Top Ten Best Catholic Programs for Holiness

Consider: we all (especially we self-obsessed Boomers) know that physical health requires a solid, steady program or routine: a good night's sleep; balanced, temperate, nourishing diet; and daily exercise of some sort. Consider: some high schools and colleges produce competitive, championship-level teams year after year because they have good programs, rigorous workouts and high motivation. Even more does our spiritual thriving require a good program.

In 1973, the year my wife and I dived into the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, as that movement was surging powerfully, John Haughey S.J. published his classic: Conspiracy of God: the Holy Spirit in Man. He intended the word "conspiracy" in its etymological, Latin sense: "to breathe with." So, we "conspire" with God when we breathe with him: aspire, collaborate, journey, commune together. He distinguished three types of spirituality: programmatic, which emphasizes habit, institutions, traditions; pneumatic, which seeks the interior inspiration of the Holy Spirit; and autogenic, which highlights the agency of the person, in freedom, initiative and love. At the time I read the book, I happily identified with the pneumatic or charismatic which I saw as superior to the autogenic social justice politics of my late adolescence as well as the institutional Catholicism of my childhood. In the half century since then, I see that a wholesome spirituality blends all three, but the programmatic is fundamental. 

The enthusiasms of "the Spirit" easily vanish and the agency of the Self proves itself to be largely volatile and impotent. We are communal: we need steady support of others. We are creatures of habit: we need good ones. We are sinful: we need rituals of repentance, encouragement, pardon, support. A good Catholic is one with a good program. My grandfather used to say: "Just go to confession every other Saturday, as a habit." Catholicism is a programmatic, institutional,  traditional faith.

Poison of Protestant Individualism

Our nation is deeply Protestant, or late-Protestant if not post-Protestant. In its various forms...mainline, progressive, Evangelical, fundamentalist, Pentecostal...it can be a living, lively Christianity, but its core infection is individualism. At its origin in Luther, Calvin, Henry VII and the others, it renounced the Church community in favor of some individual, subjective faith. And so, through the centuries it has proliferated into thousands of different denominations. Many today identify simply as "Christian." This means that they follow no authority or tradition, but contrive their own system...or they follow some local, rando pastor who has contrived his own religion.

American Catholics have mostly gone "protestant." In our hospital visits, between 10 and 20% who identify as Catholic practice their faith. By this I mean: attend mass every Sunday. Most of the others, if they still identify as such, explain that they relate to God, they pray on their own. It is, in other words, an isolated, lonely faith. It is not nothing. It is faith. It can be highly Catholic in flavor: devotion to Mary, the rosary, the saints, sacramentals and such. Of course I do not challenge or correct these people of faith, however anemic, who are sick in bed. But as we pray together, almost always the Our Father, my hope for them is that our shared prayer will awaken a desire to return to communion with the community.

We are NOT created to live and pray in isolation. We need communion with each other. We need steady, reliable patterns and habits to carry us when we are weak. We need resources to correct, encourage, revive, inspire and eventually sanctify us. We need program. Let's consider ten good ones.

1. Classic Tridentine Catholicism

Counter reformation Catholicism, reactive to Protestantism and defined at Trent, is arguably the most programmatic, institutional religion imaginable. The subjectivity of "faith alone" of Luther was countered by a solid, objective program.

"It's all bullshit, pure bullshit! All this liberal Vatican II stuff! All you need is two things: the commandments and the sacraments. That is all you need!"  This was my conservative high school friend Frank who disapproved of my liberal enthusiasms, in 1965. Frank served as a Catholic priest for 25 years; as an Episcopalian priest for 25 years; and is retired. Now he is the progressive, I am (obvi!) the conservative. We get together every few months for burger and drink, but don't go too deeply into theology. Nevertheless, my buddy provided a succinct summary of the Catholicism in which we were raised. Clear, defined, objective. Obey the commandments. Receive the sacraments. Fidelity to your state in life (marriage, priesthood, religious life.) Hard, durable, clear, simple.

In its full baroque grandeur, it was magnificent: art and architecture, missionary accomplishments, religious orders, theology, religious devotions (Mary, the cross of Jesus, penance for sin, sacramentals) and more. It's singular weakness was that it was not always firmly rooted in the foundation: the person and event of Jesus Christ. To the extent that it lacked this, it tended to and was perceived as dogmatic, moralistic, ritualistic, clericalist...all in the negative sense. 

In the form we received it (1950s) it was still intact, but already leavened by our postwar prosperity, implicit ecumenism, and positivity. It was, for those two decades 1945-65 a thriving, exuberant American Catholicism. But its spiritual, intellectual roots were not deep. The bonds of communion and prayer were not deep enough to renounce the subjectivity, the individualism, the therapeutic narcissism at the core of the Cultural Revolution. And so, Catholicism entered into a 60 year period of steady decline. 

2. Evangelical, Pneumatic Catholicism of John Paul and Benedict

These two pope fully engaged Vatican II, especially the recentering on the person of Jesus Christ. They interpreted the Council in continuity with the past, as they engaged modernity, critically, but appreciatively. So, they strongly affirmed the best contemporary developments in the Church and the world: ecumenism, dialogue with other religions, appreciation for Judaism, centrality of religious freedom, the role of and call to holiness of the laity, social justice for the poor, the positive accomplishments of science and technology, liturgical and biblical revivals. Patiently and peacefully they resisted the progressive assault on Catholic principles around incompetent life, sexuality/gender/family, objectivity of morality, and the balance of faith/reason. Their authoritative teaching aligns with and mutually strengthens the lay renewal programs below.

3. Catholic Charismatic Renewal

This movement of the Holy Spirit, which exploded in Duquesne University in 1967, is arguably the most significant of our time as it is part of the broader Pentecostal movement that started in 1900 and has spread around the globe in many churches. In terms of Christianity writ large, within and beyond the Catholic Church, this is the most consequential development of the last 126 years and going into the future. In part this was a brilliant synthesis into Catholicism of elements of Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism: love of Scripture, focus on Jesus as savior and lord, invocation of the Holy Spirit, gifts of the Holy Spirit (tongues, prophesy, etc.), spiritual warfare, gender roles, authority, emphasis on praise and strong spiritual community. 

4. Divine Mercy

The revelations to Saint Faustina constitute the most significant development within Catholicism and are the interpretive key to the pontificate of John Paul. They are a revival of traditional themes but with a new clarity, emphasis and luminosity. Practically, there are simple practices: the litany of Divine Mercy, the image of the merciful Jesus and the celebration of Mercy Sunday a week after Easter.

5. Neocatechumenal Way, Communion and Liberation and Lay Renewal Movements

These all flow from a distinctive encounter with Christ in the unique charism of the founder and find expression in practices and habits that are creative, novel, and fruitful as they draw deeply from tradition.

6. 12-Step Groups

Not explicitly Catholic, these might be conceived as "anonymous Catholicism" (with a nod to Karl Rahner's famous "anonymous Christian." Famously, they aspire to be "spiritual" rather than "religious" rather than associate with baggage attached to institutional faiths. In clear, definite practical manners they practice the fundamentals of Christianity and Catholicism: awareness of weakness and need, trust in God, accountability, community of support, and a clear body of literature and practice. In the deeper etymological sense, it is itself a "religion": a "bonding" of a community through shared beliefs, values ands practices. It does not inherently replace or compete with other faiths, but is best practiced as an "accompaniment" to them. It addresses addiction and provides a path to sobriety and does not ambition to be a total plan of life as a full religion does.

7. Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist and similar Traditional Programs

About a dozen years ago my wife and I made promises to OLME, Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist, of now deceased Sister Joan Noreen, a gifted spiritual guide. It is a refreshing synthesis of the traditional elements of Catholicism: Eucharist, Mary, obedience to the Church, the sacraments, liturgy of the hours and simplicity of life. There are many such traditional movements: Opus Dei, Regnum Christi, Legion of Mary, and others.

8. Liturgical Year

The Church year with its seasons, it feasts and fasts, its "saint of the day" is a dazzlying program for holiness in itself.

9. Eucharistic and Marian Devotions

The Catholic soul is particularly fascinated by the Eucharist and the Mother of God: daily mass, visits to the Church, 40-hour devotion, processions, rosary, Marian feast days, and other.

10. Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy: Service of the Poor and Suffering

Within the Catholic economy of grace, special blessings come with programmatic, systemic, habitual service of the poor and suffering. This is strikingly evident in saintly figures such as St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty and a litany of others.

Conclusion

In addition to the above, Catholicism offers a rich banquet of optional programs: novenas, devotions, retreats, spiritual direction (including the famous Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius), pilgrimages (my favorite being the Camino of Santiago in Spain) and other. No single person could practice all of these. They all feed into and draw from the presence of our Crucified-Risen-Ascended-Spirit-Sending Lord in his Church incarnated in Word and Sacrament.

The core, essential program of the Catholic: Sunday mass. 

You have to show up Sunday morning.

You don't have to be pure and holy; you don't have to receive communion; you don't have to fully believe in everything Catholic; you don't have to pay attention for the whole time. You have to show up. And stay there for the full hour. 

The key Catholic word is:  EFFICACIOUS.

The sacraments are efficacious: they effect what they symbolize. This is not magic. It is Mystery. They effectively and fruitfully give us Christ's grace, of their very nature. They do not depend upon the merit or worth of the minister: an evil priest still confects the Eucharist; he still pardons sin in confession; he still heals body and soul in anointing of the sick. 

Their full force is released only with the cooperation, the ascent, the surrender of the recipient. But their power is not limited by that subjectivity. For example, imagine someone receiving a sacrament in a state of distraction and inattention. Subjectively, consciously the mind is elsewhere: anxieties, regrets, resentments, sadness. Nevertheless, if there is even a faint intention to receive Christ in the sacrament than that grace is given, miraculously.

The entirety of Catholic life flows from the sacraments. In this it contrasts sharply with the subjectivity inherent to Protestantism and its offspring narcissistic, therapeutic, moralistic individualism.

By analogy, the rest of Catholicism shares a certain, lessor but nevertheless miraculous efficacy inherent to the sacraments. So simple practices themselves, in their form, give grace, even when the subjectivity is distracted: carrying a rosary, wearing a medal, hanging a crucifix in  a room, blessing yourself when passing a Church, donating to a Church or charity, receiving ashes, casually saying "God bless you."

Modernity is pure, isolated, individualistic subjectivity. Catholicism is pure, communal, connected objectivity.

May we all, celebrating tomorrow Pentecost and moving into ordinary time, deepen, strengthen and intensify our Catholic program of holiness of life!

One Battle After Another: A Call to Arms!

"I have not come to bring peace, but the sword."  John 10:34

"Peace I leave you, my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give you peace." John 14:27

Jesus left us his peace, but in a perpetual state of war and wars...until he returns in the Parousia.

War these days has an undeserved bad reputation. Popes like to exclaim: "War no more!" In our youth we sang "All we are saying...is give Peace a chance!" Pumper stickers announce: "War is not working."

The  progressive or liberal narrative is: War is optional. We can chose peace over war. By our own agency and volition we can move beyond war to a state of peace. We simply: redistribute wealth so no one is hungry, reasonably negotiate and compromise, disarm enemies by our compassion and understanding, follow the science, provide education and therapy, empower the oppressed (especially women, people of color, sexual transgressors,) and above all overthrow the white, male, homophobic, misogynist, Zionist, rich, Republican, fascist oligarchy. 

This thinking is delusional.

War, struggle, la lucha, combat, Agon...is the core of Reality, of History, of Being. War is inevitable, inexorable, unavoidable. The only question is: do we capitulate in weakness and cowardice? Do we fight viciously and violently? Or do we engage heroically, truthfully, virtuously?

Let's bring back VALOR, CHIVALRY, HONOR, COMRADARIE IN ARMS, HEROISM, SACRIFICE, BOLDNESS!

I am not talking about Hegsethian militarism or masked ICE agents. I am talking about the evangelical ethos (poverty, chastity and obedience) of the medieval Knights Templars and Teutonic Knights who were elite warriors in the spiritual and the military realms. I am talking about the generations of Spaniard Crusaders who reconquered the Iberian Peninsula for Christendom. I am talking about our fathers who defeated the Japanese, Nazi and Soviet Imperialisms.

Let's identify the main wars being waged now: the spiritual, the cultural, and the global.

(Yes, patient reader, another top 10 list!)

1. Spiritual Combat

This conflict is threefold: with the world, the flesh and the devil. ..The primary and defining battle in every age. The rest are subordinate and more superficial.

 "The World" here is not the splendor of Creation, but human life as organized without and against God. It is autonomy, pride, arrogance.

"The Flesh" is our own personal disordered tendencies, physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. Every person is in this fight.

"The Devil" is of course Lucifer and his demons: created persons, spirits with intellect and will, but without bodies, who rejected God and are desperate to bring us into the dark kingdom.

And so, we on this earth are always the Church Militant, the Church in combat. We are not the Church Triumphant (in heaven) or the Church Suffering (in purgatory), although we participate by anticipation in those states. Above all we are NOT the Church at peace, or the world at peace!

2. Culture Wars

The civil war within our own society, "the West," has four different theatres which indwell each other: cultural progressivism, technocracy, gigantism, and class conflict/poverty.

Cultural Progressivism assaults the foundations of our common life by sterilizing sexuality, deconstructing gender and family, killing incompetent human life, disparaging tradition, and isolating the individual.

Technocracy vacates Creation and especially the male/female person of interior worth and meaning by instrumentalizing all of life. This leads in all directions: pathologies of social media, threat of AI, environmental toxicity, energy crisis, transgenderism, reproductive technologies. Perhaps the most significant breakthrough of all is artificial contraception which thrust a poison into the sacred sexuality of the binary, generous/generative human person.

Gigantism assaults the dignity of the person and human communities by a cancerous malignancy whereby institutions inexorably grow to inhuman size, overwhelming the person, vitiating agency, and destroying natural bonds. This includes centralized government, multinational corporations, unions, universities and even the Church. Here our tradition proposes subsidiarity: preference, where possible and prudent, for the small, the intimate, the concrete.

Class War is a reality in any advanced, industrial society. Without accepting the entire Marxist narrative, we recognize in our society systems which favor specific privileged, powerful class and disadvantage others, not only the working class but those trapped in cultures of deprivation.  Part of this, then, is also the battle against poverty, including beyond our national boundaries, and sickness.

3. Global Wars

Our three antagonists here are: Communism, Jihadism and Fascism.

Communism includes North Korea, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam but above all China which is brutally repressive of human rights and imperialistically ambitious. 

Muslim Jihadism takes two forms: Shiite in Iran and Sunni which includes terror groups around the globe but especially violent in Africa. It is fortunate that the two fight each other. So, there are hopes for an alliance in the Middle East of the West, the gulf states and Israel.

Fascism which is a perennial weed, seen today in Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere. 

Our adversaries enjoy significant advantages over us. They are amoral totalitarianisms: unrestrained by popular opinion or moral principles. The Jihadists are religious and so do not fear death in the way that seculars do. But also: they know that they are at war. They are not blinded by the progressive delusion that peace is an option.

Conclusion

And so, as I write, we are engaged in...not one, not two...but at least ten wars: world, flesh, devil, cultural progressivism, technocracy, gigantism, class war and poverty, communism, jihadism and fascism. 

Jesus assured us that "the gates of hell will not prevail" against the Church he would build upon Peter, the rock. (Matt 16:18). We are not on the defensive. It is the Dark Kingdom of Lucifer that is gated and vulnerable. With Christ our King, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are on the offensive. The gates of hell will not prevail before our assault.

And so, let us stand with Aragon at Black Gate:

There may come a day when the courage of men fails,

 when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship,

IT IS NOT THIS DAY!

An hour of wolves and shattered shields,

when the age of men comes crashing down.

BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!

This day we fight!

By all that you hold dear on this good earth,

I bid you stand, Men of the West!

My Theological Dream Team

In a previous post , (May 13, 2026) after contrasting two 10-man teams of Jesuit thinkers, one progressive and the other orthodox Catholic, I announced the "Fleckinstein Fantasy Theologian Competition." But I did not give my own dream team. So I offer now, my first and second team.

Criteria:

Intellectual brilliance, creativity, insight; depth and breath of erudition; fidelity to Tradition; holiness of life; range of influence.

First Team

1. Pope St. John Paul

2. Pope Benedict

3. Balthasar

4. Kiko Arguello

5. Ralph Martin

6. Monsignor Luigi Giussani

7. Edith Stein/ St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross

8. Avery Dulles

9. David L. Schindler 

10. David C. Schindler 

Second Team  In no order of ranking.

Rene Girard

Jacques Maritain

Etienne Gilson

Dietrich von Hildebrandt

Karl Stern

Romano Guardini

Fulton Sheen

Scott Hahn

Henri de Lubac

Raniero Cantalamesa

Notes:

- John Paul is the singular theological champion of our time. He, along with Benedict and Balthasar, forms a cohesive, synthetic theology that draws deeply from Tradition and Revelation, engages modernity, and authoritatively interprets the Council. Their work is definitive for our Church in our time.

- After those three is a second triumvirate of spiritual leaders of the renewal movements: Kiko, Martin and Giussani.

- Four Americans who I have personally known make my first team: R. Martin, Dulles and the two Schindlers. These have greatly impacted the American Church, perhaps not so much global Catholicism.

- Note the strong preference for a creative Thomism that incorporates the best of modernity, especially personalism and phenomenology: John Paul, Stein, Benedict, Hildebrandt, Blondel, Maritain, Gilson and in some degree all of the 20 thinkers.

- St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), the only woman on the list, merits special honor for her brilliance, holiness, heroism in death as Jewish and Catholic martyr, and her drawing from classical Catholicism as well as the best of contemporary thought to plumb the mysteries of empathy, femininity, and the cross.

Conclusion

Our Church in our time has received extravagant theological wisdom, through these and others. With this heritage, we can suffer serenely the infection of progressive confusion, indecision, and compromise afflicting our hierarchy. It is now our delight and destiny to plumb the depths of these riches.

Mary our Mother, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us! Help us to receive, cherish, defend, enhance and share the heritage we have received.

Top Twenty Best Catholic Communities That Have Been a Blessing

Grateful for:

20. Catholic/Evangelical Alliance in the Culture War, including the Prolife Movement

19. Camino of Santiago

18. World Youth Days

17.  Franciscan Friars of the Renewal

16. Sisters of Charity, Convent Station, NJ

15. Jesuit priests who taught me at Woodstock NYC, taught my children in Jersey City, and with whom I worked at Xavier HS, NYC.

14. Maryknoll priests, staff and my classmates at Maryknoll College Seminary, Glen Ellyn, Ill 1965-9.

13. Catholic colleges: Mount St. Mary's, Md; University of Notre Dame; St. Peter's, Jersey City; Seton Hall University; DeSales University, Pa; Fordham; Franciscan University of Steubenville; Institute of Psychological Studies; John Paul Institute for Study of the Family. 12.  

12. Communion and Liberation

11. Neocatechumenal Way 

10. Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist (OLME)

9. Cursillo

8. Communio school of theology at Washington DC.

7. Charismatic Renewal.

6. Magnificat Home residence for women which our family and friends support.

5. The CCD, confirmation and religion classes I have taught for over 60 years.

4. Many Catholic elementary and high schools which educated our family and in which we have worked.

3. Our current parish and every parish in which Christ has nurtured us with his Word and Sacrament.

2. My origin family: Father/Mother, brothers/sisters, grandparents, uncles/aunts, cousins.

1. Our own marriage and family as it expands and extends outwards.

Honorable Mention:   Christian Brothers; Dominican Sisters of Hope and of Caldwell; Felician Sisters; Marriage Encounter; NET retreats;  Ivan Illich's Cuernavaca Institute in Summer 1968; Regnum Christi;   Volunteer chaplaincy at Jersey Shore University Hospital; Catholic Communion service at Ocean County Jail; EWTN; Knights of Columbus; Weston and Mt. Savior Benedictine Abbeys; Bethlehem Hermitage in Chester, NJ; Service Immersion Trips Overseas; Catholic Worker; First Things; Jewish-Catholic Dialogue; so many retreats, conferences, pilgrimages, men's support groups, bible sharing sessions, (anonymously Catholic) 12-step meetings.  

 Counting schools and parishes, our list goes into the hundreds. Italian in my neighborhood (NY/NJ) might say that our family is "connected."

You might, dear Reader, make your own list. It is a salutary exercise in memory and gratitude. 

Thank God for our Catholic Church in all her marvelous expressions!   

Welcome to the Fleckinstein Fantasy Theological Competition League

Jesuit Adversaries: Progressive and Conservative

 Every man and many competitive, athletic women will understand: a worthy competitor, adversary, antagonist is a great thing. Ok...it is not as good as a good lover, mother/father, friend, mentor. But it is a great thing.  He will bring out the best in you.

The Jesuits were immensely influential, beyond their numbers, in Tridentine Catholicism: education, missions, martyrs. In the Vatican II Church, they have been inordinately effective in shaping and maintaining Catholic Progressivism, especially through their flagship institutions: universities, especially the more prestigious ones, and America.

Below is my "Top Ten Best Jesuit Adversary List." They are all extraordinarily brilliant, erudite, influential, God-loving, Church-serving, PROGRESSIVE Jesuits.  I did not personally know any of them. I wish I did. Each is fascinating, brilliant, and by reputation prayerful and charming. In heaven I will look them up. Each had a strong hand in forming contemporary Catholic Progressivism: the turn to sterile sexuality, tolerance of legal abortion, rupture with tradition, trust in technology, embrace of leftist politics, and more.

In no particular order:

Pope Francis

Pedro Arrupe

Karl Rahner

Bernard Longergan

Robert Drinan

James Martin

Teilhard de Chardin

Roger Haight

Daniel Berrigan

John Courtney Murray

I look forward in heaven to engaging and challenging them. But I cannot compete at their level. So, I would field against them my all-star team of contemporaneous conservative Jesuits:

Hans Balthasar

Jean Danielou

Henri-Marie de Lubac

Avery Dulles

Joseph Fessio

Gerald Collins

Kenneth Baker

John Hardon

Eric Przywara

Ed Oakes

I look forward in heaven to watching these two teams-of-heaven square off against each other. Obviously, my money is on the second team. I hope that I clear purgatory before the competition begins. It shouldn't be a problem: Drinan is looking at some serious time there; but he is a theological lightweight anyway.

Fantasy Theological Competition League

I offer you, dear Reader, a challenge: Fantasy Theoogical Competition League.  Above you see my 10-man Jesuit team. I dare you to propose an alternate group, your personal "fantasy team," of theologians of the last 85 years, since 1945.   They generally must be Catholic, with rare exceptions. Fleckinstein will be the final judge as he is honest, balanced and unafraid. (Or is that Bret Baier on Fox at 6 PM Eastern Time?) 

Some options:

Progresssives 

Obviously, you want to avoid progressives like the rogues gallery above as well as Kung, Schillibeckx, Tracey,  Baum, and above all Richard Rohr! Please, please, please...Not Richard Rohr! Generally, feminist and liberation theologians are not strong competitors, although Gustavo Gutierrez is a contender. You might avoid the dialogue with Eastern religions: Panikkar, de Mello, Zen Christianity and such. For example, the early Merton (pre-1965) is impressive, the later Merton not so much. 

Philosophers, since the two disciplines are so close and interwoven, make good choices. These are usually lay, while theologians more frequently clerical.

Thomists

A strong team would include Thomistic philosophers like: Maritain, Gilson, Pieper, Norris Clark, John Finnis, Garrigou-Lagrange, Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Kreeft, Ralph McInerny, Thomas Joseph White, and Alasdair MacIntyre. 

Personalist-Thomists (Communio)

An even stronger offering would be those who combine a grounding in Thomas with contemporary phenomenology and personalism as well as a retrieval of the fathers: John Paul, Benedict, Hildebrandt, Marcel, DC and DL Schindler, Adrian Walker, Paolo Prosperi, Michael Hanby, Antonio Lopez, Tracey Rowland and Nick Healy. Edith Stein (Saint Theresa Benedicta of the Cross) died in 1942, but she is such a strong influence that we will grant her a special dispensation to compete.

 Different Flavor

 Charles Taylor, Rene Girard, Remi Brague, Christopher Dawson, and Jean-Luc Marion. 

Radical, Passionate, Eccentric, Dynamic

Ivan Illich, Henri Nouwen, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Heather King, Carlo Caretto, and Paolo Freire. Along similar lines: influencers like Fulton Sheen, Robert Barron, Luis Martinez, and Archbishop Chaput. On the more hierarchical track consider: Suenens, George, Arinze, Mueller, Zen, Sarah, Scola,  Burke (early, but not later) Schonborn.

Non Catholics

While this competition is for Catholic theologians, we will grant dispensations for important, Church-adjacent-or-friendly intellects like Protestants C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright, Wendel Berry, Stanley Hauerwas, John Milbank, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Orthodox David Hart and Alexander Schmemann. Bultmann, Tillich and Barth are too anti-Catholic. Possible Jewish contenders would be Martin Buber and Abraham Heschel.

Biblical ScholarsA distinct but compelling genre:  Scott Hahn, Raymond Brown, John McKenzie, Brian Pitre, John Bergsma, and Joseph Fitzmyer S.J. 

Charismatics

You know that Fleckinstein favors charismatics so you might consider: Ralph Martin, Raniero Cantalamessa, Killian McDonald, Francis Martin, and Ed O'Connor.

Catholic Neo-Conservatives

Notwithstanding their soft libertarianism, "Americanism," enthusiasm for capitalism, and comfort with bourgeois Republicanism, these have been fierce in defending Catholicism in the Culture War and the global war with totalitarianism and so merit our respect: Novak, Neuhaus, Weigel, Reno, Arroyo, Royal, Gleason, Eric Sammons and their posses at First Things, Crisis, The Catholic Thing, and EWTN.

Psychologists

Strong Catholic voices from and within academic psychology include: Paul Vitz, Karl Stern, Benedict Groeschel, Joseph Nicolosi Sr and Jr, Elizabeth Moberly, Conrad Baars, Greg Bottaro, Andrew Sodergren,  and Richard Fitzgibbons. With this group we might include Susan Motto and Adrian von Kaam, both in the field of spirituality.

Conclusion

There you have it kind Reader: 120 of the Catholic thinkers who have shaped our Church and world. We look forward to considering your theological dream team. 

Thank you for indulging Fleckinstein. His compulsion to make lists is getting out of control. If you suspected that he is "on the spectrum" you would not be without grounds. Do not talk about this with the family: everyone will want me back on my meds. But I do my best blogging when I am in my hypo-mania! Don't you agree?😂

Would, Could, Should Pope Leo XIV Give Us a New "Rerum Novarum?"

Baring a supernatural intervention: No! No! No!

This for three reasons.

First, this Leo is not a world class theologian, intellectual, teacher. He is many splendid things that can make for a solid papacy: highly intelligent; holy, prayerful priest; servant of the poor; cosmopolitan in the best sense; competent administrator, canon lawyer, institutionalist; real listener to all; humble, modest, restrained, sober, judicial, prudent, cautious stabilizer, peacemaker, and unifier. To his credit, he loves Augustine and Pope Benedict. He seems to be little influenced by John Paul as he was already fervently engaged in his missionary work during that monumental papacy. He is quintessentially American: a pragmatist, no library rat or metaphysician. He resembles most of my own family and friends: heart of gold, competent man of action, compassionate and generous. His singular weakness:  he is soft theologically, weak in intellectual (but not spiritual) clarity, depth and decisiveness. Like Francis, in contrast to John Paul and Benedict, he is temperamentally, psychologically, and theologically indisposed to confront the assault of the Sexual Revolution upon the family and the innocence of our young. With Francis, he would avoid this battle, failing, by omission, but not deliberately, in a modesty of weakness, to restrain the imperialistic aggression of the sexual liberationists.

Secondly, our world has become so explosive, dense, complex, confusing...AI, internet, energy, hostile imperialisms, environment, technocracy, gigantism, secularism, decline of Christendom and the family...that it is improbable that a document could accurately address them. 

 Lastly, it is an error to see the pope as teacher on the correct global political order. Catholic social teaching is a body of fluid moral principles that guide the laity in all the specific spheres of decision. It does not dictate policy, politics or ideology. In a camouflaged clericalism, Francis unhappily presented himself as world authority on prudential matters: immigration, war, energy, environment, and capital punishment. He became configured globally, by his progressive admirers, as the Anti-Trump. Leo has similar propensities. 

We do not need a theological breakthrough, like Rerum, from Leo. We need steady governance. We need simple clarity on sexuality and restrain of the sexual liberationists of the European episcopacy. We need to stop abandoning the Chinese Church to the Communist Party. We need less accommodation; more clarity, courage, decisiveness.

 God Gives Us What We Need...When We Need It

What we have...already given by God...is a magisterial body of teaching, starting with Rerum, through the Council and Humanae Vitae, into the Great Dual Pontificate and aspects of Francis.

If I were Leo, I would...

Not stress about the world order. I would delegate. 

I would commission my six best theological bishops (young Turks like Varden and Barron as well as old guns like Mueller, Sarah, Zen, Scola) to dig deeply into the social teaching of Leo XIII through Francis to provide a clear, updated, simple statement addressing our current situation. This would clearly state Catholic understanding of: dignity of human life, sex/gender/family, solidarity, subsidiarity, all the freedoms starting with religion, the role of markets and the state, and more.

They would be served by a second commission of perhaps a dozen outstanding theologians or periti. 

A third level of consultation might be a gathering of experts in specific fields who could show how Catholic thought impacts their areas. Included in this group would be some non-specialists, generalists: journalists or thinkers who merge familiarity with our faith with knowledge of our world condition.

Most importantly, each ordinary bishop of our 3,100 dioceses would find a suffering person, such as a paralyzed quadriplegic, unable to do anything but pray. These would be asked to pray for the fruitfulness of this mission.

What Do We Do in the Meantime?

Leo is unlikely to take this path. He will be an immense improvement on Francis but is unlikely to show the lucidity, courage, decisiveness we conservatives crave. 

In the meantime, we always have...John Paul, Benedict and their interpretation of the Council; their retrieval of Tradition; their both critical and appreciative engagement with modernity.

During the dual-pontificate, many of us were so discouraged by the progressive drift of the Church that we leaned into a degree of ultramontanism, "papalodolatry." The papacy of Francis disabused us of this.  

Happily, we now live in a more multipolar Church. We honor, love and obey Pope Leo as our Holy Father, and Vicar of Christ on earth, but we recognize his limitations. So we receive his teaching in a proper context. Christ with his Father is our King; Mary is our Queen; so we live in a Patriarchy/Matriarchy unlike any social order. Our greatest earthly authority is the lives, example, and teaching of the saints. Along with this we have Scripture/Tradition/Magisterium. At this point I suggest a certain binary Papacy: Leo is our now-Pope. But the teaching of John Paul and Benedict will guide us through the current century and beyond. We have, as well, guidance from bishops. And the intellectual and theological communities. So, we enjoy a multi-magisterium. 

This will leave us with realistic expectations from this fine man who is now our pope. We will enjoy the multiple manners in which we are guided from heaven.

Come Holy Spirit, upon Pope Leo, and on all of us!

My Favorite Ways to Celebrate Eucharist

 What follows is my own subjectivity. Objectively, every Eucharist is equally, absolutely, objectively, formally Perfect:  participation in and reenactment of the unitary Paschal Mystery: Last Supper, death on Calvary, descent, and Resurrection.  But in our personal subjectivity, we are fragile, distracted, inattentive, preoccupied. It is marvelous that some expressions awaken and enliven us, drawing us into the Mystery.

20. - Mass in a Benedictine monastery: austere, simple, basic.

19. - Any mass with a bishop.

18. -Relaxed, informal celebration in family home, reunion, gathering of some sort.

17. - Mariachi mass, Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1968.

16. - In my pre-Council, altar boy days, and occasionally in my adult life, when I was alone with the priest, in a side altar or crypt, as if the priest was there to bring Christ to me personally, even as I represented the entire Church.

15. - Mass in a beautiful basilica, cathedral, church or chapel.

14. - Altar boy, in the old days, at 6 AM mass: communion before mass for those going to work, 20 minutes.

13. - Mass with tens or hundreds of priests in procession, with rousing music, manifesting the splendid virility of the priesthood.

12. - Old funeral mass, all black, Dies Irae, solemn, silent.

11. - Caribbean mass: lively music, huge smiles, warm spirits.

10. - Neocatechumenal mass: especially Kiko's "crusader music," exhortations, echoes.

9.- Two masses with Pope John Paul and one with Pope Benedict.

8. - Ordination masses and first masses, including "first blessings" and kissing of priestly hands.

7. - Mass in retirement homes of Maryknoll and Jesuit priests, many in wheel chairs...men who have given their entire lives to Christ and the Church.

6. - The Latin Mass: Gregorian chant, tons of altar boys (some in their 70s), up and down about 20 times. 

5. - Charismatic mass: praise music, praying in tongues, passionate preaching, prophesies, raising of hands.

4. - Mass with hundreds of men.

3. - Mass with thousands of people, especially young people and families.

2. - Sunday mass in an ordinary parish.

1. - Daily mass: 3-minute homily, 30 minutes, simple, solemn, serene.

The shape of the mass is exquisitely simple: reception of the word; priestly offering of the sacrifice, reception of communion. It is inexhaustible. It properly is expressed in a multitude of ways. It is source and summit of the Church; center of history; heart of the world; purpose of Being.