Movements of the Holy Spirit: 1950-2000

Catholic Church: Pre- and Post- 1965

In considering the life of the Church in the late 20th century, we see two starkly distinct periods divided by the year 1965 and the concurrence of two distinct, contradictory events: Vatican II and the Cultural Revolution of the West. The standard rationale for the Council is twofold: the overcoming of a narrow scholastic theology by return to the ancient sources and opening of the doors of a closed, defensive, late Tridentine Church positively to the world. By this logic, a narrow, suspicious, closed pre-Council Church converted to a warm, positive, ecumenical one. 

Recalling my childhood as a child in the 1950s and an adolescent in the 1960s, this narrative never made sense to me. The immediate environment of my childhood/youth was parochial: all urban, ethnic Catholic, mostly Irish and Italians with some of German or Polish descent. I knew hardly any Blacks, Protestants, Jews, Asians, Maoists or Visigoths. But I did understand the place of the Catholic in the broader world. It did not include signs saying "Irish need not apply." Catholics in 1945-65 were: prominent protagonists in the labor movement, urban politics, Democrat Party, FBI, police and fire departments; having large families; making good money, going to colleges, moving to the suburbs, ascending the social ladder; militantly pro-America, pro-capitalism (even union families) and anti-Communism; enthusiastic participants in the civil rights movement; concerned about aid to the developing nations; surging with religious vocations; building an immense parochial, institutional system; enjoying elevated levels of church participation; and influential across the culture in figures like Sheen, Merton, Flanner O'Connor, JFK, Hitchcock, John Ford, and Grace Kelly. In other words, the Church of 1945-65 was hardly a ghetto; it was fully engaged in the broader Catholic-friendly society. Meanwhile, in Europe Catholic figures like De Gaulle, Adenauer, Schuman, Monet and a generation of Christian Democrats were influential in the resurgent post-War European Union.

By this logic, Vatican II was culturally/spiritually continuous with its immediate past. It was a punctuation point of a happy period; it was the icing on the cake. Contra the progressive and traditionalist interpretations of discontinuity, it provided a theological rationale for a cultural reality already mature and flourishing.

The Cultural-Sexual Revolution was something else altogether. Many see 1968 as the tipping point, but by the early 1970s the Church was: collapsing rapidly; hemorrhaging vocations; contracepting and aborting with the mainstream; locked in a vicious war between progressives, conservatives and a smaller number of traditionalists; and defensive before the new hostile, hegemonic liberalism of the elite. 

And so, contrary to the accepted story of a closed Church opening itself to an amiable dialogue with the world, what actually happened was that the Church found herself suddenly under assault from a now-dominant secular liberalism; falling apart rapidly; and polarized in a vicious civil war.  

It is worth considering the predominant attitude of the generation of young priests at that time, the cohort now in their 80s and 90s and rapidly passing away.  I have a fair familiarity with the priests of Newark NJ, Maryknoll and the Society of Jesus. I have seen: a small group of perhaps 10% on each side of the divide passionately engaged in advancing or resisting the agenda of cultural/sexual liberation. But a large majority of perhaps 75% largely detached from the conflict as (often liberal-leaning) moderates; pastorally sensitive and responsive to as much of the laity as possible; and loyal to the open, affirmative, ecumenical, irenic Catholic ethos they inhaled in 1945-65. And so, while battle raged in academia, media, law, politics and upper echelon arenas, at the ground level parish life carried on serenely, surprisingly untouched by the chaos and conflict elsewhere. 

Along with the mundane stability of parish Catholicism and the flaming culture wars, the Holy Spirit was happily active in most serendipitous, synergistic, surprising ways. We distinguish the spiritual, intellectual and the populist.

SPIRITUAL

Divine Mercy devotion as received from St. Faustina and St. John Paul surged across the globe.

American Catholic Post-War Revival was fueled by Bishop Sheen, Thomas Merton, Patrick Peyton, among others.

Servants of the poor...Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Madeleine Delbrel...drew all of us to the presence of Christ in "the least."

Catholic Post-War Revival was fueled by Bishop Sheen, Thomas Merton, Patrick Peyton, and others.

Servants of the poor...Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Madeleine Delbrel...draw all of us to the presence of Christ in "the least."

Lay Renewal Movements including Charismatic Renewal, Cursillo, Opus Dei, Regnum Christi, Focolari, Neocatechumenal Way and Marriage Encounter.

Quiet, humble, faith-filled saints like Josephine Bakhita, the Quattrocchis, Caryll Houselander, Gianna Molla,  Brother Andre, Father Solonus, and Padre Pio.

EWTN and the remarkable Mother Angelica.

INTELLECTUAL

Resourcement/Communio Theology. This school flowed into the Council as Resourcement and gushed out as Communio to inform the dual pontificate  which decisively defined Catholicism as happy marriage of the best of contemporary culture with the heart of Catholic Tradition as the Church entered the third millennium. Participants include:  John Paul, Benedict, Balthasar, DeLubac, Congar, Bouyer,  Schindler and the American School.

Vatican II architects...Pope John XXIII in invoking it; key Cardinals like Suenens and Bea; advisors including John Courtney Murray, Gerard Phillips, John Osterreicher, the group including young Ratzinger and the young Polish bishop Wojtyla.

Cultural Critics of Modernity as technocracy and alienation including Illich, Girard, McLuhan, Dawson, Brague, Schumacher, Ong and others. 

Neo-Thomism: Gilson, Maritain, Garrigou-Lagrange, Przywara, Pieper, Finnis, Grisez, Anscombe, McIntyre, and White. 

 Personalists: Marcel, Hildebrand, Stein, Mournier, and of course Wojtyla.

Catholic Writers including Flanner O'Connor, Graham Green, Evelyn Waugh, and Walter Percy

Humanae Vitae of Pope Paul VI and the catechesis of the human body of Pope John Paul.

Catholic Neoconservatives: Neuhaus, Novak, Weigel.

Singular Thinkers including Guardini, Taylor, Del Noce, Hahn, Dulles, Vitz, Groeschel, Sheed, Dupre, 

POPULIST

Perhaps as important as the above events are the many populist religious movements which sprang up from the grassroots without being initiated by specific, identifiable charismatic, intellectual or clerical leadership. It is crucial to distinguish those of the pre-Council era (1950-65) and those that followed that event (1965-2000). These are two strikingly different times.

The immediate post-war era was characterized by an expansive, outgoing generosity. The later era engaged the Church in defense before an aggressive, hostile cultural liberalism across the West.  

The earlier movements: Catholic participation in a vigorous labor movement (George Meany, Ceasar Chavez), civil rights, ecumenism, scripture study, liturgical reform, aid to the developing world, surge in vocations, family rosary, devotions like novenas,  Cana, expansion of the parochial systems of Churches, schools, seminaries, hospitals, and other.

By contrast, the later period largely involved Culture War: home schooling, pro-life movement, Latin Mass, new conservative religious orders, small and intensive Catholic colleges, Natural Family Planning, devotion to the Divine Mercy, and other.

Conclusion

In a world of chaos, instability, feverous activity and unpredictability, the Church is a rock of steadiness, clarity, certainty, and reliability. It is the Eternal dwelling with the temporal, contingent, transitory. And so it is also eventful, dramatic, surprising, radiant, organic, fluid, creative, pure, and ever refreshing. 

For the Catholic, 1950-2000 has been an era of expansion, decline, rest, action, spontaneity, providence, conflict, warfare, renewal and inexpressible delight. It has been an amazing time to be Catholic! 

Christ the Groom never tires of showering his Bride the Church with his tender mercies.

Come Holy Spirit! Let us rest in your abiding presence! Let us respond to your movements!

Great Catholic Minds and Voices of the Late 20th Century

 In the second half of the last century, what were the most powerful, positive voices and minds in the Catholic Church? Here is my all-star, top-ten list, using as criteria:

- Loyalty to the revelation of Jesus Christ as received from Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium.

- Depth and creativity of insight.

- Breath of scholarship: of the ancients and contemporaries; in theology/philosophy and across the disciplines.

- Holiness of life.

- Range of influence.

- Beauty, clarity and inspiration in expression.

1.  John Paul. The depth and creativity of his thought; the drama and holiness of his life; and the immense reach of his influence...all make him uncontested Catholic Champion of our time.

2. Balthasar. His engagement of theology in sanctity, beauty, drama and truth; his partnership with mystic Adrienne von Speyr; his incomparable range of scholarship; the depth and creativity of his thought...all make him the incomparable Catholic Theologian of our time.

3. Pope Benedict. His humble, holy, steadiness of life; his depth of insight; the beauty, clarity, simplicity, and grace of his expression...all make him the premier Catechist of our time.

These first three, the Great Triumvirate, will be (in my view) doctors of the Church and in the league of Augustine, Thomas and Newman in historical significance.

4.Bishop Fulton Sheen, Thomas Merton, Patrick Peyton. These and others fueled the Catholic post-war revival (1945-65).

 5. DeLubac. His love and loyalty for the Church and Tradition in a contemporary style; his depth and breath of thought; his influence on Vatican II.

6. Kiko Arguello. In his person and "Way" the Church receives the most passionate, militant, deep, clear and countercultural response to the chaos and decadence of our time.

7. Luigi Giussani. In the person and event of Jesus Christ, Giassanni unveiled the raw ontological positivity, notwithstanding the reality of sin, radiant in all human friendship, life and culture. 

8. Ralph Martin and the American Charismatics. These channeled the enthusiastic, charismatic energies of revival to engage the best in Evangelical-Pentecostal spiritualty, to fuel a renewal within Catholicism, to develop a new evangelization across the globe, and offer a fierce, ecumenical response to the Cultural Revolution.

9. Chiara Lubich and St. Escrivera. Founders of  Focolari and Opus Dei, vital renewal movements in our era.

10. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. While not an academic, she taught, wrote and exercised immense influence over our Church and world by virtue of her sacrificial, heroic charity and holiness.

In composing this list, I realized: First, the list is personal and subjective, rooted in my own person and situation. Second, so many others belong on the list. Third, such thinkers/influencers thrive in schools, communities, groups and movements rather than as isolated individuals. Lastly, many of the greatest spiritual influencers are not scholars but saints, servants of the poor, writers and speakers, clerics. 

And so, the next blog will consider the defining schools, groups and movements of 1950-2000 that define Catholicism on the entry into the third millennium. 

What a marvelous time to be a Catholic!

Resourcement/Communio School: John Paul, Benedict, Balthasar, DeLubac, Congar,Bouyer,  Schindler and the American School.

Renewal Leaders: Kiko, Giasanni, Martin and the American charismatics, Eschriva, Lubich.

Bishop Sheen, Thomas Merton, Patrick Peyton, Mother Angelica, Nouwen, .

Servants of the poor:  Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Madelene DelBrel.

Neo-Thomists: Gilson, Maritain, Pieper. Grisez, Anscombe,

Personalists: Marcel, Hildebrand. Stein, Mournier.

Dulles, Courtney-Murray, Ostereicher, Phillips.

Cultural critics: Illich, Girard, McLuhan, Dawson, Brague., Schumacher, Ong, 

Writers: Flanner O'Connor, Graham Green, Waugh,, Percy 

Scott Hahn, Neuhaus, McIntyre, Sheed, DelNoce, Dupre

Chardin, Garrigou-Lagrange, Guardini, Przywara, Taylor,

Popular movements: labor, civil rights, creation of parochial empire, surge in vocations, ecumenism, biblical studies, aid to the developing world.    pro-life movement, home schooling, Latin Mass, smaller more Catholic colleges, new conservative religious orders, 

Gutierezz, Boff, Freire, Segundo, Sobrino, 

Chittister, Kung, Baum, Schillibeckx, Haring.

Vote for Trump, the Lesser Evil: Bad Catholic Logic

Trump, versus Biden or any Democrat, is precisely the lessor evil. By my calculus, Hilary was five times worse; Biden ten times worse. No moral equivalence here! But the operative word is evil. A Catholic cannot participate in a real evil, even to avoid a far greater evil. 

I cannot kill one innocent  person, even to save a million. If I were an Israeli soldier in Gaza today with my Catholic conscience, could I bomb buildings knowing what I know? In 1937, could I have bombed Guernica for Franco's forces? Berlin or Hiroshima for the Allies  in 1945? The napalmed fields of South Vietnam in the late 1960s? No! No! No! No! (Aside: I do not judge Netanyahu, FDR, Truman or Johnson who do not live in my more demanding moral Catholic universe. Franco is another story!) 

The question: Is Trump a substantial, formal evil? Or is he merely an imperfect, crude and vulgar man but a prudent choice in the circumstances? Am I unrealistic, possibly looking for the purity of a saint in the messy, rough arena of politics? This essay will argue that The Donald is gravely, essentially an evil political force. This is not to judge his heart; we leave that to God; but to objectively evaluate his influence.

Full disclosure: psychiatrically I have been diagnosed with a severe  Biden-Aversion-Complex but am entirely free of Trump-Derangement-Syndrome so the analysis that follows is entirely sober, critical but appreciative, objective, fair, balanced and unafraid (just like Bret Baer at 6 PM on Fox). LOL!

Credit Where Credit is Due

His Supreme Court appointments make him, from the viewpoint of the unborn, the greatest pro-life President in history. He gets A+ for that and for his general forcefulness on the Culture War. Trump-haters say he could care less about the unborn but merely played to his base. I think he does care; I do not see him as a sociopath, bereft of empathy and conscience. But the correct response is that only God can see his soul and judge him. What we must judge, politically, is the objective value and consequence of his actions. He gets very high grades here, however impure his motives may be.

He is basically a celebrity and an entertainer. I never cared for him; but in the political arena, harassing the progressive elites, he is relieving, refreshing and sometimes comical. 

As a severe narcissist he has no real interest in governance or policy so he did little real damage to our institutions, restrained as he was by competent advisors and resilient national institutions. 

He presided over a world order of remarkable tranquility. This is undeniable, especially compared with the Obama and Bush years. I give him credit for: the Abrahamic Accords and forcing NATO to pay their due. I believe his unpredictability was a deterrent to aggressors. That worked well for that time but is not good policy in the long term. His good fortune was due (in my view) less to his policy than to events beyond his control. He needlessly weakened the trust of our allies; he despicably idolized tyrants like Putin; and he advocated isolation and abandonment of our proper role in deterring bad actors across the globe. On foreign affairs, I give him fair grades; better than Obama and far, far better than the Biden train wreck. 

He presided over a robust economy, especially contrasted with the inflation of the Biden years. Here again I give his policy partial credit as the economy is so complex that federal policy has (in my view) limited influence. This tax cuts surely energized the economy. But it also favored the rich, increased the deficit/debt, and contributed to long term inflation. I do not give him good grades on economics.

What's So Evil About Trump From a Catholic Perspective?

1. The Dignity of the Person. This is the foundation of all political life. In policy Trump is generally satisfactory, in some ways exemplary, and superior to the Democrats. But his personal language, behavior, and attitude convey raw contempt: of women, immigrants, anyone who opposes him. This is not just vulgarity or bad manners. This is moral decadence. 

2. Moral Exemplar. For all of us, but especially our young, he is an force for evil. He is a strong man and a powerful  influence. He springs from but intensifies the deepening decadence of our society. In addition to his contempt for the person, his indifference to truth and fact is simply breathtaking. He presents as populist but is in fact an indulgent, selfish child of privilege who shows no sign of compassion for the poor and suffering. We are all of us, always under mimetic influence. Everyone, but especially one in authority and the limelight, is a role model. As such, he is a catastrophe. This is not incidental, but essential to presidential leadership.

In a position of leadership we seek three qualities: competence in the task, a sound policy vision, and a personal (less than perfect) exemplar of the values of the community. My own view is that a resilient, stable institution (like the Church and the USA) can more easily endure weakness in competence or ideology than in moral character.

It is not that we expect a pure, innocent saint, but a man who personally represents in his person what our country stands for. This is the role of anyone in leadership at whatever level: not holiness, not perfection, but basic moral integrity and dignity. In my own lifetime, of 14 presidents, 11 from both parties have provided that. Even Nixon whom I never admired was publicly honorable; Kennedy, whose personal failings were largely unknown at the time, was an icon of dignity. The three exceptions: Clinton, with the Lewinsky scandal, opened the door to public acceptance of depravity. After that incident, a high school counselor told me that there was a new contagion of adolescent boys pressuring their girl friends for oral sex. Bill Clinton, if he does not burn eternally in hell, is looking at heavy purgatory time. Through that open door, fellow sexually-liberated Boomer-Trump shamelessly strolled. Even worse, Biden with his faux working-class-Catholic demeanor hypocritically betrayed his Church, abandoned his granddaughter, and leads the genocide of the unborn and the woke parade. As far as moral, mimetic contagion, we have in Clinton/Trump/Biden a genuine Axis of Evil.   

3. Hatred, Anxiety, Polarization. The role of leadership at any level is to unite participants around shared values. Trump is the mastermind in arousing populist fear, rage, suspicion and hatred. Likewise, in the opposition he elicits actual derangement: hysteria, irrationality, desperation, and contempt of the privileged for the lower class. This is not bad manners! This is, in the specific etymological meaning, diabolical: the "dia-bolic" or "tearing apart" of the body politic, into rage, hatred, anxiety and confusion.

4. Common Good vs. Individualism. Politics is "morality applied to society": it is about the common good, justice, rule of law, and solidarity with those afflicted and vulnerable. Even as they promote special interests and their own personal advancement, politicians appeal always to these primary values. Donald Trump is, by contrast, a cartoon caricature of the self-centered, indifferent, rich, powerful, privileged, arrogant, deceitful celebrity-narcissist. He vents hatred, rage, fear and contempt. Perhaps part of his appeal is that he is refreshingly free of hypocrisy: his amorality is blatant, uncamouflaged, and histrionic. His political vision is a vulgar, resentful nationalism, which is far from a wholesome patriotism. He is contemptuous of civil virtues of truthfulness, justice, humility, receptivity, care for the poor, reconciliation, and peace through contrition and forgiveness. 

My personal beef with Trump is his affect upon my older grandchildren: coming of age in his era in pure-blue NJ/NYC, they are nauseated by his moral stench and so pushed away from conservatism and towards progressivism. They already have a wholesome, understandable adolescent sympathy for liberal concerns like the environment, gun control, care of the poor/marginalized, and the dignity of women. Trump has placed a severe impediment in our intention to pass on our countercultural understanding of sexuality, gender, family, religious freedom and the unborn. In my primary concern of passing on my faith, Trump is my worst enemy. By a contrarian logic, I suspect that the more they see of Biden, the more they may be open to traditional moral values; the more they see of Trump the more they are repulsed by the same.

Defect in Judgement by the Catholic Trump Voter

Three dynamics are evident in the Catholic vote for Trump:

1. An exaggerated fear of the the progressive opposition along with an underestimation of our own conservative strength and resiliency. Yuval Levin accurately observes that both sides of the Culture War are prone to an hysteria that their side is losing and society is on the brink of collapse. Many smart liberals really think that democracy will be destroyed by a second Trump administration, even as his first did no real institutional damage. They bemoan an alleged "insurrection" as if we just had another civil war when a few hours after the riot Pence and the entire Republican establishment serenely ratified the election. Conservatives mirror this overreaction: a moronic memo by a handful of DOJ personnel is inflated into a systemic assault on traditional Catholicism. Conservatism is well served by sobriety, calm, a realistic evaluation of the internal incoherence and weakness of progressivism, and long-game confidence in the heavenly/earthly resources we have inherited.

2. An underestimation of the "Trump Effect": a view of him as a vulgar, crude man but overall a force for good in the context of the liberal threat. This fails to see the moral infection which he himself brings to the body politic. This is not a judgement about the state of his heart and soul; we leave that to God. It is a serene evaluation of his overall influence, culturally/morally/spiritually, for the heart of our country,  more than economic and power dynamics.

3. An unwillingness or inability to see any good in the liberals who are demonized into perverse cartoon figures. As a fierce moral conservative myself, I am sympathetic to their concerns about childhood poverty and hunger, gun control, the environment, a balanced regulatory environment, heavier taxation on the rich and hyper-rich, strong alliances across the globe, international cooperation including aid to the Ukraine. The "libs" are not as good as they think they are; but they are not as bad as the conservatives think they are.

Conclusion

This coming November I cannot vote for a Democrat and will not vote for Trump. I will stay up late, rooting for the defeat of the Left. Should Trump prevail, I will delight in the downfall of my enemy. But the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. I will grieve the continued descent of our society into depravity. I will hope that the Republicans finally renounce the person of The Donald but retain what is best in his politics. I will hope that the Democrats succeed in the genuinely good they intend; and are restrained from the evil. I will pray for a moral/spiritual revival in our nation and our reconciliation/unification around all that is true, good, just.

The Eccentric, Brilliant Mystic

I was delighted, this past Saturday at the NY Encounter, by presentations about Monsignor  Lorenzo Albacete and Simone Weil. A starker contrast can hardly be imagined: the obese, cigarette smoking, disorganized and disheveled, fast-food-gorging, comic-scientist-theologian-Manhattan sophisticate-celebrity, Puerto Rican Monsignor friend of St. John Paul the Great. And: the austere, ascetic, Jewish-atheist-convert, anorexic (physical and spiritual), (Spanish) revolutionary failure, genius-philosopher, martyr-for-the-suffering, non-baptized (as far as we know) mystic. But then I realized: underneath, they are the same "form"...the eccentric, brilliant, mystic. This is absolutely one of my very favorite human types. 

"'Brilliant" is clear enough: their superior intelligence, conjoined to sterling character, tender heart and fierce spirit give them wisdom and extraordinary insight. "Mystic" is straightforward: they have been possessed by the love of God. "Eccentric" is more elusive, puzzling, and fascinating. The word means strange, odd, unconventional. Etymologically it means "out of center." Morally it is not good or bad. Oftentimes it describes behavior or personality that is harmless, but charming or endearing. But it can also imply disorder and underlying pathology. 

And so, for example, Albacete ate too much; Weil too little. Both failed the temperance test. But so flaming was their passion, affection, devotion, wisdom, faith, courage, and charm that those imperfections pale by comparison. They add to the attraction and fascination, like a slight beauty mark on the face of a stunning woman. Besides Albacete and Weil, my favorites: (BTW women outnumber men 6-5. No toxic, patriarchal misogyny here!)

- St. Charles de Focauld. The only canonized saint on my list. Spoiled, fat, rich boy; heroic military commander of Foreign Legion in North Africa; ground-breaking anthropologist, disguised as Russian Rabbi, of the Sahara; stern, rigorous monk-hermit-missionary; renown across the Sahara among the Bedouins for his holiness and generosity but murdered without a single disciple or convert.

- Caryll Houselander. Hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, tough-talking, English writer of sublime, inspirational spiritual literature. She fell in love and was spurned by a spy (who was basis for James Bond) and never married. Solidly Catholic, she was flamingly (small "c") catholic in finding Christ everywhere, way beyond ecclesiastical boundaries. Untrained in the discipline, she was renown during WWII for healing of those suffering emotional/psychological torment.

- Ivan Illich. The intellectual hero of my youth, erudite, anarchistic, Croatian-Jewish-Monsignor, laicized but faithful to his vows of celibacy and Liturgy of the Hours, mind-bogglingly radical critique of the bureaucratic Church (especially the self-satisfied Irish-American branch), and of modernity as technocracy. 

- Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. Peter was the quirky, erudite, self-taught bookworm that gave the centered, solid Day the Catholic Worker vision of traditional piety, works of mercy, radical pacifism, and Christian anarchism that was entirely eccentric as fueled by love of God and the poor.

- Brennan Manning. Least likely to be canonized, this charismatic preacher/writer left the Church and the priesthood, married and divorced, remained trapped in his addiction, died of alcoholism, but dauntlessly proclaimed the unconditional love of Jesus Christ, for all us unworthy sinners, and was buried in St. Rose Catholic Church, Belmar, NJ.

- Heather King.  Recovering alcoholic-sex-love addict; survivor of multiple abortions; another writer of sublime, inspiring literature who rivals Caryll Houselander in her Catholic depth and catholic breath.

- Elizabeth Anscombe. Another odd, British genius like Houselander; best friend, protege and  executor for Ludwig Wittgenstein; mother-of-seven and happy wife; cigar-smoker; anti-war and anti-abortion and anti-contraception Catholic and radical (like Day and Maurin).

- Rose Hawthorn. Daughter of the literary giant, she left her husband to take care of the poor dying of cancer. An outlier, a puzzle, a challenge for us standard-order Catholics.

In my personal life, I have been drawn to and have drawn to myself similar, if more modest types: odd ducks with deep faith who delight me and bless me with mutual affection and respect.

In 1970, the year after college and before marriage, my best friends in Manhattan where I studied theology with the Jesuits and taught ESL in the South Bronx were: Gilbert Davidowitz, erudite linguistic researcher, Orthodox Jew, severe neurotic, tender friend and roommate; Tony Petrosky, another roommate, my boss at Puerto Rican Community Development Project, guitar-playing, pot-smoking, peace-exuding Hippy who lived in a tent for 3 years spending only $10 the entire time; and George Lissandrello, ex-seminarian-roommate, sensitive, antique-furniture-renovating, deeply spiritual and insightful, so-interesting, participant in the lower East Side gay community, victim of AIDs. 

My best friend ever (except my wife) was John Rapinich: beatnik friend of Kerouac and Ginzburg, convert, charismatic, artist, book worm, uncle to my children, little-big-brother to me, NeoCat, deep Catholic, free spirit. 

And I number among my best adult friends about 8 "maverick priests" (subject of a prior blog essay) who are each, in more modest proportion, eccentric, brilliant mystics. 

In heaven I aspire to spend a lot of time with these folks. I am not one myself. But I pride myself that I am odd enough, smart enough and pious enough to recognize one when I see one! 

What Happens to Catholic Faith at College?

The College Problem

College (in USA 1965-2024) is bad for the faith of a Catholic. Typically, the 18-year old leaves a home where the faith is practiced and graduates 4 years later with lost or diminished faith: absent from Sunday mass, cohabitating/contracepting, career obsessed, ideologically liberal, dismissive of tradition, and spiritually uprooted. College is, for many, a total, immersive environment wherein one studies, works, socializes, sleeps, eats, and attends class. Even Catholic schools, especially the most expensive and prestigious, are systemically  hostile to our faith for several reasons:

- Social life of insobriety and unchastity.

- Intellectual culture of secularism, Marxist-Freudian progressivism, techno-scientific idolatry, and contempt for religion/tradition.

- Obsession with career, competition, achievement, bourgeois security and comforts.

- Total immersion in the monotone peer culture of adolescent, insecure, inbred, narcissistic indulgence out of touch with the harsh realities of work, accountability, authority, survival, and discipline.

- Little or no steady engagement with living, communal faith. 

Choice of a College

This decision is unique for each student; and involves many factors of which Catholic identity and culture is one; and not necessarily the decisive one. Others include: price and financial aid, location (far or near home; city, country suburb), size (small, large, medium), social life, demographics, academic quality (for the intellectual), sport program and coach (for the athlete), career preparation, prestige, campus charm/beauty and any number of idiosyncratic preferences and aversions.

For the Catholic family and student, a steady environment of faith, on or off campus, needs to be first priority. The bourgeois family entrusts its child to the campus with unbounded confidence: this is a great experience, the pathway to success and happiness, a sound investment in a bright future. From a Catholic perspective, it is at best risky and arguably reckless.

Some radical, countercultural Catholic renewal communities (the Neocatchumenal Way for example) reject the idolatry of career achievement and the college degree, keep their children close to family and faith community, and chose modest, economic, commuter, less prestigious schools. Many go on to professional and academic careers but keep the priority on faith/family and reject campus decadence, career obsession, and the entrapments of elite "woke" culture.

Their intuition is correct. The normal campus is an intensification of broader trends in elite society, media and peer culture that are viciously hostile to historic Catholicism. Normal parish life, in itself, has been, for over 50 years (when we started our own family), fragile and vulnerable in the face of the forces attacking the faith. A thriving, vigorous faith today requires, normally, immersion in some intensive renewal community: Charismatic Renewal, Communion and Liberation, Neocatechumenal Way, Latin Mass Community, Opus Dei, etc.

My oldest grandchild Brigid offers an attractive approach: a junior at Columbia University, she participates there in Catholic activities but takes the subway downtown Friday evenings for lively meetings of her Communion and Liberation University (CLU) group which enliven and strengthen her faith.

Four Types of Schools

Since students spend most, if not all of their time embedded in the campus, we consider here four types of schools: secular; moderate, traditional and progressive Catholic schools.

1. Secular schools, private and public, modest and prestigious, are not just non-Catholic but virulently anti-Catholic academically and socially. But they have two positives for our faith:

- They are blatant and transparent in their hostility and therefore do not present a counterfeit Catholicism and oftentimes evoke a reaction whereby the young person asserts the faith against the uncamouflaged opposition. 

- In some, but certainly not all cases, there is a small, but vigorous  counterculture, possibly some blend of traditional and evangelical/Pentecostal Catholicism in Newman  campus ministry, a FOCUS group, or informal faith gathering. Paradoxically, one might find here a more intense, authentic Catholicity than is available at Catholic schools. My nephew-priest found that at the University of Illinois and it is common on Ivy League schools.

2. Moderate, Mixed, Mainstream are majority of Catholic schools, maybe between 80 and 90%, a blend of forces pro and contra our faith. Here we find good Catholic resources for those so inclined, but the usual dorm culture. Unfortunately, the predominant trend is to mimic prestigious secular schools by hiring faculty, not for Catholic mission, but for academic status alone. And so, over the course of time, there is a deterioration of Catholic identity in academics. This trajectory was uncovered by a doctoral dissertation (by my sister) about our own Seton Hall University with which my own family is familiar. It has very strong Catholic assets (seminary, Jewish-Christian Studies, Focus, service projects, Catholic Studies and others) but a rampant cultural progressivism across the disciplines.  This would also describe our premier university, Notre Dame. 

Schools in this group may lean more heavily towards the traditional or the progressive. Our family has familiarity with three that retain strong dynamics of Catholic life: Mount St. Mary's (Maryland), DeSales University (Allentown, Pa) and Assumption (Worcester.)

3. Strong Traditional, Orthodox Schools.  This is a limited number (20 to 30) of mostly smaller, many fairly recent, which quite deliberately offer a classical, intense Catholic alternative to the progressivism which swept our schools starting in the late 1960s. The larger, stronger among them include: Franciscan University of Steubenville, Benedictine College in Kansas, Ave Maria in Florida, Christendom, and University of Dallas. They offer a strong academic program in a classic, liberal arts vein. There is less focus on career, science/technology, and Dionysian social life; much more focus on moral character, spirituality, and our Catholic legacy. It retains the ancient focus on formation of the person. They offer a coherent, inclusive Catholic culture that effectively strengthens the student's faith. It is, obviously, the ideal choice in the view of Grandpa. Critics of these schools point to lack of diversity in student body and academics. A response to that is that graduate school, usually in a large university, offers the more mature such values.

4. Progressive schools,  (Georgetown, Boston College, Fordham, Marquette, Holy Cross, etc.) have emulated the prestigious secular institutions and present themselves as mimetic competitors in all essential dimensions: academic status, ethos of sexual liberalism, leftist politics with the Marxist oppressor/oppressed binary now applied not to class but to racial and sexual identity, focus on professions and career, investment in research and science/technology. This agenda carries with it, inexorably, an implicit disdain  for traditional Catholic values around gender/sexuality, family, morality, authority, and tradition. Traditional Catholicism is viewed as misogynist (male priesthood), homophobic, clericalist, authoritarian, and regressive. In its place is offered a new, enlightened spirituality which blends classic values (care of the person, social justice, concern for the poor and marginalized,  "catholic" openness to others) with an acceptance of Cultural Liberalism. These schools are a serious concern for the traditional Catholic family as they present as a more authentic, relevant Catholicism even as they scorn much of our legacy. To make things worse, this philosophy tends to embrace the entire college culture: peer and dorm life, academics including theology and philosophy, administrative policy, and campus ministry. There remain a remnant of orthodox Catholics (e.g. Peter Kreeft at Boston College) but they are increasingly outliers and exceptions. 

The staff at these schools are generally of high quality: scholarship, moral character, achievement, competence and deeply pious in their progressive way. This makes them, of course, all the more appealing for our young; and more dangerous from the viewpoint of traditional parents/grandparents. 

Such school offer much genuine value in academics, morality, social policy, culture and spirituality. A young person can benefit greatly in many ways. But the pervasive value structure includes a rejection, not always explicit, our core beliefs.

Conclusion

My own primary desire is that our grandchildren receive, cherish, and share the faith we have received from earlier generations. The world we live in is viciously hostile to our religious legacy; as Roman Catholics we do well to vigilantly, prayerfully protect, cherish and share our faith. As (small "c") catholic Catholics we know that God is everywhere: we welcome and affirm all that is good, true and beautiful, in every kind of school and environment.

The "passing on" of our faith is primarily in the close bonds of faith and love between parents and children. But family cannot stand alone; it is organically part of the Church and the many organisms that flow from it. Our own 27 grandchildren are in 12 different schools: private, public, parochial; elementary, secondary university; very large and very small; prestigious and modest. 

Our singular joy is that they continue to grow in God's grace and our faith, in a variety of circumstances.  We can only rejoice and give thanks! 

 

The Witness of the Non-Communicant; and My Uncle Charlie

Silent, humble, contrite, desperate for the mercy of God, the non-communicant remains kneeling while everyone at mass goes to receive communion. This may be the most poignant, touching, sobering and inspiring sight in our shared Catholic life.

The Eucharist-attending-but-not-communicating is at mass out of love for Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, out of desire for God, apparently with contrition, but  blocked from receiving by some impediment or sense of unworthiness. We don't know why. It could be a minor issue (like a forgetful donut and coffee within the hour of fasting) or scrupulosity, but very often it is a marriage-related situation: divorce and remarriage, cohabitation/contraception, entrapment in sexual or other compulsivity. 

Here especially the objective/subjective distinction is crucial. An objective irregularity does not necessarily indicate an interior state of sin. One caught in an objective disorder may conceivably be living in a tortured but authentic holiness. Only God can judge the heart and soul. I often think that that quiet, serious non-communicant may well be in deep sanctity while many of us receiving deceive ourselves with self-satisfaction. The humble "spiritual communion" may be more deep, passionate and abiding than the actual, corporeal communions of all the rest of us. It calls to mind the Canaanite woman, persistent-humble-faith-filled, who responded to the rejection and insult of Christ ("are we to give the children's food to the dogs?) steadily ("even the dogs receive some crumbs.")

And yet, for the good of the person and the Church,  protocols and rules must be observed. The compliance with abstinence is, thus, an act of humility and penitence that benefits all of us. How desperately we need such gestures. This past week was Ash Wednesday: how refreshing to see those dark cruciform ashes on the foreheads of acquaintances, strangers and even celebrities on TV. Together we recall: yes we are indeed sinners, in need of repentance, desperate for God's mercy.

In the wake of our priest sex scandal, I hoped that we would hear of groups of priests and bishops implicated publicly confessing and vowing to a life of penance: quiet prayer and mortification, in a monastery, in reparation for the harm done. I do know of individual, anonymous cases of priests living such lives removed now from the public. But it would have been encouraging to see a public witness. I know of no such thing. We need that. 

When I was an altar boy, late 1950s, I was mystified by my Uncle Charlie. He would be at 6:30 AM daily mass on cold February/March mornings of Lent, but would not receive communion. This made no sense to me; I could not imagine why he abstained. He was a standup guy! Salt of the earth! Worked as a carpenter in the cold all day and enjoyed the warmth of a few drinks at night. Good husband, father and uncle to me. Very, very good sense of humor. Hollywood handsome in the WWII picture of him in uniform. Then at the age of 13 I learned why.

Might be the strongest memory of my childhood and early adolescence. I was going up to bed when I heard my parents mention the date of his marriage to my Aunt Marian: something like 1950 or so. I turned and corrected them: you must mean 1940 because my two older cousins were born in the early 1940s. They looked seriously at each other; nodded their heads and told me to sit down, that they had something to tell me. They calmly explained that those cousins were children of my aunt's first marriage to a man who was unfaithful. Since this was a divorce and  second marriage without annulment they could not receive communion. I said "Oh." I was more than shocked.

By the time I got into my pajamas and under the blankets I was weeping uncontrollably. My body was shaking. I had never wept so powerfully before; I have not since; I doubt that I will in the future. 

I was not angry or judgmental: not of them, not of the Church. Innocently I accepted it as a heartbreaking fact, without blame involved. At the age of 13 I don't recall being very pious or affectionate as a nephew; but looking back I see that I did passionately love the Eucharist and my Uncle Charlie. That he would come there, early on cold mornings, in faith-humility-devotion, and be impeded from receiving was heartbreaking for my innocent, Catholic sensibility.

There is a good ending to the story. Within about a decade, I learned that that previous marriage had been annulled. Their marriage was validated in the Church; they returned to the sacramental life; and died in the good graces of the Church. 

And so, the small group of participant-but-not-receiving Catholics are exemplary and edifying, whatever the objective irregularity or even the interior torment. We need them and their witness. We might contrast them with the rest of us.

The vast majority, today, of those who still self-identify, as Catholic, neglect Sunday mass altogether. They may not to be to blame: were they properly taught? Did they receive good example? The majority of blame would fall on my own generation, the boomers, who were taught better by our parents, but have largely failed our young. This was not malicious or deliberate; but the consequence of a monumental deception and delusion, the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.

Worse than not attending is the casual, presumptuous reception by some of this group when they do attend mass for a wedding or funeral. This is sacrilegious. Worse still is the defiantly blasphemous reception by those who publicly, militantly reject Church teaching and practice (e.g. the LGBTQ cause) but insist religiously, righteously on their right to communion. Deplorable as well are the clergy who encourage this blasphemy. Again, however, the intentions are not malicious, but sentimental. They flow from defect of the intellect, not the will, from a foundational error and deception.

Those of us who participate in the ordinary way are not without our own problems. We easily fall into habit and routine, distraction, indifference, self-satisfaction and self-indulgence in superficiality,  materialism, and success-fueled pride. We need the witness of the non-communicant.

May our Lord bless those who bring themselves so humbly to mass! 

May they be reconciled to the Church and returned to the sacraments! 

May we who receive be instructed by them in humility, contrition, and reverence!

 

Why Only Male Priests?

Two words: Groom and Bride. (Or: husband/wife; or father/mother). To be precise: We the Church are the Bride of Christ the Bridegroom who expresses his love through the ordained priest, his male image.

In Genesis we learn that God created the human person...male and female...in the image of God. Man and Woman are different, but equal in dignity; and created to love each other in marriage. This special love is the high point of the natural world; God's greatest idea and the best image of the life of the Trinity.

Every human person is male or female; not a combination; not on a scale; not a third or forth sex. Biologically, from the very beginning every conceived embryo has a structure that is female (2 X chromosomes) or male (one X and one Y). And so each person is male or female in body and soul.

A man cannot be a mother, a daughter, a bride or a wife; although he can engineer his male body with chemicals an surgery and pretend to be a woman. He cannot conceive a child, carry it, nurse and mother it. A woman cannot be father, son, groom or husband. She cannot give the seed of life; cannot father a child. Although she can violate her feminine body by chemicals and surgery and pretend to be a man.

Married love of a man and woman is the highest natural image of the life of the Holy Trinity: Three-in-One. The three persons...Father, Son and Holy Spirit...are all equal, but different from each other, but love each other totally, so that they become perfectly One, but still Three. They are three distinct persons; they are not three parts or aspects of a singularity, a monolith. They are not three different gods. They are three persons in one God. Different but equal. The Father totally loves the Son and the Son totally loves the Father and the love between them is so powerful that it is a third person, the Holy Spirit. 

Polytheists believe in many gods; Jews and Muslims believe in one God, but no three persons within God. Pantheists do not believe in gods or a Creator personal triune God; they believe the divine is part of life, part of nature and part of the individual self. Christians believe in One God, three equal but different persons: a Great Mystery!

The greatest image of this Trinity life is in the created order is the love of a man and woman in marriage, which brings forth a family with children (normally). The man and woman are equal, but different. They love each other and so become "one body." So, in the act of physical love, they become "one;" the man  gives the "seed of life" which the woman receives; and sometimes the male seed and the female egg unite and God breathes into this new creature a human, immortal soul.

This love of man and woman...called marital, spousal, conjugal...is very different from other loves: that of friends, brothers/sisters, children/parents. It is:

- Exclusive: between one man and one woman. Only one; only a man and a woman.

- Faithful: it abides until the death of one or the other. It is final; cannot be broken.

- Free: given mutually in liberty, without coercion or force of any kind.

- Fruitful: open to new life, children or other works of life-giving love together.

- Intimate sexually and romantically as they mutually belong to each other and no one else.

- Sacrificial as they give to each other generously, making sacrifices for each other.

This spousal/conjugal love of man and woman is also an image of the love of Jesus Christ for his Church. St. Paul tells us that Christ loves his Church as a husband loves his wife. Jesus loves us in many ways: Creator, Savior, Lord, Brother, Friend.  He gave his human life for us on the cross to give us his divine eternal life, forever in heaven. He loves each of us personally, and all of us as the Church, the way a husband loves his wife.

As in the act of love the husband gives the seed of life that is received by the wife, so we the Church, the Bride of Christ, receive from our Bridegroom: the Word of God, pardon for our sins, his Body and Blood, the Holy Spirit, eternal life, and many blessings from heaven. 

Especially in the Eucharist, the Groom lovingly speaks his Word, gives us his body and blood, pours out his Holy Spirit, and gives us the seed of eternal life. Likewise in confession, it is Christ himself who gives us forgiveness for our sins and the grace to renounce evil and grow in holiness; the priest is his representative and image appropriately a masculine one. 

The priest is the representative of Christ the Groom who loves his bride. Therefore it is fitting and right that a male person act in this masculine task: a man representing the Great Groom.

The priest is also a father to us. We Catholics call priests "Father." God the Father is our father of course; and so is Jesus; and the priest represents thefFather as well as the husband. The Church is our Mother. In a special way also Mary, who is the heart of the Church, is our mother. In human life we have the male/female binaries of father/mother, husband/wife; so in the Church we have the Motherhood of Mary and the Church, the Bridal Church, the Fatherhood of God, and the Bridegroom Jesus. And the male priest represents the masculine Bridegroom.

The Church, like Mary who is her heart, is bride, mother and virgin (although all of us individually are sinners, except Mary herself.) And so, the identity of the essentially feminine or Marian Church is best imaged or represented by the female virgin, who in chastity surrenders herself as bride of Christ, joyfully surrendering the ordinary delights of romance, children and family. 

And so, the spousal/conjugal love of husband and wife, father and mother, the pinnacle of Creation, is itself an image of an even greater supernatural love, that of the Great Bridegroom for his bridal Church. And that love is imaged in the Church in the masculine priesthood and the feminine virginity.

Who Am I?

 What is it that informs, defines, inspires, moves, thrills, delights me in my identity, relationships, communities, mission, and destiny? From most to less significant:

1. Catholic.  Not Catholic Christian, Catholic. I love, above all, Jesus Christ, my Lord-Savior-Brother, second person of the Trinity. I do not love him individually, but personally, as a member of The Church, the one, catholic, holy, apostolic, spousal, maternal, Marian, sacramental, infallible, efficacious, institutional, mystical, sinful, hierarchical Roman Catholic Church.

2. Family. To my wife, immediate and extended family I am husband, father, son, brother, grandfather, father(and other)-in-law, uncle, cousin, nephew, grandson. 

3. Friend. To a mesmerizing, bewildering variety of random, eclectic, eccentric, gifted, wounded, marvelous people.

4. Catechist. My defining ambition has been to listen, within the Church, to the voice of Christ and the Word of God, and to "echo" that in my own voice, person, action. Above all, I have desired that the voice of Christ be heard by my own blood and other young people.

5. Chastity. Since my most severe moral challenge has always been chastity, I have cherished the Catholic ethos of sexuality, especially the catechesis on the male/female human body of John Paul the Great, and the entire Catholic support system including confession, spiritual direction, men's support groups, ideals of virile purity and fidelity, as well as the miracles of a happy marriage/family and holy friendships.

6. The Poor.  My other defining ambition: to be tender, attentive, comforting to the suffering and poor, including the mentally-emotionally tormented.

7. Charismatic. In this lay renewal movement, I received a new movement of the Holy Spirit, and encounter with Pentecostal/Evangelicalism, and a deepening of my Catholic faith.

8. Culture Warrior. Coming of age in the 1960s, I breathed in the liberal euphoria of the age, but was blessed in the 1970 by a grace-filled marriage and a series of grace-filled encounters and took a militant, warrior stance against my cohort's cultural progressivism.

9. Social Doctrine of the Church. In addition to concern for the poor, I have desired to understand, interiorize and live the Church's social teaching in all dimensions: solidarity, the common good, subsidiarity, respect for life, reverence for marriage, and all our liberties.

10. Philosophy. Armchair, amateur, lay, uncredentialled, non-professional philosopher ("lover of wisdom") am I. A defining passion has been to read, reflect, discuss broadly...theology, philosophy, social sciences, history, literature and culture/politics. In this I have ambitioned to emulate: mentor-autodidact-pugilist-librarian Pat Williams; best-friend-little-big-brother-beatnik-convert-charismatic-Neocat John Rapinich; catechist-publisher Frank Sheed; itinerant Catholic Worker founder Peter Maurin; mystic-scholar Baron von Hugel; mystic-radical-eccentric Simone Weil; artist-musician-mystic Kiko Arguello and others who gained wisdom from broad and undirected reading, personal experience, prayer and the life of the Church.

11. American. I cherish our legacies of liberty, law, democracy, market economics, entrepreneurship, and the abundance gifts and energies that have blessed our nation. My patriotism, in contrast to a narrow and defensive nationalism,  in always in the context of a broader Catholic internationalism: no isolationism or "America First" here! Likewise, my pledge of allegiance includes an awareness of the Calvinist-Enlightenment-Masonic (non-sacramental; non-Marian; non-magisterial) underpinning of our founding and history which express in oscillations between individualism, collectivism, Faustian technocracy, consumerism, and bourgeois self-satisfaction.

12. Communio Theology.  In the teachings of John Paul, Benedict, Balthasar, the David Schindlers and their colleagues at the John Paul II Institute in Washington DC, I encountered an articulation of our Catholic faith that is grounded in revelation and tradition, fresh and innovative, profound, profoundly delightful and inspiring.

For all of this I can only say:  "Thank You, Lord!"   

    

   

"Made Man": The Journey into Honorable Virility

The "made man," we all know from movies about the mob, has proven himself; he has been tested and passed muster; he is a stand-up guy; a man of honor whose word can be trusted; he does not back down from a fight; a reliable ally. He earns it the hard way: fights, crimes, hits, years in prison without squealing. Everyone knows: he is not one to be messed with. He has the respect of all. 

I want to expand this expression beyond the narrow, romantic aura of the Hollywood crime movie, to a broader, deeper, wholesome understanding of the nature of virility. In primitive, ancient and traditional cultures prior to the secular, androgynous, masculine-phobic, progressive modernity post 1965, young men journeyed an itinerary of formation, testing strengthening, correction and encouragement. Eventually they faced a test of their virility: they survived in the jungle on their own; they prevailed in combat; they endured hardship and suffering with patience and dignity. Having traversed this path and passed the test, they were certified, by the elders, but before the entire community, as MEN: strong, steadfast, trustworthy, prudent, sober, sacrificial, and worthy for marriage, paternity, and leadership. With this recognition and status, the young man breathed a new confidence, an inner serenity, as he continued to grow in gentle strength and wisdom.

Femininity, by sharpest contrast, requires no such itinerary-testing-ordination. The young woman grows into womanhood and accepts maternity fluidly, organically, receptively, floweringly, fragrantly, fruitfully, generously. Specific careers, to be sure, (military, medicine, law, police, fire fighters) have (usually) the same requirements for women as for men. But entry into womanhood itself requires no such itinerary.

The Cultural Revolution, in its hysterical compulsion to homogenize-sterilize gender, destroyed the immense network of virility-oriented training, testing, competition, discipline, and encouragement. The causes of this were multiple: diminishment of physical labor, dependency upon high technology and bureaucracy, militant feminism, contraception, the decline of chastity, a culture of prosperity-indulgence-consumerism, loss of the holy, contempt for tradition, illusions about progress, individualism, the decline of family/community, and the confusion of vicious power for God-given authority. 

"The Great Generation," no longer with us, was the last to fully walk the path to virility: they suffered in youth in the Great Depression and then as an entire generation defeated two imperialisms, in the Pacific and Europe. They ALL returned home in 1945, tested and proved and wise and strong, to raise large families and build one of the greatest civilizations in human history and eventually defeat one of the worst, the Soviets. They were tried and tested in hardship and combat.

We boomers, raised in affluence, are soft:  self-satisfied, indulgent, materialist, narcissistic, careerist, progressive. We are anti-tradition, anti-authority, anti-combat, anti-communal, anti-supernatural, anti-masculinity.

Result: we have in the West a society sad scarcity of honorable, reliable, paternal men. Through no fault of their own, our young men wander on their own, unguided by a reliable path to masculinity, and become wimps or thugs.

What are we to do?

Before doing anything, we look with delight at Reality. The fact of masculinity/femininity is baked into the Real; into Being; into the birds and the bees; into (Mother) nature; into hormones, neural paths, DNA, body muscle, thinking patterns, emotions, tradition, culture, archetypes, psychology, drama, and religion (certainly the Catholic brand). You can eliminate masculinity/femininity about as much as you can eliminate bedbugs, accurately count the stars in the sky or the sand pebbles in the world. Masculinity, like femininity, is inexorable, inherent, indefatigable, invincible, resilient, inevitable, mysterious, iconic, synergistic, spontaneous, commonplace, noble, generous and miraculous.

Notwithstanding the idiocy, toxicity, dysfunctionality, futility of "(post?)modernity," masculinity and femininity thrive in a million ways, wherever you look. But masculinity to flourish according to its proper God-given, natural, heroic form must be nourished, trained, encouraged. 

There remain in place many manly environments which foster virility: sports, military, boy scouts, informal gatherings of men of all ages and for all purposes. But the remaining ones are under constant attack from "woke" anti-masculinity cultural progressivism. We see this in the boy scouts, military, trans-sports, and wherever masculinity thrives as a distinct form.

Returning to the "made man," let us consider the Catholic, as distinct from the mob, version. The Catholic made man is: humble before God, chaste, courageous, reverent and tender to women, pious in the ancient sense of loyal to family and tradition, reliable, steadfast, generous, loyal. 

And so, let us attend to the dynamics still around us, in nature-culture-religion, which promise to nurture our young men into virtuous virility. Let us revive ideals of heroism, chivalry, fortitude, purity and sacrfice. Let us encourage our youth on paths to form them as loyal husbands and devoted fathers.

Four Spiritual Attitudes Towards Sexuality

 One is bad; the second is worse; the third is vile, perverse and sacrilegious; the last is very good.

1. The Negative

Shame, guilt, fear, and suspicion have always accompanied the relationship of religion with sex...for good reason. By virtue of concupiscence (the disorder of our attractions, especially sexual, resulting from the Fall), sex is deeply infused with violence, objectification, domination, seduction, deceit, manipulation, jealousy, resentment, and decadence. The more sensitive spirits are especially attuned to this; and so the most religious among us often despise and fear sex. The Shakers required celibacy of all. The Manicheans considered it as evil, not coming from God. Within Catholicism, Augustine is (often unfairly?) associated with a negative view; Calvinism in its doctrine of total depravity further exaggerated this suspicion and brought it to America with the Puritans. French Jansenism expressed a similar disapproval from the 17th century, influencing the Irish Church and then Irish-American Catholicism into the mid-20th-century. 

By the 1950s, however, this Irish Jansenism was a thing of the past. I have scrutinized my own guilt and shame around sex, for over 60 years since I emerged from childhood in the late 1950s. My conclusion: my persistent, intense but quiet guilt has been neither neurotic nor Jansenist, but wholesome in that it motivated my faith-inspired drive for chastity and fidelity, as it has been fruitfully channeled by lifelong confession of sin and associated habits. Shame is something different. Guilt is awareness of wrongdoing and itself a correct, truthful reaction to sin. My guilt came from my Catholic catechesis; I am grateful for it.  Shame is not related to a wrong act but an overall disgust for oneself, rooted in how we imagine ourselves viewed by others. It cannot be confessed, forgiven and repaired in the manner of a specific offense. My shame exploded in puberty with my sexuality. It did not come from wrongdoing. Nor was it caused by the disapproval of the Church: I recall no negativity from my parents, priests, sisters or brothers. It was not mentioned: the "null curriculum." I developed it on my own. For example, around age 12, 7th grade (everything bad happened to me in that year???) I did my paper route every afternoon and disliked it. Partly because, for reasons I have never comprehended, I always experienced an involuntary erection. I realize now that it was entirely invisible to the public. But I felt a flaming shame, as if the entire world stopped and stared at me with disgust. It was a long journey to be free of that kind of self-generated shame. I would have benefited from a clear, positive catechesis about sex. But I did imbibe from the respectful, shy silence and especially the example of my parents, as well as the broader community including married, ordained and religious, a reverence and sense of the inherent goodness of sex.

2. The Trivial

The Sexual Revolution of the 1960s ushered in the opposite extreme: sex is not bad; nor is it sacred; it is no big thing; it is trivial. Pornography/masturbation, hooking-up, cohabitation/contraception, homosexuality and such are not a big deal: mere natural urges, ways to release tension and stress, nice ways to express affection. The abortion regime is, of course, an outcome of contracepted-sterile, non-unitive, non-spousal, free sex. There has been a progression however: the revolutionary casualness of Playboy Hugh Hefner of the 1960s has given way to the heaviness, the indignant rage of the LGBTQ and "Trans" crusades. They are deadly serious that we cannot be serious about sex; and that the Church dare not disapprove of these behaviors, that it absolutely must bless their lifestyles.

3. The Sacrilegious

In recent years, a very small but deeply troubling trend has emerged among Catholic leadership. It is a confused, perverse, sacrilegious conflation of sexual sin with an alleged mysticism. Jean Vanier, his mentors, the priest-brothers Fathers Thomas and Marie-Dominique Philippe, and more recently Jesuit-artist Marko Rupnik sexually abused women under their spiritual direction while cloaking it as a mystical encounter. This has involved even abuse of the sacrament of confession: as when a priest absolves his partner in sin and thereby incurs an automatic excommunication for himself. This is sacrilege at many levels: obviously the abuse of one who has entrusted herself to you; abuse of authority, ordination, sacrament; abuse of the male and female bodies, both temples of the Holy Spirit. It is at once contempt for sacrament and sexuality. It is a sin straight out of hell that screams to be consumed by the very fires of that inferno. However, it gets worse. The crimes of the Philippe brothers were known 70 years ago and yet they were able to continue their wrongdoing. The sins of Rupnik were clearly known and yet he remained undisciplined by the Jesuits, apparently protected by friends in the Vatican, for a long time until public furor forced the matter. And now we have in Cardinal Fernandez, Pope Francis' closest advisor and head of the Dicastery for the Faith, a history of writings that confuse and conflate unchaste sex with mystical engagement with God. He has not been accused of wrongdoing; but his writings express the very confusion and perversion that produce such unspeakable sacrilege. Victims of abuse have spoken out forcefully; he has not clearly repudiated his writings. Our Church is familiar" with sexual sin...the Renaissance popes, our recent horrific priest scandal...but such vile untruth in the inner circle of the Pope is (to my knowledge) unprecedented. We live in dark times.

4. The Iconic

In his catechesis on the human body, also called Theology of the Body, St. John Paul II gave us (in my view) the most significant, authentic development of Catholic theology of the 20th century. "Significant" because it strikes us deeply, in our sexuality, the very core of our identity; "significant" because he gave us the authoritative answer to the sexual revolution which rocked the West in his time; "authentic" because it brought into clarity and depth the inspiring, sublime, iconic understanding of sexuality at the heart of our Catholic faith...in the words of Genesis "male and female we created them"; in the erotic, romantic poetry of the Song of Songs; in the spousal imagery of Hosea about God's longing for Israel; in the finale of the Scriptures with the bridal embrace in Revelation; in the sacramentality of marriage as sacred; in the conjugal-celibate love of the early virgin-martyrs for their Lord; in the great traditions of Renaissance art so admiring of the human form. Decisively he overcame the suspicion and fear of sex that ever hovers over religion. He brought us to see that attraction of male and female for each other...flawed by sin, but still inherently tender, reverent, generous, exclusive, fruitful, faithful, chaste...is an icon of the very internal life of the Trinity, a "communio" of persons. Far from being in itself bad, sinful or threatening, it is the most beautiful reality in the natural, material order since it is ordered to reflect, in marriage, the inner life of the Trinity as generous, life-giving, pure, sacrificial, and loyal. And so, he added tremendous affirmative, positive energies to the traditional Catholic reverence for chastity and the fidelity of marriage and consecrated life.

Conclusion

And so, with St. John Paul we renounce the trivial and the sacrilegious views and decisively move beyond the negativity that has been part of our tradition. At the same time, we do well to preserve the truth in that legacy: sexuality is so sacred that it is at the same time potentially dangerous. John Paul would be the very first to recognize that by virtue of our sexual concupiscence, sex can be a horrifically destructive force. It is to be received with immense reverence and gratitude, but also with more than a touch of fear and awe. Rudolph Otto unveiled the "holy" as evoking both fascination (positive) and fear (negative.) In our approach to God, we are drawn to his love and mercy, but cannot fall in adoration of his holiness and truth. Not in the paralysis of anxiety and shame, but in fascination and worship. And so, regarding our masculinity/femininity, in all its fierce eroticism, we enter into veneration, of our own identity and destiny, but also in that of the opposite sex. 

  

The REAL Politics of the Body-Politic of Christ

Catholic Politics

What we understand to be "politics"...presidential elections, Supreme Court decisions, congressional battles, ideology, policy about border-war-tax-etc....is, for the Catholic, secondary, subordinate, derivative. It is not nothing; is not without significance; but it's lasting importance is modest, provisional, not monumental, and certainly not eternal. 

Our primary, foundational, "real" politics is our shared life in Christ, surrendered to the Holy Spirit, within the maternal, spousal Church, the body-politic of Christ. By baptism and within the sacramental economy we have been drawn into a new life, the Kingdom of God here on earth, the City of God. This politics is:

- Abiding peace and rest in the love of Christ; which expresses itself in urgent, passionate action to serve the suffering and announce the Gospel.

- Engagement, here on earth, with the Eternal Event of the love of the Trinity, which finds serendipitous expression in the worshipping community of mutual delight, reverence, tenderness, gratitude, sacrifice, contrition, forgiveness and generosity.

- The local, concrete, immediate, personal, intimate as the arena of the Drama of Heavenly Love here on earth.

- Personal prayer, the liturgical life as it flowers from the Act and Abiding Presence of the Eucharist, and the abiding mystical union with Christ as it flowers, flagrances, and fructifies in unending splendors.

- Action, but not hyper-activism, flowing from Abiding in Christ, in cultural creativity, political participation, education, cultivation, spousal romance, familial fecundity, entrepreneurship, agriculture, the cultivation and celebration of Truth-Beauty-Goodness in all dimensions of life.

- Intense attention to: solidarity with the suffering-poor-marginalized; care for the non-competent, especially the unborn-elderly-disabled; sacredness of sexuality, marriage and family; reverence for the priesthood and religious life; defense of the freedoms, especially religious; the common good; cultivation of virtue and holiness; our shared and personal life of prayer and worship.

Current Context: Marriage of "Benedict Option" and "A Christian Strategy"

In this era of Trump-Biden, Putin-Xi, Hamas-Jihad...we see secular politics, the "City of Man," as vicious, vile decadence. It is a time for Catholics to detach from and clearly renounce participation in the politics of contempt, hatred, and violence. A vote for Trump is endorsement of contempt for the human person; support of Biden is participation in genocide of the unborn, moral chaos, betrayal of our faith. A widely heralded moral imperative is the "duty to vote." At the moment, support for a Trump or Biden is (in my view) direct participation in clear,  structural, moral evil (however well intended; a error of the intellect, not the will. Obviously, the Trump and Biden  voter both would logically judge my intellect to be misguided in my abstaining.) 

A promising path forward for Catholic participation in macro-politics is a marriage of the "Benedict Option" of Rod Dreher and the "Christian Strategy" of Adrian Vermeule. By the former we distance ourselves from the pathologies of our fragmented national politics, but not absolutely, to direct our energies, in a wholesome subsidiarity, to the local, immediate, concrete of family, Church, school, neighborhood and network of societies that flow into and out of these core communities. By the second, we withhold total allegiance to any specific ideology or party but participate, prudentially, with a variety of actors in initiatives that represent our interests and concerns. So, for example, we might work with the Left on child care credits but the Right on religious freedom. 

There are many benefits from this combination. We marshal and focus our energies on what is most important: our immediate families and communities. We detach from the rancor, rage and resentment of the polarized politics. We are free to be critical of all and yet cooperative with many.  We neither idealize any specific system, nor do we demonize our political adversaries. We maintain bridges to all sides of the dividing gulf, and maintain our inner serenity as well as positive relationships. 

Conclusion

Above all, we inflame, purify, deepen the workings of the Holy Spirit in each of us personally and us corporately as the Body of Christ, a true body politic; we encourage, inspire and emulate each other within the Communion of Saints; and we prudently allow the light and energy so created to radiate out beyond our own boundaries, to the broader society and the entire world.