Notes on the Identity and Mission of the Catechist

 Pope Francis has instituted a new ecclesial position: Catechist. Our American bishops are studying how to implement this. I have strong convictions on the topic as I have long understood my role in the Church and society as that of a catechist.

The word "catechist" is from the Greek meaning "echo." So the catechist listens, within the Church, to the voice of Christ, and then echoes it in word and deed.

A Catechist is Not:

- A minor league "theologian-for-dummies."

- A new credentialed, clerical or professional class and bureaucracy within the Church.

- An avenue for the infusion of liberal theology from our universities to our parishes.

- A repeater of the Catechism or preparer of children for sacraments.

- A profession in the sense of a career path.

Catechesis is Close to but Distinct From:

Evangelization, which is the initial introduction to the person and salvific accomplishment of Jesus Christ. Catechesis builds upon this and reflects the light of the Gospel into every arena of human life.

Theology which is the more intellectual, academic study of God in his workings with us. Catechesis is more practical, probing every aspect of our active life as well as the beliefs that inform us.

Philosophy which contemplates and explores reality in all its depth and intelligibility. Catechesis involves philosophy but returns always to Revelation in Christ and how it illuminates all of life, especially action.

Catechesis Flows From Prayer

Even more than the "kneeling theology" of Balthasar, catechesis flows from intimacy and encounter with the person of Jesus Christ: in personal solitude, in the public liturgy of the Church in all its richness, and all kinds of spontaneous, informal, creative, communal engagements (family, friends, ministry, etc.)

With the Psalmist, the Catechist's hears: "Today, LISTEN to the voice of the Lord. Do not grow stubborn as your fathers did in the wilderness, when at Meriba and Massah they challenged me and provoked me, although they had seen all my works." (Psalm 95)

And so the first movement of catechesis: calm, composure and repose; sensitivity to the Presence of God and reception of His Word; contemplation and the gaze of love and adoration. Out of fecund rest, patiently and organically, flows the echo, in words and acts.

Ecclesial Spirit

Above all, the catechist is not an autonomous individual, but thrives (like a branch on the vine) in communion with the Church in all its density and richness: mystical, moral, intellectual, active, social, historical, sacramental, institutional.

And so, prior to the personal identity of the catechist is the ecclesial womb that nurtures him: an ambience in which the gathered wait on the Lord, listen to his Word, and accept it. The foundation is the listening, receiving, echoing, praising gathering. This entails: listening to the Word as articulated in Sacred Scripture; the context of worship, liturgy and the sacraments; a small community of loyalty and intimacy; filial communion with the Maternal and Magisterial Church.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Intellectually and dogmatically, we are singularly blessed, for 30 years, with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is at once a theological masterpiece from the Holy Spirit. It is an inspired, succinct, accurate and lovely expression of the faith of the Catholic Church. We might think of the catechist's tripod as: the Bible, the seasonal and daily liturgy of the Church, and the Catechism.

Models of Catechesis

Kiko Arguello, founder of the Neo-Catechumenal Way, is the "Catechist Par Excellence." Not a theologian, he is a spiritual genius, a prophet blessed with a defining charism for our time. His "way" flows from immersion in the Word of God, specifically in the weekly gatherings to break open the Scriptures and the echoes that follow there and in the Saturday evening Eucharist. The extended itinerary of catechesis (20 years or more) is detailed, specific, profound, counter-cultural, orthodox, and demanding. Heavy emphasis is placed upon: fear of and overcoming of death in Jesus' Resurrection, forgiveness of the enemy, sacredness of marriage and family, renunciation of mammon, preciousness of new life and big families, personal request for forgiveness, our brokenness due to sin and desperate need for Christ, critique of our society and much of the Church as toxic and dystopian, and loyalty to small, intense, intimate communities. Were I a bishop, I would use his model, adapting it in aspects, and recruit priests and lay catechists into leadership into my diocese.

Pope Benedict is widely seen as the greatest Catholic theologian of his time. He may become (with John Paul and Balthasar) a doctor of the Church and arguably the best theological mind of all our popes. But what sets him off as unique (in my view) is the catechetical quality of his writing and thought. He is not as creative as John Paul or Balthasar; his learning is encyclopedic but not the equal of Balthasar; his spiritual depth is comparable to them both. But he exceeds them in the clarity, simplicity, directness, and loveliness of his articulation. He subsumes a quantity of academic scholarship, orthodoxy, scriptural insight, and spiritual depth and expresses it sweetly, fluently, directly, charmingly. His message is deep, authoritative, delightful, inspiring and easy to digest. As a catechist myself, I value most the theology that transfers most smoothly into catechesis. The master of this: Pope Benedict!

Ralph Martin, Mary Healy, and other leaders of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, much like Kiko, are not generally academic theologians but offer a novel, but Catholicly orthodox, deeply counter-cultural, biblical, practical and appealing catechesis. They draw richly from American Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism and exemplify the power of lay catechesis.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen (of happy memory) and (currently) Bishop Robert Barron are two clerics who combine depth of scholarship, prayerfulness, and a distinctive competence in presenting our faith in clarity, simplicity, charm and beauty.

Frank Sheed, Caryll Houselander, Heather King, Ross Douthat, Dorothy Day, Catherine de Hueck Doughterty,, Adrienne von Speyr, Baron von Hugel, Charles Peguy, Sigrid Undset, Flannery O'Connor, Gil Baile, my mentor Pat Williams and best friend John Rapinich are outstanding, if eccentric, catechists.

Amateurs

With the exceptions of Benedict and Bishops Barron and Sheen, all of the above are lay, neither academics (primarily) nor ordained. They are not credentialed professionals, not members of the guild. They are precisely amateur, they do it out of love. St. Paul was a tentmaker by trade; but an evangelist out of love. Jesus was a carpenter; but a Messiah out of love for his Father and for us. And so the above examples are writers, novelists, librarians, journalists, artist-musicians and other. Most have a deep embrace of the poor and the counsel of poverty. All of them listen to the voice of Christ, all are embedded in a variety of ecclesial communions, all echo Christ in their distinctive voices and styles.

Loveliness

As in the theology of Balthasar, we cannot adequately appreciate the centrality of beauty to the art of catechesis. In the echo of the voice of Christ, Truth is manifest in its splendor as charming, attractive, delightful, "useless," healing, encouraging, and inspiring.

Dramatic Event

The catechetical event is not merely informative or intellectual, although it is that. It engages the entire person emotionally, intellectually, morally, socially, physically and interpersonally. It is the synergistic, fecund, serendipitous engagement of three freedoms: the one echoing, those receiving the echo, and the ultimate source and destiny, God.

Lord Jesus, breathe upon us your Holy Spirit, that we may in our unique styles, voices and circumstances echo your Word, your Love, your Holiness.

Sunset of Campaign for Human Development?

 Bishop Paprocki has suggested that the annual Bishop's national collection for the CHD be replaced by one for Catholic education. Discontinuing the campaign: good idea; replacing it with an alternative: not so good.

He argues that the goal, helping the poor, is valid but that we do not know that this program is succeeding. He correctly indicates that education is the surest path out of poverty. Financially the program is in trouble; they have exhausted their resources in recent years as donations are not covering their distributions. Conservatives have no doubt discontinued contributions when it was disclosed some years ago that the fund was supporting organizations tied to leftwing, anti-Catholic activities (birth control, abortion) as well as political support for the Obama campaign. Theoretically, better vetting of recipients could solve this problem. But a deeper look will show that the model itself is problematic from a Catholic perspective.

The objective of the CHD is not simply the corporal works of mercy: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. Rather, the intent is to change systems that keep people in poverty. It ambitions social change; systemic change; political action for justice. It is guided by the philosophy of Saul Alinsky, the father of community organizing, an atheist Marxist who exerted immense influence on the Catholic focus on social justice after the Council in the late 1960s. 

Such action for social justice is intrinsic to the lay mission to reflect God's grace in every area of society, culture, economics and politics. The problem is that political action and policy decisions always have multiple, uncertain, complicated and unanticipated consequences. Even the best intended actions and policies can have bad consequences. The political arena is one of uncertainty, risk and prudential decisions about which participants will disagree and fight. It is clearly the arena of the laity. The hierarchy...priests, bishops and pope...have no inherent competence. They have authority in faith and morals, but not in economics and politics. For the hierarchy to ambition social change is a clericalism whereby it intrudes where it does not belong and is not competent. Therefore, it is a bad idea for the bishops to fund initiatives for social justice. 

May the Campaign for Human Development rest in peace!

Do we need to replace it with a national campaign for education? Do the bishops need another bureaucracy? No and No!

By the principle of subsidiarity, schooling belongs at the local level: family, parish, community; not at the national or global level.

The crisis of the Church is in no small part the over-institutionalization, the overreach of the hierarchy beyond its proper boundaries. Our current pope and many bishops assume responsibility for the well being of the entire society...climate, equality, education, care for the suffering...and deprive the laity of their identity and mission. The mission of the American episcopacy in our time is to divest, declutter, surrender, simplify, and strip down to the simple tasks of preaching the Gospel and presiding over our worship. An let the laity teach their young, feed the hungry, and fight for justice. 

A Family Culture

We are in New Harbor, Maine, this week, for our annual family reunion...about 150 of us...something we nine siblings have done for 50 years. There is a rich menu of options: golf, Sunday and daily mass, 8 AM walk, climb of Mt. Katahdin, visit to Arcadia or Camden, men's rosary walk on beach at 7 AM, ultimate frisbee, basketball, canoeing and kayaking, swimming at beach, visit historical fort, book discussions, hiking, eating at local restaurants, drinking alcohol, swimming in pool and hot tub, visiting, reading,  talking and a ton of children's activities. This elicits a consideration of our family culture.

1. Our Catholic faith is a strong foundation. Not all of us practice and accept it; but at least two thirds will participate in Sunday mass and about 15-20 come to daily mass. We have a priest and a woman dedicated to the Evangelical life. Six of us have spent time in religious life or seminary and left. Our practice is standard Irish Catholicism: Sunday mass attendance an absolute; chastity and fidelity pressing obligations; sympathy for the poor strong. With the exception of myself, there is little enthusiasm for Pentecostal/Evangelical Christianity or the Latin Mass; but a number of us are involved in or friendly to lay renewal movements.

We might consider a spectrum with four groupings which we will designate as conservative, mainstream, progressive and secular. 

- Conservatives. A critical mass (perhaps 30%) adhere, with passion and certainty, to the organic, Vatican II, culture war conservatism of John Paul and Benedict. 

- Mainstream. A similar quantity maintain deep Catholic devotion in a more mainstream recipe, minimizing the culture war, maintaining the postwar (1945-65) Catholic-liberal synthesis of our parents,  and congenial with the progressivism reigning in suburban, blue NJ.  

- Progressive. About 20% similarly retain Catholic devotion but with more acceptance of the values of leftwing politics, soft feminism (favoring women priests), tolerance of legal abortion and gay affirmation.

- Secular. Lastly, 20% are entirely detached from Catholicism and committed to political/cultural progressivism.

Our young adults of college age (about 12) are fluid in their identity, but mostly clustered in the two middle groups. They are, of course, subject to the ordinary exploratory proclivities of youth, and open to peer influence as well as pop, liberal, secular culture. Their Catholicism is largely of the garden variety, bourgeois, parish type. They have relatively little contact with stronger forms of our faith. 

It is my view that the two moderate forms are not viable long term in a culture so ferociously hostile to basic Catholic values. The "middle will not hold" in a world increasing dystopian and apocalyptic. In that sense I see a clarity and depth to the secular perception of the incompatibility of Catholicism with progressivism. We face a hard binary choice: Christ and this Church or the axis of Freud, Marx, Darwin and especially Nietzsche. 

2. Strong bonds of affection, respect and loyalty throughout the family, notably among cousins.  These bonds are strong enough to overcome the liberal/conservative divide, political and religious, within the family.

3. Education. Our children do very well in school. Our family culture seems to encourage trust in and docility to authority as well as focus in listening and reading. All of our adults have college degrees and there are lots of master and even doctor degrees.

4. Sports. Some men golf; most share an interest in basketball and football. The children almost all compete in sports: track, basketball, soccer, swimming, football and other; some at the level of Division 1 colleges. Competitive energies are considerable and mostly channeled in wholesome ways.

5. Politics we take seriously. Like our society, we are polarized. We grew up in the postwar "Camelot" as liberal, labor union, Democrat Catholics. With the Cultural Revolution, the three brothers reacted strongly against the now pro-legal-abortion, big government, sexually liberated DNC; five of the six sisters maintained their allegiance to the party. The former's turn to conservatism was in part economics, more business and market friendly; in part a retrieval of subsidiarity as distrust of the big state;  but mostly an intensification of traditional Catholic values around sex, gender, marriage and unborn life. In the 2020 election, of just over 80 adults, almost 50 of us probably voted Biden; about 15 Trump; and almost 20 for neither. There underlies both sides of the divide a populism: the liberals retaining our parents' advocacy for the poor and working class against Republicans viewed as greedy and powerful; the conservatives defending traditional Catholic values threatened by the now hegemonic secular elite.

6. Careers: Among over 80 adults there are clear patterns in choice of profession.  Teaching and education 19; corporate business including accountants 19; medical (nurse, doctor, PA) 13; counseling and therapy 10; lawyers 6; aid and advocacy for disadvantaged 7; entrepreneurs 3. Only one served in military. We have no police or firefighters; but several prosecutors. (Only one adult owns a gun.) Human services of medicine, education and therapy are over 50% of the total. There is a strong concern for the disadvantaged as reflected in career decisions and the family's strong support for Magnificat Home and other charities.

7. Class and finances. Virtually all have made a smooth transition from roots in the working class to a secure but modest footing in the professional, middle classes. This is largely due to our competence in schools. An in-law had once described the family as "lacking ambition." This is accurate materially: there is little urgency about accumulating financial resources. We share a solid, balanced work ethic (no workaholics1) but also a basic sense of contentment. Most couples enjoy home ownership, two cars and two careers, an average of 3 or 4 children, and shared income (for the most part) above $100,000 and below $200,000. Those at both extremes share overall a similar lifestyle.

8. Sexuality and Marriage. With 42 marriages, we have (to date) 1 divorce. With some exceptions, our young wait until late college or after for romantic intimacy...this without any explicit advice. In general, adolescence is busy with school, sports, jobs and same-sex friendships. This allows (in the categories of Eric Ericson) time to solidify identity before engaging in intimacy.

9. Gender. Our marriages show, generally, a wholesome mutuality and equality between husband and wife. The men are virile in a mostly gentle, nurturing manner. No type-A males, marines, cops, evangelists, high powered businessmen! Our fathers are intensely attentive to and engaged with their children, especially athletics. This plays a strong stabilizing role through adolescence. For example, my own sons and sons-in-law all spend far more time with the kids than I did in my day.  Gender roles blend the contemporary and traditional. The women place primacy on their maternity, but are confident and competent in their professional lives. Overall there is a stronger feminine influence as the six sisters are extremely close knit and all confident and assertive. Our own five daughters replicate this pattern. We three brothers, the minority, contrast in our attachment to tradition, authority, virility, and associated masculine values. The male/female binary is very pronounced in our family. There remains a soft, implicit feminism in the allegiance of the sisters and their families to the party of legal abortion as defensive of a woman's independence of the state viewed as male and oppressive. A critical mass of the sisters (4) maintain dual allegiance: to both the Catholicism and the political liberalism of our parents.

10. Shared pastimes include: reading, walking, travelling, current events, gardening. As with most families, ours shares a sense of humor that is distinctive but hard to describe. And a source of shared delight!

11.  Loyal to our Irish heritage, our social life is lightened by the free flow of alcohol. Overall there is moderation; but several of us have difficulties here and some are sober in AA. Drugs, including marihuana, are not unknown but rare.

12. Psychological tendencies include: positivity that can avoid addressing the negative; aversion to and avoidance of conflict; contentment with the family and  clannishness; sense of satisfaction and righteousness.

The dark cloud over us is the divide, religiously and politically, between conservative and progressive attitudes. This reflects the realities of our society, but in our family occurs along gender lines as mentioned above. From the conservative perspective, it is a great sorrow that family members have become distanced from our ancestral faith, specifically Sunday Eucharist and practices around sexuality and marriage. From the liberal viewpoint, the males enjoy privilege, power, prestige, righteousness and so adopt a Republican identity that lacks sensitivity to the poor and marginalized, including sexual and racial minorities.  

 A great strength is that we have maintained strong bonds of affection and respect across serious, significant differences. As mentioned, a critical mass of the family maintains loyalty to both our Catholic and our political, Democratic legacies. Equally important is that we have learned how to set aside our fierce opinions and enjoy each other in other dimensions of life. 

Our family is extraordinarily blessed in so many ways. I attribute this to our parents and ancestors: their fidelity to Church and family, through ages of great trial and tribulation including poverty, immigration, prejudice, Depression, world war, cold war, and more. 

May we, in God's good grace, be similarly loyal and pass on this same rich legacy to our young.

Pope Meets with 107 Comedians: Good Idea?

They let comedians in. That is always a bad idea. Always! Conan O'Brien joked after meeting with the pope. 

To philosophize, moralize and pontificate on humor is a tedious, tiresome thing. Laughter, hilarity, comedy, humor and even a simple smile...is the surprising, unexpected eruption of the incongruous, non-intelligible or hyper-intelligible, miraculous, transcendent, serendipitous. It is a Mystery, beyond our control, to be received in delight and gratitude. It is experiential, not cognitive or moral.

Next, we ask: Who is chosen to be with the pope? We find Whoopy Goldberg, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Rock, Julia Louis Dreyfus, and Jim Gaffigan  . These are hardly paragons of Catholic virtue. Some are shamelessly disparaging of things precious to the Catholic soul. Then we ask: Who chose them? We learn that the English language contingent was chosen by James Martin S.J. and his team. Fr. Martin is the Catholic chaplain to woke sexual progressivism. Now the humor of a comedian cannot be separated from his person, style, spirituality, morality, ideology and politics. And so what we have here is Pope Francis drawing close to himself leading comedic celebrities of the progressive elite of the West. He achieved his goal: he is described by them as a lovely, charming man. He feels great; they feel great. Mutual admiration! This is a complex man: the demeanor of affection and humility hides a narcissism that craves the approval of the privileged celebrity class even at the price of affirming them in their very anti-Catholicism. 

Lastly, the shared response of the comedians: "It was bizarre!" Jim Gaffigan compared it to the principal calling in, for a special meeting, the most misbehaving boys of the school. The word "bizarre" means strange, unusual, amusing, eccentric. One might argue that the papal initiative was exactly unusual, but in a wholesome way: affirming the value of genuine humor and bringing together comedians of different faiths and backgrounds into a harmonious friendship. 

I suggest a different interpretation. These are unusually sensitive, intelligent people...intuitive, insightful in ways deeper than cognitive deliberation. They clearly felt a dissonance, a tension, something "off" about joining their world with that of the Pope. They are accurate in this. Even as they fail to explain it. The world of Catholic faith and that of comedy are entirely distinct. They are not contradictory. On some deep, incomprehensible level, there is a connection between the transcendence of worship and the ecstatic liberation of laughter. But that connection is profound and not accessed by a conference in Rome. The "sacred" is precisely that which is "set aside" from the ordinary and the secular. Comedy is something different: risky, free, creative, often teasing the crude and vulgar. To put them together, to conflate them, is to damage both. Human culture in its richness includes diverse worlds which have their own boundaries, integrity and identity:  athletics, entertainment, philosophy, industry, politics, opera...each of these maintain a distinct and set off world. Progressivism represents a decadence in that we cannot watch a football game or the Oscars without an invasion of woke ideology. The workings of the Supreme Court are interpreted through a political lens. Mainstream religions become centers for activism rather than worship. And so, there is a disguised clericalism in the pope inserting himself into the entirely foreign world of comedy, as he has done in regard to policy questions involving borders, death penalty and global warming. 

Lets avoid confusion. Comedians have their place in the scheme of things. Popes have theirs. Let's maintain some wholesome boundaries.

The Onion-Like, Layered Structure of the Church: Catholic and catholic; Centripetal and Centrifugal

Ross Douthat recalls the satisfaction enjoyed by us conservative Catholics toward the end of the Benedict pontificate:  even a left-leaning if reasonable observer like John Allen declared the Catholic Progressive Project to be dead. Subsequently, we were horrified to see it surge back, under Francis, like a zombie in a bad horror movie. Sagely, Ross sees that the compulsion to accommodate to the broader culture is unavoidable, virtually intrinsic the Church. A cult or a sect can erect clear, firm, impervious boundaries against the outer world. Not so the Catholic Church! We are in the world but not of it; in constant intercourse, affirming all that is true, good and beautiful ("catholic") and striving to share with ALL the revelation of Good News we have received. Such a delicate, deep and intimate interaction does not lend itself to absolute, simple, binary, certain clarity.

We might view the Church as a multi-layered onion: at the center a "hard core" that defines its identity as distinct from the world; toward the exterior are layers that interact with the world, absorbing (hopefully) the good, and sharing our own graces. We might consider the core to be the more (capital C) Catholic elements: bridal surrender to Christ in the holiness of Mary and the saints, sacramental communion, infallible Scripture-Tradition-Magisterium, ordained hierarchy, religious orders (especially more contemplative), intensive renewal movements, devotional life of retreats, pilgrimages, and religious practices. Toward the exterior, closer to surface, are the layers in which Church and world interact: missionaries, works of mercy, dialogue, and  (largely lay) engagement with culture-politics-society. 

Within the Church and in her intercourse with the world there surges an infinity of centripetal and centrifugal dynamics: continually the Church retreats to her core, in Christ and the Trinity, worshipping in liturgical and personal prayer, receiving the Word of God mediated by Scripture and Authority, renouncing the world-flesh-devil, remembering the works of God, longing for the coming of the Kingdom. Renewed with Eternal Life, she then surges outward, urgent to share this light with a world in darkness, zealous to rescue all that is worthy in a Creation wounded but yet radiant with the Good.

And so, at the core of the Church, we have our liturgical life, presided over by our priests and bishops, as well as specialized communities including monasteries, renewal centers, lay movements. Some of the more intensive of such groups are: Latin Mass communities, Neocatechumenal Way, some charismatic communities, a number of new and intensively Catholic colleges (Benedictine, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ave Maria, Dallas, etc.) These cherish, protect and develop the precious pearls of our faith that are often despised by the broader culture. In their passionate "Catholicism" they can be tempted to an anxiety, defensiveness, rigidity, and moralism that diminishes their "catholic" capacity to welcome all that is good in the society. 

On the other extreme are those bodies that intensively relate with non-Catholic society and are eager to welcome all that is compatible with the faith. These are prone to the opposite temptation: to imitate prestigious, elite society and disparage elements of our Catholic faith that have become unfashionable or even odious. This would include our larger, more respected universities as well as progressive journals like America, Commonweal, and National Catholic Reporter. 

Ordinary parish life would be layers between the core and the outer shell: a negotiation between the two. There is a spectrum of the more "Catholic-conservative" and the "catholic-Progressive." On the whole, however, there is a remarkable consistency about parish life and our priests, even across cultures and continents.

Balancing "Catholic" and "catholic"

Where in the Church can we engage a wholesome balance, not without tension, between the centripetal and centrifugal forces?

John Paul II and Benedict XIII, as well as Vatican II and the theology that formed it (Balthasar, DeLubac, Congar, Boyer), combine a passionate love of Christ, a rootedness in the past, an openness to all that is good in our world along with a critical renunciation of error and evil.

Monsignor Luigi Giussani similarly exemplified an evangelical positivity and a confident engagement with society and culture. The form and forms of the movement he left, Communion and Liberation, reflect his serenity, fluidity, and openness. In the two decades since his death, however, they have tended to a softness and a disinclination to forcefully engage and contradict the error and darkness increasingly prevalent around us. This has inclined to a disposition to accept and tolerate forces subtly hostile to our Catholic faith. And so the community finds itself currently in a crisis of identity. We hope for them to recover the inspired charism of Giussani.

Intimacy with the poor, Eucharist and Mary, as modeled for us by the saints (Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Madeleine DelBrel and so many others) is the sweet spot which draws us most deeply into union with Christ and his mission in the world.

Catholic Supreme Court Justices, especially Barrett but also Alito, Roberts, Thomas,  and Kavanaugh all apparently practice their Catholic faith (Sunday mass at minimum) while engaging in the secular profession of law with its own integrity, autonomy and finality. The domains of faith and law are distinct but subtly infuse each other.

Ecumenism

This image of a layered onion also illuminates the Church in her ecumenical richness. At the core is the fully "subsistent" Church of Rome, in close relation to the Orthodox and Coptic churches, which retain all the fundamental elements of the primitive Church of Christ. Moving outward, we have other bodies which retain many elements. The mainline Protestant branches (Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist, etc.) were moving closer to Rome after the Council but were simultaneously drawn away as they accommodated to the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, reactive against sexual liberation, have drawn closer to the Catholic core in many respects.

Other groups retain major elements of the Gospel  but are heretical in fundamental ways: Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and Moonies. Islam itself can be understood as a form of Arian Christianity in its strict monotheism and acceptance of the Ten Commandments, despite its rejection of the Incarnation, Trinity, monogamy, and its irrationalism, voluntarism and jihadism.  And so we might imagine these bodies at the outer edge of the onion, vulnerable to the world and the devil but still accepting aspects of Divine Revelation.

Judaism is a special case of course. In a sense it is the inner core of the core of the Church. At the same time, in its rejection of the messiahship of Jesus it is directly contradictory of this inner core. There continues, however, a deep, rich intercourse between the two as we see Messianic Jews, the Hebrew Catholic Fellowship, and the influence of the Gospel on figures like Buber and Heschel.

Conclusion

Catholic life is a dizzyingly dense, complex, rich confluence and interaction of dynamic movements between Church and world: drawing away to be set aside for God; surging outward to share the Revealed Love; suffering persecution; engaging in Culture War; affirming all that is good, true, beautiful and holy. 

Come Holy Spirit! Draw us into the Trinitarian Event of Love! Send us into the world to cherish, protect, rescue and enhance all that comes from your creative will!

The Perfidious, Pusillanimous Grandfather

The five-year old girl has never met her father; has been ignored, denied and abandoned by the entire paternal side of herself. Her grandfather is arguably the most prestigious, powerful man in the world. He embodies, more than anyone...more than Harry Weinstein, Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Donald Trump...masculinity as infidelity, betrayal, dishonesty, cowardice, hypocrisy, weakness. Joe Biden.

This dishonor, timidity, self-righteousness and mendacity runs like a theme throughout his personal and public life:

- Passionately he crusades for the killing of the unborn, the inconvenient little ones. This alone makes him by far the worst President in the history of our country. He would discard every unintended fetus as he has his own blood.

- He presents himself righteously as a pious Catholic, rosary beads in hand, as he betrays our most sacred convictions: forcing the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide contraception and abortion, forcing girls to compete with biological males, coercing Catholic agencies to place little girls with pairs of gay men. There have been worse Catholics in our history, but none so righteous and hypocritical.

- He indulged his son Hunter in collecting millions of dollars from China and Ukraine. Hunter has no marketable skills, except his addictive codependency upon his powerful father.

- Against military advice, he precipitously abandoned in Afghanistan our allies who fought beside us for so many years. Again: betrayal, cowardice, infidelity.

- This cowardly act signaled to our global bad actors that they had a green light to do as they wish, with no retaliation from the USA. Ergo, Putin invades Ukraine.

- In the Ukraine, Biden has systemically done too little too  late out of fear of Putin. Again, cowardice.

- He caters to Iran and floods them with billions of dollars, thus bankrolling terrorism and eventually the desecration out of Gaza by Hamas. 

- He opened our borders and motived poor parents to send 500,000 unescorted minors into the USA without protection as he caters to BLM, LGBTQ, defund the police and the systemic  breakdown of the moral order of our society.

- He has contributed to the inflation that plagues the lower and working classes, as he continues to spend money like a drunken sailor. He is giving billions for student debt relief, thereby benefiting the upper and aspiring middle classes and leaving the lower echelons of society to pay for the bill. All the time he postures as a union man and friend of the poor. Shameless hypocrisy! Donald Trump looks like Honest Abe Lincoln by comparison!

I could go on! Please, don't get me started!

I am a never-Trumper moral conservative and have vowed to myself, hundreds of times over the last decade, that I could never vote for him. That I could not look in the mirror, or sleep at night, or face my grandchildren if I voted for such a vile character. But I have been forced to change my mind. Trump is who he is...despicable. But compared to Joe Biden he is a cross between St. Joseph and El Cid! I will have to pull the lever for Donald Trump in November. He is the lessor evil. He is evil. But he is less than Biden by several levels of gravity!

Frociaggine, The Clerical Gay Culture and the Crisis in Priestly Virility

''Frociaggine" And a Non-Apology

"No! Don't admit gays to the seminaries. There is already enough frociaggine (Italian for "faggotry)!'" Pope Francis notoriously told the Italian bishops this past week. An inauspicious way to enter Pride Month for gay-affirming Catholics!

The Vatican retracted the statement with a weak apology. Such is worse than no apology at all. A genuine apology is a clear, direct, personal statement: "I did wrong. I am sorry. It will not happen again. Please forgive me."

For an incisive treatment of bad celebrity apologies and an exhortation to our bishops see: www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2023/07/17/miranda-sings-apology-videos-scandal-245693  by Laura Oldfather and Brigid McCabe (my granddaughter.)

Francis did not admit wrong doing; did not commit to correct this bad habit; did not ask forgiveness. Rather, a' bureaucrat announced: "The pope never meant to offend or express himself with homophobic terms, and he issues his most sincere apologies to all those who felt offended by the use of a term reported by others."

Sincere! Really? The man does not speak personally. Responsibility is denied. There is no humble request for forgiveness. The wrongdoing is not denied but dismissed: "Sorry about your feelings! I intended no wrong and therefore am entirely innocent! The one to blame: whoever reported it!" 

It is inconceivable that such a word would pass the lips of a Benedict, John Paul, Paul, Paul VI, John XXIII or Pius XII...of happy memory. For a Pope to use a slang term so seeping of contempt is a desecration of his office, of those to whom he refers, and to the dignity of human sexuality and virility.

Homophobia?

In my own life experience, homophobia was part of adolescence, but not adult life. I recall no awareness of it or conversation about it in college seminary 1965-69. In my adult life...Catholic schools and communities, life in Jersey City, and 25 years with UPS truck drivers and similar all-male environments...homosexuality and "gay" was almost entirely absent. No homophobia here! Don't ask, don't tell! No one was asking; no one was telling.

Homophobia is a real thing. But it is largely an aspect of adolescent male insecurity. Most of us suffer such insecurity. Some of us handle it aggressively by attacking the masculinity of others, usually with slurs related to homosexuality as a deficiency in virility. It is the worst possible insult in this world. There are, of course, old men who have not matured beyond this stage.

This is to be distinguished from a wholesome, virtuous reticence and (yes) shame around sexual sins of all sorts. The delicacy, vulnerability and sacredness of sex is such that a healthy culture surrounds it with reticence and respect. My Aunt Grace recalls that her first job, circa 1930 at the age of about 17, she was horrified when the new boss explained that she was replacing a woman who was pregnant. The use of that word between a man and a woman was shocking to her. We have come a long way from that!

Homophobia (much like white racism in USA 2024)  is a marginal, virtually invisible reality, that has been vastly exaggerated by a narcissistic psyche afflicted with insecurity, self-pity, resentment, and craving for approval.

Wisdom Hidden in Slang

Nevertheless, in his regression to vulgar, street slang, Pope Francis is retrieving a core, common sense, populist, moral intuition, one that has been systematically repressed by cultural liberalism since the Great Revolution of the 1960s: sexual intercourse outside of marriage is unmanly, manipulative, dishonorable, shameful.

The most violent word in our language is "f...k."  It means to violate another sexually. It is the most intimate, sacrilegious, contemptuous, violent of acts and of words. We saw this recently in the systematic raping of women in Israel by Hamas. We use the expression "jerk off" to insult a man as sterile, isolated, futile, self-isolated, pathetic. And of course we have a range of expressions to express contempt for the female body.

This is, of course, the language of hell. Entirely Luciferian! It is also the inverse of our Catholic sense of the sacredness of human sexuality and of masculinity and femininity. "The perversion of the best is the worst." The desecration of sexuality is a distinctive, privileged form or evil.

So, we might translate the spontaneous, emotive, unreflective words of Pope Francis: "We must protect and enhance the honorable virility of our priests! Our Church is in a crisis of masculinity." 

Crisis in Priestly and Episcopal Virility

This is most evident, of course, in the priest sex scandal and its widespread coverup by our bishops. It is nauseatingly obscene that men we revere as spiritual Fathers abused our teen sons. And then this was largely covered up by our bishops. This is the most despicable symptom of a broader decadence: the demise of priestly virility. 

Across our society, but most gravely in the Catholic Church, we have seen, since the Sexual Revolution, the demise of masculine virtue as: chastity, fidelity, humility, fortitude, sobriety, magnanimity, prudence, justice, authority, accountability, clarity, certainty, decisiveness, fruitfulness, and paternity. In its place: lust and sexual addiction, self-indulgence, narcissism, histrionics, weakness, pusillanimity, infantilism, self-righteousness, sterility, and the triumph of the therapeutic. 

So we return to the word Pope Francis used: "faggot."  If we hear "They are a bunch of faggots" we do not imagine them practicing sterile sex acts with each other. We imagine unmanly men: passive, weak, cowardly, self-obsessed, vain, insecure, and lacking male vitality. So when he sees "faggotry" in the clergy, it is not only homosexual practice itself that is of concern, but an overall malaise of softness, indecision, and weakness.

He is, of course, correct in his concern!

New, Clerical, Gay Subculture after 1970

In the post-war Camelot of 1945-65 there was a surge of virile, honorable men into the priesthood. Think: Bing Crosby in Bells of St. Mary's, Karl Malden in On the Waterfront, Gregory Peck in Keys of the Kingdom, Spenser Tracey in Boys Town,  Pat O'Brien Angels with Dirty Faces. Every urban parish (in my world) had 4 or 5 priests: the youngest was a good athlete and oversaw CYO sports and youth athletics. In my elementary school, all the boys (even the worst) wanted to be a priest at some time. I myself, upon graduating high school, entered Maryknoll College Seminary, imagining myself as a missionary priest...tall, fit, competent, confident, charismatic, bringing the faith and the sacraments as well as American know-how (agriculture, credit unions, etc.) to the less fortunate. In those years Maryknoll was ordaining 40 to 50 men a year, all eager to set out on a missionary adventure.

That clerical world fell apart in my college years: a flood of men left the priesthood to marry. It is now apparent that in the 1970s, the clerical ethos of virility and Catholic orthodoxy diminished and  large percentages of men with homosexual attraction and even gay identity came to dominate certain seminaries, dioceses and orders. In the wake of the Sexual Revolution, an entire culture developed: practice and approval of homosexuality, but an entire aesthetic, theology, sense of humor, style and way of life. Such men were drawn to each other; many were intelligent, competent and ambitious; they networked and promoted each other up the clerical career ladder. They adapted easily to the cultural liberalism of the broader society and flourished in the "spirit of Vatican II" and the urgency for reform which dominated the Church in the pontificate of Paul VI. It came to be called "the lavender mafia" and is epitomized by the sad "Father" (laicized, he retains the permanent seal of orders) Ted McCarrick.

Effeminate Church

The Catholic Church, Marian, bride of Christ, Mother, is receptive of the Word of God and sacramental grace as mediated by the masculine priesthood.  The fruitfulness of this bride and mother requires the Petrine, masculine, hierarchical ministry that is authoritative, clear, gentle, humble, chaste, courageous, and virile. This Marian/Petrine fecundity has been obscured by a feminism that apes toxic masculinity and a clergy that has become, not merely gay, but largely effeminate. Catholic progressivism is best understood as a retreat from both femininity and masculinity into an androgyny that prefers softness in the male and emphases womanly tendencies (inclusion, acceptance, empathy) to the exclusion of the manly (truth, justice, tradition, boundaries, authority). 

Pontificate of Francis

How strange to hear this prophetic message from this pope! His pontificate has been, in large part, itself a retreat from the virtues of virility. He is allergic to the heroic sexual ethic and moral clarity of his two predecessors; has indulged the LGBTQ cause; is emotive, inconsistent and incoherent in his loose comments; is submissive to the Chinese Communists; biased against the USA; disparaging of  young priests in their respect for authority; repelled by things populist, traditional and conservative, and volunteered as chaplain to the causes (environment, open borders, etc.) of the effeminate Western elite.

Worst of all, his appointments have favored men in the emasculated McCarrick tradition: Parolin, Fernandez, Cupich, Tobin, Gregory, McElroy and others. 

Butker Commencement Talk

I delighted in the kicker's talk as a heartfelt, courageous witness of a strong Catholic who loves his Church, his wife/family and his Latin mass. A war cry from the Catholic underclass! I would respond with some criticism: I respect and enjoy the TLM but my love is for the Catholic Eucharist, in any form. I applaud his exaltation of maternity and paternity but would also encourage the female graduates to bring their distinctive genius to every place in society. But mostly I would qualify his hard treatment of priests and bishops.

I share his disappointment and even sense of betrayal: the closing of the Churches during the pandemic was inexcusable. I have not heard a word of regret from a bishop. We have too many priests and bishops that are soft, accommodating, lacking in clarity, certainty, courage and Catholicity. 

However, I know so many fine priests and bishops, honorable and virile men, who labor sacrificially for all of us. They continue the traditions we inherited from our ancestors. They are widely despised across our society. They are often lonely and discouraged. These men we cannot adequately appreciate and encourage! Let us fervently pray for them! And for our young men to follow on this path!

Lord Jesus,  Spouse of the Church, thank you for the fine men who serve us so generously! Encourage, strengthen, comfort, guide and sanctify them! Raise up new priests from our young people! Guide and protect our pope, bishops and priests always!