Difficult Subjects, Forgotten Teaching

June 21, 2019 (1,544 words)

One good thing (among many) about belonging to a universal church is the way it naturally and organically responds to every local culture known to man. Another good thing is how it has encountered every human condition down through the centuries, and developed the teaching to address each new circumstance.

For those who may be unfamiliar, we refer to this as the Magisterium of the Church. It is built on Scripture and Tradition, and is responsible for making the teaching applicable in all times and places.

One cutting-edge subject currently being tackled by Catholic ethics scholars is what is referred to as “end of life issues.” The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) leads this effort. Established in 1972 and currently headquartered in Philadelphia, it conducts research, consultation, publishing, and education to promote human dignity in health care and the life sciences.

The Center is unique among bioethics organizations in that its message is derived directly from the teachings of the Catholic Church, which in turn are drawn from a moral tradition that acknowledges the unity of faith and reason and builds on the solid foundation of natural law.

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meeting with the Vatican and public policy makers…

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The NCBC staff consults regularly with the Vatican, the U.S. bishops, and public policy makers, hospitals, and international organizations of all faiths. Vatican agencies which regularly consult with the Center include the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Pontifical Academy for Life, and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.

In addition to publishing two periodicals and a variety of books on various bioethical topics, NCBC educational programs include the National Catholic Certification Program in Health Care Ethics, one and two-day seminars, and other events. NCBC ethicists travel to speak at gatherings of clergy, at pro-life events, and to professional associations and conferences upon request.

One of my American traveling companions in Guatemala this week had recently attended one such NCBC presentation. A retired OBGYN physician herself, she was impressed with the level of scholarship offered by the Reverend Tad Pacholczyk, PhD. and other NCBC personnel on the panel that day.

To hear this individual tell it, though, “when life ends” is such a complex issue, even this assembly of esteemed scholars could not agree on a single definition that can be applied to every possible scenario.

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another, much older teaching…

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Another, much older Catholic teaching that was touched on in casual conversation this week in Guatemala, while our small traveling party was on a short Vision Trip and Spiritual Pilgrimage, revolves around the old-timey concept of “usury”. This is a word no longer in common parlance, as most people think of it as having been replaced by the much more familiar term “interest.”

But the historical definition of usury still applies, or should apply: The practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that take advantage of another’s misfortunes and unfairly enriches the lender.

Most Catholics have only a vague sense of biblical passages that condemn the charging of interest of any kind on a loan, as well as consistent Church teaching supporting this condemnation, right up through Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). And we have the same vague sense that all that somehow changed once Italian fabric merchants invented double-entry bookkeeping in 14th Century Florence.

That’s not an altogether inaccurate summary of events. Even though Benedict XIV’s encyclical Vix Pervenit of 1745 reiterated doctrine against the charging of any interest, by then improved trading/commercial techniques and increased availability to capital had weakened religious scruples about lending at interest.

So while debate on the subject continued in the ivory tower, “work arounds” were routinely being employed at street level.

In fact, according to John Noonan’s The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Harvard University Press, 1957),
“By 1750, then, the scholastic theory and the counter theory… agree in approving the common practice [of demanding interest on loans].”

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a change in Canon Law…

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Finally, the 1917 Code of Canon Law modified the ban and allowed church monies to be used to accrue interest. Today, of course, lending at interest in virtually universally accepted.

(Except in majority Muslim countries, where Islam still strongly encourages charity and interest-free lending. As an alternative to usury, Islam still teaches [as Christianity once did] a loan should become a direct investment in which the creditor “shares” whatever profit or loss the business may incur. Amounting to what would typically be described today as an “equity stake” in the business.)

No contemporary theologian or Pope has turned their attention to this issue in any comprehensive manner. This is an oversight that really needs to be addressed.

To their everlasting credit, every single Pope has provided yeoman commentary on the rights and duties of capital and labor, and on the injustices perpetrated by the free market system as currently pursued, since Leo XIII first raised the subject in 1891. But none of them have evaluated modern banking and lending practices with the same acuity.

Even the marvelous 1994 compendium known as The Catechism of the Catholic Church, compiled under the auspices of John Paul II (author of 1991’s Centesimus Annus, honoring and updating Leo’s Rerum Novarum), only deals with the subject of usury in the broadest possible terms. Here is what passes for the contemporary “condemnation” of usury:

The acceptance by human society of murderous famines, without efforts to remedy them, is a scandalous injustice and a grave offense. Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them. (CCC 2269)

The evidence clearly indicates a change on this issue since the time of Aquinas, but how to characterize that change? Has the Church reversed herself? Catholics who seek a reversal in the teaching against artificial contraception, or priestly celibacy, or women’s ordination certainly think so. They cite what they see as a “reversal” on usury as a precedent upon which to reverse other teaching they don’t like.

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circumstances change, and teaching develops…

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But wait, there are those who say a solid case can be made that the original outright condemnation against interest being charged in all cases rests on circumstances that have themselves undergone a thorough redefinition. In contemporary market situations investment growth is virtually assured. As secure ways of investing money have developed, the lender does lose profit on money unless interest is charged.

In other words, Catholic teaching still holds that usury is morally impermissible, but it does not follow from this that any charge above principle on a loan is always wrong.

So if the teaching on usury is not a simple reversal and rejection of what came before, but rather a development of the same principles used by Thomas Aquinas applied to radically new circumstances, the obvious question is: How do we differentiate between moral and immoral loans in today’s world?

It seems to me we need a National Catholic Usury Center to help elucidate the teaching as it applies to our times. Because many contemporary loans are still taking advantage of others’ misfortunes, or of our fallen human nature, and are unfairly enriching the lender.

Aquinas reminded us of one of Aristotle’s enduring insights, and played it forward: Money cannot buy happiness. Money used in pursuit of material advancement constitutes a limited good, and should only be utilized to the extent it helps lead us to a higher good, which is a life of virtue, and perfect happiness, and eternal salvation.

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leading people away from virtue…

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In trying to sort all this out and come up with workable definitions, we should begin by noting the current banking system encourages over-consumption by offering easy credit at high interest rates. This leads people away from virtue and into sin. (When one is led away from virtue, there is only one destination possible.)

A wise man once told me that when you are in debt, you don’t own your own soul. While the development of the mortgage industry has made home-ownership available to a much larger percentage of the population than could previously afford to buy, the amount of interest charged over the length of these loans is unconscionable, and overburdens many families of modest means for decades.

Some members of Congress have tried to create a federal usury statue that would limit the maximum allowable interest rate, but the attempts have not gotten very far. In July 2011, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law by President Obama. The act provides for a Consumer Protection Bureau to regulate some credit practices, but contains no interest rate limit.

Again I say, we need a National Catholic Usury Center to explore the interface between morality and money. Where do we find a financial version of the stellar bioethicist Reverend Tad Pacholczyk, Ph.D., who will help bring Catholic teaching to bear on issues related to modern banking and lending practices?

Such an organization, and such an individual, could provide leadership to reroute the conversation in a more just and equitable direction, by consulting with the Vatican, the U.S. bishops, public policy makers, and those in the financial services industry, both in this country and around the world.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
June 21, 2019

Why Welfare Doesn’t Work

June 20, 2019 (940 words) We all know that welfare doesn’t work, and we all know why. Government hand-outs create a feeling of entitlement, and encourage a culture of dependency. The recipients fail to take ownership of what they are given, and feel no responsibility for their circumstances. It’s not that we are hard-hearted toward the less-fortunate, only that we can’t shake the feeling that nobody ever gave us anything, and we’ve had to work for everything we have. In this we express our belief in the American Dream. But there is more to the story than a straightforward celebration of the red, white, and blue. The disdain we end up feeling toward welfare recipients is based on a misreading of the situation, ours and theirs. In the first place, there is supposed to be more to life than the success we take such pride in, and the stock-piling of money. The best things in life really are free. And God is responsible for every good gift. Always has been, and always will be.

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the end game of human existence…

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But we live in a country founded on a secular belief in material advancement as the end game of human existence. It’s the only measuring stick we use. And we studiously maintain a separation of religious belief from the public square where our true religion – commerce – is practiced. Our big, bustling economy does throw off a lot of opportunity, and many of us, especially the clever and the advantaged, have been able to ride the wave and get ahead. But the notion that we successful gringos all came from nothing and made ourselves into something is a highly overrated, self-congratulatory myth. In a monumental display of hubris, we have left God completely out of the picture. We are willing to help the less fortunate, but we want to see them lift themselves up by their bootstraps, so they will not need our assistance, long-term. We think of welfare recipients as being lazy and unwilling to work. But it’s been so long since our own salad days that we are out of touch with what life is like on the far side of the economic spectrum these days. Things have changed a lot since we were first coming up, some forty or fifty years ago. For a variety of reasons, our economy simply doesn’t work for those with a less-than-stellar level of cognitive ability, as it once did. It’s hard to be motivated as a healthy young male, when your only job prospects are minimum wage, with no benefits, and no promise of steady employment. Prosperity is the only religion we have to offer our citizenry, and those on the lower end of the ladder can clearly see what they are missing out on. Can we really be surprised when welfare recipients fail to knee at the altar, when they are permanently consigned to the back pews?

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offering a corrective to this state of affairs…

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As a corrective to this bitter state of affairs, I would ask you to consider the response of poor Guatemalans who benefit from the efforts of an international relief agency by the name of Cross Catholic Outreach (CCO). CCO is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Catholic organization that partners with Catholic dioceses, parishes, and missionaries in developing countries around the world to help the poorest of the poor in a variety of ways. It seeks to mobilize the global Catholic Church to transform the poor and their communities materially and spiritually for the glory of Jesus Christ. Guatemala was once a thoroughly Catholic country, but that changed after the colonial era. It now has a population of 16 million people, with the largest economy in Central America. But the levels of poverty – especially in the rural and indigenous areas – are among the highest in Latin America. A culture of violence is a lingering by-product of the 36-year civil war which just ended in 1996. The pronounced economic disparity has spurred an active drug trade, sex-trafficking, and a high level of domestic abuse.

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sharing a profound sense of gratitude…

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During a recent visit to this mountainous country as part of a small group of feisty American Catholics, I got to meet and listen (through an interpreter) to a few of the recipients of various CCO-sponsored initiatives. They all had one thing in common: a sense of profound, overwhelming gratitude. These grindingly poor, materially disadvantaged men and women all thank God first, for what little (from our perspective) they have been given. Then they thank their local priest (one of whom traveled with us for a day), who personally coordinates and supervises many of the charitable initiatives they benefit from, and who stands with them throughout their many trials, in solidarity. Then they thank Cross Catholic Outreach, as the provider of the means. And finally they also thank us, their modest American benefactors. I would venture to say every member of our little group felt a bit awkward at this last, since, as one member of our party so eloquently put it, we don’t need to be thanked for trying to address, in our own small way, a grave injustice that has been visited upon an entire people. You come away convinced these poor Guatemalans, for all the material challenges they face, are keenly aware of their spiritual blessings. And that we, as Americans, while having received material blessings beyond our wildest expectations, have somehow allowed ourselves to become spiritually impoverished. You can’t help wondering who, in the long run, is ahead of the game. Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. June 20, 2019

Arguing with Success
(in four parts)

June 19, 2019 (2,521 words)

Part One
The economic discussion has gone stale. It has fallen into a bit of a rut. And the average successful American doesn’t generally give the subject much thought, beyond a perfunctory checking off of what they believe is the correct box, before continuing on with their happy lives.

The irony here is that for a people who pride themselves on individual freedom and personal autonomy, and who are committed to having “choice” in every aspect of their lives, the ideological options we have been given by modernity are very limited when it comes to the economic question. All discourse has been funneled in a binary impulse, forcing us into a reflexive, either/or response.

To do right by this subject, though, and be fair to all parties involved, we need to widen our field of reference and pay more attention.

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an economic riddle we have only partially solved…

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Developing an economics of justice and charity is a riddle we have only partially solved. Completing the puzzle will not be as simple as choosing between two opposing economic philosophies, each with their theoretical advantages and disadvantages.

A thumbnail sketch of these two opposing philosophies would be:

The hometown favorite: A dynamic form of free-market capitalism, unfettered by regulation of any kind, which creates a rising tide capable of lifting all boats. Versus an odious state-sponsored form of socialism that tightly controls the means of production, stifles creativity and innovation, and yields nothing but inefficiency and corruption.

But since neither of these systems functions entirely as advertised in every situation, neither one deserves unilateral support, or unreserved condemnation.

More to the point, as decent human beings our primary allegiance should not be to a particular economic system, but rather to the overarching, transcendent goal of promoting human dignity and human flourishing.

We know conservatives, who also generally identify as Christian, believe their preferred economic operating system is already accomplishing this lofty goal in spades. They point to the dramatic increase in household income throughout the industrialized world since 1800. And to the equally dramatic drop in poverty rates throughout the undeveloped world, just since 1970.

They seem to be saying, in effect, that you can’t argue with success.

And they have a point. Their data is accurate. But when confronting the levels of disparity and inequity that exists now, in 2019, both in the First World and the Majority World, it does us no good to rest on our economic laurels.

We should be giving more thought to how far we have to go, and not spend so much time patting ourselves on the back for how far we’ve come.

Part Two
Since capitalism is the box we all affirmatively check, allow me a few words to dampen the praise.

The free market, they say, instinctively guides producers to provide goods and services that consumers really want. This is a proven strategy that has delivered a welcome increase in material well-being to a broad cross-section of the population.

Since an increase in material well-being is an unassailable good that can and should be pursued, we naturally assume that the more we can increase such well-being, the better. In other words, you can’t get too much of a good thing.

But this is where conservative Christian advocates of the free market, who assume one’s material advancement is somehow an expression of God’s will, have been led astray by their adherence to the American Gospel of Prosperity.

Before this new gospel took hold, material well-being was seen is a “limited good” that should be pursued only to the extent it helps us achieve a more important or “higher good.” That higher good was once believed to be living a life of virtue that contributes to our integrity as human beings, and eventually leads us to eternal salvation.

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but who talks of virtue these days?…

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Though we don’t hear much talk of virtue these days, it consists of a firm disposition toward doing the “good.” In performing said good acts, one naturally gives his best at all times. Practicing virtues such as temperance and prudence develops a “service to others” mentality, which we habitually pursue out of a love for God and the many gifts he has bestowed upon us.

We all have a right and a natural inclination to a certain level of comfort and ease. But once we have achieved our basic physical requirements of food, shelter, transportation, etc. continuing to feather our nest ad infinitum just opens us up to one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Those sins are, and will always be: envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath. We don’t hear too much about sin these days, either, as the very idea has gone out of style. But as even a casual perusal of the day’s headlines will attest, all seven of these bad boys are alive and well.

There needs to be a balance in our lives when it comes to improving our material circumstances. Crossing the line can upset our equilibrium, and throw the pendulum in our soul out of whack.

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an insight from an old friend…

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This insight belongs to our old friend Thomas Aquinas. But his understanding of human nature and human destiny has been cast aside by a slew of trendy Enlightenment thinkers, the first wave of which are now only remembered and referred to by poly-sci and philosophy majors.

But Adam Smith – a name most of us are still familiar with – came along and picked up the torch, just as the Industrial Revolution was being unleashed. That torch has been passed along and carried forward all the way to our very own Milton Freidman, and his many contemporary (and frequently Catholic) libertarian acolytes.

The classical (Catholic) viewpoint, which stands apart from both capitalism and socialism, sees economic development, though vitally important, as only one component in developing the human person to their full potential.

In order to aid a person in their pursuit of the “higher” good, a society must address not only the economic development of each person, but the social and spiritual development of that person, as well. Coincidentally, this is also the only way to build a just society and strengthen the common good.

So the Achilles heel of an idealized market being guided by consumer preference is this: What if consumers desire things they don’t need, or shouldn’t have because some things aren’t good for them? Or are detrimental to society as a whole? What happens then?

Through “an absence of obstacles” a free market economy encourages “strivers” to achieve great things, that much is true. But the very success of this no-holds-barred mentality has bred a mindset of excess that is now proving to be our cultural downfall.

By encouraging over-consumption on the part of the general population, the free market undermines the common good by leading people away from lives of virtue. How do those Catholics who claim our version of “Democratic Capitalism” is “inherently moral” reconcile their rose-colored view with reality?

Part Three
Capitalism clearly ignores the spiritual component of human development. It wisely accepts fallen human nature as a given, but does not see it as a project to be improved upon. It relies instead on an adversarial system of “competing interests” to keep our worst instincts in check and thereby maintain civic equilibrium and promote social progress.

But too often now we see that things are just not working out according to plan.

We all know that diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are on the rise, and sugary drinks, salty snacks, and highly processed foods are mighty contributors to these negative health outcomes. But they taste good and we lack the will power to limit their consumption to the occasional treat.

We all agree we should be driving cars with lower emission rates and higher fuel mileage, in recognition of the negative impact their use has on the environment, and on the dwindling supply of the natural resources involved. Yet we continue to buy large SUVs and pick-up trucks, because they are roomy and fun to drive.

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the greater good falling through the cracks…

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We can all cite many similar examples of the greater good failing through the cracks in other areas of our economic life. The fact is our existing economic model actually works in direct opposition to the greater or common good in many instances. It also sometimes stifles the economic creativity and innovation it is supposed to inspire.

Consider how the development of electric cars has been impeded by the big automakers, and how solar energy has been held back by the major energy companies.

This is not to put the likes of Detroit or Exxon-Mobil “in the dock.” They are merely pursing their self-interest, according to the dictates of our adversarial system. And in their defense, they have been reliable providers of the transportation and comfort we have all enjoyed for quite some time.

But fashions change. So do modes of communication and transportation and doing business. And as recent history clearly shows, one generation’s industrial behemoth is the following generation’s White Elephant.

We all agree technology is the future, but the instinct toward self-preservation on the part of entrenched industries effectively eliminates the open competition that is supposed to be the life blood of a free market. Our ersatz version of a free market economy is actually preventing technology from leading us forward, in many cases.

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more regulation is one way we could go….

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One answer of course is more regulation. But governmental regulation deeply offends our American sense of rugged individualism. It violates the concepts of individual freedom and personal autonomy our country was founded on. Besides, such regulation is often doomed to failure, since it can never anticipate the resourcefulness of fallen human nature to find ways around all external attempts at restraint.

The real answer is to shed the adversarial model of competing interests, and replace it with a cooperative model. Business and government should be working toward the same goal: addressing and providing for the temporal needs of society in a way that promotes public virtue.

The idea that self-interest can be enlightened enough to save us from our worst instincts in a way that will maintain civic equilibrium while promoting social progress is obviously flawed.

In other words, we have to rethink our most cherished assumptions about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Part Four
You’ve heard the old saying that the devil’s greatest (ongoing) accomplishment is convincing us he doesn’t exist? Well along those same lines, one of modernity’s greatest accomplishments is convincing otherwise intelligent and considerate people that economics has nothing whatsoever to do with morality.

Moral considerations have no place in the economic discussion, it is said, because economics is a “science” governed by “immutable laws.” And so hallowed concepts like supply-and-demand override the sense of right and wrong we are each born with.

That economic behavior has been allowed to flourish apart from any moral consideration represents a “great divorce.” This “Dividing of Christendom” will have to be reconciled if we are to make any real social progress, from this point on.

To say we should be developing “an economics of justice and charity” sounds foreign to our ears, even when those ears are attached to the head of a practicing Catholic. Because without realizing exactly how or when it happened, most American Catholics no longer think Catholic thoughts, at least not where economics are concerned.

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Christianity should extend to economics…

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We’ve completely forgotten that being a good Christian extends to our economic behavior, and fail to realize the way we currently practice capitalism is diametrically opposed to Catholic social teaching as it pertains to economics.

Now all this talk of virtue can be a little daunting, if not downright off-putting. Either we see ourselves as too flawed to be virtuous, or we are just too much in love with the things of this world. And hey, it happens. The world is full of wonderful stuff to enjoy. But here it should be noted that virtue doesn’t necessarily equate to total denial.

I mean, it can. A saint would probably go in for total denial. And we are all called to be saints. But let’s take this virtue thing one step at a time, shall we? Let’s start with trying to be decent human beings who care for our fellow man. In that case, we can start with moderation, rather than total denial.

The suggestion to apply prudence and temperance to our buying habits has already been mentioned. But this same “take what you need, and leave the rest” approach also applies to the compensation we seek in the workplace.

We can help restore balance and a sense of justice by not leveraging our skill set and experience to demand the most money possible in salary negotiations.

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advice aimed only at the already successful…

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(This assumes you are already making a respectable living, and are able to meet the needs of your family. This advice does NOT apply to those just starting out, who are struggling to buy a house, have kids, etc.)

This would allow the employer to distribute more of the company’s earnings among those on the lower rungs of the org chart.

Less compensation doled out to top talent and executive management teams would also allow a business to consider charging the public less for the goods and services being provided, so as to make their life-sustaining offerings (automobiles, communications, energy, medical care, etc.) more affordable to a wider swath of the population.

And if investors could ever be convinced to back off their insistent demand for the highest-possible return on investment, the entire economic food chain would gain some much needed breathing room. In addition to being able to raise wages and possibly also lower prices, it could afford companies the opportunity to engage in more long-range planning, more time spent innovating and improving.

Is this a lot to ask of a predatory, me-first system? Yes, it most certainly is. But we must each commit to being a witness and leading by example, to modeling the change we wish to see enacted in this scrappy, selfish world of ours.

What if nobody follows your lead? What if everybody else continues to charge ahead and jockey for whatever promotion they can get? Listen, passing on the really big bucks if and when that opportunity knocks is just about the most counter-cultural thing anyone can do. It ranks right up there with trying to be a practicing Catholic. So don’t expect a lot of company.

While your circle of influence may be smaller, and your name recognition not as great, being considerate of others at work will surely be noticed and appreciated by all the “humbles’ who are used to being routinely stepped on, and stepped over.

And remember what is written: The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. At least in the final analysis, where we are told it really counts.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
June 19, 2019

A Mountain of Corn

June 18, 2019 (429 words) The phrase “true grit” has iconic overtones. To movie audiences of a certain age, the term may conjure images of an older John Wayne, circa 1969, in the role of Rooster Cogburn, a crusty, broken-down old lawman who still has what it takes. Younger film buffs may think of Jeff Bridges, who played the same role in a well-done remake a few years back. But after spending a day in the Guatemalan countryside recently, only one image can possibly spring to mind when I think of true grit.

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a new definition from an unlikely source…

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I learned the indigenous women in the grindingly poor rural areas of this country are responsible for growing their family’s food supply on rented plots of land, located in some of the unlikeliest corners you can imagine. They produce the corn that will feed their families, while the husbands try to find work wherever they can to cover daily living expenses. The group of Americans I was traveling with visited a multi-family plot of over six acres that had rows upon rows of small corn plants just starting to sprout, as far as the eye could see. But this was not your typical expanse of flat farm land, a gently rolling pasture you might pass on a leisurely Sunday drive in the country. No, this cornfield starts on the very edge of a busy roadway and gradually makes its way up the steep slope of a small mountain.

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with all the work being done by hand…

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Under the sparse shade of a scrawny tree at the bottom of this incline, we met with the half dozen or so woman responsible for clearing this acreage by hand with machetes. They also do all the planting, fertilizing, and weeding by hand. Then come November they will harvest the crop by hand, and carry it in heavy sacks to their homes, which resemble what we would consider little more than makeshift campsites, located on the far side of this same mountain. This is a daily ritual, an annual ritual that defines their existence. One-by-one they stepped forward to speak to us (through an interpreter) of their labors. Each woman slight as the hoe she was leaning on. The tallest of them may have topped out at about 5’-4”. Altogether they formed a rag-tag assembly, with a combined physical presence easy to dismiss as inconsequential. But we gringos learned this fragile exterior conceals the most formidable will and level of endurance imaginable. Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. June 18, 2019

The Speed of Light

June 15, 2019 (436 words)

Wendell Berry is now 84 years old. The poet, novelist, essayist and gentleman farmer is a well-known dissenter from nearly every aspect of modern life. He was born, raised, and still lives in Kentucky, maintains a healthy distance from any major metropolis, and does all his writing in longhand, with pen and paper.

Some feel the new 1,674 page boxed set of his collected essays, What I Stand On, is just way too much of the man. Critics find him mind-numbingly earnest as he bangs away at the same themes, over and over again. Having so much material gathered in one place only underscores this thematic weakness, in their view.

But countless readers find resonance in what he writes, and feel a strong kinship with Mr. Berry’s principled stands.

Rejecting most of the conveniences and “improvements” we take for granted, Berry the Christian moralist often finds himself at odds with the fashionable status quo. But as a conservationist and champion of local agriculture he does, occasionally, earn the praise of the progressive intelligentsia.

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more than ever a prophetic voice…

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“With the planet rapidly warming and the oceans acidifying, Berry seems more than ever a prophetic voice,” writes reviewer Dwight Garner in The New York Times:

”Come for the thunder. Stay, if you can, to dip more occasionally into these writings, rummage around on their ocean floor and return to the surface with gleaming fragments.

The main thing I take from Wendell Berry is the value of slowing down. If we want to figure things out and untie the knots that vex us, if we want to understand ourselves and the people around us better than we do now, it would help if we could stop moving through our lives at such a harried pace.

As the old poster once had it, the objective should be to “stand still and look, until you really see.”

The zeitgeist carries us along with its own intractable momentum. Our senses are engulfed without our fully realizing what is happening. We are maintained, as if in a petri dish or other lab experiment, in a perpetual state of acquisition and – from the male perspective – titillation.

This has us forever poised for the next big thing to buy or do, the next attractive female to fantasize about. Hardly even paying attention to where we are or who we are with at any given moment.

We are constantly being distracted from the care of the ones we should be closest to. And then we die.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
June 15, 2019

Do You Play?

June 12, 2019 (134 words) Can you be considered a musician without actually being able to play an instrument? Random sounds and bits of conversation have always elicited a musical response from me. I can’t help but hear various downbeats in my head, which suggest certain tunes, and before long I find myself almost involuntarily singing the chorus to an eclectic range of songs and hymns, right out loud. Be advised, this is prone to happen at any time. In fact it’s become so commonplace over the years that now I just take it for granted. A pleasant phenomenon, it creates an agreeable presence that turns all my chores into lyrics, rhythm out of all my reasons. The origin of ceremony. Does that count? Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. June 12, 2019