107 Days

 

Politicians write their memoirs. That is just one of the things that they do - sometimes when their careers are already over, sometimes as one of their many maneuvers to keep one's career going. Which of these applies to this account by Kamala Harris of her unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign remains to be seen. With most such books, the first question is, obviously, whether - apart from mere curiosity - there is any good reason to read it. Whatever its faults, whatever its author's faults, this campaign memoir - 107 Days (Simon and Schuster), co-written with Geraldine Brooks - probably meets that minimal test and is worth the read, if only for one more inside take on the unprecedented character of the 2024 campaign, assuming one is interested in the daily ebb and flow of campaigns. That said, its day-by-day chronological structure does leave much to be desired stylistically. It actually may make the account more boring instead of more interesting.

Without even opening her book, most readers have already heard one thing from the media coverage of it - that Tim Walz was not her preferred choice for running mate, that Pete Buttigieg was her preference, but that she went with Walz as the more cautious choice.  This reflected (depending on the reader's preferred interpretation) either a left-wing Democratic obsession with identity politics or a traditional American awareness of the need to balance the ticket. Either way, it highlights her caution. Since she lost anyway, one might argue, perhaps this would have been a good occasion to throw caution away! In any case, apart from the generally accepted exception fo 1960, when has a vice presidential candidate really helped the head of the ticket?

I am not sure how much else is new that we actually learn from her book. We do learn, but should not be surprised, that she harbors resentment against the Biden inner circle, the same people who have elsewhere borne much of the blame for keeping Biden in the race beyond his sell-by date. Most of her comments reflect her resentments of Biden's inner circle, although there is some criticism of the President himself. Of course, this is often the lot of a vice president. It is a dumb job, another poorly thought-out legacy of our 18th-century constitutional framing. It may make sense for her to want to claim, as she does, "that there is only one apprenticeship for president of the United States, and that is being vice president." That claim has to be both theoretically nonsensical and historically proven false many times. Rarely have our better presidents been vice presidents beforehand!

At the same time, she genuinely believed she was the person best positioned to pick up Biden's fallen standard. It is fair, I think, to criticize Biden for not having gotten out of the race earlier - early enough to enable a better process for the selection of his successor, who might or might not have been Harris, who might even have been a better prepared candidate Harris. Who knows? But it is hard to fault Harris for taking advantage of the opportunity that fell to her. She would, however, soon experience what Jill Biden warned: "You're about to see how horrible the world is."

In any close race, it is impossible to single out any one issue as ultimately decisive. That said, one of Harris's principal problems, from the start, was how to deal with Biden's unpopularity. In the early days of the campaign, she pointedly praised the President in the first pert of her speech. But David Plouffe warned her: "People hate Joe Biden."

Whether that was fair or. not, whether the desire for her to separate herself from Biden was realistic or not, what Democrats really do have to confront at some point is widen debacle says about the party, its leaders, their communication and decision making, all sorts of issues that this tragic chain of events has highlighted. By their own admission (or, at least, their rhetoric) their primary job was not so much to get Biden re-elected as to prevent Trump from being re-elected. And in that the party failed dramatically.

By the distorted campaign standards of the 21st century, 107 days was probably simply too little time. Even so, there was a lot of excitement about her campaign, and it is worth asking whether her loss was inevitable and whether that ephemeral initial enthusiasm could have been more effectively translated into something more lasting.

All of which brings us to the deeper question which Harris' book never really answers, which is how and why the Democrats got themselves into the position over the past several years in which they have simply ceased to seem credible to so many Americans - and what, if anything, can de done to change that. It may not be fair to expect Harris alone to answer that, but the truly abiding lesson of the 2024 campaign is that that is the question that matters most for the party and, by extension, for the country.

Mussolini: Just a Century Ago

 

Mussolini: Son of the Century is an Italian TV series (M. Il figlio del secolo), based on a 2018 novel of that name by Antonio Scurati, which focuses on the early political career of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), the founder of the Italian fascist party, who was Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy and virtual Dictator from 1922 through 1943. The series follows Mussolini's early (post Word War I, post socialist) career from his founding of the Italian Fascist Party in 1919 up to the assassination of the famous socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti in 1924 and its immediate aftermath.

The series has eight episodes. So far, four have been shown. The first follows Mussolini's immediate post-war trajectory, when he was still a journalist but had left Socialism behind in order to support Italy's entry into the war in 1915. Italy emerged from World War I on the winning side, but had little to show for it, what was accordingly called la vittoria mutilata ("the mutilated victory"). The episode highlights aspects of Mussolini's tempestuous personal and family life, the disordered state of post-war Italian social and political life, and Mussolini's rivalry with war-hero and poet Gabriel D'Annunzio, who in 1919 illegally occupied and briefly ruled the disputed city of Fiume. Episode Two follows Mussolini's change of tactic, leading to his entry into Parliament. Episodes three and four follow the Fascists' successful exploitation of social and class conflict in the early 1920s. Episode four, which just aired today, begins with Prime Minister Facta holding a self-congratulatory party during which he expresses his belief that he can manage the Fascists. Meanwhile, Mussolini is readying his followers for the "March on Rome," the great bluff that to Mussolini's eventual appointment by the King as head of government in October 1922. The episode highlights how phoney the "March on Rome" actually was, with Mussolini prepared to flee to Switzerland if it failed, and his dependence for success on assumptions, which ultimately proved correct, about the impotence of the Italian state, which could likely have defeated the movement had it had the nerve to try to do so. 

Presumably, the subsequent episodes will follow his gradual consolidation of almost complete power over the next two years, culminating in the death of the socialist parliamentarian Giacomo Matteotti (which Mussolini will be allowed to get away with) and the establishment of the dictatorship.

As appears increasingly fashionable, many of the scenes seem to have been filmed in the dark, which imposes a certain degree of visual burden on the audience, who (unless they are Italian speakers) must also follow the subtitles.That said, it is well filmed, and worth the challenge of following its violent, but not always completely clear, trajectory. (Some previous knowledge of 1920s Italian history seems to be presumed.) The program also gives greater dramatic prominence to Rachele Mussolini than some other accounts do, which is a welcome addition.

History does not repeat itself. But this dramatization of Italy exactly a century ago illustrates how precarious liberal government inherently becomes when it fails (and is widely perceived to fail) to resolve pressing social problems, especially social inequality and increasing precarity, especially when the opposite was widely expected and desired (in Italy's case, thanks to victory in the world war). The interwar period of the early 20th century was characterized by this widely experienced failure of liberalism and democracy and a therefore unsurprisingly widely shared search for various types of alternatives. of which Italian fascism was one model, which particularly presented itself as a viable alternative to Soviet Bolshevism. The program dramatizes Mussolini's flamboyance, a veritable "strongman," but also highlights his banality and that of his followers, highlighting how little it actually takes to destroy liberal institutions in the absence of very good leadership - something neither the liberal politicians nor the King seemed to be able to manage.

Meanwhile, with a surprising and somewhat comical lack of subtlety, the program even portrays Mussolini, in an aside to the audience at his moment of triumph, saying (in English, no less), "Make Italy great again."

Of course, we know where all this was eventually going to lead, something obviously none of the participants in the actual history of the 1920s - neither the King, nor the Duce, nor Mussolini's followers, nor his ineffective opponents - could anticipate. (Presumably, the King thought that in appointing Mussolini as Prime Minister he was just doing something he had done many times before and would do again in the future.) Had the King and other politicians had the gift of foresight, perhaps they might have managed to find some vestiges of political leadership among themselves to avert Italy's impending tragedy. That tragedy was not inevitable, but was the direct result of the failure of Italy's constitutional checks and balances, thanks to the personal failures of those whose office it was to uphold them.

The Church in New York Celebrates Its Immigrant Past and Present

Yesterday at the main Mass, New York's famous Saint Patrick's Cathedral dedicated a major new addition to the cathedral's interior, the largest artwork commissioned in the cathedral’s 146-year history and the first since the massive bronze doors were installed at the cathedral's Fifth Avenue entrance in 1949. It is a 21-feet high, multi-panel mural by artist Adam Cvijanovic, titled What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding, which celebrates the history of immigration in New York City and the role of the Church in the city's development. It recalls the 1879 Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Knock, Ireland, which occurred in the same year as the original dedication of the cathedral. The mural depicts the succession of 19th and 20th-century immigrants to New York, more contemporary immigrants, and other prominent New York figures like St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Pierre Toussaint, Dorothy Day, Al Smith, and Archbishop John Hughes.     

“I want people to be able to see themselves in it,” the artist Adam Cvijanovic has said. Looking at it yesterday for the first time, I did see a lot of myself iand many others in it - in its depiction of generations of immigrants who found refuge in this city and a spiritual home in our Church.

True Stewardship

 

Among fictional New Testament characters, the steward in the parable we just heard [Luke 16:1-13] has always been particularly popular. “To did I am not able, to beg I am ashamed,” he used to say in the nicer translation with which those of my generation were once familiar. He is commonly called “the unjust steward,” but his master commended him for how he acted. Jesus seems to propose him as a model for the disciples – presumably not for squandering his master’s property, but for his prudence, for what in classical philosophical language would be called his practical wisdom.

Jesus’ point seems to be that, faced with the greatest crisis of his life, the steward focused on the clear goal of guaranteeing his long-term security and acted accordingly, forgoing the commission that he might have received as steward, in order to ingratiate himself with those who could guarantee him such security. He is a model for having his priorities in order and focusing single-mindedly on his mission, and for his readiness to sacrifice short-term gains for long-term security. Jesus clearly expects no less of us!

Jesus’ parable suggests that negotiating our way through the ongoing challenges of ordinary life requires intelligent practical judgments. These in turn require the virtue that is always listed first among the classical cardinal virtues – prudence.

On the one hand, one of the most radical challenges of Christianity, humanly speaking, is the notion that one cannot serve both God and mammon. Our ultimate commitment must be to God’s kingdom, to which all other claims – family, friends, career, country – must be subordinate. On the other hand, even if my family, friends, career, country, etc. are all transitory, still they describe where I am right now, - living, growing, and becoming, for better or for worse, the person I will remain for all eternity.

And so, already in the 1st century, St. Paul - in his 1st letter to Timothy [1 Timothy 2:1-8] – connected the earthly and eternal dimensions of our lives, forever after forcing us to do the same. I ask, Paul wrote to Timothy, that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.

How utopian that sounds in our troubled present time - a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity

Of course, even without Saint Paul, the ordinary experience of life itself forces us to figure out how to relate the transitory and the eternal. In the words of one early Christian writer [Tertullian, Apologeticus, 31]: When the Empire is shaken, all of its parts are shaken also, hence even though we stand outside its tumults, we are caught in its misfortunes. Not much has changed since then. We live in a world full of tumults and misfortunes! Hence, he too promoted prayer for Emperors, their ministers, for the condition of the world, for peace everywhere, and for the delaying of the end [39]. And so too must we! If a fully human life requires social commitment and political participation, then our prayer and worship must somehow acknowledge this.

In the Old Testament, when Israel was exiled in a foreign land, God gave his people this advice through the prophet Jeremiah: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses to dwell in; plant gardens and eat their fruits. … Promote the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you; pray for it to the Lord, for upon its welfare depends your own [Jeremiah 29:4-7].

What Jeremiah calls the welfare of the city – peace, prosperity, security, justice, in short what we call the common good– all that is the purpose of social and political life. That in turn requires citizens – engaged participants, who are not passive spectators in the story of our national life, living as if life were just some short ferry boat ride, not noticing or caring how the boat is being steered and whether or not all the passengers are adequately equipped with life jackets. On the contrary, how the boat is being steered and whether all the passengers are adequately equipped must be among our preeminent priorities.

In a society which has witnessed a dramatic decline in civic community life in recent years, as Americans have become increasingly isolated and mutually suspicious, we are challenged today to rediscover the basic human task to step beyond our private space, to take responsibility for more than just ourselves, and to be accountable for and to one another. Then we may hope, as Saint Paul did, to lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.

 

Homily for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary time, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, September 21, 2025.

Task

In 2021, Brad Inglesby created HBO's amazingly successful Mare of Easttown. Not a sequel exactly, Inglesby's latest HBO hit, Task (the first two of seven Sunday-night episodes of which have already aired), is set in a similar Delaware County "working class" environment of natural beauty, old-fashioned homes, which house struggling, often dysfunctional families with limited opportunities, little hope, and lots of personal and familial grief. Indeed, Inglesby seems to traffic primarily in unrelenting bleakness and grief, and does it well, pulling his audience into a real empathy with his complex characters and their very unfair world.

Task  stars Mark Ruffalo as an FBI agent, Tom Brandis, who heads a four-person task force to investigate a series of crimes committed by two (sometimes three) masked men robbing drug "trap" houses. Brandis is an ex-priest, whose family life has been shattered by a recent tragedy, the murder of his wife by his mentally ill adopted son, Ethan, and the ongoing toll this has taken on him and his daughters. In Mare, the title character was still grieving the suicide of her son, fighting for custody of her grandson, and generally trying to navigate the complexities of her family situation, while also doing her detective job. The two series are set in the same gritty, depressing, small-town world, although I think Mare and her world seemed overall to be doing a better job of holding their lives together in what was still a genuine local community, however wounded. The absence of any comparable community in Task only adds to the show's intended bleakness. (Mare herself was something of a local hero because of her role on a championship basketball game decades earlier. Tom, although presumably he was not always so self-isolated, seems to have nothing like that in terms of a comparable degree of rootedness in the local community.)

Unlike Mare, where the criminals don't get unmasked until we have gotten to like most of them, Task's principal criminals are identified early (although there may yet be more, for example, a possible informer within the law enforcement community). Brandis' principal criminal opposite is Robbie Prendergast (Tom Pelphrey), a garbage worker, who together with his partner Cliff Broward (Raul Castillo) has been robbing the "trap" houses, operated by a drug-dealing motorcycle gang, "The Dark Hearts." To do this, Robbie and Cliff have had help from some inside informant, "MZ." 

Meanwhile, like Tom, Robbie too is a single father (his partner having abandoned him a year earlier). So Robbie and his two children live with his 21-year old niece Maeve (Emilila Jones), whose father Billy had been involved in the motorcycle gang and was murdered by the group's current leader. Robbie is presented as a somewhat kind-hearted, not very bright guy, living very much in the moment and not planning particularly well for the consequences of his actions. Hence, when one of their robberies goes very badly at the end of the first episode, leaving three gang members and the robbers' third partner dead, Robbie kidnaps the child of those he has just murdered and bings him home, which now obviously further endangers everyone in his household in addition to himself and Cliff.

Meanwhile, the Brandis household is in turmoil over Tom's daughter Emily's inclination to speak at Ethan's imminent sentencing. Tom's daughters are at odds, and he himself is internally torn, missing his wife but also missing his son. Although ostensibly having abandoned religion and regularly now drinking too much, he clearly is still struggling spiritually. At one point, he says to his family, "It's easy to talk about forgiveness when it's not your loss." Such statements and the visit from one of his priest friends in the first episode suggest that faith issues will not be ignored in this series, much as such struggles were also portrayed in Mare (explicitly highlighted there through the characters of the priest and the deacon). It is noteworthy that Brad Inglesby himself speaks of having had relatives who were priests, one of whom left the priesthood.