Our Lady Weeps for Her Children

On this day when the Church traditionally commemorates the sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary in connection with the sufferings of her Son, I am reminded - in the wake of the recent tragedy in Tennessee and repeated incidents of gun-violence in schools throughout our country - of theologian Elizabeth Johnson's observation in Truly Our Sister: a Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints (Continuum, 2003). Mary, Johnson wrote, "joined the desolate cadre of women through the centuries who experience the terrible human condition of outliving one's child. There is no speaking this racking sorrow. It is out of the natural order of things. Worse yet, this death itself did not occur in the natural order of things but was violently inflicted ... One never really gets over the pain when someone you love is a victim of violence" [pp. 295-296].

Contrast that engaged appreciation of the pain of parents whose children's lives have been prematurely and violently destroyed with the stupid and unconscionably insensitive comments of Republican politicians, for example, TN Representative Tim Burchett's bizarre observation: “We’re not gonna fix it,” he explained, “criminals are gonna be criminals.” He's right, of course, that they aren't going to fix this appalling problem, but not because “criminals are gonna be criminals,” but because of Republican politicians' fetishistic identification with guns.

After all this time, there is really nothing new to be said about Republicans' malignant fetish for guns. In my 10 years in Tennessee, there was much in the local culture which I came to appreciate. But I have never ceased to be horrified and appalled by the prevailing tolerance for - and even celebration of - guns. This includes the bizarre notion some have that they need to own guns for their own protection, which is, of course, a complete negation of the very idea of society, which is that we are no longer isolated individuals left to fend for ourselves on a Hobbesian "war of all against all." Of course, when Thomas Hobbes created his "state of nature,"  his purpose was not to celebrate the "war of all against all," as our crazy American gun culture does, but to warn against it and to celebrate the alternative of civil society.

That civil society has a real responsibility to serve its citizens, which in this instance means taking effective action against the leading cause of death among American children, which (believe it or not) is not "Drag Queen Story Hour."

As often happens after these kinds of incidents, some prefer to focus on the attacker and his or her motives. In this case, there is a fevered effort in some quarters to demonstrate that the attacker was motivated by "anti-Christian" sentiments. Perhaps. Or perhaps the attacker had other reasons to dislike the school, had bad memories from attending the school that were not explicitly religious. At present, we do not really know. Obviously, these are not uninteresting questions. (And, of course, if the attacker were alive and going to trial, motivation might be a much more relevant issue.)

But, when all is said and done, it remains the case that, whatever the attacker's attitudes and motivations, it was access to guns that made the attack possible. If “criminals are gonna be criminals,” it is just as true that explicit anti-Semites (Pittsburgh synagogue) and explicit racists (Buffalo store, Charleston church) and explicit anti-Christians (if indeed that was the motivation in Nashville) “are gonna be” anti-Semites or racists or anti-Christians. But, in all those familiar cases, they would have been less likely to succeed, certainly less likely to do the degree of damage that they did, had they not had easy access to guns. It may be, as some hypocritically like to allege, that "guns don't kill, people do." But the fact is that people with guns kill. People without guns kill a lot less.

American gun-culture fetishism is one expression of American exceptionalism which we have all too much of and which we would be much better off doing without!

Donald in the Dock?

As the will-he-or-won't-he-be-indicted legal and political soap opera continues, the two warring factions into which we as a country have divided are arming themselves with their respective rhetorical weapons - ritual incantations of "no one is above the law" and "without fear or favor" on one side vs. warnings against "politically charged prosecution" and the "weaponization" of justice by the "deep state" on the other.

Now, I have long been somewhat dubious about any Trump indictment because of the further damage which that would likely do to whatever is left of our democratic culture and institutions. When John Adams left the White House at 4:00 a.m. on March 4, 1801 - an event rightly heralded as establishing the precedent that the losing party peacefully gives up power to its opponents after losing an election - he did so reasonably confident that he would not be arrested, indicted, or prosecuted by his successor. That understanding has remained a normal assumption of American democratic politics - and a mark of distinction, separating American democracy from many other less fortunate states (some of them sometimes pejoratively labeled "banana republics") where a president may feel compelled to maintain himself in office forever in order to avoid prosecution, imprisonment or execution at the hands of the opposition. It is bad enough that impeachment has now been normalized so that it is increasingly routine to expect that a House of Representative controlled by the opposition party will impeach a president. What will be the consequence of normalizing prosecution of former presidents by officials of the other party? Amid all the virtue signaling repetitions of "no one is above the law" and "without fear or favor," I recommend some consideration of those possible side-effects, ominous consequences for democratic culture and institutions.

(These, what might be called long-term, constitutional, and political-culture concerns, are prior to and apart from whatever worries one may have or feel regarding the possibilities of anti-government, right-wing violence that may be anticipated as our country continues down this precarious path.)

That said, there can be no doubt that Trump has uniquely damaged our democratic culture and institutions and represents a radically more significant threat that any of his predecessors ever did (including the much maligned Richard Nixon of Watergate fame). Such an unusual threat may require an unusual response, but that does not justify ignoring the real or potential side-effects of such a response.

Obviously, January 6 represented a unique assault on our democratic culture and institutions. If ever impeachment was justified in our history, that was when it was most justified. And, of course, had Trump been immediately impeached and then convicted by the Senate, then he could have been disqualified from federal office, and the specter of his running again would not now be haunting the country, which would have been the best and most efficacious penalty for his offenses (not to mention the one actually intended by the constitution).

But, of course, thanks to Republicans' loyalty to their Dear Leader, that didn't happen. So we are threatened with this unfortunate and extremely divisive spectacle of possible criminal prosecutions being directed by officials of the party in power against the former president from the other party who just happens to be running for office again!

Add to that the obvious concern that the expected New York case is widely recognized as the weakest one, an attempt tp elevate a real but relatively minor infraction into something more significant - not totally unlike what the Republicans tried to do with Bill Clinton's personal moral lapses in the late 1990s. If Trump deserves to be prosecuted, shouldn't it at least be for something  both more serious and more likely to succeed in court? Shouldn't it be for his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election and prevent the constitutional process of transferring power from one party to another? I am not a lawyer, but in my layman's legal understanding the case against Trump that comes closes to that standard would be the Georgia one - not this peculiar New York case.

NY Times columnist David French, who is a lawyer, has expressed skepticism about the New York case. He describes the case as "unique" ... "the first-ever indictment of a former president brought by a state district attorney — one that his predecessor didn’t choose to seek and that relies on federal criminal claims that the Department of Justice declined to prosecute" (NY Times, March 26, 2023).

So, even assuming some sort of prosecution somewhere may be warranted, of all the things that Trump has done, why - of all possible charges - this relatively minor offense? And doesn't that increase the risk of acquittal or of a conviction being overturned on appeal, and where would that leave all our "no one is above the law" virtue signaling?

Oh the other hand, the political context in which this is occurring may well force the New York DA into acting. Perhaps no indictment was actually likely a week or two ago; but now, after all the Republican political posturing, it would appear as if the DA were caving in to political pressure if he did not indict.

As a country we find ourselves in one of those dilemmas from which there seems likely to be no good outcome. And, as usual, we can blame Trump and his political party for putting us in this position in the first place!

Succession: The Final Season Begins

 

One need not watch HBO's successful series Succession to know the harm rich people have the power to inflict upon those around them - and indeed, if rich enough (as Succession's Roys are), on the wider world. Even a mild acquaintance with American politics confirms that, as does a simple reading of the Bible. But HBO's Succession certainly brings the point home - dramatically and painfully. 

So rich, in fact, are the Roys that their misadventures (while conforming to recognizable human misbehavior) seem to occupy a universe of their own. If their pointless verbal vulgarity singles them out and separates them from normal civil conversation, everything about them separates them from the human world they have so little in common with and relatively little contact with - except to damage.

Season 3 ended - as Succession's seasons tend to end - in disaster. After the Roy siblings somehow formed a loose alliance (the only kind these damaged and distorted people can form) to attempt a coup against their father, and failed fantastically (in part because of the corrupted characters of some on the family's periphery), the apparent setup for season 4 finds the characters again split into two camps. This time, Tom, Greg, Gerri, and absurd presidential candidate Connor are all apparently allied with Logan, while the three sad siblings are on the outs.

But, now, after three seasons of ups and downs, of different potential heirs moving at times closer to but in the end seemingly farther from the succession to their father, the final season which began last night promises the long delayed final resolution of this ultra-prolonged family succession crisis. After three seasons of Logan repeatedly playing one son or daughter against the others - and the siblings obligingly fighting among themselves for something like their father's (forever unattainable) love - we seem primed to expect that some alternative version of the succession that was originally set to occur in the first episode of the first season must now finally occur. Inevitably this gives this final season a certain suspense that the endlessly repeated power plays and back stabbings of the previous three seasons somehow lacked.

Of course, season 4 could end as it begins, with Logan still alive and his scheming children scrambling either to be loved by him or to replace him - or, better yet, both. But the dramatic arc suggests that somehow the succession will occur - it being an inescapable law of nature that no sovereign, no matter how absolute and despicable, can last forever. Even Logan appears at last to recognize this, his birthday being an occasion for anxiety about his inevitable end.

Like season 1, season 4's first episode opens with another Logan birthday party. This time, however, apart from Connor (whose campaign polling seems stuck at 1% and who is willing to throw away $100 million to stay at just 1%) the kids are not there. There are just the customary coteries of sycophantic hangers-on, who never really can completely replace the kids in Logan's kingdom. Even with the comic relief of cousin Greg's party date, Logan at his party seems supremely miserable. No billionaire party can compensate for his well earned, much deserved, devastating loneliness, that leaves him at the end alone with his greatest gift to the world, the series' analogue to Fox News.

Meanwhile, Kendall, Roman, and Shiv are ensconced somewhere else, still allied (sort of) against their father and apparently plotting a quirky media venture of their own. But what it is ultimately all about is getting back at their father. (and, for Shiv, getting back at Tom). And that is easily worth $10 billion to them.

In a family where everything is transactional (including Tom and Shiv's sad marriage), where family and marketplace have become indistinguishable, we ache for some relief from wealth and power's unremitting trauma. But how can a family so chronically corrupted by its own wealth and power find any such relief? Can it even seek it?

On HBO, capitalism has reenacted the wider world's traumatic drama long-ago so famously depicted by Karl Marx: "It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, or philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation."

75

In Being Mortal (Metropolitan books, 2014), Atul Gawande wrote "There's no escaping the tragedy of life, which is that we are all aging from the day we are born." Actually, when it comes to aging, I think the psalmist spoke even more starkly: The sum of our years is 70, or if we are strong 80, and most of them are toil and trouble, for they quickly pass and we vanish. (Psalm 90:10).

Well, I haven't quite vanished yet, but I am now fully halfway between 70 and 80. That's three-quarters of a century! (And what a century!) Meanwhile, the inevitable end is that much nearer, but how near no one knows! In any case, the point of living is not when one's life will end but how to live until then. Thus, when he turned 80, Pope Saint John XXIII gave thanks that he had "not yet entered upon helpless old age," even while recognizing being "on the threshold" of life's final phase, "in which restrictions and sacrifices await." That said, then four years into his papacy "with an immense program of work in front of me to be carried out before the eyes of the whole world, which is watching and waiting," he chose to identify with Saint Martin of Tours, of whom it was famously said, Nec mori timuerit, nec vivere recusarit ("he neither feared to die nor refused to live"). [Journal of a Soul, August 10 and 15, 1961].

Well, now, I am obviously not pope, and I have a much more modest program of work before me, which hardly anyone anywhere is watching. Even so, what better spirit in which to approach the joys and sorrows, the opportunities and diminishments of old age!

First of all, however, I give thanks on this most special day for the gift of life - a life like so many other lives perhaps not as well lived as it might have been but at the same time I b better lived than it might otherwise have been. Perhaps not every choice has been the best. Obviously not every opportunity has been taken fully advantage of. But the big picture has been gotten right enough, so that in life's inevitable mixture of gratitude and regret, the scale of life has been weighed ultimately more with the former over the latter, the more so the more this long life lasts.

Thus, I find myself increasingly attracted to this aspiration of the great 20th-century resourcement theologian Yves Congar: I entrust myself to the GRACE OF GOD: yes, to so gracious a mercy that, punished for our sins, we are not destroyed thanks to the Mercy of God. To live SOLELY BY GRACE, without any reassuring human support, that is the rule that I rely on. God does not deceive us, although his grace is often puzzling. [My Journal of the Council, August 1963]

Puzzling indeed! When I revisit the story of my life, its twists and turns, its catastrophic failures and thankful recoveries, merely puzzling may seem a most modest way to describe it all.

Puzzling still, as the pace slows, as I experience the increasing infirmities of age! According to his own account, Congar, at an even younger age than I am now, seems to have been in far worse physical condition - even while he accomplished so much more than I ever have or will. Congar's My Journal of the Council is replete with repeated references to his ailments, that make him sound so overwhelmed with pain and weakness that one wonders how he accomplished even half of what he did. His account warns me to resist the perennial temptation to turn in upon oneself (incurvatus in se, according to Augustine's memorable phrase), but instead to keep the focus beyond myself, and so to keep on going as far as I can push myself to go, to accomplish whatever may yet be in me to accomplish.

Physical ailments and increasing weakness will likely inevitably become one's steady companions in old age. But chronic illness and physical weakness only highlight the even greater stress of loneliness and isolation. Again, Congar captured the feeling well (when himself only 59), recalling King David's experience. I well understand David's need of Abishag: not for her fleshly presence, but for her presence itself. ... I am longing to be back in contact with men and women, with friends. The worst thing about old age has to be the isolation. [My Journal of the Council, November 3, 1963]

The only sensible alternative to secular, generational despair has to be a religious hope, what my moral theology professor in seminary used to like to call the primary Christian virtue. Hope, however, has its own challenges. However limited one's life experience may have been, by age 75 anyone has seen enough of life and the world for worry to overwhelm hope. It may be the most basic life challenge of all - at any age - to overwhelm worry with hope. Yet that is the great task of living - even at 75.

Mid-Lent

 

Today is the liturgical midpoint of Lent, Laetare Sunday, when the Church replaces her somber violet vestments with bright rose, adorns the altar with flowers, and allows for a greater use of the organ. These are external symbols of the joy that we are meant to feel as we prepare for the Easter feast. Laetare Sunday gets its name from the opening words of today’s traditional Introit: Laetare, Jerusalem (“Rejoice, Jerusalem”). Admittedly, given the virtual disappearance of the Introit and the other antiphons of the Roman Missal from most worshipers' ordinary Sunday experience, such traditional titles as Laetare Sunday have become increasingly somewhat obscure, if not completely meaningless to most people today.

At a time when the observance of Lent was much stricter, however, this mid-Lent moment of relaxation was much more valued. Thus, in 1216, Pope Innocent III said: On this Sunday, which marks the middle of lent, a measure of consoling relaxation is provided so that the faithful may not break down under the severe strain of Lenten fast but may continue to bear the restrictions with a refreshed and easier heart.

 Appropriately, today’s Roman station church is the Basilica of Santa Croce, “the Holy Cross in Jerusalem,” an early 4th-century basilica built around part of the Empress Saint Helena’s imperial palace in order to enshrine the relics (above all that of the True Cross) which she had brought back to Rome from Jerusalem. Originally, the floor of the basilica was covered with earth from Jerusalem. Thus, the church’s unique title, “the Holy Cross in Jerusalem.” The Jerusalem theme associated with this Sunday also accounts for another very venerable custom connected with this day, that of people returning home to visit (and bring flowers to) their “Mother Church” on this day. Especially in Britain and Ireland, this custom evolved into visiting (and bringing flowers to) one’s mother on this Sunday. Hence, its British title “Mothering Sunday,” an originally religious version of the now secular celebration of Mothers Day that annually threatens to take over the liturgy along with everything else.

The First Day of the World

Having one's birthday on one of the greatest feasts of the Christian year has always inevitably increased my interest in the Christian calendar and some of the unique concepts connected with the way some of the most important cosmic events have been dated. Obviously no one knows the exact date of the incarnation with any kind of certainty, but its celebration on March 25, the Annunciation of the Lord, has long been one of the high points of the Church's calendar. Whenever March 25 is also Good Friday (as happened most recently in 2016 but won't happen again until 2157), we are reminded that, at least since the 3rd century, March 25 was often thought to be both the anniversary of the Annunciation (and therefore of conception of Christ, the Incarnation of the Son of God as Son of Mary) and of the Crucifixion (because it seemed only appropriate that Christ's earthly life should have constituted a perfect circle with his dying on the same date as he had been conceived). Clearly that represents a kind of spiritual and symbolic thinking to which our ancient and medieval ancestors naturally gravitated, but which we spiritually and symbolically impoverished moderns inevitably find somewhat alien and incomprehensible. Hence, horrible ideas like a fixed date of Easter have acquired a currency in our rationalistic, modern world which they would never have had for our ancient and medieval ancestors.

In their mindset, it wasn't enough that March 25 frame Jesus' life and death from conception to cross. It also became in some calculations the symbolic "eighth day of creation," the beginning of eternity. In that case, of course, one could count back a week and identify each of the actual seven days of creation, starting with March 18, the first day when God's word Fiat lux separated the light from the darkness. While this was not the only scheme for calculating the date of creation (October competed with March in some alternative calculations), this one was very popular, so much so that some calendars identified March 18 as the first day of the world.

All this reminds us that time - earthly time, human time - has been sanctified by God's design and infinitely enriched in meaning by God's direct entry into our world and its time in the incarnation of his Son. In this ultimate sense, nothing is really random. Rather, the structures of the universe themselves reflect the Creator's purposes for his creatures. And we creatures, having been endowed with rational faculties, can exercise our human reason to discover in time God's purposes for us.

Image: Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam, The Sistine Chapel, 1612.

A Somber Anniversary

Twenty years ago this coming Sunday, on March 19, 2003, the United States launched an attack on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, upon the expiration of a March 17 U.S. ultimatum  to Saddam to leave the country. The Iraq War (as we now remember it) was unlike its short and successful 1991 predecessor ("Operation Desert Storm"). This war (officially named "Operation Iraqi Freedom") was destined to be long and demonstrably less successful. The war was undertaken after Iraq was declared to be in breach of a U.N. Security Council Resolution which prohibited "stockpiling and importing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).” But no such weapons were ever found. And, while Iraqi forces were overwhelmed quickly and Baghdad fell a mere five weeks after the invasion began, the U.S. quickly found itself involved in a long-term occupation, for which neither the military nor the American people were quite prepared. Whereas the 1991 war had been undertaken by - or at least with the support of - a significant coalition of countries, the 2003 war was, with some significant support from the U.K., nonetheless predominantly an American affair, and one which was widely unpopular outside the U.S.

Most Americans probably supported the war when it began in 2003. There was, however, some significant - and perhaps prescient - opposition. Barack Obama opposed the war, which could have killed his future political prospects. Instead, thanks to the war's ultimately disastrous outcome and widespread American disillusionment with the war, it proved an advantage against his primary opponent, Senator Hilary Clinton, who had of course, initially supported the war, as had most of the political elite. In the end, the Iraq War came to be seen as a folly of Vietnam-like proportions. It discredited the hitherto ascendant "neo-conservative" ideology. It discredited personally the "neocons" who had promoted it and unleashed an anti-interventionist, neo-isolationist spirit and movement, the problematic consequences of which are very much with us today. Much as the catastrophic economic failure of 2008 led to a "populist" reaction against the George W. Bush Administration and the Republican Establishment, that same Administration's failure in Iraq and the complicity of the bipartisan Foreign Policy Establishment led to a "populist," neo-isolationist reaction against globalism and alliances, one result of all of which was the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Another related result is the various contemporary manifestations of anti-interventionism in regard to Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine - which in different degrees and in varying ways among its different proponents can be characterized as anti-NATO, anti-Western, anti-democratic, pro-appeasement, and even pro-Russian.

Of course, the war did prove the neocons wrong and did warrant a rethinking of the directions American foreign policy had been taking in the post-Cold War and the post-9/11 era. I suppose that should be the outcome of any failed war. Vietnam immediately comes to mind. But there is also a kind of narrow historical monism that typically takes over these discussions. When I was in college, and Vietnam was the centerpiece of all foreign policy debates, there was always the Munich analogy to invoke in support of the American adventurism in Vietnam or to try to rebut if one was in opposition.  The thing about Munich, however, was that the analogy only worked within certain assumptions. Obviously, if the Sudetenland was indeed just part of Hitler's long-term plan to achieve military supremacy in Europe - as in retrospect, we can have no doubt that it was - then, of course, it was morally and politically wrong to "appease" Hitler at Munich. If, on the other hand, it was (as could be plausibly claimed at the time) just the final step in reuniting all the German-speaking peoples in one Reich, well then what was really the right response? Remember Chamberlain's unease about getting involved in a "quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing."

Like the Munich analogy, the Iraq War analogy is easily abused. Indeed, some right-wing pundits in their eagerness to appease Putin invoke it so constantly that one wonders if they even know that the U.S. have ever fought other wars, with other outcomes. Bush's Iraq misadventure is a cautionary tale against interventionism and "democracy-promotion" - just as Munich (now that we know beyond doubt what Hitler's purpose was) is a perpetually cautionary tale against appeasement of aggression. Both are true. Neither by itself answers every question.

But let there be no mistaking - regardless of what the appeasers proclaim - the Russian aggression represents a real threat not just to Ukraine but to all of Europe and what remains of western civilization. This is not a "quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing." And the contemporary neo-isolationists in our midst are for that reason in their own way exacerbating that threat.

P.S. One good thing to have come about as a result of the Iraq war was Generation Kill - a seven-part HBO miniseries that aired from July 13, 2008, to August 24, 2008. It was based on Evan Wright's 2004 book of the same name about his experience as an embedded reporter with the U.S. Marines 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the initial invasion and occupation of Baghdad. I believe it is still available on HBO On Demand. It remains well worth watching!

Photo: President George W. Bush prematurely proclaims "Mission Accomplished," May 1, 2003

Holy Oil Fit for a King

 

The earliest definite instance of a ritual anointing of a Christian monarch is generally thought to have been that of Pepin (the son of Charles Martel and the father of Charlemagne) in 752. Since then an anointing ritual, recalling the Old Testament anointing of Israel's kings, has been the religious centerpiece of the coronation rites of most Christian monarchs. While several such monarchs still reign in Europe today, only one kingdom continues to crown and anoint its monarch in a Christian religious service, a profound expression of the priestly and prophetic dimensions of human society and civil governance, in contrast to the pathological conceits of secularism. 

In preparation for the forthcoming May 6 coronation of Britain's King Charles III, the holy oil to be used on that occasion was consecrated recently in Jerusalem. The ritual preparation of the sacred coronation oil is described (with commentary by Jerusalem's Anglican Archbishop) in a YouTube video, which can be watched at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keawBNtB8BE.

The coronation oil was created from olives harvested from two groves on the Mount of Olives. According to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who will perform the anointing ritual on May 6 (as his predecessors have done for over one thousand years): “This demonstrates the deep historic link between the Coronation, the Bible and the Holy Land. From ancient kings through to the present day, monarchs have been anointed with oil from this sacred place. As we prepare to anoint The King and The Queen Consort, I pray that they would be guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit.”

The choice of Jerusalem as the place to bless the oil and the participation of Orthodox prelates presumably also has personal resonance for the new king, since his own grandmother lived as an  Orthodox nun and is buried in Jerusalem. (Born Princess Alice of Battenberg at Windsor Castle, she became by marriage Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark and thus the mother of the future Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Elizabeth II and so grandmother of King Charles III.)

The newly made coronation oil is based on a centuries-old formula, with some modern modifications. The oil used in 1953 to anoint Queen Elizabeth II included a mixture of orange, rose, cinnamon, musk and ambergris (whale) oils. The oil newly made for King Charles contains oils of sesame, rose, jasmine, cinnamon, neroli, benzoin, amber and orange blossom, but (unlike his mother's) is made without any animal ingredients. 

Still today, even in this symbolically impoverished era of widespread ritual minimalism and informality,  holy oil continues to play a central role in Christian liturgy. At the Holy Week Chrism Mass each year, Catholic Bishops bless the Oil of Catechumens, for the strengthening of those preparing for baptism, the Oil of the Sick, for the healing of those who are seriously ill, and the Sacred Chrism, oil mixed with perfume, for the anointing of the newly baptized, of those being confirmed, of those being ordained priests, of those being ordained bishops, and for the consecration of altars and churches. Thus, I myself have been solemnly anointed with the sacred chrism three times in my life, at my baptism, my confirmation, and my priestly ordination, and I was privileged to participate five years ago at the solemn dedication of Knoxville's new cathedral at which its altar and walls were anointed.

The word chrism connects the oil with Christ, the messiah anointed by the Holy Spirit. The use of chrism in the Church's rites celebrates the configuring of the one being anointed to Christ himself, in different dimensions and degrees in each instance. The anointing of a king - as Handel's glorious coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, so powerfully expresses - recalls the anointing of David and Solomon and the priestly and prophetic dimensions of this mundane earthly existence.

Photo: Queen Elizabeth II being prepared for her anointing at her coronation, June 2, 1953.

Three Years

It is now three years since the worldwide covid-19 pandemic began. On Monday, March 9, 2020, I had a regular doctor's appointment, at which I told my physician that my mother had died a few days before and that I was about to fly to California to celebrate her funeral. He advised me not to make the trip and to postpone the funeral. The next day, at our regular general priests' meeting in the diocese, I asked the Bishop his opinion, and he too told me to postpone. By the following Sunday, the obligation to assist at Sunday Mass had been lifted indefinitely, and soon enough (starting March 20) all public Masses were cancelled. This was a radical (if not altogether unprecedented) precaution as we struggled to respond to the global threat posed by the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. As I wrote at the time, this was a sacrifice which we were being called upon to make to reduce the spread of infection, because that is what it means to be a society and to care about the common good. Meanwhile, across the country, California had already shut down, and my mother's funeral was postponed indefinitely. Having cancelled my travel plans, I prepared to hunker down for the duration.

No one imagined then what that duration might be. When my doctor first advised postponing my trip, he suggested we postpone the funeral until after Memorial Day. My immediate reaction was "that long?" Little did any of us know what we were in for!

Like everyone else, I worried about catching this mysterious virus, getting seriously sick, and dying. Accordingly, I washed and sanitized my hands as often as feasible, wore gloves when pumping gas into my car, took advantage of the early morning "Senior" shopping hour at the local supermarket, and even left the mail out on the porch for several hours before opening it in order for the sun to kill any viruses that might be on it! 

Meanwhile, I was pastor of a parish and had to address the rapidly changing needs created by this crisis. I wrote a daily email to keep in touch with as many parishioners as possible and to encourage them to keep in touch with each other. As recommended, I offered Mass in the church with the doors closed and then opened the doors for a few hours to make the church accessible for private prayer. (Some came, but relatively few.) Soon enough, we were all commanded to start live-streaming Sunday Masses - something I had not the slightest idea how to do. We started very low-tech on Palm Sunday, streaming Mass on Facebook Live - just me at the altar and a parishioner recording me on my laptop. In time, with technical advice and help, we purchased a proper camera and hired someone to live-stream in a more user-friendly and technologically up-to-date way. By late May, when the church reopened for regular services, we also had a team in place to "sanitize" the pews after each Mass, had roped off suitably distant seating, and were enforcing (or trying to enforce) strict mask protocols.

All things considered, I guess we were successful. Sadly, some parishioners did catch the virus. Some died. May they rest in peace! But most of us were spared the worst and somehow emerged from the crisis still standing - if a bit battered emotionally. It was, however, a very challenging final 10 months until the end of my tenure as pastor. Even worse, it was an increasingly conflictual and divisive time as people quarreled over masks and the country as a whole became more polarized than ever. Since then, while the danger of disease may have diminished, the social divisions and affective polarization it produced have persisted.

I am no scientist. I have no idea which precautions worked and which were primarily theater. I am pretty sure that leaving the mail out on the porch for the sun to kill the virus was largely theater. Maybe, sanitizing the pews was primarily theater too. I'll still happily defend masks. (I still wear one religiously on the bus and in stores.) But, honestly, I don't know how effective masks actually are. When our regional Catholic school reopened in August 2020, they practiced strict mask protocols. They stayed open successfully with no cases of student-to-student transmission. So I am inclined to trust masks. But I really don't know for certain. Maybe masks were as much a symbol of social solidarity as they were a protection against the virus. Maybe that was enough to justify their use!

What, if anything have I/we learned from that horrendous experience? Not much, according to some, who are convinced that the U.S. is as unprepared for the next pandemic as it was for the last one. Certainly the politicized fights over vaccine and mask mandates suggest that we have hardly advanced at all toward greater social solidarity. If masking and other precautions were what we were being called upon to do because that is what it means to be a society and to care about the common good, then, I guess, the consequent conflicts and affective polarization proved how fragile our society is and how little we actually care about the common good.

It is sometimes suggested that we learned little as a society from the horrendous experience of the 1918 flu pandemic. So, perhaps, that is just the way we are.

More Important Even Than Family

After the scriptures, the most popular Christian literature in the Church’s early and formative centuries was the narratives of the martyrs – their passion and death recalling and, in a sense, reenacting the passion and death of Jesus himself. Often, a local community composed such accounts, in the form of often highly stylized, edifying narratives. In the case of today’s 3rd-century African martyrs, SS. Perpetual and Felicity, however, Perpetua herself wrote her own account of her imprisonment and her dialogue with her father.

Actually, six people – four men and two women - were martyred on this date in the year 203, but it is the story of the two women which made the most impression on the ancient Christian imagination. Perpetua was a married noblewoman in her early 20s, nursing an infant son, when she was arrested, along with a pregnant slave, Felicity. Both were catechumens at the time. In the narrative, Perpetua’s aristocratic father tried to persuade her to recant her Christian belief, but she defied family pressure and was baptized before being martyred.

In American Christianity today, there is a lot of emphasis on “family,” so much so that it may sometimes seem as if family is what Church and parish life are mainly all about. Under ordinary circumstances, of course, family is important. The story of SS. Perpetual and Felicity reminds us, however, that, whatever importance family relationships rightly have in our ordinary lives, our call to be disciples challenges all our ordinary loyalties, affections and relationships, even the most socially significant and emotionally fulfilling.

Homily on the Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent, the Commemoration of SS. Perpetua and Felicity, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, March 7, 2023.

Image: SS. Perpetua and Felicity, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC.

Thinking about "Working Class" Politics

 

A perennial theme of contemporary political punditry is whether and how the Democrats, having lost the votes of the “working class,” could conceivably regain it. Related to this is the debate about whether and how the Republican party, having acquired the votes of the “working class,” could conceivably become permanently the party of the “working class.” 

 

There are, of course, problems with the way this issue is typically formulated, the most problematic being how the “working class” is currently often defined. As Dylan Riley and Robert Brenner have recently argued in “Seven Theses on American Politics” (New Left Review, 138, November December 2022, pp. 5-27), “it is commonplace in the US today to equate the ‘non-college-educated’ with the ‘working class’.” But education does not equal resource ownership. That is, “the most highly educated worker, if she or he lacks assets, must enter into a wage relationship” and so “subordinate themselves to capital in order to gain a livelihood.”

 

Thus, the American “working class,” understood by Riley and Brenner as “those who do not own assets and therefore must subsist on wage income, make up between 68 and 80 per cent of all US households. But this class is profoundly split by education level, sector of economic activity and ‘race’.” The authors identify “credentialling” and “race” as key concepts defining divisions within this class, in which what they call “whiteness” or “nativeness” are “the BA of the non-college-educated,” while the BA is the “whiteness” or nativeness” of the college educated.

 

Obviously, any seriously competitive political party must appeal to at least some “working class” voters. And it is increasingly obvious which party appeals more to the credentialled wing of the U.S. “working class” and which increasingly successfully appeals to its non-credentialled (i.e., non-college-educated) wing. “As mass organizations, the two parties are therefore anchored in different parts of the working class: the Republicans in its less educated faction, and Democrats among the credentialled.”

 

Riley and Brenner quote Thomas Piketty’s observation: “If the Democratic Party has become the party of the highly educated, while the less educated have fled to the Republicans, it must be because the latter group believes that the policies backed by the Democrats increasingly fail to express their aspirations.” (More and more, I think we are seeing evidence of this in the voting patterns of, for example, some Asian and Latino voters. As the Democratic party has increasingly come to reflect the priorities of its wealthier, college-educated professionals, this upscale party has become less and less appealing to others, who in the past might have been more reliably Democratic voters – e.g., Asian and Latino voters more and more of whom since 2018 have supported Republicans.)

 

A key component of Riley and Brenner’s analysis is the transforming effect ton electoral politics of our current “persistently low- or no-growth environment,” called “secular stagnation,” in which “parties can no longer operate on the basis of programmes for growth.” In the past, political parties were able to appeal to “working class” voters by providing actual material gains (e.g., the Great Society), but this was possible because of sustained economic growth. Traditional “social-democratic politics,” Riley and Brenner remind us, is premised “on the prospect of economic growth. But the politics of the present period does not hold out even the hope of growth. It is a politics of zero-sum redistribution, primarily between different groups of workers.” The result is the two different coalitions we now have, representing our current two different “working class” strata: “MAGA politics which seeks to redistribute income away from non-white and immigrant workers, and multicultural neoliberalism, which seeks to redistribute income toward the highly educated.”

 

I have in the past commented on one form of this transformation away from traditional social-democratic politics in places like Spain. Unable to offer a traditional “socialist” progressive economic program, such parties fall back on the cultural components which are part of their ideological inheritance, which in a place like Spain means anti-clericalism and anti-Catholicism. Likewise, in the U.S. today each political party has fallen into its own distinctive form of grievance politics.

 

Those of us old enough to remember the post-war economic boom know that something other than the present impasse was once possible – and so, presumably, is still imaginable, although neither political party is presently capable of advocating, let alone achieving, it.

Listen - like Abraham

A modern pilgrim, who has just made it to the Church of the Transfiguration at the top of Mount Tabor after a high-speed taxi ride up the narrow mountain road might well echo Peter’s reaction to Jesus’ transfiguration, “Lord, it is good that we are here.”

Peter presumably had walked up the mountain, but the experience to which he was reacting was anything but pedestrian. For what Peter, James, and John were being treated to was nothing less than an experience of the glory of God, an awesome peek into another world, so to speak, a glimpse of Jesus’ divine nature as Son of God and his fulfillment of the Old Testament (represented on the mountain by Moses and Elijah).

No wonder Peter wanted to stay there as long as possible – even to erect three shrines there, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah – as if this were it, and he had finally reached where he ought to be. He didn’t understand that this was just the beginning – an invitation to join Jesus on his journey.

An ancient tradition dates the Transfiguration 40 days before the Crucifixion, which is one reason why, every year, this account is read early in Lent. In the actual narrative, however, the time sequence points back six days to Peter’s profession of faith and Jesus’ first prediction of his impending passion.  This suggests that the two events (in both of which Peter plays a prominent part) are connected. In both, there is the revelation of who Jesus ultimately is and reference forward to his impending death and resurrection. And, in both, Peter is the spokesman for the others, the one most intimately associated with Jesus and at the same time the one who seems somehow to miss much of the point Jesus was actually making.

Paralleling Peter is the very different figure of Abraham, who makes his first appearance on the world stage in today’s 1st reading, when suddenly God intervened in human history in a new way – singling out one specific individual (and through him one particular family and eventually one specially chosen nation) – to be his human partner in repairing the damage done by human sin and so become a blessing for the whole world.

Abraham is considered the common spiritual ancestor of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in all three of which Abraham is revered for his faith, that summoned him - at an age when most of us are already retired – to go forth to a new land. But Abraham’s assigned destination was vague. We call Abraham our father in faith; but his story also reveals what real faith really requires. Abraham’s faith was his response to the ambiguous and complicated events in his life in a way that fully recognized God’s presence and action in those ambiguous and complicated events. His faith meant total trust in and reliance on God through whatever changes might be required and whatever challenges might have to be met.

Change is always challenging, which is why wise people avoid change as much as possible. I often like to quote the 2nd Viscount Falkland’s (1610-1643) famous observation: "where it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change." Human history has more than confirmed the wisdom of that statement. Still, sometimes change is necessary, and therein lies the challenge – first to know when, and then to know how. It may mean abandoning the familiar for the frightening. It may mean something totally new. Or it may not. Sometimes, the most challenging change may be to undo bad decisions and recent choices in order to return to a lost or forgotten or abandoned older and wiser path.

We all talk at times about making necessary changes in our lives. Sometimes we may even mean it.  But we are just as likely to conclude that we have too much at stake to change course. Lent is our annual opportunity to let Abraham demonstrate the power of faith to overcome our cynicism, despair, defeatism, and spiritual inertia.

That this is possible is, of course, all because of Abraham’s greatest descendent, Jesus, who fulfilled in life and death his nation’s destiny and so made Abraham’s blessing fully available to the entire world.

Even so, our temptation will always be to do the opposite and to think (like Peter) that we are there already - without having to make the journey. But the same God who first called and challenged – and blessed – Abraham also continues to invite us, through Jesus, instructing us as he instructed Peter: "This is my beloved Son … listen to him."

Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, March 5, 2023.

Photo: Church of the Transfiguration Mount Tabor, Israel.

FDR's Fab Four

In Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made (St. Martin's Press, 2023), author Derek Leebaert proposes a fresh way of looking at FDR's eventful presidency, paralleling the president's particular personality and governing style with the stories of four unique people - presidential adviser Harry Hopkins, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes,  Labor SecretaryFrances Perkins, and Agriculture Secretary (and then Vice President) Henry Wallace - who formed a sort of privileged inner circle within FDR's Administration and who remained  key members of the Administration from the Depression-deep "First 100 Days" in 1933 through the whole of the New Deal and the Second World War until the president's death in April 1945. Leebaert credits FDR's complicated inner four with building the institutions and structures that implemented the New Deal and helped pave the path to victory in World War II.

Leebaert likes to lace his account with comparisons to today's Washington and the contemporary political scene. He highlights how differently the federal government operated at that time and the far greater importance cabinet members had almost a century ago. Just as their particular power reflected in part the way FDR chose to govern, the four occupied positions of prominence that they could not comparably occupy today. Theirs was a partnership particularly suited to its time - and hardly likely ever to be repeated.

There may not be that much new to learn about FDR himself or about the New Deal world he and his lieutenants made, but we learn a lot about the four of them - both in their individual lives and in their complex relationships with each other and with the President. Perhaps Leebaert's most distinctive contribution here is how he highlights how each of the four - not unlike their lonely and physically handicapped Boss - suffered from significant personal problems. Thus, for example, FDR's principal advisor, Harry Hopkins, was famously a sickly man much of the time. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, who had worked for FDR in NY before coming to Washington, had a husband with what today would be considered bi-polar disorder and later a mentally ill daughter as well, all of which put her in a position of financial as well as emotional stress. (The author also highlights the important role her Episcopalian faith played in sustaining her, a religious commitment she shared with Secretary and later Vice President Wallace.) The even by today's standards complicated and troubled marital and family lives of his advisers somehow complement the more famously complicated and troubled marital and family life of the President who hired them and depended on them until the end.

Loneliness in a world full of people is not a novel theme in telling the story of FDR. Leebaert wants us to appreciate how ubiquitous it was among those at the heart of FDR's people-filled circle. For Ickes, "loneliness was the isolating discovery of himself being solely right while everyone else was wrong." Perkins' "loneliness is apparent in the 'very, very few friends' she admitted to having, in her despondent marriage, and eventually in her estrangement from her troubled daughter." Wallace "felt deeply isolated and was seeking spiritual support. the intensity of this quest pushed away people who tried to get close to him." and loneliness shaped Hopkins "during his rise. Early on, his powers had gone unrecognized, and social work could only take him so far."

Despite their difficulties and deficiencies, Leebaert regards FDR's unique "team" of four as "the single most important to ever have shaped their country's history."  Their story, told here together in a uniquely captivating way, also helps us unlock retrospectively aspects of FDR's unprecedented success. "To succeed, [Roosevelt] needed to mask his many resentments and cruelties, while relying on a foursome of equally wounded lieutenants whose deep human vulnerabilities proved central to his pursuits."