The Charism and Charm of the Fat Guy

I got thinking about "fatness" after reading my friend Stephen Adubatto's provocative Substack (Cracks in Postmodernity)  on priests fat, skinny, weight-lifting and so forth. 

My mother and her mother did not like fat. I think that is common among the Irish. Our society is relentless in its distaste for it as ugly and unhealthy. "Diet and exercise" we hear endlessly. Okay! But lets be honest: when it comes to the body you are pretty much stuck with what you are given...short/tall, skinny/muscular/fat. There's not a lot you can do. You know: genetics, metabolism, etc. The implicit moral judgment that the heavy person is somehow indulgent and lazy is a vile rash judgement. (By the way: rash judgment is by far the most prevalent sin! It is a sin of the intellect but rooted in an uncharitable and lazy will.) Fear and loathing of fatness is widely prevalent, especially among our young women. 

What is true is that oftentimes the fat guy/girl is the most fun, funny, humble, self-effacing, intuitive, generous, ironic, eccentric, warm, intelligent and holy person in the group. 

Consider:

St. Pope John XXIII

St. Thomas Aquinas

Monsignor Lorenzo Albicette

Servant of God Catherine Doherty

Winston Churchill

G.K. Chesterton

Chris Farley

Oprah Winfry

Jackie Gleason

Lou Costello

Luciano Pavarotti

Oliver Hardy

Burl Ives

John Goodman

Rush Limbaugh

Obesity is a serious suffering, a cross, physically-socially-psychologically. But spiritually, there is possible a profound irony, a la Flannery O'Connor type insight: when suffered graciously it yields fruit in compassion, humility, comedy, intuition, and wisdom. By a strange paradox, the "dis-appeal" of the heavy body comes to manifest as a startling temple of the Holy Spirit. 

So, fatness becomes a sacramental of the transcendent and the eschatological. Our appearance, here and now, in time and history, in the flesh...is not the ultimate. What is ultimate is the life of the soul, in union with God, starting now and going forward into eternity. 

PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE...Do not tell me "If you have health, you have everything!" That is so so so so wrong. People lack or lose health...do they have nothing? That may the the stupidest statement I have ever heard.

Fatness is similar to vowed poverty, chastity and obedience. Gratefully, generously, humbly accepted it points beyond to the deepest meaning of life, under the appearance of the appealing and the healthy...to the soul in communion with God. 

I think with gratitude and respect of my father-in-law, Al, a big man who danced like Fred Astaire, was smart and funny and humble and a good husband and father to my bride.

I think of our classmate, friend John: undisputed leader of our class, mature, hilarious, fatherly, generous, super-fun, gifted. Recovering from alcoholism, he embraced 12-step spirituality, and went on to do superb work for the addicted, homeless and mentally ill. Always a Joy to be with.

Another college roommate and friend, George. Italian, he was the first one to point out to me the Irish bias against the fat. He was a two-pointer. He was also homosexual. That, like fatness, is an affliction of suffering that is often accompanied by interior charisms like empathy, intuition, intelligence, charity, wisdom, creativity. George, of happy memory, was also a Joy to be with.

I honor the memory of Al and George by gratitude for those we love who free us from our fear, shame and loathing and bring light and levity into our lives.

Grieving the Charismatic Movement while Riding the Pentecostal Current

 'The Charismatic Renewal is not a movement, but a current of the Holy Spirit."

The above was spoken by Cardinal Suenens half a century ago and more recently by Cardinal Raniero Cantalamesa. These are the only two charismatic Catholic cardinals that I know. They have impeccable credentials. Suenens was one of the presiders at the Vatican Council, a prelate of immense prestige and influence at the time, and the ecclesiastical godfather of the Catholic charismatic renewal. Cantalamesa was papal preacher for 44 years, in service of John Paul, Benedict and Francis. That these three distinctive popes would all surrender to his influence is extraordinary. To disagree with such authorities takes a lot of chutzpah. Fleckinstein does not hesitate: With due respect, your Eminences, but, as in most things Catholic, this is not an either/or. This renewal was a movement, as it continues as a Pentecostal current. But first, a confession.

Craving the Renewal of the 70s

Nostalgia is at least a near occasion of, if not an actual sin: a disordered attachment to an idealized past and thereby a disconnect from the actual graces of the present as they move us into the promises of God for the future. I stand guilty as charged: I have been longing for the Renewal of the 70s.

They were the best years of my life...in regard to zeal for God and the things of the spirit.

Spring 1973, we were happily married for two years when we made Cursillo and joined a charismatic prayer group. Our lives changed drastically. We entered into intimacy with Jesus as our Lord and Savior and then received the "baptism of the Holy Spirit," an internal surge of the Spirit, within a community of prayer, and a defining sense of God's powerful, loving presence and guidance. We filled up with praise of God, prayed in tongues, experientially received clear guidance, and surged with Joy and Hope. For the remaining 7 years of that decade, we participated fervently in the prayer group and life took on a steady ecstatic tone. From joy to joy!

We received our first three children. My wife, fully engaged with me in this new life (at once, and miraculously, Pentecostal and Catholic), stayed home with the children. I made just enough money to get by. I taught religion in a tough Jersey City Catholic high school and fought the good fight to maintain discipline and share the faith in a time largely disinterested in the things of the spirit. I was employed by a local parish to connect with Spanish-speaking families in a housing project and to teach summer bible camp. For 18 months  I was without a steady job, bounding from one thing to another: painting homes of friends, loading trucks, teaching school, riveting trucks at the Ford plant, going to job interviews. We always received, providentially, just enough money, just in time, to meet our needs. I was blissfully unconcerned, although our parents were not so fortunate. My serenity was in part my temperamental positivity, in part the result of coming of age in a thriving economy in which I always found a job, and largely our intense trust in God's perfect providential plan and guidance. Things like career planning and financial security were nowhere on my horizon. Why worry about such trivia when every day brought a fresh encounter or revelation...spiritual, intellectual, dramatic. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to you."  And so, November 1977 I had no work and went to UPS which was hiring seasonal help; they hired me for my typing skills as a clerk at $9,000 annual, almost enough to support us with some raises and overtime. That became a 25 career, mostly in supervision. Praise the Lord!

The Charismatic MOVEMENT

My son reminds me that lay leadership in the Neocatechumenate, like the Cardinals quoted above, are averse to the word "movement." Perhaps they associate it with movements of human agency: civil rights, farm workers, peace, etc. I firmly believe both are actions of the Holy Spirit, but they are also human, sociological, empirical phenomena. Cardinal Suenens said "there are no founders to the Renewal." This is accurate. But there were clear leaders who shaped it in specific directions. The foundations of the Charismatic Renewal as a movement:

1. Baptism in the Holy Spirit.  This is a very specific event, which manifested in the Pentecostal movements from 1900 and across the denominations in mid-century. It is not primarily emotional. It is the prayer, in expectant faith, to receive the Pentecostal anointing of intimacy and empowerment that the apostles, with Mary, received in the cenacle 10 days after Jesus ascended. It includes: intimacy with the powerful Holy Spirit, prayer in tongues, ongoing guidance through interior messages-scripture-communal discernment, divine healings, deliverance from demons, prophesies, and more.

2. Prayer Meetings.  In contrast to traditional formal Catholic liturgy these were informal, spontaneous, characterized primarily by praise in words, song and tongues along with attention to readings from scripture, teaching and personal witnesses. These spread all over the country in the 1970s; and largely disappeared as quickly going into the 1980s.

3. Pentecostal/Evangelical Teaching. With extraordinary efficiency and speed, a gifted elite of lay leaders, especially Ralph Martin and Steve Clark, emerged spontaneously and worked together to incorporate elements of Pentecostal and Evangelical spirituality into the Catholic Charismatic Renewal: strong sense of the supernatural, spiritual combat with demons in deliverance ministries, openness to the miraculous in healings and guidance, strong traditional gender roles, new forms of authority including in very personal direction, the emergence of covenant communities. 

4. Countercultural, Anti-Progressive.  These Pentecostal/Evangelical elements were entirely contradictory of the broader cultural-sexual liberalization and specifically theological progressivism dominant in academia and clerical/hierarchical circles. This included opposition to abortion and homosexuality, emphasis on supernatural, more literal (but not fundamentalist) reading of scripture, traditional family patterns and other. Predictably, this led to conflicts with more liberal bishops.

5. Strong form Catholicism. Along with the movement into Pentecostalism, in tension with but not complete contradiction, was the move into stronger forms of Catholicism: Marian devotion (Medjugorje), Divine Mercy practices from St. Faustina, sacramental life (especially Eucharist and Penance), and fidelity to the magisterium. 

6. Vast Theological Literature.  A large, comprehensive body of practical, theological literature surged, largely from Martin, Clark and other lay leaders. These were lay in two senses:  non-clergy and non-credentialed academically. Martin and Clark had walked together away from doctoral programs in philosophy, Martin at Princeton and Clark at Yale, to serve the Lord in Cursillo and then Charismatic. They stand out as among the most dynamic, talented and influential partnerships in Catholic history. They were also assisted by a cadre of outstanding Catholic academic theologians who combined holiness of life, solid scholarship, and pastoral sensibility: Francis Martin, Killian McDonald, George Montague, Edward O'Connor...all clergy and credentialed academics. 

7. Huge Rallies and Conferences.  Thousands of people would convene (in NJ in Atlantic City) to hear inspired teaching in a charged atmosphere of ecstatic, expressive praise. These were markedly ecumenical, deliberately including gifted preachers from other denominations. 

What Happened in the 1980s?

Our own prayer meeting, sponsored by the People of Hope Community in Christ the King Parish, Jersey City, disbanded around 1980. Strangely, the same happened across the country. All these prayer meetings disappeared instantaneously as they had appeared, like the annuals of early Spring. Rallies that had drawn 30-40,0000 were getting a few thousand.

It did not completely disappear. But the flourishing revival among white, middle class Catholics diminished greatly. The movement is powerful in Africa and parts of Latin America and Asia. It remains among Hispanics and Philippinos in the USA. It  consolidated into small, intense covenant communities; as the broader movement merged into the Evangelical Catholicism of John Paul/Benedict. This later was zealously Evangelical in its focus on the person/event of Jesus Christ, as it interpreted Vatican II positively, in continuity with tradition, with strong sense of the centrality of family, sexual chastity and marital fidelity in opposition to progressive theology's embrace of the sexual revolution. 

Paradigmatic for the broader movement was the split between Ralph Martin and Steve Clark. Martin reveals how painful that was in his recent memoir. He spent the early 80s in Brussels and Rome, working on the international renewal with Cardinal Suenens. He aligned himself closely to the New Evangelization of John Paul and threw himself into study of the Catholic saints and mystics. He deepened his Catholicism, although retaining a sharp Evangelical edge.

Meanwhile, Steve Clark had guided a new coalition of covenant communities into an even more pronounced Pentecostalism, stridently countercultural on gender roles and authority structures and micromanaged into a detailed, monastic-like rule of life for families. The two parted ways. They did reconcile years later before Clark's passing. 

Martin's journey was typical of most of the Catholic Renewal. It blended into more mainstream Catholic currents, including the New Evangelization of John Paul. Martin maintained an amazing zeal in this effort, worked with EWTN, continued to preach and write, gained a doctorate in theology at the Angelicum, and taught at Sacred Heart Seminary in Michigan. The specifically charismatic elements (tongues, healings, extreme gender and authority views) were downplayed; communion with the broader sacramental Church emphasized; and focus remained on the salvific person/event of Jesus Christ. 

My own path was similar: I was simply enamored of the theology of John Paul, Benedict and their colleagues. Like many charismatics, I was encouraged by the revelations on the Divine Mercy of Saint Faustina, the messages of our Lady at Medjugore, and the entire John Paul/Benedict agenda. 

This pattern seemed to be across the Church. Evangelical crusades like N.E.T. and FOCUS had immense influence as an energized, appealing Evangelical Catholicism without much attention to the extraordinary charismatic gifts. Franciscan University thrives as a center of hardcore Catholicism, retaining a strong, but not overwhelming charismatic charism.

The Sword of the Spirit, with its own alternative hierarchy had problems with the American episcopacy, notably in Newark and Steubenville. But they seemed to have weathered the storms. In NJ, the People of Hope, after a long quarrel with the Archdiocese, is back in good graces and manifesting good fruit. They sponsor a thriving school, Koinonia Academy, and a dynamic summer camp which has had a strong impact on our own family. For instance, one granddaughter is studying at Franciscan University and a number of great-nephews are planning to go there.  

The influence of the movement is broad: music, healing prayer, deliverance ministry, focus on Scripture, an ecumenical awareness. Many moved on to more normal parish life and ministry with greater depth and passion.

Going Forward in the Holy Spirit

We cannot replicate the fervor of the 70s. We know the Holy Spirit remains with the Church of Christ, if in a quieter mode. Yet, I personally ambition to retrieve the fire, the zeal of that time.

1. Primacy of Praise. Recently, Cardinal Cantalamessa exhorted charismatics to rekindle the fire of praise that inflamed all those prayer meetings and conferences. In our own small prayer group, one woman seemed to especially exercise the gift of prophesy. She was a simple, humble, charming, local Afro-American woman, Harriet, and she tirelessly repeated the same prophesy: "Ma people: Continue to praise me!" Every time she said that, in her modest, straightforward manner, it seemed to be words directly from heaven. I believe that message was from the Holy Spirit and meant for us then, now and into the future. I have been trying to inflame my life with thanksgiving and praise, even as I yearn for more communal ways to do so.

2. Ecumenical. Cardinal Suenens had said that the heart of the renewal is the reunion of Christians in the love of Christ. That surely is correct. Many of us leaned more deeply into our Catholicism. This is good. But the Holy Spirit surely is urging us to union with others, especially Evangelicals, Pentecostals and Orthodox. My wife and I are volunteer chaplains in our local hospital and enjoy the opportunity to pray often with non-Catholics. This is a great blessing. It was the Renewal that prepared us to pray with them.

3. Closeness to the Poor. Pope Francis encouraged the Renewal, especially to be close to the poor. This was a message that was heard in the Renewal, but not very powerfully. The two covenant communities in our area of north NJ seemed to be suburban, bourgeois, middle class, career and security focused. Our encounter with the People of Hope was in our prayer group in a  poor area of Jersey City: we benefited from engagement with the Renewal and also with the poor.

4. Deepening, Intensifying of our Catholic Faith.  As noted, the ordinary itinerary of the charismatic Catholic post-1980, strikingly exemplified  by Ralph Martin, has been deeper engagement with Christ and his Church in prayer, liturgy/sacraments, charity, morality, theology and all arenas of life. 

5. Covenant Communities? I have not followed developments within the Sword of the Spirit. They have been quiet. This is a good sign. Good fruit is evident. Consider our Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. And, as noted, after a rupture with the Archdiocese, the People of Hope are positively impacting our Church, specifically in their school and summer camp. Praise the Lord!

6. The Young? My own primary concern has always been the passing of our faith to the young. Working a variety of jobs, my professional vocation is  catechist, one who "echoes" our faith. The singular Joy I share with my wife is that our seven children, along with their spouses and families, all live our Catholic faith with vigor and enthusiasm. They received our Catholic faith, but not in its specifically charismatic dimensions.   Realizing the toxicity of our culture, our philosophy in raising our family was that Catholic family/school/parish was insufficient so we methodically exposed them, especially summers during high school, to a variety of intense encounters with Catholicism: Youth 2000, NET retreats, service trips, Friars of the Renewal, Magdalllen College summer programs, Scranton Charismatic Conference. These were not fully Pentecostal, but surely charismatic-adjacent in their evangelical fervor. And so our children received a charismatically-flavored Catholic faith.

So my big question: how have the covenant communities done in passing on the faith? How many of their children and now grandchildren practice Catholicism? How many are charismatic? Are any charismatic but not Catholic? I have been told that the People of Hope, under the Sword of the Spirit, is a stronger, bigger community and more successful than the smaller, unattached Community of God's Love. 

This is the same question I bring to the other lay renewal groups: especially the Neocatechumenate and Communion and Liberation.

The Holy Spirit continues to breathe in many ways in the Church. Ours has been the age of the lay renewal movements. As the religious orders have declined, we have seen surges of zealous, lay spirituality. The currents of renewal are many: all moving us into the Kingdom. The charismatic renewal remains an important one.

I myself am eager to inflame the gift of praise that burned brightly in the 1970s. Out of that foundational praise, including tongues, personal and communal, the Holy Spirit moves us deeper into the Church, into communion with our Evangelical/Pentecostal brothers and sisters, and companionship with the poor and suffering. 

Above all, we pray for our young:  COME HOLY SPIRIT1

Longanimity

 Longanimity is underrated. 

Actually, longanimity is unknown. 

Let's bring back longanimity!

I am reading about it in the spiritual classic The Sanctifier by Archbishop Luis Martinez of Mexico City in the 1950s.

From the Latin "anima" for spirit, the word means "long-spirited." It is a virtue and gift of the Holy Spirit which elevates the intellect and will to "play the long game." It is the ability to endure hardship, suffering and difficulty for long periods. So it is almost synonymous or overlaps patience, longsuffering, endurance, perseverance, tenacity, and persistence. In that it is a virtue of the will. But it is also a virtue of the intellect: to see things in the long run. In the long run, of course, we are all dead. So it is fitting to ponder this virtue and gift now, November, as we remember the last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell. And as we pray for the souls and honor the saints.

St. Mother Teresa suffered the dark night for about 40 years: longanimity.

Jimmy Lae is suffering bad health in a Hong Kong prison: longanimity.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in her recent book Listening to the Law diligently unveils the nature and workings of our constitutional system and The Court. She is emphatic: their decisions are not focused so much on the particulars of the moment, but upon the broad logic of law and the repercussions well into the future. Longanimity.

My friend Adrienne (who I saw yesterday for the first time in 50 years) is lovingly caring for her husband of 48 years who is suffering Lewy body dementia, arranging her home and schedule around his needs. Longanimity.

Our Senate Republicans recently found the courage and integrity to resist the President's pressure to discard the filibuster. They were protecting a protocol essential to the integrity of the Senate. Longanimity.

When we were raising our children, our friend (really sister-in-Christ and aunt to our children) Betty would calmly announce: "This too will pass." Longanimity.

Yesterday I spoke with an inmate in a local county jail who was just denied recourse to Recovery Court and so will spend more time in prison. He was understandably disappointed. I recalled the story of the patriarch Joseph of Egypt and the reality of Divine Providence and encouraged him to: Longanimity.

Longanimity of the intellect keeps us in communion with those who have gone before us, across the generations, and the legacy they have given us. It inclines us to view the future, well beyond our lifetimes, like Moses looking into the Promised Land, the promises to our children and theirs. It situates us well beyond our own limitations of space and time within the broader contours of family, community and Church.

I encourage you, dear Reader, as I encourage myself to practice the virtue and pray for the gift of Longanimity.

Come, Holy Spirit, giver of all good gifts. Bring patience, peace and longanimity!

Epstein and Maxwell: Eunuch's for the Kingdom of Darkness

November: Month of Souls in Purgatory and of the Last Things (death, judgment, heaven, hell)

Jeffrey Epstein is dead. There is nothing we can do about him, except pray for his soul. But: do we pray for the soul of Jeffrey Epstein? He relentlessly seduced hundreds of adolescent girls. Many were in some degree innocent; many no doubt virgins. Do we ask forgiveness so that he can live eternally in Joy? I don't get a good vibe. Jesus said of such "It would be better for them to have a weight tied to them and thrown into the sea."  

My conclusion: Yes, we pray for him. We commend him to God...to his mercy and his retribution. Yes, retribution. Judgment. Punishment. Wrath. Here is a case where the God-who-is-only-Mercy-Compassion-Acceptance who has become so fashionable in progressive theology is unveiled as anemic and repulsive. As you have heard, Dear Reader, from Fleckionstein: Let's bring back retribution! Let's bring back judgment! Let's bring back heaven, hell and purgatory! Let's resist the Protestant propensity to deny purgatory! Let's pray for the souls! Let's pray for Jeffrey. We leave it to God to do the right thing, merciful and just.

Eunuchs for the Dark Kingdom

Jeffrey and Ghislaine were a "power couple." They did not marry; did not bear new life. They seemed singularly devoid of parental and maternal love. They parodied it: they faked it in a highly expert, perverse game of grooming. They offered to mentor aspirational young women, to assist in their careers, to give them a new and exciting life. 

A friend had asked Ghislaine "What of the girls?" She responded "They are nothing, they are trash."  both are possibly sociopaths, or close to it....void of conscience or empathy.

She told a friend that psychologists had confirmed to Epstein that he "needed three orgasms a day." Such "need" is not natural; it is the fruit of sexual addiction at a deep level. 

She is a more complicated, puzzling case. She was deeply disturbed in her own sexuality, well before meeting Epstein. An acquaintance remembers a party where she disappeared and then returned with scarfs and announced '"the game": the men were to be blindfolded by the scarfs. The women were to bear their breasts and be fondled by the men who were to guess whose breasts they were. She was known for teasing and provoking unchaste behavior. 

Clearly she was deeply influenced by her father, whom she adored. Theirs was a family of eight, thought to be the perfect family. It was in fact dysfunctional. The mother was blatantly disrespected as the father had affairs shamelessly. He seems to have had a sadistic streak himself. He treasured Ghilane as a "trophy daughter" as she would accompany him socially at the very highest levels of society. There is no evidence of sexual wrongdoing, but this was clearly a violation of the father's duty to protect the innocence of his daughter. In a very real sense, she was already prostituted by father as a symbol of prestige, sexual glamour and power. This was what she knew.

She was devastated by his death and then by the fact that he had plundered the pensions of his workers. She clearly found in Epstein an adequate replacement: tons of money, status, and perverse excitement. They settled together into the diabolical game of seduction of the innocent.

Remarkably, the family stayed together to support her through her trial and may well be involved with the current machinations to get her sentence commuted. 

This couple, along with homosexual practice and the pandemic of isolating porn/masturbation, is the epitome of the sexual ethos of our time: sterile, joyless, perverse, despairing, death-dealing.

Conspiracy Theory: the World, the Flesh and the Devil

I am immune to conspiracy theories about Jews, Masons, Communists, deep state, yada yada yada. I do not think there is a list of a circle of powerful men who contrived to seduce women. The evidence suggests it was Jeffrey's obsession. No doubt he shared it with anyone interested. But no, it was not a conspiracy. He was not a spy for Israel or the CIA. He did not have a list of men he was blackmailing. He made tons of money because he was expert in channeling large funds to avoid tax.

The real conspiracy, aggressive to entrap each of us: the world, the flesh and the devil. Epstein and Maxwell are a case study. The word was that Epstein would not work for anyone that was not a billionaire. If you are only worth, say $950,000,000,  you did not meet the bar. The two of them mingled with the highest levels of society. She mixed with royals already in adolescence. She provided him access to the elite and he provided her tons of money: a match made in he....ll! This is the world at its most seductive, glamorous, alluring. Regarding the flesh, they both suffered severe bondage to lust, greed, avarice. And the hand of Lucifer is clear in their passionate crusade to seduce the innocent.

They are for us a cautionary tale: the allure of the world, the enslavements of the flesh, and the brilliant perversity of Lucifer. They are something out of Dante's Inferno. 

As we commend them to the mercy and the justice of God, we ourselves do well to ponder those holy realities. And beg for the pardoning, purifying, sanctifying Holy Spirit!

 

Pope Leo XIII: Non-Theologian, Institutuionalist

 In an astute essay in First Things, reviewing two recent biographies of our new pope, Fr. DeSouza notes: we know nothing about the theological views of Robert Prevost, his rise in the hierarchy was entirely the doing of Pope Francis, he was the "Francis candidate" most unlike Francis temperamentally. He spent his life in in Peru and Rome, mostly in leadership of institutions. His formative years, the 1970s in the seminary, and his entire life has been in a Church in institutional decline; and he wonders "what he learned from this?"

I take a slightly different view. Leo is clearly an institutionalist, an "organization man," in the best sense. While he has lived in a Church in institutional decline, he is himself, a canon lawyer, instinctively a preserver of the institution. This is a very good thing. 

He is a man of prayer, a holy priest. Like his mentor Francis.

He is pastoral, urgent to share the love of Christ, especially with the suffering and marginalized. Like his mentor Francis.

He is not a theologian. Like his mentor Francis.

He is inclined to steady the bark of Peter; to strengthen unity; to minimize conflict and stress. Unlike his mentor Francis. 

The best Churchmen, progressive or conservative, are instinctively "catholic" in an openness, a liberality, a "live-and-let-live" acceptance of diversity. In the Archdiocese of Newark which I know, Cardinal Tobin is a ranking lieutenant of Francis but he rules here with a light hand, allowing distinct groups like the Latin Mass and the Neocatechumenate to live peacefully. Prior to him, Archbishop Meyers came here with a reputation as the second most conservative in the nation; I expected fireworks as our presbyterate could be described as moderate-liberal; there was peace. In a recent Pillar piece, Ed Conlin expressed appreciation for Cardinal McElroy of Washington D.C. who is on the far left of the American episcopacy but well received by conservative priests.

Pope Francis blatantly lacked this openness, notwithstanding his profession of openness and "synodality." He shamelessly refused the red hat to prelates of leading sees (Philadelphia) that always receive it out of personal animosity. It is clear that, by contrast, Pope Leo does have this disposition towards unity.

The Church in which Prevost came of age, the 1970s, was most significantly in catechetical crisis. Coming out of the Council, the Baltimore Catechisism and the received synthesis was discarded but nothing replaced it, until the papacy of John Paul II. Catechetically, Prevost was part of the "lost generation" in its intellectual grasp of our Catholic tradition. Our faith was passed on as a communion in prayer with God, as a worshipping community, as a fraternity of love and outreach to the suffering. But theologically most of the Church was in a fog of confusion. There were points of light. A hungry theological intellect could find its way to the Communio School or that of St. Thomas. 

But Prevost was apparently not such an intellect. He majored in college in math. Clearly bright. But not drawn to theology. He is an American: a pragmatist. His vision, just announced, for the John Paul II Institute for the Family is entirely pastoral and (shades of Francis) anti-intellectual. He wants to move away from abstraction and reform it as a practical guide and aid to family life. Depending upon who leads it, this can be a good or a bad thing. But it is a retreat from the outstanding academic tradition of that school.

It is striking: in my lifetime we had three popes (Pius XII, John XXIII, and Paul VI) with fine, clear, deep theological intellects. These were followed by John Paul and Benedict: theological geniuses, possibly the finest pope theologians in Church history, surely to be doctors of the Church. And now we have two quite mediocre theological popes.

Nevertheless, I am happy with this pope. He is modest, judicious, stable, self-effacing, gentle, open to all. He is a force for steadiness, for unity, for peace. He is endearing and charming.

We have the theology of John Paul and Benedict. It will be taught in seminaries and schools of theology for generations to come. Those hungry for the truth of the Gospel will bask in it and radiate it. Leo will steady the ship of the Church. He will call us to works of Mercy. As the legacy of John Paul and Benedict draws us into the clarity, the depth, and the profundity of Truth.

Make America Godly Again: A MAGA Vision

 Do not be so quick, dear Reader, to dismiss what follows as impossible, as sheer fantasy. ALL things are possible to God. Also: we know that Donald Trump is quite capable of change.

IMAGINE:  Donald Trump wakes up one morning, overwhelmed by how much he is loved by God. Perhaps it is the prayers of those who love him. Perhaps the intercession of Charlie Kirk in heaven or his friendship with Erika. Perhaps the unfailing affection and loyalty of Melania and his family. He is largely (but of course not completely) liberated from enslavement to narcissistic compulsions. So, he:

- Announces that he has been wrong to so many people and asks forgiveness. He starts a serious program of amends to those he has harmed, insulted, or hurt in any way.

- He forgives all who have harmed him in any way. He expresses appreciation for those who have tried to hold him accountable by indictments and impeachments. He issues presidential pardons for Comey, Bolton, James, Smith and Willis.

- He authorizes a full audit of his personal wealth in order to donate 80% to the poor and going forward to give 80% of his income annually to the needy. 

- He joins a Narcissist's Anonymous group, gets a sponsor, works the 12 steps, He finds that virtually all elected politicians in DC certify for the program.

- He joins the OCIA program to enter the Catholic church so he can confess his sins to a priest.

- He enjoys a special Synodal session of congress and hosts it at Mar Lago so Democrats and Republicans can get to know and like each other.

- He takes a 30-day prayer sabbatical from his duties, handing responsibility to JD Vance. (Is this constitutional? Possibly not. But who would have standing to contest? And if anyone did, he would be back in charge within a month anyway.)

- He does a 30-day directed retreat with a good Jesuit to consider the direction of his life after the presidency. Everything is on the table, including jail ministry at the prison in El Salvador with all the gang members, the hermitage or cloistered monastery, a Josephite (abstinent) marriage with Melania, teaching ESL to immigrants, and other.

Granted, dear Reader, the details here seem far-fetched. But you get the drift. Let's pray for something in that direction! This is, after all, November, the month of the last things: death, judgment, heaven, hell.

Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the Rosary

Reporter Jonathan Karl, in his book Retribution reports on the final, secret meeting of Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden shortly after the disastrous debate which revealed his incompetence. The Biden family now despises Pelosi as the prime mover in ending his campaign. The meeting was in the Biden family living room and was a secret even from his staff. She delivered the bad news: widespread consensus was that he would not only lose the election but also bring down the house. The meeting was not contentious. When she finished she took out what Karl calls a rosary or also a rosary coin. I don't know of a rosary coin although a rosary ring with 10 beads is common. In any case, it turns out that Biden then took out the same rosary. It isn't clear that they prayed together, but they did show each other a rosary (or rosary coin?) That was the final meeting between the two of them. They are now, in Karl's words, "enemies forever."

This anecdote is fascinating on several levels.

These two are the incomparable icons of "Catholic" Progressivism of the last several decades. Pelosi has been arguably the most powerful woman politician in American history. She is not allowed communion in her diocese of San Francisco. Biden, the second Catholic president, disparaged the values of his faith in a number of public ways. 

Cultural Progressivism (post 1970) is itself a religion, competitive with and contradictory of Catholicism. Core beliefs: sterilized sex, deconstructed gender, abortion, superiority of technological/scientific culture over the past, and other. Biden/Pelosi are key figures in the triumph of Progressivism. But they flavored this, their core religion, with a superficial, nostalgic, sentimental Catholic piety.

They embody the stereotypical private/public binary: I wouldn't want one but I want the state to pay for everyone else's abortion, especially the poor and the black. 

How ironic that it is reported in a book entitled "retribution." Actually, the theme of the book is retribution by Trump against his enemies. (You are aware, Dear Reader) Fleckinstein is a strong advocate for the retrieval of "retribution" as a moral, cultural, religious form. One might view the aftermath of the meeting as heavenly retribution as  the Biden/Pelosi legacy was devastated by the sweeping Trump victory.

Ironic also that after these displays of piety, they now despise each other.

If they did pray (which I strongly doubt), what mysteries would they have pondered. The first are of course the Joyful: the Annunciation, the Visitation, The Nativity. These deal with the sacredness of unborn life: conception, the embrace of two pregnant cousins, the birth of Jesus (accompanied by the slaughter of the Holy Innocents.) I cannot imagine that these two crusaders for legal abortion would have prayed these foundational Catholic realities. 

Perhaps they replaced with Progressive Dogmas: contraception, abortion of the unborn through 9 months, artificial technologies of surrogacy and other, euthanasia and assisted suicide of the elderly/infirm, the contagion of legal pornography, the sacred status of homosexual and other forms of sodomy. 

These two perfectly represent the dyad of Cultural Progressivism: the passive, impotent male; the empowered, controlling, grasping female. This is resonant of Eve, jealous, manipulative, aggressive; Adam, emasculated, self-pitying, finger-pointing. It is the pathetic Ahab and his vicious, controlling wife Jezebel. It is Herod, manipulated by the incestuous Herodias to cut off the head of the prophet whom he admired.

Catholicism has always been vulnerable to syncretism, impure mixture with other religious practices. It would be hard to imagine something as depraved, as repellant to the Catholic mind as these two mutually admiring each others rosaries. We compete, respectfully, with political/cultural adversaries, for example, the Clintons and Obamas in the political arena. But the presence within our own Church of a Trojan horse, an enemy within, a betrayal by our own of our basic values presents an immense challenge.

The temptation here is a serious one: to contempt. To view a fellow Catholic, a brother and sister in Christ, with spiritual loathing. How do we renounce this temptation? Only with prayer! Prayer for our enemy. 

Lord, touch our hearts with your tender Mercy. Touch as well the hearts of our enemies, cultural progressives, especially Catholics, within the Church and in the political arena. Let your Mercy be upon us as we place our trust in You!

Election Day, November 3, 2025: End of a Temper-Manic Episode?

Like a pampered 2-year old or a raging neighborhood bully, Trump has been on a 9 month rampage, manic and furious. It is simply amazing that he got away with so much for so long. Our constitutional system, still resilient and steady, is finally restraining him.

On Tuesday, the electorate in a number of states, especially in NJ, decisively rejected the Republicans.

 On the following day, the Supreme Court heard arguments about the Trump tariffs and will almost certainly find them unconstitutional. These are a centerpiece of his diplomacy and economics. He sees this as total catastrophe. The Wall Street Journal anticipates it with joy.

With the ongoing government shutdown, Trump is calling for the "nuclear option" of doing away with the filibuster. Like a self-centered infantile, which he is psychologically, he sees only his own immediate concerns. Finally, Senate Republicans are finding some spine and defending their institutional integrity. 

We can hope that, led by moderate-conservative justices Barrett and Roberts, institutions including congressional Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and progressives, agencies including the FED and others renounce their contemptible subservience to this dictator-wannabe-narcissistic. 

This comes from a moral conservative who voted for Trump in 2024 and for the Republican ticket this week. Ciattarelli is personally prochoice and unappealing. My vote was ideological: pro-Republican and anti-Democrat in defense of fundamental Catholic realities including the life of the powerless, religious liberty, the dignity of the person, gender, sexuality, marriage, the role of science, and more.

While I was initially disappointed with the outcome, I quickly saw the positive. The pendellum had to swing back against the MAGA excesses. Precisely from a conservative viewpoint, basic institutions and protocols of respect have to be protected from the violence, the crudeness, the irrationality of MAGA. 

Is it too much to hope for a resurgence of a more based, traditional, stable conservatism?

We can always hope and pray! 

Almost Catholic...The Twilight Zone of the Catholic Church

 Almost Catholics

Charlie Kirk was seemingly on a trajectory into the Catholic Church, under the influence of his amazing, best-of-many-worlds wife, Erika. Who knew that a woman could be Evangelical and Catholic, a social activist, a mother, a gorgeous celebrity, and a prayerful theologian?  

Jordan Peterson, whose wife famously entered the Church, stands frozen at the boundary, apparently unwilling to or incapable of crossing that line of trust, even as he powerfully articulates Catholic views.

C.S. Lewis remained Anglican, apparently retaining reservations about the papacy and Marian devotion as well as some residual prejudice against Catholicism from his childhood. His teachings were resoundingly Catholic. If he were alive today, it is hard to imagine that he could resist the pull across the Tiber.

Simone Weil, brilliant philosopher-social activist-mystic, was possessed by love for the poor and by the person of Jesus Christ. She was deeply drawn to the prayer of the Church but rejected baptism out of a disgust for dogmatic and institutional dimensions of the Church.

Mother Margaret Cusack, a fiery Irish nationalist and brilliant, prodigious writer (35 books)fought the English overlords and fed the starving during the famine before converting to Catholicism.  Described as eccentric, passionate, rebellious and difficult (think Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man), she was an early advocate of the apparitions at Knock and claimed that the Blessed Mother spoke directly to her. After fighting with the episcopacy in Ireland, she got permission personally from the Pope to found a new order, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, to house and train "friendless girls." In 1885 she opened a home (still there) in Jersey City. She again got into ecclesiastical trouble, now with Newark authorities and NYC's  Archbishop Corrigan over her support for a leftwing activist priest and over funds. She left the Catholic Church, returned to the Anglican and was buried therein.

My high school friend Frank was a Catholic priest for 25 years and an Episcopalian priest for just over that. He considers himself a Roman Catholic who has a job with the Anglicans. He says as Episcopalian he does half the work and gets twice the pay he did as Catholic. When he isn't presiding at Eucharist as a visitor he attends a Catholic mass. He, unlike myself, seems untroubled that the mass he celebrates is probably valid but illicit and therefore at least disrespectful but perhaps sacrilegious as his communicants entertain various theologies of the mass.

Another friend left the Church to be ordained a Methodist minister; then reverted to Catholicism, renouncing his ordination; then re-reverted to Methodism; then re-re-reverted to Catholicism. He is intelligent, passionate and articulate in his faith.

I graduated in 1969 from Maryknoll College Seminary with over 50 classmates after 4 years preparing to be missionary priests. Today most do not practice our faith. In large part, their children and grandchildren are minimally familiar with our faith.

If I were to honor, from my generational cohort of idealists, priests, psychologists, activists, and academics,  one figure for his service to the suffering and his prayerfulness of life it would clearly be college classmate John: ordained a missionary priest, he still happily displays a picture of himself concelebrating mass with John Paul II. He left the missionary priesthood, confronted his alcoholism, surrendered himself to the 12 steps and prayer, married, raised a son, and built a marvelous community of service to the addicted, homeless and mentally ill. He speaks with affection, gratitude and reverence of the Church as he seems to remain distant.

To summarize, we contemplate with awe the complexities, nuances, depth and boundless variety in such relationships with the Church.

A Church in Decline?

By all the numbers, our Church has been in steady, steep decline for the last six decades since the Council. There seems to be now a plateau, and even signs of a revival, certainly among young men in the USA. But numbers do not accurately disclose spiritual realities. And so, the argument here is that the reality of God and his Church in our lives is immeasurable, mysterious, dense, largely anonymous.

Not long ago, Catholics were 50% of the NJ population; now it is closer to 33%. The NONES are now more than 25% and possibly half of them are ex-Catholics. Only one in six Catholics practice their faith by weekly participation in Sunday mass. So, in NJ about one in eighteen, just over 5%, people practice our faith. Even these are largely victims of the catechetical famine that afflicted us from the Council until the pontificates of John Paul and Benedict (from 1965 through the 70s). Few understand with any depth and clarity our faith. So, integral, intelligent, passionate Catholic faith has become rare, almost a cult, found in niches like religious orders, priests, renewal movements and the Latin Mass. (For example, many Sunday mass attendees would be unpleasantly surprised by the previous essay on the structure of the spousal act.)

However, (as noted in an earlier blog essay), our experience in hospital ministry shows that while institutional loyalty has declined, there abides a immense, deep Catholic influence. Almost everyone we encounter has some connection, usually positive, with the Church. Some are influenced by marriage or a family member. Many retain practices and beliefs: devotion to Mary or the rosary, Padre Pio, St. Francis. Most at least admire the Church's solicitude for the poor and suffering. Most respect and (to some extent) emulate the ideals of marital fidelity. Even those who self-identify as agnostics or even atheists are open to prayer as they entertain some uncertainty in their "unbelief." Frequently we hear grateful mention of a happy connection with a priest, nun, devout layperson or a vibrant institution.

The Church is like other movements and communities of value: there are concentric circles of participation. At the very center, those fully dedicated: professionally or voluntarily, but wholeheartedly. Moving outward, we find decreasing intensity. At the outside circles we have nonmembers who nevertheless are influenced, and therefore participant in some degree. At least in NJ, it is like St. Patrick's Day when everyone is Irish: everyone is, however incompletely, Catholic.

Conclusion

Christ and His Church is a bright, flaming, illuminating, warming fire at the heart of creation, history, society. It reaches everything and everywhere. Even as some are moving away; others moving closer;  many strangely moving now one way and then another. The warmth and light is available everywhere to everyone. There are shadows everywhere; and in everyone. There are also black holes of sin ready to devour the willing. 

May we despise the dark and the cold. May we crave the light and the warmth. May we draw each other closer to that Fire!

The Structure of the Conjugal Act

 Most widespread slander against the Catholic Church:  "Not fair! Gays can't have any sex! Straights can have all they want!"

Foundational cultural error of post-1970, sterile, contraceptive American culture: "Sex is a human need."

The Spousal or Conjugal or Marital Act

In the Catholic world, everyone...homosexual, heterosexual, married, single, vowed to virginity or celibacy...plays by the same, very strict rules. 

The conjugal act belongs within the spousal union. That union is exclusive, male/female, perpetual, free, open to life, in union with God, legitimately manifested as a sacrament or with explicit Church approval. 

The act has a sacred, sacramental character as enactive of the "one-enfleshment" of man and woman. It is inherently unitive and procreative, even though every single act is not fruitful. The very nature or inner form of the act requires that the male climax occur within the woman, who receives the man's seed.

In other words, at climax, with the release of the seed, the penis must be within the vagina. Even slight penetration allows the act to be valid and well-ordered.

Accidental premature ejaculation is unintended and therefore morally innocent. Within the flow of the intercourse, the woman can be brought to climax before or after ejaculation without harm to the act.

Deliberate arousal to climax outside of this spousal one-enfleshment is inherently non-unitive and sterile and therefore disordered as mutual masturbation. This applies even to a married couple.

Consummation and Dissolubility of Marriage

In the 12th century Church especially, there was disagreement as to what created or ratified the marriage: consent of the spouses or consummation understood as natural intercourse, open to life. The final resolution included both: the actual marriage is ratified by the consent. But the consummation completes or seals the marriage. So, a valid but unconsummated marriage is a real marriage. However, such can be dissolved by the Pope for good reasons. A sacramentally valid and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by the Pope or anyone else. It is absolutely permanent.

To dissolve is different in kind from an annulment which is common. The later declares the sacrament to be void: there never was a real marriage at all due to some defect, for example in consent or form. By contrast, to dissolve is to declare there was a real marriage, but it was not finalized by the spousal act, and therefore can be dissolved. This leaves the parties free to marry or make vows in the religious life.

I have never heard of such. It must be quite rare. In earlier times we can imagine: a man and woman, on the night of their marriage, share that the man desires priesthood  and the woman religious life but perhaps married to satisfy their families. This case would also raise a question about the consent being free. Nevertheless, if they refrain from natural intercourse it is possible that they petition to have the marriage dissolved. 

Josephite marriage, in which spouses validly marry but voluntarily and mutually refrain from sex in imitation of the marriage of Mary and Joseph is another rarity in our time. But such a marriage, unconsummated, can be dissolved, for example if either desires consecrated life or ordination.

We see from this discussion that the spousal act is itself normally constitutive of the sacrament, understood broadly beyond the marriage ceremony itself.

The sacredness of the act would be intuitive for most traditional religions. The idea is ridiculous in our secular, sexually-sterile culture.

Impotence as Impediment to Catholic Marriage

Here is another little known fact, really a well-kept secret: sexual impotence, the inability to complete the spousal act, is an impediment to marriage. Impotence here does not mean sterility, the inability to conceive. Nor may it be confused with sexual dysfunction including female disinterest in sex. Rather, it refers to permanent, irreversible incapacity to perform the act. This would normally mean erectile dysfunction on the part of the male such that he can never, even slightly, penetrate the vagina. On the woman's part, this would mean a pathology such that she is unable to receive the penetration and the seed. I am not aware that this is a known condition although I did read of a woman who suffered a muscle condition due to rape but that seemed not to be permanent. And so, permanent and irreversible impotence, discovered after marriage, is grounds for annulment. 

We see here again: not fertility nor ability to enjoy sex but capacity to perform the act itself is intrinsic to a Catholic marriage. 

This raises issues for couples that marry late in life. Such are obviously sterile. Studies indicate something like 60% of men in their 60s suffer some degree of impotence. It is well known that there are treatments for the condition if it is not permanent and total. If there is even slight capacity and possibility that some seed be received, than the condition is not an impediment. Doubt is resolved in favor of the marriage. But lets assume the condition, possibly due to surgery, is total and irremediable by any drug or licit device. In that case the marriage could be annulled. 

Lets assume that the spouse, normally the woman, accepts the condition and opts not to seek annulment.  Obviously, if the Church does not know about it than it is not an issue. In the eyes of God? My guess is that he takes delight in the couple. But in this case, they would be restricted...along with everyone else...from sexual activity deliberately leading to climax, for either or both spouses, as it would not be a proper conjugal act.

Yes. This is a hard teaching! He never said it would be easy!

Conclusion

In Catholic life, the marriage bed, along with the family table and the Eucharistic altar, is the sacred place where God communes with the human person most intimately. The spousal act is sacred in many ways. It is cooperation with God in the creation of a person, a soul that will live for eternity. It is an incomparable union of husband and wife, not just physically or extrinsically, but in heart, soul, intellect, will and in all things. It is the most precious, intimate, holy, natural act imaginable.

And so, wisely, sternly, the Church protects the act...as well as the marriage, the family, the woman and the children. It is a hard, but inspiring and splendid teaching.

The Allure of the Femme Fatale: Meryl Streep in "Still of the Night"

Here is a largely unknown, unheralded movie. Streep herself apparently thought little of it, calling it "a mistake" and noting that she got to spend a lot of time with her infant as it was shot near her home in NYC. I differ. Perhaps her effortless nonchalance allowed her raw talent to shine so brightly.

It is a gem of a film. A merciful 83 minutes! (In film as in all things, "small is beautiful.") Made in 1982 in a drab, dark Manhattan, which suits me as I savor many memories there and love movies set there. It is taut, clear, austere; a psychological thriller worthy of Hitchcock. Roy Scheider plays a tight, repressed psychoanalyst, just divorced, quietly in crisis. A playboy patient is stabbed to death. Streep shows up as an ex-girlfriend, who is very possibly the murderess. She is strikingly lovely, in an ethereal, surreal fashion. Fair skinned, slightly exotic, impeccably proportioned, she is so pronouncedly sweet, innocent, and vulnerable that she almost has to be (the intelligent viewer sees immediately) a psychopath. But maybe not! As evidence increases that she is the culprit, she radiates all the more a virginal luminosity that can only be direct from heaven or hell. The poor psychotherapist (along with the male viewer) is without defense!

She is easily the best femme fatale I have every known! (And I have never known one I didn't like!) She is the type that drives you crazy because she is either very good or very bad but you just cannot tell...until the very end. (Sorry, Reader, there will be no spoiler here. It is on Prime.)

Such a classic femme fatale is a heightened expression of three prime manifestations of the feminine to the masculine gaze: the innocent, fragile, precious, vulnerable one to be rescued or protected; the comforting, pleasure-giving, object of desire reminiscent of maternal enclosure; and the ominous, evil, murderous seductress. Blend them together and you have a powerful cocktail!

First: the "daughter" figure: virginal, fragile, precious and vulnerable. This appeals, powerfully, to the paternal instinct. She must be protected or rescued. This is the most powerful passion of the mature, virile man. And so, the psychologist, throwing prudence to the wind, engages in the investigation, at his own peril. The ambiguity becomes unbearable: she is so sweet that it must be a con job. 

A contrasting, flaming femme fatale is the Kim Basinger prostitute in LA Confidential. She is blatantly shamelessly seductive; even as she is the victim of violence. The Russel Crowe detective, who had watched his own mother be abused, is a combustible combination of rage against the abuser and lust: the chemistry between them is nuclear.

The second manifestation is that which awakens desire: erotic, romantic, covetous, deeply emotional. Here the child-bearing-age-woman draws the man to herself, promising pleasure, comfort, and ecstatic inclusion. We recall here the explosive appeal of the feminine hour glass, figure 8 shape: petite in the manner of the precious one but full and reminiscent of infantile euphoria. These lead of course to the third: the dark mother, the threatening feminine.

It is perhaps more fear of his own cravings that awakens dread in the male heart and psyche. The woman becomes so desirable that the man loses all control, he is powerless, overwhelmed, without resistance to the woman's seduction. In contrast to the strong father figure awakened by the first feminine manifestation of powerlessness, here the man becomes passive before the machinations of the clever beauty. 

Here we recall the original fall of Adam. He is not participant in the initial act of sin, the engagement of Eve with the serpent, Lucifer. Adam is strangely absent from that prime drama. He is drawn in, secondarily, by the more dominant Eve. He puts up no resistance, but submits at her mere suggestion.

Like Eve in the initial drama of the human story, the femme fatale dominates the noire film. The male protagonist, like Adam, is secondary, derivative, passive.

By a happy coincidence, the Vatican just released a new document clarifying our Catholic devotion to Mary. It reviews the history, highlighting Mary's maternal love and care for us, her perpetual virginity and purity, and her preeminence as first among us as recipient of and collaborator in salvation. It discourages the use of controversial titles "co-redemptrix" and "mediatrix" of graces. These tend to lift Mary up into participation in the divine, distancing her from us, and possibly obscuring the absolutely unique salvific role of Christ. 

We might contrast the image of Mary with the femme fatale. She also is small, humble, vulnerable, virginal. She also is mother, source of comfort, protection, assistance. She is virgin mother, mysteriously. But the shadow of evil that haunts the femme fatale is entirely absent from Mary. She is the answer to the complicity of Eve in sin. She is without sin, from conception, entirely holy all throughout childbirth and with Jesus on Calvary, after his rising, until Pentecost, and finally assumed into heaven. 

The allure of the femme fatale, life-giving mother and yet virginal innocence, is in Mary purged of sin and illuminated with the beauty of purity and holiness. She is not the primary protagonist in the drama of our salvation. But she gets Oscar for incomparable actress in a supporting role! 

The Authoritative Voices in our Church: Paternal and Maternal

Authority

Authority sharply contrasts with power or empowerment. The later indicates capacity to force, to coerce, to dominate. The former, from the Latin "augeo," to grow or increase, is the capacity to give life, as in "author." An authority is one who gives life, as with a mother or a father. Such authority originates not in the self, but in a transcendent source beyond the ego. So, for example, an authority in some science is steeped in that objective field and so transparent of it: the ego recedes so that the material may manifest. Personal authority inherently is informed by a prior humility, an openness to the True, the Good or the Beautiful.

Religious or spiritual authority comes from God. It is a visitation of the heavenly to us here on earth. It is the embodiment, representation or manifestation of the holy, the transcendent, the eternal. 

Much of what passes for "spiritual but not religious" is void of authority: a feeling or dimension of the Sovereign Self, a communion with nature, a passing euphoric or ecstatic experience, a satisfying human experience.

For example, the current Catholic cult of "synodality" is ambiguous. It is, on the one hand, an admirable call to a spirituality of listening as compassion, reverence, and reception, including of those distanced from Catholic life. On the other hand, institutionalized in some bureaucratic protocol, it masquerades as a novel, false source of authority. 

Genuine authority can be institutional or charismatic. It comes first through inherited, communal institutions which express and preserve a definitive, primitive visitation of the divine. In the second, it comes to us directly, in the present, in an extraordinary, gifted person or group open to and representative of a new visitation of heaven on earth. Within Catholicism the two blend together in a marvelous, mutually enriching synergy. The charismatic, of course, always flows from and into the inherited, the given, the Tradition, which it refreshes and renews.

Since masculinity/paternity as representational/authoritative has been treated in this blog frequently, this essay will consider maternity as virile and authoritative. Then we will identify significant voices of authority, masculine and feminine, over the last 80 years.

Virility of the Maternal

Who was the most virile person I have ever met? Senator John F. Kennedy, 1957, comes to mind. But no! It is not even close: St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta.  

Jersey City, 1973. She entered the room, surrounded by her sisters in their white saris. Purposeful. Petite, she looked well under 5'. Slight: the strange thought occurred that  I could pick her up with one hand and throw her across the room like a pillow. Bent over towards the floor with osteoporosis. An aura of gravitas, as if she could at any second manifest Jedi powers. She asked the family about the condition of her quadripelegic-friend-prayer-partner in bed. She leaned over and spoke to her quietly, tenderly. Introduced to me as religion teacher of sons Michael and Donald, she bent her head back, looked up at me calmly and said with authority: "I hope you are teaching the right things." I froze, speechless in awe and uncertainty. My wife, holding our infant oldest daughter in her hands, came to my defense.

She radiated toughness, strength like steel, compactness, definition, identity-mission-destiny, authority, clarity, certitude, and an inner integrity and serenity that no force on earth could threaten. The most virile person I have ever met, without a doubt. The most authoritative person I have ever met. Authoritative as Mother.

Think of the nun principal of your Catholic grammar school (if you were so blessed)! How would you rate her, in toughness, against: Mike Tyson? General Patton? Kaiser Souci? Darth Vader? Hannibal Lecter? Genghis Khan?  If your Principal was like the ones I have known, it is not close. 

Mother Teresa. Mother Angelica. Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini. Mother Katherine Drexell. Actually, all the Catholic "mothers" who served the poor, taught the ignorant, founded orders, fought with bishops: as a group they are the toughest...tougher than navy seals, Russian mafia hitmen, bare knuckle fighters, KGB operatives.

Consider: Who is the singular human person who crushed the head of Lucifer, the most intelligent, powerful and magnificent of all creatures, human and angelic? Our Blessed Mother Mary. She is superior in the combat with the dark kingdom even to St. Michael the Archangel. She is superior of course, not in power, but in humility, over the "power" and pride of Satan.

Femininity at its epitome is superior as authoritative in two ways. First, as maternal, the feminine is closer, more intimate with us, the recipients. Secondly, less powerful, empowered-NOT, (Please: lets NOT empower our girls, or our boys, and especially not our men!) the feminine is more receptive of the Transcendent, God and also of created illuminations of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. And so, as receptive the feminine is also reflective, like the full moon reflects the light of the sun.

Maternity/Paternity

And so, maternity and paternity in distinctive ways are both authoritative: receptive of the Transcendent and then representative of it. This is NOT-POWER. It is iconic or sacramental: humble, certain, efficacious, charming, life-giving. 

In the Uber-Event of the Spousal Drama, the embrace of bride and groom...erotic, romantic, complementary, synergistic, agonistic, excruciating, purgative, ecstatic, abusive, sacrificial, contrite, forgiving, fruitful...the feminine and the masculine, asymmetrically receptive and donative,  purge and inflame each other into maternity and paternity as vessels of life-giving authority...embodying the Holy, the True, the Good and the Beautiful. 

Today, All Saints, let us consider in our time (1945-2025) the voices, sacramentals, icons of just such authority. 

 PATERNAL                                                                               

 John Paul II                                                                           

Kiko Arguello (with Carmen Hernandez)                                    

Pope Benedict                                                                              

Hans Urs von Balthasar (with Speyr)                                             

Ralph Martin and charismatic companions.                                   

DeLubac, Danielou, Congar, Boyer, Phillips, Suenens and Vatican Council Fathers and Periti              

David L. Schindler and Communio colleagues                           

Cardinals Mueller, Arinze, Sarah, Burke, George, O'Connor      

Archbishop Chaput, Bishop Baron, African bishops                   

Maritains (Jacques/Raissa) and Hildebrands (Dietrich/Alice)   

MATERNAL

St. Mother Theresa

Chiara Lubich

Mother Angelica

Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Madeleine Delbrel

Carmen Hernandez (with Kiko Arguello)

Adrienne von Speyr (with Hans Urs von Balthasar)

Flannery O'Connor, Sigrid Undset

Elizabeth Anscombe

Sisters of Life

Caryll Houselander 

                                                                                         

Honorable Mention:

Knights of Columbus and other men's groups active in the Church.

Jesuits: Avery Cardinal Dulles (my model theological model) and Joseph Whelan  (my spirituality mentor), John Wrynn and Neil Doherty (my spiritual directors) and  Fessio, Schall, Baker, Paqwa, Oates, Spitzer, Mankowski, Koterski, and others.)

EWTN, Communio Journal, First Things and other

Franciscan University of Steubenville, Benedictine, Ave Maria, University of Dallas, Thomas Aquinas Academy and other strong Catholic colleges.

Erika Kirk, Mary Anne Glendon, Amy Comey Barrett, Heather King, Tracey Rowland, Helen Andrews, Debra Herbeck, Janet Smith, Mary Healy,  Patricia Snow, Kimbely Hahn, Abigaile Favale, Anne Eberstadt, Helen Andrews,  Helen Alvare, and so many other.

Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Missionaries of Charity, Little Sisters of the Poor and so many other.

Charlie Kirk, Etienne Gilson, Scott Hahn, Monsignor Luigi Giussanni, Bill W. and Doctor Bob and all the anonymous compulsives grateful in recovery, and so many others.

Conclusion

The women above all are feminine specifically in their receptivity to God in prayer, but also welcoming of the masculine in all its created valor. These women are delighted in their own femininity as they cherish the masculine received from father, Church, husband, brothers, and friends. As women, they interiorize the masculine and reflect it; as men do with the feminine. Such women are content, grateful, serene: neither envious, self-pitying, or resentful. Likewise, authentic men are not effeminate but confident in their virility, delighted in femininity and therefore open to its influence.

These, the Church Militant, all sinners-in-recovery, are the definitive answer to Cultural/Theological Progressivism, the unholy union of envious feminism and effeminate masculinity. 

And so, femininity and masculinity, in the dance of asymmetric reception/donation, open to the Transcendent, abide in and with each other, thrive and become fruitful and authoritative.

Thank God for our abiding Motherly Church, for our authoritative hierarchy, and the holy messengers from heaven in our time.

The Crisis of Authentic Virile Authority: The Complicity of Toxic Feminism and Effeminate Masculinity

 "While the most competent women leaders often reflect the virtues of male-dominated spaces, they do so while maintaining what St. John Paul II called "the feminine genius"--a biologically-based way of perceiving the world that allows for genuine empathy.  But to flourish as a society, we need a best-of-both-worlds form of leadership in which that "feminine genius" works in concert with the "masculine genius."  Men must be allowed to contribute in the courageous, to-the-point, appropriately confrontational style designed into them by their Creator.

The enduring health of any society depends on the full expression of both: the intuitive compassion that builds communion, and the principled firmness that guards order and truth. When men are diminished or sidelined, society loses the guardianship of boundaries, courage and disciplined purpose--qualities that stabilize families, communities and nations.

Civilization itself depends on this balance: the complementarity between the man who protects and the woman who nurtures, each reflecting a facet of divine wisdom that, together, sustains human flourishing."

Kelsey Reinhardt, President of Catholic Vote CatholicVote.org October 23, 2025

Kelsey Reinhardt's precise, penetrating summary of the divinely-intended female/male balance is a development of the must-read, brilliant essay The Great Feminization by Helen Andrews at www.compactmag.com Oct. 16, 2025. There Andrews, with her customary depth and precision, sees that the explosion of the "woke" cult a few years ago coincides exactly with the demographic predominance of women in key cultural arenas including law, social sciences, education and other. In this new order, masculine values of order, justice, accountability, authority, borders, tradition, confrontation, courage, and magnanimity have succumbed to the pronouncedly feminine of empathy, welcome, affirmation, fluidity, cooperation, unity, serenity and nurture. In a previous essay, Fleckinstein here argued that this new regime is not the influence of an authentic, holy femininity, but the unholy union of an effeminate masculinity and a toxic, machismo-imitating femininity.  Admittedly we see around us toxic, inflated masculinity,  but the deeper crisis is the diminishment of authentic, wholesome virility as authoritative paternity and paternal authority.

Pope Leo on Synodality

Within this context, we consider Pope Leo's homily Sunday (8/26) on the Pharisee and the Publican. Echoing his mentor-predecessor, he discovers that the Pharisee sins against "synodality:" he positions himself over the tax collector as superior, indifferent and distant. And so, the Gospel call is to the equality of listening: open, compassionate, loving. This posture is set against power, hierarchy, superiority, and the refusal to listen.  Toxic masculinity is contrasted to wholesomely feminine virtues, which are of course intrinsic also to genuine virility. 

In this he is entirely faithful to his mentor's agenda. Francis passionately despised a image he configured and condemned of toxic, clerical machismo: dogmatic, moralistic, reactionary, superior, indifferent to the poor and the suffering. This message is sweeter to the palette coming from Leo in his sincerity, gentleness and transparency. He radiates a serenity, stability, kindness, and yearning for unity,  unsullied by emotionalism, resentment, melodrama. Indeed, his appeal is largely in masculine virtues: steadfast, calm, rational, reliable, objective, judicious, humble and selfless in dedication to the institution. And so, the message, especially as exemplified in his own person, is admirable. And it does address  masculine propensities to egotistic indifference, superiority, status hierarchy, and the pride/aggression of the inflated-but-fragile male ego. 

So far so good. What is the problem? 

An initial problem will be if he persists in the bureaucratization of this synodal ideal: it will become either an endless girly venting of feelings or it will be manipulated behind the scenes, in catty-camouflaged manner,  by progressives to further rupture our bonds with the past. 

More troubling is a deeper dilemma: Like his mentor, Pope Leo seems unaware that OUR CRISIS IS NOT AN EXAGGERATED, BUT A DIMINISHED VIRILITY!  To be precise, within the Church, it is a crisis of virile authority. It is not that the Church has become feminine in a wholesome, holy, Marian manner. Rather,  a critical mass of our hierarchy and lay intellectual elite have become effeminate: weak, uncertain, indecisive, toxically empathetic, gay-friendly. IT IS NOT THAT THE HIERARCHY HAS POWER, BUT THAT IT LACKS AUTHORITY. 

Power and Authority

These two are entirely different. Power is the capacity to exert force externally. For example, on the basketball court the big guy has the strength to position himself, box out, push competitors away and grab the rebound. The President exerts the power to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants or he applies tariffs on countries for various reasons. Power is the white ball knocking the other ball into the hole.

Authority, from the Latin word "to grow or make grow" is not extrinsic force, but the capacity to influence and allow growth, life, thriving. "Authority" resembles the word "author" which also means to create or bring to life. All authority derives and expresses the ultimate life-bestowing capacity and intention of God. All genuine authority here on earth is intended for the life of the one under its influence. Authority, as life-giving, is inherently generous, gentle, humble, gracious, tender, gratuitous, magnanimous. Additionally, human authority itself is always subservient to a Good-Truth-Beauty transcendent of the one endowed with authority. So, the priest proclaims the Gospel, the pope protects and enhances the Deposit of Faith, the policeman serves the peace and safety of the city, the father/mother protects the good of the entire family. The authority figure is not powerful, but always representative,  expressive of a Reality greater than himself. Real authority is interiorly humble: deferential to something greater. The Pope serves the Word of God; the Supreme Court the Constitution.

The strength of authority is intrinsic, interior; it is influential, flowing peacefully into the receptive, voluntarily-open heart and mind. Power is extrinsic; it is coercive.  Authority, by its attractiveness, charm and goodness penetrates the heart and mind of the recipient... encouraging, healing, inspiring, strengthening, correcting, comforting. It draws from the transcendent; as it satisfies the cravings of the human heart and intellect. 

There is a distinction...subtle, nuanced, mysterious... between feminine and masculine authority. The masculine is always paternal, iconic of the Fatherhood of God, the first person of the Blessed Trinity.  And so, there is a certain distance, reflecting the infinite distance of creature from Creator, as in the prolonged distance between the embryo-and-then-infant and the father. This chasm is slowly overcome by the loving, persistent overtures of the father. The distance of paternity carries awe, obedience, accountability, and fascination. This distance remains even as it is infused with affection, comfort, protection, provision, tenderness and delight. Paternal love, distinct from the maternal, is precisely the mysterious, paradoxical, fascinating co-inherence of  gentleness/tenderness/delight with strength/awe/authority. It is God-like in its retention of transcendence within immanence.

By contrast, from the moment of conception, the mother enjoys a remarkable intimacy with the child. Maternal influence is more intimate and immediate, less transcendent. Even prior to conception, in the spousal embrace the woman is receptive in trust while the man is assertive and donative. The 9 month enclosure of the child is extended into infancy in the maternal embrace, tender attentiveness and especially the act of nursing. Slowly and inexorably, the child, especially the boy, moves away from this enclosure.

 We see that the trajectories are in opposite directions: the father moves to the inherently-distant child, the child moves away from the enclosing-mother. Yet these primal structures remain resonant throughout life as they develop themselves into the forms of paternity and maternity and permeate every dimension of human life. 

Our New "Synodality": Not Apostolic, Not Virile, Not Authoritative 

Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, is the icon of the Father. To see Jesus is to see the Father. And so by analogy, all masculinity is iconic of the Father: giver of life, author, authoritative, strong but gentle, patiently working to overcome distance in tenderness, nurture and delight. Within virile authority there is always a strength, courage, ferocity, awesomeness; even as it is gentle, tender, protective. 

This new democratic, non-apostolic "synodality" is highly feminine: receptive, sensitive, nurturing, verbal, reconciling, affirmative, unitive. As I type those adjectives, I sense the oxytocin and serotonin calming my heart; my testosterone is quiet. This is, of course, to the good. A virtuous man will exercise such listening. But he will not remain in it, as in an unending bureaucratic protocol. No! Virility moves into decision, action, often confrontation. Women have stronger inclinations to talk and to listen. Even preteen girls can spend lots of time just talking with each other. Boys cannot do this. They have to play, compete, act. A man can listen only so long. Then he has to decide, act, compete.

As given to us by Pope Francis, synodality is without finality, indecisive, inactive, non-confrontational. It is not authoritative. Any red-blooded, testosterone-pumping, woman-loving, fruitful male would rather mow the lawn, play touch football, or write a scathing blog essay than sit for weeks sharing feelings.

Bishops and all in authority would be well-served by intensive, deliberate listening sessions. We all would be well-served! Proposal: every bishop, boss and authority set aside two hours weekly to just listen: to employees, competitors, transgendered, victims, borderlines, sociopaths, polysexuals, fascists, jihadists, Latin Massers, sexaholics, and depressives. The purpose here would be to listen and learn...contemplatively, compassionately, receptively; not to decide.  

By contrast, the traditional episcopal synod is (after listening) precisely decisive,  authoritative and virile: it is convened (by elderly, male, ordained bishops only) to address a controversy, confusion or heresy. It is decisive, certain, definitive. It listens, it argues, it votes, it decides. It is clear and binding.

Virile, Christlike Authority 

We do not see Moses descending the mountain, radiant with light, to listen to the grieving, victim Israelites. Nor did Joshua, Samson, and David listen to the Jebusites, Amorites and Edomites. The Maccabees did not dialogue with the Hellenists. 

In the Gospel, Jesus does not listen, question, poll and affirm tax collectors, Sadducees, or Roman imperialists. He proclaims. He acts. Decisively.  He spends nights in prayer where he clearly listens to his Father. Yes he is instantaneously compassionate. But that moment of empathy springs directly into action: deliverance of spirits and healing.  Authoritative action! The mission he gives the 72 and the 12 is not to have affirmation/sensitivity/listening sessions! They are to proclaim, heal, drive out demons.  If their voice is rejected, they shake the dust and move on to proclaim and act elsewhere.

Christ is virile. He is authoritative. He is masculine...not feminine, not androgynous... love. He is not love as passivity, tolerance, endless sharing, unconditional acceptance, peace at any price. He is not effeminate. He is love as decision, Truth, fearlessness, ferocity, wrath, certitude, clarity, efficaciousness, infallibility, assertiveness, boldness, combat, judgment, sacrifice, retribution, paternity.

Christ is the groom to us the bride. In relation to him, we receive: his Word, his Body and Blood, his Holy Spirit. Leaving the receptivity of the Eucharist, we ourselves...in our own arenas... then manifest our own Spirit-infused assertiveness, magnanimity, confidence, courage, generosity, generativity. 

Christ to the Father is Son. Within the Trinity and in his humanity/virility Christ is ultra-super-uber-feminine:  trusting, grateful, actively receptive. With the Father, Christ is generative of the Holy Spirit. With us he is paternal as he is the perfect image of the Father. In turn, the Son gives glory and honor to the Father. And so, the super-receptive Son is super-active, in his love and service of the Father and the Kingdom. And, secondly in his love for us. His love for us is already/always enclosed within his love for the Father. But, in his divinity and humanity both, the primacy is his union with the Father. The most important thing he does every day: not teaching, not healing, not forgiving, not exorcising, not even suffering and dying; but abiding in his Father, spending his nights in prayer.

The human person, image of the Trinity, is likewise receptive and donative. Each person is so in an utterly unique fashion, free of rigid stereotype. The feminine and the masculine are distinct in the manner in which these dynamics cohere. The feminine genius is more one of reception, the masculine one of donation. The beauty is the communion between the two: within each person, within each relationship. 

And so the man, and the cleric in his specific mode, emulates the virility of Christ. Primarily, in a creaturely mimesis of the Son, receptive within the Trinity of the Father and the Holy Spirit. The male enjoys a blessing of strength, iconic of the Father: in his physique, especially his seed-donating fruitfulness. Psychologically he is prone to decision, action, confrontation, certitude, clarity, courage, sacrifice. At the same time his psyche, in its stability, is vulnerable to a rigidity and fragility. This makes him desperately in need of receptivity in prayer as well as in reception of the love of mother, then father, brother and sister, friends, wife.

The woman for her part manifests more pronouncedly the receptivity within the Trinity. She more intimately, passionately, precisely receives: first, the love of God; then the other person... friend, child, spouse, or the suffering one. This maternity is itself so fierce that when aroused it can be even more courageous, aggressive and enflamed than virility as paternity. The maternal and paternal are both  receptive and donative, in a different manner.

We intuit here an endless dance, at every level of reality...the physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and the mystical. The virile and the feminine, the groom and the bride, the paternal and the maternal... enchanted, fascinated, reverential, heroic, receptive/donative, active/contemplative...reflective of the inner-eternal-Event of love that is the Trinity.

Conclusion

Toxic masculinity is a plague upon our world: control, power, greed, lust, indifference, manipulation, narcissism, aggression...Putin, Trump, Epstein, Weinstein, jihadism, fascism, misogyny, clericalism and much more. It is not our only and not our worst problem.

Western society and the Catholic Church...in all its elite institutions...has surrendered to a toxic femininity that is NOT authentically womanly as receptive, confident, trusting, generous, holy and Marian. It is, rather, a mimesis of insecure, toxic machismo: suspicious, envious, grasping, discontent, grasping, self-pitying, toxically-empathetic, angry and sterile. 

Worse still...and the real core of our crisis...is the crisis in virility: the absence of authority; the prevalence of effeminacy.

Our men, our society/institutions/communities/families are fatherless.  

We, systemically, lack: masculine obedience to the Transcendent, confidence, authority, certitude, magnanimity, heroism, stability, sobriety, protectiveness, humility, chastity, fidelity, gentle strength and strong gentleness.

Fleckinstein, you know Dear Reader, does not like to end on this negative note. Stay tuned: the next essay will identity the authentic witnesses to virile authority, men and women!