For Endurance, Capture The Culture

     The remarkable Haretina Kukuri has produced a stunner of an essay about the longevity of the world’s oldest continuously functioning institution, the Catholic Church. She covers many elements of the Church’s structure and positioning in the lives of its adherents. Some of them will strike the reader as “of course” matters, while others display a penetration that prior analysts of the Church have failed to exhibit. A brief taste:

     The Church did not build an organisation. It built a civilisation and then took up residence inside it. A calendar organising the year. An architecture dominating every European skyline. A visual grammar that generated most of Western art. A vocabulary that shaped Western law, ethics and political language. A ritual marking birth, marriage and death for the majority of people who have ever lived in the West. Vestments, polyphony, incense, and a dead language retained precisely because a dead language cannot drift.
     Above all, a claim about time. A cathedral is a promise made by people who knew they would be dust before the roof closed, financed by towns that could not afford it, carved by masons whose names are lost to everyone but God. Every stone argues that the future is real and that we owe something to people we shall never meet.
     That is the actual technology. A company may be copied within a year. A culture cannot be copied at all, because it is not a set of practices but a set of practices plus the centuries that rendered them inevitable.

     The extraordinary endurance of that civilization is often overlooked by secular observers. Some would rather ignore it; others gaze upon it in bafflement. Haretina captures the totality of it better than anyone else has done.

     I lived in that civilization. When I take a moment to remember it in detail, I realize how badly I miss it.

* * *

     Long ago, in remembrance of my childhood community, I wrote:

     It was an overwhelmingly Catholic community. There were five Masses each Sunday morning, and all of them were attended to capacity and beyond. The parish priests were regarded as higher authorities than any elected functionary. When our pastor was elevated to Monsignor, we young ones were stunned that the town didn't hold a parade.

     Most of the children attended the parish's grammar school, St. Catherine of Alexandria. Despite St. Catherine's huge class sizes -- classes of fifty were the norm -- standards were high, and the pressure to get in never slackened. The local public grammar school was regarded as a refuge for the children of lazy parents, who didn't care how their kids were taught; it had many unoccupied desks. Competition among the latter-grade students at St. Catherine's was intense; we all wanted to go to the local Catholic high school, Albertus Magnus, and we knew there weren't places enough for all of us.

     “Catholic community” has the sense of a unitary noun. The Catholicism could not be separated from the community. In that town, the civil authorities deferred to the parish pastor. Indeed, every home there was filled with crucifixes, votive candles, saints' images, and so forth. When the time came for prayer, a visitor was expected to pray with his hosts. Catholicism was the culture. When a Jewish family moved in, no one quite knew what to do!

     This parallels Haretina’s previous essay about the strength and invulnerability of the Mafia culture. When an institution marries itself to the culture of a place so intimately that it can no longer be separated from the life of that place, it has acquired a longevity that secular institutions cannot equal.

* * *

     The question on my mind this morning is whether it remains possible for a new institution to achieve a similar degree of cultural capture. Religions will always have a large advantage over secular institutions in that regard. In the nations of Europe, the Church has been losing its grip on the allegiance of the people, despite the many markers of its legacy. But other potential cultural appropriators, despite prodigious efforts, have failed to establish themselves with the same degree of firmness. Why?

     Because the culture remains Catholic, even in those places where conscious faith and explicit worship have faded away.

     Europe is under siege by the tides of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East. Yet these, however numerous and motivated, have not succeeded in insinuating themselves into the culture and practices of the Old World. I predict that they will not. They’re up against a more powerful, more integrated, more satisfying culture than what they’re striving to impose. Their efforts just might stimulate the resurrection and revitalization of what was once called Christendom.

     America, originally settled largely by Protestants, developed differently. Catholic culture arrived in quantity mainly after the Civil War. It took hold in districts that were predominantly peopled by immigrants from the persistently Catholic parts of Europe. And where it did, it was strong, as I mentioned above. But it didn’t become the national culture; the orientations and practices of the Protestant sects that preceded it had and have their own grip, not to be easily contested nor displaced.

     Yet American Catholicism, if slightly at variance from the European variety, is strong and vital. Catholics amount to a quarter of the national population. A great many “cradle Catholics” who drifted from the Church are returning as the years mount upon them. I was one, and I’ve met several others. It’s common among converts, especially converts from Protestant sects, to embrace Catholic culture completely: the crucifixes, the statues and holy images, the votive candles, the great feast days, the wall sconces for holy water, the ritual prayers, and the other practices promulgated and encouraged by the Church. The culture is as important to them as the faith itself. That culture shields its adherents against a multitude of invasions and infections.

     Culture is powerful. Catholics know it. Draw the moral.

The Sacred And The State

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. As you know, I’m a Catholic Christian, so the statements and deeds of prominent Catholic clerics are of concern to me. Of course the highest of those clerics, the Supreme Pontiff of the Church, gets a lot of attention for his statements. After all, no one can claim to have more “followers,” or more influence, than the Pope. Even Protestants pay attention when he speaks.

     That suggests that a Pope should be extremely circumspect in his emissions. A casual remark from him can sway the opinions and decisions of a billion-plus people. Yet the late Pope Francis seemed to disagree. He’d opine on any subject, as if he were just another neighborhood boozer holding forth at the corner pub.

     Dare I say that the world is riven by sufficient strife that we do not need the greatest religious leader on Earth to add to it?

     No one is suggesting that papal infallibility should be held to apply to papal political opinions. Nevertheless, the Pope’s opinions have power. His words can sway elections and topple regimes. Granted that some regimes deserve a good toppling, that is not a course of action to be lightly undertaken.

     Pope Leo XIV, our current Supreme Pontiff, appears to be following in the late Pope Francis’s train. He’s emitted opinions about American foreign and immigration policy that, to me at least, seem unwise. They’ve put American Catholics in quite a dither. (Incredibly, he’s also suggested that Christians and Muslims can “get along” and “be friends.” On that last count, let it suffice to say that both history and current events disfavor that prospect.)

     Why is he saying such things? He hardly needs more attention than he gets in the usual course of things. He may feel strongly about his opinions, but men with strong opinions have restrained themselves before this, when it struck them as prudent. As his office guarantees that he’ll listened to by billions, I’d have hoped he’d be similarly guarded. The more influence you have, the more careful you should be about using it.

     But dare to say that on a social medium, and you’ll get a lot of unpleasant attention. You can’t criticize the Pope! He’s the head of your Church! He’s infallible! I’ve had other Catholics – and I shan’t name them nor criticize them for it – people who don’t know me at all, tell me I should go to Confession at once.

     That sort of discord within the body of the Church is enough to say to me, at least, that for the Pope to declaim on politics and foreign policy is a dangerous business. But there’s more to say than that. Some of it strikes me as imperative.

     Christianity is not like other faiths. Its Founder emphasized that each of us is responsible for his own moral-ethical stature. Saying “I was misled” at the Particular Judgment will not save you from Hell. Our individual decisions to speak or not, to act or not, are what matter, and they are solely ours.

     Politics and the decisions of governments are quite different things. God will hold the masters of the State responsible for their words and deeds in their turn, but the actions of a State are collective actions. They are undertaken on behalf of a nation – and in all cases, there will be some who benefit and others who are harmed. We must hope, often against the odds, that those decisions and actions will do net good rather than net harm.

     The decision to use military force is only the most dramatic such case. Nearly all military actions involve death and destruction. But a head of State sets out on such a course on the basis of the information available to him, which isn’t always available to anyone else. He acts in the belief that it serves a greater good. At least, that’s what we hope – and let’s be candid: we may be fools to hope so. The history of warfare among States is not kind to our hopes.

     A Pope who condemns a military action probably won’t be equipped with all the information that head of State had before him. The Pontiff may be right that an invasion or aggression is condemnable. But even in egregious cases, for him to say so openly can have unforeseeable costs. Some of those costs may be paid in blood.

     Many Catholics will disagree, but the matter is too fraught with peril not to speak my mind. The proper role of any Christian cleric, high or low, is to conserve and promulgate the Gospels, to counsel individuals on their decisions and actions, and to administer the Sacraments at need and upon request. He must not insert himself into the world of statecraft. Christ Himself said so:

     Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
     But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.
     And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?
     They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

     [Matthew 22:15-21]

     A Christian cleric must not go against the plain words of the Son of God.

Valentine’s Day

     I got nuthin’, as they say, so have a few words about the saint whose deeds inspired this day:

     Saint Valentine, officially known as Saint Valentine of Rome, is a third-century Roman saint widely celebrated on February 14 and commonly associated with "courtly love."
     Although not much of St. Valentine's life is reliably known, and whether or not the stories involve two different saints by the same name is also not officially decided, it is highly agreed that St. Valentine was martyred and then buried on the Via Flaminia to the north of Rome.
     In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church removed St. Valentine from the General Roman Calendar, because so little is known about him. However, the church still recognizes him as a saint, listing him in the February 14 spot of Roman Martyrolgy.
     The legends attributed to the mysterious saint are as inconsistent as the actual identification of the man.
     One common story about St. Valentine is that in one point of his life, as the former Bishop of Terni, Narnia and Amelia, he was on house arrest with Judge Asterius. While discussing religion and faith with the Judge, Valentine pledged the validity of Jesus. The judge immediately put Valentine and his faith to the test.
     St. Valentine was presented with the judge's blind daughter and told to restore her sight. If he succeeded, the judge vowed to do anything for Valentine. Placing his hands onto her eyes, Valentine restored the child's vision.
     Judge Asterius was humbled and obeyed Valentine's requests. Asterius broke all the idols around his house, fasted for three days and became baptized, along with his family and entire 44 member household. The now faithful judge then freed all of his Christian inmates.
     St. Valentine was later arrested again for continuing to try to convert people to Christianity. He was sent to Rome under the emperor Claudius Gothicus (Claudius II). According to the popular hagiographical identity, and what is believed to be the first representation of St. Valentine, the Nuremberg Chronicle, St. Valentine was a Roman priest martyred during Claudius' reign. The story tells that St. Valentine was imprisoned for marrying Christian couples and aiding Christians being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Both acts were considered serious crimes. A relationship between the saint and emperor began to grow, until Valentine attempted to convince Claudius of Christianity. Claudius became raged and sentenced Valentine to death, commanding him to renounce his faith or be beaten with clubs and beheaded.
     St. Valentine refused to renounce his faith and Christianity and was executed outside the Flaminian Gate on February 14, 269. However, other tales of St. Valentine's life claim he was executed either in the year 269, 270, 273 or 280. Other depictions of St. Valentine's arrests tell that he secretly married couples so husbands wouldn't have to go to war. Another variation of the legend of St. Valentine says he refused to sacrifice to pagan gods, was imprisoned and while imprisoned he healed the jailer's blind daughter. On the day of his execution, he left the girl a note signed, "Your Valentine."

     [From Catholic Online.]

     Happy Saint Valentine’s Day, Gentle Reader. Be with someone you love today. And may God bless and keep you both!

For The Feast of Christ The King

     [Today is the Feast of Christ The King, which falls on the last Sunday before Advent. It’s a unique holy day for several reasons, and one that I find particularly personally significant. It first appeared at Eternity Road on January 6, 2008. I find that I cannot improve upon it, for which reason I've made a habit of reviving it each year on this special day. -- FWP]

    

---

     Let's talk about...Zoroastrianism!

    

***

     The ancient creed called Zoroastrianism predated the birth of Christ by about a millennium. Its founder, Zoroaster, laid down a small set of doctrines:

• There is one universal and transcendental God, Ahura Mazda, the one uncreated creator and to whom all worship is ultimately directed.
• Ahura Mazda's creation — evident as asha, truth and order — is the antithesis of chaos, evident as druj, falsehood and disorder. The resulting conflict involves the entire universe, including humanity, which has an active role to play in the conflict.
• Active participation in life through good thoughts, good words and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep the chaos at bay. This active participation is a central element in Zoroaster's concept of free will, and Zoroastrianism rejects all forms of monasticism.
• Ahura Mazda will ultimately prevail, at which point the universe will undergo a cosmic renovation and time will end. In the final renovation, all of creation — even the souls of the dead that were initially banished to "darkness" — will be reunited in Ahura Mazda.
• In Zoroastrian tradition, the malevolent is represented by Angra Mainyu, the "Destructive Principle", while the benevolent is represented through Ahura Mazda's Spenta Mainyu, the instrument or "Bounteous Principle" of the act of creation. It is through Spenta Mainyu that Ahura Mazda is immanent in humankind, and through which the Creator interacts with the world. According to Zoroastrian cosmology, in articulating the Ahuna Vairya formula, Ahura Mazda made His ultimate triumph evident to Angra Mainyu.
• As expressions and aspects of Creation, Ahura Mazda emanated seven "sparks", the Amesha Spentas, "Bounteous Immortals" that are each the hypostasis and representative of one aspect of that Creation. These Amesha Spenta are in turn assisted by a league of lesser principles, the Yazatas, each "Worthy of Worship" and each again a hypostasis of a moral or physical aspect of creation.

     I find nothing objectionable in the above, except that only God, by whatever name He might be known, is worthy of worship; the most a lesser being is entitled to is veneration. But the word "worship" has had many meanings and subtleties over the years, so I'm inclined to let it pass. More important than Zoroastrianism's harmless mythos is its ethos, which Zoroaster himself encapsulated in a unique and memorable command:

    

Speak truth and shoot the arrow straight.

     Unlike the overwhelming majority of other pre-Christian creeds, Zoroastrianism was -- and is -- rational, humane, and life-loving rather than life-denying. It emphasized human free will, moral choice, and the need to defend truth and order against lies and chaos. These attributes made it the dominant religion of classical Persia and environs, though Zoroastrians' numbers are far reduced today.

     (No, I haven't converted to Zoroastrianism. You can all relax.)

     In the Western world, the Zoroastrians were the first practitioners of the pseudo-science we call astrology. They reposed a fair amount of confidence in it, for the creed had had its own prophets, beginning with Zoroaster himself, and among the prophecies were several tied to events foretold to happen in the night sky. The Zoroastrians therefore took great interest in the stars, and made careful records of occurrences therein, for comparison to the utterances of their prophets.

     One of those prophecies involved the birth of God in mortal flesh.

     The Magi of the Incarnation story were three esteemed nobles of Persia, wealthy in gold, wisdom, and the admiration of their societies. In contrast to the pattern prevalent among the nobilities of later times, these three, whose names have come down to us as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, were deeply religious men whose involvement in the investigation of the Zoroastrian prophecies was sincere. When they spied the famous "star in the east" -- quite possibly a nova in Draco now known to have occurred at about that time -- they resolved to follow its trail, to find the divine infant and pay him homage.

     I shan't retell the whole of the story. It's accessible to anyone reading this site, in both secular and liturgical versions. The most salient aspect of the story is that these three exalted nobles -- kings, in the most common accounts -- of a faraway land came to pay homage and present tokens of vassalage to a newborn infant.

     Of course! What else would be appropriate, before a King of Kings?

    

***

     I will pause here to draw an important distinction: "King of Kings" is not the same as "Emperor." "Emperor" is a title appropriate only to a conqueror; that's more or less what it means. Atop that, an emperor is not necessarily concerned with justice, whereas a king, of whatever altitude, is obliged to make it the center of his life:

     The saber gleamed in the muted light. I'd spent a lot of time and effort sharpening and polishing it.

     It was a plain weapon, not one you'd expect to see in the hand of a king. There was only the barest tracing on the faintly curved blade. The guard bell was a plain steel basket, without ornamentation. The hilt was a seven inch length of oak, darkened with age but firm to the touch. There was only a hint of a pommel, a slight swell of the hilt at its very end.

     "What is this?"

     "A sword. Your sword."

     A hint of alarm compressed his eyes. "What do you expect me to do with it?"

     I shrugged. "Whatever you think appropriate. But a king should have a sword. By the way," I said, "it was first worn by Louis the Ninth of France when he was the Dauphin, though he set it aside for a useless jeweled monstrosity when he ascended the throne."

     Time braked to a stop as confusion spun his thoughts.

     "I don't know how to use it," he murmured.

     "Easily fixed. I do."

     "But why, Malcolm?"

     I stepped back, turned a little away from those pleading eyes.

     "Like it or not, you're a king. You don't know what that means yet. You haven't a sense for the scope of it. But you must learn. Your life, and the lives of many others, will turn on how well you learn it." I paused and gathered my forces. "What is a king, Louis?"

     He stood there with the sword dangling from his hand. "A ruler. A leader. A warlord."

     "More. All of that, but more. The sword is an ancient symbol for justice. Back when the function of nobility was better understood, a king never sat his throne without his sword to hand. If he was to treat with the envoy of another king, it would be at his side. If he was to dispense justice, it would be across his knees. Why do you suppose that was, Louis?"

     He stood silent for a few seconds.

     "Symbolic of the force at his command, I guess."

     I shook my head gently.

     "Not just symbolic. A true king, whose throne belonged to him by more than the right of inheritance, led his own troops and slew malefactors by his own hand. The sword was a reminder of the privilege of wielding force, but it was there to be used as well."

     His hands clenched and unclenched in time to his thoughts. I knew what they had to be.

     "The age of kings is far behind us, Malcolm."

     "It never ended. Men worthy of the role became too few to maintain the institution."

     "And I'm...worthy?"

     If he wasn't, then no worthy man had ever lived, but I couldn't tell him that.

     "There's a gulf running through the world, Louis. On one side are the commoners, the little men who bear tools, tend their gardens, and keep the world running. On the other are the nobles, who see far and dare much, and sometimes risk all they have, that the realm be preserved and the commoner continue undisturbed in his portion. There's no shortage of either, except for the highest of the nobles, the men of unbreakable will and moral vision, for whom justice is a commitment deeper than life itself."

     His face had begun to twitch. He'd heard all he could stand to hear, and perhaps more. I decided to cap the pressure.

     "Kings have refused their crowns many times, Louis. You might do as much, though it would sadden me to see it. But you could break that sword over your knee, change your name, and run ten thousand miles to hide where no one could know you, and it wouldn't lessen what you are and were born to be." I gestured at the sword. "Keep it near you."

     [From Chosen One.]

     Note further: a mortal king cannot and does not define justice; he dispenses justice, according to principles drawn from a higher authority. The King of Kings, from whom the privilege and obligation to mete justice flows, is the definer. In the matter of Law, all lesser kings are His vassals.

     The Magi conceded this explicitly with their gift of gold.

    

***

     The pre-Christian era knew few, if any, rulers who claimed their jurisdiction solely on basis of might. Nearly all were approved and anointed by a priesthood. In that anointment lay their claim to be dispensers of true justice, for God would not allow a mortal to mete justice that departs from His Law. Let's leave aside the divergence between theory and practice for the moment; it was the logical connection between Divine Law and human-modulated justice that mattered to the people of those times.

     But the King of Kings would need no clerical approval. Indeed, He would be the Priest of Priests: the Authority lesser priests would invoke in anointing lesser kings.

     The Magi conceded this explicitly with their gift of frankincense.

    

***

     We of the Twenty-First Century are largely unaware of the obligations which lay upon the kings of old. They were not, until the waning years of monarchy, sedentary creatures whose lives were a round of indulgences and propitiations. They were expected not merely to judge and pass sentence, but also to lead the armies of the realm when war was upon it. The king was expected to put himself at risk before any of his subjects. Among the reasons was this one: the loss of the king in battle was traditionally grounds for surrender, after which the enemy was forbidden by age-old custom to strike further blows.

     The king, in this conception, was both the leader of his legions and a sacrifice for the safety of his subjects, should the need arise. He was expected to embrace the role wholeheartedly, and to lead from the front in full recognition of the worst of the possibilities. Not to do so was an admission that he was unfit for his throne:

     "We have talked," he said, "about all the strategies known to man for dealing with an armed enemy. We have talked about every aspect of deadly conflict. Every moment of every discussion we've had to date has been backlit by the consciousness of objectives and costs: attaining the one and constraining the other. And one of the first things we talked about was the importance of insuring that you don't overpay for what you seek."

     She kept silent and listened.

     "What if you can't, Christine? What if your objective can't be bought at an acceptable price?"

     She pressed her lips together, then said, "You abandon it."

     He smirked. "It's hard even to say it, I know. But reality is sometimes insensitive to a general's desires. On those occasions, you must learn how to walk away. And that, my dear, is an art form of its own."

     He straightened up. "Combat occurs within an envelope of conditions. A general doesn't control all those conditions. If he did, he'd never have to fight. Sometimes, those conditions are so stiff that he's compelled to fight whether he thinks it wise, or not."

     "What conditions can do that to you?"

     His mouth quirked. "Yes, what conditions indeed?"

     Oops. Here we go again. "Weather could do it."

     "How?"

     "By cutting off your lines of retreat in the face of an invasion."

     "Good. Another."

     "Economics. Once the economy of your country's been militarized, it runs at a net loss, so you might be forced to fight from an inferior position because you're running out of resources."

     "Excellent. One more."

     She thought hard. "Superior generalship on the other side?"

     He clucked in disapproval. "Does the opponent ever want you to fight?"

     "No, sorry. Let me think."

     He waited.

     Conditions. Conditions you can't control. Conditions that...control you.

     "Politics. The political leadership won't accept retreat or surrender until you've been so badly mangled that it's obvious even to an idiot."

     The man Louis Redmond had named the greatest warrior in history began to shudder. It took him some time to quell.

     "It's the general's worst nightmare," he whispered. "Kings used to lead their own armies. They used to lead the cavalry's charge. For a king to send an army to war and remain behind to warm his throne was simply not done. Those that tried it lost their thrones, and some lost their heads -- to their own people. It was a useful check on political and military rashness.

     "It hasn't been that way for a long time. Today armies go into the field exclusively at the orders of politicians who remain at home. And politicians are bred to believe that reality is entirely plastic to their wills."

     [From On Broken Wings.]

     But the King of Kings, intrinsically above all other authorities, would obviously be aware of this obligation. More, His sacrifice of Himself must perforce be for the salvation of the whole of the world -- indeed, the whole of the universe and every sentient creature in it. Nothing less could possibly justify it.

     The Magi conceded this explicitly with their gift of myrrh.

    

***

     On the first Sunday after the New Year, Christians celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, called the Theophany by some eastern Christian sects, when the Magi prostrated themselves before the Christ Child and made their gifts of vassalage to him. A vassal is a noble sworn to fealty to a higher authority: a higher-ranking noble or a king. The obligations of the vassal are to enforce justice as promulgated by the vassal's liege, and to support and defend the liege's realm by force of arms as required. To the King of Kings, God made flesh in the miracle of the Incarnation, every temporal authority is properly a vassal, obliged to mete justice in accordance with the natural law and to defend the Liege's realm -- men of good will, wherever they may be -- against all enemies, whenever the need might arise. To do less is to be unworthy of a temporal throne, palace, official office, or seat in a legislature...to be unworthy of Him.

     He took on the burdens of the flesh to confirm God's love for Man and to open the gates of salvation. He went to Calvary in testament to the authenticity of His Authority. The Magi knew, and in their pledge of fealty to Him, made plain that He had come not merely to succor Israel, but for the liberation of all Mankind.

     May God bless and keep you all.

Dissent Requires Courage

     I have an admission to make, Gentle Reader: I'm not terribly courageous. There are times when I back away from saying plainly and explicitly what I think about a particular proposition. It's normally in those cases where I could expect a storm of denunciation from persons who agree with me on most other things: a consequence of the polarizing and hardening of opinion on innumerable subjects. So my "courage of convictions" is a good distance from perfect.

     But I'm nearing the end of my life. If I'm ever to correct that deficiency, it must be soon.

     Those readers who have respected my views on matters of faith and the spirit are the most likely to feel what follows as a "gut punch." If you proceed from here, don’t claim afterward that I didn’t warn you.

---

     I'm a Catholic. That doesn't mean I agree with the totality of Church teachings. The Church has been wrong on a number of occasions and subjects. I've been called a "cafeteria Catholic" for that. Whatever! I stand by my convictions.

     On a variety of subjects, clerical doctrinal overreach has been rampant. Church teaching has at times seemed designed to benefit the Church hierarchy and the clergy generally, rather than to explain and explore the will of God as it was elucidated to us by His Son. This was at its most dramatic in the years near to the end of the First Millennium, when clerics routinely exploited the millenarian fears of European Christians to enrich themselves.

     About thirty years ago, the Church added two remarkable "sins" to its catechism: income tax evasion, and "excessive" sexual pleasure even between husband and wife. Never mind that the income tax itself is a form of armed robbery, or that "excessive" is always a matter of opinion. Never mind that many a State is blatantly oppressive, even murderous, or that the marital bed is supposed to be a place of fulfillment and joy. The Church condemned these things; we're supposed to feel guilty about them and plead for absolution from them.

     To which I replied, "Where is your authority for these pronouncements?"

     (...crickets chirping...)

     For "baseline" thoughts on clerical overreach, see this essay.

---

     It is unacceptable for a human institution to arrogate authority that belongs only to God. The moral-ethical rules are His rules. We cannot legitimately alter them, nor can we extend them into realms where they don't apply. Neither teleology nor "good intentions" can justify it. Yet the Church has done so repeatedly.

     In recent years, fearing that its doctrinal overreach has endangered the allegiance of its flock, the Church has tried to "have it both ways:"

     Catholics believe that an individual's conscience is the ultimate determinant of what is wrong or right for that individual. Moreover, God will judge us according to the fidelity with which we have followed our conscience. Nevertheless, this conscience needs to be formed by objective standards of moral conduct. The Church provides us with just that -- moral norms based on Jesus's teachings, the inspired scriptures, centuries of tradition, and the laws of nature.
     These moral standards may seem at times to be inhibiting or restrictive. The fact is, that quite to the contrary, they release or liberate us. These norms both make us free, and lead us to the deep happiness that comes from following God's plan. Jesus underscored that point when he said: If you live according to my teachings, you are truly my disciples; then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

     [Father Joseph M. Champlin, What It Means To Be Catholic]

     The attempt to tread the narrow line between "Let your conscience be your guide" and "We know better than you do" could not be more obvious. Yet there is no avoiding the primacy of conscience. Conscience, once supplemented with reason, provides us the tool for knowing right from wrong, the "land of sin" from the "land of liberty."

     For what is the conscience? It's the "knowing with" that God provides to every human soul: the "knowing with" God, through the faculties He has awarded us. I had a character in a novel explain it better than I could:

     The word ‘conscience’ means ‘knowing with.’ But knowing with whom? As we can’t read one another’s consciences, or transmit into them, it can only be God. Conscience is the channel God uses to help us make our judgment calls—which does not mean that if you and I make a particular one differently, then one of us is ‘wrong.’ You can never know what another person’s conscience has told him...or whether he’s really paid attention to it as he should.”

     The hard-and-fast rules that must undergird the operations of conscience are set out by Christ Himself in Matthew Chapter 19:

     And behold one came and said to him: Good master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?
     Who said to him: Why asketh thou me concerning good? One is good, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
     He said to him: Which? And Jesus said: Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [Matthew 19:16-19]

     Note that Christ's pronouncement comes close to the Noahide Commandments. These are the lightest requirements any faith has ever laid upon Mankind. As they were enunciated first by God the Father and then by His Son, we may trust the Authority behind them. Moreover, they are fully consistent with two even higher Commandments:

     But the Pharisees hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together: And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?
     Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
     On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets. [Matthew 22:34-40]

     I hold that these rules and these alone are the original authority to which the Church must cleave. The Church's authority is derived from those rules. I've never met a challenge sufficient to make me doubt it.

     Much of my fiction has been aimed at elucidating the rules by which a Catholic – or any other person who wants to see himself as good – must live. Dissent if you please; I stand by what I've written, here and elsewhere. I'll do so when I face God at the Particular Judgment, without fear.

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     Why is this on my mind, you ask? Mainly for two reasons. First, in these later years of life I've become more judgmental of myself. I've always promoted clarity in thought and expression. To fall short of that standard lowers me in my own eyes. Second, because there are innumerable persons who lack a sense for the limits of their authority, and not all of them are in Holy Orders.

     I could go on, but I don't want to become tiresome. Let that stand for the moment. Love God with your whole heart, listen always to your conscience, and do have a nice day.

On Sainthood

     “You have to be a very good, and usually very dead person to become a saint. And more importantly, you need to work three miracles.” – Val Kilmer as Simon Templar, in The Saint

     I wanted to take today off from this dive. I could use the rest. However, the urge to write something appropriate to the day – All Saints’ Day, if you haven’t noticed – kept recurring, and it was growing stronger with each recurrence. So here goes.

     There was once a chessplayer and writer by the name of Franz Gutmayer. Gutmayer wasn’t a very good player. Oh, he probably could have beaten me eight or nine games out of ten, but then, I’m not a very good player either. At any rate, he took it upon himself to write a book titled How to Become a Chess Master. It wasn’t terribly popular, and was castigated by the great players of the day for its advice.

     The most notable thing about this book is that Gutmayer was not a master and never earned the title. How shall we regard one who seeks to instruct us in doing something he cannot do himself? I wouldn’t take his teachings very seriously, would you?

     But I’ve just remembered that I’m here to talk about sainthood. So here’s my question for today: If you’re a serious Christian – i.e., one who tries his best to live by that faith – would you presume to instruct others in how to earn sainthood?

     Sainthood, be it remembered, means “only” admission to heaven and the existing communion of the saints. Yes, there are famous, officially canonized saints, but their distinction from other saints is their recognition by us who still wear the flesh. The humblest completely unknown peasant who lived a worthy life and has been admitted to heaven is just as much a saint as Thomas Aquinas, Francis Xavier, Therese Martin, Elizabeth Seton, or Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

     I wouldn’t dare to try to teach others such a thing. I’m not a saint myself, being alive and ambling about this ball of rock. Having not yet been granted the title, to imagine that I could teach others how to attain it would be an act of the most atrocious arrogance. But here’s the Ace kicker: I would say the same thing about anyone else, be he Pope or paperboy, who dares to claim that he could teach you how to achieve sainthood.

     So when I encountered the following:

     ...my neck hair rose. Did this Ghezzi fellow write his book while he was still alive, or did he dictate it to a medium after his death? What’s that you say? He’s still alive? Then he’s not yet a saint – so how could he possibly know how to become one?

     All that having been said, there is an Authority on the subject – we call him the Christ – whose recommendations can be followed with confidence. But I wouldn’t advise you to trust the prescriptions of any lesser figure.

     All Saints’ Day is the Catholic holy day on which we celebrate all saints — sainthood itself, if you will – including those whose names we the living do not and cannot know. There are probably many millions of saints; the annals of official canonization include only a couple of thousand. So on this day each year, we celebrate not only the famous ones the Vatican has already certified, but the far more numerous ones whose names and lives we know nothing about. The ones who never wrote a book. The ones who never preached a sermon. The ones, dare I say it, who never learned of Jesus of Nazareth and His New Covenant.

     For the Redeemer Himself has told us:

     When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain. After he sat down his disciples came to him. Then he began to teach them by saying:
     “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
     “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
     “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
     “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
     “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
     “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
     “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.
     “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
     “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me. Rejoice and be glad because your reward is great in heaven, for they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.”

     [Matthew 5:1-12]

     And indeed, the Church recognizes at least one saint who lived a thousand years before Christ:

     St. Deborah (11th c. B.C.) was a godly widow and saint of the Old Testament. She was a courageous prophetess and champion of the Israelites. All Israel came to her to judge their disputes, and God prophesied to Israel through her. She was Israel's only female judge. Her role as the military leader who defended the Israelites is commemorated in the Bible's "Song of Deborah." It was her military counter-attack against Sisera at Mount Tabor that successfully delivered Israel's enemies into their hands. As prophetess, she foretold that Israel would have peace for 40 years following this victory. St. Ambrose and St. Jerome observed that St. Deborah is a good role model for the encouragement of courageous, godly women. Her feast day is November 1st.

     So: We have the Redeemer’s statements on the subject, and the examples of the known, canonized saints. Good teachings and good examples to study! But I advise you to treat the living who presume to instruct you in how to achieve sainthood as persons of dubious authority. Unless they’ve met or exceeded the grandmaster norm in at least two qualifying tournaments, that is. And may God bless and keep you all!

American Catholics, Take Note!

     You will never read anything more timely than what follows. It’s an open letter from Archbishop Carlo Vigano, at one time the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, to President Donald J. Trump:

OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DONALD J. TRUMP
Sunday, October 25, 2020
Solemnity of Christ the King

Mr. President,

     Allow me to address you at this hour in which the fate of the whole world is being threatened by a global conspiracy against God and humanity. I write to you as an Archbishop, as a Successor of the Apostles, as the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America. I am writing to you in the midst of the silence of both civil and religious authorities. May you accept these words of mine as the "voice of one crying out in the desert" (Jn 1:23).

     As I said when I wrote my letter to you in June, this historical moment sees the forces of Evil aligned in a battle without quarter against the forces of Good; forces of Evil that appear powerful and organized as they oppose the children of Light, who are disoriented and disorganized, abandoned by their temporal and spiritual leaders.

     Daily we sense the attacks multiplying of those who want to destroy the very basis of society: the natural family, respect for human life, love of country, freedom of education and business. We see heads of nations and religious leaders pandering to this suicide of Western culture and its Christian soul, while the fundamental rights of citizens and believers are denied in the name of a health emergency that is revealing itself more and more fully as instrumental to the establishment of an inhuman faceless tyranny

     A global plan called the Great Reset is underway. Its architect is a global Ă©lite that wants to subdue all of humanity, imposing coercive measures with which to drastically limit individual freedoms and those of entire populations. In several nations this plan has already been approved and financed; in others it is still in an early stage. Behind the world leaders who are the accomplices and executors of this infernal project, there are unscrupulous characters who finance the World Economic Forum and Event 201, promoting their agenda.

     The purpose of the Great Reset is the imposition of a health dictatorship aiming at the imposition of liberticidal measures, hidden behind tempting promises of ensuring a universal income and cancelling individual debt. The price of these concessions from the International Monetary Fund will be the renunciation of private property and adherence to a program of vaccination against Covid-19 and Covid-21 promoted by Bill Gates with the collaboration of the main pharmaceutical groups. Beyond the enormous economic interests that motivate the promoters of the Great Reset, the imposition of the vaccination will be accompanied by the requirement of a health passport and a digital ID, with the consequent contact tracing of the population of the entire world. Those who do not accept these measures will be confined in detention camps or placed under house arrest, and all their assets will be confiscated.

     Mr. President, I imagine that you are already aware that in some countries the Great Reset will be activated between the end of this year and the first trimester of 2021. For this purpose, further lockdowns are planned, which will be officially justified by a supposed second and third wave of the pandemic. You are well aware of the means that have been deployed to sow panic and legitimize draconian limitations on individual liberties, artfully provoking a world-wide economic crisis. In the intentions of its architects, this crisis will serve to make the recourse of nations to the Great Reset irreversible, thereby giving the final blow to a world whose existence and very memory they want to completely cancel. But this world, Mr. President, includes people, affections, institutions, faith, culture, traditions, and ideals: people and values that do not act like automatons, who do not obey like machines, because they are endowed with a soul and a heart, because they are tied together by a spiritual bond that draws its strength from above, from that God that our adversaries want to challenge, just as Lucifer did at the beginning of time with his "non serviam."

     Many people -- as we well know -- are annoyed by this reference to the clash between Good and Evil and the use of "apocalyptic" overtones, which according to them exasperates spirits and sharpens divisions. It is not surprising that the enemy is angered at being discovered just when he believes he has reached the citadel he seeks to conquer undisturbed. What is surprising, however, is that there is no one to sound the alarm. The reaction of the deep state to those who denounce its plan is broken and incoherent, but understandable. Just when the complicity of the mainstream media had succeeded in making the transition to the New World Order almost painless and unnoticed, all sorts of deceptions, scandals and crimes are coming to light.

     Until a few months ago, it was easy to smear as "conspiracy theorists" those who denounced these terrible plans, which we now see being carried out down to the smallest detail. No one, up until last February, would ever have thought that, in all of our cities, citizens would be arrested simply for wanting to walk down the street, to breathe, to want to keep their business open, to want to go to church on Sunday. Yet now it is happening all over the world, even in picture-postcard Italy that many Americans consider to be a small enchanted country, with its ancient monuments, its churches, its charming cities, its characteristic villages. And while the politicians are barricaded inside their palaces promulgating decrees like Persian satraps, businesses are failing, shops are closing, and people are prevented from living, traveling, working, and praying. The disastrous psychological consequences of this operation are already being seen, beginning with the suicides of desperate entrepreneurs and of our children, segregated from friends and classmates, told to follow their classes while sitting at home alone in front of a computer.

     In Sacred Scripture, Saint Paul speaks to us of "the one who opposes" the manifestation of the mystery of iniquity, the kathèkon (2 Thess 2:6-7). In the religious sphere, this obstacle to evil is the Church, and in particular the papacy; in the political sphere, it is those who impede the establishment of the New World Order.

     As is now clear, the one who occupies the Chair of Peter has betrayed his role from the very beginning in order to defend and promote the globalist ideology, supporting the agenda of the deep church, who chose him from its ranks.

     Mr. President, you have clearly stated that you want to defend the nation -- One Nation under God, fundamental liberties, and non-negotiable values that are denied and fought against today. It is you, dear President, who are "the one who opposes" the deep state, the final assault of the children of darkness.

     For this reason, it is necessary that all people of good will be persuaded of the epochal importance of the imminent election: not so much for the sake of this or that political program, but because of the general inspiration of your action that best embodies -- in this particular historical context -- that world, our world, which they want to cancel by means of the lockdown. Your adversary is also our adversary: it is the Enemy of the human race, He who is "a murderer from the beginning" (Jn 8:44).

     Around you are gathered with faith and courage those who consider you the final garrison against the world dictatorship. The alternative is to vote for a person who is manipulated by the deep state, gravely compromised by scandals and corruption, who will do to the United States what Jorge Mario Bergoglio is doing to the Church, Prime Minister Conte to Italy, President Macron to France, Prime Minster Sanchez to Spain, and so on. The blackmailable nature of Joe Biden -- just like that of the prelates of the Vatican's "magic circle" -- will exposehim to be used unscrupulously, allowing illegitimate powers to interfere in both domestic politics as well as international balances. It is obvious that those who manipulate him already have someone worse than him ready, with whom they will replace him as soon as the opportunity arises.

     And yet, in the midst of this bleak picture, this apparently unstoppable advance of the "Invisible Enemy," an element of hope emerges. The adversary does not know how to love, and it does not understand that it is not enough to assure a universal income or to cancel mortgages in order to subjugate the masses and convince them to be branded like cattle. This people, which for too long has endured the abuses of a hateful and tyrannical power, is rediscovering that it has a soul; it is understanding that it is not willing to exchange its freedom for the homogenization and cancellation of its identity; it is beginning to understand the value of familial and social ties, of the bonds of faith and culture that unite honest people. This Great Reset is destined to fail because those who planned it do not understand that there are still people ready to take to the streets to defend their rights, to protect their loved ones, to give a future to their childrenand grandchildren. The leveling inhumanity of the globalist project will shatter miserably in the face of the firm and courageous opposition of the children of Light. The enemy has Satan on its side, He who only knows how to hate. But on our side,we have the Lord Almighty, the God of armies arrayed for battle, and the Most Holy Virgin, who will crush the headof the ancient Serpent. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom 8:31).

     Mr. President, you are well aware that, in this crucial hour, the United States of America is considered the defending wall against which the war declared by the advocates of globalism has been unleashed. Place your trust in the Lord, strengthened by the words of the Apostle Paul: "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me" (Phil 4:13). To be an instrument of Divine Providence is a great responsibility, for which you will certainly receive all the graces of state that you need, since they are being fervently implored for you by the many people who support you with their prayers.

     With this heavenly hope and the assurance of my prayer for you, for the First Lady, and for your collaborators, with all my heart I send you my blessing.

     God bless the United States of America!

+ Carlo Maria Vigano
Tit. Archbishop of Ulpiana
Former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America

     We are at war: an undeclared war, to be sure, but then, in our time most serious wars are not declared. That doesn’t make them less serious.

     Vote on November 3. And pray.

Unpleasant Necessities

     As some Gentle Readers will already know, I had a Catholic grammar-school education. By and large it was a good one, though the authoritarianism of the Dominican nuns who taught us did help to turn me away from the Church for several decades. Nevertheless, I learned a great deal, including a few things those Dominican nuns would have preferred that I not know.

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     “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” ― Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time

     If an institution has a net positive value, thwarting the progression above becomes the foremost duty of those who maintain it. It’s guaranteed not to be easy. Indeed, if the alarm isn’t sounded in time it can prove impossible. But the effort remains paramount, at least if one is determined to retain the positive value of the institution in question.

     The Catholic Church was the most important institution of Middle Ages Europe. No other organization can claim as much credit for preserving knowledge and civilization through the years that followed the fall of the Roman Empire. This is essentially undisputed, even among historians indifferent to Christianity as a creed.

     However, Hoffer’s Progression was at work. The Church was steadily degenerating from the greatest of all causes – conserving and promulgating the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth – into a business. The simonistic practices of clerical tax-gathering and “benefices” were at the heart of it. With the rampant corruption of the Renaissance Papacy, the disease reached its final stage.

     In my grammar school, the Reformation was characterized as “the Protestant Revolt:” a rebellion against the authority of the pope and the Church hierarchy. And to be maximally candid, it was that in part. But in greater part it was a rejection of the Church’s assertions of temporal authority for the purpose of enriching and exalting its clerics, from local priests all the way up to the pope himself.

     Martin Luther attacked the longstanding doctrine that salvation requires both faith and good works from him who would be saved. Yet that doctrine is not inherently pernicious. It had been perverted into a demand that lay Christians subordinate their worldly means to the demands of the Church. Luther had thrown the baby out with the bathwater – yet without his willingness to rebel against the Church hierarchy, the rampant simony and associated corruptions of the era might have doomed the Church entirely.

     The Schism had both good and bad consequences. Christianity no longer speaks with a single voice. Indeed, there’s considerable animosity among the various denominations, pointedly ridiculed in an old joke:

     I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!" He said "Why shouldn't I?"
     I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?"
     I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious."
     I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?" He said, "Christian."
     I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" He said, "Protestant."
     I said, "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?" He said, "Baptist!"
     I said, "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist church of God or Baptist church of the Lord?" He said, "Baptist church of God!"
     I said, "Me too! Are you original Baptist church of God, or are you reformed Baptist church of God?" He said, "Reformed Baptist church of God!"
     I said, "Me too! Are you reformed Baptist church of God, reformation of 1879, or reformed Baptist church of God, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist church of God, reformation of 1915!"
     I said, "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off.

     The Ecumenical Council of 1962-1965, sometimes called Vatican II, was in part an attempt to begin the regathering of all Christians under a single roof. It failed largely because the Catholic Church maintains the doctrinal primacy of the Pope, which Protestant Christians are unwilling to accept. Even so, efforts at a reborn Christian ecumenism continue and are generally regarded as making steady if slow progress.

     But we must keep this in mind: Without the Schism of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries, which shattered the Christian world and gave rise to Continent-wide religious warfare that ultimately required the Treaties of Westphalia to squelch, the Church would not have embraced the reforms that followed. It would have become nothing more than a racket. Today it would be a mere unpleasant footnote to medieval history.

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     Not all necessities are unpleasant…but some are inexorably so. Consider the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. It can be argued, though not conclusively, that Obama’s term of ordure office was the necessary precondition for the electorate to choose a complete and highly competent outsider for his successor. We had to experience the bottom of the barrel of politics before our eyes would open to the remedy.

     As Steven Brust noted in The Phoenix Guards, unpleasant notions can be important, even indispensable indicators of the proper course. That’s not to say that the most unpleasant course available is always the best one. Still, there are times when we must not shy from difficulty or discomfort, as anyone who’s ever had to spank a much-loved child will tell you.

     Today the Catholic Church is once again in the middle of an unpleasant phase. It involves a Pope who appears utterly unfit for the Throne of Saint Peter, who has chosen to neglect his duties as the Vicar of Christ on Earth in favor of unsubstantiated pronouncements on politics, economics, Islam, and other subjects well beyond his competence. As painful as this period has been for millions of Catholics, it might yet conduce to the greater good as we relearn what our Faith is really about. It also reminds us about the proper sphere to which Christian clerics of all denominations should confine themselves, both for the good of their parishioners and for their own immortal souls. God frowns upon shepherds who lead their flocks astray.

New Dimensions In Terrorism

     I wish I could honestly say I was surprised by this story:

     Jacksonville police said a van crashed into a Republican party tent where volunteers were registering voters Saturday afternoon.

     Jacksonville police say a driver intentionally crashed a van through a tent where Duval County GOP volunteers were registering voters Saturday afternoon.

     Nobody was injured in the 3:45 p.m. incident at the Walmart Supercenter, 11900 Atlantic Boulevard, near Kernan Boulevard in the Sandalwood neighborhood, Lt. Larry Gayle of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office told reporters at the scene.

     Several Duval County GOP volunteers were working at the registration tent when a white man in his early 20s driving an older — possibly 1980s — brown van pulled up toward the tent.

     He then drove through the tent, endangering the lives of the workers and damaging the tent and tables, Gayle said.

     The driver then stopped, got out of the van and took a video of the scene before he “flipped off” the victims and fled, Gayle said.

     ...but I wasn’t. And before we get to the “Fran” part of this tirade, add the above to this story:

     Tax cuts for the wealthy constitute a “structure of sin,” Pope Francis said Wednesday in a passionate address calling for international wealth redistribution. “Every year hundreds of billions of dollars, which should be paid in taxes to fund health care and education, accumulate in tax haven accounts,” the pontiff told participants in a Vatican seminar, “thus impeding the possibility of the dignified and sustained development of all social agents.”

     “Today’s structures of sin include repeated tax cuts for the richest people, often justified in the name of investment and development,” Francis told the meeting organized by the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences. [Emphasis added by FWP.]

     My juxtaposition of the two is more than a mere Curmudgeonly caprice, I assure you.

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     Allow me to ask you a question whose answer you think “should” be “obvious:” What is terrorism? That is: What are its genus — the superset of phenomena to which it belongs – and its differentia — the characteristic that distinguishes it from the other elements in that superset?

     There’s disagreement about the genus. Many people would say that terrorism must include violence, or at least a credible threat of violence. Indeed, most well-publicized acts of terrorism do include violence. But others – myself included – argue that terrorism is defined entirely by its object: the inducement of terror in a targeted population. That end need not require violence, or a threat of violence to come.

     An act of terrorism is one that is intended to terrorize: to create terror among its targets. Nothing else really matters.

     But why would anyone want to terrorize anyone else? Why, to get the people in the targeted group to comply with a particular agenda: i.e., to do, or not do, some particular thing. There may be real-life Jokers out there who just like to terrorize people for its own sake, but for our present purposes we can neglect them.

     To terrorize a man, you must target something he values greatly. “Temporal terrorist” Smith would target Jones’s life, his health, and his loved ones. But while such terrorists are relatively well known and understood, they’re not the only variety. “Spiritual terrorist” Davis would target the fate of Jones’s immortal soul.

     The unidentified Jacksonville driver mentioned in the first cited story, who employed violence to silence or scatter Republicans, conservatives, and Trump supporters, is a temporal terrorist. Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio, a.k.a. Pope Francis, is a spiritual terrorist: i.e., he has implied that unless you support his political prescriptions, your immortal soul is in danger of damnation. Granted that Bergoglio’s threats require that his targets be Catholics, but that’s an awfully big target group: about 75 million Americans and over a billion persons worldwide.

     In both cases, the terrorist is using terror to induce compliance with an agenda. Both are evil, though Gentle Readers may differ on the magnitudes involved.

     Bergoglio is not the first of his kind. There have been others, including several previous popes, of whom the same could be said. If you believe in the bifurcated afterlife of the Christian creed, then anything that endangers your prospects in that life is a tremendous threat: a terror. And all too many preachers, aware that their flocks look to them for wisdom and guidance, have used that terror to induce compliance with an agenda for which there is no basis in the Gospels of Jesus Christ.

     For a supposed Christian leader – indeed, the highest such in all the world – to resort to terrorism to promote an entirely non-Christian agenda is a crime that beggars my powers with words.

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     I’m not the first to say this, nor is this the first time I say it: Christianity is the Gospels. All else is commentary by fallible men. Some may have been divinely inspired. Some may have been articulating the principles of the Gospels in a fashion we didn’t grasp before they came along. But only what is entirely consistent with Christ’s teachings in the Gospels may we defensibly call “God’s will for Man.” The root of it all, as I have written many times before, lies in the Two Great Commandments:

     But the Pharisees hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together: And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?
     Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets. [Matthew 22:34-40]

     I have resisted the calls to label Jorge Bergoglio an anti-pope...until now. I shall do so no longer.

On Charity: A Sunday Rumination

     Imagine the following conversation:

Charitable Canvasser: Give me money.
FWP: Why?
CC: I need it.
FWP: And why should that concern me?
CC: Because I’ll use it for charity.
FWP: Meaning what?
CC: I’ll use the money you give me to do good things for others.
FWP: What good things?
CC: Good things! You know, stuff to help others.
FWP: That’s rather non-specific.
CC: Don’t worry, it’s stuff you’d approve of.
FWP: Could I do those things?
CC: Well, yeah. Some of them, anyway.
FWP: Then why should I pay you to do them?
CC: (Stalks off unhappily)

     Perhaps the above isn’t a perfect schematic of the “charitable canvasser’s” appeal. After all, there are some good things I can’t do for others, by virtue of my limited resources and geographic reach. But what are they? Aren’t others attending to them? If not, why not?

     Quite a lot of money flows into charities each year. The flow intensifies as the end of the year approaches, for reasons we need not discuss. They who donate are surely hoping (at least) that some of their gifts will be used to “do good things for others.” But the percentage that actually goes to such purposes is always less than 100%. Often it’s a lot less. Moreover, the things done are not always good things.

     It doesn’t matter whether the importuning organization is religious or secular. Both are capable of squandering your donation, and both are capable of misrepresenting their activities and intentions. Neither should be presumed to be doing good things just because it claims to do so. Both are likely to be doing things that are other than good as well, whether or not you know about them.

     As your esteem for the charitable organization rises, the danger that it intends to do something it shouldn’t do – indeed, something that shouldn’t be done — rises in proportion.

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     I can sound like a hardass when I tee off on this topic. Yet I’m quite sincere about it. Indeed, I consider unwise charitable giving to be one of the more important plagues – material and spiritual – of our time.

     First and foremost: While it is a Christian duty to act as the Good Samaritan did when an occasion for charity presents itself, there are conditions upon that duty.

• You are not required to harm yourself.
• Your obligations to your dependents must not be stinted.
• You must not impair anyone else’s obligations to his dependents.
• You must do no harm to anyone else.

     Much of what organized charities do is of dubious value to anyone but the organization’s paid staff. Gifts to such organizations might be used in part to help someone who needs and deserves help, but it’s virtually guaranteed that much of the money will be wasted...and some of it will cause harm to undeserving others.

     The best charity is personal. It goes to Jones, who through no fault of his own faces a significant, demonstrable need that he cannot meet out of his own labor and resources, and comes from Smith, who is a neighbor – i.e., one who is near – to Jones. Therefore Smith knows Jones’s circumstances, and can ensure that his gift will do good rather than harm.

     That highly condensed schematic of “the best charity” hides some potential complications. Quoth David L. Burkhead:

     The truth is, there are some people–not everyone, perhaps not even most, but some–who, if you provide them enough for even a basic living without their having to earn it, will accept that and make no attempt to improve their lot through their own efforts. Oh, they may complain about how hard they have it, but that complaint doesn’t motivate them to go work their way out of their situation. If anything, it’s intended to influence you to provide more of that “basic living” they’re not having to work for.

     Avoiding the creation or perpetuation of dependency is one of the desiderata of any charitable situation. Yet government “welfare” programs have turned millions into enduring dependents. While the incentive structures of private charities are unlike those of governments, the warning there should be heeded. Private actors can create dependency too. They’re most likely to do so in the absence of personal connections between benefactors and beneficiaries.

     Unwise charity is easier to fall into than one might think.

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     This is on my mind just now because my parish is in the midst of a “commitment campaign.” Not to put too fine a point on it, this is a campaign to guilt-trip parishioners into putting a larger amount in the collection basket each Sunday. This is a yearly event. Seldom are the intended uses of the hoped for increase in funding made plain and specific to the private communicant.

     I’m against blindly accommodating such a call for more money. There are things the clergy and paid staff of a Catholic parish must do: promulgate the Gospels; teach the Catechism; administer the sacraments; keep watch over the more vulnerable parishioners. These jobs need not be expensive in dollar terms. There are also things the clergy and paid staff should do: foster the sense of a community of men of good will, united by our faith in Jesus Christ; encourage parishioners to be welcoming toward new arrivals; generally keep parishioners aware of local and regional developments important to themas Catholics. No more are these items that require heavy funding.

     Beyond those things lies the realm of personal initiative: what individuals can and should do as individuals for other individuals. If concerted action is desirable, the parish can provide a locus for organization. However, those who are capable are those who must act. To “hire it done” is not Christian charity. If anything, that would foster the sense that “it’s not my problem:” i.e., that by giving cash we can distance ourselves from what’s actually going on at the “sharp end.”

     Remember this Gospel event?

     Which when Jesus had heard, he retired from thence by boat, into a desert place apart, and the multitudes having heard of it, followed him on foot out of the cities. And he coming forth saw a great multitude, and had compassion on them, and healed their sick.
     And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying: This is a desert place, and the hour is now past: send away the multitudes, that going into the towns, they may buy themselves victuals.
     But Jesus said to them, They have no need to go: give you them to eat.
     They answered him: We have not here, but five loaves, and two fishes.
     He said to them: Bring them hither to me. And when he had commanded the multitudes to sit down upon the grass, he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes.
     And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up what remained, twelve full baskets of fragments. And the number of them that did eat, was five thousand men, besides women and children.

     [Matthew 14:13-21. Emphasis added, as St. Matthew was weak in HTML.]

     After Jesus blessed the disciples’ offering, He returned it to them for distribution. He wanted the offering to come from their hands, not His. And so it is with the charity Christians should do in His year of 2019.

For All Saints’ Day

     The Catholic Church has established many feast days in the liturgical calendar. Some are very well known; others have been obscured by secularization, practices layered over the persons and events they commemorate, and the passage of time. One of the latter sort is the Saints’ Triduum, which is currently in progress.

     Hallowe’en, originally known as All Hallows Eve, is the first day of the Triduum. On that day it’s traditional to pray for the souls of one’s beloved dead and those soon to join them, that they might know a peace in the afterlife that eclipses what we the living experience under the veil of time. Clearly this is a practice that has fallen from its origins...but there’s no reason not to remember and revive it.

     November 1 is All Saints’ Day, upon which we are exhorted to praise those whose souls have ascended to the glory of Heaven. “The communion of the saints” is explicitly cited in the Nicene Creed, the most compact of all summaries of the Christian faith. That body is believed to have intercessory influence upon the decisions of the Trinity. In other words, an appeal to a saint associated with some burdensome aspect of life might cause him to appeal to God on the petitioner’s behalf. For example, Saint Anthony of Padua is associated with lost things that must be found or recovered. He’s a particular favorite of us old folks, especially when we misplace our keys or reading glasses.

     November 2 is All Souls’ Day. There are those departed who are destined for heaven’s glory but whose souls still bear the taint of venial (i.e., minor) sins. These, too, are saints, but in a sort of probationary status, temporarily immured in Purgatory while their remaining faults are cleansed. On All Souls’ Day we are exhorted to pray for their speedy purification and for their release from Purgatory and ascent into Heaven proper. It’s a particular aspect of this tradition to remember and pray for those beloved ones most recently taken from us. While it’s unclear what effect our prayers will have on their tenure in Purgatory, there’s no such thing as “wasted” prayer.

     And of course, on November 3, when the Triduum is complete, we clean out the remainder of the Hallowe’en candy and promise to get back on our diets. But that’s another and much more poignant story. Anyway, have a little Audio Adrenaline to kick off your morning. The following was the opening music for the unjustly denigrated, quite marvelous movie God’s Not Dead 2:

     I’ll be back later with some of the usual crap.

A Prick To The Conscience

     There aren’t many things I expect a priest to do for his flock. (There are a few things I expect him not to do, and woe betide his parishioners if he does any of them.) But in recent years one of my expectations has been confounded. For example, I hardly expect a priest to show significant courage in the face of the previously expressed displeasure of the Church’s higher-ups.

     Father Ed Kealey, who has retired from active ministry on account of age and infirmity, was first to impress me with his courage. Some years ago, he upbraided a large gathering of clergy, many of whom were his hierarchical superiors, for their prissy, almost dismissive attitude toward the clerical sexual-abuse scandals the whole world knows about. I was greatly impressed, especially as I knew that Father Ed was already disdained by the power structure of the Diocese of Rockville Center for his involvement in Voice of the Faithful, a lay Catholic organization many priests and bishops regard as an irritation and a threat to their perquisites.

     This morning I heard statements that have forced me to revise my prior opinion of a priest of whom I’ve spoken harshly in the past. Before I name him, I shall tell you why my assessment of him has improved.

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     The Catholic Church has suffered several attacks and disruptions over the centuries. Some of those disruptions have come from within the clergy. The profligacy, dissolution, and libidinousness of the Renaissance popes, in particular, came near to destroying the Church entirely. Indeed, it was their conduct that made possible the Protestant Schism and all that followed from it.

     One of the more significant changes the Church instituted in response to unacceptable behavior among its clerics was to forbid the ordination of married men, and to forbid ordained priests to marry. I could go into the particular dynamics that made married clerics a blight upon the Church in medieval Europe, but that’s a large subject that deserves its own essay. Suffice it to say that clerical benefices were being handed down from priests to their sons in a fashion that was outrage of the Old World. The clerical abuse called simony was closely associated with it. The only way to put a stop to it at that time was to put an end to the fathering of sons by priests. That required the rule of clerical celibacy, which was made formal and official by Pope Gregory VII in 1074 A.D.

     Today, of course, we have the scandals involving the sexual abuse of minors by clerics, a thing so monstrous that for some time many Catholics could not credit it. Only after a series of confessions – usually compelled by the emergence of unambiguous evidence – by pedophile priests did it become indisputable that something was rotten within the Church. Changes had to be made...but of what sort?

     The question is still being debated among the high bishops and cardinals. Pope Francis is said to be deeply involved in those discussions. That doesn’t speak well of the likely outcome. During his years in Argentina Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio protected a number of priests from facing accusations that, at the very least, deserved to be addressed by a court of law.

     Peripheral to this but deserving of mention this morning is the pope’s decree, following upon similar decrees by his predecessors, that Church will not consider the approval of priestly marriage. Neither will he permit consideration of the ordination of women. Most Catholic clergy will concede that those measures, if adopted, would help to reduce the frequency of clerical sex abuses, both by improving the fund of applicants for the priesthood and by reducing the number of opportunities for abuse to occur. However, with the pope firmly against them, it’s become professionally hazardous for a priest to suggest that they be considered. Priests have been disciplined, sometimes severely, for daring to suggest them to their congregations.

     What measures, then, are under discussion? The rumblings from the Vatican aren’t encouraging. What results from the conferences might amount to nothing more than cosmetics.

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     Before I go any deeper into this matter, I must make certain declarations about my personal convictions that many Catholics will find shocking.

     First, the pope is not infallible as that notion is commonly understood. Yes, the Church teaches that the Supreme Pontiff is infallible on matters of faith or morals, but this is impossible to accept given the egregious sinfulness and excesses of so many popes throughout history. Indeed, at least one pope, Benedict IX, has been credibly accused of practicing witchcraft. Some apologists for the infallibility doctrine have tried to finesse this, claiming that being infallible is not the same as being impeccable — i.e., without sin — and that sinfulness does not therefore imply that the pope could promulgate false doctrines. That defense, to put it mildly, isn’t terribly convincing.

     For papal infallibility to be reasonable, it should be interpreted in a different fashion, to wit: if the faithful follow the pope’s teachings on faith and morals, then they are spiritually indemnified even if those teachings are absolutely wrong. Any other approach would attribute to a mortal man a characteristic that mortal men have never exhibited.

     Second, clerical celibacy and the denial of ordination to women are merely Churchly personnel policies. Nothing in the Gospels mandates either. For any cleric of any altitude to claim otherwise isn’t just wrong; it’s deceitful. Most of the Apostles were married men. For a thousand years priests were permitted to marry, though only a celibate priest could ascend to the rank of bishop. Feel free to search the Gospels and the records of the early Church.

     Third, clergy have no authority over lay Catholics in any sense. We are the Church; they are the servants of the Church. Christ established that relation when He proclaimed that He had come “not to be served, but to serve,” and instructed His disciples that “the first shall be last, and the last first.” A priest’s special status as one who can validly administer the seven sacraments implies no other power. His responsibilities are to promulgate the teachings of Christ and to administer the sacraments as appropriate.

     If this be heresy, make the most of it. I stand by it nonetheless.

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     This morning, the celebrant at Mass delivered an impassioned statement about the sex-abuse scandals. The high points were as follows:

• The Church hierarchy has been corrupted by the pursuit of power and status.
• Better that the hierarchy collapse and the entire edifice be bankrupted than that the evils be allowed to continue.
• Every possible method of redress must be considered, including clerical marriage and the ordination of women.

     These are massively courageous declarations coming from a man in a Roman collar. Other priests have been severely disciplined for such statements. The priest who uttered them was one I’ve criticized for customizing the Mass to his tastes, for mixing his politics into his preaching, and for his routine practice of self-promotion: Father Francis X. Pizzarelli of the Society of St. Louis de Montfort.

     Father Francis, you’re a better man than I knew. Know that you have my sincerest apologies. May God bless and keep you, and make His face to shine upon you.

A Poser For His Holiness

     [As it’s Sunday, and as abortion has been much in the news of late, I thought I’d resurrect this old piece from Eternity Road, which first appeared there on November 7, 2005 -- FWP]

    

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     Your Curmudgeon had more or less resolved to take Mondays off from blathering here, but he can't help himself if an item should leap out at him and demand his attention.

     As is generally known, Pope Benedict XVI has taken a very hard line against Catholic politicians who, for whatever reason, vote to uphold laws or court decisions that have legalized abortion. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Cardinal Francis Arinze issued a directive, which lay Catholics supposed to have the authority of the pope behind it, forbidding Catholic priests to offer the sacrament of Communion to recognized pro-abortion-rights Catholic politicians -- a directive that hit presidential candidate John Kerry, a nominal Catholic, right in the kishkas.

     Your Curmudgeon, no friend of Kerry's, wrote in opposition to that order at the time. He's still opposed to it. Today, with the imminent elevation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, which will give it five Catholic Justices for the first time in the nation's history, a number of persons are all but slavering over the prospects for a near-term reversal of the seminal pro-abortion-rights decision, Roe v. Wade. After all, the pope has threatened Catholic politicians who could do something to end legal abortion with excommunication, so they'll either have to bend or leave the Faith. Right?

     Let's postulate for the moment that the Vatican's position will stand henceforward. What did Roe v. Wade really do? Think carefully before you proceed to the next paragraph. Most people don't know. Like as not that includes you.

     The general belief is that the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in these United States. In point of fact, the majority of the states had already legalized abortion within their borders, at least in certain circumstances. What Roe v. Wade did was to strike down states' laws against abortion in the first two trimesters of gestation as unConstitutional. In other words, the decision federalized the subject, withdrawing legislative discretion over the subject from the purview of the states.

     The reversal of Roe v. Wade would return discretion over abortion law to the state legislatures: no more, no less. It is therefore conceivable that, were the decision reversed, many -- perhaps even all -- the states would perpetuate the legality of abortion under all circumstances.

     "Well, so what?" many would say. "If that's all the Supreme Court can do, then let it do that -- and a Catholic Justice could be expected to do at least that much, if he's a sincere Catholic." Right?

     The problem here is lack of vision. For the very same mechanism that moved the Court to grab for unConstitutional power over state law in Roe v. Wade could easily produce the following scenario.

     Imagine that you're one of the Catholic Five. Imagine further that you're a strict constructionist, who insists that the text of the Constitution means what it says and not something else. Well, as it happens, that document does not grant Congress the power to define local crimes -- that is, felonies and misdemeanors whose commission, investigation, and prosecution are confined within a single state. (That's why the Supreme Court struck down the attempt by Congress to enact a federal law against rape a few years ago. Congress tried to fan-dance it as a matter of "interstate commerce," but at the last, the Court decided that that was just too silly for words.) So the reversal of Roe v. Wade could well be followed by the continuation of legal abortion in all fifty states. After all, the earlier laws have been struck down; the state legislatures might well decide not to re-enact them. What then?

     Imagine further that four of your fellow Justices are willing to undertake another anti-Constitutional power grab, but this time in the opposite direction. That is, they're willing to read a federal power to criminalize entirely local acts into the Constitution for the purpose of banning abortion everywhere. They want to know if you'll stand with them.

     What do you do?

     The Constitution hasn't been amended, nor does the Court possess the power to change it by fiat. The state governments have declined to act. But your reading of the matter, which is entirely consistent with 228 years of American history, is that, deplorable as the situation is, the Court lacks jurisdiction over the subject.

     But there's that leeeetle matter of excommunication...

     A Justice caught on the horns of that dilemma would be compelled to choose between his acceptance by the Church and his oath of office, which he swore before God. His personal convictions about the horror of abortion would be entirely irrelevant.

     Don't dismiss the scenario as contrived. Once there are five Catholics on the Court, it will become quite real. After all, what's obligatory for any one of them would be obligatory for all of them, wouldn't it? Nor would abortion be the last subject on which such pressure is felt. The Church has wandered far afield in these latter days, making pronouncements about "social justice" and "environmental stewardship" that could easily be made into levers on Catholic politicians, just as the Church is doing with abortion.

     Does a pope -- does the Church -- have any business putting a man in such a cleft? Granted that, as a private institution, it has the legal right to set whatever rules for membership it pleases. Is this the sort of pressure it wants to put on Catholics in public life? Pressure enough to prevent good Catholics from running for office at all? Pressure enough, given the Church's exhortations to create a "preferential option for the poor," to leave a Catholic voter unable to support either candidate for most positions in most elections?

     Remember how the opponents of John F. Kennedy muttered that, were he elected president, the White House would thereafter be taking orders from the Vatican? Do America's Catholics really want to give America's non-Catholics reason to believe that? Does the Vatican?

     Food for thought.

     "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." -- Jesus of Nazareth