Our Church Polarized, Confused, Betrayed; and the Loyal Catholic Resistance

Now almost 18 months into his papacy, we see that Leo...prayerful, slow, cautious, deliberate,  steady, serene, irenic...is true to his word: he is continuing the program of Francis.  This is a sadness, a disappointment for many of us. We are betrayed in crucial areas of our received Catholic faith. But first, a thumbnail review of five recent papacies (the most recent both dual-pontificates.)

Postwar Stability and Expansion. Pope Pius XII, 1945-58. Especially in the USA, the Church was steady, thriving, confident, expansive; united against the global adversary, atheistic Communism; moving across the globe, especially the global South, in missionary fervor, cultural influence, and aid to the suffering. Time-tested, stable institutions stood serenely as alongside them, in full view, movements of renewal quietly flourished: ecumenism, Scripture, social justice, role of the laity, centrality of religious freedom, acceptance of pluralism, dialogue with Judaism and world religions, and positive engagement with modernity.

Vatican Council Renewal. St. Pope John XXIII and St. Paul VI, 1958-68. Tremendous church change within even greater cultural revolutions.

Confusion and Chaos. St. Paul VI, 1968-78. Widespread catechetical/theological confusion; progressivism takes charge of Catholic academia; loss of vocations; decline in church participation; widespread collapse of institutions. At the same time, lay renewal movements gain in strength. 

Restoration. St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, 1978-2013. Grounding of the Council reforms in continuity with tradition. Catholic Catechism. An extraordinary body of papal teaching from both pontiffs. Lay renewal movements continue to surge in influence.

Return of Confusion and Polarization. Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV, 2013-Today.  Impulsive, incoherent campaign to reconcile with theological progressivism and Chinese communism. In this they have betrayed fundamentals of Catholicism.

1. Chinese Church has been abandoned into the hands of the Communist Party. The underground Church, loyal for 80 years to the Pope, has been betrayed. The Party now unilaterally designates bishops and controls them. John Paul and Benedict, knowledgeable about communism, refused to sign such an agreement. This is a disloyalty of enormous proportions. I can recall no comparable abandonment of so many Catholics into the hands of such a  hostile enemy. Cardinal Zen stands as a solitary witness against this.

2. Spousal-Sexual Ethos ... centrality of chastity and conjugal fidelity...  of John Paul and Benedict, traditional and yet fresh, is renounced in favor of a truce with cultural progressivism, including feminist and LGBTQ militancy.

3. Latin Mass, center of Catholic life for 1500 years and source of inspiration for young families, is dictatorially crushed.

4. Deconstruction of the Episcopacy.  Synodality continues to replace bishops' authority with a group-process parliament of endless grievance, introversion, and progressive manipulation. Meanwhile, in important Vatican offices,  lay people assume positions of authority and governance traditionally reserved to those in holy orders.

5. Clerical Intrusion into the lay domain of politics. As the laity are clericalized into Church governance, the Vatican assumes a global  role as "caliph" responsible for world peace, justice and order. And so, the hierarchy intervenes on contentious, chaotic, prudential and properly lay policy affairs including immigration, borders, war, economy, climate and other. The distinct missions of clergy and laity are convoluted.

6. Just Use of Lethal Force of State to defend the common good and the innocent...in war, police work and capital punishment...as always understood by the Church is replaced by a vague, vacuous pacifism s in denial of the hard realities of evil.

Loyal Catholic Resistance

It is imperative that those of us who know and love our Catholic legacy resist the Francis/Leo hegemony and that we witness to Truth received... always in loyalty, humility, clarity, decisiveness and love.

The clearest resistance to date has come, at least in the USA, from the laity: First Things, EWTN, etc. In the hierarchy we have Zen, Burke, Scola, Mueller, Sarah, and more. The best example of such truthful resistance is the clear, absolute refusal of the entire African episcopacy to cooperate with blessing of homosexual unions. Another encouraging incident: Bishop Barron recently corrected Cardinal Vesco who said we do not want to convert Jewish and Muslim believers. We need more of such virile candor, courage, confrontation and correction from our prelates. We are in fact in a war within the Church, even a holy war on behalf of Revealed Truth handed down to us. We can no longer "make nice" with deference to the Pope and avoidance of conflict. "I have come to bring the sword" is the way Jesus put it.

In Outliers, (2008) Malcolm Gladwell considered the horrible safety record of Korean Airlines in the 1980-90s. Their accident picture was 17 times worse than that of American Airlines despite comparable training, competence and mechanics. The problem was the culture of extreme deference to hierarchy and authority: subordinate pilots would not confront or correct their superiors out of a dysfunctional respect. Their accident picture corrected itself with the introduction of a more direct, confrontational, less hierarchical safety culture.  Something like this has to happen with our Church. We need from our bishops virile, vigorous candor and confrontation.

Big Picture

The institutional hierarchy is essential to and constitutive of the Church. But it is not everything. The Church is best understood as the Mystical Body of Christ, the Communion in holiness of saints (militant on earth, suffering in purgatory, triumphant in heaven), as our Mother, as the Bride of Christ.

Christ, in the Holy Spirit, is intimate with his Church in so many ways besides the hierarchy: primarily the prayer and charity of saints, including the humble, anonymous ones; ordinary priestly ministry and parish life; and an infinity of works of mercy, religious life, gatherings in prayer, holy families, and so forth.

I return always to my "Fr. Burke Principle." Fr. John Burke (you recall dear Reader), pastor of my parish from before my birth until when I left at age 18, was rarely seen and when seen was odd. Was it alcohol? Emotional distress? Unknown. But what was clear is that the work of the Church went on smoothly: priests, brothers, sisters, families, school, sacraments, births and deaths. Distress and dysfunction of priest/bishop/pope does not stop the workings of the Holy Spirit.

In my single positive experience with physical therapy I learned that the weak, wounded bone would recover slowly as the adjacent muscles were strengthened by exercise. And so, with the Church: dysfunction in the Vatican and in much of the episcopacy need not discourage us. Our Lord is present to us in so many ways. We open our hearts, minds, and action to the Holy Spirit in our distinctive places and missions. Our Lord will correct the hierarchy in his good time.

Let us pray that Truth, in Love, prevail across the entire Church, especially in the Vatican and the episcopacy!

 

Catholic Eccentrics and Centrics

An eccentric is someone "off center," different, odd, idiosyncratic, non-conventional, weird, not a normie. Sometimes it is used positively in the sense of entertaining, endearing, comical, and refreshing. By "centric" I here mean one who is properly centered, grounded, and balanced. We will see that the two do not exclude each other.

We were blessed in our family of nine (with another two fosters) by a mother and father who were strongly centric: grounded in their Catholic faith, tested and tried in youth by the Depression and WWII,  ever in love with each other. Everything else fell into its proper place. We were additionally graced with eccentric family members. My maternal Uncle Billy was a purple heart WWII vet, studied at Columbia University,  and spent his adult life as a mendicant entrepreneur in South America. All the time he was also an agent for US army intelligence, a spy. He lived a double life and never told a single family member. He was highly intelligent, hilariously funny, immensely idiosyncratic, a story teller, and a fascination for us. My paternal Uncle Jack was different: he fought with Patton and may have been  post-trauma. He was a loner, avoiding family functions; his wife,  agoraphobic, stayed home. He was in his 50s and still caddying when I started at about the age of 14. He had a job and so was not what we called "a rummy"... a drinker that caddied to pay rent and buy booze. He was affectionately called "duck" because of how he walked so I was nicknamed "little duck." I was not insulted; he seemed to elicit a quiet, respectful affection. Our great-aunt Agnes was a spinster who lived next door and was close to us. She was also "a character." She loved Robert E. Lee. This made sense as her father (my paternal great-grandfather) had fought for the confederacy upon arrival from Ireland, taught for a while as a Christian Brother, and started a dairy farm in West Orange, NJ.

I have delighted in a range of friendships over the years but am particularly drawn to eccentrics. For example, I have written about "maverick priests" whom I particularly cherish as interesting, insightful, afflicted, intuitive, entertaining, loving and lovable. I find them and they find me.

Here we will identify significant eccentrics and centrics of the last 80 years in the Church. 

Top Catholic Eccentrics 

These are important influencers within Catholicism whose thought was "off center" or different but in a way that was enriching, if not entirely balanced. Recall, please, that all our great reformers were eccentric in their time: Jesus and the apostles, Anthony, Benedict, Francis, Dominic, Ignatius and so on. These are prophetic figures who lean heavily and fruitfully into some reality of our faith, perhaps pushing the boundaries of our Catholic reservation in some way, but remaining overall loyal and offering us great enrichment. 

Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez. Kiko left  bourgeois life and buried himself with the gypsies, taking his bible, guitar and ten dogs for heat. With Carmen, he developed an entirely creative, radical, orthodox, alternative Catholicism.

Ralph Martin and Leaders of Charismatic Renewal. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, (in my view), in the wake of the Council starting in 1967, these integrated from Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism religious resources to create a distinctive Charismatic Catholicism which contrasted strongly with the dominant progressivism of the time.

Ivan Illich. Primarily a cultural critic rather than a theologian, he troubled the Vatican with his views but was voluntarily laicized to pursue his controversial advocacy. His was a most profound, broad critique of modernity (and the Church institution) as bureaucracy and technocracy. Similar views were advanced by non-Catholics Ellul, Berry, Goodman, Holt as well as Catholics Schumacher, Chesterton, Belloc.

Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. Maurin was an itinerant, self-taught wise man who instructed Day in a distinctive, radical, love-the-poor Catholicism. They were hardcore Catholic but politically anarchist and pacificist and so eccentric within our Church. A charming, convincing disciple today is Larry Chapp, a "communio" theologian who left academia to start a Catholic Worker farm. He is a favorite of mine for several reasons. He is by far the most comical, entertaining, living Catholic theologian. He influenced my daughter and her husband in college. He is triply eccentric as anarchist, pacifist and universalist. But his love for Christ and the Church somehow overcome these flaws.

Rene Girard. With his groundbreaking, revolutionary anthropology of mimetic desire he has in effect created a new "center" for Catholic thought that is basically consonant with and enriching of our legacy. His thought has been wonderfully presented by his disciple Gil Baile. He is  more significant a contemporary thinker than Freud, Marx, Darwin or Nietzsche. 

Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Balthasar is the most profound, encyclopedic, creative Catholic theologian of the 20th century. He deferred to his collaborator, the controversial mystic Adrienne von Speyr as more significant, especially for her annual Holy Saturday "descent into hell" which informed his theology of hell.

 E. Michael Jones. A cranky conservative Catholic, Jones is a brilliant cultural analyst and historian. His work is flawed by a pronounced anti-Judaism which returns to earlier Catholic bias and is much too close to antisemitism. He is especially prescient in criticism of Catholic conservatisms including Neoconservativism, Pentecostalism, and Marian apparitions at Medjugorje. He is second only to Jaki in combativeness.  

 Simone Weil. A brilliant mystic, she died out of solidarity with the poor and suffering in WWII, having refused baptism despite her love for the suffering Christ. She is strongly "out of center" but left us tremendous insight.

Paolo Freire, Oscar Romero, Gustavo Gutierrez, Don Camara.  These are the shining stars of a "liberation theology" which remains (precariously) within Catholic boundaries. They pushed our faith strongly into solidarity with the poor. Camara was archbishop in Brazil for 21 years and Mendez of Cuernavaca for 30 years. They had affinities with Illich. Cardinal Mueller, protege of Ratzinger, whose Catholic discernment is impeccable, strongly endorses liberation theology in the form offered by Gutierrez. Romero is a canonized saint.  

Top Catholic Centrics

These are Church leaders and influencers who have been centered, profound, orthodox, balanced in their teaching and witness, including their demeanor/style/action. Important leadership positions in the Church especially require strong centric personalities and thinkers. Representatives: 

Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Paul VI, John XXIII, Pius XII.

Theologians Dulles, D.L. Schindler, DeLubac, Danielou, Congar, Boyer, Gilson, Maritain, Hildebrandt, Stein, Pieper, 

Cardinals Cantalamesa, Burke, Sarah, Mueller, Scola, Cooke, Suenens, O'Connor, George.

Bishops Varden, Barron. 

Special Cases

Popes Francis and Leo.

Bergoglio was a real eccentric: intense, volatile, impulsive, intuitive, emotional, intellectually incoherent. He was his own man. Creative and insightful, he was an excellent homilist and spiritual director, but a trainwreck of a pope. Above all a pope must be centric: holding everyone together, holding the Gospel truth in all its dimensions together. 

Prevost is deeply centrist in temperament, demeanor, and governing style. He looks for stability and especially unity in the Church. Theologically he is influenced by the progressivism of Francis and lacks depth, clarity and decisiveness in orthodoxy. 

Holy Ones Who Go "Catholic Weird"

Padre Pio, Mother Theresa, all stigmatists, healers, bi-locators, levitators, exorcists, hermits, and postmortem in-corrupts.

Eccentric Centrics 

The following were deeply centric in thought and life as they were eccentric, idiosyncratic and immensely entertaining in personality.

Blessed Fulton Sheen: flamboyant, histrionic; famously fought with powerful Cardinal Spellman over money for the missions;  and got in trouble late in life for his zeal for racial justice.

Mother Angelica: Immensely influential with EWTN as down-to-earth, populist, crusty Italian Catholic.

Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete: Sophisticated, NY, priest, writer-speaker celebrity; leader of American Communion and Liberation; hilariously entertaining; spent the last years of his life caring sacrificially for his disabled brother.

Flannery O'Connor: Immensely creative and entertaining; fiercely Catholic.

Fr. Stanley Jaki: Brilliant scientist/philosopher famous for his fierce combativeness.  

Elizabeth Anscombe: Protege of Wittgenstein; cigar-smoking, custom-defying, Humanae Vitae endorsing, atom-bomb condemning, mother of seven. Probably the most eccentric of all! 

Caryl Houselander: Inspirational writer who suffered anxiety and had an extraordinary, non-professional gift for helping those suffering mental and emotional anguish.

Heather King: Recovering alcoholic, convert, a contemporary Caryl Houselander.

Founders of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal were largely eccentric centrics: Groeschel, Sudano, Fortuna, Pio, and Apostoli. 

The John Paul Institute for the Family in Washington DC seems to attract eccentric centrics: Adrian Walker, Paolo Prosperi, Michael Walker  and others are balanced by sound centrics like Healy, Schindler, Antonio Lopez and others.

Stephen Adubato, curator of "Cracks in Modernity," a friend, and the most promising up-and-coming eccentric centric.

Conclusion

Notice that most of these were alive and active during and after the Council. Those were the years of my own adolescence and early adulthood. There were times of immense ferment in the Church. These significant figures are orthodox theologically, but moving zealously into prayer, contemplation and the mystical side of Catholicism. Many of them identify strongly with the poor and marginalized. They also include critiques of modernity as technological/bureaucratic/meritocratic. They coinhere in a traditional yet contemporary Catholicism that is renunciatory of cultural progressivism without being a retreat to a Church of the past.

Do you, dear Reader, share my delight, admiration, and gratitude in considering these inspiring, entertaining, radiant persons?  It has been a wonderful time to be Catholic!

Praise God!

Exult!

 Recently, when I ask our Lord what he wants from or for me, I receive a single word: Exult!

Question: When I receive this word, is this a natural, psychological process, a kind of auto-suggestion? Or is it heavenly and supernatural, a movement of the Holy Spirit?

It is both; it is not an either/or. It is natural, ordinary, psychological. This word comes to me much as any random, meaningless word might: stone, boy, loud. It is not miraculous and unnatural like bilocation, stigmata or incorruption after death. But the fruit of it is that I feel very happy in relation to God; I experience a surge in confidence, zeal, fervor, fierceness, strength, courage, and longing for God. "By their fruits you will know them." So, with joy I receive and cherish this Word. The natural is oriented to, receptive of, and collaborative with the supernatural or spiritual.

Try this, dear Reader. Prayer is friendship with God: PAL...Praise and thanks; Ask...for yourself and others; Listen...for God's voice. So I invite and encourage and exhort you:  Ask Jesus what he wants for you or from you. Then sit quietly, peacefully, patiently, hopefully. And wait.  And wait.  And wait. You may or may not hear a word. If you do, that word may well be random and meaningless. But it may also be a comforting, healing, strengthening Word from God.

"Exult" is an interesting word: it means to rejoice, to experience and manifest extreme joy, often after a victory.

The Latin root "exsultare" means literally to leap out. It means to "jump for joy." It is interior but manifests physically, powerfully and spontaneously. 

We see this in sports. Your basketball team wins the championship with a jump shot at the buzzer in a third overtime. Fans and players all spontaneously jump for joy. Victory! Triumph over the opponent! Sheer joy!

It is associated with military victory. Imagine El Cid and the Reconquista; the victory at Lepanto; the images of VE Day on May 8, 1945. 

It is close to the word "exalt" which is to praise and glorify someone. The etymology: Latin "exaltare" which means to "lift up." This clearly occurs mostly in liturgy in which we glorify God, especially recalling his marvelous deeds. We remember the Israelites as they see the waters destroying the hostile Egyptian chariots. We share in the Resurrection Joy of the apostles and disciples in that 40 days of glorious presence. 

As I write this, dear Reader, I am not quite sure if the word I heard was "exult" or "exalt." What I understood was the intense joy of exult joined with glorification of God. And so, I think (again): it is not either/or but both/and.  It is intense, manifest, fierce Joy, in God's goodness and works.

In this life on earth we are never entirely in the victory, in the way when the buzzer rings and our team is up by one or when Germany and Japan surrendered officially. We are always in the battle. But, by anticipation/expectation/hope, we already exult/exalt. We are like the underdog team that is down but fiercely determined to win. By anticipatory exaltation/exultation, we are zealous, energized, hopeful, fervent, confident, fearless, reckless, already-exultant-exaltant. 

I invite, encourage and exhort you, dear Reader, let us together exult-exalt in the Lord, his works, his intentions!

Foundational Virtues of Virility

 "The defining catastrophe of our time is the crisis in masculinity."    Fleckinstein

Our "virtue" and "virility" both derive from the Latin "vir" which refers in the Roman world to a freeborn masculine person, as distinct from "puer" (boy) and "homo" (human person). It connotes honor, dignity, strength and goodness. Virility...or manliness or masculinity...indicates the masculine as good: as strong, generative, paternal, protective, energetic, forceful. 

The core aim of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s was, among other things, to deconstruct virility as a form and as a representation of God the Father. It has been fabulously successful. We are suffering a catastrophic crisis in masculinity. 

The final aim of masculinity is paternity: the fatherly giving of life as representative of God our heavenly father. This includes but goes well beyond the merely biological. It begins as filial reception and response: of son to father and mother both. This develops into fraternity, friendship and brotherhood with both men and women. Then spousal or "groomal" (a rare but real word) intimacy with and loyalty to the bride. Finally, fatherhood: physical, emotional, social, intellectual and spiritual. And so we see the itinerary of virility: filial, fraternal, spousal and finally paternal.

The virtues which configure goodness in a woman and in a man are similar, but they take a different gestalt as there is distinction in identity, destiny and mission. For example, vices like vanity or timidity are less damaging to the character of a woman; but lack of empathy or generosity would be less ruinous for that of a man. 

Masculinity is, more than femininity, a discipleship, an itinerary, a process, an achievement. It requires deliberate rites of passage, tests, discipline, encouragement, competition and finally ordination. So it is important to be clear on the most significant virtues to be encouraged. The following seven virtues mutually infuse each other to form the interiority of virility.

1. Loyalty.

Loyalty is arguably the primal masculine virtue; infidelity the worst vice. Abandonment or betrayal of wife, friends, family, country or faith is the abolition of virility. This theme runs through all of culture, literature, and history. What is required, above all, is the proper hierarchy of loyalties. For example, mob movies are obsessed with loyalties: to the gang, the boss, to the brotherhood. However, since there is no underlying faithfulness to virtue, truth, charity, and God, the plot inevitably leads to dramas of betrayal. Likewise, dramas about men in other forms of conflict...police, military, etc...often center on loyalty to the brother that conflicts with fidelity to truth, justice or charity. Loyalty at its best of course is the martyr who dies for his faith or the hero who gives his life for his people.

2. Humility.

The final aim of virility is to image the Fatherhood of God. It is representational. Therefore, the foundational virtue is humility by which the ego of the person is deflated that his Self may reflect the glory, the honor, the love and the mercy of the Father. Problem: in the real, post-original-sin world, the strongest feature of masculinity is pride, the inflated and fragile male ego. And so, the ego must be reduced in order that the genuine Self, in Christ, resplendent in holiness and strength, be manifest.

3. Fortitude.

Virility as paternity images God as strong, protective, life-giving. Fortitude is both passive and aggressive. It is passive as patience, endurance, long-suffering and peaceful in adversity and suffering. It is active as courage, assertiveness, zeal, fierceness, valor, confidence and authority.

4. Chastity.

Purity of heart, including specifically sexual chastity, is required of virility lest it abuse  its power in toxicities of lust and covetousness or emasculate itself in fantasy flight from the real.

5. Sobriety and Serenity.

In addition to freedom from irrational enslavement to inebriation, lust, anger, anxiety, greed and ambition, sobriety here is interior peace that allows for contemplation, wisdom and prudence. Such deep, strong tranquility is a font of stability, energy and fruitfulness.

6. Justice. 

 The male mission ensures the objectivity, the harmony, the integrity of order. It is to do the right thing. It is distinct from Mercy: it does what is due; it does the right thing. Ultimately, in God, Mercy and Justice must infuse and inform each other.

7. Prudence.

Practical wisdom: the fruitful pursuit of the good through all the complex, dense, random and convoluted circumstances of life.

Conclusion

The great failing of Western civilization since 1965 is that we have failed to guide our young men on a path to these virtues. These might make the core curriculum of an itinerary into mature masculinity.

Note that we do not here address the essential theological virtues: faith, hope and love.

Other virtues are arguably as important as the above. Specifically, the core of the relationship of man to woman is tenderness and reverence. These entail compassion, kindness, generosity as well as esteem. These will flourish spontaneously, fluidly, organically in the mutuality of man-and-woman when there is interior to the man the foundation of the seven virtues here denoted.

The Good News: even in the catastrophic insanity of Cultural Liberalism, virility and femininity are irrepressible. There are ever resurging. They are inherent to the created order. 

Let us exult in our masculinity and femininity!

: compassion, gratitude, kindness, generosity and more. These will flourish fluidly and spontaneously when the above are firmly in place.

Good news: even in the insanity of cultural liberalism, we see the resurgence of virility, along with femininity. They are inherent in the created order. They are irrepressible. They reflect the splendor, the truth, the holiness of God. Let us exult in them!

Top Ten USA Catholic Prelates of the Last 80 Years

 Considering holiness of life, breath of influence, competence, theological depth and clarity, my list:

1. Blessed Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Unrivaled for holiness of life, evangelical reach, intellectual brilliance.

2. Servant of Cardinal Terrence Cook. Competent, humble, holy man.

3. Bishop Robert Barron. Influential evangelist/catechist, first rate theologian, moderately conservative, appealing. 

4. Servant of God Bishop John Ford M.M. First Maryknoll seminarian and missionary to China, he was imprisoned by Chinese Communists, tortured and died a martyr in 1952. He is representative of the Tridentine, pre-Vatican II Church. 

And:  Servant of God Bishop James Edward Walsh M.M. Another pioneer Maryknoll missionary to China, he refused to leave his people and was in solitary confinement for 12 years, returning home in 1971 and dying at the age of 90 in 1981. A man of fierce zeal and immense talent, he served as unofficial representative of FDR to Japan in the years prior to WWII. 

5. Cardinal John O'Connor.  Charming, influential Catholic classic; ally of John Paul; fierce defender of Catholic interests in the culture war and also on behalf of the poor.

6. Cardinal Sean O'Malley.  Humble, holy, talented, Franciscan "man of the poor," he took over the Boston Church in the wake of the scandal and became a key advisor to Pope Francis.

7. Cardinal Francis George. A fine theological intellect, ally of John Paul/Benedict, and defender of religious freedom and Catholic interests in the Culture War.

8. Archbishop Charles Chaput. Much like Cardinal George, profound thinker and fierce culture warrior.

9. Cardinal Raymond Burke.  Formerly an important Vatican figure, he has stood steadfastly as a correction to the Francis/Leo pontificates.

10. Cardinal Dolan. Widely respected, lively, vivacious, intelligent, influential figure.

(You are right, dear Reader, that was actually 11!)

Most Saintly Prelates:

1. Blessed Fulton Sheen

2. Servant of God, martyr, Bishop Ford

3. Servant of God Bishop James Anthony Walsh M.M.

4. Servant of God Cardinal Terrence Cook

Greatest Theologians

1. Blessed Fulton Sheen

2. Bishop Robert Barron

3. Archbishop Charles Chaput

4. Cardinal Francis George

Most Troubled Legacies

Immensely influential and talented, the following made major positive contributions to the American Church, but also had serious negative impact.

Ex-Cardinal McCarrick  Now laicized and deceased, he is the face of the priest sex scandal. Super-energetic, talented, and charming he was a masterful fund raiser, a player in the Vatican, and a collaborator with John Paul when Archbishop of Newark. He became the leading episcopal progressive when he got his red hat and went to Washington DC. Notoriously, he misled the American episcopacy on the letter from Cardinal Ratzinger on the issue of communion for activist prochoice Catholic politicians.

Archbishop Weakland  Another influential progressive, his memory is tainted by the $450,000 settlement involving a homosexual relationship.

Cardinal Law, Cardinal Wuerl, Cardinal Mahoney These were prominent among the many prelates who neglected to address priestly abuse of minors. Otherwise, Law was a widely respected conservative, Wuerl and Mahoney leading progressives.

Cardinal Bernadine Arguably the most powerful American Cardinal since Spellman, he was a moderate, conciliatory, prayerful, immensely intelligent, competent and appealing figure. He is much like our current Pope Leo who came from Chicago. Amazingly he got an episcopal consensus on nuclear weapons. His most significant legacy is the "seamless garment" approach to life. He argued for a consistent approach that reverences human life in all dimensions including abortion, poverty, war, homelessness and so forth. He himself did not equate essential evils (abortion) with prudential judgments (tax policy, etc.) and distanced himself from liberal politicians who used this approach to allow support for abortion. However, since he did not strongly accentuate the difference, this has become a defining rationale for Catholic who support prochoice politicians. 

Other Considerations

Mid-Century Giants

A significant group of powerful cardinals presided over the immense expansion of the American Church in the 1950s into the early 1960. These were political powerhouses, in the Church and society, and competent builders. Often authoritarian. Not always known for theological acumen or piety. They epitomized the confident, aggressive, immigrant postwar Church. 

Cardinal Francis Spellman.  Archbishop of NY for almost 30 years, (1939-67) he was clearly the most powerful prelate of the era. Very close to Pope Pius XII, he exercised power in the Vatican, in American politics and dictatorially in his own realm. Fiercely anti-communist, he endorsed McCarthy and was the strongest Catholic supporter of the Vietnam War. On the negative side, he used seminarians to break a cemetery workers strike. He feuded with Sheen over money for the missions and retaliated by banishing him to Rochester. His legacy is mixed.

Cardinal Richard Cushing. Another long-serving prelate ((1944-70) in Boston, he was again a strong figure, a builder, a presence at the Council, an advocate for the poor/disadvantaged and for ecumenism and yet solid theologically. He was apparently a heavy drinker (which does not make him a bad person, necessarily). He was a close friend to the Kennedys. But this was before that tribe turned against their Catholic values so we cannot attribute blame here. He was (like Kroll) the classic postwar, liberal but rooted Catholic prelate.

Cardinal John Krol.  A little later (1961-88) this Polish Philadelphia Cardinal served at the Council and was a trusted advisor to John Paul. He was a competent builder, a faithful conservative, and president of the bishops conference in the turbulent 1970s. He is said to have been influential in garnering American support in conclave that elected John Paul.

American Prelates at Vatican II

As noted, American postwar cardinals were strong leaders and builders, not intellectuals. Cardinal Ritter of St. Louis and Meyer of Chicago were known as strong progressive voices. Spellman was more conservative but apparently went along with the liberal trend and famously brought John Courtney-Murray S.J. as a peritus on the significant document on religious freedom. 

American Vatican Insiders?

Other than Burke in his conflict with Francis, we do not address here Americans who have wielded influence within the Vatican. The most prominent, obvi: Pope Leo (Robert Prevost). In general, Cardinals in the Vatican do not get a lot of attention from the American press, except from Vatican watchers. (We recall John Allen of happy memory.) Vatican politics is mostly somewhat  quiet. 

Currently, Cardinal Kevin Farrell is strongly positioned in several offices and a progressive in the mode of Pope Francis. Leo clearly favors the Francis clique (Cupich, Tobin, McIntyre) although they are not influential within the American episcopacy. In recent memory O'Malley and Dolan were trusted by Francis. Other important figures: Rigali, Szoka, Levada, and Wright. It seems that generally Vatican service brings with it a degree of social modesty.

Conclusion

Considering our prelates of the last 80 years, we see a rich blend of holiness, human weakness, strong leadership, political maneuvering, and some theological excellence.   In  broad strokes, we can characterize these years:

1945-65 was a time of building with strong, urban, ethnic (largely Irish) figures like Spellman, Kroll, Cushing, Meyer, Cody and others.

1963-5 With exceptions, the American episcopacy was receptive of the Council. All good "organization men," they implemented it competently. Through the Paul VI years, the focus was on renewal and the changes. Powerful progressive forces, within and without the Church, including the media and the academy, drove things beyond the direction of the Council and our bishops. 

1978-Present. By the election of John Paul, the Cultural Revolution was in full bloom and had polarized the Church within itself. And so we might distinguish three models of episcopal leadership. Mediators tried to bridge the emerging gulf: Bernadine, McCarrick, and today Pope Leo and Farrell. Conservative culture warriors defend Catholic values with John Paul and Benedict: Kroll, O'Connor, George, Chaput, and Burke. Lastly, progressives have been encouraged by Francis in a rupture with tradition: Cupich, Tobin, McElroy, Weakland, and others.

We conclude, as in all things, with prayer for our bishops and cardinals.

A Particular Catholic American Politics 2026

 Catholicism does not offer specific political ideologies or policies. It is a big mistake to consecrate some such system as "Catholic." In its social teaching we receive a loose network of principles to be used prudentially, flexibly, fluidly, creatively in different ways by different individuals and groups. They apply to every conceivable situation as they move us to bring all human life under God's grace and free us from evil and sin. These include: absolute dignity of every person however incompetent, the common good, solidarity (especially with the suffering and deprived), the brotherhood of all peoples, subsidiarity (emphasis on the small, concrete, immediate), conditional (not absolute) right to private property, rule of law, democracy, just war, sacredness of marriage/family/gender/sex, prudential balance between regulative state and free markets, and other. 

What follows are my political priorities in USA 2026 at the age of 79. They are not identical with my priorities 30 or 60 years ago. If I live another 20 years they will probably shift in emphasis with history.

1. Subsidiarity, "Benedict Principle" and Decline of Macro-Institutions

The Catholic politics I imbibed with my mother's milk in postwar America knew nothing of subsidiarity as it was enamored of big unions, which countervailed big corporations, which generated immense wealth for everyone, as they were regulated by big government, which triumphed over Nazism and eventually  Soviet Communism in maintaining a prosperous/peaceful global Pax Americana and battling racism, poverty, drugs, and later terrorism.

By contrast, subsidiarity prefers that the smaller social organizations, more immediate and concrete, handle situations when possible. This fundamental Catholic principle has become more important through my adult life with the malignant growth of huge organizations, particularly the nation state and global corporations. These have effectively swallowed up many smaller and intermediate institutions and rendered the isolated individual powerless against social gigantism. Our political left is enabling of an expansive, cancerous state; our left of malignant global capitalism.

Even more toxic is the moral degradation of our bipolar national politics. How could anyone with a head on their shoulders not be today a double-hater? It is my view that our 2020 presidencies, Biden and Trump 2, are by far the worst in our 250 year old history...in strongly contrasting ways. Both are startlingly incompetent, disconnected from reality in quasi-psychosis: Biden in debility and senility; Trump in a blindness of narcissism, resentment, grandiose mania and impulsivity. My personal animus is against Biden in his betrayal of "our family." An Irish, Catholic, working class, family man, he is my "Fredo." (Michael Corleone: "Fredo, you're my brother and I love you. But don't takes sides with anyone against the family, ever again.") Trump is nothing personal to me: he is not one of my own, not of my tribe. He is shamelessly, flamboyantly depraved in character; yet in the public realm he, mostly in his first term, has defended what is precious to our Catholic faith in his defiance of elite power.

And so we happily receive in this our time, from Rod Dreher and Providence, the Benedict Option. As the Roman Empire collapsed, St. Benedict did not defend or renew it, but retreated into monastic life. In time his monasteries spread across Europe and were the foundation of an entirely new, medieval civilization. And so, with the decline of our macro-society, we focus more closely on our immediate communities as we detach (emotionally, spiritually, intellectually) from the toxicities of public life. First, always, is our personal union with God: as we come close and open our hearts/souls to him, we become agents of his grace and mercy. Second, immediate family and closer bonds of mutuality. Eventually, strong families and communities of faith/value become fonts of grace, to enlighten all aspects of society.

2. Culture War

For half a century, from Roe 1973 to Dobbs 2022, our society was thrust into the Culture War around abortion and related issues. This caused many of us Catholics to switch our allegiance from the Democrat to the Republican party. This remains, in my estimation, the defining polarization of our time. This was clearly manifest in the campaign of Kamala Harris who spoke of nothing else but "woman's right of choice." As a single issue this dominates; but it flows into an entire way of life: euthanasia, assisted suicide, technological reproduction, cohabitation rather than marriage, embryonic stem cell research, denial of religious liberties, gay marriage, transgenderism and other. 

Significantly, Dobbs moved the issue mostly to the states and so relatively reduced its importance on the national level. Importantly it also returned it to the democratic process. The culture war remains but is not so important for our national politics. Since Dobbs, abortions have actually increased, largely due to the availability of chemical means. It also shows that the issue is rooted deeply in the new culture that exploded in the 1960: abortion, contraception, sterile sex, homosexuality, divorce, pornography, euthanasia, reproductive technology and the systemic abuse of women.\

For the foreseeable future, this remains the defining conflict of our time. We have not won this war; we may not; but it is morally incumbent upon us to fight it.

3. Internationalist

Globally, since childhood I have been a passionate internationalist. At the age of seven I learned of starving babies in China and I paced furiously back and forth in my house I was so troubled. This Catholic intuition of the brotherhood of all peoples has more than anything informed my politics. Through high school I was fascinated by the underdeveloped world, reading Maryknoll Magazine, America and NY Times. For four college years I studied to be a Maryknoll missionary priest. Today I consider myself a Catholic Neo-Conservative: supportive of a strong military, aggressive American posture across the glove, and fervently anti-MAGA out of a moral conservatism. This flows deeply from my Catholic values:

1. Solidarity with all people, especially those deprived and suffering. I was horrified by the Trump/Musk devastation of USAID. We can grant that these programs entailed waste, fraud and WOKE ideology. But the DOGE effort efforts directly deprived the needy even as it weakened our own "soft diplomacy" and global influence.

2. Realities of sin and evil. My worldview was formed by American contests in WWII and the Cold War. The defining binary of decision remains Chamberlain/Churchill. My Catholic faith alerts me to the drastic reality of evil actors. Today this is Communist China, Putin's Russia, Islamic terrorism (Iranian Shite and non-state Sunni), and related totalitarian imperialisms. Our country, in alliances like NATO, is uniquely capable of restraining these forces of evil. In the light of these radical evils, my Neoconservatism rejects selfish, chauvinist, xenophobic MAGA as well as progressive, quasi-pacifist, cosmopolitan delusions that such aggression can be prevented by diplomacy, education, science and therapy. Here I differ with Popes Francis and Leo.

3. Catholic, apostolic, missionary urgency requires that our Church have access to share our faith with every people. Therefore, we are morally required to resist anywhere the repression of religious freedom: Communism and Sharia Law, including that of Saudi Arabia and the gulf states. Generic fascism, often but not always, is not such a hindrance to evangelization. By this perspective, the Biden abandonment of Afghanistan is morally repugnant for many reasons but especially in that it leaves the entire country void of the Gospel, the Eucharist, the Church. 

4.  The dignity of the human person is best protected classic Western liberalism  by the freedoms (religion, speech, assembly, etc.), rule of law, democracy, private property, and markets. As we align ourselves with those who agree with this we serve the good of all peoples and our own interests in a peaceful, prosperous world. This is not cultural liberalism nor post-liberalism, but classic, Christ-based liberalism.

Clearly, my convictions here distance me from the cosmopolitan left as well as the isolationist right. But I am not completely alone. Currently, I am not opposed to our war with Iran as they have been at war with us and will continue to be. But I am nauseated with Trump's diesel fuel deal with Putin and his abandonment of the Ukraine.

Regarding globalized capitalism, I am morally ambivalent. It is true that millions have been lifted out of material poverty with adequate nutrition, water and other. This is not nothing. At the same time, however, corporate capitalism erodes traditional bonds of family, faith, location and community. It richly, inordinately rewards the investor class. It fosters envy, anxiety and resentment. It isolates and elevated the Sovereign Self. 

 But to the degree that it is accompanied by wholesome, family, religious values it can be good.

4. Economically: Moderately Left

In adulthood I have grown in my appreciation for capitalist initiative, market efficiencies and economic freedoms but retain my family's allegiance to governmental care for the poor, a strong safety net, unions, a robust regulatory system and a reasonably progressive tax program. I retain a strong class consciousness as loyalty to the poor and working class, free of resentment of the rich. I strongly renounce identity politics, anti-racism, DEI, and cultural Marxism. In this I align with the emergent Catholic-friendly, populist, culturally conservative, economically liberal New Right. (Sohrab Ahmari, Patrick Dineen, Adrian Vermeule, J.D. Vance.)

5.  "Christian Strategy" of Adrian Vermeule

Looking back to Old Testament patriarchs who served fruitfully in evil empires (Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in Babylon), Vermeule (First Things Nov. 1, 2017) proposes a "Christian strategy" by which we deny allegiance to any party, movement or ideology as we collaborate with any and all parties in specific actions for the common good. This is a marvelous strategy for our time. First, it balances the Benedict Option which risks complete detachment from the broader common good. Second, in our age of competing political depravities (of the left and right), it frees us from enmeshment in their toxicities. Thirdly, it brings us to acknowledge the valid good in any politics, even those we generally reject, and move our society in the direction of peace and cooperation.

Conclusion

Catholic social teaching is not a doctrinal system. It does not endorse any polity or ideology. It is fluid, organic, flexible, creative. It allows for the freedom, agency and ingenuity of the person and community in any circumstances. It encourages a genuine diversity of viewpoints.

Gloriously, the Church gathers us in the Eucharist, around the Word and Body/Blood of Christ, in the communion of truth and love, across differences of policy, ideology and viewpoint. Rooted in eternal truths, in stability, in permanence, it nevertheless respects, in prudential matters, viewpoint difference and conflict as fruitful and life-giving.  

As Catholics we can compete aggressively in the political arena, always serene, abiding in our revealed-received Truth and mutuality in Love.

Battle: the "Bachelor Individualism" of the Jesuits vs. the "Conjugal Mysticism" of John Paul II

The theological contours of our civil war in the Church since 1965 are clearly seen in the contest between the Jesuits and the John Paul papacy. Specifically, let us contrast the "bachelor individualism" of the former with the "conjugal mysticism" of the later.

Notoriously, Pope John Paul took charge of the Jesuits in 1981 to discipline and restore them. To the Catholic mind, this was startling. For 400 years the Society of Jesus, informed by the their fourth vow of loyalty to the pope, had epitomized Tridentine Catholicism as orthodox clarity, manly fortitude, evangelical zeal,  and academic excellence. The catastrophic collapse of Catholicism immediately after the Council finds exaggerated expression in the Jesuits. Their contest with John Paul on the mystery of nuptial or spousal love provides insight into the underlying issues of the Catholic Civil War that erupted in 1965 and still rages 60 years later.

In 1965, the Jesuit order had just under 8,400 priests, seminarians, brothers.  Today they number about 3,000 but shrinking steadily with an average age of 63. Quantitatively, they are 35% of what they were  50 years ago. But the qualitative change is more pronounced. 

It is not that all or even most Jesuits changed so drastically. Rather, institutionally the order changed, spectacularly in its universities and publications. The drastic turn to progressive values, contradictory of  traditional Catholicism, was led by a small, but influential group, a "critical mass." An opposing, but ineffectual minority resisted these changes. The vast majority of Jesuits (in my experience) are moderates, strongly aligned with neither side, pragmatic and pastoral, largely abstaining from the battle. But in its affluent, influential institutions, the order has been a primary advocate of an alternate, "enlightened," progressivism. The elite, the influencers... spontaneously, passionately, confidently, immediately...embraced the Cultural Revolution as it exploded after the Council. 

Why?

 Jesuits, Individualism and the "Bachelor Priest"

The Cultural Revolution at its heart enthroned the INDIVIDUAL as sovereign. It elevated the individual, the autonomous-competent-deliberative-agential Self as superior to all bonds and loyalties of family, Church, sacrament, nation, tradition, and God.

The Jesuit charism, centered largely on the autonomous Jesuit missionary, made it uniquely vulnerable to this individualistic progressivism. In sharpest contrast to monks, friars, cloistered communities and most active orders, the Ignatian charism is strongly individualistic: the 30-day Spiritual Exercises are personal, not communal; the nightly Examen; the private praying of the Liturgy of the Hours; and the overall spiritual culture. 

Fr. Charles Murr fondly recalls that while studying at the Jesuit Gregorian in Rome in the 1970s, he walked down the hall where the Jesuit professors lived at the time for vespers. The transoms over each bedroom door were open so that as he passed each room he could hear the priest praying aloud the psalms. (Practice at the time was to read aloud, not silently.) Every single door...a priest praying aloud...alone. This struck him in that it contrasted with the monastic and mendicant practices of communal prayer that preceded it.

The celibate Catholic priesthood has always been vulnerable to a "bachelor syndrome." The "bachelor" is a man not committed to wife and family, detached, alone, individualistic. Religious order priests compensate by their engagement in a community of prayer, brotherhood, and intimacy. The ordinary secular or diocesan priesthood lacks this dimension and so is especially vulnerable to a bachelor individualism. 

This is not an invincible impediment to a life of holiness and charity, but it is a difficulty to be overcome, for sure. Many priests succeed: they have wholesome family/friend relationships with women, devotion to our Blessed Mother, a filial intimacy with Holy Mother Church, a spousal relationship with the (bridal) Church they serve, strong priestly friendships, a virile/paternal identity and a deep prayer life.

Interestingly, the Ignatian charism deliberately cultivates individuality, here understood as intimacy with Christ, fortitude of character, patience in solitude and adversity. The Jesuit ideal is St. Francis Xavier, who travelled to the East to save souls. So, for 400 years, Jesuits were rigorously trained as heroic soldiers of Christ, prepared for hardship, persecution and martyrdom. They were trained to be free of community...Lone Rangers, without Tonto.  

Other groups resemble the Jesuits in this individualistic charism. I have familiarity with the Maryknoll Society of priests having studied to be one in my college years. The priests who taught us were men of sound moral character, deep personal faith, high intelligence, impressive agency and confidence. You did not sense among them a shared, communal spirituality. They were not attentive or close to us seminarians. Later, circa 1975, surging with the communal enthusiasm of the Catholic charismatic renewal, I read Come Holy Spirit by Servant of God Bishop John Ford M.M. He died in a Chinese concentration camp in 1952, having been the first Maryknoll seminarian and initial missioner to China in 1918. I was struck at the time by the pronounced individuality of the spirituality. For Martyr-to-be-Ford the Holy Spirit was not a communal, but a personal reality. It is the particular presence of God that was to strengthen him for decades of mission service, imprisonment and a martyr's death. This is bachelorhood at its best, as solitary heroism and sanctity. It is the Lone Ranger as Catholic saint.

Strangely, this Ignatian charism, iron-hard, tested and tried over 400 years in zealous mission labors, martyrdoms, combat with Protestantism, Fascisms, Communism, and paganisms of all sorts...collapsed into the Cultural Revolution 1965. Not only did it lack an immunity or resistance to the emergent cultural individualism, but it showed a propensity towards it. Two other aspects of the Jesuit heritage inclined it this way.

First, their high intellectualism. They spend years of study, detached from the practical and pastoral. Such abstraction carries dangers.  They are not rooted in a specific Catholic tradition in the manner of the Thomistic Dominicans. This was not a problem in the Tridentine Church which maintained its own academic traditions detached from the broader, secular society. But the Vatican II impetus to engage the broader culture pushed the Jesuits into the influence of Ivy League academia which was at that very time turning secular.

Another core principle of Ignatian spirituality is "to find God in all things." This assumes, of course, a closeness to God, a strong theology, and a capacity to discern the wheat from the chaff. In retrospect, me must judge that the individualism and intellectualism of the Jesuits did not prepare them to resist the siren call, in this new world, of Cultural Individualism. 

Individuality of Influential Mid-Century Progressive Jesuits

At the time of the Council (1962-65) we find a group of extraordinary Jesuits at the height of their influence: Courtney-Murray, Chardin, Lonergan, Rahner and then Arrupe who took charge of the order in 1965. Each embodied the Jesuit ideal: long lives of service to the Church, in a solitary fashion, in prayer and scholarship at once profound and encyclopedic. We might say they are "the last of the Mohicans"...outstanding in loyalty to the Church, intellectual brilliance, erudition, creativity, and personal piety. The problem: their theoretical work built upon the assumption of a bachelor-type individual, alone and isolated. This weakness made their approach vulnerable, especially in their disciples, to the toxicities of Cultural Individualism.

This is most evident in the  immensely influential Transcendental Thomism of Rahner and Lonergan. Famously, they labored to wed the metaphysical objectivity of Thomas with the Kantian "turn to the subject." This "turn to the subject" was the problem. It took as its starting point precisely the isolated Self, lonely and detached. They did not start from the Church in worship or the mystic in spousal communion with God. Lonergan attended to the dynamics of the human intellect. Rahner studied the interior longings and urgencies of the individual human spirit.  In this they resembled the Existentialism of postwar Europe in its fascination with the lonely, anguished individual suffering interior crisis. They did NOT take communion or, conjugality or family as their first building block.

Their slightly younger contemporary Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J. presents a distinct and illuminative image. Notice: Cardinal... He was honored by John Paul for his fidelity to Catholic tradition. In the 1980s-90s he stood as a solitary Jesuit in defense of basic Catholic beliefs in the face of  the progressive militance that swept over the Catholic academia. Particularly in the wake of John Paul's Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Dulles fiercely defended the male priesthood. Part of his argument was that the priest represents Christ in his spousal love of his bridal Church so that his masculinity is intrinsic to the sacrament of Holy Orders. Here he reflected the "conjugal mysticism" at the center of the John Paul magisterium.

In this he distinguished himself from mainstream Jesuit theology of the time in its fashionable feminism. This shows he openness of his intellect. He was himself not strongly inclined to such "communio" or conjugal theology, but was personally a typical "bachelor Jesuit" in style and temperament, although a holy one at that. When I took his Fundamental Theology course in 1969 at Woodstock NY he was very positive about Rahner. Dulles did not fit into any school of theology but had an expansive mind that absorbed Truth from all corners, even as he was the sharpest of critics. In his classic Models of the Church (1974) he noticeably did NOT include "bride" and "mother" as significant models. He was himself not a participant in the Communio school of conjugal mystical theology. But he did clearly affirm their primary insights. He was himself surely the "Catholic Lone Ranger" and "Last of the (Jesuit) Mohicans."

And so, it is clear that the foundational realities...women priests, contraception, homosexuality, legalized abortion, leftist politics...in which the Jesuit leadership systemically renounced Catholic tradition for progressivism...all build upon a fundamental "bachelor individualism" and indifference to or rejection of the spousal basis of Catholicism as articulated authoritatively by John Paul, Benedict and their school.

Conjugal Mysticism

The clear, distinctive theological school of John Paul, Benedict, Balthasar and their comrades has been well described as "conjugal mysticism" since it finds in marriage a foundational image for our communion with God and it places immense importance on the actual reality of marriage and family. This is a continuation of the "Resourcement" theology that developed strongly after WWII and largely informed the Council itself: DeLubac, Danielou, Congar, Bouyer, and others. They "returned" to the patristic sources, even as they remained rooted in basic Thomistic metaphysics and engaged contemporary thought.  Influenced by classic Thomists (Gilson, Maritain, Pieper), they strongly engaged contemporary phenomenology and personalism (Stein, Hildebrandt, Blondel, Marcel, Buber). Their focus on the person differed from that of Rahner/Lonergan in that primacy was placed upon relationship, communion and marriage/family. Pronouncedly in John Paul's Theology of the Body and the fierce Catholic view of gender in Stein and Hildebrandt, we find a spousal mysticism that places the masculine/feminine reality at the center of Creation and Providence. And so, in a marriage of traditional with contemporary thought, new life springs from Catholic practice of the sacraments of matrimony and holy orders, the fecundity of sexuality, the holiness of the family and new life.

With a few notable exceptions (Oakes, Pacwa, Fessio), the Jesuit theological guild ignored when it did not oppose the conjugal mysticism and the theology of the body of the dual pontificate. In this they reflected the broader Catholic academy. John Paul brought his announcement to the Catholic laity largely without the the mediation of our dominant intelligencia. Or more accurately, he attracted a small, alternate cadre (West, Everet, Janet Smith, Waldenstein, and the entire international John Paul Institute) to lead a revolutionary,  populist, theological movement.  

In large measure, influential Jesuits resisted. Already in 1964 the Kennedy family convened at Hyannis Port a gathering of progressive theologians, many disciples of Courtney-Murray, including Jesuits Fuchs/Drinan/McCormick,  to lay the groundwork for Catholic support of legalized abortion. Richard McCormick along with leading Jesuits and their schools forcefully rejected Humanae Vitae (1968), although John Ford SJ strongly endorsed it and Arrupe clearly exhorted his order to obedience. Presidents of the prestigious Jesuit colleges joined in the infamous Land of Lakes Conference (1967) which declared Catholic Academy's independence from the hierarchy. And, finally, we have the Catholic LGBTQ movement and its encouragement by our Jesuit pope.

We see clearly a Church divided in its anthropology, its view of the person. Within the Jesuit order we find a "bachelor-individualist" version of Cultural liberalism which champions individual rights: women can be priests and abort, gay sex deserves full honors, and the conjugal imagery is diminished to honor the autonomous, independent, agential Self. On the other side, we have the Conjugal Mysticism which exalts the masculine/feminine as reflective of the unity/diversity of God as Trinity.

Conclusion

Our entire, received Catholic legacy is founded upon the sacredness of marriage as reflecting our spousal communion with Christ: the holiness of marriage and orders, the virginal-bridal form of the religious life, our rigorous sexual ethic, the mystery of femininity/masculinity, the foundational form of the natural family, and the reality of the person-in-communion. 

Catholic, largely Jesuit, Progressivism proposes an alternate anthropology: the autonomous, sovereign Self...sterile, contracepting, same-sexing, "choosing" of abortion and gender, solitary rather than maternal/paternal. 

In response to the Cultural Liberalism which exploded in 1965, John Paul and his cohort have given us a traditional-yet-contemporary Catholic proposal that is encouraging and inspiring in its moral and intellectual splendor. This is a wonderful time to be Catholic. 

 

Worlds of Men: Quiet, Honorable, Humble

I have long been keenly aware of mentors and close friends who have personally influenced me over the years. But Ephraim Radner ("Culture of Parricide" in First Things 11/26) alerted me to another reality I have underrated: the "worlds of men," hundreds who have structured my reality...quietly, humbly, honorably. They have done this in a more objective, impersonal, detached way; less subjective, interior and interpersonal. There is a masculinity about this. The male is inherently more solitary, independent, and autonomous than the female. As father of the family, he assumes a lonely position of responsibility and authority and therefore is trained for a fundamental solitude. And so, the world of men, compared with that of women, is more detached, independent, impersonal, objective. We might add that the Catholic Church, under a male hierarchy, has about it a similar objectivity in dogma, worship and style in contrast to pietisms of subjectivity and emotion. We can also agree (as a sidebar) with Helen Andrews that in the last 80 years our society, including the Church, has largely lost an inner core of masculine objectivity. (See her "The Great Femininization" in Compact.)

My Uncles and my Father's Friends.

I think often of the "world of men" of my childhood. I grew up in the shadow of five uncles and my fathe'rs friends, the "Friday Nighters" who drank beer, joked, played golf and handball together. I was not personally close to any one of them, but I observed them and emulated them. They were all WWII veterans, an admirable, honorable, modest group. Most practiced their Catholic faith in a humble, inarticulate fashion. They never spoke of the war. They joked and laughed a lot. They talked (Democratic) politics, union business, and sports. They demonstrated affection, but not in an intimate fashion. They maintained a degree of attachment. They elicited deep respect.

Parish and School: Priests, Brothers, Sisters

And so we Catholic come of age in the Church, an objective community. It is great if you are personally befriended by a priest, sister or brother. But that is not the norm. Our intimacy needs are met by family and friends. But generally the Church is an objective, stable structure of meaning, guidance, support and comfort when needed. My own family benefited from our parish priests, Christian Brothers and Sisters of Charity.

Maryknoll College Seminary

I cherish memories of my college years 1965-9, but sometimes regret that the fine Maryknoll priests who taught us did not personally befriend us. Yet, they did provide a marvelous environment in which we studied, prayed, and developed classmate friendships. They were in the background. Yet, that was precious in its own virile, impersonal manner.

Adult Life

I worked for 25 years in UPS, mostly in supervision. This is a very virile world. Informally it is truck drivers, lots of machismo. Formally it is an intensively capitalistic, competitive, efficient, hard-driving company. I enjoyed the camaraderie, the union/labor combat, the challenges. I was never mentored, but benefited from alliance with my fellow supervisors. I did not continue any friendships after my early retirement. Yet, it provided a strongly masculine, objective, Church-like (in some ways) structure in which I matured and provided for my family.

I worked closely with intelligent, holy Sisters of Charity, Felicians, and Dominicans. Again: they together created a strong, Catholic world of education.

I benefited from engagement with Jesuits and Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Again, in addition to some personal relationships, I benefited from the "world" they created. 

What is this "World of Men?"

This refreshing world is devoid of sentimentality, emotionalism, gossip, pettiness, narcissism, histrionics, self-pity, victimization, indignation, and melodrama. 

It is modest, quiet, humorous, good-natured, industrious, competitive, confident, disciplined, reliable, stable, ordered. 

It is authoritative, competent, rational, intelligent, modest, institutional, and heroic when necessary.

It is a world of men who love and serve their women and children, humbly and chastely.

It is a world that abides with us still, in the chaos of modernity, and a world we do well to cherish and develop.

As Uncle and Grandfather

This line of thought is comforting to me with my 31 nephews/nieces and 30 grandchildren. I love each one. Am I personally close to all 61? No. But that is alright. We love and respect each other. I am an integral, small but significant, part of their world. For us this largely means the Church. This is the Communion of Saints, here on earth. This world is not subjective or emotional, but objective, true, good, beautiful, dogmatic, sacramental, institutional, reliable, stable, permanent  and merciful. From this world we all draw life, and to it we make our own personal donation.

Woman: At Once Innocent Victim and Complicit Femme Fatale

 Aside from our Blessed Mother Mary, no woman is perfectly innocent and pure. I know this  intellectually, but have a problem emotionally: I feel that all women are always good and true and beautiful. For example, I completely believed the women accusers of Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, even though I admire these imperfect justices and do not deem the deeds to be disqualifying in themselves in the broad scheme of things. I pretty much cannot get mad at or hold a grudge against a woman. I could count on my ten fingers the amount of real fights I have had with my five daughters and six sisters over the last sixty years. In our Magnificat Home boarding homes for women I have dealt with hundreds of women: borderlines, sociopaths, psychotics, and other. I never really felt victimized or angry. Women have accused me of theft and sexual abuse to the police and the state but I can't carry a grudge. I am the polar extreme from a misogynist: when I fall off the boat into sin it is towards idealization of woman and gyno-idolatry: inordinate craving for feminine approval and intimacy. I come by it honestly as I have always been surrounded by and close to holy, generous, virtuous, beautiful women. My defining challenge has always been to attain the Christlike virility of sobriety, strength, purity, tenderness, reverence and generosity for all women. 

Eve as Prototype 

In spiritual direction, I once confided an inordinate, adulterous attraction  and was startled as the priest erupted into a rant that women are evil, seductive, and to be distrusted at all times. This priest was a holy, wise and influential man. In this situation the woman was entirely innocent; I was the one with the problem. Yet, the priest did have a point: consider Eve.

Her decision to take the fruit was the original sin. After that she tempted Adam. She was herself not wounded by Original Sin so it was a free decision, like that of Lucifer, unlike the rest of us who are compromised by sin not of our own making. Yet, she was duped by a superior intelligence, Lucifer. Additionally, she was alone, vulnerable, unprotected by Adam who was a no-show. So even Eve was in some sense herself a victim. How much more are all subsequent women (excepting Mary) both victims and culprits in the Drama of Sin.

Femme Fatale and Cathy/Kate in Netflix' East of Eden

The allure of the femme fatale in film noir is that she is piercingly beautiful, potentially or actually evil, and possibly innocent, vulnerable and good. This paradox is flamingly portrayed in the new Netflix 7-episode series on John Steinbeck's East of Eden. 

(Moral hazard: the movie has much too much brothel nudity, mostly repulsive. You will not watch this with your children or grandmother.)

Amazingly, this version is the creation of Zoe Kazin, granddaughter of Elia Kazin who won the Oscar for director of the classic 1955 movie version with James Dean (best actor.) The novel, of course, centers on two generations of Cain-and-Abel brothers. This version retains the novel's general structure around the two sets of brothers but re-gestalts it around the anti-heroine wife/mother/whore/madam Cathy/Kate. 

This succeeds spectacularly because of the breath-taking performance of Florence Pugh as the femme fatale. She entirely dominates the movie. The intensity, range, and depth of her acting equals or exceeds that of James Dean which is one of the greatest in movie history.

To start, she is herself breathtakingly beautiful: the camera and viewer cannot get enough of her. Her face manifests, every second, a panorama of emotions: sadness, evil, vulnerability, tenderness. But the movie character developed here is herself complex, deep, nuanced. In the novel and movie she is simply evil. But this series shows her childhood in which she was herself abused. It shows how she reacts to the undesired attention of men, from a very early age. And so, we develop a sympathy for her: she is the victim of men: her father, her teacher and so on. There are flashes of tenderness and vulnerability. But she is...pure and solid...a psychopath. She is effectively void of conscience or empathy. But she retains a humanity, a fragility. I can think of no comparably nuanced and profound a betrayal of a true psychopath, a thoroughly evil person.

Recent Events

It is striking that our news lately has been filled with similar dramas of women who are at once victim of and collaborator in evil.

Lindsay Clancy

This is an extreme case: she was clearly suffering deep emotional illness, whether or not she was technically in a psychosis. She did kill her own children. To what degree is she a passive victim or a free agent. The legal issue is difficult enough; But the underlying moral, philosophical one is even worse. At the end, we just do not know. But it is a graphic example of woman, mother, as victim and perpetrator.

"Jane Doe" at Cornell

An equally confused event. Did she at some level consent? She seems to have deliberately gotten intoxicated and indulged in multi-partner sex. In that was she was a collaborator and possibly in some degree an initiator. And yet, as the event proceeded she was viciously violated. The perpetrators, themselves intoxicated, seem to have participated in varying degrees. My JAG lawyer son who spent three years prosecuting such cases in the army tells me such cases are immensely difficult to convict. The political histrionics and even litigation are not helpful. All involved are underwater in guilt and shame. Contrition and pardon...the reception of and granting of Mercy...are the only hopes.

Christa Pike

She brutally tortured and killed her victim. There is an argument that she deserved (yes: retribution) the death penalty. Yet her own background included multiple childhood rapes, attempted suicide, negligent alcoholic parents, and more. She did not deserve to sit and wait for 35 years...cruel and unusual punishment. She did not deserve to be executed and survive...cruel and unusual punishment. Arguably, in the overall scheme of things, she is as much a victim as a villain...before and after her crime.

Jeffrey Epstein "Victims"

 We continue in a relentless, indignant crusade of empathy for the victims of this now dead man. To be sure, they were victims. They were young, immature, vulnerable and skillfully seduced by powerful, attractive people. But they were not entirely innocent, passive victims as in real child abuse. They were all post-pubescent: physically, psychologically, intellectually developed women. They were overall not poor, hungry, desperate for food; but middle class. They were all attractive, which makes them high-status in their bourgeois, adolescent world. They were ambitious: lured on by promises of career and wealth. Many of them freely recruited friends and even sisters. No one put a gun to their head. They were themselves consensual and complicit. It is past time to end this pity party.

Conclusion

At the end all we can do is pray. We look to the Mercy of Christ.

Pray for these culprit-victims: Lindsay, Christa, "Jane," and the Epstein girls. And even the soul of Epstein himself. 

Pray for ourselves. We are all vulnerable to impurity and evil of various sorts. Even as we are destined to join Mary, Virgin and Mother, in lives of purity, generosity, and courage. In reception of and dispersal of the Divine Mercies!

Dean of Cardinals Tagle and the Catholic Pandemic of Sentimentality

 Sentimentality: the indulgent arousal of  emotions (affection-sadness-pity-compassion-nostalgia) in a disconnect from intellect and reality.

"Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky; Imagine all the peoples, living life in peace; You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one."    John Lennon

In proper degree and context, sentimentality, as emotion disconnected from reality, is not a bad thing. It can be entertainment, rest, refreshment. We know that romantic comedies (Pretty Woman) and thrillers (Jason Bourne) are escapist relaxation, unproblematic in moderation.

Problem: our society... technologized, passive, dependent, inactive, bureaucratic, glued to screens...is increasingly detached from reality and addicted to sentimentality: intentional indulgence of feelings in detachment from reality, purpose and intelligence.

The cult of animals is a case in point. These have their place in the order of things and require the correct respect as useful, delicious, nourishing, beautiful, playful, endearing, interesting and so forth. But everywhere we see gushes of affection that are irrational, embarrassing and ridiculous.

Christmas is saturated with sentimentality: extravagance, saccharine songs (White Christmas, Blue Christmas, I'll Be Home for Christmas). Reality: Jesus' birth in poverty and fragility was accompanied by the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, so many people suffer depression and loneliness at this time, etc.

It is hard to imagine a more ludicrously sentimental song than John Lennon's Imagine, the delusion that if there is no heaven-or-hell we will all live euphorically together on earth. It is hard to imagine a more embarrassing scene than Cardinal Tagle enthusiastically singing this very song.

Cardinal Tagle is our new Dean of the College of Cardinals. This is not a position of real power or governance, but is symbolic and functional. He will convene the college with the death of the pope. But it is a position of immense status in the Church. He was apparently one of a small snumber of Cardinals technically eligible and only one of two (the other being Parolin) young enough to be a realistic choice. Therefore, we need not exaggerate the importance of the choice. Additionally, we admit that often we sing songs that appeal even as we ignore the lyrics, especially in a festive setting.

But the problem is: what we know of the Filipino Prelate is that he strongly represents the toxic sentimentality that permeates Catholicism, especially in the hierarchy and academy. Consider:

1. Church/China Accord.   He strongly supports the current accord between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist Party which has effectively surrendered governance there to the CCP. He seems clueless about the brutality of the regime, its suppression of human and especially religious rights, its blatant imperialistic ambitions, its contempt for the Church.

2. Blessing of Homosexual Unions.  He advocates the normalization of homosexuality. He thus implicitly denies the sin involved. He is oblivious of the repulsive physical/moral/social/spiritual aspects of the disordered act, lifestyle, identity and culture.

3. War and Death Penalty.  He crusades vigorously to eliminate capital punishment and war. He seems blissfully confident that evil forces (Communism, Jihadism, psychopaths, serial killers, Fascists) will succumb to kindness, education, negotiation, and diplomacy.

The elevation of Tagle, known as the "Asian Francis," to this elevated rank is troubling as it manifests the triumph of a sentimental Catholicism. It accentuates empathy, kindness, inclusion, affirmation in an effete retreat from evil, sin, retribution, wrath, truth, order and combat. It is a disconnect from intellect, will, purpose and the Real. Sentimentality at its worst!

"Synodality": Castration of the Episcopacy

 By a paradoxical inversion, synodality is in fact a contradiction of Vatican II's strong assertion of the authority of the bishops to govern, as a body, always in union with the pope, the Church. In this the Council magnificently  balanced Vatican I's emphasis in the authority of the papacy. In a subtle, deceptive manner, especially with synodality but more generally, Francis effectively emasculated the bishops in their apostolic authority.

He...unilaterally, surreptitously, dictatorially... implemented four significant changes in Catholic practice without real input from the body of bishops: death penalty, communion for the divorced/remarried, blessings of homosexual unions and allowance of the Latin mass. On the last of these, he reported an episcopal consensus, but we now know the majority favored greater liberty for the practice. We might contrast the workings of Vatican II with those of synodality, as currently in the Vatican conference on Amor Laetitia.

At Vatican II, every bishop had the right to publicly address the body. Every bishop had an equal vote. Pope Paul deliberately protected views of the minority of conservatives. The periti who drafted the documents were guided by the intention to garner a broad consensus. They succeeded spectacularly: average approval rating for the 17 documents was 98.6%. The council was absolutely and unconditionally an expression of the episcopal body. It embodied its own teaching on episcopal collegiality.

Synodality is presented as bishops listening...especially to those who have difficulties with the Church. That is an appealing idea. The average age of an American bishop is 66. Their responsibilities are enormous: governing vast bureaucracies, teaching, mentoring priests, etc. We can assume that our bishops have already spent those 66 years in a posture of listening. We don't need to put them through sensitivity sessions. 

In practice, under Francis and now Leo, synodality is a bureaucratic process in which the voice of bishops is silenced while gatherings and documents are cleverly manipulated by a progressive elite behind the scenes. Speakers and documents are preplanned. Bishops are buried in discussion groups but are not allowed to speak publicly. 

The current gathering of presidents of bishops councils shows this. The purpose is not to consider the infamous footnote on communion for the divorced, but to study its implementation. It is already accepted as established doctrine. But the bishops were never consulted on the radical practice itself. 

Noteworthy is that Pope Leo appointed, as his own special representatives from the USA, Cardinals Tobin, Cupich and McElroy. These three are the extreme left of the American episcopacy. They would never have been elected as representative of the broader body of bishops. Here he is clearly undercutting the democratic consensus of bishops to favor his own Francian ecclesial ideology.

The first speaker of the conference was a Dominican Sister Helen Alford. Who chose her? Not the bishops, but the office of synodality which is in charge of the entire event. The bishops themselves are not running this conference. It is the progressive bureaucrats who are in control.

The burden of her talk was to establish continuity between the teaching of John Paul in Familiais Consortio and that of Francis in Amoris. John Paul, with Benedict, clearly said those married/divorced cannot receive communion. Francis says they can. This is a clear binary; an absolute contradiction. The two documents are divided by 35 years, not a long time in the life of the Church. John Paul restated the continuous tradition of  the Church for over 2000 years. Francis overturned it on his own, without episcopal participation. Sister Alford's argument was that social change was so strong in those 35 years that a new practice is required. This is "progressivism" on steroids. 

She cites John Paul's reference to the "law of gradualness" whereby the Church patiently walks with sinners as they slowly grow in virtue and holiness toward the ideals of the law of the Church. But she makes a huge leap of logic: she uses this to change Church law itself. This was clearly rejected by John Paul and Benedict both. To argue continuity here is shear nonsense.

There is, of course, an argument for liberality on the grounds of pastoral compassion. This must be weighted against the Church's traditional practice as related to marriage and Eucharist, arguably the twin pillars of Catholicism. It would be a worthy exercise to have the bishops in Council argue precisely this. But the scandal here is that Francis/Leo deliberately inhibit such an exercise of episcopal authority. The bishops have been emasculated in their Christlike role of teaching the Church. It is inconceivable that the Pope on his own, detached from the episcopal body, should change a practice that touches the Church in her inner core of Eucharist ands Matrimony. 

The entire progressive agenda within the Church might be summarized as the deconstruction of the Conjugal Mystery of the bridal Church. Cultural liberalism basically sterilizes sexuality and neuters the genders. This expresses as artificial contraception, normalization of homosexuality, technologization of reproduction, and the subjective fluidity of gender. Here it expresses as the neutering of the hierarchy and priesthood, specifically the authority of the bishops. Holy orders sets bishop and priest (and deacons although there are issues here) as icons of Christ the Groom actively loving his bridal Church. In its place we have homogenization, a vague democracy of sameness: laity become priestly, priests become experts on secular/political policy, and women/men are basically indistinct. It is the deconstruction of gender, conjugality, and even sexuality.

To their credit, the African bishops unanimously asserted their autonomy in refusing to bless homosexual unions. The Vatican had no choice but to back down, making it an option. Another admirable exercise of episcopal authority was the famous Dubia submitted to Francis by a small group of cardinals. The Vatican, in blatant disrespect, has never responded.

We can only hope and pray that the broader body of bishops recover their ecclesial virility and assert their proper role in the Church. They have exemplars: the Africans and Cardinals Burke, Zen, Muller, Sarah, Ejik, Brandmueller, Iniguez, and Scola. 

While we love, admire and reverence Pope Leo for his office and his many fine qualities, we see in this current conference the same confusion and dysfunction the Church suffered under Francis. Unfortunately, in this time, an authentic loyalty to the Church will entail a resistance, in many aspects, to the Francis/Leo agenda.

Come Holy Spirit! We Need You!

 

Favorite Movie Romances

Note dear Reader that these are movie romances, not all are romantic movies. But your comments are welcomed: what would you add?

20. El Cid

19. As Good as it Gets

18. Lost in Translation

17. Silver Lining's Playbook

16. Moonstruck

15. It Happened One Night

14. Cinderella Man

13. When Harry Met Sally

12. The King and I

11. West Side Story

10. Sound of Music 

9. Princess Bride

8. Casablanca 

7. The Quiet Man

6. Tender Mercies

5. Life is Beautiful

4. It's a Wonderful Life

3. Last of the Mohicans 

2. On the Waterfront

1. Roman Holiday

Totalitarian Mercy

 Mercy is not everything.

What is Mercy? My definition: the free, generous, gratuitous response of abundance and grace to need, suffering and guilt. 

That we as creatures exist at all is merciful, as we are "created from nothing" out of free, spontaneous, gratuitous love. That we, in Jesus Christ, are forgiven of our sins is entirely merciful...unmerited, unnecessary.

Within the internal, eternal life of God...prior to creation and salvation...there is no mercy as there is no need, guilt or suffering. God's very self is an Event of Love...of gift, of exaltation, of delight...but not of compassion as there is no "passion" in the sense of suffering, deprivation, need or guilt. With creation, freedom, sin, incarnation, salvation...God takes us humans into his Trinitarian life so we might say God "becomes" merciful. It is not that he lacked anything before this, rather his absolute perfection and completion is further amplified by creating and saving us. No process theology here!

Mercy is not everything.

For us humans, finite and sinful, it is the main thing. But it is not everything.

There is also Freedom: the God-given (a gamble on his part, quite reckless!) capacity to refuse mercy. Lucifer and his coterie neither ask for, receive or disperse mercy. And he offers us that same option. Not-Mercy is a reality. We can and do chose it. Mercy is not everything.

There is Justice: also known as retribution (which is NOT revenge or resentment) whereby good is rewarded and evil is punished. Lucifer and his coterie are in hell eternally; and that is a good thing. The executions of Nuremberg and of Eichmann in Jerusalem were good things, just, not unmerciful.

There is the holy Wrath of God against sin and evil. Mary, the angels and saints participate in this. 

There is Truth. The reality of God, heaven, Satan, evil and sin...these cannot be annihilated by compassion.

A mercy that denies freedom, justice, wrath and truth is cheap and sentimental, rooted in feeling not reality. But it is worse than that: it becomes smothering, oppressive, totalitarian.

Divine Mercy Revealed to St. Faustina and Taught by St. John Paul

The most significant visitation of heaven on earth in the 20th century was...in my opinion... the revelations to St. Faustina and their articulation by John Paul II. Yes...more significant than the Marian apparitions,  Pentecostalism, Ecumenism, Vatican II, Theology of the Body, Resourcement/Communio theology, the marriage of Personalism and Thomism, or the liberation and civil rights movements!

It's splendor is that it is a creative, but organic development within Catholicism which give prominence to Divine Mercy but maintains connection with Freedom, Justice, Truth and Holy Wrath.  It is not a rearrangement or reconstruction but an authentic growth in the Deposit of Faith.

In discussion of the developments of Vatican II, Monsignor Tom Guarino helpfully uses the idea of chiaroscuro, the shifting of light/darkness that brings certain realities into prominence. And so, the revelations of Mercy were classic, but so forceful that they produced a creative but organic re-gestalt. For example, for centuries the Church did not grant Catholic burial to victims of suicide since it was seen as a mortal sin. But the 1983 Code of Canon Law and the Catechism both changed this, emphasizing the Divine Mercy as well as awareness of the psychological realities that diminish freedom.

Papacy of Francis: Cheapened Mercy

Early in the 21st century, a brilliant satanic strategy unfolded: the Liar did not resist this force but latched onto it and perverted it by detaching it from other realities of justice, evil, freedom, and holy wrath. An isolated, inflated, unbalanced  mercy became the underlying hallmark of the Francis pontificate as it manifested in many areas. 

Death Penalty

 This is the most explicit, clear, heretical break with Tradition. For centuries, the use of lethal force (warfare, police, capital punishment) has been considered the responsibility of the state to be prudentially exercised when necessary in defense of the common good as protection, deterrence, rehabilitation and retribution. John Paul and Benedict both upheld this view even as they argued pragmatically for the abolition of the process in modern circumstances as not necessary. So they upheld the inherent right and responsibility of the state to use it when required. They argued, for example, that modern prisons were good enough for protection. This was itself a weak argument since we know that violence, murder and gang activity are prevalent in prisons around the globe.

By dictatorial fiat, without episcopal consultation (Where is "synodality" when we need it?) or engagement with Tradition, Pope Francis ruled capital punishment permanently "inadmissible" (a strange word here.)

He thereby crossed a line that John Paul and Benedict respected. But John Paul had planted the seeds. He dismissed "retribution" as an adequate reason in itself and stated it was allowable only when necessary for protection of society. He did not explain this easy dismissal of "retribution." 

Cardinal Ratzinger was more accurate and specific. Even as he advanced the crusade to abolish capital punishment, he specified that there was space in Catholic practice for disagreement on the issue. So, he clarified that a Catholic might in good faith disagree with the Vatican (and many bishops) on the issue and so even implement it as legislator, prosecutor, judge or jury without necessarily sinning. Such a person may properly receive Holy Communion, in contrast to those who implement or advocate abortion of the unborn or euthanasia of the infirm.

Retribution

Underlying this debate is the understanding of "retribution."  A drastic change occurred in modernity: from retribution as justice to it as revenge.

Traditionally, God is understood as absolute Justice and Mercy. Justice means retribution: the good is rewarded and the evil is punished. The angels in heaven and the demons in hell; Lazarus and Dives; the sheep and the goats. This permeates the Scriptures and our Tradition. Lucifer is defeated by St. Michael and by our Blessed Mother: this is just, it is not unmerciful.  And so, retribution as justice, as punishment and reward, is itself inherently good. If the delinquent or criminal is punished, this is a good thing, not a bad thing. So, authorities on earth...parents, teachers, police, judges...image the justice and retribution of God on earth precisely in the punitive. 

Especially since the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, retribution has been reconfigured as revenge, hatred, violent. To refer to someone as punitive or juridic is disparaging, not admiring. This leaves a cheapened mercy as the contrary of a demeaned retribution. 

Consider the execution of Eichmann in 1961 (or any of the Nuremburg defendants.) He was a feeble, elderly, pathetic figure. His execution was not required to protect the Jews or anyone else. It was surely an exercise in retribution. Classically, this is seen as a good, a just, a proper thing. But in the new paradigm of Francis it would be unnecessary, uncharitable and evil. 

I for one go with Tradition.

Pacifism

Similarly, Francis and now Leo have both stated that war is no longer a moral option. This is also a break with tradition. Catholicism has always allowed pacifism as an option for individuals, but not as binding upon state authorities responsible for defense against aggressors. Here again we return for sanity and sobriety to Cardinal Ratzinger:  he stated in an official note that renunciation of lethal means might in fact enable and even collaborate with bad actors. We see in China, North Korea, Iran, Russia and other nations that war is not the greatest evil on earth. 

Here cheap  mercy allies itself with a delusional expectation that conflict can be resolved and aggression prevented by non-violent means of negotiation, education, dialogue and so forth. This is in effect a denial of the actual reality of evil in our world...a reality that will abide until the coming of Christ,  a reality that regularly requires the just, authoritative use of lethal force.

Blessing of Homosexual Unions

This is perhaps a more grave expression of cheap mercy. The unions here blessed are essentially defined by sinful acts. And yet, the union is blessed. It is not that the individuals, detached from the sin, are blessed. But the very union itself is blessed. 

Our saints who most powerfully manifested Mercy were equally ferocious in their holy hatred of sin. St. Maria Goretti battled her attacker, pleading for him to respect her and his chastity, and absorbed multiple stabs. Later, from heaven, she extended a mercy grounded in holiness. St. Teresa of Lisieux prayed fervently for the soul of the one to be executed, pleading that he be spared hell. St. Faustina, the Apostle of Mercy herself, is flamingly aware of hell. 

By contrast, we see in Pope Francis a nonchalance, a normalization of sin. Cheap mercy.

Holy Communion for Divorced-Remarried-not-Annulled 

Catholics are set apart, even from other Christians, in our reverence for the Eucharist and Matrimony. The two mutually define each other: Eucharist is the self-gift of the Bridegroom Christ to his bridal Church; marriage, in its finality and indissolubility, is iconic of the absolute, final gift of Christ. 

By another dictatorial fiat...without episcopal consent (synodality?) or engagement with Tradition, Pope Francis implemented a momentous change with a footnote in Amoris Latetiae. He granted that a remarried-but-not-annulled person might be granted access to the Eucharist in some circumstances. This was done in a stealthy, dishonest way: in a footnote. This has bitterly polarized the Church: Germans allow communion; Poles do not. Can both be right? Do we still have a united Catholic Church? A decision of this gravity does require episcopal consent, not mere notification. 

This is done in the name of mercy, but a cheap version at the expense of truth. The prohibition is to protect the sanctity of both the Eucharist and Matrimony. It is not a judgment on the subjective state of ones soul; not a social shunning; not about feelings or inclusion. If I have divorced my wife, I remain in a valid marriage unless it is annulled. It is better for everyone that I abstain from the Eucharist. The holiness of marriage and 

Boundaries

Mercy require form, structure, order and boundaries lest it become sentimental, volatile, chaotic, violent and oppressive. Love requires Truth. The Francis Papacy had difficulties with this.

Immigration.  The admirable empathy for refugees, by the Vatican and bishops, is not always balanced by awareness of a contrasting reality: the need for secure borders. And so, in their political advocacy, the hierarchy has in part alienated itself from valid populist anxieties about security and risked alignment with leftist ideologies of the progressive, global elite.

Church Governance. The Vatican is striving for some DEI balance in placing laity and especially women in positions of influence. In this they defer to a toxic, clericalist status envy. By Holy Orders men are set aside...from family, marriage, wealth...to sanctify, teach and govern the Church. We laity have a cosmos of family-politics-business-culture-education-information to govern; we do not need to govern the Church.

"Synodality"   Here again the distinct missions of hierarchy and laity are confused. If this convoluted word is an exhortation to attentive/empathetic listening by everyone, we can welcome it. But, unfortunately, it really is a new, burdensome, bureaucratic process which diminishes the authority of bishops in favor of a vacuous airing of progressive grievances. 

The progressive compulsion, evident in the Francis papacy, is to confuse the role of laity and clergy. The laity are pushed into clerical jobs. The hierarchy intrudes into the secular/lay arena of political policy with a preferred set of positions on war, immigration, climate and other.

Pope Leo

I cherish positive, modest, realistic expectations of Pope Leo. Fortunately, he is free of the anarchistic, "make-a-mess" impulsivity of Francis. He is a man of the Church, of intelligence and competence, of caution,  of the poor, of prayer, of institutional continuity, of peace and unity. He aspires, unrealistically, to a reconciliation of this polarized Church. He does not manifest the theological depth or decisiveness to correct his predecessor whom he clearly emulates. He intends to continue the legacy of Francis. 

We will likely have to look elsewhere...to John Paul, Benedict, their disciples and predecessors...for the acclamation of an integral Mercy, kind and generous at the same time just, true, and holy.

....................................................................                                                                    +-9=7o0j]o9ujyhredazSXCVBN MMaria Gioretti ;'

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