The Problem with Democracy

October 10, 2018 (391 words)

We know that a successful democracy requires an informed citizenry, and in order to be informed that citizenry relies on a free press. But it turns out these two well-known and widely acknowledged premises don’t tell the whole story.

What a democracy really needs to function properly is a thoughtful citizenry. Being informed is one thing, knowing how to process the information in an intelligent manner is something else altogether.

In the wake of the just concluded, super-contentious approval process of our newest Supreme Court justice, Brett Kavanaugh, I am struck by just how irresponsible we have been in applying the information disseminated to us in this instance.

For Judge Kavanaugh’s avid supporters to claim he is a victim of a vast left-wing conspiracy is simply beyond the pale. Look, the man was apparently less than gallant toward certain young women when he himself was a young man. He has nobody but himself to blame for the untimely revelation of those unfortunate encounters.

By the same token, when Mr. Kavanaugh’s vociferous critics claim his youthful indiscretions rise to the level of criminal activity, a la Harvey Weinstein, credibility is strained. Young Kavanaugh may have been rude and crude on a few intoxicated occasions, but by all accounts he never crossed the line into assault or rape.

Should someone who acted so impolitely towards young women at parties in high school and college be appointed to the Supreme Court? Would that our judicial nominees not have such blemishes on their personal records, no matter how long ago, and no matter at what young age the offenses are said to have occurred.

We can all agree such activity should not be condoned in any way, shape, or form. At the very least, we should by all means use this recent public embarrassment as a teaching moment for young sons everywhere of how not to behave.

But the hammer-and-tongs way the rabid partisans have chosen to make their case leads me, once again, to despair over the state of our democracy. We seem to specialize in a brand of sound and fury that works against a rational, thoughtful solution to any societal problem. The apparent inability to conduct civil discourse does not bode well for our collective future.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
October 10, 2018

Prosperity and Progress

October 09, 2018 (227 words) There is a breed of libertarian economist who, along with a corresponding breed of progressive social scientist, never tires of trumpeting the dramatic increase in material well-being our society has experienced since 1800 or so. This shiny fact gets trotted out to celebrate and certify the three indispensable cornerstones of the modern era: liberal democracy, religious pluralism, and free market capitalism. But the dazzling statistical analysis these experts deploy only captures one aspect of human flourishing, and sheds no light whatsoever on the ultimate meaning or purpose of our day-to-day sturm und drang. Sooner or later we all come to realize there is more to life than having ready access and the requisite purchasing power to acquire the latest smart phone, a big screen TV, or a really cool pair of sneakers. That we have been taught to narrowly define human progress as simple material prosperity is undeniable. We would all do well to broaden our definition of that term while there is still a little time left on our personal game clock. John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That Which is To Come in 1678. It’s been translated into over two hundred languages, and has never been out of print. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. October 09, 2018

Sowing Wild Oats

October 5, 2018 (1,829 words)

Today is the one-year anniversary of the Harvey Weinstein revelations, which kicked off and gave voice to the #MeToo movement. As this past year has unfolded, I have found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The ongoing wave of testimonials against high-profile men has left one wondering if there is any man of a certain age who hasn’t been guilty of sexual harassment. The deluge of distasteful reports has left an indelible impression that essentially all men are by their very nature prone to sexually predatory behavior. It’s just the select few who enjoy a measure of authority in the workplace who get to act out this inbred inclination.

While I wouldn’t for a minute try to challenge such a scary assertion, I would like to point out this stark assessment hardly qualifies as news. After all, it was controlling the notoriously wayward male sexual impulse that was a hallmark of the now-discarded Christian era. It was masculine self-control that brought us such quaint, by-gone notions as The Age of Chivalry.

While virtues such as modesty and humility and chastity have always been a heavy lift down through the ages, and have been especially under siege from the cognoscenti throughout the modern era, it’s our very own “sexual revolution” of the 1960s that has been responsible for the shabby way men have been treating women of late.

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… we hold the sexual revolution in high regard

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That no one seems able or willing to make the connection is a measure of the high regard in which we hold that revolution. We consider its tenets to be an essential component of modern dogma. We all embraced its by-laws, men and women alike. We agreed to a unilateral repudiation of all physical inhibitions, the dispensing with moribund social conventions and societal expectations, in order to let it all hang out and give our true natural full expression.

Free love with no strings attached may have been the banner under which we all marched in the beginning. Fifty years on we are learning that the two genders have internalized those free-wheeling early guidelines very differently, in ways that aren’t the least bit compatible.

If I have this right, women want above all else to be liberated from their biology. They want to do more than get pregnant and procreate, only to raise kids and keep house. They want to spread their wings and pursue fulfillment through rewarding careers outside the home.

(This heady, inspirational rhetoric belies the fact that most employment is little more than paid drudgery, and a high percentage of women have had no choice but to seek employment outside the home, due to economic drivers that have undermined our once thriving middle class.)

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… liberating men form their responsibilities

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Men, on the other hand, have only always sought liberation from their responsibilities. In this context, that liberation has meant no longer tethering their sex drive to one woman in the covenant of marriage, with the associated burden of faithfully raising whatever children may result from such a union. Without this tether, left to their own devices, men have always created havoc in whatever strata of society they are found to matriculate.

The hand-wringing of the past year has apparently led no one to draw the obvious, unavoidable conclusion. When men and women agree to liberate themselves from the chains of morality, one of those groups is bound to suffer unintended, uninvited consequences.

So while I thoroughly empathize with women who have been forced to endure unwanted sexual advances, not to mention those who have had fondling, molestation, and full-blown rape foisted upon them, I am nevertheless waiting for a wider recognition on the part of these women that it’s not just lascivious, out-of-control men who are the problem, but rather our entire lascivious, out-of-control operating system regarding sexuality that is faulty at its core.

#MeToo survivors may think of themselves as victims who were minding their own business and did nothing to deserve being at the receiving end of such sexual criminality. To my mind they are actually more like collateral damage of the suspect ideology both men and women have willingly devoted their lives to.

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… there is never any justification for harassment or assault

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There is never any justification for harassment or assault. And it’s true that much of this bad behavior is attributable to renegade men who refuse to observe propriety, or personal boundaries of any kind. This is what we are hearing about the most, and it is deplorable in every instance.

But there is also a fair amount of squishy motivation at work in many of these scenarios, a fair amount of mixed signals being sent which constitute a certain degree of extenuating circumstance.

By and large men in their natural state are very simple creatures who operate on an easy-to-decipher system of impulse gratification. This is not offered as an excuse, only as an objective statement of fact. In this new, sexually liberated landscape many such men are finding it difficult to differentiate between what is appropriate male-female behavior, and what remains off limits.

One minute they are expected to treat women as brothers-in-arms, breaking down the barriers of pre-conceived gender roles by treating their good-looking counterparts as nothing more than one of the guys. But then in what seems like the very next minute, when the physical attractiveness inevitably kicks in and blurs their sense of right and wrong, they are supposed to revert back to knights in shining armor who respect and defer to the fairer sex.

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… say “no” before you leave the bar, and just go home

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For instance, when will someone get around to pointing out that maybe it’s not such a good idea to have drinks and then decamp to someone’s apartment or hotel room, only to suffer molestation or outright rape? The time to say “no” is before you leave the bar, isn’t it? And maybe you should not attend that keg party at a frat house in the first place, only to find yourself upstairs in bed, underneath somebody who might very well be as drunk as you are, who is trying to take your clothes off.

The latter example points up the distinction that should be made between the sexual harassment of adult women by their male co-workers or superiors in the workplace, and that same sort of harassment of young women on dates. The latter discussion brings us to the emotionally charged confirmation process of recent Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, age fifty-three.

As everyone knows by now, in the late stages of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to review his nomination, Judge Kavanaugh was accused by three women of inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature while he was a senior at an elite Catholic high school, Georgetown Prep, and as a freshman at Yale.

Since these episodes happened so long ago, and because no formal charges were filed at the time, the women involved had trouble remembering all the details of the alleged incidents, and corroborating witnesses were also hard to come by.

So this confrontation turned into a classic “he said, she said” stalemate. Kavanaugh, who has enjoyed a stellar reputation as a Washington, D.C. jurist for the last twelve years, had sixty-five women sign a letter on his behalf, stating what a swell guy he is, and what a promoter of women in the workplace he also is. The general tenor of this support is, “the Brett I know could never have done this.”

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… one does not eliminate the possibility of the other

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But as opinion writer Frank Bruni points out in “The Many Faces of Brett Kavanaugh” (The New York Times, Sept 26), the fact that Judge Kavanaugh has grown up and matured into a responsible adult in no way eliminates the possibility that he was a young man who, according to multiple accounts, may have partied a bit too heartily at times, and who may very well have attempted to force himself on a few unsuspecting and decidedly unwilling young women while intoxicated.

In listening to and reading and watching all the gory details, how many men across the country felt pangs of guilt over their own youthful (or not so youthful) behavior? How many were silently saying to themselves some (perhaps secular) variation of the well-known mea culpa, “there but for the grace of God go I”?

All these other men may not have come from the same privilege as Kavanaugh, and may not have felt the sense of entitlement he apparently did. But there is no doubting that a couple generations of young men have been raised with the license born of the sexual revolution to behave toward young women the way this handsome preppy is said to have behaved.

This is what the once benign, innocuous “sowing of wild oats” has deteriorated into in this, our age of sexual revolution. Should youthful indiscretion disqualify someone from high office? We are all supposed to be eligible for forgiveness and a second chance. But some indiscretions are more odious and harder to dismiss than others.

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… unfurling partisan invective as a smoke screen

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As we know, in confronting the charges against him this Supreme Court nominee eventually chose to set aside any pretense of judicial decorum and instead unfurled a final wave of partisan invective at his accusers, who he claimed were engaged in a calculated plot to “smear my good name.” This has become standard operational procedure, and such power plays leave many ordinary citizens feeling defeated and demoralized.

Out here in the hinterlands we are taught to own up to our mistakes and ask for mercy. But being rich and/or powerful and/or in the public eye means never having to say you’re sorry, and never having to get around to admitting you ever did anything wrong in the first place.

If Judge Kavanaugh wanted to maintain a high-profile career, he probably had no other choice. He lashed out in order to save his professional hide. Such is the way of the world.

What else could he be expected to do? Well, reflecting on these alleged, long-ago deeds in a careful and thoughtful manner would have gone a long way to maintaining his integrity and maybe putting his soul at rest, as well as disarming the contentious protests that have ensued.

As a parting bit of advice to all you virile young (and not so young) men, consider how the better part of valor would be to hue to a pre-1960s approach to sexual morality.

It’s time to recalibrate. Let’s dial down the societal anarchy by shelving the free love with no strings attached concept that has created so much strife between the two sexes. Then you won’t have to worry about a youthful (or not so youthful) indiscretion coming back to haunt you later in life.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
October 05, 2018

Shooting the Messenger

September 30, 2018 (1,728 words) They say compromise, the settling of disputes by each side making concessions, is a lost art. Maybe that’s because we have become a schizophrenic people, addicted to an adversarial, split-screen existence in which heroes can do no wrong and villains can do no right. While conflict is an undeniable component of the human condition, it seems to me the adversarial model as an formal operating system was given bureaucratic legitimacy by modernity, was stamped into certitude by our Founding, and has been responsible, in the eyes of many, for nothing less than the transformation of the United States from a rugged wilderness into the proverbial land of milk and honey. But this model is schizophrenic at its core. On the one hand we hold that unleashing enlightened self-interest, the constant “looking out for number one,” will provide the freedom necessary for everyone to realize their full potential, while somehow keeping us all honest. On the other hand we expect those very same self-obsessed citizens to be conscious of, and reliably act in the best interest of, the wider community of friends and neighbors and nearby residents.

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… the adversarial model has its obvious limitations

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The adversarial model has admittedly brought us a long way, materially speaking. But just like every other ideology, it has its obvious limitations. Here in the early decades of the 21st century we are bumping head-on into some of those limitations, as the problem of equitable distribution continues to vex us. There is an alternative, of course. That would be a cooperative model, such as was employed in the long-ago Middle Ages by the Benedictine monasteries. This alternative operating system helped bring much-needed relief to the poor and down-trodden who found themselves scattered across a barren wasteland after the fall of the Roman Empire, condemned to a hard-scrabble existence. Through the comprehensive ministrations of dedicated men who voluntarily removed themselves from ordinary living, forsaking wives and families of their own, this one-time wasteland eventually flowered into the continent of Europe, culminating in the glories of what we once unanimously and enthusiastically referred to as Western Civilization. So the nameless monks of yesteryear were also able to transform a rugged wilderness into a proverbial land of milk and honey, just like we did here in the States several centuries later.

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… committed to improving the lot of everyone around them

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With one very important difference, it should be noted. Unlike us brash self-centered Americans, those humble monks were committed to improving the lot of everyone around them. Their focus was on eradicating (or at least noticeably reducing) the grinding poverty that was commonplace at the time. They did this by rolling up their sleeves, throwing themselves into manual labor, and utilizing the natural resources at their disposal in a responsible, one might even say “ecological,” manner. But their physical labors were just a means to an end. Above all else, they were interested in promoting the eternal salvation of souls in the next life. While adversity is said to forge character, overcoming adversity so as to achieve of measure of stability and tranquility is an invaluable aid in the contemplation of higher things. The monks were keenly aware of this connection. They had a special knack for addressing all aspects of the men, women and children they served – what today’s holistic thinkers describe as the mind-body-spirit continuum. They successfully integrated the complete human person into their approach to life, and into their unique, highly-effective form of evangelization.

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… uprooting the sense of “integration”

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But the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Enlightenment put an end to the cooperative model, and in the process effectively uprooted the sense of “integration” that is an important pre-requisite to human fulfillment. What we have been left with is an empty “materialism,” where the only consideration is bodily comfort, and satiating bodily desires. So now, after a few centuries of unprecedented material advance we nonetheless find ourselves stuck in the mud as a society, spinning our wheels endlessly, cheering our heroes and damning our villains, a modern-day equivalent of the bread and circuses of antiquity. Liberals and conservatives are both to blame for the highly contentious air we are forced to breath. (Though I admit to harboring a special disdain for conservatives who refuse to even so much as entertain any alternative to our present iron-clad economic formula.) Both liberals and conservatives have trapped themselves, intellectually speaking, because they are equally loath to consider any proscription that reeks of medieval times, or of the Catholic faith. So in just the latest example of not being able to see the forest for the trees, we are unable to perceive that in order to unstick ourselves and make serious strides toward achieving true economic justice we must set aside the adversarial, either/or, liberal/conservative approach to problem-solving.

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… as exemplified by our two leading newspapers

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That approach is exemplified by two of our leading daily newspapers. The Wall Street Journal proudly tells us the economy is booming: the stock market is surging, corporate profits are at an all-time high, and unemployment is at a corresponding all-time low. The New York Times, on the other hand, offers dire reports of rampant underemployment, wages and benefits that have been stagnant for decades, and details how the gap between CEO compensation and the average line worker that has continued to increase over those same decades has now shot up exponentially just since the financial collapse of 2008. Each newspaper regularly captures an element of the truth in its reporting. Neither publication is unassailably right, or utterly wrong. (Though my sympathies do lie a bit more naturally in this regard – and this regard only – with the NYT, seeing as the avid readership of the WSJ tends to occupy the catbird seat, financially-speaking.) But we are conditioned to accept the limited view of reality presented by one side or the other. We praise our favorite paper, and refuse to even look at that other rag. What the world really needs is for these two editorial boards – each consisting of smart and experienced people – to put their respective heads together, and cooperate on a truly bi-partisan analysis and evaluation of our multi-faceted economic tableau.

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… the Business Roundtable does an about-face

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On August 15, Senator Elizabeth Warren ventured into the lion’s den of The Wall Street Journal to explain that “Companies Shouldn’t Only Be Accountable to Shareholders.” Her short op-ed piece points out how the Business Roundtable, an organization which represents large U.S. corporations, dramatically changed its tune between 1981 and 1997 when it comes to outlining the responsibilities and objectives of its member companies: 1981: “(Corporations) have a responsibility, first of all, to make available to the public quality goods and services at fair prices, thereby earning a profit that attracts investment to continue and enhance the enterprise, provide jobs, and build the economy.” 1997: “…(T)he principle objective of a business enterprise is to generate economic returns to its owners.” In describing “The Accountable Capitalism Act” she is introducing in Congress, Senator Warren uses her short WSJ op-ed to touch on a few key examples of how the everyday functioning of the economy has fundamentally changed over the course of the past thirty years.

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… a dramatic change in philosophy over the last thirty years

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Among those examples is the way a “shareholder value maximization” ideology has taken hold in boardrooms across the country, and around the world. Meanwhile wages for the workers who helped produce these record returns have stagnated, even though their productivity has continued to rise. As Senator Warren so succinctly puts it, “Workers aren’t getting what they’ve earned.” One can almost hear echoes of today’s second reading at Mass: “Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume you like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days. The wages that you held back from the workers who harvested your fields are shouting out against you”… (James 5:4)

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… Senator Warren’s broad outline is hard to dispute

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The picture Senator Warren paints of economic life over the last thirty years can hardly be debated, even if the specifics of her proposed legislation to address the situation could no doubt benefit from careful review and further input. Yet her critics are not interested in taking up a worthy cause and improving on the initial proposal. They are only interested in shooting the messenger. Nothing is more frustrating to me at this point in my life than to hear every single thoughtful and detailed criticism of unfettered capitalism rebuffed by conservatives with the simplistic notion that we must avoid the slippery slope of socialism. And in Senator Warren’s case, religious or social conservatives should not allow her avowed support of reproductive choice and marriage equality to disqualify her from serious consideration when it comes to being able to accurately diagnose some of our most basic economic woes. To say that none of us is perfect is more than a glib observation, or an attempt at being cute. It’s a fact of life. In recognition of this disquieting reality, we must open ourselves to the possibility that good ideas can come from anywhere. By the same token, coming up with a stunningly good idea in one field of endeavor does not in any way guarantee that your next idea in another field of endeavor will not turn out to be a real stinker.

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… backing off the conservatives belief that “all is well“

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Honestly people, at this late date can we all agree that our current version of no-holds-barred, winner-take-all capitalism could benefit from a little fine-tuning, so as to address the obvious and growing problem of unequitable distribution? (And just to be clear, this has nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of push for “equal outcomes.”) And can we also all agree that no sane, rational person could possibly be in favor of socialism? The challenge we face is how to make capitalism work better for those who are not clever or advantaged. The conversation should move on from there. But in order to move on we must first ask our conservatives friends to stop insisting that everything is fine with their dynamic economic engine, just the way it is. Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. September 30, 2018

So Long, Uncle Ted

September 6, 2018 (3,484 words)

No sooner had we begun to digest the alarming implications of the wide-ranging Pennsylvania attorney general’s report, first released on August 12, than the sordid McCarrick affair was again splashed across the front pages on August 25. Let’s review.

PART ONE
In June the long-retired, 88 year-old Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, whose last assignment was Archbishop of the Washington, D.C. diocese (2001-2006), was removed from active ministry over credible allegations he had molested an un-named 16 year-old altar boy in 1971.

He was able to retain the title of Cardinal despite this formal rebuke, but not for long. In July, Pope Francis accepted McCarrick’s resignation from the College of Cardinals over allegations he had sexually harassed and abused not only minors but adult seminarians over the course of many decades.

According to a statement released by the Vatican on July 16, McCarrick has been instructed to live out a life of “prayer and penance,” and will have to remain in seclusion pending an ecclesiastical trail.

Apparently his preferred target became adult seminarians as he was promoted up the ranks from priest to bishop to archbishop to cardinal, serving first in Metuchen, NJ, then being relocated to Newark, NJ, before finally receiving the plum assignment in Washington, D.C.

McCarrick’s sexual predilections were said to be an open secret among some in the American hierarchy for many years. According to recently released information, he was known to request that his adult conquests refer to him as “Uncle Ted,” and favored rendezvous locations that included a beach house at the Jersey shore, an apartment in New York City, and a vacation place in upstate New York.

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… McCarrick is not an isolated incident

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Before we go any further, however, please don’t think for a moment that McCarrick is in any way an isolated incident. It is only the level of notoriety that sets him apart. Let us recall Rembert Weakland, the long-time Archbishop of Milwaukee [1977-2002], to name just one other elderly prelate who managed to exit the stage without dominating national headlines, or endangering a papacy.

Weakland unceremoniously retired, relatively speaking, amid reports he authorized a $450,000 pay-out to a former male companion, funded from archdiocesan coffers. He has been quietly living out his days, relatively speaking, in a Milwaukee retirement community ever since.

That Cardinal McCarrick was able to advance despite such sordid rumors swirling in his wake appears to be a testament to his charisma and intelligence, the reluctance of seminarians to come forward and call out their bishop, and procedural failings in the ecclesiastical system.

Since the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in June 2002, the emphasis has been on preventing inappropriate sexual contact between priests and minors, and prosecuting it once it is reported. But until this summer it appears no one in the Church has given enough thought to handling such illicit behavior with adults, when perpetrated by someone higher up on the food chain.

In an open letter issued in late July, Sean Cardinal O’Malley of Boston, one of the reliable good guys (we hope), wrote “while the Church in the United States has established a zero tolerance policy regarding the sexual abuse of minors by priests we must have clearer procedures for causes involving bishops. Transparent and consistent protocols are needed to provide justice for the victims and to adequately respond to the legitimate indignation of the community.”

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… clearer procedure needed for cases involving bishops

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To which the faithful lay person in the pew – to say nothing of the victims and their families – battered and beaten down by the on-going revelations, can only respond: Sounds good. But can we please get that show on the road, Cardinal O’Malley?

Though it’s hard to remember now, initial reaction to the Pope’s July 16 statement was positive. He was praised in many quarters for being decisive and taking an undeniably hard line on such a prominent cleric.

Then came the August 25 release of a 7,000 word letter, referred to as a “testimony,” issued by Archbishop Carlo Vigano, age 77, a native of Varese, Italy, and a career Vatican diplomat.

Archbishop Vigano served as the principal nuncio (ambassador) to the United States, from October 2011 to April 2016. Since the text of his “testimony” first appeared at LifeSiteNews.com, all hell has broken loose. What follows is a brief summary of the bombshell.

Vigano recalls sending a 2006 memo to his Vatican superiors, before he was appointed “principal nuncio”, but while serving as Delegate for Pontifical Representations, from 1998 to 2009. This 2006 memo called out Cardinal McCarrick’s long history of sexual misconduct, and recommended that an example should be made of him for the good of the Church.

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Archbishop Carlo Vigano first informs the Vatican in 2006

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(To repeat, McCarrick’s wayward actions had been known to some members of the American hierarchy for many years prior to 2006).

That first memo was ignored, according to Vigano, so he sent a second one in 2008. The second one got through, and did the trick. Archbishop Vigano was told that Pope Benedict XVI imposed “canonical sanctions” on Cardinal McCarrick in 2009 or 2010, forbidding him from living in seminary, celebrating sacraments publically, and from making other kinds of public appearances.

All of which sounds pretty serious. But if true, why didn’t Benedict make a big, splashy announcement regarding McCarrick’s banishment at that time, such as the one we were just treated to by Pope Francis in July?

And more to the point, did Cardinal McCarrick indeed drop from view, beginning in either 2009 or 2010? I for one can’t remember, and I can’t say that any of the recent reports surrounding Archbishop Vigano’s August 25 testimony have commented on that fact, one way or the other.

The next pertinent entry in the Vigano timeline is June 2013, while he was in Rome for a meeting of all the apostolic nuncios. His only scheduled contact with Francis was as part of a general audience during which the new Pope greeted each nuncio in a single file. This allowed for the briefest of exchanges, during which Archbishop Vigano simply introduced himself as the nuncio to the United States.

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… a rushed private meeting in June 2013

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Wishing further clarification of what the new Pope might be expecting of him, Vigano sought a private audience. On short notice a few days later, after Mass and before the Angelus, Vigano was ushered in to see the Pope in the first floor of his Vatican apartment.

Archbishop Vigano then told Pope Francis, “Holy Father, I don’t know if you know Cardinal McCarrick, but if you ask the Congregation of Bishops there is a dossier this thick about him. He corrupted generations of seminarians and priests and Pope Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance.”

According to Vigano, “The Pope did not make the slightest comment… and did not show any expression of surprise on his face, as if he had already known the matter for some time…”

After this purported brief, June 2013 exchange, we know that Cardinal McCarrick went on to enjoy something of a resurgence under Pope Francis, traveling and giving talks and otherwise representing the interests of the Church.

Here, then, is the gist of Archbishop Vigano’s brief against Pope Francis: Vigano brought the McCarrick affair to Pope Benedict’s attention. Benedict imposed canonical sanctions against McCarrick. Pope Francis ignored/reversed those sanctions and instead made McCarrick one of his closest advisors.

For that, Archbishop Vigano is saying Pope Francis should resign. That’s right, the Pope must resign.

PART TWO
Uncle Ted’s goose is surely cooked. But as an 88 year-old man he is for all intents and purposes beyond the reach of civil or ecclesiastical authority, and will soon have to face the four last things.

Pope Emeritus Benedict has already removed himself from the equation, having walked away from the penultimate role of his life, abdicating on who-knows-what grounds. That leaves Pope Francis holding the bag for this one.

Just as Democrats hope the on-going Mueller investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election will result in the impeachment of President Trump, and Republicans spent eight years pressing the non-native birth certificate issue hoping to dispose of President Obama, Pope Francis, too, has his partisan detractors who would be only too glad to see him go, after five and a half unconventional years on the job.

And the knives are already being sharpened.

On August 31, less than a week after Archbishop Vigano’s testimony went viral, Robert P. George took to the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, with a small piece entitled “Is It Time for Pope Francis to Resign?” Mr. George is, as we all know, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

And in the opinion of this observer, Professor George also has an unwavering tendency to view his Catholic faith through a neo-con Republican lens. In his recent WSJ piece he boldly states:

“Any materials showing the Pope knew of any McCarrick sanctions before meeting with (Archbishop Vigano) on June 19, 2013 would be critical.” (Actually the meeting between the two took place on Sunday, June 23, according to Vigano’s testimony.)

To Professor George’s credit he does then state, “Vigano’s testimony does not clearly assert the Pope ‘lifted’ sanctions, contrary to some reporting.”

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… the future of this pontificate is now in the gravest doubt

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The August 31 WSJ op-ed continues as follows: “But he (Vigano) does say Pope Francis has known since at least the end of June 2013 of a dossier detailing grave sexual offenses. If the Pope knew of that dossier and nevertheless empowered the Cardinal (McCarrick) to represent and influence the Church worldwide for five years, the future of this pontificate is in the gravest doubt.”

The WSJ editors add the following tagline to Professor George’s short piece: “if an archbishop’s explosive claims are true, this papacy must end.”

The story may be a simple one on its face, but is less so as one digs into the details. For one thing, reading Archbishop Vigano’s 7,000 word testimony one cannot help but be struck by how many people are involved in this account, how many hands the information had to pass through, and how Vigano himself is far from what might be described as a central player in the events under discussion.

For instance, one would have thought his “informing” Pope Francis in June 2013 would have occurred at a formal sit-down, with the infamous McCarrick dossier being dramatically slid across the papal desk.

So too the result of Vigano’s all-Important second memo to Pope Benedict in 2008. By his own words we learn Vigano only heard about purported sanctions through a second or third-hand source. Really?

Contributing to my own understanding of this tangled tale of woe is a September 3 story written by JD Flynn for the Catholic News Agency, “Benedict, Vigano, Francis and McCarrick: Where things stand on the nuncio’s allegations.”

According to Mr. Flynn’s reporting, “The most serious complicating factor came in an August 31 article from the National Catholic Register’s Edward Pentin. While Vigano has claimed that Benedict imposed ‘canonical sanctions’ on McCarrick, Pentin reports a source close to Benedict telling him that, as far as the former pope could remember, the instruction was essentially the McCarrick should keep a ‘low profile.’ There was ‘no formal decree, just a private request.’”

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… canonical sanctions, or merely a private request?

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Staying with Mr. Flynn’s September 3 account, we read: “The Vatican has a penchant for gossip, and many of its officials have a marked zeal for hyperbole. Anyone who knows the Vatican well can imagine how a ‘private request’ made by Benedict could have become ‘canonical sanctions’ by the time the story reached Vigano.”

“…It’s also possible the archbishop (Vigano) wasn’t certain exactly what happened, and that he overcommitted to what he did know by claiming to have ‘certainty’ Benedict imposed canonical sanctions. This seems likely, given that Vigano’s entire testimony has a certain dramatic flair.”

“But none of that changes the big picture allegations of Vigano’s memo: that after receiving multiple reports, Benedict took some action against McCarrick, and that action was later reversed or rescinded.”

“ … It seems unlikely that semantic disagreements about Vigano’s claims will lead Catholics to dismiss entirely the questions he has raised, implicitly and explicitly, about whether, and by whom, McCarrick’s situation was inadequately addressed or simply papered over.”

PART THREE
Continuing with JD Flynn’s September 3 reporting: “ …Many Catholics have asked this week why, if Benedict did respond in some way to the Vigano memos, he didn’t respond in a stronger fashion. …Catholics have also asked why Francis, if he knew that McCarrick was reportedly sexually engaged with seminarians for decades, would make him an important advisor and emissary.

“To understand and assess the responses of Benedict and Francis to allegations about McCarrick, it is important to understand the canonical context in which those allegations were made.”

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… understanding the context in which allegations were made

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“Since 2002, all bishops in the United States have known exactly how to address an allegation that a cleric sexually abused a child. …But the manner in which allegations of sexual misconduct with adults are handled looks nothing like those clear procedures.”

“Church law does not expressly establish that sex between a cleric and an adult is a canonical crime. As a consequence, bishops everywhere find themselves vexed, and frequently, about how exactly they should handle allegations of clerical misconduct involving adults – even in cases like McCarrick’s where coercion is an operative factor.”

“Bishops often send priests accused of sexual misconduct involving adults to inpatient therapy, and it has become typical for bishops to unofficially and temporarily sideline priests who engage in sexual dalliances with adults, usually until the bishop is convinced that the priest has addressed whatever issues are believed to have contributed to his misconduct.”

“But there is almost never a canonical crime with which most such priests could be charged. Those practices might help explain why Benedict didn’t act more publically or directly on McCarrick. They might also explain, at least in part, why Francis was apparently able to be convinced that McCarrick had been reformed, and that he could be brought into the pontiff’s inner orbit.”

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… the context is not offered as an excuse

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“This context is not offered as an excuse; most commentators on the matter argue compellingly that, whatever the context, both popes should have understood the seriousness of the situation. But it is possible that one or both of them did not, which is the reason why an investigation into all available records and testimonials would be of great help to the Church.”

“In the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, and the McCarrick revelations, it is now becoming clear to bishops and other Church leaders that priests and bishops are almost always in an unbalanced relationship of power with other Catholics and so clerical misconduct with adults should never be presumed to be consensual, as it often has been presumed to be in the past.”

“And it is becoming especially clear to bishops that when sexual partners of clerics are seminarians, ‘consent’ is really not an operative or relevant principle.”

“As a result of what’s happened, some bishops are now beginning to understand that they need the same kinds of clear procedures for handling misconduct involving adults that they now have for handling allegations involving children.”

“The specifics might be different, but the importance of developing some kind of clearly delineated protocol is becoming obvious, mostly so bishops can be nearly conditioned to handle them in an appropriate manner each time they arise.”

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… clear protocols needed when sexual misconduct involves adults

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“…In fact, several sources tell Catholic News Agency that the most likely long-term outcome of this summer of scandal is a universalized protocol for handling allegations of clerical sexual misconduct or abuse involving adults.”

JD Flynn summarizes his September 3 article as follows: “The big-picture of Vigano’s memo is that Benedict, Francis, and other Vatican officials may have mishandled allegation raised to them about McCarrick.

“That big picture is not changed if Vigano did not accurately convey Benedict’s actions on the matter (to Pope Francis in June 2013). There could be important lessons to be learned by a thorough review of Vigano’s claims, whatever the outcome.

“But, as a surprise to almost no one, the archbishop’s memo has been mostly reduced to a cudgel to be used in the ideological culture wars that divide U. S. Catholics. Catholics of all theological perspectives could do justice for abuse victims through an unbiased investigation of facts. Vigano’s memo raises questions that, whatever the answers, seem to merit serious inquiries.”

EPILOGUE
Heartfelt thanks go out to Mr. JD Flynn for his detailed and nuanced reporting. His full account can be found at catholicnewsagency.com/news/benedict-vigano-francis-and-mccarrick-where-things-stand-on-nunciaos-allegations-42119.

If Francis is eventually deposed over the McCarrick scandal, I for one will be sad to see him go. Not because I agree with progressives who contend he is “moving the needle” on the Church’s strict stand against homosexuality, or “updating doctrine” by attempting to find a way of extending the sacraments to divorced and remarried Catholics.

The fact is I nether agree with “liberals” who enthusiastically rally behind Pope Francis, or “conservatives” who so confidently criticize him. Because, frankly, I don’t see where he has said or written what his progressive supporters or his traditional detractors claim he has.

Though he is undeniably unconventional, with a tendency toward quirky, extemporaneous pronouncements, I am suggesting that we would all benefit from taking the long view when it comes to this papacy.

History may well come to credit this wacky Jesuit from the Third World with an admirable attempt at a timely agenda: undertaking the “heavy lift” of bringing charity and mercy to the application of Church teaching in a decidedly apostate world. The very same teaching his immediate predecessors Benedict XVI and JPII were known to champion in their own respective styles.

This has proven to be an especially tricky assignment in today’s partisan, polarized environment. Such teaching has been all-but-discarded by an overwhelming majority of the “educated” in this country as no longer relevant to begin with. While the remaining under-siege faithful remnant has too often “weaponized” the teaching, using it to forever banish those who have mistakenly followed the crowd and fallen away.

By my lights Francis is trying to reconcile opposing forces and bring a measure of understanding to a massively confused populace, even if there have been some obvious and awkward missteps along the way.

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… balancing the two halves of Catholic belief

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Working against him is the way liberals, by and large, have flattened out these complex issues into little more than popular slogans, while conservatives have for the most part refused the difficult challenge of balancing the strictures of moral demand with the other half of Catholic belief.

Allow me to say my defense/embrace of this pope is merely an extension of my defense/embrace of all popes, every pope. Reading the careful thought to be found in all papal encyclicals and apostolic exhortations can’t help but create such a bond in the heart and mind of a practicing Catholic.

Though I do admit Francis will always hold a special place in my heart and my mind for those eleven paragraphs (n.50 – n.60) in his first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (On the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World), promulgated in November 2013.

That’s where he called into question, right out of the gate in his first formal writing as Pope, the ruling logic of unfettered capitalism and trickle-down economics.

The cadre of “economic freedom” conservatives who have been designated as official interpreters of all things “Catholic” for traditional believers, did not approve. They came down on Francis like a ton of bricks for those eleven paragraphs, and have essentially never let up. Even though he didn’t write anything about economic behavior every Pope since Leo XIII has been writing, up to and including JPII and Benedict XVI.

The only difference is Francis took the gloves off. He employed language that made it more difficult for the neo-con Republican, Wall Street Journal wing of American Catholicism to spin papal teaching into what they like to think of as unmitigated Church support for the economic status-quo.

Francis may indeed be found guilty of neglect in the Cardinal McCarrick affair, dating as far back as June 2013. But I submit his real crime in the eyes of this country’s successful conservatives was when he first called our adherence to the gospel of prosperity into question, in November 2013.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
September 6, 2018

The Tyranny of Bad Ideas

September 3, 2018 (996 words) Daniel Pipes reminds us that Venezuela’s economy, now an unmitigated disaster, was once a thriving example of economic efficiency, due in large measure to the discovery of vast oil reserves in 1914. According to Mr. Pipes the trouble started around 1958, with “government interference in the economy.” But, he says, things really went downhill when Hugo Chavez became president in 1999. “Socialism might have been a proven failure globally,” Mr. Pipes tells us in “Venezuela’s Tyranny of Bad Ideas” ( Wall Street Journal op-ed, Monday August 27), “but Hugo Chavez convinced Venezuelans to try it.” The obvious question Daniel Pipes decides not to ask is, why? If things were going so well, why were Venezuelans willing to follow Chavez’s lead into full-blown socialism?

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… why change, if things were going so well?

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One imagines Mr. Pipes might answer that question by citing “massive social spending programs” undertaken by Chavez “to secure votes.” This is a familiar refrain/complaint of conservatives. But why were such social programs needed? Why was there a ready audience for them? Not being particularly knowledgeable myself about South American politics in general, or Venezuela’s in particular, nevertheless the basic overview provided by Daniel Pipes is familiar enough to even the casual observer: Hugo Chavez was no prize, and he severely undermined the well-being of the nation he set out to govern. And let’s face it, “replacing competent professionals at the government-owned oil company with agents, stooges and sycophants,” as Mr. Pipes tells us Chavez obtusely did, is a recipe for business disaster, no matter what one’s overriding political philosophy happens to be. That Chavez’s daughter was able to accumulate a fortune estimated in 2015, two years after his death, to be a staggering 4.2 billion, is described by Pipes as “being in the grandest socialist tradition.” But is corruption really the special purview of socialists? Don’t we read almost daily of insider trading, ginning of balance sheets, and sophisticated pirouettes performed around onerous regulation, right here in the home of free market capitalism?

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… is corruption the special purview of socialists?

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We agree Maria Chavez’s reported nest-egg is a bit excessive, but our leading politicians leave office with pretty good prospects, too, wouldn’t you say? By all accounts things did go horribly wrong in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez’s leadership. But Daniel Pipes would have us believe an unhinged strongman like Chavez is the inevitable result when “economic freedom” is not given a pre-eminent place in a nation’s affairs, and when, God forbid, “government interferes in the economy.” Like everyone who reads and writes for the WSJ, Mr. Pipes thinks such freedom always leads to wealth, with the assumption being such wealth is always widespread. But history has clearly shown how the lack of equitable distribution marginalizes a broad swatch of any country’s population, sometimes resulting in outright oppression. In his op-ed of August 27, the Harvard educated Daniel Pipes, who serves as president of the Middle East Forum, demonstrates a rather muddled view of that history.

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… demonstrating a muddled view of history

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“Bad ideas have always existed, but they acquired new importance with the advent of liberalism in the late 17th century. Before then conservatism – respecting tradition while adapting it to new circumstances – had prevailed.” “An individual king’s or religious leader’s besotted vision could progress only so far before convention rolled it back. Liberalism rendered tradition optional by optimistically deeming each person capable to think through the great issues from first principles on his own.” Wow, what a hodge-podge. To begin with, the “liberalism” Mr. Pipes bemoans would more accurately be described by its proper name, “classical liberalism.” This is the ideology which ushered in the modern age, more or less with the Renaissance. What defines it and us, above all else, is our insistence on individual emancipation from tradition and custom, from law and authority. Contrary to what Pipes asserts, what pre-dated “classical liberalism” was not “conservatism,” but rather Catholicism. It was not some idealized sense of conservatism that maintained a respect for tradition all those years, and kept society moored to experience and common sense prior to the dastardly French Revolution, but rather the Catholic Church. The reason writers like Daniel Pipes and publications like the WSJ no longer recognize this history is because he and it are part and parcel of the great rejection of tradition that is a hallmark of modernity, the legacy of classical liberalism.

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… sons of modernity always misread the true arc of history

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The liberal/conservative dialectic that dominates the thought process of men like Daniel Pipes is a relatively new development, not any sort of historical constant. Today’s conservatives were the first to benefit economically from the new freedom inspired by classical liberalism. The improvement in material circumstances was the direct result of abandoning the old, Christian ethic of “love they neighbor as thyself” in favor of the new, Enlightenment ethos of “every man for himself.” They sought not so much to protect some hallowed tradition, as today’s conservatives are wont to claim, but the new rules of engagement that yielded heretofore unimaginable profit. They sought to quarantine those often unsavory profits from the grubby little hands of the unwashed masses. Today’s liberals were formed in the 19th century, when writers and others began to push back against the economic exploitation of those same masses. When considering Venezuela’s dire economic situation, the eternal enemy may indeed be socialism, but the antidote is not unfettered capitalism. Our popes have been saying and writing as much ever since Leo XIII kicked off Catholic social teaching for the modern world in 1891. And every single pope since Leo has taken up the cause and elaborated upon it, adapting the teaching to new circumstances. Maybe Daniel Pipes should consider converting to Catholicism. If he did, it would provide him access to a broader perspective when analyzing current economic problems. Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. September 3, 2018