On Being Bubba

Politics is important, certainly, but it is also frequently ugly and even more often amusing. Thus the cover story in a recent issue of Newsweek was devoted to the question of whether Barrack Obama has a sufficient “bubba” quotient to be elected President. With arugula serving as Obama’s symbol and beer as the symbol of, well, “bubba”, the essay revolved around the question of whether the Democratic leader was perceived as too much of an upper-crust snob to garner support among the working classes. Image, as the saying goes, is everything, or at least mostly everything in contemporary politics.

The bubba analysis has no less merit than any other perceptual issue which afflicts those running for public office in a mass culture in which almost nobody knows the candidates. But it is humorous all the same, and it points out one of the many weaknesses of democracy—or at least of large democracies in which almost nobody knows the candidates. In some documents, I think, the Church has gone on record as identifying democracy as the form of government most consistent with human dignity. I would have to check carefully to see precisely what has been said and with what Magisterial weight, but in any case the following caution is required: The political system most theoretically consistent with human dignity does not thereby become the only acceptable political system. And all systems must adapt themselves to the exigencies of time, place and people.

Certainly it is more consistent with human dignity that persons should participate in their own governance than that they should not. It is presumably undeniable that democracy provides the numerically widest possible opportunity for such participation. But worthwhile participation—meaningful participation—is another matter. There are many ways to participate in or influence different kinds of government; voting is only one of them, and it is hardly the most effective. What appears on paper to be most consistent with human dignity may not prove to be so in practice, especially (if I may stress the point again) in mass societies where almost nobody knows the candidates. When citizens have only limited ways of building influential voting blocks, and when so much political information is mere illusion, one can at least ponder the advantages of voting.

All theoretical forms of government (monarchy, oligarchy and democracy, for example) have their own strengths and weaknesses. We who advocate democracy need to understand that it provides no guarantee of having the best possible government. Theoretically, monarchs are raised in constant training to rule and can do so without pandering to anyone, and oligarchies are staffed with the people most fit to rule, so while both may seem foreign to our democratic spirits, they do have theoretical strengths that populist forms lack. Moreover, all the actual implementations of each form of government also have their own strengths and weaknesses, and no two implementations are alike. Pure democracy is impossible except among very small groups, and it always suffers potentially from the tyranny of the majority. The various forms of modified democracies, including our own republican form of government, inevitably include procedures and mechanisms which, when abused, permit repression of not only the minority but sometimes even the majority.

Still, it is not my point to make a case for this or that political form. The two most important things about any government are, first, that the governors understand the natural law and, second, that they desire to govern in accordance with it for the common good. After these comes competence. For this reason, the highest political obligation of citizens is to do their best to ensure that these conditions are met, through whatever means they have. But since such conditions are never perfectly fulfilled, the posturing, strategies, machinations and image-making which constitute the pursuit and exercise of political power remain, as I said, frequently ugly and even more often amusing.

So Barrack Obama will have to boost his bubba quotient. Indeed, his success or failure in doing so may be more important than any issue on which he has (or has not) taken a position, including issues of life and death. Truly, politics is a strange animal, and we respond to the process in odd ways. All citizens, and especially Christians, need to be wary. As a minimum first requirement, we must keep a close eye on our own motives and reactions, lest we render a disservice to the common good through decisions based more on personal affinities or emotions than on reasoned moral judgments. There are all sorts of bubbas, and at every level, just waiting for the right group-centered or self-centered vibes. Not, of course, that any of us would ever admit to being one.

Cardinal Dulles Bids Farewell

I was deeply impressed by Avery Cardinal Dulles’ farewell address as Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University. Cardinal Dulles has held this post for twenty years, and has delivered the last thirty-nine of the semi-annual public lectures associated with the position, as well as hundreds of other similar lectures. On April 1st, in attendance but unable to speak due to illness, Cardinal Dulles heard his final lecture read by the former president of Fordham who had appointed him to the McGinley chair, Fr. Joseph O’Hare.

Dulles said that he had deliberately selected controversial topics for the series of lectures, hoping to bring a reasoned resolution to issues that were dividing Catholic thinkers. He described his approach as follows:

In my conclusions I try to incorporate the valid insights of all parties to the discussion rather than perpetuate a one-sided view that is partial and incomplete. I think of myself as a moderate trying to make peace between opposed schools of thought. While doing so, however, I insist on logical consistency. Unlike certain relativists of our time, I abhor mixtures of contradictions.

The Cardinal also stated that he has always spoken as a “theologian”, by which he means that his reasoning has always depended on the Revelation guaranteed by Catholicism:

Christ the Redeemer, who has given the fullness of Revelation, has also made provision for the Revelation to be kept alive in the Church without corruption or dilution. These basic teachings of our Faith, held in common by all believers, are presupposed by Catholic theology. The Faith takes nothing away from what I can know by my native reasoning powers, but it adds a vast new light coming from on high.

Dulles pointed out that respect for the deposit of Faith “should not be called conservatism in the pejorative sense but a simple loyalty to the Word of God.” Therefore, he has never striven for originality: “If I conceived a theological idea that had never occurred to anyone in the past, I would have every reason to think myself mistaken.” For Dulles, the “current confusion in theology is in no small part due to a plethora of innovations, which last a few years only to be overtaken by further and equally ephemeral theories.” It is a poor investment, he said, to try to keep up with the latest theories. Far better to “insert oneself into the great tradition of the Fathers and Doctors of the church. I myself try to think and speak within that tradition.”

Cardinal Dulles also pointed out that “the present climate of opinion does not favor tradition and orthodoxy.” But “Catholic believers and indeed all clear thinkers have good reasons not to be engulfed in the superficial trends of the times.” Instead, we need to resume our “original quest for eternal truth and wisdom.” In his own youth, Dulles recalled, he became conscious of the “emptiness of a selfish life based on the pursuit of pleasure.” He gradually came to see that happiness “is the reward given for holding fast to what is truly good and important.” To this task, partially identified by the philosophers of antiquity, “Christian revelation brought a tremendous increase of light. God alone, I learned from the New Testament, was good and true in an unqualified sense.”

And so the young Avery Dulles committed himself to Christ, and has remained committed as a scholar, a priest, a Cardinal. “The most important thing about my career,” he said, “is the discovery of the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field, the Lord Jesus himself.” Now eighty-nine, his mind is still sharper than mine will ever be, but his body is no longer cooperating. He suffers from increasing paralysis, and he easily identifies now “with the many paralytics and mute persons in the Gospels.” But he remains supremely grateful for his hope of everlasting life in Christ: “If the Lord now calls me to a period of weakness, I know well that his power can be made perfect in infirmity.”

Telling the Good News

Occasionally it is worthwhile to remind ourselves that some news is good. For example, in mid-April the Congregation for the Clergy launched a campaign to remind priests that prayer must be their first priority, and to remind all of us that we should be praying for our priests. This campaign, complete with excellent supporting materials, is leading up to a new World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests on May 30th.

It has long been observed that a loss of the habit of personal prayer precedes the abandonment of the priesthood, as well as most distortions of it, in the vast majority of cases. The CC’s renewed emphasis on prayer in the life of priests, if successful, will be one of the most important steps taken to strengthen the Catholic priesthood in decades. Eucharistic adoration is at the heart of the program. This can work a miracle of reconversion for all—priests and lay people alike—who take advantage of it. For more information on this upcoming Day, see the official website at World Day of Prayer for Priests.

While on the subject of miracles, I also note that a miracle has apparently been approved for the final stage in the beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman, the great 19th century convert from Anglicanism, and one of the finest spiritual writers of the modern period. The miracle occurred in the case of Jack Sullivan, a 69-year-old permanent deacon serving in Massachusetts, who began praying to Cardinal Newman when he was afflicted with a severe spinal disease which forced him to remain doubled-over. Sullivan was healed of the disease on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 2001. He attributes the cure to Cardinal Newman, and the Vatican’s medical committee for reviewing such claims ruled on April 24, 2008 that no medical explanation for the cure is possible.

The miracle will now be reviewed by a theological committee, which is expected to rule that it can be used as the miracle required for beatification (by which Cardinal Newman would be named “Blessed”). A second miracle would then be required for canonization at some point in the future. Other miracles have been put forward, but have not yet been studied. One rumor from Rome suggests that Pope Benedict is interested enough in Newman to declare him a doctor of the Church when he is beatified, in which case his final canonization is likely to proceed very rapidly. Meanwhile, after initial confusion and disagreement over how best to protect Newman’s grave in Birmingham (England) from vandalism, local authorities and Newman’s Oratory Fathers are working together to find a solution which will ensure that the site can continue to be a place of pilgrimage without risk to Newman’s memory.

On a somewhat more humorous note, recent news reports have highlighted new demographic studies which link child-bearing to religious fervor. One marvels at the uncanny ability of sociology to prove the obvious, but it is nonetheless useful to have clear evidence from nearly a score of countries that the number of children women bear is directly related to the degree of their self-professed religious commitment. These studies have been increasing in recent years primarily because it has been widely observed that the United States is both more fertile and more religious than Europe, especially Western Europe. Perhaps the best overall review of the evidence may be found in the 2007 study Religion, Religiousness and Fertility in the US and in Europe, published online in both English and French.

Given Europe’s demographic winter, the question of what factors influence parents to have children is far from inconsequential. The alarm over European infertility was raised by no less a figure than Pope John Paul II, and it has become a major concern for many reasons, not least because of the widespread conviction that it indicates a crisis of European morale. Certain American authors, George Weigel among them, have suggested that the state of Europe is also highly relevant to the future state of America. Undoubtedly the thought of John Henry Newman could be used to address this crisis of morale, along with prayer for—and by—Catholic priests. But for now, having further confirmation that religion is positively associated with demographic health is one more piece of good news. Indeed, it is part of the Good News itself.

Bishop Fernando Lugo Mendez, President of Paraguay

The election of a Catholic bishop to the presidency of Paraguay last week presents an interesting problem for the Vatican. Bishop Fernando Lugo Mendez led the San Pedro diocese from 1994 until his resignation in 2005, ostensibly for health reasons, but almost certainly to pursue a political career. Lugo was suspended from episcopal and priestly ministry by the Vatican in February of 2007 because he refused to step away from Paraguayan political campaigns, where he represents the leftist Patriotic Alliance for Change.

Under Paraguayan law, clerics cannot run for political office, but Lugo took the position that he had “resigned” from the priesthood (which is ontologically impossible), and so was permitted to run for President. His election marks the end of 61 years of rule by the Colorado party. Now the Vatican faces the question of what to do about him.

The chance of disciplining Lugo effectively, that is, of applying a penalty which would cause him to forsake politics and return to episcopal ministry, would seem to be remote. The chance of disciplining him in a way which would satisfy public opinion is even more remote, as he has proven to be a very popular candidate. Finally, the Vatican is unlikely to want to hold a whole nation at arm’s length because of its problems with its president. For all these reasons, the best and most likely solution on the part of Rome would be to laicize Lugo.

This is apparently what Lugo wants and, while that is galling, it is hardly a good reason not to do it. Laicization can be applied either as a penalty or as a response to a cleric who seeks to be removed from clerical life for some good reason, including his fundamental unsuitability for clerical life itself. In this sort of case, one would expect laicization as a disciplinary measure, but it does not have to be couched in those terms. Lugo could be laicized at least partly for the sake of accommodating the Paraguayan people, who apparently wish to have him as their President.

The Vatican has had to deal with tricky political situations before, and sometimes it has no moral choice but to oppose a particular ruler. The Pope could excommunicate Lugo, or even place Paraguay under an interdict, two related measures that might have been very effective at one time, in a more Catholic social order. I can sympathize with all who have itchy trigger fingers. But in this case, the best course for everyone would seem to be to laicize Lugo. Then the Vatican would no longer be dealing politically with a bishop, and Paraguay’s remaining bishops could get on with their jobs.

The Nature of Political Sacrifice?

Did you see the story about the U.S. Senate’s refusal to recognize Pope Benedict’s concern for “each and every human life”? The final official Resolution of Welcome mentioned the Pope’s regard for the vibrancy of religious life in America, his commitment to ecumenical dialogue, his encyclical letters on love and hope, the positive impact of his message on millions of Americans, his courage in working for human dignity, his defense of the weak and vulnerable, and his efforts to advance a “civilization of love”.

But Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who sponsored the resolution, had originally included a clause honoring the pope for his concern for “each and every human life.” Senate Democrats, led by Barbara Boxer of California, would have none of that. It sounded to their sensitive consciences like a veiled reference to abortion. So the clause was dropped to avoid a partisan fight.

I take due note of the Senate’s recognition of Pope Benedict and of “the unique insights his moral and spiritual reflections bring to the world stage.” But I also note that the U.S. Senate is very much afraid of even the slightest suggestion that it ought to make these insights its own. What are we to make of a body which is now afraid to commend someone for treasuring each and every human life, because the very commendation might reflect badly on themselves?

Doubtless Senator Brownback had abortion in mind when he drafted that portion of the resolution. How could he not? And doubtless Senator Boxer got the point very correctly. Politically, the obvious solution was to avoid talking about it, so that the proper liturgical offering of the American State could be rendered to the Pontiff on schedule. All this reminds me of the famous words St. Paul puts in the mouth of the eternal Word of God, which, alas, cannot at all be applied to the U. S. Senate:

Sacrifices and offerings thou has not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou has taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’ as is written of me in the roll of the book.

But, at least in this case, the roll of the Senate book does not record that the Senatorial body will do anything of consequence at all. It records only unanimous participation in the kind of formal offering that nobody wants, least of all Pope Benedict XVI, and certainly not God.

Bishop Fellay Says No: The Scandal Continues

Bishop Bernard Fellay, the schismatic and excommunicated head of the Society of St. Pius X, has stated that Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, which mandated wider use of the 1962 Roman Missal, is not nearly enough to bring about a reconciliation between the SSPX and the Holy See. This is exactly the same, of course, as stating that his group will not reconcile with the Catholic Church. It’s a continuing scandal.

Bishop Fellay states that nothing has really changed under Benedict, because what he regards as the doctrinal deficiencies of the Church have not been corrected (see SSPX leader rejects hopes for reconciliation with Rome). Specifically, Bishop Fellay rejects Vatican II’s teaching that the one true church of Christ “subsists in” the Catholic Church, insisting on the word “is” instead of “subsists in”, no matter how many times the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explains to him what the expression means. He also rejects Vatican II’s teaching on religious liberty, a freedom to which, one can only presume, Bishop Fellay believes people have no right.

Let’s pause on this point for a moment, for Catholics emphasizing the need to combat error used to be very fond of stating that “error has no rights”. I grant that even if all Catholics understood that expression today, they would be reluctant to make it their slogan. But we might at least expect those who are still fond of saying it to know what it means. In my experience this is generally not the case with members of the SSPX, who imagine that the modern emphasis on religious liberty violates some long-standing teaching of the Church. Surely rights come from God, for they are invested by Him in the very nature of the things He has created. And surely God imparts no positive right to any person to adhere to error. But what does this mean? All it means is that nobody can rightly claim to reject truth and deliberately adhere to error as a matter of personal right.

But all persons have the right to be free of coercion in their beliefs. And so they may be permitted to live unmolested in an error, not because they have a personal right in God’s eyes to adhere to what is false even when they know what is true, but simply because they have a right in God’s eyes to be free of human coercion in forming their religious beliefs. Let me get at this another way: If I am wrong about anything significant, I hope to be able to explain to God at the Judgement that I held my error because I believed it to be true. But I equally hope I would not be so foolish as to try to tell God that, though I knew what was true and what He wanted me to believe, I elected to exercise the right He had given me to adhere to a more delightful error instead. It is precisely in this sense that error has no rights.

It is astonishing that this is still a sticking point for Traditionalists today, especially in view of the problems with Islam, a religion whose political adherents frequently exercise coercion in religion, and in view of Pope Benedict’s stellar effort to get Muslims to think deeply about the freedom required by reason with regard to religious assent. This freedom is necessary to the very nature of belief; it derives, like all rights, from how human nature was designed. The problems we face with Islam should be sufficient to shock Bishop Fellay and his followers into thinking again about what all this means, and into expending a greater effort to reconcile any confusing Magisterial texts on the subject.

In truth, all apparent contradictions between later and earlier statements of the Magisterium on this point have long since been thoroughly explained in the usual way: by seeking an understanding which is compatible with every inspiration of the Holy Spirit in both Scripture and the Magisterium on each given topic, and conversely by resolutely refusing to accept any facile understanding of a particular Magisterial statement which would force us to reject the clear meaning of another such statement. Many Traditionalists, including many former adherents of the Society of St. Pius X, have paved the way for Bishop Fellay by freely admitting that this is so, and by seeking the very reconciliation with the Church which Bishop Fellay so roundly rejects.

Thus was the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter formed with pontifical approval in 1988, the Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney in 2002, and the Good Shepherd Community in 2006. It is worth noting that some very traditional Catholics never left the fold at all, finding deep spiritual fulfillment in the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest beginning in 1990. But Bishop Fellay announces he “cannot sign an agreement” with the Holy See. In other words, he cannot accept the authority of the Successor of Peter. In other words, he does not choose to be in communion with the Church of Christ. This may not be grounds for coercion, but it really is a continuing scandal.

Pope to Catholic Educators: Moral Formation

My title for this summary and analysis of the Pope’s address to American educators deliberately mimics the title I used for my review of his address to the U.S. bishops. Though the title carries a slight risk of oversimplification, it is true that if you understood the Pope’s emphasis on moral formation to the assembled bishops on Wednesday, you will pretty much know what he said to the four hundred Catholic educators at Catholic University of America on Thursday. Once again, Benedict wants to reforge the links between learning and life, faith and action, truth and the good.

The Holy Father’s emphasis on integral Christian formation was very clear in his address to the bishops (see Pope to American Bishops: Moral Formation). That theme was continued in his address to educators as he reflected on what is particular to Catholic educational institutions. He began his reflection with a central assertion: “All the Church’s activities stem from her awareness that she is the bearer of a message which has its origin in God Himself: in his goodness and wisdom, God chose to reveal Himself and to make known the hidden purpose of His will.” Note the immediate moral dimension in this connection between wisdom and will, truth and goodness. Benedict explained:

A university or school’s Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students. It is a question of conviction—do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear? Are we ready to commit our entire self—intellect and will, mind and heart—to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools? Is it given fervent expression liturgically, sacramentally, through prayer, acts of charity, a concern for justice, and respect for God’s creation? Only in this way do we really bear witness to the meaning of who we are and what we uphold.

Having raised this question of conviction, Benedict turned his attention to what he sees as the chief deficiency of contemporary Catholic education:

While we have sought diligently to engage the intellect of our young, perhaps we have neglected the will. Subsequently we observe, with distress, the notion of freedom being distorted. Freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in—a participation in Being itself. Hence authentic freedom can never be attained by turning away from God. Such a choice would ultimately disregard the very truth we need in order to understand ourselves.

The solution proposed by the Holy Father is for Catholic educators to insist on the unity of faith and truth in the face of secularism, which separates the two. As a result of this separation, truth is equated with knowledge, metaphysics is rejected, the foundations of faith are denied, and the need for a moral vision is rejected. To correct this, a Catholic educational institution must understand that “truth means more than knowledge: knowing the truth leads us to discover the good.” Unfortunately, Benedict noted, “we observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good and an aimless pursuit of novelty parading as the realization of freedom.”

Instead, Christian educators need to respond with what the Pope calls “intellectual charity”:

The dignity of education lies in fostering the true perfection and happiness of those to be educated. In practice, “intellectual charity” upholds the essential unity of knowledge against the fragmentation which ensues when reason is detached from the pursuit of truth. It guides the young towards the deep satisfaction of exercising freedom in relation to truth, and it strives to articulate the relationship between faith and all aspects of family and civic life. Once their passion for the fullness and unity of truth has been awakened, young people will surely relish the discovery that the question of what they can know opens up the vast adventure of what they ought to do.

The Pope concluded his remarks by insisting that as part of this mission of uniting truth and freedom, teachers and administrators have the specific duty of ensuring that students receive instruction in Catholic doctrine and practice. But this goes beyond mere academic exercises. He insisted that public witness to Christ, “as found in the Gospel and upheld by the Church’s Magisterium”, must shape the entirety of institutional life, both inside and outside the classroom. He emphasized that “divergence from this vision weakens Catholic identity and, far from advancing freedom, inevitably leads to confusion, whether moral, intellectual or spiritual.”

Thus does Benedict XVI contemplate the Humpty Dumpty of American Catholic higher education. The key to putting it back together again—just as he told our bishops—is to recognize the inescapable unity of truth and goodness which lies at the heart of authentic Catholic intellectual life.

[For the Holy Father’s complete address, see Freedom Is Not an Opting Out, it Is an Opting In.]

Readers on Lying

The response to last Friday’s column on lying has been remarkable (see Is It Ever Right to Lie?). Many readers have offered their own viewpoints on this complex matter in an exchange of ideas which has been both pleasant and instructive. Every opinion was worth serious consideration. I’ll summarize a few of these observations here.

The question at the center of the column was whether it can ever be morally right to communicate false information. Most correspondents saw the difficulties this question presents, and enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on it. Among those offering solutions, the vast majority addressed only the “thugs at the door” scenario, making no attempt to apply their proposed solution to other kinds of falsehoods commonly considered legitimate (e.g., jokes, misleading statements to protect privacy, undercover police work, reasons of state, wartime intelligence operations, and so on).

Of the solutions proposed, the most common was what I would call “wide” mental reservation. A number of readers suggested that we must interpret what the thugs are really asking (i.e., they appear to be asking if someone is present to be killed), and then we must answer that question with a simple "No", meaning “No, there is no one here you can kill.” Similar solutions have been proposed by the moralists of the mental reservation school, and this is not a position that can be dismissed lightly. Nonetheless, this sort of equivocation is so internal to the speaker’s mind that it is difficult to escape absurdity when we apply it to more ordinary situations. May we really mentally construe the meaning of any conversation as we please and then respond with words which, while apparently clear to the other party, really mean whatever we want them to mean? Taken as a general norm, this raises serious questions.

Some other respondents thought that the right to know must be part of the solution, even if the Catechism did not commit to it. Their argument is that the Catechism’s definition of lying (speaking falsely with the intention to deceive) is correct but perhaps not yet complete. This definition might, without essential contradiction, be one day developed into the definition temporarily found in the initial edition: speaking falsely with an intention to deceive one who has the right to know. This is certainly a possibility, and it would cover many—probably all—hard cases. (The one category this would obviously not cover is jokes, but it can be argued that jokes do not constitute a real difficulty, because deception must be both exceedingly transitory and immediately followed by truth in order to qualify as innocent humor.) However, as several correspondents pointed out, the “right to know” raises its own questions, and a further application of that right to the problem of lying might have to await a better understanding than we now possess.

Others wondered whether the key to the riddle could be found in the motive of the speaker. On this reading, if our intention is to do serious moral good by communicating falsely (as opposed to acting from petty motives, for mere self-agrandizement, or in order to do evil), the intention alone may be sufficient to color the morality of our speech, such that at the very least we may avoid the subjective guilt of sin. Still others speculated on whether an analysis of the lesser of two evils might not come into play in some situations, for example in choosing to lie rather than be complicit in a murder. Finally, two correspondents affirmed categorically that all falsehoods are lies and that all lies are evil. These maintained that one may either speak the truth or avoid speaking it, but never speak falsely. If this opinion is correct, then the fact that most well-formed Catholics do not hold it (as seems confirmed by the correspondence) simply means that most of us are wrong. As I said at the outset, each of these positions is worth serious consideration.

Grace through Suffering

Elie Gilges died in her parents arms on March 11, 2004. Elie had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor when she was eight months old, and her parents expected to lose her almost immediately. Hope was rekindled when they found surgeons who would operate, but Elie had a stroke during or after the operation which destroyed a large part of her brain. She survived with minimal brain function in the continuous care of her parents until her death at the age of ten. Elie was their first child.

It is difficult to imagine the suffering of parents who must live continuously in the helpless expectation of losing a child. Yet intense suffering often changes us for the better in ways we cannot initially fathom and, paradoxically, it often increases our faith. Elie’s mother Elizabeth was already a serious Roman Catholic before giving birth. Her husband Kent describes himself as a “lapsed agnostic” who now seems very close to embracing the Catholic faith. Kent is also a writer, and a good one. He has written a book about the transformation of their lives and his faith through little Elie.

Don’t read Kent Gilges’ A Grace Given if you don’t want to cry along with Kent and Elizabeth. With searing tenderness, Kent tells the story of Elie’s sufferings, Elizabeth’s courage, and his own doubts, fears and longings during these traumatic years:

…as father, as protector, I have been torn between wanting to do anything possible to help my child and wanting to hold back because of a fear of…of what? Of being wrong in my convictions about what was right? Of being unable to stand my ground against authority? Of fearing my own failure as a father? A failure to protect as I should, and so yielding up my responsibility to others? Or simply a failure of my own faith? A weakness of my faith and an unwillingness to trust completely. Sometimes I wonder if I have not written this book to understand my own faith, or lack of it. Perhaps that is at the heart of my search, the core of what Elie is trying to teach me. (136-7)

Kent and Elizabeth believe that there have been miracles in the wake of Elie’s death. Elizabeth told a friend who had been unable to conceive a child for seven years to pray to Elie for twins. A month later the friend was pregnant—with twins. But the most important miracle is the miracle of suffering received as grace, the knowledge that our worst fears are groundless, the conviction that life in any form is an incomparable gift. “This is a book about hope,” Kent writes in the opening paragraph. “And love. It is about sorrow, anguish, joy. It is about a dying child named Elie. Most of all, though, it is about hope.”

Though not yet his wife’s equal in faith, Kent Gilges has lived through suffering and death to gain a very Catholic understanding of life. To experience something of that journey—and perhaps somehow to help Kent and Elizabeth bear their cross—read A Grace Given.

[Kent Gilges, A Grace Given (Cider Press Publishing, Canandaigua, NY 2008). 279pp. Paper. $18.95. Support Trinity by purchasing for $14.78 from Amazon with this link: A Grace Given.]

Sister Jenny’s Hour

On one evening at the end of March, people turned off their lights to observe “Earth Hour”. This is essentially an exercise in consciousness-raising for the environment, global warming, and carbon footprints. No harm done, certainly, but some people don’t feel that turning off the power for an hour is sufficient to wipe away their sins. So a few religious stalwarts used the occasion to make a more far-reaching statement about planet-saving spirituality.

Thus did two Australian Catholic bishops (of Maitland-Newcastle and Broken Bay) and the Anglican bishops of Newcastle join with aboriginal tribal elders for an Earth Hour ceremony on April 3rd at the Newcastle Anglican cathedral in Australia. The assembled religious leaders prayed together over a font of water, which was then sprinkled over a congregation of about a thousand. According to the glowing report of the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, the goal was to combine “the reconciling elements of water and fire within Aboriginal culture and the centrality and commonality of baptism within the Anglican and Catholic traditions.”

If this spirituality strikes you as more Wiccan than Catholic, then you can probably write the rest of the script. Yes, the congregation was called to prayer by the sound of the didgeridoo, followed by a smoking ceremony. Yes, the preacher for this high liturgical occasion was a female religious, in this case Dominican Sister Jenny Gerathy. And yes, Sister Jenny’s message for this “joyful and historic occasion” was just what you’d expect: “The Church is changing. We are the Church; we are the change.” So let’s join together, please, for Sister Jenny’s closing chant: “Earth hour! Church hour! Now is the hour!”

Before we get carried away, though, we might remind ourselves of how Jesus used the term “hour”. It began with his protest to Mary at Cana, when He said: “My hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4). Later he used the term “hour” again and again to refer, first, to His suffering and death and, second, to his coming in judgment. Of the first hour, Jesus said “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Lk 22:53). Of the second He said: “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him, and put him with the unfaithful” (Lk 12:46).

Perhaps that’s where the smoking comes in.

CRS, AIDS Prevention, and Condoms

Something of a furor exploded over the AIDS-prevention policies of Catholic Relief Services in late February when Russell Shaw and John Norton published a report on the agency’s new policies on condom information. Then a highly-respected moral theologian, Germain Grisez, questioned the moral probity of the new policies and called for an investigation.

The Shaw-Norton piece appeared in Our Sunday Visitor under the title Church Charity Mandates 'Full' Info on Condoms . The Grisez intervention is in the April edition of Catholic World Report, entitled The Church Betrayed?. One other item rounds out the essential reading on this question: Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1988 letter in which he guided the American bishops toward a better statement on AIDS prevention.

In the following points, I am summarizing my own understanding of current CRS policy. Briefly put, CRS proposes to handle the question of condoms in the following manner:

1. CRS AIDS prevention always emphasizes abstinence before marriage and faithful monogamy within marriage.
2. CRS provides condom information indirectly, through its affiliate organizations.
3. CRS insists that full and accurate information on condoms be provided. In so doing, it claims the desire to address the following considerations: the avoidance of glib or misleading advice about “safe sex”; the need for people to understand that only abstinence is completely effective in preventing the spread of AIDS; and the importance of placing statistical data in a fuller context. In other words, while condoms do dramatically reduce infection rates when used consistently, studies show that their increased availability does not reduce infection rates, because of the attitudes and behaviors of users, which may be further exacerbated by a “condom mentality” toward sex.
4. Literature on condom use produced by CRS (or anyone else, of course) may not have the CRS name or logo on it.
5. Affiliates refusing to comply with CRS guidelines will, if prolonged discussion cannot resolve the issue, be dropped from CRS support.

When the U.S. Bishops’ Administrative Committee issued “The Many Faces of AIDS” in late 1987, the document accepted condom use as a sort of lesser evil. This raised a number of red flags, and the controversial document was widely criticized, including in the letter cited above by Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Ratzinger pointed out that condom use cannot be accepted as a lesser evil because it in fact contributes strongly to the very immoral behaviors which give rise to the AIDS epidemic. When the entire body of U.S. Bishops issued a follow-up statement in 1989, “Called to Compassion and Responsibility: A Response to the AIDS Crisis”, they responded properly on this point. They got it right.

The question now is whether those who run Catholic Relief Services have gotten it right. Is their policy a genuine effort to be sure that condom information is properly presented while removing any possibility that this information could be construed as an endorsement of condoms by the Church? Or is their policy really a way of getting the nost of the camel into the tent? Germain Grisez argues that the latter is the case, and that the CRS policy is not only morally impermissible for a Catholic agency but also leads CRS to fall well short of what it should be doing to promote a genuinely Catholic ethos of love and life. He examines representative CRS materials to show that it would be quite possible for affiliates to refuse on moral grounds to distribute CRS materials from which the CRS name and logo have been withheld.

The Grisez analysis is persuasive, and this is not the first time that major institutional charities of the contemporary Church have gotten things terribly wrong (think of Catholic Charities going along with the adoption of children by homosexual couples, for example). My own instincts are to suppose that many leaders of such mainstream Catholic organizations do not hold fully Catholic views concerning sexual morality, do not possess sufficiently clear vision to persuasively articulate the benefits of living by Catholic principles, or do not have the courage to advance these principles against the prejudices of the larger culture. When that is the case, policies will often fall short of what they should be even if the policy-makers are trying to avoid a formal breach with Catholic teaching.

We see again that the Church is in the midst of a long and painful institutional renewal. It is no surprise that Catholic Relief Services must be added to the list.

In Egypt, Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman Goes to Jail

If those trying to throw sticks in the spokes of secularism sometimes have it rough in America, those facing the opposite problem have it rougher in Egypt, and in most of the rest of the Islamic world. Consider the case of a 23-year-old law student, Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, who blogs under the Internet pseudonym Kareem Amer.

Kareem is a native of Alexandria, Egypt and until recently he was a student at the law school of Al-Azhar University, which is part of the religious school system he had attended all his life. In 2005 the young man grew increasingly concerned about what he viewed as religious extremism at his school, and he began to discuss related issues in an Internet blog. In his blog and in other Internet venues, he wrote articles criticizing the University’s gender segregation policy, opposing the efforts of Al-Azhar’s Grand Sheikh to pressure the Islamic Research Academy into allying itself with President Mubarak, and expressing a number of other viewpoints, generally considered secular, including the promotion of equality between men and women.

When University officials discovered Kareem’s blog in late 2005, he was expelled from school and the case was referred to state prosecutors. In early 2007, he was sentenced to four years in prison, three for “contempt of religion” and one for “defaming the President of Egypt”. An appeals court upheld the sentence and also approved a civil claim filed by the eleven prosecuting attorneys who wish to fine Kareem for “insulting Islam”. A further appeal is pending.

Meanwhile, a few days before Kareem was sentenced, his family disowned him and his father called for the application of Sharia law, saying that his son should be given three days to repent and, failing that, he should be killed.

The case has attracted the attention of human rights organizations as well as several national governments, including that of the United States. It also attracted the attention of a CatholicCulture.org user in Ireland who kindly forwarded the link to the Free Kareem! web site.

Kareem has expressed as his main future goal the establishment of a human rights law firm which would “defend the rights of Muslim and Arabic women against all forms of discrimination” and work “to stop violent crimes committed on a daily basis” in Muslim Arabic countries. I am not attempting to defend all of his opinions, which I have not examined closely. My point is that his case highlights important civilizational differences concerning human dignity and freedom which are at the heart of the growing conflict between Islam and the West. It is exactly the kind of thing George Weigel had in mind when he wrote his Call to Action against Jihadism. It is another reminder of why we must clarify our cultural commitments, and be prepared to act accordingly.