need to work together as a society to improve life for all in poverty, regardless of color. Poor and working class folk need to work together politically, with their allies in the higher echelons, towards the common good that will lift all boats. While it is true that those centuries of slavery deeply destroyed the black family, at this point it is counterproductive to bring racial competition when all groups are suffering in the lower classes. 

Culture. Culture is everything. We are each of us fruits of our specific culture with all its values, beliefs, practices, animosities, riches, legacy, hopes, virtues, vices, and aspirations. The primary root cause of poverty and injustice, I will argue here, in Culture. This is our culprit!

In college I read the work of anthropologist Oscar Lewis who in great detail studied the lives of the poor, especially in Mexico. Son of a Rabbi, and son-in-law of the famous psychologist Abraham Maslow, he did a PhD at Columbia University in 1940 and was a lifelong Marxist. As such, he sympathized with the poor and blamed poverty on capitalism in its class structure and individualism. But his anthropological descriptions, in vivid detail, of the day-to-day lives of the poor suggest an alternative, or possibly complementary interpretation, Culture. 

He described poverty as far more than material scarcity, but as a vast, profound web of systematic, systemic, interacting behavioral pathologies: addictions, violence, promiscuity, poor work ethic, violence to women and children, sickness and disease, bad eating habits, crime and incarceration, and the absent or toxic father. Poverty here is a "matrix," an alternative universe which envelopes you in a myriad of pathologies and at its worst is a prison with no escape.

About 35 years ago, our family befriended Billy Sharkey, a homeless, part-time criminal, street guy and his family. One day I ran into his sister and asked casually about the family. She calmly said something like this:  "Billy is in jail and has AIDs. Carlos, Luis and Joey are all druggies. Bobby just beat up our brother Danny because he stole his social security check. Debby just got evicted and is homeless with her five kids. Harry is in hiding from cops. Both his sons are in juvenile lock-up." And she went on. Billy himself (we were his godparents when he was baptized I am proud to say) had seven children scattered around the city by different women. This is the Culture of Poverty.

My first resident at Magnificat Home was Farah, a very, very tough young black woman. Her baby's father was in jail and apparently a thug and a murderer. She had been a prostitute. She liked to fight. She came from the Culture of Poverty. Schizophrenic. She would yell out loud to herself in her room. I noticed she liked to read and to write. Intelligent. She described that in high school she finally got a single break: the English teacher saw her talent and encouraged her. He would give her lunch money and she would buy his and her lunch. They would talk. A wholesome, fatherly, mentoring relationship. The other students saw this and taunted her mercilessly. She had to leave the school.  The one ray of light was overwhelmed by the darkness. At a point her behavior in our house became unbearable. One day I walked into the house to see her walking out with a bag of toiletries that had been donated. She was going out to sell them on the street. I offered her a choice: "I will reimburse you rent for the remainder of the month (about $300) and you walk out and never come back or I call the police and have you arrested". She took the money. I heard about a year later that she had died in Florida at about the age of 30. Sad life! May she rest in peace! This is the Culture of Poverty.

Billy was Irish descent, Farah Afro-American. The class structure and culture of poverty do not discriminate by race or ethnicity. 

By the end of the 1960s Oscar Lewis was famous and controversial: his work was embraced by cultural conservatives (like myself) who see poverty as most fundamentally rooted in a deep, pervasive culture, rather than in mere financial scarcity. He was rejected by the New Left for "blaming the victim." He remained himself true to his leftwing politics even as he described in painful accuracy the actual lives of the poor. We cultural conservatives think, for example, of the waves of immigrants who came and lived in conditions of poverty and discrimination: Italians, Jews, Germans, Irish, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Asians, Arabs, etc. Within a generation or so these rose up as their children got education and work opportunities. They succeeded because of underlying cultural strengths: work ethic, religious faith, connection to a tight and supportive community, marital fidelity, sexual chastity (however imperfect) and above all the presence of a father in the home.  

Lewis did not set class against culture; nor do I. But I do see that culture, especially the underlying religious  and family structures, as well as work and education habits, is at the heart of poverty. I argue with my wife: she sometimes says that early in our marriage we were poor. I say we were sometimes broke, but never poor. Real poverty is not just lack of money; it is lack of agency, connectivity, synergy, religious faith and hope, masculine confidence and authority, education, virtue, and healthy habits of life. Real poverty is deep and intractable: it requires more than financial resources. But financial resources, wisely focused, are surely part of the solution. That is why I have always been a fierce cultural conservative but a moderate, pragmatic economic liberal. Neither a racist nor an anti-racist.

Let's return to the black community and the momentous changes of the 1960s. Three events: one good, two bad. The good one: the victory of the Civil Rights Movement and the triumph of anti-racism across society. The first bad: the emergence of a black underclass characterized by: male promiscuity and infidelity, absence of the father, crime, dependency on governmental welfare, low education, poor work ethic, strong mothers, bad health and diet, a vigorous feminine Christianity but little masculine faith, sense of entitlement, victimization, and grievance. The second bad event reinforced the first: the sexual revolution, the hegemony of a sterile, contraceptive mentality that tore sexuality out of marriage, aggravated the pathologies of cultural poverty for all races, but especially for the black community which had previously been deeply wounded in its family structure, specifically in regard to paternity. 

Conclusion.  The primary cause of racial inequality is entrapment in the Culture of Poverty which is itself blind to race and ethnicity. At the heart of the Culture of Poverty is the absent or toxic father. From this flows crime, unemployment, weak work ethic, bad health and the entire matrix of disempowerment. 

The secondary cause is our class structure which has morphed into a great divide between the haves and the have-nots and keeps most of us stuck in our place. 

A third cause is the past history of slavery which destroyed the black family and fatherhood.

 Racism in our current society is not the problem. In the next and last letter on this issue I will argue that anti-racism is not true but that it makes the problem worse. Lastly, moral failure is not cause of inequality: we are all mostly products of our class and culture. 

The proposal that the poor cause their own suffering by moral failure is the most odious of explanations: it is self-congratulation by the privileged who condescend and remain ungrateful for the benefits they enjoy in class and culture.

If I Were Pope...

 On day one I would:

1. Immediately, from the balcony with white smoke still blowing, abrogate the "syndodal process." I would issue a short, clear, standard definition of the noun "synod" and issue an ecclesiastical ban...absolute, universal, permanent...on the use of the adjectival form as in "synodal process" and codify that in canon law and the Catechism.

2. Restore the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in its intended mission and all it humble splendor.

3. Renounce the "concordat" with Chinese Communism; install Cardinal Zin as Patriarch of the revived Underground martyr Church; and issue a call for missionary-martyrs to covertly infiltrate Sharia and Communists territories to witness to the Gospel and give their lives unto death or imprisonment.

4. Take as my name: Pope Pius-John-Paul-Benedict the First.

5. Correct the Catechism to its previous view of capital punishment and thus honor the tradition, restore the integrity of the document, and renounce emotionalism in Catholic ethics.

6. Restore the freedoms of the Latin Mass communities.

7. Authorize Monsignor Tom Guarino of Seton Hall to head a commission to revise the Dallas Charter and protect the rights of accused priests.

8. Assign Cardinals Cupich, Tobin, Gregory and McElroy to desk jobs in the Vatican where they can do no harm.

9. Make Archbishop Chaput a Cardinal and apologize for the past disrespect.

10. Call Cardinals Burke, Sarah, Mueller, Arinze out of retirement to lead in the reform of the Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and other mainline religious orders.

11. Answer the five Dubia questions and reaffirm our Deposit of Faith.

12. Restrict Father James Martin S.J. to ministry to hospice and nursing homes and ban him from any Catholic sex education and the agenda of sexual ideologies.

13. Give Cardinal Paglia, Parolin and all key advisors to Pope Francis early retirement, a $10 gift card to Starbucks, and firm directive to live a hidden, penitential life of prayer and reparation, preferably in the Sahara or Arabian desert.

14. Impose an "automatic excommunication" upon American, Catholic politicians who actively work to abort the unborn or otherwise kill innocent, powerless human life.

15. Engage the Anglican Church to trade: they take 100 of our most progressive, woman-ordaining, gay-affirming bishops; and we get 100 random black African bishops.

16. Lead the global Church in millions of masses, rosaries, indulgences (partial and plenary both) for the the soul of Pope Francis, for pardon of his sins, and remission of temporal punishment due them.

17. Challenge Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to mortal, hand-to-hand combat with the weapon of his choice: if he wins, Putin is crowned Emperor of the Holy Russian Empire and granted possession of the Ukraine; if I win the Russian Orthodox join the Roman Church, the Russian army leaves Ukraine, and Kirill joins the repentant Cardinals in the desert.

18. Declare the German Church in schism and start the legal contest over their assets.

19. Inform the Vatican press corps that there will no longer be papal interviews on the jet ride home from international visits.

20. Clarify for all that there is a hell and that agnostic journalists as well as mafia dons are eligible. 

On the second day, I would:

1. Go into training for my combat with Kirill. 

2. Invite Archbishop Vigano for drinks and dinner; thank him for his witness; and attempt some gentle counseling.

Is the U.S.A. Racist...Essentially, Foundationally, Systemically? (1 of 3; Letter 31 to Grandchildren.)

 Preliminaries:

1. What follows are my practical, sociological observations and judgments, about which we can disagree, not Catholic moral truths. I myself welcome argument.

2. This is am important question with significant moral consequences and is extremely sensitive. For example, my point of view would be scorned and "canceled" in many progressive circles as hateful and racist. This is another topic you would do well to discuss with your parents, aunts, and uncles.

3. My perspective, like everyone's, is limited by my life experience and study. I speak from "my world." Yet mine is relatively rich: fifty years living and working in the most diverse city in the nation, Jersey City. Where I work, live, worship and engage I am almost always a minority as white and often not even a plurality. For example, in Magnificat Home over the last 14 years I have worked very closely with 11 managers: 7 black women, 1 Hispanic woman, 2 white women, 1 white man.  Also, for over sixty years, since I was myself a teenager, I have been fascinated with the causes of social injustice, violence and suffering and have read widely. I read mostly conservative journals but subscribe to the N.Y. Times and read it every day; I have done so my entire life. So I know the liberal viewpoint and accept aspects of it.

4. This (1 of 3 letters) will argue our country is not systematically racist; the second will try to understand the actual underlying causes for racial inequality; and the third will view the new anti-racism as itself toxic.

Yes, there is racism in our country, of many stipes; but No it is not systematic, defining, foundational!

Tribal resentments are part of the sinful, human condition. Today we have in Nigeria black Jihadists massacring black Christians; in the Middle East, Shiites and Sunnis kill each other and both despise the Jews; Russians are destroying the infrastructure of the Ukraine. Last week in Portugal we were warned by our guide not to say "Buenos Dios" as the Portuguese carry centuries-old resentments against their Iberian neighbors (but they like English-speakers). A refined, educated Chinese woman who married and divorced an Irish-American told me she would Never date a Japanese man, because of the suffering of her grandparents in World War II. Every Friday afternoon at 5 PM in areas like Newark or Jersey City a system of racial violence occurs: Hispanic men, many undocumented, who work in construction are mugged by black thugs as they go to the bus with the $500 in cash they earned for the week. Asians who run small businesses in urban areas suffer patterns of racial violence that are largely non-white. Recall the NYC street gangs of the 1950s, the Jets and the Sharks, as portrayed in  West Side Story!

The vile system of slavery (200 years) and Jim Crow (100 years) in our South crashed decisively in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. I was a teen at the time. ALL the credible moral agencies of our culture...ALL of them...renounced white-on-black racism: Churches and synagogues, universities, law, both parties, sports, entertainment, media. White racism became an unacceptable taboo, overnight. This consensus had been building in the years since World War II, just as anti-Catholicism widely disappeared in the aftermath of that immense exercise of national unity. 

Aware of centuries of injustice against Afro-Americans, a new anti-racist system was implemented. Discrimination in housing and employment prohibited; new quotas in college selection implemented to compensate for past wrongs; busing of children around cities tried to equalize education. 

An equally important but not immediately overt development was happening within corporate capitalism. By the 1980s, when I was in supervision in UPS, our entire managerial culture was receiving workshops on diversity in which we were firmly instructed: racism is bad for business. We MUST hire, promote, and serve the broadest possible base to succeed financially. Anti-racism became systemic and intrinsic to capitalism as it went global. For example, at UPS in the late 1970s, I was eager to move from a low-paying clerk job to driver and then into supervision but I was delayed as the company at the time was preferring women and minorities. 

This new anti-racist system was (in my view) morally required and successful. But it is still being debated. For example, Asians have a higher bar than other minorities for acceptance into elite programs: that is a problem. After 50 years, it is probably time to relax those preferences. There are different ways to look at this situation.

The point of this letter: Yes there are residual pockets of racism in places of our society. But this is neither systematic nor systemic. "Systematic" indicates a set of observable policies and practices such as "blacks sit in the back of the bus" or "Catholics need not apply." The racist system of 300 years in our South has been replaced by a largely effective anti-racism one across our society for the last half century. "Systemic" (as in a medical condition) suggests an indeliberate, unconscious but toxic dynamic at work in an organism. This would include prejudices such as "Irish are drunks" or "Jews are cheap" or "Blacks can't swim" or "Asians are smart" and so forth. Such stereotypes are unavoidable; like tribal resentments, they are part of the human condition. But regarding white/black relations, such have been overcome by a rigorous anti-racism across all our defining and elite institutions. 

Yet, there remain excruciating racial inequalities across our society. The next letter will try to understand why. Stay tuned!   

My Three Big-Sister Mentors

 By a happy, even heavenly coincidence, my three colleague friends walked into my life just 50 years ago, when I was 25 years old, circa 1973, newly married, not yet a father, transitioning into adulthood. All three were Irish-American, Sisters of Charity of Convent Station, about half a generation older than me, seasoned and wise. I encountered them in different Catholic arenas of Jersey City: St. Mary's High School (Sister Maria Martha), St. Al's ministry in Duncan Projects (Sister Virginia) and the charismatic People of Hope prayer group at Christ the King black parish (Sister Patricia). They surely knew each other but I related to each in these distinct contexts. Each worked with me in the three passions (aside from my marriage and family of course) of my adult life: catechesis of the young (Martha), care for the poor (Virginia), and the life of prayer and worship in the Holy Spirit (Patricia). All women of deep Catholic faith, moral integrity, passion, intelligence, and total commitment to Christ, his Church and his people. 

We All Need a Big Sister. 

I never had a big sister. Oldest of nine, I was ALWAYS the big brother. Throughout my adult life I was to be teacher, supervisor, director of a residence for women, father, grandfather, uncle, coach (only for tee-ball). Never the little brother! All at once I had three marvelous big sisters,  just when I needed them! Until I graduated college and fell in love with my wife-to-be, I never had a girl friend and never really had a girl as friend. In fifth grade at St. John's, Orange, we boys went with the Christian brothers, the girls with the Sisters of Charity. From there to all-boys Seton Hall Prep and onto Maryknoll College Seminary. I worked always with men: caddying and greens-keeping on the golf course, delivering beer for Rheingold the dry beer, and later would spend 25 years in trucking with UPS. Always men! From age 10 to 22 I never spoke with a girl. Seriously insecure and girl-shy, I was fascinated with them from a distance. Happily I was nurtured in a large family, surrounded by terrific women (1 mother, 6 sisters, 2 adopted sisters, 2 grandmothers, 1 great-aunt, 5 aunts, 5 cousins, and an extended network) so my disability was not grave, but was significant. This deficit was largely, not absolutely, but magnificently overcome by my delight in my bride, a joy that would deepen when we were blessed with children. It was also healed by these three big sisters.

Mentor. 

A mentoring relationship is a friendship between quasi-equals in the sharing of some values, pursuits, or missions. But one of the two is superior in some dimension, more experienced, and therefore guides, corrects, encourages the inferior. It is a temporary relationship that passes as the younger one matures. I remained engaged with these three for just about 3-4 years. By 1977 we had two children and I, blissfully free of any career ambitions, was guided by a gentle, invisible Hand to what would be a good job at UPS for 25 years. In that I conspicuously lacked a mentor: most of the manager-bosses of us supervisors were themselves insecure in that stressful, demanding climate and quietly hostile to us underlings. Additionally, I was myself an outlier, a misfit in a quasi-military, hyper-macho culture with my more quiet, thoughtful, less aggressive temperament. But looking back now I realize that my real formation came in what was my more important work: if you want to be engaged in the city, with the Church and the poor and the young you will be around lots of women, very good women! During this period I also enjoyed wholesome, holy friendships with perhaps a dozen other women including two principals, religious, single and married. They all knew and loved my wife and new children so there were not distractions from emotional needs, mine nor theirs. Our marriage was only strengthened.  My friendships with these good women prepared me for many more such collaborations, especially with Felician and Domincan sisters, and helped me be a better father to my daughters and mentor in my own time. Years later a Felician nun graphologist would find in my handwriting evidence of "a strong feminine influence." That came, clearly, from family and friends.

Sister Maria Martha Joyce.

Mary Lyn and I met Martha in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in the summer of 1973 (I think), studying Spanish together. She was already known by my wife and sisters as an eccentric, explosive Spanish teacher, obsessed with rearranging the desks in the classroom. But for us she was tons of fun: laughing, joking, sharing a good drink. She ends up teaching religion with me at St. Mary's H.S. and became my very close partner. In the 1970s, teaching religion  was a war to keep the attention and interest of tough city kids (mix of black, white, Spanish):  an aversion to authority,  black militancy, pervasive disinterest in religion and massive confusion in Catholic catechetics. In this contest, Martha was a superior combatant, an excellent disciplinarian, unlike myself. She feared no one and had an unpredictable, random Irish temper: the kids did not want to mess with her. When she was around, all was orderly and correct. And the desks always in order! She was SO much fun. Along with her deep faith she was a free spirit: laughing and joking, venting her temper, radiant with a contagious joy. Sharing so much affection, respect, fun and faith with Martha made that stressful, challenging work a delight. About 20 years later I looked her up and found her still in Jersey City, in St. Al's H.S., teaching about substance abuse as she had found her way into AA. More on her at the end of this.

Sister Virginia Kean.

Remarkable for her competence and dedication to the poor, Sister Virginia had actually moved out of the convent, with other sisters, into an apartment in the Duncan Housing Projects of Jersey City, very tough area. The others did not stay, but she remained by herself. Much loved and respected by the residents there. I was hired by the parish as a liason with the Spanish-speakers in the projects. We quickly became friends and co-workers. She ran a summer Bible Camp and took me on as the instructor. She ran the program with impeccable efficiency. Most importantly, she placed me on a pedestal for the children and elicited from them great esteem for me. If they misbehaved she would say: "I wouldn't want Mr. Matt to know about this!" In that she mirrored my own wife who would warn our children that she would inform me about something when I got home but I really never registered any retribution or even anger, in either domain. But the children received everything I said like nuggets straight from heaven. It helped they they had zero familiarity with the standards Gospel stories: Good Samaritan, Prodigal Son, etc. I have taught religion and catechetics most of my adult life, perhaps 40 year or so, but that experience in the projects was by far the most delightful and satisfying.

Sister Patricia Brennan.

Previously in charge of the novitiate at Convent Station, Sister Pat was the closest thing I have ever seen to the evangelical zeal of a St. Paul or St. Francis Xavier. I know tons of Maryknollers and Jesuits, not one can hold a candle to her in passionate, intelligent missionary commitment. She was leader of the small mission of four women from the Charismatic People of Hope who came to Christ the King Parish to foster a prayer group and community. By another happy-heavenly coincidence, the very first prayer meeting was held in late Spring of 1973 on the day after Mary Lynn finished her Cursillo. We had both of us encountered the person of Jesus Christ very deeply, intimately on our Cursillos and were eager for more. So we eagerly joined the prayer group and trustingly opened ourselves to a deeper infusion of the Holy Spirit. This engagement definitively formed my own Catholic faith and our marriage. She worked closely with Fr. Jim Ferry, the great charismatic missionary to North New Jersey and he worked with the extraordinary lay leaders (Ralph Martin, Steve Clark, etc.) but Sister Pat was our mentor. 

Postscript.

About 30 years later, 20 years ago, circa 2003, I was driving not far from Convent Station with some time and I thought that I might find these three in the nursing home there. I had three surprises waiting for me there.

My first visit was to my dear friend Martha. I couldn't wait to reminisce with her. But it was not to be. She brightened up immediately upon seeing me with that wholesome, radiant, Irish smile. Affectively she knew me. But cognitively not so much. She asked: where did we teach? What did we teach? It was clearly dementia. But her mood and spirit were the same as ever! And she looked good. And later when I was driving out of the place I saw her walking alone into the chapel, clearly to spend time with her Beloved.

The next step was worse. I was showed into a day room with half a dozen elderly nuns sitting around a table but Sister Pat was standing alone. She had aged but looked good: well groomed, nicely dressed, serene expression. When I spoke with her she did not even blink. This was total dementia! I was deeply disappointed! I spoke for a while with the other sisters who seemed to appreciate a break in the monotony. I was comforted that she was obviously getting excellent care as she looked so good. I know that she had left the Sisters of Charity to join another order of charismatic nuns but here she was back in Convent Station getting such good care. One of the brightest intellects and inflamed hearts I had ever encountered was now asleep. Very moving!

On to Sister Virginia and a different story entirely. She was bedridden and incapable of walking. But her mind was as sharp as ever. We reminisced and she asked about our friends. I was at once saddened to see her so incapacitated but heartened to engage with that lively, alert intellect and good heart.

These memories coalesced in my mind around this idea of mentoring over the last week while traveling in Portugal (including Fatima) and southern Spain. Previously I had not appreciated the clear, strong influence of these three on me. I did a google on the three and found almost no cyber-information on them. They all passed away not too long after that last visit and before the explosion of the internet. 

But I delight in imagining them looking down from heaven, with all that affection and respect they gave me, and rooting for me! Belatedly but sincerely I am grateful to them!

Three Approaches to American Foreign Policy: (Letter 30 to Grandchildren)

Disclaimer: Some of what follows may be difficult to understand. I do not "write down" to you. You are old enough now to develop a deep understanding of the complex world around us. Please ask your parents to explain. And see if they agree with some strong opinions below. It will help you intellectually to consider a disagreement between your grandfather, your parents, others and think things through for yourself. Difference in opinion, especially in politics, is healthy. We don't cancel each other, but listen respectfully, calmly, thoughtfully.

As we face a new world, exploding in chaos, it will help to distinguish three paths forward for the USA: Isolationism (detachment), Liberal Cosmopolitanism (cooperation), and Neo-Conservatism (strong American global presence.) The Isos say "Let's stay to ourselves and keep away from all these foreigners!" The Cosmos say "Lets be nice and talk things over and we can all get along!" The Neocons say "Think twice about violating our people! You will regret it!"

Our New World

Let's contrast the new order emerging in the first two decades of the third millennium with the one that followed WWII (1945-2000). The one is the world you will live in; the other the one I have lived in. Often called "Pax Americana" or American Peace, the postwar era was structured by two facts: First, the Cold War, the bipolar contest between a globally dominant   USA and an ambitious Soviet communist empire. Secondly, global poverty that was partially mitigated by an expansive, prosperous, , capitalist economy that lifted millions out of poverty. In 1989 the Soviet Empire collapsed and the whole world seemed to be moving into the American way: open markets, capitalism, human rights, rule of law, democracy, etc. A famous book declared "The End of History," claiming that Western Liberalism had prevailed over competing ideologies and that a free, prosperous future was now secure. It was a time of euphoria and confidence. 

This new order was disrupted, at the very start of the new century/millennium, by a series of explosions: First, and most threatening, a capitalist-but-still-communist China with immense energies, resources and ambitions. Secondly, varieties of Jihadist terror, including the new state of Iran. Third, the threat of global warming. Fourth, extraordinary waves of displaced refugees flooding the West. Fifth, an aggressive, fascist Russia. Sixth, extraordinary technological developments that have changed our lives in social media, the internet (cyberbullying, cyberwarfare), reproductive engineering, gender changes and others. Seventh, within the West, a loss of unity and purpose in a Culture War of the secular elites against a complex populism that is at once religiously conservative, alienated and angry, suspicious of the liberal order and its institutions, and vulnerable to demagogic, xenophobic chauvinism. 

In this new world, three paths present themselves in foreign relations. The three can be blended in actual practice, but in theory they contradict each other in their understanding of the world, our nation, and prudent policy. 

Isolationism

This is the intention to pull back from an over-commitment overseas and direct our resources to our own country. It is expressed as: "We cannot be the world's policeman!" Or: "Why worry about Ukraine's border when we cannot protect our own?" Or: "Why so much foreign aid when our own citizens are suffering poverty?"

 It is and has been stronger on the Right.  It rejects the imperial role the USA has played since 1945. It is a return to the isolationism of the 1930s (Charles Lindberg, Joseph Kennedy) that resisted entry into the war until Pearl Harbor. It longs for the first 120 years of our nation when we were largely alone, removed from the conflicts of other continents.

In the 1960s, leftwing aversion to the Vietnam war, American "imperialism" and the "military-industrial complex" left much of my own boomer generation with tendencies to soft isolationism, pacifism, and liberal cosmopolitism. This new culture contrasted sharply with the generously international and virile patriotism that motivated our parents to liberate Europe and the Pacific.

Millennials (born 1980-2000), coming of age during the long, costly and seemingly futile Iraq and Afghanistan wars, have an isolationist tendency. They see the dark side of the "American Empire," the loss of American lives, the extravagant cost, the post-trauma suffering, and the apparent futility. 

Trump articulated an isolationist policy, but (as in so many things) did not consistently implement it. He did oppose Chinese expansion and called for a return of jobs to our homeland. He implemented tariffs to defend our industry.  He criticized our NATO partners for not doing their share of the funding but may have thereby strengthened it. His pugnacious, unpredictable temperament gave a demeanor of strength and force that belied his professed isolationism and may have deterred aggressors. He did not pull out of Afghanistan. His Abraham Accords, between Israel and the Arab Sunni gulf states, was a high achievement of diplomacy and a strong move against imperial Iran. Impulsive, incoherent by nature, his instincts internationally were not always crazy and he benefited from a series of sound advisors and a world scene largely at peace.

Biden left Afghanistan in an isolationist impulse. A "people pleaser," without an inner moral or intellectual compass, he read and surrendered to the popular exhaustion with war. Unlike Obama and Trump he ignored his advisors. Betraying our friends who fought with us, abandoning school girls and all with desire for our way of life, surrendering the country into chaos, he gave the green light to our enemies (Russia, China, Jihadism): "America lacks the will to fight; it is effete, decadent, divided, bourgeois, and cowardly; this is NOT the America of FDR, JFK, Ronald Regan or the George Bushes." This departure invited the invasion of the Ukraine. It was, in my view, arguably the most wrong-headed, catastrophic and disgraceful diplomatic decision in American history.

Isolationism is wrong (in my view) on two accounts. First of all, it is unrealistic: our interconnected, technological world has us immersed in a vast international matrix. Internet, terrorism (including cyber, chemical, biological, nuclear), global warming, pandemics, trade, entertainment, refugees, hunger, and military aggression are only a partial list. The idea that we can retreat into our own cave is a fantasy.

As a Catholic, there is a moral issue: indifference, if not suspicion or hostility, to foreigners, to their suffering and well being. This denies the deep Christian roots of our founding and our history, including our participation in the two world wars and our service around the globe for 75 years.

You can see that I am fiercely anti-isolationist. The alternative is internationalism. But there are different types of that.

Liberal Cosmopolitanism

Here we have an optimistic expectation that global peace and prosperity can be achieved through diplomatic cooperation. Hope is placed in international organizations: the United Nations, World Health Organization, European Union, treaties and agreements of all sorts. It is "cosmopolitan" in that it assumes a global unity that trumps narrow, competitive nationalisms. It posits a positive view of mankind as finally rational and virtuous: given education, science and dialogue the nations will arrive at agreements that benefit all. 

A capitalist, more rightwing but largely bipartisan version of this expects that global trade, free markets, and economic initiative will benefit all and effect a finance-based system of peace and prosperity. For example, when China opened itself to capital markets a widespread expectation was that economic freedom would eventually bring about liberty in politics, religion, and culture in general. That obviously did not happen.

It is "liberal," in contrast to Marxist and Jihadist universalisms, in that it believes in the superiority of the Western or American way of markets, democracy, rule of law, and freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and such. It trusts that such freedoms release energies and initiatives in economics, politics, science/technology, religion and culture so that this approach will triumph over alternatives as it did over the Nazi, Japanese and Soviet empires. It had its heyday, as noted above, after 1989, with the end of the Cold War when the entire world, including Russia and China, looked hopefully to capitalism.

There is no doubt that  only international collaboration can adequately address climate change, international terrorism, pandemics, waves of immigration, and such. Facing these problems, cosmopolitan collaboration is absolutely the correct path ahead. This approach is less satisfactory in dealing with hostile, "bad players" and their malicious ambitions. 

While the market-friendly positivism was shared by both political parties well into the new century, the broader diplomatic-military-cultural cosmopolitanism is stronger on the left, specifically the Clintons, Obama and Biden. It blends the boomer anti-Vietnam-war aversion with a contempt for the Bush invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Its darkest hour was Clinton's refusal to intervene in the Rwanda genocide in which 800,000 innocents could have been spared bloody deaths by a few hundred well-equipped marines. That decision may rival or surpass Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan as the most despicable Presidential decision in our history.

Obama was elected on a wave of new hope in a liberal cosmopolitanism that renounced the despised wars "for oil and dominance" of the Bush Neo-Cons. He entered office exuding a confidence that his rationality, liberalism, openness, and rejection of oil-greed, military force and imperial ambitions would smoothly bring a wave of peace to the Middle East. Through no fault of his own, the exact opposite happened. The area exploded with violence and chaos: Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and of course Iran. The liberal conceit that American oil-lust, military arrogance and cultural imperialism caused the turmoil in that area was entirely discredited,. The Obama administration did not cause these convulsions, but it was powerless to stop them. The rage and discontent of the area was basically not USA-made. Obama was enough of a realist and pragmatist that he did exercise some military might, for example using drones in Afghanistan and resisting the impulse to withdraw from there. 

Biden has carried on this tradition: besides withdrawal from Afghanistan, we have a slow and weak response to the Russian move on the Ukraine; failure to confront China on human rights, the origin of the Virus, threats against Taiwan, and their imperialistic adventurism; the compulsion to placate rather than confront Iran; and even his choice of diplomatic advisors who exude insecurity, , indecisiveness,  and the compulsion to appease. The worst possible posture in a world now wild with vicious predators!

This cooperative approach surely needs to be part of our diplomacy. But as a full strategy, it is even more unrealistic than isolationism: it denies the power of evil in the world. It assumes a Pollyanna world wherein reason, discussion, good will, and kindness prevail to touch the hearts of nationalistic fascists like Putin, totalitarian tyrants like Xi, the Mullahs of Iran and Jihadists of ISIS. In the face of real, forceful evil, it is effete, deferential, passive. It is the soft Neville Chamberlain returning happily from Munich in 1941, carrying a peace accord with Hitler who gained time to prepare for his invasion of Poland.

Neo-Conservatism

(Footnote on the expression "Neo-Conservatism." This is widely used today, on the Right and the Left, in contempt for the advisors around G.W. Bush responsible for the Iraq war. It connotes arrogance, greed, and aggressive hyper-machismo. This disgust with that and the Afghan conflict reflect the emergent isolationism and preference for cosmopolitan cooperation. While not really in that school of thought, the contrarian Paca Fleckinstein does not hesitate to wear it, although in modified form, as a badge of honor.

The term was coined in the 1970s to denote a group of liberals, largely secular NYC Jews, reactive against the extremism of the 1960s left, advocated for a strong, interventionist foreign policy, global capitalism and democracy, tough stance against Communism, and rejection of political radicalism. 

Neo-Conservatism stands on two foundations:

First, an enormous pride in the Western, liberal order (freedoms of speech, religion, assembly; democracy; rule of law; free markets) and an ambition to share this with the rest of the world.

Second, a conviction that Evil, powerful-pervasive-aggressive, surging in false ideologies (Fascism, Communism, Jihadism) must be battled forcefully.

This second, a realism about Evil, is what separates it from the shallow optimism of Cosmopolitan Internationalism and the delusional escapism of isolationism.

From Pearl Harbor to the present, this has been the default posture of the USA as the protector of world peace and prosperity. Generally there has been bipartisan consensus in blending Cosmopolitan Cooperation with Neo-Conservative power: the carrot and the stick, the good cop and the bad cop. This has worked to ensure the Pax Americana of the last 75 years. It has now been weakened and is in crisis. 

There are several causes for the loss of American confidence and purpose. First, the lingering Vietnam trauma has been inflamed by costly, apparently futile wars in the Middle East. Secondly,  American identity and purpose have been undermined from varied, even contradictory directions. From the Left, we have a critique of American imperialism and our own culture as racist, misogynist, hyper-capitalist, LGBTQ-phobic, and arrogant. Also from the Left we have a diminished sense of the Evil we are facing abroad. Also from the Left we have a lessened moral-religious sensibility and a heightened concern, from a narrow secularism, with the environment, health, trade/prosperity and confidence in cosmopolitan collaboration. Meanwhile, from the Right we have a populism suspicious of an America turned secular, amoral, elitist, cosmopolitan, technocratic, materialist and consumerist. We have a divided society, really two incommensurate cultures, fighting each other and ill-equipped for the contest with an Axis of enemies

Ironically, the Russian invasion of the Ukraine has revived a modified Neo-Conservatism as there is broad consensus in our nation and across Europe that we need to unite behind the Ukraine with the kind of resolve we showed in WW II and the Cold War. Defeat of Russia here is essential, not only for the tortured Ukrainians themselves, but to deter other hostile powers from their imperial intentions.

The strength of this approach is its realism about our enemies and resolved to fight for our way of life. The weakness is an arrogance that denies our own failings. At its worst it idolizes "American Exceptionalism" in a false messianism. Condeleza Rice, an elegant Neo-Conservative once said that all people want what we want: freedoms, democracy, markets, rule of law. Mark Steyn, hardcore Canadian conservative corrected her by quoting a Palestinian grandmother whose ambition for her 64 grandchildren was that they die as martyrs, massacring Jews, including school children. My lawyer-solder-son tells me about the impressive municipal building our troops built for an Afghan town: they returned a few months later and found, not court-police-fire-health, but a shelter for goats. Humbled by such failings this approach becomes more sober and prudent.

Conclusion

This essay is fiercely anti-isolationism. It endorses a combination of cooperation in certain areas but forceful deterrence and confrontation in others. Diplomacy and politics are areas of prudential judgment in which we Catholics can and do disagree as we weigh values, probable consequences, dangers and opportunities. What is beyond doubt is that we are at war...culture, economic, diplomatic, military...all the time, everywhere. And we will be until our Lord returns in glory!

Postscript: The Catholic Church's Diplomatic Policy

The Vatican, a sovereign nation, has its own diplomatic policy; takes positions on international issues; participates in the United Nations as a non-member observer. The Pope and Magisterium are infallible on faith and morals, but not on politics and diplomacy. These last are prudential decisions on which Catholics can disagree, including with the Pope. How then does a conscientious Catholic receive a papal statement on a border wall, immigration, global warming, a specific war, tax policy, or the death penalty? Surely with respect, but not with total credulity. There are reasons to trust, and others to question papal policy on diplomacy and politics.

First, on the bright side: The Vatican has a long history of diplomacy and vast experience. It has a presence in almost every part of the world and a broader perspective than any other institution. It is not aligned with any nation, group or ideology and unusually openminded, broad in perspective, and  relatively free of such biases. It works from an infallibility in morals and so has the right principles and attitude, although its practical conclusions are not guaranteed.

Second, on the negative side: By its very nature as a vessel of peace, mercy and reconciliation, the Church is uniquely unqualified to deal with Evil in its graphic, concrete reality. For example, its failure to correctly contain the priest sex scandal is partially due to a propensity to mercy and healing and an naivete about deep Evil. Protection of the public good, deterrence of crime, punishment, just retribution, prosecution, just use of force...these are NOT the mission or charism of the hierarchy, priests, bishops and pope. They ARE the work of lay people: soldiers, police, prosecutors, judges. statesmen. A good priest may be the one least prepared to deal with a psychopath. So the hierarchical Church has an inherent blindness, a disinclination to forcefully combat real evil. 

In its universality and desire for peace/prosperity it is sympathetic to Cosmopolitan Internationalism in placing high value on trans-governmental organizations like the UN and World Health Organization. It does this prudently and discretely, even as it opposes those agencies in moral issues around unborn human life and sexuality. Aside from those issues, its policy tends to align with those of liberal, Western elites with little sympathy for populist, often right-wing grievance.   Understandably, it is suspicious of nationalism but may not always encourage a wholesome patriotism. It is a positive influence for international cooperation but far from infallible on questions of military deterrence and use of force.

An intelligent, conscientious Catholic will listen respectfully to the Vatican on diplomacy and politics, but also to a wide range of sources of information. Its like listening to your Grandfather: hey! He can't be right on everything! 😉By contrast, on faith and morals, the Magisterium elicits total trust.

 

Deliver Us From Evil: A Lenten Meditation on "The World" (Letter 29 to Grandchildren)

 In Nigeria, a Christian is martyred by Jihadists every other hour. Over the last 13 years, 45,644 deaths; 2.543 in 2022 alone. More martyrdoms in that county than in the rest of the world. Meanwhile, 97% of Catholics there attend the Eucharist on Sunday. The highest percent in the world. In the USA the percentage is 17%, down from 20% before the coronavirus. We have a lot to learn from the Nigerians. Let's channel our Lenten practices in prayer for them.

In China 100,000 yearly are killed to harvest healthy organs for the rich and powerful who need transplants. The average age is 28, always healthy, mostly minorities like Uyghurs, Christians, Tibetan Buddhists.

Polls have over 90% of Russians supporting the invasion of the Ukraine. That includes the Patriarch of Moscow and much of the Russian Orthodox clergy. 

In some countries, there are 25% more male births due to abortion of females for gender selection. About 140 million more women would be alive today if not for this femicide. This has immeasurable consequences including male violence, abuse of women, human trafficking, and social chaos.

Suicide attempts by teen girls in the USA increased 50% in 2020 (only 5.7% increase for boys.) In that same year, 134 teens in California died from suicide, only 23 minors (including children) died of Covid. In 2021, 57% of teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless, double the number of boys, a 60% increase over the last decade. 30% seriously considered suicide, up 60% in a decade.18% experienced sexual violence in the past year, up 20% in 4 years.   10% were raped.

In 2010 we had 20,000 deaths from overdose; in 2017 there were 75,000.  In 2021 it was up to 106,000. The worst afflicted are white, unemployed, non-college men.

Bad News. Very Bad News.

The surge in Evil, in many ways, across our world, is like nothing we have seen in my 75 year lifetime, really since WWII: expansive, totalitarian China; imperialist Russia; Jihadist terror; violence against women in unthinkable forms and immense magnitude; a pandemic of abortions; global warming; energy shortage and hunger in the poor countries. Within the West and the USA: deaths of despair; criminal violence; vicious polarization and hatred; loss of religious practice; devastation of the traditional family; loss of trust in all institutions and much more.

We would have to go back to 1941 to see something comparable: worldwide depression, widespread poverty and unemployment, warfare in the USA between capital and labor; expansive evil empires in Germany, Russia and Japan. In my own family: the Laracys had lost their farm; on the Gallagher side my grandfather Bill suffered a mental breakdown and died of unknown causes in a state institution (my mother speculated about electroshock treatment; I wondered about a successful suicide since he had already attempted one.) At that time, however, coming out of the Great Depression, faith and family structure were strong. There was a depth and unity of purpose, rooted in loyalty to God and Family and Country, that fortified us to defeat the Axis of Evil. That is no longer true of our society!

Our world today resembles the beginning of the Star Wars saga: the Empire is all-powerful and completing the Death-Star; the rebellion is weak and in hiding; the Jedi are dead or out of sight. It resembles the world of Lord of the Rings: The powers of Mordor, terrifyingly formidable,  are on the move; the resistance is splintered and weak. Those worlds were blessed to have two Jedi and allies; and  the little Hobbits, Aragon, Gandalf, Galadriel, Dwarfs and Elves. All humble, modest, vulnerable! We have something similar in our world! More on that below!

The World of My Lifetime

Born in the afterglow of the victory over Hitler and Japan, I entered a world of unprecedented growth, prosperity and peace. Our urban, ethnic Catholic world was one of confidence, full employment for men, large families, a strong Church, expanding educational and career options, and certainty about our place in America and the world. Not a perfect world! But awareness of social injustice, especially against blacks, was on the rise and culminated with Doctor King in the 1960s. The women in my world (such as my mother) were grateful to God for deliverance from the Great Depression and the War, happy with all their children and hard-working husbands, their faith, their newfound prosperity. The single sorrow was that of women left unmarried by the men who died overseas; but they generously, free of resentment or grievance, channeled their love to family, work and Church.

In my home we had America Magazine, NY Times, and Maryknoll Magazine. With these, from my teen years, I followed with interest the two defining dramas of the time: the Cold War with the Soviet Union; and the suffering and development of the poor, so-called "third" world. The nuclear bomb was a cloud over us always; but my positive temperament never registered that as a real threat. No doubt by God's grace, the deterrence policy of MAD (mutual assured destruction: if one struck, both would be destroyed as well) actually worked. So we lived for 75 years in a world of widespread (not perfect) peace and increasing prosperity. Hundreds of millions were lifted out of poverty, even in China, by global capitalism and technology. Wars were, for the most part, not global but local and contained. Genocidal outbreaks (Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Cambodia) were distant from us. The exception for us was the Vietnam War, a trauma that scandalized and polarized us. Coinciding with the Cultural Revolution, that conflict left us as an entirely new society, now deeply divided over the very purpose and nature of life.

In the USA, within a very few years, an entirely new religion-culture-politics surged to reject Christianity and take control of our elite institutions of media, Democratic Party, higher education, law, medicine and entertainment. These Secular Progressives (or Liberals) affirmed: detachment from or resistance to God, break with tradition, rejection of authority other than the self, free sexuality, systemic killing of the unborn and incompetent, deconstruction of gender into a self-project, enhanced power of the State to enforce this ideology, destruction of marriage and family, elimination of smaller communities (Church, extended family, voluntary organizations), global capitalism, boundless confidence in technology, and exaltation of the inflated, isolated Ego. The Culture War between secular progressives and traditional Christians was engaged. It has been waged for half a century. It is getting worse. It is the defining reality of our time. 

The Five Kingdoms

Our world, globally, is warfare between five competing kingdoms: Communism, Jihadism, Fascism, Secular Progressivism, and Christianity (and allies like Judaism, and even forms of Islam).

Communism, primarily in China but also North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, is the most virulent, powerful and ominous. China is expanding its reach even into our own American economy, politics and culture. It is like we are back facing Japan/Germany in the 1930s or Soviet Russia 1945-89. 

Jihadism is dispersed in non-governmental terrorist groups but also has a state expression in Iran which is allying itself with Russia and China. A mitigating factor, especially in the Middle East, is that the Shiite terrorism of Iran is itself in conflict with Sunni fanaticism (Al Queda, ISIS) as well as the wealthy Sharia-law gulf states (Saudi Arabia, etc.). Additionally we have in the West and globally moderate, peaceful expressions of Islam. So Jihadism is not a united front and so less threatening than the monolithic Chinese communism.

Fascism finds expression in Putin, his invasion and authoritarian grip on Russia. Paradoxically, however, this blends with a Christian traditionalism that upholds the received moral values. He postures as a defender of tradition against the Secular Progressivism of the West. Prior to the invasion, he attracted support from the Right across the West as an unlikely champion of the moral order. While that approval has happily vanished it remains astonishingly that he maintains the backing of his people. The temptation to fascism is always with usj. During the cold war, the USA often collaborated with authoritarian states against the greater threat. The tyrant Saddam Hussein was beneficent to Christian institutions as they did not contest his power. And so there are ways in which traditional Christians can cooperate with fascists, as they can on different issues with Progressives,  moderate (not Jihadist) Moslems, and (more rarely) Communists (global warming, health, trade.)

Secular Progressivism is, for us Catholics in the USA, the enemy near at hand. In that sense it is our worst enemy, even as we ally ourselves with them against Fascism, Communism, and Jihadism. The problem is that we as a society, at war with ourselves, lack the unity of purpose to stand strong against the three global threats. With the three aligning themselves (Iran, Russia, China) we face an axis of evil and power that we can only contain and resist with a united front. The tragedy is that we are at war, Culture War, with ourselves.

Christianity Realistically, we have to face even worse news: within our own Church, and the broader Christian world, we are also at war. The powerful liberal or progressive wing of the Church is aligned with Western elites and renounces the Catholic faith as misogynist (no women priests), homophobic, moralistic, authoritarian, ignorant and reactionary. The Trojan Horse has entered our city. We have enemies within our own home!

We find ourselves fighting five wars at the same time: against communism, fascism, jihadism across the globe; against secular progressives in our society; and in defense of our own way of life within the Church. This does not even include combat with global warming, world hunger, and the plight of refugees. 

The "World" as Systemically Opposed to God

 Our Catholic faith teaches us to receive the "world," created Good-True-Beautiful by God, as a gift, gratefully, and delight-cherish-protect-develop it. But there is the other, negative meaning of "world" as aligned with the flesh and the devil in systemic revolt against God. 

This is the world we must recognize, renounce, combat, and endure. This world is under Satan. This is the world we are "in but not of," the world out of which we are called. This is a domain of evil that we cannot eliminate by any intentions, efforts or policy of our own. This is the world that tortured and killed Christ and all his martyrs. This is a hard, durable, aggressive domain that will be with us to the end of time. The is the world which we fight, fiercely, in agonistic combat until our death. This is the world Christ described: "The gates of hell shall not prevail."

There seems to be an ebb and flow of the good and the bad, a rhythm in every life and community, a cycle or rotation between times of good/blessing and those of suffering/evil. The Dark Kingdom waxes and wanes. My parents came of age and entered adulthood during the Depression and into World War II: times of widespread suffering. The crucible of suffering forged the sterling character and deep faith of the "Great Generation."  My generation, baby boomers, were born into a time of safety and comfort. Tragically, indulged and coddled, we did not preserve the spiritual/moral legacy of our parents. It may be that our world is entering another dark night of conflict and travail and you will have the opportunity to retrieve the virtue and heroism of our parents.

The World is Going to Hell

This invisible, systemic, spiritual organism, "The World," becomes present and physical in a boundless manner of ways in every single human group (excepting the Holy Family.) As every person, so every community adopts patterns of thought, attitude, belief that oppose God. It can be the teen peer groups gossiping, excluding, and cyber-shaming; the truck drivers sharing their pornography; the wealthy hoarding their money or the privileged their power.  Families have habits of anger, jealousy, addiction, arrogance, impatience, contempt which are passed by generation. Religious and renewal communities, in their very zeal and devotion, are prone to arrogance, pride, detachment, clericalism, rigidity and a plague of toxicities. This applies to every rectory, convent, monastery, and religious order or movement. We now know, more than previously, that the Vatican and College of Cardinals have hidden systems of financial and sexual wrongdoing. 

This "world" we know is passing away; it is going to hell. We do well to allow it to go to hell. In this life we cannot eliminate it. We renounce, resist...to death. Often we must suffer it. By patience, endurance and forgiveness of our persecutors we fortify ourselves in Love and build God's Kingdom, often in hidden, mysterious ways.

Chiaroscuro

In painting, the strong contrast between light and dark (particularly Caravaggio) is called chiaroscuro. Father Benedict Groeschel, (of happy memory, a founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal) called our attention to the chiaroscuro in human life: when evil prevails the light shines all the stronger. Think Saint Maximillian Kolbe and St.Theresa Benedicta of the Cross in the dark of the concentration camps. This image gives us great encouragement: moving into a darkening world we are confident that our light, that of the Gospel and God's grace, will shine all the more brightly. 

Christ, on Calvary, triumphed over "the world." We who live in him are already free of it, victorious over it...even as we need to endure its attacks. Ours is an interior peace, certainty, clarity, and fortitude that is entirely triumphant over the many "worlds" that attack, seduce and deceive us. With our cooperation, the Holy Spirit will inflame our hearts/spirits/intellects/wills with a blazing fire that will enlighten and warm a world grown dark and cold as we:

Enter into intimacy with Jesus and his Father in the Holy Spirit.

Gather our sins, weaknesses, failings and fall into the loving arms of Christ who fell three times for us on the way of the cross and remains on the ground waiting to receive us. 

Gather within the Church with others on this road of penance and holiness, encouraging each other in the sacramental life, centered in Eucharist and confession of sins, and constant conversation with the Word of God.

Gratefully embrace our masculinity and femininity, however flawed, as a radiance from heaven. Pray, wait, seek and finally surrender to a vowed "state of life" as married or religious.

Renounce, firmly-confidently-decisively, the  lies of the world and the devil in the holy name of Jesus.

Befriend the poor, suffering, lonely, discouraged.

Witness gently, humbly, clearly, always to the Truth; always in Love.

In this way will you perform your specific mission, however small and humble, assigned to you alone, in the great Drama that is enfolding before us...as did in their (albeit fictional) time Obi-Wan, Yoda, Luke, Aragon, Galadriel, Gandalf, Sam and Frodo.

In this way we build, with Christ, slowly and patiently, the Kingdom of God on earth, a Kingdom against which "the gates of hell shall not prevail."