Kamala Harris and Catholicism

Most Catholics don’t seem to be aware of the expressed views or the record of the Democrat Party’s vice presidential candidate, Senator Kamala Harris, particularly as they relate to the Catholic Church. I suppose this is understandable since she has made herself available for almost no press conferences or other Q&A opportunities since her party nominated her. But despite her recent unwillingness to do what politicians have always done, she has made no effort to hide or disguise her views in the past, and her record is certainly public. 

When examined, the senator's record of anti-Catholicism most often addresses such issues as abortion, so-called transgender surgery, and homosexual marriage. Because the Catholic Church doesn’t hesitate to condemn each of these as serious sins, the senator has focused her attacks on all things (and many people) Catholic. Joe Biden, of course, escapes her wrath because he has shown himself to be Catholic in name only and publicly denies Church magisterial teaching on these and many other moral issues of the day. When it comes to these issues, he’s certainly not a moderate.

Rather than repeat here what you can read in more detail elsewhere, I'll refer you to several articles, all written by Kenneth Craycraft, an attorney and moral theologian. That he has successfully managed to merge these two professions is reason enough to read him. He is currently the James J. Gardner Family Chair of Moral Theology at Mount St. Mary's Seminary and School of Theology.

Each of these articles appeared on the First Things online website. I am a longtime First Things subscriber, probably the one journal I would never give up.

Kamala Harris’s Threat to Religious Believers (September 7, 2020)

Joe Biden Is No Moderate (September 16, 2020)

Kamala Harris’s Record of Anti-Catholic Bigotry (October 12, 2020)

Madness Rising

I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I do enjoy some of the British mysteries offered by PBS and a few other networks. Some are quite good, like Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series starring the late Joan Hickson, as well as Foyle’s War, and the Inspector Morse mysteries. I’ve also enjoyed the Midsummer Murders series with Chief Inspector Barnaby. Most all of these shows were originally aired 15 or 20 (or more) years ago, and even though I watched them way back when, I still enjoy the re-runs. That’s the nice thing about aging. My memory cells are often hard to access directly. Although I’m centain I've seen a particular episode before, it was so long ago, I’m unable to recall the details. As for whodunit, I haven’t a clue.

Anyway, a recent (re-run) episode of Midsummer Murders centered on the residents of a small village who had begun to resemble the pitchfork-wielding peasants in a Frankenstein movie. At one point, the chief inspector's sidekick, the young Detective Sergeant Jones, expressed surprise at the odd and potentially violent behavior of the townspeople. Barnaby's response was priceless: "It's all about a sense of community, Jones. One goes mad and they all go mad. It's a wonderful world we have out there."

When I heard those words, I thought about Portland and Minneapolis and Seattle and New York and a few dozen other cities in which madness has spread from a dedicated cadre of Marxists and anarchists (and if you are either, you are certainly mad) to other easily manipulated members of the population. The latter consist largely of people with a strong need for community, a need they have been unable to satisfy through normal societal avenues. They are unfulfilled, confused, angry, ignorant, and firmly convinced that society itself is the cause of all their problems. Revolutionaries have always sought out such people because their need to belong to something greater than themselves, something to give their lives purpose, makes them the perfect followers who can be convinced to do almost anything. Indeed, one goes mad and they all go mad.

If you study the Russian Revolution of 1917, you’ll discover it began in much the same way. Examining the dozen or so years preceding the revolution is particularly troubling because they offer us a foreshadowing of what we can expect in the days to come unless we respond actively and quickly to the madness affecting so many of our citizens. Widespread terrorism and frequent assassinations plagued Russia during those years and what did the Russian liberals do? They supported the terrorists. Yes, indeed, they bankrolled Bolsheviks and anarchists and provided them with political cover. But what did the Bolsheviks (the terrorists) do as soon as they seized control? They first killed all the liberals. Read Solzhenitsyn, a man whose work has been largely ignored in recent years, but should rather be required reading for college freshmen, and maybe even for us old retired people.

Destroying Historical Memory

Rather than bore you with my own take on the Russian Revolution, I suggest you read this article by Northwestern University professor, Gary Saul Morson, published in the latest issue of First Things, one of my favorite journals: Suicide of the Liberals. Professor Morson paints a sad portrait of the liberals of pre-revolutionary Russia and by doing so forces us to confront the truth about our own slightly mad society.

Are we facing an updated version of this societal madness today? I’m no prophet, so I don’t know. But the ancient Greeks, who occasionally showed signs of wisdom, had a saying;: Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first drive mad. 

Donald Trump and Norman Vincent Peale

Some years ago, I had an interesting discussion with a parishioner who believed that God wanted all of the faithful to be successful in their chosen professions and to live prosperous lives filled with material blessings. Out of this belief I also sensed an admonishment toward those who lacked these blessings. He seemed to be saying that those he considered unsuccessful lived mediocre or poverty-stricken lives because they were unwilling to do what was necessary to lift themselves up and achieve the prosperity God wanted for them. Such people, he believed, were doomed to live unproductive, unrewarding lives because they did not focus on the positive, because they had no drive to excel. 

It was then that I asked him if he were a big fan of the late Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993). He brightened at the mention of Peale's name, and that's when I realized changing this man's mind would be a serious challenge. 

Peale is perhaps best know for his popular book, The Power of Positive Thinking, which has sold several million copies since it was first published in 1952. A minister in the Reformed Church of America, Peale was the long-time pastor of New York City's Marble Collegiate Church, but he was also a kind of self-help guru who combined his unique brand of Christianity with his psychological theories about mental health and living the good life. 

Norman Vincent Peale

The book received criticism from both directions. Many mental health professionals believed Peale's approach offered adherents nothing more than a dangerous panacea that would only aggravate their problems and not cure them. And most Christian theologians considered Peale's approach to be nothing less than heretical, a cult that misread and misapplied the teachings of Jesus Christ. I'm neither psychologist nor psychiatrist, so I won't presume to address Peale's teachings from that direction. But I will take a moment to discuss his religious views.

In essence Peale dismissed the humility of Jesus Christ and the merciful love of God, preferring to view God as a Being who desires only to help you achieve success and avoid life's problems. He, therefore, placed man at the center of reality, turning God into a kind of impersonal force that we can use to our material advantage. As you might expect from someone who thinks this way, suffering is never a good thing and is simply an indication that one is not living life as he ought. Repentance and the need for forgiveness are also pushed aside lest they interfere with the need always to think positively. Peale's "faith" then becomes a form of Christianity without the Cross. Indeed, It replaces the Cross with man himself. In a sense, Peale was a forerunner of many of today's televangelists who preach a distorted gospel of success and wealth, while ignoring the Gospel of Jesus Christ that calls us to carry our cross alongside the Cross of Christ.

Something I didn't know about Peale was the extent of his influence on Donald Trump. I discovered this yesterday when I opened the latest issue of First Things, and turned first, as I always do, to the essay on the last page. The title of this month's essay is "Donald Trump, Man of Faith", written by Matthew Schmitz, First Things' literary editor. In it Schmitz explains many things about the Republican candidate for president, including some of the comments he has made on his religious faith. The essay is certainly worth a read for those who want to understand better Donald Trump's worldview. 

Trump, addressing his enthusiasm for Peale and his preaching, recently said,

"Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking was my pastor...To this day one of the great speakers I've seen. You hated to leave church. You hated when the sermon was over. That's how great he was at Marble Collegiate Church."

If you want to get a taste of Donald Trump's approach to work and life, check out the below, brief (3-minute) video in which he is interviewed by televangelist Paula White. In it you will see how belief in oneself seems to take precedence over a belief in God:

As you might expect, I don't agree with Donald Trump's Peale-inspired theology, which to me is little more than the glorification of materialism; but it's important to realize that variations on this theology have been shared, or at least praised, by many recent Presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. 

Oh, yes, I never did change that parishioner's mind. He walked away convinced that God wanted him to be rich.

The Diplomacy of St. John Paul

I just received the latest issue of First Things, one of the few journals I could not do without. If you don't subscribe to First Things I urge you to do so. You won't regret it unless you dislike being challenged...end of commercial.

Opening this latest issue I turned first to the lead article, Lessons in Statecraft, by George Weigel. Weigel, probably best known as the historian-biographer of the papacy of St. John Paul II, offers the reader a glimpse of the pope-saint as diplomat and statesman. Although this great pope was first and foremost a man of faith, he was also, out of necessity, a world leader who, as Weigel suggests, used a "different toolkit" from that of the typical politician and diplomat. The times, typified by the ongoing cold war waged between East and West, demanded the active presence of a witness who could stand on the global stage and call for the defense of religious freedom. And more than anything else, St. John Paul II was a true witness who, as if responding to Joe Stalin's famous question -- "The Pope? How many divisions has he got?" -- simply says, "The Church doesn't need armies. She has Jesus Christ."

In his article Weigel offers seven "lessons" distilled from the statecraft of this remarkable pope. I'll list them here, along with just a brief comment or two, but I hope you will take the time to read Weigel's entire article. One can only hope that our current generation of politicians and diplomats, who have made such a mess of the world, will also read it and perhaps take a few of these lessons to heart.

Lesson 1: Culture drives history. John Paul rejected the prevailing ideologies that fallaciously assume history is driven by politics, or power, or materialism, or economics, or any other "ism". History, he believed, is driven by culture. As Weigel says, "...at the center of culture is cult, or religion: what people believe, cherish, and worship; what people are willing to stake their lives, and their children's lives, on." I first encountered this lesson many years ago in the writings of Christopher Dawson, one of the last century's greatest historians. If you haven't read Dawson, do so. Perhaps the best overview of his thought can be found in Dynamics of World History.

Lesson 2: Ideas count, for good and for ill. Few of today's politicians seem to understand this truth. Too many see movements like Jihadism and dismiss its stated beliefs, the ideas that brought it to life, as irrelevant and attribute its existence to more convenient and politically correct causes. Pope John Paul took ideas seriously because he realized how powerful they were.

Lesson 3: Don't psychologize the adversary. Trying to change the behavior of ideologues through psychological means -- "If we're nice to them they'll forget about making that bomb" -- will always be perceived as weakness by the adversary who will inevitably take advantage of what is offered. An ideologue is, in effect, a slave to his ideology and will use all available means to advance it.

Lesson 4: Speak loudly and be supple in deploying whatever sticks, large or small, you have at hand. Pope John Paul, probably as a result of his years spent under both Nazi and Communist rule, understood the power of the bully pulpit and used it to perfection. He also knew when to approach a situation as a "quiet persuader" to achieve the ends he sought.

Lesson 5: Listen to the martyrs. For almost two decades the persecuted Christians behind the Iron Curtain were largely ignored in the hope that such appeasement would lessen future persecution. It didn't. Pope John Paul, who had witnessed martyrdom firsthand, realized this and didn't hesitate to publicly acknowledge "the witness of [the Church's] sons and daughters who had taken the risk of freedom and paid the price for it."

Lesson 6: Think long-term and do not sacrifice core principles to what seems immediate advantage. Pope John Paul understood well the Church's core values and would do nothing to jeopardize them. The Church, for example, cannot be true to its primary mission of evangelization if it enters into agreements with political powers that place severe limitations on its ability to carry out this mission. Or, as Weigel states when describing the pope's refusal to agree to a political accommodation proposed by Poland's communist government, "In John Paul II's ecclesiology, the Church could not be a partisan political actor because that role contradicted the Eucharistic character of the Church."

Lesson 7: Media "reality" isn't necessarily reality. Pope John Paul II knew that the secular media, even those so-called "experts" on Church affairs, really don't have a clue when it comes to the Catholic Church. Almost universally they tend to view and report on the Church through lenses colored by their political and cultural biases. In other words, they are almost always wrong. Because they are largely irreligious, most media types consider religion to be irrelevant and fail to recognize the importance of religious issues to the majority of humanity. 

I hope my brief description of these lessons will lead you to read George Weigel's article and also encourage you to subscribe to First Things. 

First Things Erasmus Lecture: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

I've embedded below a video of this year's Erasmus Lecture, sponsored by First Things magazine. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks delivered this lecture on October 21 to an audience of 500 people gathered at the Union League Club in New York. Rabbi Sacks explains that in today's world faith is considered irrelevant at best and that Christians and Jews must learn to live in the world as creative minorities. I found the talk very interesting...lots to think about.

You'll need about an hour to watch the entire video; but really, think of how many hours you waste doing non-productive things. I trust you'll find it worthwhile.

One Thing After Another

Today, for the first time in a several weeks, I stepped away from all the things that seem to monopolize my time, and just sat down to read and relax. I thought about turning on the television to catch up on the world news, but then decided against it. Indeed, reading has always relaxed me, while watching television seems to have the opposite effect. For example, early each day, after my morning walk around our neighborhood, I sit down with the newspaper and my first cup of coffee. Interestingly, reading the paper, even on those days when it's filled with bad news, rarely upsets me. Oh, I'll occasionally shake my head at the general stupidity of humanity, but that's about it. Watching the news on TV, however, often generates an entirely different and far more lively response.

I don't believe the human psyche was designed to accept the constant barrage of information of the sort originating from the all-news cable channels. Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and whatever other news networks are out there, all fire a steady stream of bullet-like news items -- some newsworthy, most not -- at their targets, and that's you and me. Like the body of a soldier being hit repeatedly by withering machine-gun fire, our minds are unable to absorb the shock of all this information. Like those bullets, every story seems to carry equal weight. None is perceived to be more important than another, for each gets an allotted 10 or 20 or 30 seconds of air time: a man is executed in Florida; another is convicted of fraud in Texas; the president decides homosexual marriage is fine and dandy; the Iranians crank up another bunch of nuclear centrifuges; Egyptians Christians are murdered outside the doors of their church; newly elected Greeks fail to form a coalition government; a socialist government takes the reins in France; the Hollywood "elites" cough up millions for the president's reelection; the new, improved maniac in charge of North Korea threatens to destroy us; a 40-pound house cat dies; and on and on... Not only does all of this come at us rapid-fire, but there's never a ceasefire. It doesn't stop. The same stories are aired repeatedly for a day or two while new or revised stories are added to the mix. What's the average citizen to make of it all?

And so I pick up a book instead, or a magazine, or a newspaper, or even my iPad. In each instance I can at least partially control the source of the news and its depth of coverage. And because I can fully control the rate at which I receive this information, I can actually take some time to think about it and weigh its meaning. And these days I can even do a little fact-checking on my own.

David Bentley Hart

The first thing I read today was the June/July issue of First Things, which arrived in yesterday's mail. And the first thing I turned to in First Things was David Bentley Hart's monthly essay, "The Back Page." This month Dr. Hart addressed the subject of human death in his essay, "Death the Stranger." He wrote of death not as something natural but as something unnatural, as something that breaks unannounced into our humanity and interrupts "a story that might otherwise have continued to unfold." He makes a point of separating human death from the surrounding natural cycle of birth and death, a separation founded on our unique rationality, on the fact that unlike other creatures we are able to reflect on such matters as life and death. In his words, "Our consciousness of death constitutes an absolute alienation from the rest of the natural world." It's really quite a wonderful and profound essay. I recommend it, and suspect it will be available online in a few days; otherwise, subscribe to First Things. It's a great journal.

Thomas Howard

While reading Dr. Hart's essay, I couldn't help but recall an article published in last month's issue of First Things. Entitled "Two Deaths", it was written by Thomas Howard, a man whom I met on a few occasions and whose books and other writings I have enjoyed immensely over the years. A far more personal essay than Dr. Hart's, it addresses the execution of a friend, a death-row pen pal with whom Dr. Howard had regularly corresponded for 10 years. He then juxtaposed this one man's death with the recent death of another, Archduke Otto, the heir to the long-gone Hapsburg throne. It too is a beautiful essay, one of those brief pieces that leads your mind to think of many other things.

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Ireland, I've also been reading Joseph Pearce's fascinating biography of Oscar Wilde, The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde. In fact, I just finished it this afternoon. If you haven't read it, do so. It certainly changed my view of this complex man. And this morning Diane and I took a little break and drove the golf cart to our local library where I checked out Volume Three of W. B. Yeats' Collected Works, which includes his autobiographical writings. I have to be able to hold my own in the only nation in the world where everyone considers himself a literary critic. Even I, however, have my limits and I refuse to read James Joyce again. After making my way through Ulysses some years ago, I decided it should have come with a warning: "Drink before reading." It certainly appears that Joyce did just that as he sat down to write it.

Pax et bonum...

Dr. R. R. Reno: New Editor at First Things

I subscribe to far too many magazines and journals, but if I were forced to drop them all but one, First Things would be the one I'd keep.

The news this past week is that R. R. Reno, theologian and prolific writer, has been named the new editor of this, my favorite journal; and I can't think of anyone more qualified. A professor of theology at Creighton University (I believe he is currently on a leave of absence) and a fairly recent convert to Catholicism, Dr. Reno has written a number of books that occupy honored places on my bookshelves. He is a gifted scriptural scholar and writer, and I especially enjoyed his Commentary on Genesis, a volume in the new Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. As general editor of the entire series, Dr. Reno is the guiding force behind the production of this wonderful guide to the theological interpretation of Holy Scripture. I only hope his new responsibilities will not have too negative an impact on his literary output.

By the way, if you don't read First Things, it you should. They also have an excellent website. To read more on Dr. Reno's selection as editor, check out the links I've provided below:

• Trustworthy Guides
• Read all about it 

...and if you'd like to read a sampling of his writings, visit this page with links to his articles published in First Things:

• R. R. Reno Articles

May the Spirit of knowledge, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of love guide him as he takes on this challenging work. Pax et bonum...

Sunday Afternoon Thoughts

Enjoying Valentine's Day -- Oops! Excuse me...Saint Valentine's Day; he was, after all, a saint -- by just goofing off as I await the start of the Dayton 500, I found myself recalling some of the more interesting things I've read lately. One in particular is an online column by Victor Davis Hanson in which he revisits the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Unlike Gibbon, however, Dr. Hanson addresses the subject in a few hundred well chosen words.

For those of you who might not be familiar with Victor Davis Hanson, he is a classicist and a student (and teacher) of the history of ancient warfare. His depth of historical knowledge has also made him one of the more astute commentators on the human condition as it is played out in today's current events. He is always worth reading.

In this particular column Dr. Hanson makes a believable comparison between the Roman Empire and our own society, claiming that Rome collapsed largely because of its population's never satisfied sense of entitlement "and the resulting debits, inflation, debased currency, and gradual state impoverishment gave the far more vulnerable Western Empire far less margin of error when barbarians arrived, or rival generals marched on Rome." Sound familiar? Maybe it's time to stock the pantry.


You can read Dr. Hanson's column in its entirety here: Why Did Rome Fall?
__________________

My favorite periodical, and one I have read since it was first published in 1990, is First Things, a journal focused on religion in the public square and founded by the late Father Richard John Neuhaus. The most recent issue -- the 20th Anniversary Issue -- offers some interesting glimpses into the journal's history. In addition to reprinting a handful of articles that appeared in First Things over the years, the editors also included brief "snapshots" -- comments that appeared in the journal's pages during its first two decades. I've included a few of these snapshots below, those that caught my attention as I flipped through the pages this morning. I don't necessarily agree, at least not completely, with every comment, but each did get me to examine my own thinking.

"Here is the crux of the problem. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians find too little difficulty validating the Jewish right to the land of Israel on the basis of biblical promises. But the Vatican and the recent bishops' statement err in the other direction...It is not enough for the Catholic Church to take note of Jewish ties to the land 'that have deep biblical roots.' If they have deep biblical roots, then the Church must also take these ties seriously, not only something that Jews have but as something the Church must struggle with. That decision was made when the Church decided to make the Hebrew Bible its own." -- The Bishops and the Middle East by Michael Wyschogrod, April 1990.

"The News can't be fixed. There is something about daily publication, all by itself, that distorts reality. That is why the addiction to News that so many of us share has brought on a kind of stupidity. Our whole society shares this stupidity, and so we have a hard time recognizing it." -- Why the News Makes Us Dumb by C. John Sommerville, October 1991.

"The painful truth is that both liberals and conservatives have forgotten how to account for character and creed. They have ignored the fact that the fate of the moral order depends on the state of the soul." --Crime and the Cure of the Soul by Charles Colson, October 1993.

"Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign." -- Recalling America by Mother Teresa, May 1994.

"One weekend in that tumultuous year 1968 I was on call at a parish church outside of Baltimore. At the end of my Sunday Mass I came into the body of the church to make my thanksgiving, and as I knelt in the pew I noticed that the pulpit from which I had preached had on its front a banner with the inscription 'God is other people.' If I had had a magic marker within reach, I would not have been able to resist the temptation to insert a comma after the word other." -- The Ways We Worship by Avery Cardinal Dulles, March 1998.

"At a recent conference on the ethics of withdrawing nourishment and fluids from mentally incompetent patients, I was approached by an acquaintance who is close to retirement age. 'Richard,' he said in a grave tone, 'when I become seriously ill, I want you to promised me one thing.' I told him I'd do my best. 'Whatever you do,' he said, 'keep those damn bioethicists out of my hospital room.' -- Matters of Life and Death by Richard M. Doerflinger, August/September 2001.

"It is once again time for Catholic universities to serve as monasteries, preserving the deepest things, in the midst of the current barbarian ravages. They are uniquely qualified to preserve the most precious of legacies: the Western intellectual tradition, which is linked to an openness to the human condition wherever it is found...In an academic culture that no longer affirms individual freedom, responsibility, accountability, and dignity, Catholic universities must preserve the belief that freedom and dignity have an ontological status that is a precondition of our full humanity. They must bear witness to the belief that freedom is a gift that distinguishes us from the beasts." -- Pluralism and the Catholic University by Alan Charles Kors, April 2002,

"All told, it is good that God has left us without exact information. If we knew that virtuually everybody would be damned, we would be tempted to despair. If we knew that all, or nearly all, are saved, we might become presumptuous. If we knew that some fixed percent, say fifty, would be saved, we would be caught in an unholy rivalry. We would rejoice in every sign that others were among the lost, since our own chances of election would thereby be increased. Such a cempetitive spirit would hardly be compatible with the gospel." -- The Population of Hell by Avery Cardinal Dulles, April 2003.

"A theologian friend recently made the plaintive observation that our generation seem to lack thinkers of the stature of previous generations. Is that so surprising? We lack the coherent church culture that gave their theologies precision, depth, and scope. Theologians can innovate to their hearts' content, but without a standard theology the total effect of our efforts is far less than the sum of its parts." -- Theology After the Revolution by R. R. Reno, May 2007.

"No event during the first millennium was more unexpected, more calamitous, and more consequential for Christianity than the rise of Islam. Few irruptions in history have transformed societies so completely and irrevocably as did the conquest and expansion of the Arabs in the seventh century." -- Christianity Face to Face with Islam by Roobert Louis Wilken, January 2009.

God's peace...