House of David

House of David is an 8-episode series that retells the biblical story of King David's rise from youngest son (stuck tending the sheep) to King of Israel. Its first three episodes premiered on February 27, and season finale will be on April 3. Already in its first week, this series reached second place on Prime's most watched list.

Any retelling of the biblical story of David could easily be done in a few episodes, certainly in a single season at most. So, as with all such attempts (e.g., The Chosen) dramatization demands fictionalization, filling in the gaps in the story with imagined additional developments in the lives of the characters - and indeed with imagined additional characters. Season one starts with Saul's disobedience of Samuel after his victory over the Amalekites and will end (so it appears) with David's defeat of Goliath. That is all of just three chapters in the first book of Samuel. So, obviously, narrative engagement requires considerable additional amplification of the biblical account. In itself, this is perfectly legitimate. In theory, this allows more in-depth character development, helping the once universally familiar biblical story become more fully accessible to contemporary audiences.

On the other hand, the series, while well produced and visually appealing, may (in my opinion) perhaps go too far in amplifying the biblical account, adding questionable elements not only without any obvious basis in the story (e.g., David's illegitimacy) but also explicitly contradicting the biblical story (e.g., the death of David's mother when he was a child, which explicitly contradicts 1 Samuel 22:3-4). How dramatically helpful such dubious additional aspects are may be debated, but I think it may be a mistake when the biblical account is explicitly contradicted or obviously distorted.

Again, while the series is generally well done dramatically, it may test the patience of anyone who knows the actual account and wonders when it will finally get around to those exciting events themselves. In the four episodes aired so far, we have seen Samuel's rejection of Saul and alternative anointing of David in secret, followed (as in the actual account) by Saul's being tormented by an evil spirit and the summons to David to attend Saul and play the harp for him. Everything else in the series so far is made up - including the fact that Saul's daughter is presented as instrumental in bringing David to the king's court. The series seems to want to make more than may be warranted out of the romance between David and Saul's daughter Michal - including (contrary to the biblical account) anticipating the romance by initiating Michal's attraction to David well before David's defeat of Goliath. Given that David's first marriage will in fact be neither happy nor dynastically significant, this seems a somewhat strange choice, unless, of course, it was simply deemed dramatically required to highlight a romance as a necessary condition for accessibility to a contemporary audience. The hero has to fall in love and be seen at least in part as motivated by such!

Be all that as it may, the numerous fictional sub-plots (including a story about Saul's unsatisfactory second son Ishbaal) makes me at least a little impatient for the series to get on to the (what I would consider) much more compelling drama of the actual characters from the actual biblical account. If the series ultimately falls short in my estimation, it may well be because it goes so far in focusing on minor characters and their fictional sub-plots rather than emphasizing the very real drama inherent in the primary figures in the story.

Still, the series is well worth watching. It manages to depict, in an apparently convincing way, what life at that place and time (c. 1000 BC), in such a society so different from ours, may have been like. Moreover, in its own roundabout way, it does seem to highlight the biblical account's fundamental theme of God's election of David and providential purpose for him in Israel's history (and, hence, in salvation history).

Five Years Ago

It is a truism that, when a new year begins, none of us knows how it will end. But that was more than typically true five years ago. When 2020 began, I was in a somber mood because I knew I was beginning the final months of my assignment as a pastor in Tennessee. Not only did I love being a pastor, but I was definitely not looking forward to my imminent (chronologically inevitable, but no less undesirable for being inevitable) demotion to "senior status." Meanwhile, parish life was continuing its accustomed pace, while the wider world was watching President Trump's first impeachment trial and the Democratic primary debates. Super Tuesday would come in March, by which time the Democrats' nomination contest would effectively be all finished, although that was not yet the case when I availed myself of "early voting" in the hectic weeks before Super Tuesday.

I am not sure when I first heard of the new coronavirus sweeping through China. February saw the usual winter flu epidemic - enough to close schools for a few days and for the diocese to prohibit Communion from the chalice until March 1. By the end of February, when the directive came to resume the chalice, I was already aware of the new virus from abroad and wondered whether we might do better to prolong the prohibition. Nonetheless, everything seemed normal as Lent began with the usual crowds coming for ashes on February 26 and the usual Friday Fish Fry and Stations two days later.

Unvesting after Ash Wednesday noon Mass, however, I got a call from my sister in California informing me that my mother had been taken to the hospital. At 97, she had been slowing down, but she had seemed normal enough on the phone only a few days before. We had the Rite of Sending for the Catechumens on Sunday as usual, but I spent much of the week on the phone as my mother's condition quickly worsened. By Monday, we were arranging for home hospice care, but that was cancelled on Tuesday as it suddenly became clear that she would not be leaving the hospital after all. On Thursday, March 5, my mother died. (That same day, although I probably paid insufficient attention, Tennessee conformed its first covid case.) Meanwhile, the family started planning the funeral, and I made travel plans for California. 

That weekend, we had guests at the house and went out to dinner together (for what turned out to be our last restaurant dinner together that year). On Monday I went to the doctor for a pre-scheduled appointment. I talked about my mother's death and my feelings about presiding at my mother's funeral. Unexpectedly, the doctor discouraged me from making the trip! Then, the next day, Tuesday, we had a diocesan priests' meeting, at which anxiety was beginning to be widely expressed. When I spoke privately with the Bishop about my mother's death and my imminent travel plans, he recommended that we postpone the funeral and I avoid any travel! The next day, WHO declared a pandemic. The State of California forced us, first, to cancel the lunch we were planning to host after the funeral and, then, the funeral Mass itself. On the day when I had been scheduled to travel, I watched horror scenes of panic at Chicago's airport, where I had originally expected to be changing planes that day. That same day, Monday, March 16, the Mayor declared a state of emergency.

Attendance was down at Sunday Mass on March 15, and I celebrated an abridged Scrutiny Rite. That turned out to be the last regularly attended Sunday Mass for more than two months. Life had gotten tense as the worldwide crisis quickly closed in on us. By the end of the week, Tennessee, California, and most of the rest of the country had effectively shut down, something none of us had ever experienced before.

Family grief was put on hold. (It would ultimately be 15 months before we would bury my mother.) A weird panic set in. I wore gloves when putting gas in the car, and I left the mail out on the porch for a day for the sun to kill any viruses on the envelopes! Instead of answering condolence cards, I started a daily email to keep in touch with parishioners, which I continued until my last day as pastor. Happily, my tenure as pastor was extended until December, which was good for parish stability, but also beneficial for me personally.

We were directed to "live stream" Sunday Mass, something I had no idea how to do. Fortunately, I was able to get guidance from a seminarian in Washington and much needed assistance from some parishioners. Eventually we invested in cameras and other equipment, which are still in use there today. But, for the first few weeks, it was just myself at the altar, with someone sitting in the nave "live streaming" on my laptop!

By late May, Mass resumed under constricted conditions - masks, social distancing, spraying the pews with disinfectant between Masses. All things considered, we got through it all rather well, but political polarization was setting in over contentious issues such as masking, and local divisions developed that echoed the wider national conflicts, which have only gotten worse in the years since then.

The heartache was enormous, but somehow I made it through the year without catching covid. Only one person in the house got sick. Only one parishioner died of it (on New year's Eve, literally on my last day as pastor). I got to celebrate my 25th anniversary of ordination in October with a modestly attended, live streamed Mass, with beautiful music and friendly words from the Bishop. My gratitude for 25 years of priesthood were amplified by the harrowing events of that year and the unexpected experiences and lessons learned.

The year ended with me still in Knoxville, but getting ready finally to move on. January 2021 brought me to New York and soon the first of many covid vaccinations. (Ironically, it would only be in September 2024 that I would finally get the virus - twice, in fact, as I was one of those to get a "rebound" infection from taking paxlovid.)

What happened to us in Tennessee and throughout the U.S. in mid-March 2020 was a challenging experience that ought to have brought us together and taught us how to prepare for future threats to the common good. Unfortunately, in the end, it seems to have done the opposite, as our society seems more polarized than ever since the Civil War, and our divisions have damaged out precious stock of social capital and left us traumatized and embittered. Ominously, I fear that if some "covid-25" were threatening us this March, our response would actually be significantly worse than it was five years ago.

The Lesson of Nineveh

 

Once upon a time, the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh was the largest city in the world. On the eastern side of the Tigris, right across the river from the modern Iraqi city of Mosul, its ruins still remind us of its onetime greatness. 

It was to that enormously large city, which it took three days to go through that our great Lenten preacher, the prophet Jonah, once went preaching repentance. To this day, some of the ancient Churches in the Middle East commemorate Jonah’s mission with a three-day fast, called the Fast of Nineveh. And, until 11 years ago, among the ruins of Nineveh was a shrine (photo) believed to be the site of Jonah's tomb, revered as such by both Christians and Muslims, a popular place of pilgrimage – until ISIS briefly conquered Mosul, expelled its Christian community, and destroyed Jonah’s tomb as part of its campaign of destruction and desecration.

 

Jonah’s mission and Nineveh’s repentance were already ancient history by Jesus’ time, when Jesus himself cited it as a warning to his contemporaries – an evil generation, that seeks a sign, but no sign shall be given it, except the sign of Jonah.

 

Likewise, the Lenten liturgy returns each year to this story of Jonah – because, after all, what generation isn’t evil, what generation doesn’t seek a sign, and what other sign is there for every generation to remember and relive but the sign of Jonah?

 

Lent is the Church’s annual wake-up call to take to heart the preaching of Jonah, as did the hard-hearted king and people of Nineveh, and to join with them in the ashes of repentance – so that, through that simple movement of letting ourselves be turned around by the power of God’s word we may experience that change of heart which we call conversion and repentance, and so we too, like the king and people of Niniveh, may find the forgiveness that brings life.

Homily for Wednesday of the 1^st Week of Lent (Jonah 3:1-10; Luke 11;29-33), Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, March 12, 2025.

Lent in a Time of Moral Helplessness

It is almost axiomatic that the more authoritarian and/or distant a government or society seems to become in the experience of its citizens, then the less actively engaged and effective will those citizens' experience likely be likely. This was illustrated somewhat in the ineffective-to-silly behavior of Democrats at the recent Presidential Address to Congress. Some absented themselves entirely - the ultimately passive disengagement, which demonstrated their complete and utter powerlessness. Of those who attended, some seemed to sit on their hands, failing to applaud even at the sorts of feel-good stunts that traditionally get widespread applause. Some wore silly outfits. Some held silly little signs, which might have caused them to be mistaken for bidders at an auction. And, of course, one congressman stood up and waved his cane to protest the Administration's possible cuts to Medicaid. That was, by the way, the only mention of the impending threat to Medicaid that whole evening! Of course, the congressman's futile gesture just got him thrown out of the chamber and then officially censured a few days later (a censure supported unbelievably by 10 Democratic votes). The irrelevance and ineffectiveness of such stunts is really quite breathtaking. The obvious reaction to such silliness is why did anybody bother?

Why does anybody bother? Moral helplessness is a real thing. People who might otherwise feel compelled to care about the condition of the world and the sorry state of our society sense that they are failing to make a difference and are helpless to accomplish anything beyond expressing outrage, which in turn degenerates into a sort of mere virtue signaling, which in turn further highlights their moral ineffectiveness and helplessness.

From the start, Christians have lived under inhospitable regimes - some extremely repressive, many much less overtly so (more something like some 1960s notion of "repressive tolerance"). Modern societies have unique capacities for overt repression, but also - more challengingly - are increasingly capable of a more subtle sort of repression, which simply isolates would-be citizens and reduces them to ineffective and helpless consumers. The 20th-century provided abundant examples of such regimes, in which it was quite possible to live from day to day, disengaged and passive but hardly persecuted or repressed in any plausibly recognizable sense of that word. (I had relatives who lived for a time in Fascist Italy, for example, a society which for many - at least prior to the war - appeared sufficiently satisfactory to live in, but one which fostered political apathy and moral helplessness.)

Active or apathetic, however, political citizenship can never completely express who we are - not, that is, if who we are, first and foremost, is disciples our one ultimate Lord, Jesus Christ, who as we hear again in today's Gospel reading (Luke 4:1-13), reprimanded Satan, reminding him, You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.

In out utilitarian world, we inevitable measure ourselves by our power, by our effectiveness. That is the significance, of course, of the Gospel's temptation scene, with its terrifyingly inviting image of all this power and glory of all the kingdoms of the world.

Of course, there is nothing inherently virtuous about being ineffective. There is nothing commendable about being unable to improve the condition of our world or the sorry state of our society. The challenge is to rediscover what may matter more than all the power and glory of the kingdoms of the world. 

In the immediate term, one challenge is to discern how one can advance the kingdom as a disciple in the contexts - family, work, neighborhood, etc. - in which we are called to play a part for the better, utterly regardless of how powerless and ineffective we may be on the larger social stage.

It may be that the more constricted the area in which one can act, the less effectively helpless one may become.

Be Religious! Really?

 

Ross Douthat, a New York Times opinion columnist since 2009, has been the author of multiple books on diverse subjects, including books on religion - notably Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (2012) and To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism (2018). His latest such venture - this one of a quasi-apologetical nature - is Believe: Why Everyone Should  Be Religious (Zondervan, 2025).

The context for this effort is Douthat's impression that, at this juncture, many seem "to experience secularism as an uncomfortable intellectual default, not a freely chosen liberation."  His response - his style of apologetic, if you will - is to "begin with the basic reactions to the world that lead people and cultures toward religion, and argue that these are solid grounds for belief - indeed more solid that was apparent at earlier stages of modern history and scientific progress."

Accordingly, the first part of the book agues that, contrary to the once assumed trajectory of the modern secularization thesis, "the scientific revolution has repeatedly revealed deeper and wider evidence of cosmic order that what was available to either the senses or the reasoning faculties in the premodern world." He goes on to argue, for example, that "to acknowledge a point of origin, to recognize a moment of creation, makes it intuitively more likely that the universe as we know it now has some specific importance to its creator - that any divinity isn't just perpetually emanating or sustaining space and time, but using them to tell something we would recognize as a story."

As a person of faith, I, of course, am gratified by these insights. Obviously, I agree with the overall conclusion that faith makes sense and that the case against it, despite its assertions and claims, has not quite been completely made. Hence, the persistence of religion worldwide, despite those whom Friedrich Schleiermacher in the 19th century famously labelled its "cultured despisers." Thus, Douthat reminds his readers that while "intellectuals" may have "stopped taking mystical experiences seriously," nonetheless, "actual human beings kept on having the experiences. When Official Knowledge ruled out the supernatural, in ordinary life it kept breaking in." Moreover, the contemporary "decline of institutional religion in America has had no effect on the share of Americans who report supernatural experiences."

Al this is very edifying. Whether it can really convince is, I suspect, a question of entirely other order. Personally, I have always been satisfied with the minimal claim that religion's case cannot be falsified by modern science and have never much seen the point of pushing the argument further to the contention that somehow science specifically supports the case for religion. Such is the subjectivity of faith that I have no problem picturing someone being completely unmoved - and hence unconvinced - by Douthat's data.

Thus I personally found more interesting - and maybe also more compelling - Douthat's case for commitment, especially commitment to what he calls the "Big Religions." Revealingly, he recognizes that religions (including Douthat's own Catholicism) "are filled with people who maintain private heresies or private doubts, who feel agnostic two days out of seven - but who have made the sensible decision that it's better to live inside the tradition they consider most plausible  while holding doubts than to reject any system in the name of those difficulties."

For all his public commitment to Catholicism, Douthat argues somewhat encouragingly that "if some kind of God exists and ordered the universe for human beings, then even a false or flawed religion will probably contain intimations of that reality, signposts for the discerning pilgrim, some kind of call to higher things - such that a sincere desire to find and know the truth can fail to reach truth's fullness and still find its reward."

That said, Douthat concludes with a case for his own religion of (Catholic) Christianity. He agues for the credibility of the Gospels and the uniqueness of the story of Jesus. He especially emphasizes how "the Jesus of Scripture isn't always the Savior that my native self finds relatable, the kind of God I would have invented for myself, because there is a tension between some of His hardest and most inscrutable sayings and my own personality, my natural intellectual perspective, my instincts and desires."

Anyone who seriously engages with Christianity will recognize Jesus' challenge to be otherwise than who and what one would choose on one's own as Christianity's distinctive demand. Way more than any classical apologetic argument - intellectual, historical, or even moral - that demanding challenge is the place where the search best comes to an end.

Emendemus in Melius

It is Lent once again. The pre-Easter penitential season starts somewhat late this year, one of the consequences of the variability of the date of Easter, which is one of the traditional features of the Christian calendar that has not yet been destroyed by modernity!

While the Council of Nicea in 325 established a 40-day period of pre-Easter fasting for the universal Church, this observance took on various forms in different localities, and it was a while before our Roman Lent reached its current length and form. Ash Wednesday was a relative latecomer to the Lenten calendar, when a concern to have exactly 40 days of fast (excluding Sundays) led to front-loading the season with an extra four days. While beginning Lent on the First Sunday (Quadragesima) might seem more liturgically traditional (and is still when Lent begins in Milan, which follows the non-Roman Ambrosian Rite), Ash Wednesday is without doubt one of the most popular and faithfully observed days in the entire Catholic calendar.

At some point, the Church began to impose ashes at the beginning of Lent on those performing public penance during Lent, who would later be reconciled to God and the Church on Holy Thursday. By the end of the First Millennium, the Order of Penitents had died out, replaced by the more modern form of individual Penance, but ashes had become so popular that everyone eventually wanted to receive them, as is still the case! The reformed post-conciliar Lent may have lost some of its zest, but Ash Wednesday has, if anything, grown in popularity

Ashes, obviously, are meant to serve as a reminder of human mortality, as well as a sign of sorrow for one’s sins and the desire for conversion. The first symbolism is reflected in the traditional formula used when imposing ashes: “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The second is echoed throughout the season in the scriptural texts and liturgical chants and prayers that are employed. Among these is this traditional responsory for the former Second Nocturn at Matins on the First Sunday of Lent, which begins, Emendemus in melius (Let us change for the better).

Amendment of life is, inherently, a lifelong task, which we traditionally focus on with special intensity in this Lenten season. Different times and circumstances, the life transitions we experience, and the fluctuating currents of the secular world all offer context for our Lenten penance, our amendment for better.

So what about this year?

Before his recent hospitalization, Pope Francis issued his annual Lenten Message, entitled (in the spirit of this Jubilee Year), Let us journey together in hope. The theme of journey is especially salient right now. In his message, Pope Francis recalled, our brothers and sisters who in our own day are fleeing situations of misery and violence in search of a better life for themselves and their loved ones. What Pope Francis calls A first call to conversion thus comes from the realization that all of us are pilgrims in this life; each of us is invited to stop and ask how our lives reflect this fact. Am I really on a journey, or am I standing still, not moving, either immobilized by fear and hopelessness or reluctant to move out of my comfort zone? Am I seeking ways to leave behind the occasions of sin and situations that degrade my dignity? Then, connecting with the worldwide migration crisis, which is taking such a terrible turn on our own country right now and so especially impinges upon our consciousness and on our conscience, the Pope adds: It would be a good Lenten exercise for us to compare our daily life with that of some migrant or foreigner, to learn how to sympathize with their experiences and in this way discover what God is asking of us so that we can better advance on our journey to the house of the Father. This would be a good “examination of conscience” for all of us wayfarers.

Carnival in Time of War

 

The traditional name for this Sunday was Quinquagesima (approximately the 50th day before Easter). It is also commonly called Carnival Sunday, referencing the carnival (carnevale, "Goodbye to meat," in Italian), widely celebrated, especially in Catholic countries in these final days before Lent, the penitential season which begins in another three days on Ash Wednesday. Now that the Lenten fast has become virtually vestigial, so perhaps is the pre-Lent Carnival (despite its famously successful secular survival in sites like Rio and New Orleans).

By convenient coincidence, however, tonight will also be the occasion for the 97th Academy Awards, an ostentatious display of wealth and obnoxious snobbery, combined with amazingly extreme political obtuseness, but which is also yet another significant event of widespread communal festivity. Obviously, the Oscars are not the Super Bowl, which has become one of the primary remaining unifying national events in which most of the country participates together. Far fewer people watch the Oscars, apparently fewer every year. Some 20 million do watch it, however, and so it is still one of those occasions when many gather together to watch and celebrate, which we will be doing in my house tonight. The Academy Awards show may leave a lot to be desired, but movies are still an important shared component of our common culture, and "Oscar Night" remains a grand occasion for friends and families to gather, just to be together.

Unlike some film devotees, I have not seen all the nominated movies. In fact, I have seen only three of them - Conclave, A Complete Unknown, and The Brutalist. All three of them probably deserve a prize, and I would be happy if any of them won Best Picture. But, of course, not having seen the other nominated films, my personal preferences for the few that I have seen inevitably say very little about what will actually happen.

With so much that is going wrong (and getting worse) in the world right now at home and abroad, it seems a bit off-key to talk about partying right now. The world is still reeling in shock and dismay from the recent, grim display of the shameful behavior, unworthy of their offices, on the part of the U.S. President and Vice President toward the heroic Ukrainian warrior President, Volodymyr Zelensky. This Carnival Sunday, this Oscar Night, cannot but be overshadowed by a sense of shame and by worry about what is happening to undermine what remains of the post-war American commitment to our common civilization.

But, for better or for worse, life goes on: As it was in the days of Noah ... they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all (Luke 17:26-27). 

Photo: Italian Carnevale Mask.

Three Years of War

 

When she was German Chancellor, back in Trump's first term, Angela Merkel discerned how "there would be no co-operative work for an interconnected world with Trump," who, she writes in her recently published memoir, still saw things as a real-estate developer. "For him, all countries were in competition, and the success of one meant the failure of another." 

It was three years ago today that Russian dictator Putin invaded Ukraine. Whatever is now being claimed, it is Putin who is the dictator, and it was Putin who started the war. The short-term result was an encouraging strengthening of the western alliance, as the U.S. and most of Europe made common cause with Ukraine, identifying that country's struggle for survival with the international order which the U.S. and Europe had forged in the aftermath of the Second World War. The long-term result of Putin's aggression remains to be seen, however, as the U.S. seems now to be switching sides, as it were, reimagining the war's origin story even as the Trump Administration is reimagining America's role in the world.

Historically, the post-war international order has been seen as an alternative to American isolationism. Maybe nobody ever actually imagined that an American retreat from "co-operative work for an interconnected world" would be not isolationism as once understood but an approach to international relations that more than anything else resembles a kind of shameful bullying gangsterism.

Such is the world's sad prospect as the third anniversary of war dawns over Europe.

Once again, shall we evoke Sir Edward Grey's famously ominous words from 1914? 

"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."

After the Pope's Letter

In the aftermath of last week's letter from Pope Francis to the U.S. Bishops on the increasingly contested subject of immigration policy, could an increasingly divided American Church be finding herself stuck in another dangerous Mater, Si, Magistra, No moment? For those below a certain age, that refers to the negative reception among some American Catholic conservatives to Pope Saint John XXIII's 1961 social encyclical, Mater et Magistra ("Mother and Teacher"). A take-off on the anti-Castro slogan, Cuba, Si, Castro, No, the phrase, Mater, Si, Magistra, No, first appeared in print in William F. Buckley's National Review. In time, the slogan would appeal to others across the ideological spectrum as a way of expressing rejection of other particular Church teachings (e.g., on artificial contraception in the late 1960s).

Many ordinary people perhaps don't pay too much attention to routine papal pronouncements (anymore than many do to news in general). But those who do pay attention could not fail to have noticed this particular papal letter, given its timing and its obvious salience for this particularly problematic political moment in the U.S.

The Pope's pronouncement took the form of a Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the United States. He began by acknowledging that these are "delicate moments" which the Bishops are "living as Pastors of the People of God who walk together in the United States of America." Then follow three introductory paragraphs referencing the Old Testament migrations of the people of Israel, the New Testament migrations of the Holy Family, and Pope Pius XII's Apostolic Constitution on the Care of Migrants, Exsul Famillia (1952), which Francis calls "the 'Magna Carta' of the Church's thinking on immigration."

Finally, in paragraph 4, Francis famously says, "The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly  identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality." This indeed gets to the heart of the current problem, according to which migrants, whose presence here is often initially legal (asylum seekers, Temporary Protected Status holders, etc.), are being demagogically described as "illegal" and also assimilated to the cases of those migrants who have committed actual crimes. It is inherent in the concept of illegality, that it is wrong and States are right in responding to it. The problem - or at least a major part of the present problem - is the demagogic use of that concept and the political unwillingness to create a viable system of legality as a functional alternative.

The Letter is clearly directed not just at the Trump Administration's immigration and deportation strategy but also at Vice President J.D. Vance's recent ordo amoris theological forays. "Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation."

In the end, the Pope not only affirms the U.S. Bishops in their ministry to migrants and refugees, but also addresses "all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will," exhorting them "not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters."

It is generally recognized that Trump won a majority of the Catholic vote in 2024. Presumably, Vance understands the implications of this, better perhaps than some of his American Catholic opponents do. For the latter, the Pope's challenge to Trump and Vance indeed represents bold leadership from the Church in the political order. That said, in a world in which increasingly many people's primary identification is political rather than religious, the contrary prospect of broadly based popular rejection (obviously not for the first time in modern U.S. history) of magisterial teaching, remains a very real threat - with all the ecclesial and social damage which that does.

Alone

Today is Valentine's Day, traditionally a great day for florists, but also for marriage proposals! Obviously, I don't personally observe Valentine's Day, which lost its minimal religious connection when the post-conciliar calendar reform inexplicably and absurdly dropped the obscure Saint Valentine for other very meritorious but probably ot very widely known or appreciated saints.That said, this widely observed feast of romantic love is as good an occasion as any to reflect upon the decline of romance and even friendship in our society, with all its complicated consequences. 

That Americans are more alone - and lonely - today appears incontrovertible. The national marriage rate is nearing an all-time low, while the share of women under 65 who aren’t living with a partner has grown steadily since the 1980s. More broadly, young people say they spend significantly less time with the friends they do have, attend fewer parties, and spend much more time alone. The decline of coupling has had a noteworthy economic component, having declined more than among those without college degrees compared with college graduates.

A major complicating factor appears to be the stagnation of less educated young men's incomes in recent decades. For single, non-college-educated men, average inflation-adjusted earnings at age 45 have fallen by nearly 25% in the past half century, whereas average real earnings for the country as a whole have more than doubled. Since men's odds of being in a successful relationship are generally correlated with their income, it is alleged that a lot of contemporary men do not seem marriageable to contemporary young women, whose college completion rates (and presumably incomes) have risen in contrast.

Add to all that the general epidemic of increasing loneliness that afflicts more and more people in our supposedly super-connected social media society, stripped sadly of so many traditional opportunities for human connection!

Valentine's Day cannot repair our growing epidemic of loneliness and disconnectedness. If anything, Valentine's Day's glorification (or at least commercialization) of romance may merely highlight the pain of those left behind in loneliness' contemporary Slough of Despond.

The Party of Lincoln

 

Today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), our 16th president, who successfully steered the country through the Civil War which his election had provoked. It is still a legal holiday of sorts in New York State, although nothing like the widespread observance it was when I was a lad, when we always had the day off from school. In those days, Lincoln's Birthday meant singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic and, for Republicans, the annual Lincoln Day Dinner. Republicans do still hold Lincoln Day Dinners, but the party that holds them is vastly different from what it was decades ago, let alone what it was when it was "the party of Lincoln."

Quickly replacing the Whigs as the opposition party to the post-Jacksonian Democratic party, the Republicans accomplished what no other U.S. third-party has ever done. After the Civil War it became the dominant national party, as the U.S. experienced an era of explosive economic growth and increasing industrial prosperity, now known as the "Gilded Age." The Republicans presided over the transcontinental railroad, the end of the "frontier," the expansion of "manifest destiny" and American Empire beyond the confines of the North American continent, but also an era of unprecedented immigration and the development of a class-conscious, apparently permanent proletariat. The first Republican era ended only when the Great Depression collapsed the social and economic structure bequeathed by decades of Republican rule.

The Republican failure led to the New Deal, a systematic effort by the newly empowered Democratic coalition to use the federal government to advance the interests of non-elite Americans, producing a period of unprecedented economic prosperity, widespread abundance, and greater equality than anything experienced since at least the Jacksonian era.

Under Eisenhower and Nixon, the Republicans appeared to have adapted somewhat successfully to the new social and economic order, but this was superseded by the Reaganite takeover of the Republican party that eventually went beyond even Reaganism. This was the historical process so well described by Geoffrey Kabaservice in his monumental Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party (Oxford U. Pr., 2012).

That is, of course, what parties tend to do in a two-party duopoly, in which coalitions must be formed before the election rahter than after as in parliamentary systems. Thus, bot the Republicans and the Democrats have transformed themselves beyond recognition over the course of their history.

The newly transformed Republican party described by Kabaservice already bore little, if any, resemblance to Lincoln's party of Abolitionists and strong Unionists. All that was left to happen, which admittedly no one was really expecting or predicting, was the Trump takeover of the party, which occurred - if not quite seamlessly then seemingly inexorably - between 2015 and 2024. And now we have a Republican party even more thoroughly president-centered than it was under Lincoln or TR or even Reagan.

"The party of Lincoln" is today as unlike Lincoln's Republican party as today's Democratic paty is unlike Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans.

As for Lincoln, One of the few enduring remnants of the once widespread cult of Lincoln is his image on the penny. President Trump picked this week to announce his plan to discontinue the penny. So much for "the party of Lincoln."

Super Bowl Sunday

Unlike the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens, I do not worship at the altar of our national religion of football; but even I am not free to feign indifference to our civil religion's supreme annual ritual, the Super Bowl. So, when the Kansas City Chiefs met the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX yesterday, like most Americans my community celebrated with a Super Bowl party. Inevitably I attended. That said, my priorities, in order of interest, were, first, the pizza, second, the half-time show, third, Taylor cheering her boyfriend. The game itself, however, held absolutely no interest for me. In that, I do not think I was alone (although admittedly a minority) among the game's 100 million + viewers.

Whatever one thinks of football, however, it is incontrovertibly our preeminent national sport, bordering on obsession. And the Super Bowl is our civic religion's preeminent annual ritual. Watching the Super Bowl (or at least participating in a Super Bowl related event) is perhaps one of the few things most Americans still do together. The Super Bowl is our great unifying tradition - being performed at a time when nothing seems to be unifying anymore, when our national life has increasingly been emptied of its hallowed traditions.

This was Super Bowl LIX, the Roman numerals presumably reflecting the immense self-importance attached to the event. I am - I say with a sigh - old enough to remember the first Super Bowl on January 15, 1967, before the Super Bowl Party had become a semi-obligatory ritual of our civil religion. At that time, of course, we still had a common entertainment culture. Most people watched the same things on TV (or at least chose from a very small menu of alternatives) and so could talk to one another about their favorite shows at school or work the next day. Sadly, all that has largely been lost - with rare exceptions such as the Super Bowl. Much as I couldn't care less about the game itself, I certainly recognize the need for more such commonly experienced civic rituals.  

That said, the pizza, wings, and guacamole were all great. The 5-Grammy winner Kendrick Lamar put on a spectacularly energetic half-time show. President Trump showed up with his daughter and grandson. Lots of other celebrities did too, including Sir Paul McCartney. The game itself was lopsided from the first, with the Eagles comfortably winning 40-22. 

And thus passed Super Bowl LIX.

Beyond "Ordo Amoris"

 

When trying to understand the apparently empathy-challenged Trump presidency, I am reminded of Dr. Seuss's famous description of the Grinch in his 1957 children's book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

The Grinch, of course, was a fictional character. but there is nothing fictional about the Trump presidency, nor about its increasingly pernicious effects on American society and its increasingly corrosive effects on American religion. 

Consider, for example, the recent argument about Vice President J.D. Vance about order amoris ("rightly ordered love"), which began as a twitter debate between Vance and British Tory politician/podcaster/public Christian intellectual Rory Stewart.

The 2024 election was, for all the talk about the price of eggs, also very much a culture-war election, and this seemingly arcane religious debate actually goes to the heart of that cultural conflict, which has to do with our capacity to care for one another - or, to use Dr. Seuss's imagery, the size of our hearts.

The ordo amoris argument arose when Vance claimed that Christians have a hierarchy of moral obligations, with their special moral relationships with their family and their communities exercising a certain priority. In response, Rory Stewart highlighted John 15:12, where Jesus says that the greatest love entails laying down one’s life for others. He also emphasized Jesus' apparent ambivalence about family connections and suggested that the Christian tradition has been detrimentally over-influenced in this area by classical pagan philosophy.

Of course, there is a sense in which what both are saying is partly true.

In the natural order, which includes the family and the political community (about which classical pagan philosophy has had a lot to say), we have obvious natural obligations to those with whom we are specially connected. The Kingdom of God does not extricate us from those natural relationships, and in some cases actually affirms the obligations they entail. Examples include the fourth commandment, "Honor thy father and they mother" (Exodus 20:12), "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities" (Roman 13:1), "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, and especially to those who are of the household of faith" (Galatians 6:10). 

It is likewise obvious that, while scripture and tradition reaffirm our natural obligations and connections, they clearly command us - not as citizens, but as disciples - to strive to go beyond them. Hence, Saint Paul: "I still live my human life, but it is a life of faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). Discipleship does not abolish family and civic ties, but it does definitely relativize them. Jesus famously did this when he asked, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” (Matthew 12:48). And, of course, there is the expansive judgment scene in Matthew: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:40).

This is an old argument, which goes back to the debate between Jesus and the lawyer that led to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Pointedly, Jesus did not actually answer the lawyer's question, "Who is my neighbor?," a question which reflects the natural order of things by seeking to set limits and boundaries to our obligations to one another. Instead Jesus answered in the order of grace by exemplifying instead what it means to behave as a neighbor towards others, illustrating how such localized limits are transcended.

Again, Vance is correct in suggesting that, as family members and citizens, we do have special moral obligations to fellow family members and fellow citizens. It is with these obligations that civil society and its laws are primarily concerned. Thus, as Vice President, Vance has specifically sworn an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

But Stewart is also - and maybe more importantly - correct in that, as disciples, we must never remain satisfied with those limited natural obligations and must constantly expand the borders of our moral community to include others outside those limits as well. This is primarily a religious rather than a civil obligation, but inasmuch as the natural order is inherently ordered to grace, those who recognize that they live in the order of grace must act accordingly. Examples of religiously motivated efforts to act within the political order to care beyond the boundaries of family and civil community can take many forms, including government-funded programs, e.g., George W. Bush's (now possibly endangered) PEPFAR, which has provided funding for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and research and has been the largest global health program focused on a single disease in history prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As limited human beings, with limited resources, our ability to keep expanding the borders of the moral community of those we care about will also always be limited, quite apart from the consequences of sin which will always further limit our actual desire and willingness to do so. Like the Grinch, our natural hearts may always be two sizes too small, even in many instances at the level of family and nation, let alone as disciples of Jesus and citizens of his kingdom. The lifelong challenge of discipleship and allegiance to Christ's kingdom is to allow our hearts constantly to be expanded by God's grace - even as the Grinch's heart tripled in size thanks to his experience of Christmas.

The Brutalist (The Movie)

 

Because of its extreme length (3 hours, 35 minutes), I hesitated at first to see The Brutalist (nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture), but I was eventually persuaded - by the presence of a 15-minute intermission - to allot the time and give the film a chance. Watching it is still a challenge on multiple levels, but definitely worth the time and the effort. The film seldom drags the way some other long movies do, but the Intermission is a true blessing, which makes it easier to appreciate the film in all its sumptuous scope.

The film depicts a previously successful Bauhaus-trained Hungarian architect, László Tóth (brilliantly portrayed by actor Adrian Brody), who immigrates to the U.S. as a Displaced Person after his having survived the Holocaust in World War II Europe. Even under better circumstances, immigration is inevitably an experience of loss and opportunity. Tóth experiences both. One gets a vivid sense of the once-successful architect's stressful sense of loss - of menial jobs, soup kitchens, and even drug addiction - as he struggles in a new society where he can always sense that, as a Jew and a foreigner, he may be unwanted, even if America does also offer amazing opportunities. (These opportunities are exemplified in the first part of the film by his assimilated cousin, Attila, with whom he first finds temporary, if stressful, shelter.) There is also the not unrelated subplot of the toll the experience takes on all of Tóth's relationships - especially with his immediate and extended families.

By chance, Tóth gets to remodel an old library in a rich patron's palatial residence. At first his patron is unimpressed, and Tóth is impoverished again. But then the rich man realizes the value of his new library, because pictures of it have been published in a magazine, and he learns more about his architect's fame. One wonders why these considerations should have so changed the rich man's judgment, why they made the architect's product suddenly more beautiful - or perhaps just more commercially valuable.

The film's title and the preeminence of architecture in the story inevitably invites comparisons with the "brutalist" architectural style, which disfigured so many buildings (including, alas, even churches) in the 20th century. One can, of course, see in such "brutalism" a metaphor for the ugliness and brutality of so much of modern life - a brutality which the movie dramatically depicts in human terms in the course of Tóth's own life, both in the war in Europe and the Holocaust, and (within the film itself) in Tóth's up-and-down life in the U.S. He eventually does get to continue his self-expressive artistic path, but he must do so within the constraints of modern capitalism and commerce, which he finds increasingly challenging, and which take their toll on him personally as well as on his family and few friends.

While relatively understated dramatically, the (initially secret but eventually exposed) rape scene seems to symbolize so much of the tension at the heart of the story, and particularly the cruelty and corruption embedded in capitalist commercial culture, in spite of all its real opportunities and potential benefits.

It is a very long film with many intersecting themes. Among them is the post-Holocaust restoration of Jewish nationhood in the creation of the state of Israel (which, as it turns out, is the principal place in the world where the Bauhaus architecture in which Tóth trained in pre-war Germany has continued most strongly). Tóth's niece and her husband choose to join the Jewish immigration to Israel, while he and his wife continue to make their up-and-down way in the U.S. This may reflect a real debate that occurred in certain circles between the two primary post-war Jewish destinations, the presumably easier U.S. and the more difficult, challenging new state of Israel. The film leaves open whether in Tóth's case the U.S. really was easier, or whether Israel. might have been a more fulfilling option.

Yalta + 80

 

The most famous of the several Allied World War II summit conferences began 80 years ago today, February 4, 1945, at Yalta in Soviet Crimea.  Stalin, the great winner in the European war, insisted on his Allies' coming to him. Hence, the terminally ill President Roosevelt's 14,000 mile trip to Soviet Crimea, to which he referred in his last speech to Congress, which was also his only acknowledgment of his disability in public.

Especially during the Cold War, the legacy of the week-long Yalta Conference was much debated. It seems to me that two things can be true at the same time. On the one hand, President Roosevelt seemed to have a higher than was warranted view of his own ability to charm Stalin. His aide Harry Hopkins seemed to be much more trusting of the Soviets than seemed warranted. And both would have done better to have taken Churchill's worries about Soviet expansionism more seriously. Certainly Stalin, both before and after Yalta, exploited these weaknesses in his Allies. At the same time, however, it remains true that the Western Allies depended for much of the war on the Russians to hold off the Germans in the East and only opened a second front in the West in 1944. The Soviet Union lost some 27 million dead during the war against Germany, compared to the much more modest Allied death toll. Everyone at Yalta had to be aware of that disparity and equally aware of the Soviet determination to guarantee its future security in eastern Europe, as a buffer against any future German invasion. And, of course, everyone also knew that that Soviets now occupied the countries they had liberated from the Germans - including eventually part of Germany itself. Add to that the nearly universal expectation that the U.S. would again abandon Europe in two years, which only added to Churchill's wariness, and the Allied desire to get Soviet support in the still continuing war against Japan, which turned out to be unnecessary in the end but which no one foresaw at the time. All of that makes it difficult to imagine an outcome all that different from what emerged at the end of the Yalta conference.

That said, the resulting division of Europe proved disastrous, an outcome famously described by Churchill a year later as an "Iron Curtain." (I remember as a child hearing that phrase on the nightly radio news and wondering what an "Iron Curtain" might look like.) After ostensibly opposing the Cold War's division of Europe for decades, while largely accepting it in practice, the West finally legitimized it in the Helsinki Agreement (the "Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe") in 1975, which ironically and completely unexpectedly in turn set in motion the Human Rights movement that contributed eventually to to undoing of Soviet dominance in eastern Europe and of Communism itself in the Soviet Union.

Against all odds, Churchill hoped for a restored European balance of power. Hence his support for a re-empowered France and a genuinely independent Poland. He got the former, but, although the UK had gone to war in 1939 ostensibly to guarantee Poland's territorial integrity, he lost the latter. It is debatable whether, if FDR had been more willing to be more confrontational with Stalin (had he not still wanted to gain favor with Stalin to get his support for the United Nations and his assistance in the Pacific War), whether that might have made a difference. The fact remains that the Soviets were already in control of Poland militarily. While General George Patton did propose that the Allies finish the job, so to speak, by going to war against the Soviets in eastern Europe, neither the U.S. nor its Allies were realistically ready for or politically disposed to undertake such a military adventure in 1945, which is what it would have taken to dislodge the Soviets from Poland. In fact, Stalin only pushed his advantage up to a point. He honored his earlier agreement with Churchill about Greece and did not try to advance further west in Norway or Denmark. But where it mattered most (the buffer states between Germany and Russia) and where he already had the military upper hand, Stalin pressed his advantage, and there was little the western Allies could have done to alter Stalin's strategy.

Those old debates are now the stuff of history, but they defined the politics of the post-war world, and can still teach us some important lessons. What, for example, would a realistic Ukrainian settlement look like? Like Stalin in post-war Europe, Putin seems unlikely to be dislodged from either Crimea or eastern Ukraine. That may be lamentable, but it seems inescapable. The unforgettable lesson of Yalta remains one of the oldest lessons of international politics - that the correlation of forces on the ground remains one of the primary (if not always the primary) factor to be considered in any negotiation. 

In the end, Yalta paved the path for a military stalemate in Europe, with the continent (and the symbolic city of Berlin) left divided between east and west, with both sides tacitly accepting the division and unwilling to push each other too far. Perhaps that is what we can best hope for in international politics, and we must then count ourselves fortunate to have been born on the western side of that division.

A Light in the Dark

 

The familiar carol stops at day 12 but today is in fact the 40th day of Christmas. It marks the definitive completion of the Christmas season. Especially in Catholic countries, the nativity scene typically remains in place in church until today. Thus, in January 2012, when I was studying saint-making in Rome, I had almost a full month to visit the various presepe – some monumentally elaborate, some surprisingly simple – on display in Rome’s many churches. 

 

In the western, Latin Church, today is currently called the Presentation of the Lord, but for several centuries it was also known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Gospel we just heard, Mary and Joseph took the infant Jesus to Jerusalem according to the law of Moses, in order to observe two important religious obligations. The first was the ordinary obligation to be purified after childbirth. This reflected ancient beliefs about the sacredness of blood, and the requirement of ritual purification after any direct contact with blood. The second obligation concerned the special status and religious responsibilities of a first-born son (because of God’s having spared Israel’s first-born at the time of the Exodus). Jesus, Mary, and Joseph’s participation in these rituals highlights for us, first, the inviolable sacredness and dignity of all human lives, and, secondly, the special status (and corresponding responsibilities) which now define our entire lives, because of our relationship with Jesus.

 

Whatever the official title, however, the most common popular title for today’s celebration in the West has consistently been Candlemas Day, because of the Blessing of Candles and the Procession - originally in Rome an early morning, pre-dawn procession, originally somewhat penitential in character – with which today’s Mass begins. This replaced a pagan Roman custom, in which the Romans honored Februa, the mother of Mars the god of war, by lighting the city with candles and torches throughout the night. of that day. In the 7th century, Pope Sergius decreed that the faithful should instead honor the Christ and his mother on this day by lighting up the whole world with lamps and candles.

 

The name Candlemas calls attention, obviously, to the blessed candles, but also to their light – and to Jesus the One whom that light symbolizes. In the Gospel, the aged Simeon prays, “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace” and calls Christ “a light to reveal you to the nations.” In the Roman Rite, this prayer, known as the Nunc Dimittis, is recited daily at Night Prayer (Compline).

 

A secular version of Candlemas is “Groundhog Day.” Not so long ago, everyone in the western world knew about Candlemas Day. Today many may have forgotten Candlemas completely. Yet even those who may never even have heard of Candlemas can recognize the folklore that connects the day with the change of seasons. While the temperature is still decidedly wintry, the days are getting noticeably longer. Whereas Christmas comes at the mid-point of the winter’s darkness, with the year’s shortest day and its correspondingly longest night, Candlemas comes at the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, the transition (according to one ancient way of calculating the seasons) from winter to spring. Soon, day and night, light and dark will be equal. Thus, this last of the great winter light festivals invites us to look ahead to what these ancient seasonal feasts are meant to symbolize.

 

Today we recall with joy the Lord’s entry into his Temple: and suddenly (so says the prophet Malachi) there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek. At the same time, we hear, in wise old Simeon’s words to Mary, the first reference to what lies ahead, the first reference to the cross. Behold, this child is destined … to be a sign that will be contradicted – and you yourself a sword will pierce – so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

So, even as we take one last look back at winter and Christmas, Candlemas looks ahead to spring and Lent and reminds us that the point of Christmas is Easter, as Simeon and Anna’s encounter with the infant Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple points us toward our own encounter with the Risen Christ here and now.

 

Since 1997, Candlemas has also been observed as the World Day of Consecrated Life. Just as on this day candles are blessed symbolizing Christ who is the light of the world, so too religious priests, brothers, and sisters in the various Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life are called to reflect the light of Jesus Christ to all peoples. It is obviously an especially appropriate day to pray that God will continue to bless his Church with abundant vocations to these communities so critical to the life of the Church. 

 

For me at this stage in my life, there is a joining of images and themes. Spending their lives in the Temple, Simeon and Anna seem to me to signify religious life in an obvious way. But they are also - and very pointedly - presented as old, about to retire from their earthly service to God.  Obviously, while their age makes them representative figures for Israel's long wait for the Lord, at the same time they easily elide into representatives of so many religious priests, brothers, and sisters (among whom I must include myself) who are also old, who have spent so much of our lives in the Temple, and are now preparing to pray our own final Nunc Dimittis.

 

This feast which seems to have so many names is also known, In the Eastern, non-Latin Churches, as the Encounter, the Feast of Meeting. Today, Christ comes to meet us, and we in turn get to meet him. Every Christmas we encounter Christ in a special way in the image the infant Jesus in the manger. When we encounter the infant Jesus in the nativity scene in church and at home, we appreciate anew the great mystery of the incarnation of God’s Son. When Simeon and Anna experienced in the infant Jesus the human face of God, they spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem. They hastened to proclaim and share their good news. That remains our task today – to take the light of these candles out into our spiritually still so very dark world, and so to share with all the light reflected in our own lives from the brightness of the human face of God

 

Homily for the feast of the Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas Day), Saint Paul the Apostle Church, February 2, 2025.