Political Insanity

July 4 is properly a day to reflect upon the greatness and the successes of American political institutions. However, that is increasingly harder to do in the contemporary climate which seems to highlight the decline of those institutions and the baneful consequences of that process - consequences evident in the inability of our governing institutions to govern and the constant campaign of destructively individualistic politics that has reached a new low in the current election season.

Already back when I was a student, alert political scientists were paying attention to how the traditional structures of American politics - many of which were not unproblematic but which nonetheless played a valuable part in making the system function as well as it did - were beginning to give way to reforms which were having decidedly unhelpful consequences. It was noticed for example how the much criticized urban political machines were being weakened - just when the new urban poor of color might otherwise have inherited them and possibly put them to use on behalf of their communities. The Congressional Seniority system was also much criticized, but perceptive professors helped me to see its advantages in taming inter-personal rivalries in Congress and thus enabling members to get on with the real work of government. 

Over the years, of course, the process of "reform" in Congress and in political parties has continued and accelerated until the point we have now reached when we now have no real party leaders but "only individual actors, pursuing their own political interests and ideological missions willy-nilly, like excited gas molecules in an overheated ballon."

Those are the words of author and political commentator Jonathan Rauch in his recent article in The Atlantic, aptly titled "How American Politics Went Insane." (His article, which anyone who cares about the decline of American political institutions decline and the almost unbelievable mess that has resulted should read, can be accessed at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-american-politics-went-insane/485570/).

We all know the results of the process by which our once-upon-a-time clumsy and slow-moving but manifestly functional politics has so completely deteriorated into an increasingly Hobbesian war of all against all. We all recognize the symptoms of what Rauch calls chaos syndrome - "a chronic decline in the political system's capacity for self-organization" that has resulted from the progressive weakening of institutions like "parties, career politicians, and congressional leaders and committees - that have historically held politicians accountable to one another and prevented everyone in the system from pursuing naked self-interest all the time." The ultimate cause of all this, he locates in "the general public's reflective, unreasoning hostility to politicians and the process of politics." Employing a clever medical analogy, he likens the decades-long reforming of our political process to "abusing and attacking your own immune system. Eventually, you will get sick." 

Independence Day

In 1931, James Truslow Adams coined the now familiar term “the American Dream.”  All too often, we tend to reduce that image to its material and consumerist components. In its fullest sense, however, Adams’ American Dream was “not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

This was the “American Dream” that called – and continues to call – generations of immigrants (my grandparents among them) to this country, whose founding as a nation we commemorate today - the anniversary of the day when we as a nation assumed that “separate and equal station, among the powers of the earth,” of which Thomas Jefferson famously wrote.

In this election year, we are all increasingly aware of the many challenging and difficult issues facing our country, along with the contentious and acrimonious arguments that have characterized this campaign and that dominate the national news. Disagreement and debate among citizens and between political parties are natural and inevitable in a free and open society. Wisely and properly conducted, they make it possible for us to choose intelligently among competing candidates and their policies, and so provide for the peaceful and legitimate transfer of political power to those we designate to govern our country according to our political, cultural, and moral values. Those are the values, which we will express in our votes.

As committed Catholic Christians, we also share with our fellow citizens in the benefits and the responsibilities of citizenship in our 21st-century American society. What resources does our faith offer us to participate in civic life? What lessons from centuries of Catholic spiritual and intellectual tradition and the experience of Catholic history in the United States can we share with our fellow citizens? What can we do together to promote the common good and care for our common home? The evident seriousness of the issues facing present and future policy makers and the intensity of the current political campaign make it all the more essential for us to take part in these important debates and to bring to them the particular perspectives of our rich Catholic faith and experience.

Over the centuries, the Church has adopted as her own - and adapted to ever changing political and social situations - the ancient philosophical understanding that human beings are social and political by nature, that human beings are naturally intended to live and thrive in close cooperation with others, and that the most developed and fulfilling form of that is our political association as fellow citizens. This political association as citizens with one another provides us with many benefits, which we would not otherwise enjoy. At the same time it also challenges us with serious responsibilities and obligations to one another and to the wider community.

In this traditional understanding, political choices are ultimately moral choices that express what we value. As Catholic citizens, we need to be particularly attentive to this dimension of political decision-making. As Catholics and citizens, we need to respond to the challenges of voting and other political choices in a morally serious way that transcends simplistic sloganeering and emotional appeals to narrowly defined secular identities and group interests. As our own American bishops have recently reminded us: “Catholics may choose different ways to respond to compelling social problems, but we cannot differ on our moral obligation to help build a more just and peaceful world through morally acceptable means, so that the weak and vulnerable are protected and human rights and dignity are defended.” [USCCB, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (1915), 20].

Homily for Independence Day, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, July 4, 2016

Oil on Troubled Waters

There are, I like to think, two truly American holidays. Thanksgiving Day (In late autumn, after the harvest) looks inward to the heart and soul of society and so is celebrated at home, at table, among family and friends. Independence Day (in early summer) looks outward to the larger world of nations and states. It recalls when we as a nation assumed that “separate and equal station, among the powers of the earth,” of which Thomas Jefferson famously wrote.

But long before Jefferson and his famous Declaration, the first Europeans to settle this continent brought their Catholic faith and institutions with them, leaving a strong legacy of Catholic culture throughout both North and South America. That legacy is currently being highlighted in so many ways by recent generations of Latin American immigrants. They in turn follow earlier generations of European immigrants, who brought a distinct Catholic sensibility to the American experiment, rooted in their own immigrant experience and its challenges.

In the 19th century, Servant of God Isaac Hecker, who founded the Paulist Fathers 158 years ago this week, emphasized the moral seriousness of citizenship and its responsibilities. As part of his religious mission to evangelize America, Isaac Hecker consistently sought to identify important points of contact between the Catholic faith and its understanding of society, on the one hand, and the political culture of the United States, on the other. While humanity’s truest fulfillment is ultimately to be found in the kingdom of God, Hecker recognized that being a citizen of God’s kingdom has implications in the more mundane and immediate responsibilities of citizenship in society. 

In a time of terrible social conflict and political polarization in the United States, Hecker expressed his confidence in what Catholics had to offer to America. Already at his very first audience with Blessed Pope Pius IX, on December 22, 1857, in response to the Pope’s concern about factional strife in the United States, “in which,” as the Pope put it, “parties get each other by the hair,” Hecker confidently replied that “the Catholic truth,” once known, “would come between” parties “and act like oil on troubled waters.” [From a letter to the American Fathers, Rome, December 22, 1857]

Hecker’s hope that we act like oil on the troubled waters of a conflicted and politically polarized society remains as relevant today. Unfortunately, economic trends and social and cultural changes have all combined to make society and the social bonds that are its glue that much more brittle. Meanwhile,  corrective action in the form of effective public policy has become more and more difficult to achieve.  In turn, these trends may further encourage apathy and cynicism on the part of ordinary citizens and increased ideological intensity among the most politically active. The moral and public policy consequences of framing political choices in this way are alarming for the future of our society. Hence, this recent warning from the President of the United Sates Conference of Catholic Bishops: “When we fail to see the difference between our enemies and people of good will, we lose a part of who we are as people of faith. Policies of fear and inflammatory rhetoric will only offer extremists fertile soil and pave the way toward a divisive, fearful future.“ [Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, December 14, 2015]

This same concern also applies to the moral and political judgments and choices which we make about the wider world beyond our national borders, where we must likewise guard against what Pope Francis, speaking to Congress last year, called “the simple reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.” [September 24, 2015]

More pointedly, Pope Francis has challenged us as a Church “to give a clear answer in the face of the threats that arise within the public debate." "Believers are citizens,” Pope Francis reminds us. “The nation is not a museum, but a collective work in permanent construction in which the things that differentiate one, including political and religious membership, are to be put in common” [Address in Florence, November 11, 2015]

Indeed, our Catholic tradition of reflection on political principles and on social and economic questions and policies represents a profoundly rich storehouse of moral wisdom - wisdom which fully reflects centuries of human experience and responds to fundamental human needs more comprehensively than contemporary ideologies, whether of the Left or the Right.

Jesus’ action in today’s Gospel [Luke 10:1-12, 17-20] in sending the 72 disciples on a kind of practice run for what they would later be doing full-time after his ascension reminds us that evangelizing (as Pope Paul VI expressed it so well) “constitutes the essential mission of the Church” – in every age and in every society.

Jesus, we are told, sent the 72 in pairs – not as solitary individuals, but in pairs. Ours is a culture which places a lot of emphasis on our private, individual lives and private, individual freedoms. But the Gospel reminds us that we are not isolated, solitary selves, but a community of faithful people, formed by the Holy Spirit into one Church, the body of the Risen Christ, to continue his mission in every town and place. Jesus commanded his disciples to make a difference in their world. So, if we really mean what we say we believe, then what we do in our many relationships and multiple commitments – in our families and among friends, at work or at school, in civil society, and in the wider world – must make a difference and be recognizable as such. Jesus expects us to be on the same side with him – on the side of God’s kingdom. Being on God’s side, having our names written in heaven (as Jesus says), frees us to join Jesus in making a real, recognizable difference in an always challenging, sometimes very welcoming, but also sometimes sadly inhospitable world. It frees us to tell – and retell –the story of Jesus, to speak his word to any and all, so we too can say to the country and the world we love: “The kingdom of God is at hand for you.”

Homily for the 14th Sunday in ordinary Time, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, July 3, 2016.

Rome's Apostles

According to tradition, the city of Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC, by twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, whose father was Mars, the god of war. But the two argued about which hill to build on; and, when Romulus began building his city wall, Remus ridiculed his work by jumping over the wall. Romulus responded by killing him - thus determining which one Rome would be named after! In time, Rome would become the greatest city in the world, the capital of the greatest empire the world had ever yet known.

To that same city, some 8 centuries later, came two men, Peter and Paul, brothers not by blood, but by their common faith in Jesus Christ, who had called them to be apostles. The Christian community they found in Rome was small, socially and politically insignificant - an easy target when the Emperor needed scapegoats to blame for a destructive fire. Among those martyred in that 1st Roman persecution of the Church were the apostles Peter and Paul.

One story recounts how Peter started to flee but returned to Rome and embraced his martyrdom after meeting Jesus on the road. “Lord, where are you going,” Peter asked. “I am going to Rome to be crucified again,” Jesus responded. 

If the Christians of Rome required encouragement and confidence to persevere in their new faith, what more powerful reinforcement could they have had than the witness offered by the martyrdom of those two illustrious apostles, who were the Church’s link back to the Risen Lord himself  - Peter, crucified on the Vatican Hill, and Paul, beheaded on the Ostian Way.

At the west end of the south aisle of the Paulist Fathers' "Mother Church" in New York, over a simple but impressive altar dedicated to Saint Paul, is Robert Reid’s evocative, early 20th-century painting depicting Saint Paul kneeling calmly and confidently awaiting his imminent martyrdom. Above and below the picture are the famous words we just heard from Saint. Paul’s 2nd Letter to Timothy: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith!” [2 Timothy 4:7]

Which brings us back to where we started. The old Rome of Romulus – proud, powerful, pagan Rome, based on the murder of one brother by another – was, for all its accomplishments and authentic grandeur, a human state like any other, a warring conqueror, conquered in turn by other warring conquerors. The new Christian Rome of Peter and Paul conquered that old Rome, but in a new way. Proud, powerful, pagan Rome, founded on the murder of one brother by another, was in turn conquered by the faith that empowered Peter and Paul as brothers-in-Christ to evangelize an empire and die together as witnesses to a new way of life.

As we celebrate this great feast recalling the mission and martyrdom of Rome's great Apostles Peter and Paul, let us likewise – as Saint Augustine once recommended on this feast – “embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith” [Sermon 295, 8].

Homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, June 29, 2016.

(Photo: Papal Altar, Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, with its 14th-century baldachino and reliquaries of the heads of the Apostles Peter and Paul)

Why All the Surprise?

One of the most perplexing aspects of elite reactions to the UK's Brexit vote has been the widespread surprise that has repeatedly been expressed Over and over again, commentators have referred to the result as "surprising" or "stunning." Whom have these folks been talking with and listening to all this time? People who hang out in Davos?

The same could be said, for example, of the "populist" revolts against some of the fallout from globalization that have overtaken both US political parties this election cycle - to the surprise (and chagrin) of elite opinion in both parties. It's OK to talk with and listen to people who hang out in Davis, but even more important to listen to others besides - especially to those being left behind by all this wonderful progress. One of the most distressing features of our contemporary culture is how the different social classes have so successfully segregated themselves, so that cultural elites largely listen only to others with similarly elite-sanctioned opinions. How else to explain the sudden "surprise" when the occasional exercise in real democracy allows other voices to be heard?

That the economic, social, and cultural changes of recent decades have produced real and tangible benefits cannot be denied. but neither can it be denied that the principal beneficiaries of this whirlwind of change have largely been the well-off and the well-positioned - and that those less well-off and less well-positioned have found themselves largely left behind with diminished economic, social and cultural prospects. For all the elite emphasis on inclusiveness, it is precisely the non-inclusive character of so much of modern progress that has brought us to this current crisis. How different our society would be if many of those who lecture everyone else so tediously about inclusiveness would actually practice more of it themselves!

Historian Steve Fraser, author of The Limousine Liberal: How an Incendiary Image United the Right and Fractured America (Basic Books, 2016) has captured the consequences of this process of political fracture. "Class," Fraser notes, "which had largely been banished from acceptable public discourse with the onset of the Cold War, returned with a vengeance but was camouflaged." What Fraser calls our "civil war of values" he portrays in all its class-based starkness. Resisting "secular elitists" and their allies, Fraser sees "an everyman army, people of faith, not only the pious, but all those workaday white folks who remained faithful to the way things once were or were imagined to be or were ordained to be."

The point is not that things can - or ought to - be made to revert to "the way things once were." That is neither possible nor in many cases even all that desirable. The point rather is that the modern ripping apart of society has come at an enormous cost, which has burdened the many left behind, while enriching and empowering the few - and that now the bill is coming due. The rise of "populist" demagoguery - whether Huey Long and Father Coughlin in the 1930s or Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders today - is one unsurprising result.  Yet we continue to be surprised and so fail to respond in a way which respects the casualties of the social breakdown produced by the predatory global capitalism that has so transformed our world.

Either we have to relearn the art of community and how to be one society again, or we continue down this increasingly fractious road.