It is the rich variety of influences that make my thinking...theological, philosophical, political...distinctive, particular and personal. .The strongest of these:
1. Catholic Faith of My Family. Happily, I have retained and developed the faith of my family: Irish-American, urban, working class, post-war, liberal, devout, late-Tridentine moving into Vatican II Catholicism. The Council occurred in my high school years and was received globally in my college seminary time. It was not a contradiction, but a further expression of my childhood faith. In college years (1965-9), reading voraciously, I enthusiastically imbibed the progressivism of the post-Council Church. Sequestered in a wholesome, quasi-monastic enclave under the beneficence of the Maryknoll Fathers, we enjoyed thriving friendships that remain today after more than half a century.
2. Cursillo/Charismatic. The singular weakness of the Catholicism of my youth was lack of an encounter, an evangelical-experiential relationship with Jesus Christ. In Spring of 1973, age 25, with my wife I came to personally know Jesus as Lord and Savior at a Cursillo weekend. Immediately after that we joined the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and experienced the Pentecostal anointing of the Holy Spirit. For over five years we were immersed in this and influenced by the Catholic-Charismatic synthesis presented by Ralph Martin, Steve Clark and others.
3. Jesuit Theologians Joseph Whelan and Avery Dulles taught me at Woodstock Theologate, NYC, 1970-2 at beginning of our marriage. From Dulles I received a classic, balanced, orthodox-yet-ecumenical Catholicism. Whelan, himself a mystic, taught courses on Prayer and the Catholic Saints. He opened up for me the mystical depths underlying all genuine Catholic theology and introduced me to Balthasar and his own specialty, Baron Fredrick von Hugel.
4. John Paul, Balthasar, Benedict, American Communio. Mid-1970s, even before John Paul became pope, I was deeply reading Communio and the thought of these three titans mediated by David L. Schindler and the John Paul II Institute in Washington DC. These came to define my mature theological outlook.
5. Divine Mercy Revelations to Saint Faustina as taught by St. John Paul: Mercy informed by truth, justice, not the cheaper, diluted form.
6. Culture War erupted in the 1970s around the unborn, sexuality/marriage/gender, and other. As the DNC renounced primal Catholic values, I became a (reluctant) Republican, an anti-progressive conservative and a culture warrior against the bulk of my boomer generation.
7. Mother Theresa of Calcutta as well as Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Madelene del Brell, Caryl Houselander, Charles de Focauld and others aroused a desire to befriend the poor.
8. Humble Mysticism of Therese of Lisieux, Solanus Casey, Brother Andre, Fr. Leopoldo and others awakened a desire for the "little way" of faith and trust.
9. Gilson and Maritain. Earlier, in my college philosophy major, I read these neo-Thomists as I was studying the great 19century antagonists of Christianity: Marx, Nietzsche, Darwin and company. These deepened and clarified my Catholicism and inoculated me against progressivism
10. Ivan Illich. Again, at the end of college and the 1960s I was deeply influenced by the radical critique of technological modernity of Illich, Schumacher, Ellul and kindred spirits. The eccentric, iconoclastic Illich combined a breathtakingly profound anarchism built upon his own mystical spirit and a disguised Thomism.
11. 12 Steps of Bill W. In middle age, I was blessed to practice the 12 steps in regard to persisting compulsions.
12. "Neocatechesis" of Kiko Arguello, in which I walked for a few years, intensified my desire to live the Gospel radically in community.
13. OLME. More recently, Sister Joan Noreen, of happy memory, has helped us through Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist to ground our marriage in a solid Catholic rule of life around Eucharist, rosary, liturgy of the hours and other.
14. Mimetic Anthropology of Rene Girard as presented by Gil Baile.
15. Catholic Psychologists: Paul Vitz, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Fr. Charles Curran, Joseph Nicolosi, Elizabeth Amberly, Adrian von Kaam, Conrad Baars, Karl Stern.
16. Personalist Philosophers: St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Martin Buber, Maurice Blondel, John Paul and Benedict.
17 Catholic Fiction Writers:. Graham Green (Power and Glory), Flannery O'Connor's short stories, Dostoevsky (Brothers Karamozov), Myles Connolly (Mr. Blue) and movie directors John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock.
18. Catholic Neo-Conservatives of First Things: Neuhaus, Novak, Weigel, Reno. They are strong on the Culture War, the Catholic Evangelical Dialogue, and an assertive USA against aggressors including China, Russia, Iran, and Islamic terrorism. In political economics I am to the left of them. In evaluation of (Protestant) American Culture I side with the more critical, deep-Catholic view of the David Schindlers.
19. Political Toxicity and extreme polarization of the cultural left and the MAGA world drive me to the Benedict Option (Rod Dreher) in which our Catholic energies are directed more to the immediate and concrete of family, local Church and intermediate organizations. This is balanced by the "Christian Strategy" of Adrian Vermeule which detaches from ideology but inclines to cooperate in good projects with any and all parties.
20. New Catholic Right is where I place some modest political hope. The Cultural Liberalism of the DNC is my despised antagonist. An anti-MAGA moral conservative, I have remained liberal-leaning politically as I never became a fusionist Republican. So I follow with interest Sohab Ahmari, Yuval Levin, Ross Douthat, JD Vance, Patrick Dineen, Marco Rubio as they develop a populism that is Catholic-friendly in both cultural/moral and economic dimensions.
It is a blessing and honor to stand on the shoulders of such giants.
May we receive, cherish, defend, enhance and above all hand on the legacy given us.
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