The Theresa Club!

What is it...mystical?, miraculous? wonderful?...about that name Theresa (or alternately Teresa)? For starters:  any reasonable list of the best woman saints must include the four Great Theresas: Avila, Lisieux, Auschwitz, and Calcutta. The first three are close to each other as Carmelites; the last in class all of her own. But the four share: an extraordinary intelligence that is humble, wise,  practical, spiritual, intuitive and feminine; heroic strength of character and courage; and saintly holiness. Notice that each is strongly identified with a place which means specificity, particularity and concreteness of time and space. I am currently reading the biography of a fifth Theresa:  Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, from Bayonne NJ, who was likewise blessed with a fine intelligence and a quiet, humble but really mystical union with our Lord from her earliest childhood in quite ordinary circumstances. I am brother to a Theresa whose mind is bright, intuitive, empirical, practical and wise and whose heart is indescribably tender, kind, and generous. I am uncle to a Theresa who radiates quiet faith, warmth and intelligence as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, nutritionist and niece! Imagine my joy that my first grandchild Brigid has chosen for her confirmation name...Theresa! She is becoming familiar with all of these amazing women and is aware that she will find her own particular identity and mission even as she emulates their wisdom, interior strength, and holiness! All you Great Theresas, in heaven and on earth, pray for us!

Is "Liberalism" a Bad Word? Towards a Conservative, Communion Liberalism

No! Liberalism is a marvelous word:  it means freedom! Who of us prefers bondage, oppression and slavery? But there are many liberalisms; and some of them are at war with each other. The ultimate question: What is the inner nature of freedom? The second question: how do we express, shape and structure that freedom in culture, politics and economics? The most immediate meaning for liberalism would be the politics of the Democratic Party since FDR: freedom from oppression and poverty by way of a strong federal government that regulates the market, avoids depression, ensures safety and health, provides an adequate safety net for the poor, protects the disadvantaged (minorities, workers, disabled, elderly), and countervails against excessive concentrations of wealth and power. In tension (if not full scale war) with this is the classic economic liberalism we call "conservatism" and associate with Ronald Reagan and the mainstream Republican Party: free markets, low taxes and regulation, and enhancement of individual liberty and agency. Moving into the realm of culture we have another duality: life-style, sexual liberalism advocates release from traditions of restrain on behalf of sexual liberty as well as the option of disposing of useless human life on the margins of life. Reactive to this is an emergent religious liberalism insisting upon freedom of religion and refusing to be coerced into participation in the cult of abortion, sterile sexuality and the hegemony of technology over life, death and procreation. A third, analogous culture war over freedom operates in Catholic theology: the creative, articulate, and brilliant theologians at the Vatican Council (including Ratzinger, DeLubac, Woytija, etc.) were almost immediately recast as "conservative" immediately after that Council by more radical liberals who advocated a break with Tradition at significant points. We might call the former group "conservative liberals" in that they fiercely valued freedom (schooled in the battle with Nazism and Communism) even as they understood freedom, in continuity with centuries of tradition, as oriented from the interior to Truth in Love and a context of given, gifted relationships. This Catholic-Conservative-Communio liberalism is a striking contrast with the  individualism, autonomy and loneliness that Dineen (and many others) see underlying our culture.

Dineen is right:  liberalism as individualism has, indeed, failed. But that is a reductive, distorted, even perverted kind of liberalism. The antidote: a wholesome, integral, rooted liberalism that conserves the best of the past, and explicitly roots itself in deeper pre-political communities of faith and family. Dineen lucidly unveils the toxic consequences of secular, individualistic liberalism but he (like Rod Dreher and many others) is prone to an exaggerated negativity that pervades our culture, a despair that all institutions are falling apart. This results from an overload of information and the reality that much of it comes to us from extreme left and right wings that exaggerate the failings of the other. The unhappy consequence can be a loss of trust in fundamental liberal institutions just when these need support and strengthening. Such prophesies of doom can have a self-fulfilling dynamic and provoke what they dread. We know from 20th century developments in Russia and Germany what happens when the center, rooted in reason and faith, does not hold against the resentment and fear of the right and messianic utopianism from the left.

The liberal, free institutions which we defended against the competing ideologies of Nazism and Communism are still valid and promising: democracy, free markets, freedoms of speech/religion/etc, jury by peers, separation of powers, federalism, and so forth. These sound institutions cannot rest on the absolute sovereignty of the Imperial Self; but they need not depend upon a narrow denominational theocracy. The communio, conservative liberalism advocated here includes:

1,  An understanding of Freedom as a gift from a transcendent, holy realm and interiorly oriented to that realm and to all that is True, Beautiful and Good. Freedom is not, at its core, arbitrary choice; the godlike, really diabolic, ability to determine for oneself what is true and good; the power to impose ones own will as one wishes. It is true that negatively Freedom includes a certain release from coercion, oppression, necessity and slavery. At its core Freedom is movement to the Good!

2. As Yuval Levin suggests, such a conservative, contrast to a progressive, liberalism is a freedom to move organically, creatively, patiently and gratefully into the new in a way that appreciates the past, tradition, authority and Nature. In line with Burke, deToqueville and our Constitution, this view gratefully receives the bounty and logic of Nature as well as the legacy of history even as it critically appropriates and develops it.

3.  In continuity with the robust Catholic liberalism of the post-war period, it passionately practicses a solidarity with the poor, marginalized and oppressed as it corrects the blind spots of that legacy in regard to subsidiarity (correcting the concentration of power in the federal government) and a clear sexual ethic (as developed by St. John Paul as an answer to the Sexual Revolution).

4.  In continuity with the (conservative) legacy of Ronald Reagan, it  defends innocent, powerless life and protects economic liberties in the face of an expansive state even as it is critical of global, unrestrained capitalism and renounces the underlying libertarian (Randian) individualism in favor of an ethos of community and communion. Such a conservative liberalism is moderate and balanced in evaluating  the positives and negatives of big government and globalized capitalism, neither idealizing nor demonizing either of the two but recognizing the impersonalism inherent in both.

5.  Grounding freedom in relation to Truth and Love, this cultural liberalism of communion rejoices in the liberty that springs from promise/fidelity/ purity, the generativity/generosity of the natural family, and the iconic splendor of sexuality. And so it engages, passionately and untiringly, in a peaceful, patient culture war with that lifestyle liberalism that trivializes and sterilizes sex; that empties it of its meaning and beauty; and leads to pernicious forms of interior slavery (e.g. pornography).

6. According to a wholesome subsidiarity, it gives reverence and primacy to smaller, intermediate communities that flow from and into family and faith. Modifying the Benedict Option, it attends first and foremost to the immediate and the concrete, without losing interest in the big picture.

7.  In foreign affairs, a Catholic liberalism is necessarily internationalist, entailing a modest patriotism that opens up into a universalism that is neither an American Imperium nor the hegemony of  secular, cosmopolitan elites. Profoundly conscious of the Mystery of Evil, such liberalism avoids utopianism in favor of a realism (R. Niebuhr) capable of forcefully restraining explosisons of terror and violence. And so, it deeply honors vocations to the military and police even as it holds these to the highest standards of conduct.

8. With Adrian Vermulle, this approach practices a "Christian Strategy" of engagement in public life in the ancient traditions (Joseph of Egypt, Daniel, etc.) of serving the broader empire and one's own people without compromise of principle. Avoiding full allegiance to any specific party or platform, there is freedom to work in alliance with various players on behalf of the common good. In our polarized environment, such a sober, confident and positive movement might have a reconciling effect as it is refuses to demonize ideological adversaries but looks for the positive in both sides of an issue. Such might entertain an ambivalent, ironic, and constructive relationship with each of the prevailing ideologies (Trump, Democrats, Republicans) even as the absolute reverence for innocent life, religious liberty and marriage means a passionately adversarial engagement with the forces of lifestyle liberalism that control the Democratic Party.

Perhaps most significantly, conservative liberalism,  drawing from deep resources of faith, communion, and history, enjoys a quiet and serene confidence, a resolute hopefulness, and a restfulness that expresses itself in fervent, fruitful action. It can, therefore, practice a "noblesse oblige," a relaxed generosity and liberality. Free from fear and resentment and unburdened by utopian illusions, it flourishes in contentment, sobriety, hope and gratitude. And so it delights in the current world, with all its flaws and in all its splendor, even as it awaits the coming of a Greater Kingdom. 

Outstanding Catholic Leaders of "My Time"

Now 70, I ponder: In my lifetime, who were the greatest influences on my faith and my Church? I identify four groupings: my own generational peers, those of my parents' generation, those of my grandparents, and an "honorable mention" group who influenced me. (You will note that the generational boundaries are imprecise.) The standouts in my own generation are:  First, David L. Schindler who has applied the "comminio theology" in a profound critique of American culture.  Second, Ralph Martin has synthesized the Charismatic Renewal and the legacy of the saints into a sharp-edged, profound spiritual theology. Thirdly, Gil Baile combines the philosophical anthropology of Rene Girard with communio theology into a fresh, novel but thoroughly faithful Catholic narrative. Forthly, Giuseppe Genereni is the apostle of the Neocatechumenal Way to the USA and so an immensely significant historical figure.  Fifthly, Neal Lozano (Unbound),  also out of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, has presented the Church with a method of deliverance from satanic powers that is gentle and yet powerful, psychology-based and yet Jesus-centered, and miraculously liberating! Lastly, Paul Vitz has contributed more than anyone to a synthesis of good psychology with Catholic principles. The second grouping, my parents' generation, is led, first of all, by the theological trio of Balthasar (who is actually older), John Paul and Benedict whose combined work rivals that of the two Catholic giants, Augustine and Thomas. The great founders of the lay renewal movements come next: Giusanni, Kiko and Vanier. While not a participant in these currents, I consider myself a friend of each as they have directly touched my children and marvelously influenced the Church. The third, and most important group is a remarkable cohort of women (more or less of my grandmothers' generation) who lived through most of the 20th century, buried themselves humbly in service of the poorest as they drew from a deep, prayerful union with God. These are:  St. Theresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, Catherine DeHueck Dougherty, Madeleine Delbrel, Adrienne von Speyr, and Caryll Houselander.  Lastly, honorable mention includes:  Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J., who...erudite, balanced, broad, loyal... taught me and generations of Jesuits and theologians; Father Joseph Whelan S.J., a saintly contemporary of Dulles who taught me that Christ is inseparable from his bridal Church and that holiness is integral to sound theology; Ivan Illich, an eccentric genius who impacted my youth with his profound critique of technology and modernity; Fr. Benedict Groeschel who interwove psychology and theology into a splendid,, spiritual and practical synthesis; and Sister Joan Noreen who has influenced my wife, myself and my family through her leadership of Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist. Above all, of course, I am grateful to my own Mom and Dad and an army of family, friends and collaborators! "My time" has been a glorious one in which to be Catholic:  my hope is that my children and their generation and their children will see even greater marvels!

Neocatechumenal Way and the Eucharist

(On use of the phrase "The Way." For me, Jesus Christ alone is The Way; and The Way to Him is the Catholic Church. However constant repetition of "The Neocatechumenal Way" will become tiresome. So, in deference to Kiko's own self-description, I will refer to this movement, this renewal, this itinerary as The Way, even as I myself see it more modestly as "a way...to Christ in His Church.")

The Neocatechumenal Way is the most vigorous, creative, zealous renewal movement in the Church. It is an authentically novel and yet genuine expression of Catholic orthodoxy. Fiercerly counter-cultural, it is a retrieval and synthesis of some of the richest treasures of the ancient and contemporary Church. Many of it elements, even standing on their own, are pregnant with promise: the music, icons, scrutinies, practice of penance, profound engagement with the Word, candid confrontation with Death and Resurrection, eagerness to ask forgiveness and admit judgment, and many others. Its singular, significant weakness is its understanding and practice of the Eucharist. To be sure, their doctrine is orthodox and their loyalty to hierarchy and magisterium is fierce. Furthermore, their zealous practice of the Liturgy of the Word, with the admonitions and echoes, is a marvelous advance beyond late Tridentine and even Vatican II practice. The problem is a weakened sense of the Liturgy of the Eucharist as sacrifice and abiding substance and consequently a distance from regular parish live. Developed at the time of the Council, their liturgy represents problematic aspects of the liturgical renewal at that time: a focus upon the Eucharist as celebration and (Passover) meal and an aversion to sacrifice, substance and corollaries of silence, adoration and kneeling. Because the Eucharist is the very heart and soul of our Catholic faith, a weakness here can have grave consequences and must be considered.

1. Their catechesis (as I received it over 10 years ago) clearly contrasts the Eucharist with sacrifice, understood as pagan, sinful man's attempt to manipulate the Divine. Correctly, they understand Eucharist as the New Passover Meal whereby the Lord passes over us and brings us from Death into Life. This is in itself unobjectionable if understood correctly. But the Catholic tradition has always seen the mass as a sacrifice, the ultimate and final sacrifice of Christ by Christ, in line with  Old Testament temple sacrifice which was itself a valid communion with God. Their more reductive understanding of sacrifice in its negative aspect has the effect of breaking the continuity between the sacrifices of the two covenants and implies a quasi-Marcionite disparagement of Judaism, at least in its temple sacrifice. This is all the more striking in that Kiko has a rich, deep appreciation of the Jewish roots of our faith in many ways. His view of sacrifice and liturgy is an exception and a blind spot. When I myself walked The Camino ("The Way") to Santiago de Compestela, I spent time reading Numbers, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, canonical works largely ignored today, and became aware of the Judaic fascination with sacrifice. This appreciation of the positive face of sacrifice is missing from "The Way."

2.  Liturgical reform in the 1960s emphasized liturgy as encounter and event but downplayed it as substantial presence. The important concept of "transubstantiation" fell into disfavor among fashionable liturgists. (The entire ontological vocabulary of substance, form, essence and act was disparaged in the anti-metaphysical emotivism that is still with us!) Tridentine Catholicism organized itself around the persisting, substantial presence of Jesus' very self in the small, modest host. Surely it needed and received in the Council a push beyond individualistic "Jesus and Me" piety and a retrieval of the communal and eventful reality of the Eucharistic Act itself.  The practice and teaching of the post-Council dual-pontificate clearly, forcefully, magisterially maintained  a synthesis of these realities: Eucharist as event-encounter and Eucharist as abiding-substantial-presence; as personal and communal union; as meal and sacrifice; as solemn and celebrative. The mystical-sacramental intuition of God's distinctive, physical, continuous presence in the reserved Eucharist is hardly denied, but is very weak in the Way. This expresses itself in practical, consequential ways: noisiness in Church, inattention to the tabernacle, absence of silence and kneeling, heightened attention to the real-meal wine and bread with a diminshed sense of sacredness or "difference." To be sure, the pastor at a local neo-cat parish labors to silence the congregation in the Eucharistic presence but with little success because the overall culture and catechesis is largely indifferent. Those of us who came of age before the Council were forcefully punished for disrespect in Church; we knew that the best day of our life was the day we received our first holy communion; we practiced adoration, "visits" and 40-hour-devotion. Think of St. Elizabeth Seton on the eve of her conversion, sitting in an Episcopalian Church and praying to the Eucharist housed across the street. By contrast, I attended a neo-cat convenience at an Eastern Church monastery which had an exquisite chapel adjacent to our meeting room. The catechists were unaware or indifferent as they made no reference to it and issued no encouragement to visit, rest and pray in The Presence. From what I can see, the ongoing physical presence in the Host is part of the "null curriculum" of The Way.

3.  Catholic life organizes itself around its center: the Eucharist, particularly the Sunday mass but also daily mass and the constant tabernacle presence. And so, the establishment of an "alternate Eucharistic rite" is consequential. Such a move carries an implicit schismatic tendency. What Sunday morning liturgy does for the parish and the normal Catholic the Saturday evening worship does for the communities of The Way. We have, in fact, two distinct worshiping communities. This split takes an extreme form in the Easter Vigil which is literally an all-night vigil separated off from the parish. That the two communities celebrate the Resurrection in separation represents a "schism in worship."

4.  The liturgical separation is related to a broader, more pervasive aversion to traditional, parochial Catholic institution and history. Like many reforms, this Way looks back to the origins and tends to devalue "ordinary" Catholic practice and habit as developed over the centuries. This is more implied than stated. The Way is developing an alternate culture, in opposition to Western modernity in crisis, and understandably views the regular Church as weak and compromised. It is ironic that Kiko, who shows a genius for appreciating and incorporating sundry elements of Christian life into his itinerary, has created a program that is tight, rigid and tends to close in on itself. Imagine that at a single large retreat center, a variety of different groups are holding meetings: Evangelicals, Charismatic Catholics, Catholic Workers, Knights of Columbis, Communion and Liberation and Neo-Cats. The first five might find each other interesting and spend time together in dialogue; their leaders might even encourage such. This would hardly occur to the catechists who are focused intensely on their agenda and inattentive to anything else. It is unlikely that they would participate in a diocesan men's rally or something like that. Of course every renewal tends to enthusiasm and separation but a balanced Catholic with solid formation or a good priest can synthesize the "institutional" with the "charismatic." But most who participate in The Way lack formation: the very purpose of the itinerary is formation for the baptized but un-evangelized and un-catechized. Notwithstanding the respect for priesthood and sacrament, the catechetical program is lay-based, highly structured and immune to clerical intervention (for better and for worse.) The parochial Church, weak and compromised as it is, is in desperate need of the invigorating resources offered by The Way; but the separation in worship is an obstacle. It is like a marriage in which husband-wife love each other, but sleep in separate beds and never visit each other: they have to get together once in while...no?

5.  My understanding is that about 10 years ago the Vatican directed that those walking in The Way attend the normal parish liturgy at least monthly. My impression is that leadership assented verbally but has basically ignored this directive. The communal liturgies still happen every single Saturday evening and I suspect that few attend parish mass, even monthly. (Perhaps I am wrong: maybe those more advanced on the Journey have developed a Eucharist hunger that brings them to daily mass and even adoration. I hope so! If my judgement is rash, I will rush to ask forgiveness!) Again, to my knowledge, Kiko and Carmen are obstinate in maintenance of  a separate rite that is total and extrinsic to parish worship. (If this judgment is rash, I will rush to ask forgiveness!) This Way has probably aroused more resentment from our clergy than all the other lay renewal movements put together. This may  be that they are Christ-like victims persecuted by a jealous, controlling, Spirit-resisting clergy. But more likely it is  because their liturgy directly competes with the clergy over what is most sacred to them: the very Eucharist itself. The rite of Kiko/Carmen is in its own way reverent, vibrant, engaging and beautiful even as it restores lost dimensions of worship from the early Church and Scripture. It has much to offer the broader Church. The Eucharist in its very simplicity finds a rich diversity of expressions: Latin mass, charismatic, guitar or high mass, and (my favorite) the simple, no-frills 25-minute-daily-mass-with-3-minute homily. The Way is and will be an immense enrichment of the Church as it overcomes this separateness.

6.  I am hopeful that this centrifugal impetus to schism-in-worship will be overcome by stronger, centripetal, Catholic forces. First, Kiko and his companions remain fiercely, refreshingly loyal to the hierarchy/magisterium and are good example for mainstream priests. Secondly, Kiko is right that the parochial Church is weak in the face of a modernity that is hostile and formidable and so is in desperate need of renewal. Thirdly, the rich resources in The Way are an immense, precious gift to the Church. The forth source of hope is practical and institutional. This Way is sending many men into the priesthood. By a happy arrangement, these seminarians follow a double path of formation: spiritually they are groomed in their own residences under the charism of Kiko; but intellectually they learn their theology in local diocesan seminaries. The institution of the seminary, which is often criticized, is a most stable, reliable pillar of the Catholic edifice: wherever in the world you go, in spite of diversities of personality, culture and ideology, you will reliably find, at Sunday morning mass, a reasonably accurate presentation of our Faith. This is amazing and surely a sign that our Lord is with His Church. Furthermore, after ordination, these priests serve in regular parishes, even as they may be made available eventually for service of The Way. So, these young priests who are carrying the charism of The Way, are also under the influence of reliable theological faculties and diocesan priests in all their flawed, mundane splendor, While The Way's founders and their generation remain resistant and defensive of their understanding of the integrity of their charism, the emergent generation of priests may well, patiently and gradually, reconcile the two communities of worship, the charism of the Way and the valid, parochial concerns of the clergy. Why couldn't the communities celebrate every other Saturday night and join the parish on the other weekends. Why couldn't the communities celebrate the 2-3 hour Easter vigil in union with the parish and then continue (welcoming others) through the evening with music, praise, readings, echoes and celebration? The Way and the Church is a marriage-made-in-heaven, but it is a troubled marriage. Hopefully both sides will recognize unacknowledged presumption and judgment, ask for forgiveness and be united! Husband and wife will be joined together in the conjugal bed...at least some of the time!

My Masculine Disassociation Disorder; or My Walter Mitty Syndrome

My condition, until now not diagnosed, explains my life. I have wondered why my childhood/adolescent memories are few and unremarkable. My life was consistently peaceful, mildly pleasant, safe, bland, steady, often dull. This applies to my family life, play/friends, schooling, and religion. My Catholic faith was like the air I breathed or the food I ate: normal, plain, unexceptional. I had a quiet, steady sense of being safe, loved, blessed and an implicit sense of gratitude which blossomed into a compassionate urge to help those I came to see as not as fortunate as myself. But I was always fundamentally unsatisfied with my life and especially my self. I was, after all, too skinny, weak, and devoid of sex appeal. I yearned, always, for something greater, more exciting and dramatic, more beautiful and challenging. And so, I disassociated from myself and my life and found satisfaction in fantasy, in alternate realities and identities. I was at different times: Zorro, Davy Crockett, Atticus Finch. I was Gary Cooper with Grace Kelly in High Noon, Charlton Heston with Sophia Loren in Ben Hur, John Wayne with Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man or any number of other pictures. I became something much bigger and better than myself.  Always my script entailed heroism, courage and strength in battle and a beauty waiting to welcome me. More than in movies, I lost my mundane, boring self in books: fiction and non-fiction, history, psychology and theology. For brief periods I found satisfaction vicariously in sports: Mantle and Maris of the Yankees in the late 50s, Nick Workman in Seton Hall U. basketball in the early 60s; but I was so challenged as an athlete that that identification could not stick. In late adolescence this transformed into a more modulated form of disassociation: intellectual study and thinking. I became enamored of ideas, explanations, theories. Such abstractions fascinated me and represented a half-disassociation. And so, in the late 60s I buried myself in the library and feasted on philosophy, theology, and the social sciences. By anyone's reckoning, I should have pursued a career in academics but I seem to have intuited that my fascination with academics was substantially pathological. Providentially, I proceeded to fall passionately in love with a Beauty was fascinating but no fantasy: Mary Lynn still is real, concrete, earthy, and entirely here-and-now. The subsequent, happy challenge of raising children and providing for them through work served its purpose of re-associating me with my identity and my reality. But I continued to be dissatisfied with myself and yearned for something bigger and better and I continued to find comfort in fantasy. But two other things happened. I took on roles that were bigger and better than myself: husband, father, teacher, UPS driver,  and supervisor. My son Paul once observed that he loved to be in uniform: EMT, soldier, lawyer. This clearly is constitutive of the masculine psyche: the desire to take on a role, an identity, that is bigger and better, that involves heroic combat, drama and love. And so it becomes clear that the male, in contrast to the female, lacks interior integrity and needs to be "in-formed" by an exterior role or identity. For example, a man who becomes a priest takes on an entirely new identity that is largely extrinsic: he acts "in persona Christi" and must grow into the role, like a layman becomes a biological father. A woman is inappropriate for such a role because she has her own personality, integrity and identity and does not have the pronounced lack, craving, void that comes with masculinity. Secondly, my faith showed me that Christ our Lord came to fill this longing: to dwell within me and make me into the New Man: courageous, generous, pure, free, truthful, magnanimous. Ignatius of Loyola is a good example of the masculine psyche at work: laying in monotony and pain he rotated back and forth: his romances in which he was a heroic knight and a courtly lover; and then he was one of the saints, humble, generous, faith-filled. Back-and-forth he swung, from the one fantasy to the other. Eventually he was captivated by the more Beautiful, more Courageous, more True, more Noble and Heroic. May all of us who suffer this Walter Mitty Syndrome find the same cure!

Good Decisions, Bad Consequences; Bad Decisions, Good Consequences

In a recent Blue Bloods,Jaime and partner witness a carjacking and think (mistakenly) that a child is in the car. They jump in their car, a high-speed chase (greatly discouraged, but not absolutely forbidden by NYPD) ensues with disastrous results as the car being chased hits another car, injuring a 7-year old. Defending himself before the Judge, Jaime says: "Based on what we knew, it was a good decision. Good decisions can have bad consequences." How True! And bad decisions can have good consequences! There is high irony here! You can see I have contempt for "consequentialism" as a moral philosophy.  I personally have a keen sense of this irony because in my business career, inevitably,when I most applied my energy, stamina, good will and thought to my work I had disastrous results, due to circumstances beyond my control; but when I was most laid back, easy going and relaxed in my performance, I often received accolades and compliments, due to circumstances beyond my control.  Life is entirely unpredictable, surprising, uncontrollable. "No good deed goes unpunished" is another corollary of the utter chaos, risk and unreliability of life. One day, (I was about 16 years old) the paranoid caddy master Bill left his candy store open and everyone...with one exception, my friend Web...helped themselves. Guess who Billy blamed for the theft? Yes: Web, the one who would not steal! But what is a "good decision" if it is not one with good consequences? A decision has to be good in two dimensions: the intention or motivation (will) and the thorough, accurate evaluation of available information (deliberation, practical intellect). Human motivation is complex, dense and multi-valent, but a moderately wholesome conscience recognizes when the intention is evil or good. The information piece is more problematic because as finite knowers we deliberate and decide under conditions of uncertainty, confusion, and fallibility. So the question in that regard is: Have we gathered all available information? Have we evaluated it as thoroughly as possible using all available resources within the time allowed? In the arenas of politics and diplomacy things become infinitely more complex: the decider (legislator, executor, voter) sorts through his own complicated/contradictory motives; responds to those of many others; anticipates consequences with endless uncertainty; but also receives disparate, inadequate, contradictory, erroneous and even mendaciously falacious information. Jimmy Carter was surely one of the best-motivated, intelligent (and detail-oriented) of our presidents. His presidency was not remarkable. The invasion of Iraq by George W. Bush did not satisfy my own high-bar criteria for a Just War, but was not such a bad decision. His intention is some combination of these: prevent development and use of weapons of mass destruction, humanitarian intervention, encourage democracy and thus stability in the Middle East, and protect supply of oil for developed economies. Those motivations are unobjectionable. The problem with the decision was the lack of information: Sadaam Hussein effectively bluffed everyone into thinking he had the WMDs and so the decision was based on defective information. Moving forward: Donald Trump, in regard to character (will, intention) and competence (deliberation over information) is almost certainly our worst president in history. It is hard to imagine a combination of such shallowness and incompetence. Even the great psychotic megalomanics of history (Mao, Stalin, Hitler, etc.) were markedly more evil in intent but showed great political competency. But again, irony upon irony, it seems increasingly possible...and greatly to be hoped for, in my view...that his dysfunctionality will bring good results deiplomatically and economically. (I give him full credit for a fine decision on Judge Gorsch.) This crazy, convoluted, irrational world of ours may very well benefit from his blatant egoism and mind-boggling incompetene! I'll drink to that! I'll pray for that!

A Catholic Feminism?

With his usual clear, down-to-earth common sense, David Carlin distinguishes five types of feminism (https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2017/06/30/five-kinds-of-feminism/): egalitarian which demands equal rights, opportunities, pay (accepted by over 99% of us); career-first which places primacy there and marginalizes marriage and family as secondary options; sexual liberation which rejects traditional chastity and champions abortion; anti-male feminism which sees oppressive patriarchy everywhere; and religious feminism which develops an entire belief system ("God as She") and way of life. Strangely, he fails to mention the approach, implicit in much emerging psychology and developed by Edith Stein, John Paul II and others, which contemplates and champions the distinctive genius of femininity. This approach sees that women, naturally ("nature" related to nativity and natality is not a favored idea of mainstream feminism), are greatly endowed with emotional intelligence, spiritual docility, psychological integrity, empathy, intuition, multi-tasking capability, synthetic thinking, psychological resilience, relational strength, longevity, and nurturing skills. Men, again by nature, are inferior in all these areas but have compensating strengths: upper body strength and body mass, engineering and math skills, single-minded focus, abstract thinking related to a certain disconnect (not entirely admirable) between thought and feeling. Women are more vulnerable to anxiety and hysteria; men more prone to anger, violence, discouragement and lust. Our post-Protestant society rewards qualities more common to men: ambition, aggression, and indifference to the suffering of others. A healthy society will cherish and cultivate what is best in each sex. A wise culture recognizes there is an actual interior form, a gestalt,  soul of femininity and masculinity that is not reducible to physical or psychological stereotype. Because the feminine is superior in certain important arenas, such as the family, a compensating deference is needed by the male for him to contribute his gifts: for example, since the mother is usually closer to the children, she needs to pay obvious respect to father to empower him to protect and guide the children. Absent such support from Mom, Dad remains distant and impotent even if that is not his desire. And so, the woman because of her sublime gifts and mission has rights denied to the man: she has a right to be supported when she gives birth and cares for children, she has a right to reverence because she embodies all that is good/true/beautiful, she has a right to protection and privilege because of her sublime combination of fragility and resilient strength. The woman is God's last and greatest creation, his masterpiece of generosisity, goodness and beauty. THAT is a genuine feminism!