At the Same Time, Agents of Evil and Doers of Good... in Our Time

 It is a truism that each of us has within both good and bad, that every saint has a past as every sinner a future, that (as in the cartoons) an angel of light sits on one shoulder and a demon of darkness on the other. But I have been flabbergasted, again and again over my near 80 years, to see that some of us are capable, simultaneously,  of both great good and immense evil. 

Philosophically this does not make sense to me. As a Catholic, I know each of us is in a state of grace or state of sin. Grace is friendship with God; not perfection, but basic union. The state of mortal sin is a decisive rejection of God, a defining separation from God, an enslavement to evil. This is a hard binary. It is not for us to judge each other. Indeed, we may be unsure of our own status, so clouded is our culpability by emotional frailty and wounds. But the ontological/moral binary is clear and definite. 

The logic of this model includes that both sin and grace are aggressive, expansive, active. So, if grace is strong in the soul,  it is getting all the time stronger, it is never content or calm. Likewise, evil is contagious, infectious, proliferative. If it has a stronghold in the heart it is on the offensive. And so, in the long game, the two cannot coexist: both are active; eventually one prevails. There can never be a truce or a mutual understanding. Can a man persist in adultery or addictive pornography and still go out each morning to serve the poor sacrificially? I think not. Eventually good or evil will prevail. Wilhelm Reich was therapist for woman who was masturbating and praying. He told her to stop praying. He realized the two could not coexist. If she continued in prayer his crusade to "liberate" her sexually would be doomed. 

It is remarkable that the greatest saints were the most emphatic in their ask for the prayer of others, in their sense of vulnerability to evil. St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, probably the greatest saint of the last 100 years, befriended, all over the world, quadriplegic invalids  and asked for their prayers, immensely efficacious as victim souls. Shortly before her death she was exorcized as she was tormented in her fragility by the oppression of Satan.

Clearly, prior to each person's "particular judgment," immediately after death, the dilemma is permanently resolved: you go downstairs or upstairs (by way of purgatory?); there is no limbo, no third option, no endless recycling, no final annihilation, no negotiated compromise!

I personally incline strongly to the theological opinion (neither endorsed nor rejected by the Church) that at the very moment of death, Christ encounters every saint and sinner, manifesting his wounds suffered for each of us, offering Mercy and Eternal Life, requesting contrition and forgiveness. In that mini-second, all ambiguity is resolved in decision and finality.

In this life none of us enjoy such clarity. A priest in confession told me I would still be struggling with a particular sin until "my body was cold in the grave four days." This colorful exaggeration was both refreshing and helpful: it set me up for the long game.

Let's ponder a long list of strikingly dramatic actors on the stage of our time (last 80 years) who did so much good and so much evil at the same time. For the most part, we are unaware of the following clearly and decisively acknowledging, in contrition and reparation, the evil done. And yet, we cannot deny the good done.

(Note dear Reader that I will resist my compulsion to rank by number. Measurement of good and evil we leave up to God.)

John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Caesar Chavez.  These have a personal priority for me as they were heroes of my youth: agents for the good, radiant with charm, intelligence, courage. And yet, each abused women in marital infidelity. Each exemplified the sexual revolution exploding at the time.

Fr. Bruce Ritter and Jean Vanier.  These heroes of my own adulthood were perhaps the greatest disappointments for me. They both did outstanding work, with Covenant House and L'Arche. Ritter was the standard homosexual priest predator of vulnerable teen boys. Vanier was more complex and perverse: he used spiritual intimacy to abuse trusting young women. The evil is preposterous; but it does not erase the good.

Fr. Marcial Maciel.  He is possibly the most personally depraved of these actors, and yet it cannot be denied that there is immense good in his legacy, Regnum Christi and Legionnaires of Christ. Two of my daughters were deeply touched in listening to him in the Vatican in 1998 when John Paul convened the Renewal Movements for the year of the Holy Spirit. My family was befriended by women from Regnum Christi and they had good influence. My daughter did her doctorate in psychology at IPS (Institute for Psychological Studies) which is sponsored by Regnum Christi. The bad done does not erase the good.

Fr. (a priest forever) Ted McCarrick. He died in disgrace, the face of the priest scandal in the USA. Also bad was his performance as Cardinal in Washington DC where he became chaplain to the pro-abortion Catholic progressives. Yet he did much good work, especially in his years as Archbishop of Newark. I know priests to whom he was personally kind. He had an intense (decidedly clerical) faith. He had enormous talent, energy and charm. Recently, a ninety-something-year-old monsignor friend  told me of his continued admiration for the work he did here in Newark. He agreed to say a mass for McCarrick at my request. He would not take the standard $10 offering.

Cardinals Law and Bernadine. Again, gifted, influential prelates who did much good but are remembered respectively for neglect of the priest abuse and the misused "seamless garment" doctrine.

Bernie Madoff.  For reasons I can't explain, he  is a favorite of mine. He loved his family and protected them from involvement in the Ponzi scheme. He was extravagantly generous in his philanthropy and the way he treated employees and friends. He was idolized as an icon of competence and integrity in the world of finance. You do not get that level of esteem without some underlying substance. My view is that he got trapped in the scheme and then could not get out. Anyway, it was just money. Not like he was seducing someone's daughter or something.

Osama bin Laden. A multimillionaire, he left this indulgent life to fight the Soviets and then the Americans in the cause of his God (god?). His courage and commitment to his faith is exemplary. This is shared by other Jihadists. This is a false god, an idol of violence, but the virtue cannot be denied.

Franco and Salazar.  Authoritarians who crushed human rights, they were also opponents of the greater evil of communist totalitarianism as well as fervent defenders of the Catholic faith. Salazar was particularly an exemplar of personal moral integrity as well as Catholic piety. These head a list of authoritarians who resisted the Soviet Empire in the Cold War and thereby offered the mixture of good and bad normal in politics: Diem, Batista, Samosa, Marcos, the Shaw of Iran and others.

Tito and Castro.  Both brutal totalitarians. But Tito did resist the Soviet Union, build his economy, and kept the peace among ethnic Serbs, Croatians, Muslims and other. In light of the genocidal war that exploded when he was gone, he does not look quite so bad.  Castro admittedly did lift the literacy level and offer services to the poor. In 1980, Maryknoll Magazine infamously published an article lauding Castro's accomplishments over 20 years. It was preposterously one-sided. But the good done cannot be denied. 

Rev. Jimmy Baker,  an Evangelical rock star preacher in the 1970s,  was well received in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. I hear him and was much impressed. With Tammy his wife, he built a wealthy empire before falling in scandals of sex and fraud. He divorced and was imprisoned. After that, he returned to ministry, renouncing the prosperity gospel in favor of an apocalyptic, survivalist version. He is now 86 years old and active on the media. I know that he loves our Lord Jesus and tirelessly proclaims him. His theology is still wacky, but that doesn't (necessarily) make him a bad person, although it doesn't help! An "Elmer Gantry on steroids" he is one of a string of talented preachers who fell into sin.

Pope Francis.  A man of the poor, of deep piety, of zeal for the Gospel, Francis was confused and confusing theologically and often vented his personal resentments from the Chair of Peter. Again: the good done and the bad are both pronounced. 

Donald Trump.  As a moral exemplar, he is a catastrophe within a trainwreck: deeply depraved in many dimensions. Yet, he rose to power as defender of the underdog in the class war and champion of traditional-family-religious values in the culture war. 

Jeffrey Epstein.  This is admittedly a stretch. He did no body of great work. He systemically, compulsively groomed and abused adolescent women. I read that he had a group of friends from childhood and was loyal to them over the years. That is not nothing. The most striking thing in his story, after his astonishing accumulation of wealth, is the intense trust and loyalty he elicited: from the most wealthy, powerful, accomplished men across the globe as well as the "victims" who often returned to his company, even recruiting friends and sisters. This is the glamour of evil. But such loyalty and trust must be responsive to something real.

Vladimir Putin.  A brutal tyrant and nationalistic imperialist, he does defend traditional-family-religious values against the Cultural Progressivism of the West. He is not wrong about that.

Brennan Manning  A charismatic, gifted, extraordinary Franciscan, he left the priesthood; married; destroyed his marriage with his drinking;  continued in Evangelical circles as a popular, influential preacher. He passionately proclaimed the Gospel: God loves us unconditionally, even in our sin. He lived this himself. He remained a flaming alcoholic until his death. He would preach a three day retreat; go on a four day bender; and then jet to his next retreat. His was a Catholic funeral in St. Rose Church, Belmar NJ,  about a mile from where I sit now.

Fr. Jim Ferry, of happy memory, was spiritual Godfather for me and all of us Charismatic Catholics in NJ in the 1970s. For evangelical zeal and energy, I put him in the league of St. Paul and St. Francis Xavier. He spoke at a charismatic prayer meeting in Jersey City in Spring of 1973: after being introduced, before speaking, he fell to his knees, asking us to intercede for him to the Holy Spirit. I never forgot that! Hands down he is the most influential NJ Catholic of the last 80 years. I was puzzled by the end of his life. Sickly, he detached from leadership in the People of Hope Community he founded just as they got into trouble with Archbishop Gerity. With his charismatic and clerical credentials, he would have easily resolved the conflict. Dying, he called in a long list of friends to ask forgiveness. This ending made no sense to me until I learned he apparently had a consensual romance with an adult woman. I was not surprised or shocked: he was a man of immense virile energies and affections. This endeared him all the more to me. He is on a short lists of holy priests who impacted me and to whom (not for whom) I pray daily.

Fr. John Corapi.  He ended a wildly successful life of sin (money, sex, etc.) with a powerful conversion and became a high-powered, widely influential preacher, notably on EWTN. My nephew was personally,  deeply impacted by him at a men's conference. My son's mother-in-law used his tapes effectively in her prison ministry. He came into money and secretly returned to his habits of sin. When scandal erupted he went into secrecy. For about 15 years he has been off the media screen. This may be good news: a report is that he is living a private life of prayer and penance and in good standing in his religious order. He went from bad to good to bad...and now, hopefully, back to good.

Why and How the Coexistence of Such Dramatic Good and Evil?

We do not consider here the legion of gifted artists, actors, entertainers, musicians and celebrities who give us delight, beauty, truth and yet fall into spiritual chaos. For example, Kevin Spacey, among the  greatest actors of his generation,  was accused of sexual advances to a number of teen boys. He denies the charges; was acquitted in court; but did settle in confidential financial agreements. His career was destroyed. Does this invalidate all his work? I think not. But honestly, (call me a repressed, guilt-ridden, Irish Catholic Jansenist if you want), I cannot quite enjoy his work as much now. Another case: ex-Jesuit Rupnik, among the most celebrated Catholic artists in the world, used his spiritual status to serially abuse trusting young women. Troublingly, he remains a priest in good standing as his trial goes on forever. Is his conspicuous artwork now to be erased from Churches and sacred places? Given the sacred nature of his work and the severe gravity of his offense, I think so! We see that this commingling of good/evil and fantasy/reality arouses deep, complex questions. 

I am sure, dear Reader, that you can add to this list. Also you have your own personal list, family and friends, of those who did clear good and definite evil.

A dear collaborator asked: "Why is it that over the years since the Council, SO SO SO  many founders and leaders of marvelous movements have fallen into deep darkness?"  It is deeply troubling. 

My colleague suggested that where the Holy Spirit moves strongly for the good, the energies of hell are aroused and target the agent of mercy and truth. This makes perfect sense. Each of us, in this life, is a drama, a battleground between the two kingdoms. It is a great mystery!

 So often we see that charisma, charm, energy, intelligence, influence, affection and even authentic piety are strangely, secretly, accompanied by a proclivity to depravity, especially the sexual. We cannot explain this.

Conclusion

We were pre-warned that life here is always the "weeds and wheat." Short of judgement, the particular for each of us and the general for all of us, the two cannot be precisely separated.

Thank God for Purgatory! 

If God, in his infinite Mercy,-Wisdom-Justice, had not created it, we would have to make it up. 

First of all, each of us gets to clean up our mess, make our amends, pay our debts, and prepare properly for an eternity of absolute holiness and happiness. Honestly, many lives seem to end incomplete, desperate for final resolution. Purgatory is a structure of Hope.

Secondly, we can help those who have passed, especially those we love, and also the above who gave so much but did such harm.

Thirdly, when we pray for the suffering souls and to the saints in heaven our life here and now is transformed by Hope, it takes on a new, joyous perspective. The heaviness of evil is lightened by the goodness of God.

Lastly, we are grateful for those who will pray for us when we pass. In purgatory we will be passive, suffering purification, but incapable of meritorious initiative of our own. We will  receive God's stern Mercy and benefit from the prayers of the living. 

This life on earth,  "on its own," is frustrating, disappointing, futile, incomplete, tragic. But it is not "on its own." It is transitory. It is a test. It is preparation for the Real Thing, heaven forever. 

May God be Merciful...and Just...to the above...and to all of us!

Assaults Upon the Catholic Church in the USA after 1965

Immediately with the conclusion of Vatican II, the Church in America came under fierce attacks. These were not from outsiders: not from Communists, Jihadists, Free Masons, Anti-Papists, Nietzchean anarchists, Vikings, Visigoths or Vandals. It was from within our Church. The infection of progressivism spread viciously within the organism of the Church...and has been wrecking havoc since.

Notwithstanding the valid achievements of the Council, the American Church in 1965 was weakened by 20 years of prosperity, contentment, and global dominance. In large part, Catholicism in the USA had gone bourgeois, suburban, materialist, complacent, meritocratic, self-satisfied, consumerist, and secular. The spiritual immune system of Catholicism was gravely compromised. The infection spread rapidly and disastrously. 

Let's consider  twelve specific events or markers in this development.

1. Triumph of the Therapeutic.  

Emblematic is Eugene Kennedy, Maryknoll priest-psychologist who taught in Maryknoll College Seminary when I studied there 1965-9. An enormously gifted, charming man, he was a Catholic rock star at the time and elicited the esteem of most of the seminarians. At that time, of my relatively liberal youth, I was alone in my visceral hatred for his agenda. He left the priesthood, married, influenced very many priests/nuns, and went on to become antagonist of the John Paul and his theology of the body. He himself was an ardent protege of the humanistic psychology of Carl Rogers.

He is a significant, singular player in the catastrophic social dynamic identified in Triumph of the Therapeutic by Philip Rieff already in 1966. Some years later, Christopher Lasch would develop this line of thought further in The Narcissistic Personality of our Time. In the snap of a finger, as if by magic, in 1965, the centuries old ethos of discipline, sacrifice, and communal commitment was replaced by one of self-indulgence and personal fulfillment. In the late 1960s, the teachings of Rogers and Maslow were introduced into religious communities to "renew them." Most infamously, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in California were entirely destroyed by this new ethos of self-fulfillment. Broadly across religious communities and Catholic higher education, psychological models (values clarification, Jungian psychotherapy, etc.) replace traditional practices of prayer, obedience and discipline. 

2. Kennedy Family Hyannis Port Theological Conference on Legalized Abortion 1964.

Anticipating the imminent culture war, the Kennedy family convened a conference of progressive Catholic moral theologians (Curran, McCormick, Drinan, etc.) who used (I would say "misused") the thought of John Courtney Murray to allow a Catholic politician to be "personally opposed" but still support legal abortion. Courtney had famously distinguished the moral from the legal: it was possible that a moral evil be legally permitted for the common good. For example, at this very time he wrote that Catholic, while opposed personally to artificial contraception, might well vote to decriminalize it for the overall common good. He died in 1967 without clearly judging legalization of abortion. The Kennedy Conference (which was followed later by related meetings) decisively opened the door for Catholic Democrats to be pro-legal-abortion. This was later strengthened by Mario Cuomo in his famous Notre Dame speech and gives us Pelosi, Biden, and all the Kennedys and Cuomo's.

3. Notre Dame Conferences on Population and Contraception (Summers 1963-7).

In the "population panic" of the time, Fr. Ted Hesburg convened a series of conferences to confront the expected crisis by developing a new Catholic approach to contraception. These were largely funded by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, WASP organizations which were threatened by the high birthrates of competing ethnicities: especially black Americans and Roman Catholics. This occurred also during the explosion of the Sexual Revolution with its urgent compulsion to detach sex from procreation. Participants here later advocated for change in the Papal Commission which approved of contraception but was overruled by Pope Paul VI in his historic Humanae Vitae. These conferences were influential in the rising tide in favor of contraception. It is ironic that Hesburg was working so closely with these WASP, elite interests even as he convoked the Land of Lakes Conference.

4. Land of Lakes Conference 1967

Fr. Ted Hesburg of Notre Dame gathered leaders of the most prestigious Catholic universities, notably Jesuit ones, and together they declared their academic independence from the Church hierarchy and the Catholic faith. They embraced an ideal of academic freedom, of detachment from the Church, even as they were fervently emulating Ivy League and prestigious secular schools. Fr. Ted McCarrick was there representing Catholic University of Puerto Rico. From this point, the Catholic Academy was divorced from the Church and entangled in a depraved union with cultural progressivism.

5. Fr. Charles Curran and the Rejection of Humanae Vitae 1968

Immediately upon the release of Humanae Vitae, Curran led 87  theologians in public rejection of the teaching. He received the support of his bishop, of Archbishop Bernadine, and much of the American Church. Cardinal O'Boyle of Washington and Chancellor of Catholic University called for his dismissal. The Board eventually deferred to a faculty decision to protect his academic freedom. O'Boyle did discipline 39 local diocesan priests who had signed the letter, withdrawing permission to preach, teach or hear confessions. The Vatican overruled this, reinstating the priests without penalty. This is known as "The Truce of 1968." The Vatican aligned with the faculty against the Cardinal, allowing a de facto, openly divided Church on this issue, avoiding consequences of a clear judgment. In 1984, Cardinal Ratzinger under John Paul revoked Currans certification to teach in a pontifical institution so he left Catholic University for Southern Methodist University in Dallas. This truce or compromise of 1968 decisively gave form to the subsequent Church as divided on contraception.

6. Fr. Robert Drinan S.J. Congressman 1971-81

As Jesuit-Priest-Politician Drinan fiercely defended legal abortion. He opposed Clinton's veto of a bill to outlaw partial birth abortion. He was widely lionized in the Jesuit order, under the leadership of Fr. Arrupe, and maintained a high status career in academia after he retired from politics in deference to the order of John Paul that no priests hold political office. He strengthened the Kennedy legacy that allowed Catholic to support legal abortion.

7. Cardinal Bernadine's "Seamless Garment Doctrine" 1984

In his time as Cardinal in Chicago (1982-96) Bernadine was surely the most influential American prelate. For example, he got a consensus of American bishops to affirm a statement on nuclear weapons  that, paradoxically (self-contradictorily?) allowed for nuclear deterrence but never actual nuclear usage. A man of extraordinary talent, he was irenic to a fault, seeking above all peace in the Church. With his famous, influential "seamless garment doctrine," and book of that title in 1984, he articulated a consistent Catholic social ethic in defense of all human life and against all threats including abortion but also capital punishment, poverty, war, hunger and so forth. In the abstract, of course, this is precisely the heart of Catholic social ethics. It's defining error was a failure to contrast actions that are inherently evil (abortion, euthanasia, IVF, adultery, deliberate killing of innocents) from the broad range of problems that admit of a variety of prudential responses (housing, war, tax policy, immigration, poverty). The actual effect of this ethic in the American Church was to empower progressives to renounce abortion in principle, but then assert the liberal position on prudential issues to be in fact the Catholic view. This allowed them to vote consistently prochoice Democrat with seamless Catholic self-confidence and condemn those with different judgments as bad Catholics. His legacy has been continued by McCarrick, Cupich, Tobin, Gregory, McElroy and in softer fashion by Pope Leo.

8. Ratzinger Letter and McCarrick Duplicity 2004

Vatican's Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a private letter to McCarrick and Bishop Gregory, for the bishops, clearly directing that Catholic politicians who persist in campaigning for abortion, after warning, are not to be admitted to communion. McCarrick did not read the letter but misconstrued it to advocate a softer, ad hoc approach. This convinced the bishops to avoid the clear policy of Ratzinger and leave it to the pastoral discretion of the local bishop. This again enhanced the ambiguity and confusion over Catholic acceptance of abortion.

9. Feminist Theologians 

Starting in the 1970s, the advocacy for female priests and the meta-narrative of patriarchy ...Daly, Fiorenza, Reuther, Chittister, Carr...reconfigured the Catholic Church as sexist, misogynist, and intrinsically unjust. This newfound contempt for the institutional Church became pervasive across academia and especially in women's religious orders. 

10. Priest Sex Scandal

By far the greatest assault upon the Church in our time, this was actually two distinct but related scandals: first, the abuse of youth by priests; and second, the failure of bishops to respond to it. Both dimensions of the scandal were "perfect storms" of converging dynamics: the context of the sexual revolution, large number of "gay" priests, clerical protectiveness of the reputation of the Church, fear of litigation, a false confidence in the therapeutic, loosening of  our traditional Catholic sexual ethos, and other. With over 80% of victims being adolescent males, it was overwhelmingly a homosexual crisis, and not primarily one of pedophilia which is abuse of prepubescent children. 

11.  Gay Militance and Fr. Jim Martin S.J.

Fr. Martin is easily the most articulate, appealing and influential voice within the Church for the normalization of homosexuality. Recent polls show that 70% of American Catholics accept this practice as normal. In this view, of course, our traditional Catholic ethos of sexuality is reconfigured as homophobic, hateful and unjust. Pope Francis with his infamous "blessing of same sex unions" has effectively endorsed this view. Pope Leo promises to continue this. After an apparently happy meeting with Fr. Martin, he met with Courage, a group that advocates classical chastity. He is trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. 

12. Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr

Fr. Rohr is arguably the singular most popular, influential voice in current American Catholic spirituality. He is today what Eugene Kennedy was in the 1960-70s. He offers the appealing "spiritual, not so religious" option in the Catholic environment. Again, he is immensely talented, intelligent and charming. He blends the therapeutic, 12-step practice, and Catholic traditions with a winsome, softly-mystical gentleness. He wants to forget about sin, and talk about our wounds. He dislikes boundaries. You will not find here fascination with the passion and death or a cult of sacrifice. This is an irresistible offering for the bourgeois American Church. Under his grandfatherly affection and charm, however, he harbors a resentment of the actual, institutional Church. He sees the Church institution as essentially legalistic, dogmatic, controlling, infantizing and unloving. His is a sophisticated, appealing anti-papalism. It harshly judges the sacramental, hierarchical, magisterial Church (whose representatives are, we know so well, sinners like us) as corrupted and offers a more "enlightened," inclusive, compassionate Catholicism. It is Catholicism soft, light, accommodating, and superior to the Church of two millennia. 

Conclusion

We have here a "rogue's gallery" of those who have done much damage to the Church of our time: Eugene Kennedy, the Kennedy family and friends, Charles Curran, Hesburgh, Drinan, McCarrick, Bernadine, Martin, Rohr, and a legion of others. 

Note Well:  The above is not to impugn the character of these actors. They are first of all extraordinarily intelligent, talented, charming and influential. Many are known for their moral caliber and personal holiness. Each has made immense contributions to the Church. It is, of course, precisely these outstanding qualities and contributions that have given their judgments such consequences. 

Each has done direct, significant damage, in all self-righteousness, to Mysteries sacred to our faith: the inviolate dignity of every innocent human, the spousal (unitive, procreative) meaning of sexuality, the masculine priesthood as representative of Christ as spouse of the Church, the sacredness of the institutional/magisterial/sacramental Church, the union of faith and reason. They in large part replaced traditional Catholic ethics and worship with a cult of the therapeutic, sterile sexuality, and leftist politics. 

While we admire them and give thanks for the good they have done, we in truth see clearly the harm they have inflicted on the Church of our time.

Most Influential, Learned, Holy American Catholics of our Time (1945-2026)

Powerful Populist Evangelists

1. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, incomparable evangelist

2. Fr. Patrick Peyton, the family rosary post war

3. Ralph Martin and collaborators in directing Catholic Charismatic Renewal post 1967

4. Mother Angelica, EWTN

5. Thomas Merton (of Seven Story Mountain of 1948 - 1965, not so much later Merton)

6. Frank Sheed and Maisy Ward in Sheed and Ward publishing company post war

7. Bishop Robert Barron today

8. Giuseppe Gennarini in bringing the Neocatechumenate to the USA

Contemporary American Doctors of the Church

1. David L. Schindler and collaborators (son David C., Lopez, Hanby, Healy) in proposing the Nuptial Mysticism of John Paul, Benedict and Balthasar to the American Church.

2. Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J. who stands alone for depth, breath, orthodoxy of teaching.

3. Fr. John Oesterreicher, immigrant and convert who influenced the significant Vatican II teaching on the Jews.

4. John Courtney Murray S.J. who directly influenced the Vatican II document on religious freedom.

5. Fr. Stanley Jaki, immigrant, brilliant scientist-theologian who wrote broadly on those areas.

6. Scott Hahn, brilliant, popular biblical scholar, has lead a "new Oxford Movement" of intellectual evangelicals into the Church.

7. Influential philosophers: Peter Kreft, Alasdair MacIntyr.

8. Catholic Charismatic theologians: Francis Martin, Killian McDonnell, Ralph Martin, Kevin Ranaghan, Mary Healy, George Montague, Ed O'Connor, Steve Clark.  

9. Neoconservatives Neuhaus, Novak, Weigel, George for their culture war ferocity and dialogue with Evangelicals. Their exaltation of American, free-market, democratic liberalism however needs balancing with Catholic values of subsidiarity and solidarity with the suffering.

10. Rene  Girard, immigrant from France.

Saints and Holy Ones

1. St. Katherine Drexell (1858-1955) only canonized American saint alive in our era.

2. Blessed Fr. Stanley Ruther (1935-81) Missionary and martyr in Guatemala. 

3. Blessed Fr. Solanus Casey (1870-1957) Capuchin, healer, humble lover of the poor.

4. Venerable Emil Kapaun (1915-61) Chaplain, military hero in Korean war.

5. Venerable Aloysius Schwartz, extraordinary servant of  poor orphans in South Korea. 

6. Servant of God Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Catholic Worker founders

7. Servant of God Cardinal Terrence Cook

8. Servant of God Fr. Vincent Capodanno MM, military chaplain hero in Vietnam War.

9. Servant of God Michele Dupong, joyous and holy 29 year old died serenely of cancer 2015.

10. Delores (Mama) Gili, Italian immigrant wife, mother who assisted the needy and propagated devotion to the Holy Face in Orange NJ

We stand on the shoulders of giants!

Four-Splendored Love: Filial, Fraternal, Spousal, Paternal/Maternal

 Four Loves by C.S. Lewis gave us the abiding, classical typology  of love: affection (storge), friendship (philia), romance (eros), and charity (agape). But I have come to prefer an alternate fourfold understanding based more clearly on the essential relationships that define the natural family...biologically, emotionally, spiritually. These loves are: filial, fraternal/sororal/friendship, spousal, paternal/maternal. These structure the family as they analogously inform all human relationships even as they image the boundless, diverse love(s) of the Holy Trinity.

Filial is love of the child for mother/father, of the creature for the Creator, of the receiver for the giver, of the needy inferior for the generous superior. It is rooted in receptivity as in the affection of Lewis. For Lewis affection is a low form of love as our pets have such for us. But human, filial love is a far deeper reality, at once emotional, moral, spiritual. 

It begins in the receptivity of the infant: the experience of comfort, pleasure, safety, delight while suckling at the breast and gazing at the mother's face. From here it flows organically into gratitude, trust (the first developmental stage for Eric Ericson), mutuality in affection, loyalty and loving obedience. Eventually it matures into respect, honor, reverence and adoration.

It is the essential, foundational love we have as creatures for our Creator. Human love is first and foremost always receptive. We did not decide to exist. That we live at all is entirely gratuitous. And so, the foundation of all love is gratitude. The only fitting response to grace and gift is thanks and praise. Nothing we do or achieve is adequate to reciprocate what we have received...except thanks and praise.

This primal love goes beyond our immediate parents to all who protect, provide, guide and care for us: grandparents, uncles/aunts, mentors, coaches, teachers, priests, police, military, governors as well as family, ethnicity, religion (Church), nation.

It is as well the root love from which flow the others: fraternal, spousal, paternal.

Fraternal, Sororal, Friendship is very close to Lewis's friendship or philia, but we root it here more deeply in love of brother/sister. It flows from shared blood, same mother/father and heritage. By extension, friendship beyond the family reflects a analogous form. There is a basic equality, notwithstanding differences in age, between siblings as between friends. It entails a symmetry in contrast to the asymmetry of filial/parental love.  There is a permanent union of blood and family. For friendship there is a sharing in some value, activity, belief or such. With this love there is more detachment than there is in filial, parental and spousal love. What bonds is a third factor...interest, faith, hobby, loyalty. It is more lighthearted and playful. It blends well with the other loves which are not absolutely exclusive of each other: father/sons who golf or fish and mothers/daughters who shop and plan gatherings. It is a prerequisite for a strong spousal love, even prior to the sexual, romantic, unitive and generative.

Spousal  love, flowering out of filial and fraternal, is the fulfillment of the eros or romantic love of Lewis. In our Catholic tradition, sexual or even romantic attraction, even when mutual, do not enjoy a stable, enduring ontological status of their own. Rather, they are dimensions of or moments within the greater, denser, complex reality of spousal, conjugal or marital love. On their own, sexual and romantic attraction are not genuine loves in the permanent, enduring sense. They are prone, inevitably, to frustration, heartbreak and tragedy unless they blend with charity, agape, Christlike or supernatural love. Romantic love itself, the passionate desire for union with the Beloved, can move, under the guidance of agape, in two directions: to fulfillment in marital communion or in the ascesis of renunciation and sacrifice when the consummation/fulfilment is not possible.  For example if the desire is not reciprocated, or is prevented by a prior commitment of vow, the longing is denied...and can be cursed or blessed by the one who suffers so. Even within the happy marriage the sexual/romantic normally goes through many "deaths" or frustrations through all sorts of difficulties. Here again, the deprivation can be cursed, leading to acrimony, or blessed and become fruitful of a deeper agapic-parental love. As noted earlier, spousal love always contains primordially friendship as a presumption. Spousal love is not a final end on its own but  grows into deeper forms of agape and generative love. So an enduring love never entirely loses the romantic dimension, but organically takes on more profound and fruitful form as agape and maternal/paternal.  Spousal love, we learned from John Paul, is: free, exclusive, sexual, permanent, generative. At the same time it is filial, fraternal, and generative. For example, in the symphony of marriage there come moments when the man, however mature, enjoys the maternal love of his wife; and vice versa. 

Spousal Love as Celibate and Virginal  Marriage itself is not the most sublime expression of human spousal love. That is reserved for the vowed life of celibacy/virginity. In this union, normal, marital, sexual, romantic and fecund relationship is renounced in favor of a deeper, purer, eternal, spousal communion with Christ himself. This communion already anticipates, here in this life on earth, our destiny in heaven, where we will not be given in marriage, but enjoy absolute, eternal intimacy with God. The vowed life enjoys, by anticipation, this reality already now in priesthood and/or religious life. The surrender of all the joys, energies, synergies and fruits of natural marriage serves to intensify not only the mystical union with Christ, but also, in a 100 ways, filial, fraternal, and maternal/paternal love.

Maternal/Paternal Love We prefer here the gendered/sexual distinction rather than the abstract, discarnate "parental." Similarly, we value the brother/sister binary over the bloodless, fleshless "sibling."  God created the human person as bipolar: male or female, a hard binary, no mixture of the two, no 3rd or 4th alternatives. The final goal of femininity is maternity, to give life. The final goal of masculinity is paternity, to give life. This means biological, but also moral, emotional, spiritual, social and intellectual life. The two contrast to each other in a splendor of complementarity, diversity, asymmetry, serendipity, playfulness, synergy and fecundity. Joined together in marriage they form an organic newness, a reality greater than each of them or the sum of both of them: the family. With this comes the agony and the ecstasy; the joyful, the sorrowful, the luminous and the glorious mysteries. As mentioned, the vowed religious and celibate priest themselves are generative in an even more profound manner. Even the unmarried, single person finds a multitude of creative ways to give life. Essentially, the mother enjoys an intimacy, receptivity, openness, and an organic generosity. The more structurally detached father must overcome a distance, assisted by the mother who (physically but more important spiritually) entrusts the little one into his hands. His mission is to image for the child our loving heavenly Father. The mother represents no one, but is always simply herself. The male role is inferior as representative while that of the woman is substantive in itself. The female is the high point of creation.

Benefits of this Family Typology of Loves

This very Catholic model has the value of overcoming the individualist temptation to view love as the activity or enjoyment of the basically isolated Self. By this erroneous view the Self has primacy and love comes secondarily, as a choice or activity. In reality however, the human person is always born into a preexisting communion of love. Created out of nothing, by the infinitely-generous Trinity, each person enters into a prior human community of love: the marriage, family, extended community, Church, tribe, nation. The "communion in love"...the Trinity, the marriage, family, etc...has an ontological primacy. Participation in this communion imbues the person with dignity, freedom, love, identity, mission and destiny. The person becomes his/her very self by loving others and loving the communion, in  a manner that is entirely unique, distinctive, personal, unprecedented, incomparable.

Consider even the boundless diversity of love within the family. We have 7 children; so the 9 of us each love 8 persons; so our immediate family has 9 x 8 = 72 loves. If we go even a degree beyond in the extended family to aunts/uncles/grandparents/cousins we are in the hundreds. If we go even two generations prior and after, the grandparents and grandchildren we personally know, we are into the thousands. 

Even the Holy Trinity is a pluralism of loves. It is absolute unity, but infinite distance between the Persons. The love of the Father for the Son is not the same as the love of the Holy Spirit for the Father. Even their love for us is distinctive. As a Triune One God they love us; but the Son has his own love, the Father his own, and the Holy Spirit a third. And so, in prayer, we can enjoy a colloquy now with Jesus, now with the Father, now with the Holy Spirit and now with One Holy Triune God.

In real life, of course, actual, concrete loves are always a blend of some sort. At my age (just turned 79) I expect to soon be reviving my filial love, entering more deeply into God's fatherly love for me, by receiving the care of my children/grandchildren as well as some network of nurses, doctors, and caregivers. Every single "love affair" is a creative, surprising "newness" that blends distinctively the fourfold splendors of love. 

In heaven, of course, these delights will be magnified infinitely! We have much for which to look forward!

Voices from Heaven, Voices from Hell

Our earth in our time, the 80 years since WWII, has been, as all times since the Fall, a battle between the Kingdom of God and the powers of Darkness. So, we do well to identify those voices which come from both kingdoms.

THE KINGDOM OF LIGHT

1. St. John Paul II. Singularly providential and inspired: proclamation of Jesus Christ, announcement of the Divine Mercy, participation in and interpretation of Vatican II, teaching on the gendered/sexual human body as definitive response to the Sexual Revolution, defense of human dignity, combat against Nazism/Soviet Communism/Cultural Progressivism, social teaching, blend of personalism and Thomism and holiness/heroism of life. Once in a Millennium the Church receives such a saint/hero.

 2. Silent witness of the martyrs. No words spoken: Stein, Kolbe and victims of Nazis, Communism and violent Jihadism.

3. (Mostly) Women who serve the poor and suffering.  Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, Madeleine Delbrel, Catherine Doherty.

4. Mystics and Saints. Padre Pio, Adrienne von Speyr, Marthe Robin, Mother Teresa's dark night of 40 years. 

5. American Evangelists of Post War Period (1945-65). Fulton Sheen, Billy Graham, Fr. Patrick Peyton, Thomas Merton. 

6. Fathers of Vatican II.  John XXIII, Paul VI, the bishops and periti. 

7.  Leaders of Lay Renewal Movements.  Kiko Arguello, Luigi Giussani, Chiara Lubich, and Ralph Martin and others .

8. Thinkers who wed Thomism with personalism and the best of modernity. Hildebrandt, John Paul, Benedict, Balthasar, Schindlers, Marcel, Maritain, Gilson, Pieper, Blondel, Guardini, Mournier, (Jewish) Buber, and (Russian Orthodox) Berdyaev.

9. Critics of modernity as technocracy, scientism, bureaucracy. Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul, EF Schumacher, Michael Hanby, Paul Kingsnorth, and others.

10. Articulators of a Catholic, Contemporary Anthropology.  PopeBenedict, Rene Girard, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Karl Stern, Paul Vitz, and others.

11. Champions of Human Rights and Freedoms.  Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Oscar Romero, Desmond Tutu, Vaclav Havel, Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez (notwithstanding depraved personal behavior with women of the last two.)

12. Bill W. and Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous and founders of other 12-step programs.

13. Great Catholic Fiction Writers.  Flanner O'Connor, Walter Percy, Evelyn Waugh, (Anglican) C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Graham Greene, Edwin O'Connor, Myles Connolly, Sigrid Undset, Solzhenitsyn, and others. 

14. Marian Apparitions. Our Blessed Mother continues to come to us, inviting us to trust in God, prayer, conversion from sin, and reparation. Through the ages, there are 16 such appearances approved by the Vatican. These include: Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, Knock, Miraculous Medal, La Salette, and (in our period 1981-9) Kibeho. In our time, the following are approved by local bishops: Of All Peoples 1947 Italy, Akita 1973 Japan. The remarkable, fruitful apparitions at Medjugorje (1981-present) remain controversial but were granted Nihil Obstat by the Vatican indicating the cult is tolerated but not guaranteed to be supernatural. For a Catholic, the voice of Mary is possibly the most influential.

THE KINGDOM OF DARKNESS

1. Misogyny. Lucifer's defining envy and hatred is against our Blessed Mother Mary in her queenship and so his obsession is to defile femininity in every possible way: polygamy, honor killings, pornography, prostitution, militant feminism as denial of maternity in favor of "reproductive rights," trans-femininity and other.

2. Desecration of Fatherhood.  As the vocation and destiny of the male is to image our heavenly Father (even in our own sinfulness), the erasure of God's presence requires toxic and cowardly masculinity and resentment of "patriarchy." 

3. Sexual Revolution including abortion.  Contraceptive rupture of sex from spousality/fertility, deconstruction of gender, genocide of the unborn and otherwise incompetent, devastation of the natural family and all its consequences. Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, Hefner, Helen Brown, Betty Friedan, Margaret Mead, Marcuse, Reich, and an army of Freudian-Marxists.

4. Communism. Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Xi, Pol Pot, Tito, the Kim's of N. Korea, as well as Western hemisphere communist-adjacent Chavez, Maduro, and Ortega.

5. Antisemitism.  After misogyny and Mary-Phobia, Lucifer's second obsession is hatred of the Jew. This is because Mary and Jesus are Jews. This sets it apart from broader forms of ethnic and racial hatred. Hitler was, of course, the embodiment of this as a unparalleled "anti-Christ." Communism may have killed 100 million through the decades, but it is not so personal and specific: it kills whoever resists it, indiscriminately. Antisemitism is viscerally, personally hateful, and implicitly aimed at Christ, his mother and his people. How troubling is the recent surge of such across Islam and our own political right and left!

6. Islamic Jihadism and Sharia Law. Sunni terrorism and Iranian Shiitism compete with each other in violence and repression. 

7. Scientism, Technocracy, State and Corporate Gigantism.  Not genuine science, of course, but the philosophical denial of the spiritual and the inflation of a reductive science into a religion is scientism. Conspiracy of gigantisms of technology, bureaucracy, state and corporations work to isolate the individual by deconstructing family/church/community and "progress" to totalitarianism.

8. Racial and ethnic hatred. In our time, happily, Jim Crow was overcome by the Civil Rights Movement and Apartheid succumbed in South Africa. Likewise, European colonies across Africa and Asia became free nations. At the same time, however, genocide prevailed in India/Pakistan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Cambodia 

9. Cult of Self: libertarianism of the left (moral) and the right (economic).  As Patrick Dineen sees, "liberalism" in the toxic sense of radical individualism expresses itself culturally in Hugh Hefner and economically in Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. It has given us a pandemic of loneliness, isolation, despair, lack of self-agency, and nihilism.

10. Fascism.  Monopoly of power, suppression of rights/freedoms, toxic nationalism, xenophobia, cult of the leader...this complex poison remains operative in our time since defeat of Hitler/Mussolini: Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, Putin, Gaddafi, Assad, Ayatollah Khomeni, Lukashenko, Chavez/Maduro, Ortega, Pinochet, Franco, Battista, Somoza, Marcos, Nasser, Peron and others.  Freedom House rates about 50 nations today as "not free," 59 as "partially free," and 86 as "free." So less than half of the nations enjoy substantial freedoms of religion, speech, assembly and related.

Conclusion

Do the math! Heaven 14 -Hell 10. It is not close. God wins!

Renounce the Luciferian voices:

SHUT UP SATAN! I AIN'T SCARED OF YOU! GO BACK TO HELL WHERE YOU BELONG!

Receive those heavenly voices:

SPEAK LORD! YOUR SERVANT IS LISTENING1

Dueling Pontificates; Magisteriums, Clerical and Lay

 At the end of the 14th century we had two popes, one in Rome another in Avignon; the Council of Pisa in 1409 fired both popes and elected a third. As none of them stepped down, we lived with three popes until the Council of Constance resolved it. During this Western Schism, Saints Catherine of Siena and Saint Catherine of Sweden supported the Roman pope; St.Vincent Ferrer and St. Colette endorsed the Avignon option. 

Since the Council over 60 years ago, we have been in a similar,  de facto three-way schism. The minute traditionalist Society of St Pius X, which rejects Vatican II, is now officially in schism. More important, the progressive/conservative split has now found clear explication in the competing dual pontificates: John Paul/Benedict and Francis/Leo. They contradict each other on at least six significant issues:

1. Sexual Liberation. 

John Paul and Benedict together articulated a fresh, but traditional ethos of chastity and fidelity in opposition to the Cultural Revolution after 1965. Francis and Leo attempt to accommodate the progressive agenda: blessings of "gay marriages," communion for the divorce-remarried, destruction of the John Paul Institute for the Family, flirtation with ordination of women, and deemphasis of sexual morals.

2. Engagement with Communism. 

John Paul officially maintained the Ostpolitik accommodationist policy of Paul VI while he engaged in the ferocious cultural combat that helped bring down the Soviet empire. From his youth in Nazi Germany through his many years in Poland against communism to his defiance of sexual progressivism, John Paul was the Culture Warrior of the century. Francis (and now apparently Leo as far as we can tell to date)  by contrast defers to the Chinese Communist Party, now allowing them virtually free choice of bishops. The heroic underground church of martyrs has been entirely abandoned. This will be the greatest infidelity of the Francis legacy.

3. The Latin Mass

Benedict restored this rite and protected the coexistence of both as enriching of the entire Church. He saw that a rite that nourished the Church for many centuries is worth preserving. Francis decided to entirely destroy this practice. At the time of his decision, he claimed the support of bishops around the world but we now know that the episcopal consensus was for preserving the rite. This was clearly a Fauci-like duplicity. As with many things, we await decisions from Leo.

4. "Synodality"

John Paul and Benedict firmly regarded "synod" traditionally as an authoritative gathering of bishops under the pope. Just prior to the death of Benedict, Francis started the campaign for a new "synodality" by which laity and even those distant from or rejecting of Catholicism would participate in the governance of the Church. Understood as readiness to listen openly, empathetically, positively to others, this would be a wholesome, holy endeavor. But it is more than this: it is creation of an unwieldly bureaucratic process, without definition or purpose, other than to replace the hierarchical, apostolic Church we are given.

5. Capital Punishment

John Paul and Benedict argued strongly against the death penalty...on prudential grounds. Crucially, they did not reverse the ancient Catholic doctrine that the state has the responsibility to use lethal force for the common good when necessary, specifically for deterrence, protection, rehabilitation and retribution. They evaluated, for example modern prisons as adequate for protection of the community. This was a practical determination with which civil authorities and citizens (who are responsible for such decisions) might well disagree.  As a conscientious Catholic, by traditional norms I might well judge practically that this punishment is required and so implement it as legislator, prosecutor, judge, jury or executioner. Francis, unilaterally and without synodal consultation with the bishops, reversed the tradition, ruling such executions always and everywhere "unacceptable" ...without engaging the tradition and by an illicit authoritarian fiat.

6. Just War or Pacifism

Similarly, John Paul and Benedict hated war but never undermined the Church's just war tradition which requires the state to use lethal force when necessary to protect society. Francis and now Leo hold that teaching to be outdated, like the one on capital punishment. Conscientiously accepted and implemented by Christians around the world, this would effectively hand the globe over to communists, Ayatollahs, fascist dictators, and terrorists.

Leo has promised to follow Francis. We wait to see. We do well to take him at his word. This means that he will continue the Francis trajectory, although in a better tone.

On these six and a host of related issues, we clearly have two Magisteriums. We cannot follow both; we cannot split the difference; we cannot accommodate both (although that may be the ambition of Leo.) My own intention is clear: to follow the teachings of John Paul and Benedict as they are manifest in different ways.

1. Prelates Loyal to that Legacy.

Among Cardinals we have: Burke, Mueller, Zen, ,Scola, Sarah, Eijk. Outstanding bishops are Barron and Varden. Happily, a majority of American bishops follow John Paul and Benedict.

2. Teaching and Legacy of the Saints

In a certain way, the witness of the holy ones takes first place. Padre Pio, Mother Theresa, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Edith Stein, Adrienne von Speyr, Caryl Houselander, Madalene DelBrel.

3. Theological Schools Loyal to Tradition

Dominican priests, John Paul Institute for the  Family still viable in Washington DC.

4. Charismatic Lay Leaders

Kiko Arguello of Neocatechumenal Way, Ralph Martin of Charismatic Renewal, and others.

5.  EWTN and National Catholic Register

These, for the most part, present a moderate, orthodox, populist Catholicism.

Other

In the USA we have a number of groups and publications which offer a right-leaning, conservative Catholicism which counters the progressivism dominant in elite institutions. These include:  First Things, Crisis, The Catholic Thing, New Oxford Review as well as the smaller, countercultural Catholic colleges.  In their praiseworthy defense of freedoms and markets, they do not always balance their suspicion of big government with scrutiny of corporate capitalism. They can lean into an economic libertarian individualism that contradicts the profoundly communal nature of Catholicism. They can prefer bourgeois security, confidence, meritocracy and achievement over solidarity with the suffering and subsidiarity. They can privatize piety and charity, minimize the correct role of the state,  privilege the competent, strong, smart and connected. Nevertheless, they maintain Catholic values around sex, gender, family and the incompetent against assaults from Cultural Progressivism.

Conclusion

The good news is that Christ remains with his Church. The gates of hell will not prevail. The efficacy of the Truth will knock down those doors and the captives will be set free. We may not always hear the Word of God in its purity from the Vatican or the Chancery. But the Holy Spirit is alive and the Word of God is ever fruitful, if patient.

Haiti (3 of 3)

 Dignity

The strongest takeaway from Haiti is the dignity of the people. Scarcity, overpopulation, congestion, unemployment, omnipresence of garbage...yet, the people carry themselves in regal dignity. Emblematic: the erect, stately women who effortlessly carry large objects on their heads. That image is suggestive of the Haitian spirit: poverty is not heavy enough to crush the spirit.

Particularly striking: the manner of dress. In Church (which is always filled with people) everyone is pretty,  proper, refined. Unfailingly clean, modest, attractive with a touch of elegance.

Schooling

Everywhere there are school children: groomed, clean and proper in their school uniforms. For a Catholic, it feels like you have fallen into a Parochial School Universe. Education is super-venerated. Before sunrise, adolescents gather under overhead lights to repeat and memorize. Success in school is viewed as the only path out of poverty. This hope is unrealistic as hardly 1% will finish school and find employment. 

This cult of schooling would be critiqued by radicals like Paolo Freire or Ivan Illich as illusory, supportive of the status quo, and repressive of initiatives for change. In this the learner is devalued, inhibited in agency, and attains status only by replicating the "knowledge bank" and values structure of an oppressive, alienating culture. But one must ask: In the actual circumstances of Haiti, would such a pedagogy of liberation bring peace and prosperity? Or might it arouse discontent, frustration, mimetic jealousy and resentment?

Trust and Serenity

At the heart of Haitian culture one detects a childlike, pious resignation. The operative virtue: Patience. There is a serenity that flows from "accepting what we cannot change."

Such passivity is offensive to us "blancs"..."whites" which is to say American, Europeans. Whether one is an entrepreneurial, perhaps prosperity-gospel, capitalist or a leftwing social activist, the assumption is that our affluence, material well being and destiny is under our own control. This illusion is ridiculous in the face of the stark poverty here. Broadly, the ability to "change the things we can" is severely limited. But not absolutely. So there is a deep wisdom in a serene resignation, realism, religious gratitude for the very gift of life, and hope in the afterlife. Yes, Mr. Marx, opium of the people.

  Heaven

Heaven feels very close in Haiti. Worldly pleasures and distractions are scarce. Everywhere there is hunger, frustration, suffering. And people, people, people. Beautiful, serene, dignified people. BTW, the suicide rate in  Haiti was reported as virtually zero. For most, there is no hope for improvement and achievement. 

But there is always heaven! This is the Primal Catholic Fact:  every anemic infant and suffering patient (again that word patience) is created by God out of his infinite love for an Eternity of Joy! This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ: "Blessed are the poor." It is the source of the serenity of millions of impoverished people on a bare, dry island. It is, for us complacent, comfortable "blancs," the source of joy if we open our heart to God's Kingdom in our midst.

Haiti (2 of 3)

 The Missionaries of Charity Haven in Hinche defies description. Four sisters and many assistants attend to 150 sick, malnourished, orphaned children and adults. The stark human deprivation is offset by an overall atmosphere of peace and dignity. Every room has a large picture of Mother Teresa (whose presence is pronounced) along with classic Catholic icons of the Sacred Heart, Madonna with Child, Pope, Holy Family and Jesus of Mercy. Stark and simple, the place is immaculate and free of odor, surprisingly so given the incontinence of perhaps half of the residents, including infants. 

The children and infants clamor to be held. Six or seven gather around you, gazing with wonder, touching hair and glasses. Infants screaming in their cribs become quiet and serene when they are lifted and held. You are able to hold two at a time as they are light and give each 5 to 10 minutes but you wish you could hold them all, all day. Haitian women circle around quietly, cleaning, changing diapers, feeding the little ones. The sister in charge, a Brazilian who speaks good English, radiates a supernatural peace and confidence. 

In the women's section we join a group sitting quietly in a corridor. They are frail and sick. They do respond, however, to our rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," raising their hands to sing the chorus of "Glory, Glory Hallelujah!"

In the men's dorm I find men laying in beds, neat and clean, some without limbs or crippled in various ways. Overcoming my shyness, I extend a hand and say "God bless you." Some call me "Pere" (father) and point to their area of sickness or pain. I find myself laying hands, praying for healing, and signing their foreheads with the cross. Some respond with buoyant smiles and laughter; some with a sober but appreciative nod of the head. 

Finally, we pray in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament. It too is simple, bare, stark: a large picture of Mary to the right, a relic of Mother Teresa on a table to the left. The aroma of Christ...serenity, faith, hope...pervades an atmosphere that would otherwise be startlingly, horrendously deprived. 

Haiti (1 of 3)

On Feb. 27, 2010 I arrived in Haiti, after the catastrophic earthquake there, accompanying my nephew David who was bringing help to an orphanage where he had worked. Yesterday I found a journal I had kept and here share excerpts.

The initial encounter with Haiti is a shock to the senses. Even before the plane lands, one is struck by the terrain: barren, treeless, dusty, rocky, dotted with small shacks of rusting tin. Baggage claim entails pushing through a crowd to a small window in chaos and inefficiency. Material scarcity all around; but most of all the people!

Ah, the people! The beautiful people! Especially the children! This is an uplift for the spirit and a consolation to the distressed senses. How can there be so many beautiful faces? Jet black, smooth skin; bright, shining teeth; deep-set eyes that gaze with attention, interest, curiosity, a serenity suggestive of innocence, resignation and a readiness for affection. We are surrounded by perhaps 50 children watching us intently, as if a spacecraft had landed in an elementary school playground. Each face is striking: one as beautiful as the next. Where am I? In a desert of scarcity? Or a paradise of loveliness? This is not the world, the earth I know! It is a hell of human want and suffering...and a heaven of childlike innocence and faith.

Saturday morning mass in the cathedral is enlivened by sweet, harmonious song. More than a taste of heaven. I find myself thinking constantly of heaven: so sparse here are earthly hopes and possibilities that the soul looks fervently beyond, to the afterlife, that is not so far away. 

The mass in Haiti is essentially the same mass anywhere: Word announced, songs, petitions, the Eucharistic sacrifice and communion. The priest is impressive: handsome, confident, joyful. The 200 children, most under 10 years of age, are composed and attentive. Very few receive communion; it seems most have not yet been prepared for first communion. A tone of reverence and peace predominates. The language is French but the music has an African beat. Haitians love to sing, especially in Church. They do so with joy, buoyancy, and rhythm. Extreme scarcity, lack of jobs and opportunity, meagre chances for improvement...and what do they do? They sing!

At the orphanage, the remarkable founder, Jean Louis, shows us around with a warm and respectful hospitality. It is very humbling. Around 200 children play around the dusty, rocky compound; but the overall peacefulness and quiet is striking. The chaplain, Xaverian Brother Michael McCarthy describes the place as a haven for otherwise destitute children. He worries that there is no follow-up or path forward for older children as they leave this still-young orphanage: no jobs, no economy, no opportunities. But there is still heaven, I keep thinking.

Students of all ages are passionately motivated to study and learn. At 4 AM one hears sounds of rote memorization by a group of students gathered under a solitary street lamp. Their belief is that education is the one path to a better life. But the truth is that 1 % of them will graduate college; and for this select group there are no jobs. Again, I think, at least there is heaven!

As guest instructor in morning English class of 35 students, I am stunned by their focus, attentiveness and respect. It is with all their strength and all their soul and all their heart that they desire to learn English. We read the Gospel in English and their questions are profoundly spiritual and theological: What does it mean to "see the speck in the other's eye?" How do we give pearls to swine? Do the righteous get to heaven? Does God forgive all sins, even sexual sins by one who knows what the Bible teaches? What is the Resurrection like? I find myself teaching basic Catechism truths with certainty and joy. 

A student states that God's forgiveness of sin requires our firm purpose of amendment. I heartily agree and say that in our weakness we need to call upon God's mercy to truly repent. Then I fall on my knees dramatically, squint my face, and fervently, slowly plead "Help me O God. I want to be good. But I need your help." They laugh with delight. 

More memories from Haiti to follow in subsequent blog posts.