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Manchester By The Sea

Manchester By The Sea

May 20, 2020 (996 words)

It turns out we had a copy of this November 2016 theatrical release kicking around the house, so i didn’t need to rent it on Amazon Prime Video in order to watch it again recently.

It’s what the critics call a “moody drama,” which is my favorite type of movie.

For such a somber tale I’m happy to note it enjoyed its fair share of commercial success. It also received a nomination for Best Picture, and won the Academy Award for Best Actor (Casey Affleck).

One of the first things that hit you is just how well the film is scored. The classical music selections that play behind many otherwise quiet scenes with no dialogue do a remarkable job of conveying deeply felt emotion. It’s a reminder of – or perhaps an introduction to – how poignant this musical genre can be.

The popular music on the soundtrack is also evocative, especially when sung by a talented vocalist such as, say, Ella Fitzgerald. But classical music has a much richer instrumental pallet to draw upon.

The use of flashbacks in the movie lets us gain an appreciation of the tragic circumstances, and understand the inner turmoil being experienced by the protagonist (Affleck), in stages.

Early on that protagonist is asked to become the legal guardian of his 16 year-old nephew, after the early death of the boy’s father (and the protagonist’s older brother.)

The flashbacks show us the special bond that had developed between the uncle and the nephew in earlier times. This gives us a better feel for the 16 year-old version of the nephew than we might otherwise have, since he comes off as a belligerent jerk toward his uncle in the present day.

All the characters in this piece are perceptively drawn, but making an annoying 16 year-old sympathetic is a special accomplishment, I think, and a tribute to both the screenwriter and the young actor in the role (Lukas Hedges).

Casey Affleck carries the picture, of course, since he’s in just about every scene. But the actress Michelle Williams, as his wife, also makes a powerful impression with far less screen time.

The emotional heart of this emotional movie is a scene more than halfway in. The estranged couple bumps into each other on a side street in their little hometown, near the waterfront.

She is pushing a stroller with a new infant born of her post-Affleck relationship. He hasn’t had any luck yet, scrounging for seasonal work around the docks and auto repair shops.

They exchange awkward pleasantries. She is solicitous. He tries to be. She becomes profusely apologetic. He remains shell-shocked, all-but-non-responsive. She expresses regret for the things she said in the wake of their mutual loss. Tears ensure. Before long he has to walk away, still unable to access his emotions.

I don’t know how much of this dialogue was scripted, and how much was improvised. But, boy, it sure feels real. This scene remains as powerful as when I first experienced it. The entire movie is like that, but this one scene really stands out for me.

The empathy Ms. Williams conveys for her ex-husband and father of their three dead children is truly heart-rending. The humanity she is able to capture in this moment is the mark of a true artist.

And while I haven’t been keeping up with Michelle Williams’ career since her role in “Manchester”, I was nevertheless dismayed to hear she earned the wrath of the pro-life community in January of this year, upon receiving an award for a different role in a more recent movie.

There is a YouTube video of the acceptance speech in question, and watching it I found her presentation to be very thoughtful, delivered in a serious and conscientious manner.

In my opinion her pro-life critics went way overboard. Which does not mean I agree with everything Ms. Williams said that night – but then I don’t agree with everything that anybody has to say.

This latest dust-up is just one more reason why we need to re-think our notion of how best to conduct cultural warfare. Take abortion, for instance. In accepting her award Ms. Williams seemed to imply that she has had an abortion. If she has, I grieve for her dead child and her confused conscience.

But making a mistake – no matter how serious that mistake may be – is not supposed to automatically condemn any of us to eternal damnation. We all have access to forgiveness and mercy, if we are willing to admit fault and make an honest attempt to mend the error of our ways.

And every single one of us is involved in this very same project: owning up to our mistakes and trying to mend our ways. It’s not our place to pass judgment on where someone else happens to be on that “acknowledging fault” continuum.

There is nothing wrong with letting Michelle Williams know that abortion should not factor into how one approaches the reproductive act. Indeed, we have an obligation to do so. It’s another thing to deride her as a callous monster – which is how she was characterized in certain pro-life publications and media outlets.

All for falling prey to the spirit of the age.

Isn’t that exactly what so many of us are also doing, in one way or another, in direct opposition to the dictates of our faith?

Leading by example is the best correction any of us can offer, even if it takes the message a while to get through in our noisy world. Showing charity to those who falter is usually the better part of valor. Turning the other cheek when we are wronged is what we have been instructed to do.

These are among the underlying messages of my favorite movies. It’s the sort of thing I take away from the lives of the troubled souls whose stories are brought to life so vividly in the magnificent Manchester By The Sea.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
May 20, 2020

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Finding Something to Watch

Finding Something to Watch

May 18, 2020 (1,433 words)

After two months of trying to flatten the curve, medical personnel are probably pretty stressed out. Those not employed in an “essential” industry, or not able to work from home, are no doubt feeling the financial strain.

Given the prevalence of such hardships, it seems indelicate to point out that for some of us this pandemic has so far only registered as a mild inconvenience.

My biggest problem, it feels a little awkward to report, has been finding something decent to watch. I’ve made my way through our family library of old VHS classics and my personal stash of newer DVD releases. After recently memorizing every frame of two movies I originally saw in theaters, Hell or High Water and Hostiles, by virtue of their current availability on Netflix, the search for the next “moody drama” – or a truly funny comedy – is well under way.

There are lots of movies made every year. And there seems to be no end of “Netflix Originals,” either. But surprisingly few of these productions are worth the time. I can’t tell you how many things I have turned off after the first twenty minutes.

Which brings me to a discussion of Hail, Caesar!, a 2016 theatrical release which I only just saw recently, when it popped up on my Netflix queue. It’s an entertaining look at Hollywood’s studio system of the early 1950s, focusing on the head of physical production who keeps things together despite no end of personal drama in the off-screen lives of the actors and actresses employed by his studio.

Written and directed by the clever Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, the movie weaves several plot lines together in their trademark style, which I guess can be described as part send-up, part homage. (They did a remake of True Grit about a decade ago in this same vein, which is another movie I’ve watched several times over the years and have happily memorized every frame of.)

Their story this time centers on the fictional character of Eddie Mannix, employed at the fictional Capitol Pictures. It’s based on an actual Hollywood “fixer” by the same name. That colorful real-life career is detailed in a salacious “dual” biography published in 2004, The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickland, and the MGM Publicity Machine.

The Coens wisely keep thing light, and their movie skips over the more troubling things the real one-time mob-related New Jersey construction laborer did to cover up some of the most notorious crimes in Hollywood history.


a dim-witted star goes missing…


The thorniest problem the fictional Mannix has to contend with is the disappearance of a dim-witted actor who is starring in the now-being-filmed-biblical epic, “Hail, Caesar! A Tale of the Christ.”

This dim-witted star, it turns out, has been kidnapped by a group of disgruntled (and predominantly Jewish, we are given to believe) screenwriters, who gather in a “study group” to complain about how they are not receiving their fair share of the profits their stories generate for the film studious.

These writers are holding the dim-wit for a ransom of $100,000.00 which Mannix, our hero, is able to procure from his studio’s coffers out of petty cash.

The star is released by the screenwriters upon delivery of the ransom. He shows up at Mannix’s office early the next morning in full Roman centurion regalia, relaxes in a chair and starts to chat amiably about how those wacky screenwriters do make a lot of sense when it comes to the subject of inequitable compensation.

Mannix responds to this unexpected economic discourse as follows: He gets up and steps out from behind his desk, grabs the dim-wit by the collar, stands him up and slaps him a few times, then barks at him to snap out of it and get back to work – all done to great comic effect.

The entire action of this movie takes place in the span of about a day and a half, by the way.

The film is a series of movies-within-movies. As Mannix walks the studio back lot he visits the various sound stages where a variety of stories are being shot. The production values of each genre-picture being filmed are here lovingly recreated for us.

Hail Caesar! is also a fun hodge-podge of ideas that play off conventional wisdom everybody knows. Or that we think we know.

The disgruntled screenwriters are, of course, the communist infiltrators we all heard so much about in the soon-to-be held McCarthy hearings, which led to the infamous “blacklist” period when such “sympathizers” were denied the ability to ply their trade in Hollywood, and only received credit for writing or producing by using an alias.


Karl Marx, or Leo XIII?…


I really appreciate that we get to see the “study group” of disgruntled screenwriters in action, so to speak. Watching them sit around a posh Malibu beach house kvetching over “control of the means of production” made me immediately think of how Catholic Popes have been talking about the very same issue, using the very same language, in a series of detailed encyclicals dating back to 1891.

These screenwriters naturally reference Karl Marx and his book Das Kapital (1867) as their intellectual starting point. While not up to speed on the subject myself, I have heard Marx referred to in certain Catholic circles as “having a point in his criticism of capitalism.”

This makes me mourn how Catholic social teaching on economics has lost all traction in the culture. It’s too bad the Jewish screenwriters couldn’t bring themselves to consider the Catholic perspective on how to fix capitalism, before settling on Karl Marx’s.

It’s also too bad the Catholic perspective on economics has been ignored by Catholics themselves, as they were taken in by the resurgence of “conservatism” that began after those contentious McCarthy hearings, a resurgence inaugurated in the 1950s by a young Catholic intellectual (William F. Buckley, Jr.)

And speaking of Catholicism, the Coens portray their Eddie Mannix as a devout Catholic who prays the rosary at his desk when having to make a difficult decision on whether to accept a lucrative job offer from Lockheed Martin. They also have him going to confession every few hours. This, of course, is meant to poke fun at the sacrament of confession.

But we needn’t hold this gentle ridicule against Joel and Ethan Coen since, after all, who goes to confession any more, right?

This aspect of their movie may be a bit of an amalgamation. There was a serious Catholic who played a prominent role in Hollywood during the same period when the real Eddie Mannix was operating. But the name of that Catholic was Joseph Breen.

Unlike Mannix, however, Breen was not employed by a big studio to cover up murders or studio-directed drug addictions or illicit abortions. He did not have a complex web of contacts in every arena, from reporters and doctors to corrupt police and district attorneys.

Joseph Breen enforced the Production Code from its inception in 1934 to his retirement in 1954. In that role he interacted with the heads of all the major studious, blue-penciling every script that went before the cameras.


helping us all avoid temptation…


Some now call what he did the epitome of censorship. To allow someone to decide what all other adults should and should not see is inimical to the foundational ideals of a liberal democracy, as we all know.

Yet Breen was awarded an honorary Academy Award by the Hollywood community upon his retirement, in recognition of his work to rein in the more lascivious tendencies of the film industry during what has come to be known as its Golden Age.

(An even-handed overview of Breen’s Hollywood years can be found in a 2005 piece entitled “Joe Breen’s Oscar” written by Stephen Weinberger of Dickinson College. It appears in that year’s Dickinson Scholar, a faculty and staff publication of the College.)

With Hail Caesar! the Coen brothers have given us a “scintillating, uproarious comedy,” that is “filled with fast and light touches of exquisite incongruity in scenes that have the expansiveness of relaxed precision, performed and timed with the spontaneous authority of jazz,” as The New Yorker’s reviewer so eloquently wrote upon its February 2016 release.

On the other hand, the tensions of a Catholic in the Jewish-run film industry are not “themselves among the mainsprings of the movie’s comedy as well as its drama,” which the same New Yorker review claims they are.

That, my friends, is a subject for an entirely different movie than what the Coens have delivered to us this time around.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr May 18, 2020

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Rich People Things

Rich People Things

April 20, 2020 (1,384 words)

Here we are, just a few weeks into the coronavirus stay-at-home order, and already I’ve started the once every ten years, clear-out-the-attic, no holds barred, major life re-organization.

In going through and throwing out all sort of files, originally clipped and set aside as potential research material, but long since made largely redundant by easy internet access, I came across a blurb for a 2010 book of social commentary by Chris Lehmann, Rich People Things: Real Life Secrets of the Predator Class.

It sounded as interesting as the day I first filed the promotional piece away, so I made a mental note to order it online sometime soon.

A few days later, with the file cabinets suitably purged, I turned my attention to the raft of books that have accumulated over the last forty-five years. Many of which I purchased in my twenties, which now looking back may have been of form of overcompensation for my failure to get a college degree, and for earning my living at the time through manual labor.

As I made my way through shelf after shelf, arranged like any good library by category and then by author, determined to winnow things down to a reasonable collection of can’t-live-without, I came across my very own trade paperback copy of Rich People Things.

Apparently I had picked it up in a secondhand bookshop somewhere, judging from the penciled-in price on the top of the first page, but had never gotten around to actually reading it.

Until now.

I’m also doing all the related things one does these days when one reads a book: check out a couple of YouTube interviews from ten years ago with Mr. Lehmann discussing the book. And a 2016 talk he gave at the legendary Prose & Politics bookstore in Washington, D.C., to promote his then just-released newer book, The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream.

A quick internet search also reveals that last April (2019) Mr. Lehmann was named the full-time editor of The New Republic. This has got to represent a plum assignment for a guy who spent the past decade editing at fringe outlets such as The Baffler. The New Republic, of course, is well-known for its liberal political journalism, and its thought-provoking cultural commentary, though it has experienced a bumpy editorial ride in recent years.

It will take me awhile to catch up to Lehmann’s 2016 book and his current editor gig. For now I am contenting myself with enjoying and learning from Rich People Things.

For instance, only three pages into the Introduction we read:

“Nevertheless, it’s been striking to observe just how little the present crisis (the 2008 meltdown) has altered the basic terms of political engagement on all sides. When the US economy veered toward cataclysm in the 1890s and the 1930s, mass political movements registered a new national distemper.

“The People’s Party of the late nineteenth century went so far as to advocate an alternate production-based system of currency and exchange, known as Subtreasury, a reform that eventually got watered down into the Free Silverite attack on the gold standard when the party fused with the Democrats in 1896.”

(This anecdote puts a little meat on the bone of an historical event many of a certain age might be familiar with – William Jennings Bryan and his famous “Cross of Gold Speech” – doesn’t it?)

Mr. Lehmann then continues:

“And the thirties, of course, witnessed the enactment of many of the core reforms first advanced during the populist and Progressive eras – public ownership of utilities, federally funded income support and retirement plans, enormous national public works projects, and the like.

“One might reasonably ask what it would take for the basic truths of class division to sink in on today’s American scene, after the reckless expansion of our paper economy has consigned entire productive sectors of business enterprise into the dustbin of history…

“Instead, we remain in thrall to an unserious liberalism that continues to entrust most major economic policy decisions to career investment bankers, and to a conservative movement rhetoric that equates “populism” with heartland approved consumption habits and evangelical culture-wars posturing.”

Whew. And he’s just getting warmed up.

In his Chapter Six, “The Free Market,” Mr. Lehmann starts out by describing a condition many of us are already familiar with:

“The notion of a self-regulated market, magically governed by the invisible hand of self-interest, dates back, of course, to Adam Smith’s famed eighteenth century treatise, On the Wealth of Nations.

“Smith’s Scottish Enlightenment vision of economic enterprise as a mystical haven of uncoerced social relations has always been catnip to the ownership class in the resource-rich and labor-stunted New World.

“Smith’s thesis – a heady world-historical expansion of how he saw the division of labor unfold in a Scottish pin factory – seemed intuitively true in an early American Republic long on frontier expansionism and short on fixed class division and institutions of social welfare. If anywhere could be the natural home of a free market, why, this certainly must be the place.”

But then he adds a detail that most of us probably didn’t previously know:

“Meanwhile, Smith’s British compatriots took a far more dour view of his achievements. As economic historian Michael Perelman recounts, Francis Horner, the editor of the Edinburgh Review and chairman of the Bullion Committee in the British parliament, declined an invitation to contribute an introduction to an 1803 reissue of Smith’s book with the candid assessment:

‘I should be reluctant to expose S’s errors before his work has operated its full effect. We owe much at present to the superstitious worship of S’s name; and we must not impair that feeling, till the victory is more complete…. (U)ntil we can give a correct and concise theory of the origins of wealth, his popular, plausible, and loose hypothesis is as good for the vulgar as any,’”

But the “superstitious worship” has endured, and glows ever brighter.

“Smith has largely been enshrined as a post hoc prophet of market sovereignty for the modern right, which has made an industry of reviling the New Deal and the notion of government intervention in the economy….

“And in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis those efforts have not abated; unlike the New Deal’s battery of efforts to deconcentrate finance and industry, and thereby stimulate consumer demand and job growth in public-backed enterprise, today’s economic regulators have doubled-down on the cartelized finance sector with lavish, too-big-too-fail bailouts….

“…in the face of such grievous gaming of the finance dole, public discourse has doubled down on free-market dogma. University of Chicago behavioral economist Steven Levitt has leveraged classical market-speak into an all-purpose pop explanation of virtually everything in his ‘Freakanomics’ franchise.

“The result is virtually a photographic negative of free market theory, with federal income support going straight into the coffers of finance capital.”

And how’s this for a tidy summation:

“In reality, the market has no organic existence at all. It has always been a contrivance of contract law, interlocking trusts, and trade protocols – and its putative freedom is primarily a function of who is best positioned to benefit from this or that set of advantageous relationships.”

Culminating in this observation:

“Likewise, the free market in health care that conservative activists are now so hot to preserve from the federal government’s meddlesome regulating hand is in fact an elaborate patchwork of gamed Medicare contracts, erratically enforced state regulatory codes that are still the only government curbs on the excesses of most major insurers, and the lobbying wish list of a pharmaceutical Leviathan that seeks to secure patent rights on its most lucrative products, like the next generation of microbionic cancer drugs, into perpetuity,”

“But the myth of the free market remains a powerful intellectual opiate, and its pushers are legion, from Malcolm Gladwell to Steve Forbes to Sarah Palin.”

This is one book I will be reading start-to-finish. As a writer, Chis Lehmann is not only smart and snappy, he also possesses the enviable quality of knowing how to make his point concisely. In this book at least, he is the master of the short chapter.

I have twenty-four of those short chapters left to go, the last of which is entitled “The Language Problem.” I can hardly wait.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
April 20, 2020

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Just Trying to Help (part two)

Just Trying to Help (part two)

April 15, 2020 (3,352 words)

My ire has often been directed at prominent conservative Catholics, many of whom are highly-compensated commentators working for lavishly funded private foundations, who I believe avoid or willfully misinterpret the Church’s social doctrine on economic justice.

Now the time has come for me to acknowledge there is yet another more humble group of Catholics who also identify as conservative, but who are not prominent spokespeople with big reputations or big paychecks.

This latter group is indeed aware of the Church’s reservations about capitalism. They are up to speed on what the pertinent papal encyclicals have to say on the subject of economic justice, and are not in denial about it.

To their credit, they continue to grapple with the breadth of the teaching. Especially with what someone like John Paul II, for instance, is clearly telling us in Centesimus Annus (CA), his big, important encyclical of 1991.

They just don’t know what to do about it, how to integrate what they are reading into their everyday lives.

JPII is as good a reference as any to use in this discussion, since after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 it was generally assumed he would clear up any confusion over the Church’s position on the heated subject of “capitalism versus socialism.”

Here in the West we took for granted he would enthusiastically endorse capitalism as the preferred economic model for countries to follow.

Then along came CA, strategically promulgated on the hundredth anniversary of Leo XIII’s ground-breaking encyclical on social justice, Rerum Novarum (1891).

While JPII did unequivocally restate the Church’s long-standing condemnation of socialism, he threw us all a curve when what he had to say regarding capitalism was conditional and highly guarded, at best.

The first thing he did, in his characteristically erudite and scholarly manner, was to define what he meant by the term “capitalism.”

He makes an important distinction, describing the requisite characteristics of any morally acceptable form of capitalism.


a morally acceptable form of capitalism…


His name for this morally acceptable capitalism is a “market economy” (CA, n.42), and he goes on to articulate how it fundamentally differs from a morally unacceptable economic ideology, which he calls “liberal capitalism.”

At this point the casual reader might understandably draw the conclusion we here in the United States are in the clear, since what we practice is “free market capitalism,” which sounds an awful lot like John Paul II’s “market economy.”

And besides, what on Earth is “liberal capitalism,” anyway?

Ah my friends, this is where we confront a simple truth: to be considered even a run-of-the-mill practicing Catholic, one has to be a willing student of history.

An earlier Pope, Paul VI, already went to the trouble of defining “liberal capitalism” as the product of “unbridled (classical) liberalism.” In his 1967 encyclical Populorium Progressio (PP), he describes “liberal capitalism” this way:

“It has profit has its only motive, puts no limits on the absolute private ownership of the means of production, and holds that unhindered free competition must guide the economic system”. (PP, n. 26)

Paul VI says materialism pervades the basic philosophy of liberal capitalism, in the way temporal goods such as wealth and power take precedence over – or even deny – spiritual goods such as friendship and wisdom.

Getting back to JPII and Centesimus Annus, we read that liberal capitalism is no less materialistic than socialism, which of course is the very reason the Church has always bitterly opposed socialism. Liberal capitalism, he tells us, is materialistic:

“insofar as it denies an autonomous existence and value to morality, law, culture, and religion… in the sense that it totally reduces man to the sphere of economics and the satisfaction of material needs” (CA, n. 18)

Liberal capitalism fails to understand that man, by his very nature, cannot be fulfilled outside “his final destiny, which is God.” (CA, n. 41)

To boil this down for those of us who are not scholars, JPII is saying that while the basic necessities of life, such as food, clothing, shelter, etc., are certainly components of man’s happiness on Earth, they are secondary in importance when compared to his transcendental spiritual needs.

This is why John Paul II refuses (refuses!) to endorse a capitalist system “in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong judicial framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality” (CA, n. 42).

Ah yes, human freedom in its totality. Which means our revered concept of “economic freedom” is not automatically synonymous with human freedom.


government as an important counterbalance…


As upwardly mobile Americans, committed to pluralism and liberal democracy, I’m afraid even Catholics have forgotten that society must be ordered and grounded in “the Christian vision of the human person.” (CA, n. 13).

The economic implications of all this are not hard to grasp: To be morally acceptable a “market economy” must serve human freedom in its entirety. It can only do that when it functions within the confines of a strong institutional, jurisdictional, or political framework. (CA, n. 48)

In other words, a morally acceptable version of capitalism cannot exist without a governmental entity capable of enforcing some rules. This contingency runs counter to the inbred notion of “individual liberty” and “rugged individualism” we Americans take such pride in.

According to Catholic social doctrine, the presence of “free market mechanisms” is but one necessary element required in a morally just and economically thriving society. (CA, n. 19)

This is where things really get complicated for conservative Catholics who pay attention to papal encyclicals.

Ever since Roe v. Wade, this group has been assured by their prominent spokespeople the “limited government” version of liberal capitalism promoted by the Republican Party is morally acceptable, despite all evidence to the contrary.

What is needed at this juncture is no less than a major reconsideration of recent political history, which is admittedly a lot to ask of people who are pre-occupied with paying the mortgage and getting their kids through school.


we are stuck with limited political options…


We are stuck with only two political options, and the first thing Catholics should do is acknowledge loud and clear the neither of these options embody the fullness of Church teaching.

The second thing I propose Catholics do is admit Roe v. Wade does not represent a betrayal of our Christian founding, but is rather a natural by-product of our Enlightenment founding.

When our Popes talk of “liberal capitalism” and “unbridled liberalism” they are making a broad reference to “classical liberalism,” an ideology that defines the modern era. This “liberalism” celebrates individual emancipation at the expense of the common good, by rejecting all previously held authority, custom, and tradition.

It started with the Renaissance, helped fuel the Protestant Reformation, and then formed the basis of the Enlightenment philosophy that animated the thoughts of our most influential Founders.

Sadly, rank-and-file Catholics are not savvy enough to see how this overarching “liberalism” expresses itself in what passes for “conservative” economic theory. And conservative Catholic commentators are oblivious to the heterodox origins of their preferred economic stratagems.

The institutional Church, on the other hand, has been hip to the problem from the start. Our Popes have been wrestling with this radical ideology for centuries now, even if their stellar work hasn’t yet filtered down to street level and received mainstream acceptance.

Then along came the infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, which took all the guesswork out of who faithful Catholics could vote for.

Any prelate who challenged the new Catholic-Republican alliance, by promoting a “seamless garment” argument that placed abortion in a broader context with other social justice issues, was condemned by conservative Catholics as failing to properly defend the sanctity of life in the womb.

Which is pretty much where things stand now: if you vote for a Democrat, you are guilty of a mortal sin.

This leaves the small minority of conservative Catholics who are aware of the Church’s reservations about capitalism in the lurch. Those few who are up-to-speed on what the pertinent papal encyclicals have to say on the subject of economic justice, and are not in denial about it.

But they are at a loss as to how to implement what they read when it comes time to vote.


seeing abortion and economic justice as intertwined….


While there is no such thing as a moral equivalency between abortion and economic justice, I think anyone interested in eliminating the former and promoting the latter should be willing to entertain a discussion on how best to achieve both objectives.

What’s more, I believe the only way to reorder our society and restore the “Christian vision of the human person,” as John Paul II would have it, is to realize that abortion and economics are inextricably linked.

In order to see this connection, conservative Catholics must embark on an intellectual journey, the first step of which is to dis-engage from the popular libertarian notion that government is nothing but the despised enemy of the individual liberty and personal freedom we in this country hold so dear.

According to JPII: Government can rein in “selfishness and the desire for excessive profit and power.” (Sollicitudo ReI Socialis, 1987, n. 47)

While a government consisting of flawed human beings will never be immune to grave inefficiencies and potential corruption among its officials and administrators, such an imperfect institution can nevertheless:

…serve to combat the spread of improper sources of growing rich, and of easy profits deriving from illegal or purely speculative activities, “as these constitute one of the chief obstacles to (human) development, and to the economic order.” (CA, n. 48)

This means, in practical terms, that what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are talking about when it comes to economics should have great resonance for any Catholic with even a passing awareness of the Church’s teaching on this subject.

The obvious conundrum is that these two politicians openly affirm the Democratic Party’s well-known support of “reproductive rights.”

And every Pope I can cite in support of economic justice is clear in his condemnation of abortion. While we have been instructed that economics falls under the heading of prudential matters we can have different opinions about, abortion is non-negotiable.

THE NEED FOR A NEW POLITCAL PARADIGM

The current pro-life paradigm has very familiar contours. It used to cast its critical eye on “blue-collar Catholics,” who maintained a visceral loyalty to the Democratic Party that was seen as “obscuring the demands of their faith.”

To that group has been added a breed of “bad Catholic” who considers the Church’s stance on things like women’s ordination and artificial contraception as being hopelessly “behind the times.”

What I am calling for is a different way of assessing one’s political options, apart from the usual categories we have all grown so comfortable with. This new strategy should not be dismissed as a misapplication of prudential judgement in matters of fundamental moral doctrine.

I am not suggesting a compromise in moral absolutes. I am recommending conservative Catholics extend their definition of morality to include economics.

A Catholic who considers supporting a Democratic politician because of that Democrat’s promotion of economically just policies is not living in a fog of moral ambiguity, or inadvertently endorsing heresy.

Critics should review the political calculus in which they condemn these voters for allowing “party loyalty” to take precedence over “moral duty.”

Conservative Catholics who still see the answer as “straight talk from the pulpit” on abortion should sharpen their political IQ. Of course we need straight talk from the pulpit. It’s how we apply that straight talk to the political process that needs a major re-think.

Voting for a Republican who “stands for life” may make some of us feel better, but our elections are not up-or-down votes on abortion. Wouldn’t it be grand if fixing this mess were that simple? Voting for a culture of life, instead of a culture of death – what a no-brainer that would be.


it’s always been about changing hearts and minds…


While it grieves me that our country has made infanticide legal, and deems Planned Parenthood worthy of boatloads in federal funding, I have also come to realize that legislative measures will not really solve the problem.

Neither will continuing to denigrate prominent politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden as “bad Catholics,” since a politician’s stated support for a woman’s right to choose does not translate into making abortion a mandatory medical procedure.

Pro-choice Democrats are not roaming the streets, kidnapping pregnant women and delivering them to the nearest abortion clinic, forcing them to terminate their pregnancy.

Women are choosing to have abortions of their own free will. Sometimes it seems this obvious fact gets lost amid all the earnest hand-wringing and elaborate strategizing of the pro-life community.

There is nothing more righteous than the pro-life cause. But its advocates don’t seem to appreciate that even after access is restricted, and God-willing the noxious laws are reversed, until they are able to affect a fundamental change in the hearts and minds of women who are electing to abort, the ultimate objective will not be achieved.

Why do pregnant women choose abortion?

CAUSE #1: Dire economic conditions that prompt so many financially-strapped women (and their families) to feel they simply cannot afford to carry a pregnancy to term.

CAUSE #2: A “me-first” mindset on the part of privileged women who decide a pregnancy should not interfere with their pursuit of happiness.

CONCLUSION: It is the “liberal capitalism” and the “unbridled (classical) liberalism” the Popes have continued to warn us about that is responsible for both “types” of abortion – even if no Pope has quite gotten around to connecting these particular dots.


liberal capitalism is at the root of our cultural malaise…


Seeking an end to abortion will require our society to turn away from the “liberal capitalism” that is currently in play, and adopt the morally acceptable ideology of a “market economy.”

In the present political context, that means faithful Catholics who are pro-life should not continue to automatically vote Republican, in hopes of favorable Supreme Court nominees and the appointment of federal judges across the country who will chip away at abortion access, and one day claim the big prize – the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

At least not until those Republicans stop passing huge tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest strata of society, justified by their unshakable belief in trickle-down economics.

Or refuse to enact carbon taxes on the fossil fuel industry, and ignore the need for stricter anti-trust legislation on our tech giants. To say nothing of consistently opposing universal healthcare, and failing to address the exorbitant prices we pay for prescription medication.

Because without a serious tilt of the scales in the direction of a more economically just society, the legal remedies currently being sought will not do the trick. They will not eliminate the scourge of abortion from our midst.

In fact, if by some magic twist of fate abortion were to be severely restricted or suddenly outlawed, without an overhaul of the economic order, all we would be left with is civil war.

OUR SOLEMN OBLIGATION TO DEFEND THE UNBORN

Okay, fine. But in the final analysis how can a pro-life Catholic with a conscience properly attuned to the economic question be expected to endorse a principled crusader for economic justice like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, when such people unabashedly claim support for abortion “is an absolutely essential part of being a Democrat”?

When every priest and bishop one respects continues to say we must recognize our solemn obligation to defend the unborn when approaching the voting booth? That we must carry out our civic duty in accord with our Catholic faith.

These consecrated men are known not to mince words:

“You can never vote for someone who favors the right of a woman to destroy human life in the womb, the right to a procured abortion.”

No question, this is a tough nut to crack folks, and I’m not making light of that fact.

These same upstanding clerics are highly dismissive of Catholics who offer support to a known pro-abort politician on the basis of other agenda items like “the environment” or “immigration reform.”

A pro-abort Catholic politician is derided as someone who has “betrayed their Catholic faith,” and willingly “creates scandal,” which is defined by our clergy as “doing or omitting to do something that leads others into confusion about the moral good.”


making myself crystal clear…


I hope I am making myself clear: Abortion is not okay. Catholic politicians who support access to abortion are, indeed, betraying their faith.

But I don’t get the “potential for confusion” tag that so many of our earnest priests and bishops charge such politicians with. There is no way anyone’s support for abortion should confuse the rest of us into thinking it is ever okay, regardless of the circumstance.

I also hope I have made myself equally clear that “economic justice” is not a silly little sidebar policy issue, to be waived off and given short shrift.

It’s just our bad luck that for the time being the only political alternative favoring economically just policies also happens to believe abortion is a vital human right. We Catholics who seek economic justice have to work on converting such politicians, and show them the error of their ways when it comes to “reproductive choice.”

Having said that, it’s important to remember a politician who agrees to abortion access has no authority to force a woman to procure such a procedure.

As previously noted, that happens as a matter of free will. The choice takes place in the heart and mind of each pregnant woman, not in any building where politicians gather to conduct their business, or at any podium where they instinctively appease and seek approval.

In short, making real headway comes down to faithful priests and bishops also needing to deepen their understanding of the problem, right along with the rest of us. They, too, need to extend their definition of morality to include economics.

Our Popes have been saying all the right things on the subject. But they are not responsible for crafting public policy, as we all know.

It is lay men and women who must make prudential decisions in the social realm to achieve temporal solutions. This is where the new political paradigm I am talking about comes into play. There are people much smarter than I am who should be able to figure out how to make this new paradigm work.

Here are a few starter ideas, though, off the top of my head:

STARTER IDEA #1: Let these politicians know all their new-found Catholic supporters do not cotton to the approval of abortion. Catholic women should make it plain they don’t intend to have an abortion despite their Democratic vote, and express the view that no woman should find herself in a position to choose that option.

STARTER IDEA #2: Bring a sign to a Democratic rally that reads “Morality Demands Economic Justice,” by way of explaining one’s support of a particular candidate’s economic agenda. The thought being that injecting the concept of morality into the economic discussion would be a good place to start.

STARTER IDEA #3: And then there’s this: All through the recently-completed primary season we were treated to TV presentations of countless folksy town hall meetings which featured questions from the audience, followed by intimate one-on-one selfie sessions with the candidate.

What’s wrong with telling the person to his or her face: “I am a Catholic who agrees with your economic policies, and I hope one day you will reconsider your position on abortion.”

Keeping in mind how so many of these pro-choice Democrats were once pro-life, and not that long ago, either.

You are certainly welcome to try doing the same thing in reverse with your favorite Republican candidate, but I doubt you will make a dent. Because Republicans are convinced their economic agenda – which so obviously contradicts Church teaching – is the perfect embodiment of Christian principles.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr April 15, 2020

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Holy Week in the Pandemic

Holy Week in the Pandemic

April 12, 2020 (3,979 words)

Well, this has certainly been a Holy Week like no other. As a kid the Easter Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil was not something our family participated in. Despite my attending Catholic school through grade twelve, these three special days were just not part of the program, growing up.

We would all attend Easter Sunday Mass in the morning, have a nice meal in the afternoon, and call it a day. My father may have gone out for these three long evening services leading up to the big event, while Mom stayed home and watched us six little ones, but all that was too long ago for me to remember.

Looking back my lack of interest and participation in the Pascal Triduum may have had something to do with the fact my Catholic school years, 1961-1972, just happened to coincide with a rather tumultuous time in the life of the Church, when most every tradition was being called into question.

Since my return to the fold in 1994, after a self-imposed twenty year exile, these three special services – considered by many to be the highlight of the liturgical year – have also been sort of the highlight of my own year, for every single one of the last twenty-seven years.

So having it all canceled this week due to the shelter-in-place directive designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus has really cramped my style.

My make-shift substitute observance has included watching The Passion of the Christ again, which holds up remarkably well. The quality of the work remains, even though the wild-eyed concerns of Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League, who dominated the airwaves with fears of another round of pogroms in the wake of the film’s initial release, are but a distant memory.

As I recall, Abe and friends were worried about Catholics and Christians storming out of the theater with pitchforks and torches, looking to persecute anew “those who crucified Christ.” Instead, I remember audience members quietly leaving the theater in a state of stunned silence, having been brought face-to-face with the true meaning of their faith.

How he was pierced for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed – as the prophet Isaiah put it several centuries before the actual event.


giving short shrift to one’s humble beginnings…


Another element of my unusual observance this week was watching the Wim Winders documentary on Pope Francis, A Man of His Word. This, along with the recent Netflix drama The Two Popes, gives the viewer a good feel for the decidedly Third World orientation of our current pontiff.

His critics, of course, remain unmoved by any such reference to humble beginnings. They are convinced this Pope’s perplexing doctrinal and ideological ad-libs have revealed him to be an unreliable – and even a dangerous – shepherd.

Starting with the phrase “who am I to judge,” uttered during an in-flight news conference on his way home from Brazil for World Youth Day in July 2013. Up to and including the “Pachamama” incident that came out of last fall’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon (Oct 6-27).

This latest controversy started when several small figurines of naked pregnant women made their way into an October 4, 2019 indigenous prayer service in the Vatican Gardens attended by Pope Francis.

It has been reported the figurines popped up several other times before going on display in Rome’s Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, near the Vatican.

Conservative and traditionalist Catholics are given to see this latest papal transgression in one of two ways, depending on the level of contempt they already hold Francis in:

This was either an uncritical embrace of all things indigenous, without the “purification” which Pope emeritus Benedict XVI insists is the heart of Christianity’s interaction with such cultures.

Or, this was nothing less than bowing down before a demonically infested piece of trash, offering homage to immodest, degrading, and repulsive statues of women with bursting bosoms that are designed to inspire lust.

(Sort of makes one long for those early days when all we had to complain about was “papal hyper-loquaciousness,” doesn’t it?)


our Rorschach-test Pope…


John L. Allen Jr., editor of the web site Crux, wrote an interesting piece about the Pachamama affair on October 29, 2019, seeing it as a Rorschach test for Catholics. He starts by noting the spirit of Francis’s papacy as being “non-dogmatic, non-judgmental, pastoral and generous, with an emphasis on meeting people where they are.”

First World liberals tend to interpret this spirit as a breath of fresh air. While First World conservatives see in it a cavalier attitude towards the truth.

But unlike inhabitants of the First World who want for nothing, relatively speaking, the Majority World that is just scraping by is more inclined to appreciate “a range of features of the Francis era.” Features which are of little interest to those of us caught up in the familiar liberal/conservative turf wars here at home.

Like, as John Allen tells us, “its emphasis on the peripheries, its passion for dialogue and reconciliation with non-Christian cultures and religions, its ‘Third World’ social and political agenda, and its willingness to set aside protocol and doctrinal liturgical norms in order to make a point or deliver a message.”

This last is a thread worth further scrutiny. As hard as it may be for either the liberal or conservative wing of American Catholicism to fathom, I sense a continuum in teaching from one Pope to the next.

That means I am not among the “more pro-Francis than Francis” group who celebrates what they see as his breaking new ground. And I am not part of the “more Catholic than the Pope” contingent who deplores what they believe to be his disregard for dogma.

In perusing various encyclicals from the full roster of modern-day Popes, promulgated since roughly 1864, I find a determined attempt to adapt constant teaching to current situations. It’s a difficult assignment, to be sure, and I would never volunteer for the position.

It seems these attempts have always attracted their fair share of naysayers.

Setting aside for a moment the pointed criticisms of today’s hard-core traditionalists, who it should be noted are able to find fault with all three of our post-conciliar pontiffs, though they undeniably view Francis has the motherlode of misguided initiatives, here I wish to address the mindset of rank-and-file Catholics.

Down at street level, papal encyclicals are simply not read. Sure, these encyclicals may be written about in high-tone journals that hardly anybody subscribes to, let alone reads. Or discussed at obscure conferences and seminars attended by next-to-nobody.

So it’s safe to say the scholarly work of our modern-day Popes on the social and economic question flies well below the radar, and has gone unnoticed.

Francis seems to be keenly aware of this predicament. He doesn’t skimp on his encyclicals and apostolic exhortations, for his are every bit as eloquent as his predecessors. But to make sure the point is made and the message is delivered, he is willing to set aside norms and protocols.

It’s not that the conservatives and traditionalists are wrong to be concerned about the current cultural climate, or the deep confusion within the Church. To their credit many of them recognize these conditions are long-standing problems that did not suddenly erupt in March 2013.

The full range of traditionalist concerns is duly noted in a new book from Bishop Athanasius Schneider. Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of The Age (Angelico Press, September 2019), is just the latest in a string of such books by a variety of authors that “offers a candid, incisive examination of controversies raging in the Church and the most pressing issues of our times, providing clarity and hope for beleaguered Catholics.”


how best to address widespread doctrinal confusion…?


Taken from the Home Page of the Angelico Press web site, it continues: “He (Bishop Schneider) addresses such topics as widespread doctrinal confusion, the limits of papal authority, (and) the documents of Vatican II… His insights into the challenges facing Christ’s flock today are essential reading for those who are, or who wish to be, alert to the signs of the times.”

Other recent entries in this genre have come from two of the Church’s most respected elder statesmen: Raymond Cardinal Burke and Robert Cardinal Sarah. These writers are all good men, devoted to a principled defense of the Church’s timeless truth.

It’s not that they are wrong by any stretch. These are indeed trying times. The common assessment of such books, “that there could not be a worse situation in the life of the Church than the one we are now witnessing,” may well be true.

But hasn’t being Catholic always been an uphill battle, due not only to the challenging nature of Christ’s teaching, but also owing to ever-present corruption within the Church and all around it, in the world-at-large?

What good does it do the average practicing Catholic, struggling with the temptations of everyday life, to indulge an intellectual exercise of rating our relative degradation compared to past ages, and declaring ours the worst of all time?

Knowledge is power, and tuning in to the machinations of the present moment is always beneficial. But I don’t know how it helps the concerned conservative or traditionalist Catholic to get overly worked up about things beyond his or her control, and that in any event need not stand in the way of one’s own fidelity, one’s own belief and practice.

So while I appreciate the gist of what these honorable clerics have to say, I happen to think it would be better for all concerned if they could bring themselves to join forces with the current pontiff, and cover his flanks, so to speak.

How much more constructive it would be to see themselves as his allies in trying to bring a Christian ethos to bear on our overwhelmingly secular/materialistic/exploitative world.

If your aim is to provide clarity and hope for beleaguered Catholics, let’s all step back for a moment and recognize the task as being a monumental one. This objective can be more readily achieved if all hands are on deck.


revisiting Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia…


In this regard, the earnest, well-meaning dubia Cardinals should have helped unpack what Francis had to say in Chapter Eight (“Accompanying, Discerning And Integrating Weakness”) of his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AE), promulgated in March 2016.

This is the chapter (paragraphs 291-312) that caused such a ruckus regarding possible access to the sacraments on the part of the divorced and remarried.

This stellar group of four Cardinals with international reputations could have focused their attention on and helped elaborate upon such AE statements as:

“In order to avoid all misunderstanding, I would point out that in no way must the Church desist from proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its grandeur.” (n.307)

And:

“I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion.” (n.309)

Instead of freaking out over:

“Recognizing the influence of such concrete factors, we can add that individual conscience needs to be better incorporated into the Church’s praxis in certain situations which do not objectively embody our understanding of marriage.” (n.303)

Faced with digesting an admittedly nuanced presentation, the dubia Cardinals chose to challenge Francis with five “yes” or “no” questions, in the name of clearing up what they ever-so-respectfully described as the unfortunate confusion created by His Holiness. They passed on the opportunity to help develop a catechism on the subject that Francis asked for at the time.

It was as if they assumed a) no one would take the time to read the text for themselves, and/or b) nobody could possibly understand what Francis was talking about.

I am convinced these four Cardinals meant well and so do not hold this episode against them. As for their stated mission of “clearing up confusion,” unfortunately that was an abject failure. All they did was further establish a general sense that Benedict XVI and Francis are polar opposites, forcing average believers into choosing between the two.

And that’s where things stand now, with conservatives and traditionalists sitting in perpetual judgement of their Pope, ready to pounce whenever the fickle Francis makes his next “wrong” move.


the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon…


If The Church is going to conduct a Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, and if Rome is going to host an “indigenous prayer service” in conjunction with that Synod, it shouldn’t be too far-fetched to assume such a prayer service might include a female fertility figure representing Mother Earth, still venerated by peoples in the Andes and portions of the Amazon.

Why, exactly, would First World Catholics take this inclusion as an affront to their faith? Fertility is, after all, still a good thing, isn’t it?

To cast this latest so-called impropriety as some sort of unresolvable conflict between Francis’s long-held and well-known devotion to the Blessed Mother, and his carelessly allowing a “demonic piece of trash, with swollen breasts designed to inspire lust” into the Vatican Gardens, and into a church near the Vatican, strikes me as an unfortunate over-dramatization.

We here in the First World might do better to turn our thoughts to our own wayward customs.

Regarding fertility, for instance, and its proper role within a consecrated marriage, what we should really be talking about, or at least thinking and praying about, is how the sanctity of marriage the critics of Amoris Laetitia are rightly worried about will only be restored once the virtue of chastity is rediscovered.

Yes, conservatives and traditionalists understand the predominance of pornography and sexual suggestiveness in everyday, First World life is a serious impediment to the practice of this virtue. But they are much less inclined to acknowledge how the basic tenets of our economic life – appealing to never-ending acquisition and satisfying unfettered desire – also stand in the way of chastity.

Such “extended” considerations underscore how our current dilemma has deeproots.

Along these lines, what Amoris Laetitia can be said to address is the fall-out – in the form of a multitude of divorced and remarried (now “ex”) Catholics – resulting from the Church’s informal capitulation to the culture, in what amounted to its caving on the issue of sexual morality, back in the 1960s.

I say “informal’ because while the Popes may have held the banner high, too many of our priests, bishops, religious sisters, and lay commentators were enlisted in the rebellion. The rest seemed to have been embarrassed into silence.


an odd abandonment of long-held Church teaching…


This coincided with an odd abandonment of long-held Church teaching on economic justice. Again, the Popes never wavered. But lay Catholics, especially of the conservative and traditionalist variety, came to accept “enlightened self-interest” as the Christian way to go.

Francis’s critics don’t seem to pick up on this latter, economic point at all. And while the more learned of those critics are aware the cultural fault lines extend much further than the 1960s, they are not big on prescriptions for action, beyond rolling back the liturgical “innovations” of Vatican II, and retreating to the catacombs.

Their limited to-do list still leaves us with centuries’ worth of setbacks to sort through.

Our respected academics keep themselves occupied with an angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin debate over the fine points of doctrine and dogma. But the average practicing Catholic is keeping it simple, choosing between their preferred present-day papal standard-bearer – either Benedict XVI or Francis.

This knee-jerk selection process nobly defines one as either an observant traditionalist or an open-minded reformer. But these cozy labels we put on like a favorite sweater miss the larger point entirely.

We in the First World remain blind to the disastrous effects of the “unbridled (classical) liberalism” our astute Popes have been railing against to no avail in exquisitely-worded encyclicals since at least 1864. That would be when Pius IX gave us his Syllabus of Errors.

He followed up that effort by convening the First Vatican Council (December 1869 – October 1870) to deal with the rising influence of “rationalism, (classical) liberalism, and materialism.”

But those deliberations were cut short when the Italian army entered the city of Rome at the end of Italian unification. As a result, a full examination of these new subversive influences was left incomplete.

Nevertheless, the overriding issue was continuously addressed by subsequent Popes. Their consistent message of concern was largely ignored by leading American prelates, who came to be smitten with the increase in material well-being their flock had begun to enjoy.

By the time John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), to again ponder relations between the Catholic Church and the modern world, the challenges posed by political, social, economic, and technological change had become even more pronounced.


on the defensive, and ineffective……


So we see that the Church has been on the defensive for quite some time now, and hasn’t been fairing very well in its dealings with modernity. Nor has it been particularly effective in its instruction to First World adherents on how best to conduct themselves in the dazzling and seductive new world order of pluralism and (classical) liberalism (aka, liberal democracy).

One might say Vatican I failed to realize its agenda because it was cut short. While Vatican II ultimately failed because it tried too hard to accommodate contemporary society, instead of correcting its “errors.” While elevating ecumenicalism, it inadvertently devalued evangelization. It compromised the need for individual sanctity. It undermined the universal call to holiness it set out to highlight.

The attending theologians and presiding bishops who were responsible for guiding the discussion and drafting the documents of Vatican II were unable to arrive at a clear consensus. And so the Council and its final sixteen documents sent a mixed message that could be interpreted in whatever way one saw fit.

Sadly, this prompted the faithful to splinter into two opposing camps: conservative and liberal. The irony is neither side in what is largely a politically and economically motivated passion play over the direction of the Church really gets it.

The problem remains what it has always been throughout the modern era: rationalism, (classical) liberalism, and materialism.

Our three post-conciliar Popes (not counting John Paul I, who was only in the chair of Peter for thirty-three days) have tried to address this condition, each in their own way.

Considering the stubborn and persistent refusal on the part of both liberals and conservatives here in the First World to “read” this billboard-size sign of the times, having a Pope at the helm just now with a decidedly Third World orientation is proving to be most fortuitous.


the built-in advantage of an outside observer…


His South American origins give Francis a leg up on being able to clearly comprehend the contours of the modern scourge, and being willing to confront it without reservation. But that doesn’t mean I think his every utterance need be assigned oracle status. Or that he should be uncritically hailed as an anti-establishment trailblazer, as his liberal champions would have it.

This Pope is definitely taking a different tack from his two immediate predecessors in addressing the problem, of that no one can deny. But is he doing so to reorient Church teaching, or to restore it and integrate it back into people’s everyday lives?

When Francis says near the end of the Wim Wenders documentary, A Man of His Word, that one “should never proselytize,” it does seems like a statement right out of the Vatican II playbook, stressing ecumenicalism at the expense of evangelization. But then again, how exactly do you propose we address the strident conflict born of religious strife that exists around the world now, in 2020?

Similarly, when he comments that the building of walls “is not Christian,” can’t we all kind of see where he is going with that?

Our conservative and traditionalist friends may mean well when they remind us of the vital role walls have played throughout history in defending Christendom against the onslaught of Islam. But again, given current geopolitical realities, and the interconnectedness of the global village, how much sense does it make for us to behave as if we’re still at Vienna in 1529 or 1683?

Or to point out how the Vatican itself is surrounded by the Leonine Walls, 40 feet high and 12 feet thick, erected by Leo IV in 848-852 to defend against the marauding Saracens. Yes, these days we do need metal detectors and other instruments of strict border security. There are bad people in the world intent on doing bad things.

But surely our very intelligent traditionalists realize the vast majority of the today’s displaced migrants are being forced from their homes by extreme poverty and gratuitous violence – and oftentimes by both, simultaneously.

Even someone who devoutly yearns for the return of the Latin Mass can grasp where Francis is coming from when he opines in the vernacular like no immediate predecessor ever has on the subject of “walls.”


a cascade of continual controversies…


The same goes for every other “controversy” this pontificate has supposedly instigated. We hear how there is little Catholic orthodoxy to be found in this Pope’s “musings about nature.” That he “appears” to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation and the reality of hell, and expresses “unnerving ambivalence” toward homosexuality and the sanctity marriage.

We all have a responsibility to use the native intelligence we have been given to the best of our ability, in order to properly discern the world around us. Since that’s really all that Francis’s critics are doing, they are to be commended for their industriousness. However let us never forget that using one’s head need not result in the hardening of one’s heart.

There is a broader perspective on all this that traditionalists may want to consider. This Pope is actually making the Church’s long-running case against rationalism, (classical) liberalism, and materialism. He’s just doing it in a way that’s catching most of us off guard.

Francis seems determined to deliver the Church’s message on this score – even if it means setting aside protocols and norms we in the First World have grown accustomed to and now consider as prerequisites.

So it sort of goes without saying he may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

If you find you don’t cotton to this Pope’s somewhat free-wheeling style, well, that is certainly your prerogative. It’s perfectly okay to scratch one’s head at some of Francis’s moves. After all, no Pope is going to be perfect. And it stands to reason the work of any one Pope will have special resonance for a segment of believers, but perhaps not all believers.

In adamantly choosing to put this papacy in the dock, however, be careful not to cast yourself in the discredited role of “Pharisee,” focused on the letter of the law, while ignoring the spirit of that very same law.

A modest suggestion would be for all those traditionalists intent on “restoration” to make a concerted effort toward reconciliation with this pontiff, and open themselves to the prospect that Francis is, in fact, a major asset in that vast undertaking.

He may be plying his trade in what strikes some as an unusual manner. But that is no reason to go around dramatically bemoaning how disheartening it is to see the keys of St. Peter in such unsteady hands. Openly doubting his motives, and calling his fidelity into question.

Let’s apply caution in deliberating on the most suitable means to accomplish this valuable purpose. And not be so quick in our ardor to dismiss Pope Francis as some sort of awkward, slightly-demented stumbling block.

During this, our Holy Week in the Pandemic.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
April 12, 2020

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Step Forward, Oh Great Ones

Step Forward, Oh Great Ones

April 10, 2020 (851 words)

When the NBA suspended the remainder of its season in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, professional basketball player Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers announced on March 12 he was donating $100,000 to his foundation to help his team’s arena workers and support staff.

He was soon joined by many other NBA figures around the league who also vowed to provide similar financial support to their behind-the-scenes workers.

That same week, Fox Business first reported the White House would be meeting with large tech companies in an attempt to help coordinate efforts to contain the virus, and those meetings would include Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, Apple, and Microsoft.

On March 27 we learned that local hero Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast/NBC Universal, his wife Aileen and their family, have pledged $5 million to buy laptops that will go toward virtual learning in the Philadelphia School District, where about half of students don’t have a home computer.

On March 28 The New York Times ran a big story in its Business Section on how philanthropists are helping in this crisis, using their wealth to fill an enormous gap in revenue for non-profit groups.

On April 2 Jeff Bezos revealed he is donating $100 million to Feeding America, a non-profit group that runs a network of more than two hundred food banks across the country.

On April 3 The Wall Street Journal featured a detailed account of what went into arranging for a private jet owned by the New England Patriots to be allowed into China for three hours only, with the crew confined to the aircraft, in order to pick up and fly back with 1.2 million N95 masks, desperately needed by Massachusetts’ healthcare workers and patients.

And then there is the big enchilada, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center, which is backing the development of seven possible vaccines for the coronavirus, to the tune of billions of dollars, including the construction of factories for all seven.

As Mr. Gates explains, “that’s just so we don’t waste time in serially saying, ‘okay, which vaccine works?’, and then building that factory.”


inspiring stories, every one…


These are all inspiring stories. A few of them provide a glimpse into how things probably should be running anyway, even when we are not in the middle of a pandemic.

It makes perfect sense to offer private funds to charitable organizations that are already doing what needs to be done, rather than reinventing the wheel and starting one’s own organization.

But what would be so wrong about offering private funds to governmental organizations that are also trying to do what needs to be done?

(Which is another name for “taxes,” isn’t it?)

In this vein I am thinking of how the White House was planning to meet with our tech giants to coordinate efforts to combat the virus. How is that going?

And rather than just offering advice to the government on the pandemic, or somehow supplementing what the government is doing, wouldn’t it make sense for one or more of our tech giants – or perhaps a consortium of tech giants – to sort of take-over the “systems” part of the country’s response?

For instance, wouldn’t providing us all with an easy-to-navigate government web site that actually works be a piece of cake for our tech giants?

Isn’t that what we generally complain about when it comes to federal or state administered programs: poor organization and planning, and incompetent systems?

What columnist Peggy Noonan told readers about her own experience with the coronavirus in The Wall Street Journal on March 28 rings true for far too many of us:

“Eight days in I entered the living hell of attempting to find my results through websites and patient portals. I downloaded unnavigable apps, was pressed for passwords I‘d not been given, followed dead-end prompts. The whole system is built to winnow out the weak, to make you stop bothering them”


would cooperation violate a sacred principle?…


Three cheers for the success our wealthiest corporations have been able to achieve, but at some point can’t they afford to share a morsel of their expertise with public agencies tasked with addressing the common good?

As for the Bill and Melinda Gates Discovery Foundation, dedicated to finding vaccines for coronavirus and other diseases, we are all thankful for their efforts.

(Especially considering that not every cause they tackle shows positive results. Their educational initiative to improve U.S. public schools has so far been a dud. “We have no noticeable impact after almost twenty years of working in that space,” Gates said recently. “But we remain committed.”)

The thrust of their various other initiatives, however, are international in nature, designed to help underdeveloped Third World countries.

What large, lavishly funded private foundation exists to coordinate efforts here at home to address inequities in nutrition, potable water, shelter, and medical treatment?

Sure, the government’s efforts in this realm are often poorly organized and/or poorly executed. But why doesn’t that deficiency prompt our titans of industry to “lean in” and see how they can help, instead of sitting on their hands?

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. April 10, 2020

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