Barça, Sí!

Barcelona - 2 Manchester United - 0


First year coach Pep Guardiola gets hoisted aloft by his players

The semi-finals against Chelsea were ugly, but apparently the final against Man U was stellar.

Barcelona gets the Triple done, winning La Liga, La Copa del Rey, and The European Champions League.

And in the highly anticipated showdown between the world's two best players, Lionel Messi outshone Cristiano Ronaldo, finally shutting up the naysayers by scoring a crucial goal against an English Premier League team.

That Was London Calling

Vignettes from our trip


Day 1 on the London tube, and the girls are suffering from a bit of jet lag. My niece is in the center, my oldest daughter on the far right. My second-oldest daughter (sort of cut off in the photo) is still awake on the left.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

These are some photos from our trip to London at the begining of May. Unfortunately, the quality of most of them is pretty bad, because they were taken on my cellphone. It was a brand-new new Pantech Breeze I was still getting familiar with. My battery ran out long before I expected it to as well, and I had no converter with me in order to recharge it. There are lots of things we saw that we got no photos of... My daughters had a digitial camera with them, of course, but they shoot what they want to shoot. Nevertheless, a few of their shots are in here as well.



That's Newfoundland at sunset, taken from the plane on our way over.



Just after arrival, navigating the Tube from Heathrow to Wimbledon at about 6:00 AM, shortly before the rush-hour crowd started coming on board.



The girls are united with their cousin and are liking their accomodations at Favre House, a Jesuit house that was empty at the time and was kindly made available to accomodate us and a few other guests to the ordination.



Where would we have been without the trusty and timely 93 bus to take us from Wimbledon Village down the the train station? The girls refused to board any bus that wasn't a double-decker, and who would blame them?



Purple shoelaces from the front row of the upper deck, looking out over the Wimbledon roundabout.



Yes, for the sake of the tourists, they still have the red telephone booths around... This was outside Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. I'm glad you can't see the nasty publications and flyers posted inside.



My brother-in-law Joe with Tom Jones (in wax). I took Joe's picture with Tom Jones because he can do an amazingly accurate impersonation of Jones in his rendition of It's Not Unusual.



Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey as seen from the Eye of London. It was a spectacularly warm and sunny day. We were very fortunate.



Looking out towards St. Paul's Cathedral (upper center) from the Eye of London. We did get to see St Paul's later on in our trip, a massive and impressive building. There were services finishing up at the time though, so we were not able to see it from underneath the dome.



My niece and my daughter M on the London Eye.



Looking down at one of the other capsules on the Eye of London.



The Eye of London as seen from Westminster Bridge.



M on the Westminster Bridge.



The Houses of Parliament, from the other side of the Thames.



The entrance to the Tower of London, with one of my fat fingers in the way.



The Tower Field(?), with catapults and other medieval instruments of mayhem being displayed.



An informative and very funny Yeoman running a tour inside the Tower. This is in front of the Bell Tower, where Sir Thomas More was held, among others. The girls were exhausted at this point and couldn't understand his thick cockney accent, so we wound up making our own way...



St Thomas's Tower.

See: St. Thomas's Tower and Traitors Gate

Further along Water Lane on the right is St Thomas's Tower standing above Traitors Gate. The tower was built by Henry III and was named after Sir Thomas Becket who had been Constable in 1162.



Traitor's Gate.

Traitors Gate was originally known as Water Gate, but was later changed when it was used as the landing for the Crown's enemies. All important prisoners entered the Tower through this gate. According to legend when Princess Elizabeth arrived on Palm Sunday 1554 she refused at first to land at the gate, angrily proclaiming that she was no traitor. A sharp shower of rain however, caused her to change her mind. Later when as Queen she visited the Tower she insisted on passing through Traitors Gate. "What was good enough for Elizabeth the Princess is good enough for Elizabeth the Queen", she is supposed to have told the Constable.



The changing of the guard, inside the Tower.



The girls have a photo taken with an accomodating yeoman.



The Tower Bridge, as seen from the Tower itself.



The girls at Waterloo Station. I took this photo because the name of the eatery was the same as the town we live in here in the US, but I messed up and chopped it off...



The organloft and stained glass window over the entrance to The Church of The Immaculate Conception.

The ordination of Charlie and the other new Jesuit deacons was at the Immaculate Conception Church in Mayfair.

From here:

After Catholic emancipation in 1829, when the position of Catholics in England became easier, a plan was conceived on a bold and imaginative scale for a permanent Jesuit church in London. It showed extraordinary vision and courage on the part of the Superior of the English Jesuits, Fr Randal Lythgoe, to have a church built to seat as many as 900 people.

In the 1840s , the Jesuits first began looking for a location for their London church, they found this site in a quiet back street. (The name derived from Hay Hill Farm which extended in the 18 th century from the present Hill Street eastward across Berkeley Square and beyond).

From 1849 until 1966 it was simply a Jesuit church, open to the public but not the centre of worship for a parish. Sacraments such as marriage and baptism could not be celebrated in the church and the reputation of Farm Street rested on the pulpit and the confessionals. It became famous for the work of many Jesuit priests whose guidance given to those seeking advice gently led many to embrace the Catholic faith.

Since 1966 the church has been at the heart of a parish in the centre of Mayfair. The Jesuit community here has always consisted of Priests and Brothers attached specifically to the church, working in other apostolates or in retirement. The Parish is more than a geographic one, attracting its congregation not only from all over London and its surrounds but visitors from all over the world.

This church was opened in 1849 and it was from the start a place of beauty. There have been changes in the adornment of the building and although it has expanded (through the addition of the side-altars and their chapels) the impact is much the same. Generous benefactors made it possible for Farm Street church to become a gracious and peaceful place in the 19th and 20th century.



Deacon Charles with his friends Michael and Dianne.

For me, one of the most enjoyable highlights of the trip was to become acquainted with two academic friends of Charlie's, Dianne Kirby and Michael Mahadeo of the University of Ulster in Belfast. Diane teaches American Studies and Michael is a lecturer in Health and Social Sciences. In addition to being scholars, Diane was a member of Ireland's Water Skiing Team, and Michael has taught and counseled inmates in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison. They stayed in the Favre House where we were staying. We spent many happy hours over dinner and drinks talking politics (theirs is quite far to the left), religion, history, culture and families. We were very glad to have met them and to have become fast friends.



The girls were dressed up a bit for this. Later we went shopping on Oxford and Regent Streets.



A crappy cellphone picture of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, taken from a bus. I just wanted to capture one of the massive lions, and so I did.

Another highlight of the trip was to meet and speak to Father Gerald O'Collins, SJ.

After the ordination, the Jesuits in Charlie's community made dinner for the visiting families, as well as breakfast the next morning. Father O'Collins, who is a reknowned theologian, known principally for his work in Christology, is in community with them. He's an immensely humble, kind, and sociable Australian, and we had a very interesting conversation about biblical scholarship, new books about St. Paul, and certain scholars on the scene such as John Dominic Crossan (he's not much of a fan) and Luke Timothy Johnson (he a big fan). It was interesting for me at least, but he truly seems to relish talking over these things with laypeople... I'm now on a Gerald O'Collins reading binge. :)

At any rate, it was humbling to have a theologian of his repute clearing my plates away, topping off my glass, and jumping up to help his brothers scrub the pots and pans in the kitchen. The Jesuits were extremely hospitable and patient with us, and we were very grateful for it.

We also heard the Jesuits say a beautiful Latin Mass (in the ordinary form) at the Sacred Heart Church in Wimbledon (see photos).



And finally, my niece C undergoes a beheading at The London Bridge Experience & London Tombs, a tourist trap near Waterloo Station. It was very cleverly sold to us, since we were actually heading to The London Dungeons, but the "Experience & Tombs" had an aggressive group of street performers who hijacked us. We were impressed by the work ethic, so we went along with it. Joe, especially so, since he's in sales.

Fifty

A brief reflection on turning the big 5-0 this week


"No, no Jimi... Here, let me help you with that... It goes like this..."

Who is that old guy with Jimi?? Good Lord, how did that happen?

That's me with Jimi Hendrix at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in London. I'd actually hoped to have a picture taken with the wax effigy of Pope Benedict, but they must have had him in storage somewhere... I had my confession all planned out, too.

Good ole' Jimi... Gone since 1970, he'll forever be known to us as 27 years old. As for me? Well, I needed a new passport for this last trip. My old passport photo was from 1984. Let me tell you, the last 25 years have not been especially kind on the visage. I wouldn't have recognized myself between the two. It was like looking at The Picture of Dorian Gray. :D

For many, many years I actually looked young for my age. Then my hair went gray rather quickly, and now I look my age or maybe even a little bit older. That middle-aged shift was tough to get used to. Most of the time I don't feel like I'm getting older, maybe because we still have a couple of kids under the age of 10, but then again, sometimes I do feel it too, like when I pass a large mirror or see a photo. I loathe being photographed now. Anne laughs at my foolish vanity, but you know what? She doesn't like having her photo taken either.

Such tail-end baby-boomers. I'm sure we'll be in the set of boomers who won't get any Social Security money or Medicaire because the front-enders will have tapped it all out.

It's a bit disconcerting to come to the realization that certain bodily systems seem to have genetically-determined expiration dates built into them. There once was a time when I had 20-15 vision. At around the age of 46 or 47, there was a day when I didn't need reading glasses, and the next day when I did. Just like that. All of a sudden. Immediately. That's just for starters... For example, I had to play in a father-son soccer game last year. Not that I needed to, but I was wondering if I would still be able to sprint flat-out, because quite frankly, it had been a number of years since I had even tried to run at full-speed. The good news was that I was still able to sprint. Sort of. In a way. That was gratifying. The bad news is that ever since, my right knee hurts when I climb stairs... Did I forget to mention that making a fool out of yourself trying to retain your aging jock-status is another one of those middle-aged syndromes?

My advice is, don't get old.

If you must, age like fine wine.

If you can't do that, take up drinking it.

Red wine, that is. You'll need the anti-oxidants.

Somebody pointed out a blog to me recently regarding a different topic, and I noticed that it also happened to have some enjoyable and extremely well-written essays on turning 50:

Turning 50, I: The Great Change

Turning 50, III: Youth Dies Hard. (Ask Dreams.)

Turning 50, VI: Nature Is Your Best Friend ... NOT.

Granted, they are written from a woman's perspective, but a lot could hold true regardless of gender.

By the way, Anne and I have a hot date for my birthday at the Museum of Fine Arts: Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice

Does Being Catholic Mean Always Having to Say You're Sorry?

Or for that matter, does being German? Criticize, sure, but criticize when appropriate

Pope John Paul II with Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau and Sheikh Taysir Tamimi at the Interfaith Gathering in Jerusalem in 2000. It was a disaster back then, and it was a disaster during Benedict's visit this year too.

"It's hard to imagine, but it's true that the Jews are not at the top of the agenda of everyone else in the world."
-- Rabbi Jacob Neusner, Professor of Jewish studies at Bard College, commenting on the recent criticism of Pope Benedict coming from various Jewish sources

This is about as Jewish-friendly a Catholic blog as you are likely to find anywhere.

I've posted early and often here about the danger of resurgent anti-semitism, spoken of my appreciation for Nostra Aetate, taken issue with the tendency of certain Christian teachers to make caricatures out of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness as they preach supersessionism, and I've welcomed the input of Jewish scholars as they've weighed in on the person of Jesus and on New Testament studies in general. I've been quick to raise criticism of the SSPX and the anti-semitism imbued within it, and when Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications on the four SSPX bishops, I chewed him out loudly over it.

In other words, I haven't been shy about criticizing popes or some of the legacies of my own Church vis-a-vis Judaism. Nevertheless, I find that some of the criticism being directed at Pope Benedict after his recent remarks at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Center to be unfair and unsettling.

For example, he's been criticized for the "coldness" of his delivery and for saying that the victims were "killed" instead of "murdered." For saying that "millions" died instead of "six million," and so forth...

Well... he is what he is. It's true... for someone who was at least nominally a member of the Hitler Youth and the Wehrmacht, yes, you'd think he'd show a bit more sensitivity about these matters. We all know that John Paul did this sort of thing better than he does, and quite frankly, John Paul already did it on behalf of the Catholic Church.

Rabbi Neusner is right. Benedict cares about our relationship with Jews to be sure, but it's not at the top of his agenda. The crumbling Church is his main concern, as effective or ineffective as his own approach to that problem may be.

I hate to say it, but it seems that for some things it's just not possible to apologize enough. Just watching the sexual abuse scandal unfold in my own diocese, for example, I've seen that there are cases where no matter what gets said or done (and there is still more to be done, admittedly), it will never be enough. There are some people so wounded by it that no amount of apology will ever be enough. They wouldn't be satisfied unless the Catholic Church simply ceased to exist, and perhaps not even then. I'm afraid I have to conclude that the Holocaust has had this effect on some people as well.

Time magazine had a pretty interesting article called Pope Benedict on the Question of Judaism, and while I agree heartily with these remarks and find much merit in them...

Concern about the muddiness of Benedict's message first surfaced when he visited Auschwitz in 2006. Those attending the event were moved by his obvious emotion at the former death camp. But his address that day was marked by some highly peculiar ellipses. He failed to mention anti-Semitism, instead contending that "ultimately" the Nazis' motive in killing Jews was to "tear up the taproot of the Christian faith." And although he claimed to speak as a "son of the German people," Benedict seemed to downplay any ordinary-German implication in the Holocaust. Instead, he placed blame on a "ring of criminals [who] rose to power by false promises ... through terror ... with the result that our people was used and abused as an instrument of their thirst for destruction and power."

Both assertions are highly suspect. Although the German people as a group were not guilty of mass murder, neither were they innocent dupes throughout the process. And the idea that Hitler killed 6 million Jews to get at Christianity approaches the perverse. When Jewish groups complained, Benedict devoted a general audience to condemning anti-Semitism--although he revisited neither his church's nor his homeland's role in the Holocaust...

As (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel made clear, Germans have a special obligation. "We don't want [history] to repeat itself," as papal adviser Walter Kasper says. The Holocaust also remains an affront to the self-understanding of Christians, and Western civilization as a whole. We learned the word genocide through the Jews. Since Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church has set the post-Shoah standard in acknowledging the absolute unacceptability of the Jewish loss. Without the Catholic Church's leadership on the issue, other Christian groups might not have followed.

Since papal conclaves have a cutoff age of 80 and tend to elect Popes from their own number, Benedict is likely to be the last Pontiff who can say, "We remember," and mean it literally. As the church's center of gravity moves southward, he may also be one of the last European Popes, and Jewish relations tend to be low on the radar of African and South American bishops. (One of the latter recently said the Jews own the media.) When Benedict is gone, says Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, "not only may Judaism be off the agenda--it may face opposition. There's a clumsiness to how Benedict has dealt with some of these issues, and we really hope he fixes them while he's still here. Because the next guy may not be fixing any of it."

...I'm still inclined to find appreciation in the following remarks as well:

From Michael Sean Winters:

I watched the Pope’s speech. I read it. The Pope does not wear his emotions on his sleeve, to be sure. But, the Pope grasped, perhaps in a way a 29 year old cannot, that before the enormity of evil that was the Shoah, silence is an appropriate emotional response. Silence is not, of course, an appropriate political response and the Pope made clear that we must speak out so that the world will never forget what happened. But, he is being criticized for not saying something "touching" as one columnist wrote. It is unfair...

I do not know what Pope Benedict felt when he went to Yad Vashem. His words, "I have come to stand in silence before this monument, erected to honor the memory of the millions of Jews killed in horrific tragedy of the Shoah" seemed to me excruciatingly appropriate. This Pope – who never tires of telling us Christians that our faith is about God and therefore about us, not the other way round – seemed to be saying, "My visit here is not about me. It is about the victims and their God." That may not play well in an age when our culture encourages vicarious emotional responses. But, it struck me as profoundly true.

From this week's Tablet editorial:

He applied gentle but effective pressure on Israel's coalition Government and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to wander too far from the road map defining the "two-state" peace process, which in the view of the Vatican, Washington and most of the rest of the world, offers the only real prospect of peace. Perhaps to neutralise his influence, voices inside Israel were quickly raised, criticising his stance particularly with reference to the Holocaust. If the Pope is not on their side, they would prefer to see him discredited.

But they failed, although the Israeli media gave wide coverage to the complaint from some Jewish figures that Pope Benedict had refused to apologise as a German for what his fellow countrymen did to the Jews 65 or more years ago, and as a Pope for the failings of his predecessor Pius XII to denounce those actions more forthrightly. There seemed to be a strange doctrine of collective guilt behind these complaints, and a suspicion of bad faith that will never be completely banished because it is irrational. In fact, fair-minded Jews were inclined to judge Pope Benedict by his actions and words now. He said all they wanted him to say: "May the names of these victims never perish! May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten! And may all people of goodwill remain vigilant in rooting out from the heart of man anything that could lead to tragedies such as this!"

A charge of anti-semitism or even aloofness towards Judaism and the Holocaust cannot justifiably be pinned on Benedict, in my view. He has flaws, don't get me wrong, but he's not going to apologize merely for being a Catholic or for being a German. Nor should he.

Off to Old Blighty

I'm heading to London for a few days. My brother-in-law is being ordained to the Jesuit deaconate over there. I'll be taking my two oldest teenage daughters with me. They're wonderful girls (bless their hearts), but it's not like they've been going around recently earning the trip and a few days off from school. Arggh. Teenagers... In fact, if a couple of the boys had owned passports already, they may have bumped them. It should be great fun though.

Outside of passing through Heathrow a couple of times, I haven't spent much time in England. Back in 1985 I was passing back through Heathrow on my way home from Spain and my flight was cancelled. I spent a night in a hotel in Gatwick, but I was pretty much out of money so I just stayed in my room and watched Blade Runner on the telly.

Barcelona's Challenge

The UEFA Champions League Cup, El Clasico, La Liga...


Barça's Argentinian wizard, Lionel Messi

Last year I put up a post called Grown Men in Tears, about Manchester United's win over English Premier League rivals Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League Final.

As you may have noticed, through GolTV and the enthusiastic and contagious influence of my son, I've become somewhat of a fútbol fan... a fan of my son's favorite team in particular, FC Barcelona. Among others, of course...


Maestro of the Midfield, Xavi Hernández

This is a very hot team at the moment, but they have their work cut out for them. With their attacking front of Lionel Messi (probably the best player in the world right now), Thierry Henry (an aging but still potent legend, well-known from his days at Arsenal and the French national team), Samuel Eto'o (arguably the best player out of Africa), backed up by the brillant playmaking of midfielders Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta, as well as the rock solid defense of Carles Puyol, Daniel Alves, and keeper Victor Valdez, the Catalans have had a magical season.

Now, you can try to accuse me of being a front-runner, due to the fact that in some circles Barça are considered the New York Yankees of fútbol, full of deep pockets and high-priced superstar talent. Well, in all fairness, there are a few teams in every top European league that this accusation could be levelled against. In any case, I'm convinced that there really is something to Barcelona's philanthropic side and their motto "més que un club" ("more than a club"). For example, they feature Unicef on the front of their jerseys rather than the usual corporate sponsors such as AIG, Bwin, T-Home Mobile, Siemens, Fly Emirates, Samsung, etc, etc...

Besides, they haven't won anything yet. Speaking of the New York Yankees of fútbol, give the teams in England's Barclay's Premier League their due. They feature three out of the last four teams left in the UEFA Champions League Cup race - Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal. Barcelona is the only continental contender, representing Spain's La Liga. Man U knocked Barça out in the semifinals last year and went on to win the championship.

Barcelona is currently ahead in their own home league, La Liga, a race which they looked like they would easily run away with early in the season. Their archrivals and defending La Liga champions Real Madrid were lagging behind, but ever since Real switched coaches at mid-season, they have been winning steadily and inexorably, picking up ground and are hanging only a couple of games back now. The two team have a showdown coming up ("El Clasico") at Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu, sandwiched in between Barcelona's semifinal matches against a packed and dangerous Chelsea squad.

So here's the challenge Barça has ahead of them:

Tue. 4/28 Barcelona v Chelsea at Camp Nou - UEFA Champions League Semifinal

Sun. 5/3 Barcelona v Real Madrid at Santiago Bernabeu - La Liga (El Clasico)

Wed. 5/6 Barcelona V Chelsea at Stamford Bridge - UEFA Champions League Semifinal

They're going to need some luck and some fresh legs to make it through to the finals.

Here's the thing... I'm going to be in London during the first week of May. I'll have to keep my mouth shut. It would be bad enough if Chelsea supporters heard an uneducated Yank like me supporting another English squad like Everton, Tottenham Spur, or Aston Villa, let alone a team from Catalonia. Best keep my rooting interests to myself.

Rabid Fox

On the tentative blog I noted the other day that Fox News is Out of Control. Glenn Beck in particular.

Fox News, the creation of a foreigner, by the way, infuriated that the public did not follow its lead in the last presidential election, has apparently presumed to take upon itself the mandate to identify all things that must be considered true-blue American while simultaneously abandoning all restraint in pursuing a scorched earth policy in opposition to the Obama administration. The Republican Party is unravelling and Fox is leading the way in its spiralling descent into lunacy. Even those of us who've been somewhat disappointed in some of Obama's early moves can't head back in this direction.

Meanwhile, there are those on the left who simply chortle about those on the right missing the double-entendre embarassingly present in regard to the right's own recent Fox-inspired tax protests and "teabagging." Just as an aside... where would we be without the likes of Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary to keep us all informed that there are actual terms for just about every damned thing that people can do? Is it really necessary? Maybe. In a pornified culture, I guess everything has to be indexed and searchable. Like I said over at William's, I might be getting too old for blogging. Time has passed me by. I remember when we would have simply called that kind of carrying-on "foreplay" or just "fooling around." Then again, our grandparents would probably have been horrified and called it something else, but that's a different story... At any rate, the left and the moderates should take Fox's direction a bit more seriously, I think. We're really moving into pretty scary territory in terms of where our public discourse is heading. Is it overly-dramatic to say that we're starting to behave in ways that countries who eventually succumb to civil wars behave?

The Huffington Post isn't shy about wading into these battles, and the right might say that they engage in the exact same behavior, but nevertheless I thought these observations were pretty much on the mark as far as a critique of Fox is concerned. Dead-on accurate commentary or a failure to recognize a plank in one's own eye? Extended exceprts:

So, to sum up:

1. People who make far less than 250K per year, whose tax rates will be cut, spent Wednesday out in public demanding that Obama stop increasing their taxes. They proudly marched and defiantly yelled and etc., etc., insisting with waved signs and shaken fists on their opposition to something that is not the case. They have made it their business to prevent something from happening that was never going to happen in the first place--and they mean it!

2. These same people, whose economic and physical well-being are a matter of supreme indifference to the richest families in America, have been persuaded to insist on policies that will only benefit the richest families in America. There is a term for these people, and it isn't "right-wing" or "conservative" or "patriotic" or even "Republicans." The term is "sucker." These people are suckers. They have been tricked and manipulated into working against their own interests and for the interests of people who could literally not care less about them. Their patron saint isn't Barry Goldwater or Thomas Paine or Ronald Reagan or Jesus H. Christ. It's P.T. Barnum.

3. People who would be forced into bankruptcy by an attack of appendicitis, who have no idea what "socialism" is or how it differs from "communism" or "fascism," were to be seen Wednesday out in force, self-righteously pissed off and calling Obama a socialist, a communist, and a fascist, often interchangeably. And what are their ideas about how to deal with the worst economic crisis in eighty years? "Let them go bankrupt!" Ignorance and indignation: it doesn't get any more American than that...

4. Glenn Beck--a prancing, sobbing, gibbering buffoon who will say literally anything to keep his audience's attention--has become the new spokesperson for the right. Yes, just when you thought Sean Hannity was, not only as bad as it got, but as bad as it could get, here comes the next level in televised right-wing demagoguery. Glenn Beck--whom Dickens himself would delete from a novel as being "too obvious"--is a star. As a consequence of this...

5. Rush Limbaugh has become the "de facto leader" of the right. Think about it--if you dare! Glenn Beck has accomplished the impossible. This is science fact, not science fiction: He's somehow managed to make the country's most famous sex-tourist drug-addict saloon-loudmouth hate-mongering hypocrite seem dignified and thoughtful. Glenn Beck has succeeded in bestowing gravitas on Rush Limbaugh. Still, maybe we shouldn't be surprised. When the spotlight is grabbed by the dancing monkey, the rhinoceros in the background starts to look downright serious and thoughtful.

6. Fox News, a factory of propaganda and lies on the best of days, has decided "the hell with it" and become an outright partisan fomenter of "revolution." While formerly (as a study showed during the Bush years), watching Fox News actually made one stupider, now watching it (as a follow-up will surely prove) makes one insane. During Bush, Fox News merely promulgated falsehoods. Now, during Obama, its function is to corrode its viewers' very understanding of reality itself...

7. The devolution of the Republican Party (for which Fox News serves as Pravda) proceeds apace. The GOP, fifty years ago the Cotillion Party, is now the Toga Party Party. Newt Gingrich--hippie-dippy marital history, ethics charges and all--is newly converted to Catholicism and plotting his return. (Who said there are no third--or is it fourth?--acts in American lives?) The governor of Texas threatens to secede. (Memo to Gov. Perry: Here's your Stetson; what's your hurry? Just leave us Austin as your going-away present to us.)

This is not "the loyal opposition." This is Animal House...

What does it all mean? I'm asking, reader. Is this widespread madness fun? Is it business and politics as usual? Should we derive from it nothing more than good old fashioned schadenfreude, and just pass the popcorn while watching the people who created and supported the catastrophes of the past eight years as they now wallow in their impotence and irrelevance?

Or is all this manipulated, phony "grass-roots" outrage fated to lead to some serious danger to innocent people?

The anger and fear of these people are real and, probably in most cases, justified, however much they misidentify their causes. That's what the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Becks depend on exploiting in order to make themselves rich and famous. But this entire cycle (rage; exploitation; more rage) seems to me worse than usual, as does its manipulation by the wealthy and their servants.

Is it? Or is all this just more publicized than it used to be? Doesn't publicizing it make it grow, and therefore make it worse? Or is it a relatively minor, if lurid, sideshow?

Should I be worried, indifferent, or vastly amused? What does it all mean?

Reconsider, Baby

T-Bone Walker

Reconsider - T-Bone Walker

After taking a break over Easter week, I've done some reconsideration. Rather than retreating from the field, I think I'm going to keep posting here on RC-specific topics after all. Sorry about all the drama...

In the meantime, I'll be trying my hand at Wordpress too over at:

The Doge

Pascha

The Resurrection, by Andrea del Castagno (1447)

Walking Our Own Roads to Emmaus, or Walking Together

The Church as Pilgrim People of God, yet also the Body of Christ


Autumn, by Andy Newman

What is it you are debating as you walk? They halted, their faces full of gloom.
-- Luke 24:17

I don't like to think of myself as a pessimist by nature, but there aren't a lot of outward signs for hopefulness right now. For the Church, for the country, and for the planet, I think things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better.

Luke's Gospel has the story of two disciples on their way to Emmaus after the crucifixion, full of confusion, and carrying the heavy disappointment of dashed hopes. A stranger falls in step with them along the way, listens to their story (recounted with some irritation in the telling), and patiently opens their eyes to the meaning of the scriptures. It wasn't until the stranger stayed with them and broke bread with them in the eucharist that they recognized who had been walking with them all along. They had discerned the Body of Christ.

And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning (within us) while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?" So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, "The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!" Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
-- Luke 24: 30-35

As we make our way through our own lives, there is plenty of opportunity for us to feel abandoned, disappointed, and disillusioned. We can walk our own roads to Emmaus as solitary pilgrims, not discerning the Body and not seeing Christ walking beside us the whole time. I guess the same thing can apply to those times in our journeys when we are full of joy and contentment as well. We can walk alone, or we can recognize that we don't need to walk alone; that we can walk as one Body, not only with Christ, but with each other.

The late scripture scholar Fr. Raymond Brown S.S. wrote a terrific little book in 1984 called The Churches the Apostles Left Behind. Moving through the books of the New Testament, he created little portraits of each of the earliest Christian communities, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each.

St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians is very much a letter about the Church. A few posts ago, I wrote about how Lumen Gentium, reaching back into Old Testament imagery, had defined the Church as the "People of God." This was very important at the time, because up until then, the dominant motif and understanding of the Church had been solely that of the "Mystical Body of Christ." In Ephesians, the Church is described as "the spotless bride of Christ," which makes a reforming spirit difficult. It makes it seem as if no reform is possible or necessary. Brown, while thoroughly approving of the "People of God" designation, felt that at some point the notion of the "Body of Christ" would need to be recaptured and re-emphasized again too. He wrote this about the weaknesses and strengths of the ecclesiology of Ephesians:

A weakness in this ecclesiology concerns the possibility of reform. It is difficult to think of reforming a spotless bride. If the members of a body are being knit together in growth that comes from God and are being upbuilt in love, is there place for defective and cancerous growths, for sickness, and for corrective operations? Does the inherent triumphalism of Colossians/Ephesians allow for failure?

This basic difficulty about the thrust of Colossians/Ephesians may be brought home to Roman Catholics by reflections on Vatican II, a self-reform council where the Roman Church accomplished from within, by its own decision, some of what the Reformers had attempted from without, by protest.

In the years before the council the dominant biblical image of the church for Catholics had become the body of Christ. The encyclical on the Mystical Body by Pope Pius XII (1943) had the effect of challenging a purely canonical un­derstanding of the church in terms of jurisdiction. The Pope's pre­sentation was largely informed by the basic imagery of Colossians/Ephesians, even if the encyclical already, by its title with the word "mystical," went beyond the Bible.

If a poll on biblical church imagery had been taken among bishops entering the council, the "body of Christ" would surely have won first place in familiarity. But that is not the biblical imagery that emerged from the council. Dominating post-conciliar Roman Catholic ecclesiology is a biblical image that would rarely have been mentioned in preconciliar ser­mons, namely, the people of God.

Why?

An important but partial answer is found in the different thrusts of the body of Christ and the people of God. The awesome holiness of the body of Christ which is the spotless bride did not lend itself to self-reform. Indeed, Catholic resistance to the reforms of Vatican II was often based on the thesis that such changes implied previous church error or fault. And so, perhaps without adverting to the dynamism of the shift, the council facilitated reform by turning to the image of the people of God-a people that is unique because it is of God and yet may still consist of sinners; a pilgrim people on its way to the promised land, wandering at times and needing to be brought back from detours. This image was needed alongside the body of Christ in order to give expression to the tension in ecclesiology between holiness and the constant need for reform..

Lest I end this section on a negative note, I wish to reaffirm the tremendous power of the Colossians/Ephesians ecclesiology with its elements of holiness and love. No church can survive without giving it due emphasis. Inevitably, after their strong condemnation of the Roman Church, the Reformers applied the body of Christ imagery to the reformed churches that emerged from their protest. The six­teenth century churches were seen by their adherents as the true heirs to the title of the spotless bride that Christ had cleansed and sanctified. Within Roman Catholicism, if we have another decade of the dominance of the people of God imagery, the body of Christ mo­tif will need to re-emerge. After all, Israel was (and, for many, still is) the people of God. What is distinctive about the Christian church is the relationship to Christ and the special holiness that has flowed from that relationship.

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of God. May God enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope God's call holds for you, what rich glories God has promised the saints will inherit and how infinitely great is the power that God has exercised for us believers. This you can tell from the strength of God's power at work in Christ when God used it to raise him from the dead and to make him sit at God's right hand, in heaven, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come.

And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.
-- Ephesians 1:17-23

Bonus Armies

The Lesson From Two Depressions: Some People Matter More Than Others... Or at Least Their Bonuses Do...


A.I.G. plans to let their $78 million sponsorship of Manchester United, which includes jersey-naming rights, expire in 2010.

First, let me stipulate that I actually received a bonus from my employer this year. That's really saying something, because not many people did.

I concede that it may have been obnoxious for me to have gotten a bonus when some other people on my team were being laid off, but that's the way corporations work these days. They operate on Darwinian principles that let the devil take the hindmost. Those already being rewarded the most get rewarded with more, and those appreciated the least get shown the door. If I stick with them, though, it's only a matter of time before they eventually whack me too. There are fewer and fewer people left on the rungs of the ladder below me to get devoured.

In any case, my employer still made money last year, and they didn't take any TARP money from the federal government. I'm sure I don't have to remind everyone what's been going on this week with insurance giant A.I.G.

AIG has received $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts and in the fourth quarter of 2008 posted a loss of $61.7 billion, the greatest ever for any corporation. Despite this, AIG announced that they were paying out $165 million in executive bonuses out of taxpayer funds. Total bonuses for the financial unit could reach $450 million and bonuses for the entire company could reach $1.2 billion. This quickly led to what many label a "populist outrage."

Populist outrage... That may be putting it very mildy.



This is truly an amazing thing. After the first A.I.G. bailout, we all heard the stories about the executive junket to a California spa, which was even mentioned in the presidential debates. There have been at least two other additional A.I.G. bailouts, one of them coming after they lost nearly $62 billion in the 4th quarter of 2008, the worst quarterly loss ever reported by a corporation in the history of the world. Nevetheless, more reports trickle out about paid executive hunting trips to England and a trip to a resort in Phoenix. English bloodsports, eh? They ought to consider substituting some of those executives for the foxes.

I'm kidding, of course...

They say that Congress can't do anything about these bonuses because they are written into legal contracts. My understanding is that six of the recipients will be getting over $1 million, and that most of the 370 or so recipients are in the financial unit that actually tanked the company.

What I want to know is, where can I get in on a deal like that? I bet I could run a company into the ground just as well as one of these guys. Heck, I bet I could do it much faster and with more finality. Man, these executives with their parachutes and "pay-for-performance" deals that translate into "heads I win, tails you lose" are really something, aren't they? They sure take good care of each other. What kind of a contract allows you to pull a guaranteed bonus even when you post up the worst losses in corporate history? Would these bonuses have been paid out "contractually" if A.I.G. had actually gone out of business? As a taxpayer and an "owner" of A.I.G., I object to all this.

We've often heard this current economic crisis being compared to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Most commentators think it won't get that bad. I'm not so sure of that. Both collapses had more to do with the collapse of credit markets than with the collapse of the stock market. The credit markets are still a mess, despite all the money that has been poured into them... Furthermore, in the 1930s we still had the infrastructure for the world's strongest industrial economy, despite everything else. We still used to make things in this county back then. We also had a population that wasn't very affluent to begin with, and had a greater sense of solidarity. Most people were already used to dealing with hardship, and they knew how to stick together and help each other out.

Speaking of the bonuses and of the 1930s reminds me of...

The Bonus Army, 1932

After World War I, the federal government promised returning veterans that a grateful nation would pay $1,000 bonuses to their families, either in 1945, or upon the death of the veteran in question.

By 1932, the Depression had reached its greatest depths, and desperate WWI vets started asking the government to pay out those bonuses now rather than later. Congressman Wright Patman of Texas introduced a bill to Congress to that effect. In the meantime, vets started pouring into Washington DC in order to let their voices be heard. They set up a sort of squatters' village encampment near the Capitol.

The bill passed the House but was defeated in the Senate. The "Bonus Army" refused to pack up and leave. A nervous Herbert Hoover began to fear a potential revolution. He wanted the Bonus Army dispersed... In one of this country's most shameful episodes, the Army chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur, donned his decorated uniform and showed up on horseback, leading his troops to push the veterans out by bayonet-point and to burn the shacks and tents in the encampment.



The late David Halberstam took up the story in his book The Coldest Winter:

At a meeting with top civilian and military advisors, including MacArthur, the Bonus Army leaders asked for permission, if the Army were to enter their little encampment, to march out in proper formation and with some measure of dignity. "Yes, my friend, of course!" MacArthur answered...

The orders to end the protest came down from Hoover himself. Dwight D. Eisenhower (MacArthur's aide), not wanting the Army too closely associated with what was sure to be, even if carried out skillfully, an odious political act, tried to keep MacArthur somewhat in the background...

Eisenhower was appalled when he realized that MacArthur intended to show up on location to lead the forces of suppression personally. Both he and MacArthur had arrived at their offices that morning in civvies. MacArthur promptly sent Eisenhower home to get his uniform and dispatched his own orderly to his quarters to get his - the one with all the decorations. Eisenhower argued valiantly that this would be a mistake, that a terrible stench would arise from it ("I told that dumb son of a bitch he had no business going down there. I told him it was no place for a chief of staff," he later said). The chief of staff, who often spoke of himself in the third person, replied, "MacArthur has decided to go into active command in the field." Then he added, "Incipient revolution is in the air." Eisenhower suggested that if both of them had to visit the scene, they should at least do so out of uniform. MacArthur vetoed the suggestion.

So off they went in full uniform to meet the Bonus army. Their orders from the secretary of the Army were quite specific. Hoover wanted the marchers tamed, but he wanted no riot. The suppression of the protest should be as restrained as possible. The Army troops were not to cross the river or go near the largest encampment of veterans, on the other side of the river. Eisenhower later recounted how he had told MacArthur that there was a messenger there with specific orders from the president. "I don't want to hear them and I don't want to see them. Get him away," MacArthur answered. He had decided that if he did not receive them, there would be no need to act on them, and thus no limits set to his movements. The river would be crossed, the encampment destroyed...

It was a devastating political moment for Hoover...

For millions of ordinary Americans, who in hard times sympathized with the marchers, it was a defining moment; MacArthur became forever in their minds the kind of military man who abused the rights of ordinary people, a man who was never to be trusted politically and was too militaristic...

He had made himself, however, the favorite general of a formidable, increasingly frustrated constituency that resented almost every initiative taken during the New Deal.

This was three months before the 1932 elections. Hoover was finished.

What do these bonus stories have to do with each other? In the midst of both these crises we can see that some people just seem to matter more than others. The government in 1932 wasn't able to deliver a bonus to alleviate the suffering of veterans, and it appears that the government in 2009 may not be able to stop the bonuses of the wealthy and powerful while others suffer as a result of their decisions.

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2009

Keep the Cease-Fire... Preserve the Peace

Mark Knopfler's Irish Boy. Theme music from the movie Cal




FOIS ANAMA

O 's tus a Chriosd a cheannaich an t-anam--
Ri linn dioladh na beatha,
Ri linn bruchdadh na falluis,
Ri linn iobar na creadha,
Ri linn dortadh na fala,
Ri linn cothrom na meidhe,
Ri linn sgathadh na h-anal,
Ri linn tabhar na breithe,
Biodh a shith air do theannal fein;
Iosa Criosda Mhic Moire mine,
Biodh a shith air do theannal fein,
O Ios! air do theannal fein.

Is bitheadh Micheal geal caomh,
Ard righ nan aingeal naomh,
An cinnseal an anama ghaoil,
Ga dhion dh'an Triu barra-chaon,
O! dh'an Triu barra-chaon.

SOUL PEACE

Since Thou Christ it was who didst buy the soul--
At the time of yielding the life,
At the time of pouring the sweat,
At the time of offering the clay,
At the time of shedding the blood,
At the time of balancing the beam,
At the time of severing the breath,
At the time of delivering the judgment,
Be its peace upon Thine own ingathering;
Jesus Christ Son of gentle Mary,
Be its peace upon Thine own ingathering,
O Jesus! upon Thine own ingathering.

And may Michael white kindly,
High king of the holy angels,
Take possession of the beloved soul,
And shield it home to the Three of surpassing love,
Oh! to the Three of surpassing love.


...and not to be sacriligious, but speaking of shedding blood, pouring sweat, severing breath, taking possession and ingathering (in a good way)...

As of today, it appears as if the Irish Rugby Team (made up of players from both the North and South), leading the standings with a 4-0 record, are poised to win the Six Nations Championship this year, and their first Grand Slam in 61 years.

All they have to do is get past defending Six Nations champion (and current Grand Slam title-holders) Wales this Saturday.

Ireland eked out a 14-13 victory over England at Croke Park on February 28th. Ronan O'Gara had an off-day from his usually stellar kicking, but England off-set that with a breakdown in team discipline.

Here's BBC Sport highlights with commentary.

Irish Coach Declan Kidney speaks of the upcoming showdown with Wales in Say it: the Grand Slam is on the table, downplaying expectations:

“There’s handier ones than having to go to Cardiff and beat Wales,” he said with deliberate understatement. “I’ll be accused of mind games, but they are Grand Slam champions, they’re playing at home, they’re playing for the championship, they’re playing for the Triple Crown and they rested most of their players this week. Anything else?”

Come on Catholics, Get Your Act Together!

Stop all this internecine fighting and just put on the seamless garment

There is a divorce between Private Morality and Social Justice... The pious aren’t liberal and the liberal aren’t pious... People seldom have the same passion for: private morality and social justice, action and contemplation, poverty and family values...
-- Fr. Ron Rolheiser, The Holy Longing

The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
-- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming


A Stag at Sharkey's, by George Bellows (1909)

Why not? Why not try on the seamless garment? A consistent life ethic is what the Catholic Catechism teaches... What the hell is so hard about it? Why does it seem equally hard for both the left and the right to embrace?

As I've said here before, it seems to me like a lot of Americans let their faith be informed and shaped by their personal secular politics rather than having their politics shaped and informed by their faith... There are things about the latter that can be dangerous, to be sure, but the former is never a good thing. Years ago, when I was helping out with high school youth ministry in our parish, we did a segment on "How do you make decisions, as an American or as a Catholic?" They are not mutually exclusive by any means, but the team was pretty chagrined by what they heard from the students. Relativism and the embracing of situational ethics was alive and well. The only thing to be harshly judged was judgmentalism itself. The catch-phrase "I can't say that what's right for me is necessarily what's right for someone else" was heard early and often. It came from home. Their parents were pretty much the same. That's the laity...

Vatican I was held in 1870. It defined papal infallibility, but the council was abruptly ended when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. The Council Fathers never got around to writing a constitutional document on the Church itself. It's probably just as well... Formally defining the Church was left up to Vatican II, and that definition was presented in Lumen Gentium.

The order of the chapters is important. For years, most people inside and outside of the Church tended to think of it as a pyramid structure, with the pope, cardinals, and bishops at the top, followed by priests, sisters, and other religious, and with the laity at the bottom. Lumen Gentium flipped the pyramid over. The Church is defined as a mystery and as the "People of God" first. The chapters on the ecclesiastical offices comes after. This was not accidental. We all are called to holiness and have equal status in the Church through our baptism.

Unfortunately, we've seen that the chasm between the hierarchy and the laity is growing wider and wider instead, and out of fear, the hierarchy has tried to "flip" the pyramid back over again. The hierarchy has a legitimate teaching function, that is certainly true, which is why they need to be careful not to squander their moral authority foolishly. They need to have good pastoral judgment, and speak up for the dignity of life without laying heavy burdens on our shoulders that they're not willing to carry themselves.

There has been a lot written and said lately about the hierarchy's most recent blundering miscues, such as the lifting of the excommunications on the SSPX bishops, and the controversies around Gerhard Wagner in Austria and Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho in Brazil. It's important not to squander moral authority, because there is much accumulated wisdom in Church teaching that desperately needs to be heard today. The prophetic teaching of the Church needs to be heard today especially on issues like social justice for the poor, and on the dangerously resurgent spectre of eugenics.

Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna has been very bold and prominent in speaking out on these curial and hierarchical mistakes. Recently he published a letter called "Word of Comfort and Encouragement" to the priests and church employees in his diocese, stating:

I can imagine that many of you don't feel too good at the moment. Neither do I... Once again we are confronted with occurrences that cause grief and indignation. They make us shake our heads and seem incomprehensible. And once again the Church has been made to look stupid and so have we. And again we ask, ‘Is this really necessary? Have we deserved this? Are we to be spared nothing?'

At a time when the Church should really be dealing with the crucial worries that face people today such as the financial crisis and unemployment, it is confronted with debates about a small group of people who refuse to recognise the Second Vatican Council, or at least crucial parts of it, who think the Pope and the Church are on the wrong path and who consider themselves as the true Catholic Church. And on top of that we are now faced with the uproar concerning the new auxiliary in Linz. This is all a bit much and can give rise to a feeling of hopelessness...

Now, as to this whole SSPX thing in particular... Hardly anyone I speak to has ever heard of these people, yet the Catholic blogosphere would lead you to believe that the SSPX and the Tridentine Mass are the only things that matter out there. I tried taking a stab at offering an explanation as to why the Pope reached out to this group, but this strange solicitous attitude towards them still seems odd nonetheless.

Here's something for liberals to consider in that vein... It's a sacramental church. Popes and cardinals and bishops say Mass. They dispense sacraments. They notice who shows up looking for them. To them, that's the pulse of where the Church lives... The laity in Germany and France and Austria and other European countries who are so upset about this SSPX decision need to consider this:

If they had been showing up to Mass every week, this ridiculous overture to the SSPX would have never taken place.

The SSPX would have been forgotten long, long ago, except that for all of their other faults, they show up at Mass every week, if not daily. I've read that there are as many SSPX seminarians in France as there are diocesan seminarians. You almost can't blame the curia for wondering who the "committed Catholics" are under such circumstances.

It won't do for liberals (or progressives, if we prefer) to dismiss the "institutional church" and to sit things out when they feel disaffected. They need to stay engaged, and they need to step up and justify the faith that the Vatican II fathers put in them. They went out on a limb for the laity, claiming that the laity could be as holy as any saintly clerical superstar. The laity shouldn't let them down.

Is Fr Ron Rolheiser right? Is it true that the pious aren't liberal and the liberal aren't pious? Why should it be that way? Why is there so much cafeteria selection taking place on both sides? Why is Catholic blogdom so polarized? A lot of people in parishes used to feel the same way I do. Where have they all gone? Why do I feel like the Last of the Mohicans all the time?


He and the Huron were perilously close to the edge... Plate from Last of the Mohicans, by N.C. Wyeth (1919)

As someone who often feels like a lonely voice calling out in the wilderness, I was gratified to see this recent column by John Allen, Social ministers long for unified Catholic voice. Some excerpts:

I spent part of this week at what is arguably the most courageous annual event in Washington, D.C. -- or the most quixotic, depending upon your point of view. It’s the “Social Ministry Gathering” sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which brings together more than 500 Catholic leaders for a week of issue seminars and knocking on doors on Capitol Hill.

Here’s what makes the shindig unique: It pulls off the oil-and-water exercise of gathering pro-life and social justice activists under one roof, and pushes them to work together. Perhaps no other venue in this ultra-partisan town allows one to get an update about fighting the Freedom of Choice Act in one room, then stroll next door to hear about the dangers of global warming or why natural resources in developing nations aren’t used to help the poor. Even more remarkable, these are largely the same people, who share the same broad vision of defending human life and dignity across the board.

Auxiliary Bishop Martin Holley of Washington, D.C, an African-American prelate born in Florida, struck this tone at a Pro-Life Activities breakfast on Tuesday. He called upon “pro-life and peace and justice people” to build “a more integrated network,” comparing the pro-life cause and anti-slavery efforts in the 19th century by arguing that both promote “equal treatment under the law.” Holley also said that the church’s social message must “begin at the womb, but not end there.”

Holley told a powerful story from 1972, when he was a lanky teenager in the deep South, about being confronted by three pick-up trucks full of angry white men. One of them, he said, held a shotgun to his head while screaming racial hatred, and for a while it wasn’t clear he would escape without a beating … or worse. (Eventually the mob ran out of steam, and Holley and his little brother slipped away). Holley said that memory flooded back when he watched Barack Obama on election night. He ended up on his floor, he said, sobbing uncontrollably about what the result meant in light of the African-American experience in this country.

Yet in almost the same breath, Holley described his disappointment with Obama on the “life issues.” Though he didn’t quite spell it out, one could almost sense the division in Holley’s own heart -- his anguish at being unable to fully embrace this administration, which in many ways seems so full of promise, because of what he sees as its moral blindness on unborn life. Holley’s remarks seemed to capture much sentiment here: strong optimism about some aspects of the Obama presidency, alarm about others, and, in any event, longing for a more unified Catholic voice that could somehow bring both of these instincts together.

While that longing is hugely commendable, one should not be naïve about the cultural tide against which efforts such as the Social Ministry Gathering are swimming.
In that regard, here’s a reading recommendation: Journalist Bill Bishop’s recent book The Big Sort offers hard empirical data to illustrate what he sees as a thirty-year trend in American life towards “homophilia” -- which in this case has nothing to do with sex, but rather love of one’s own kind. Bishop shows that over the last three decades, Americans have retreated into ideologically-defined ghettoes -- both physical and virtual -- in which we have systematically walled ourselves off from people with whom we disagree.

A few factoids from the book:

In 1976, less than one-quarter of the American population lived in “landslide counties,” meaning counties in which the spread in the presidential vote was more than 20 percent one way or the other. By 2004, it was more than fifty percent, meaning that Americans are increasingly clustering near people who think like them.

In 1975, moderates made up forty percent of the House of Representatives; by 2005, that number had fallen to eight percent...

As Bishop observes, when people spend most of their time in like-minded company, a “law of group polarization” takes over... In 2006, Abramowitz found that 86 percent of Democrats now call themselves “liberal,” and 80 percent of Republicans say they’re “conservative,” suggesting that the moderate middle has all but vanished.

All this concerns the world of secular politics, but in many ways American Catholics have reproduced this trajectory within the church. Mutz’s research offers confirmation of the point; in surveys in the late 1990s, she found that the overwhelming majority of regular church-goers, including Catholics, say the people they meet at church are “like them” politically. Applied to Catholics, this means that pro-lifers and those whose concerns skew towards anti-poverty efforts or immigration reform rarely rub shoulders. More often, they’re socialized to see one another as members of different tribes, with alien customs and worldviews.

Purely in terms of Realpolitik, this laceration within the church means that Catholics speak with a divided voice. Theologically, the problem cuts even deeper. The church is supposed to be the sacrament of the unity of the human family, which is difficult to pull off when we’re clustered into competing factions.

When I trotted all this out during my talk at the Social Ministry Gathering, one young Catholic from the West Coast challenged me, arguing with great conviction that Americans are more unified now and that the 2008 elections marked a sea change in that regard. He also insisted that the same thing is true within the church. I’d very much like to believe that’s right, but my reading of both Bishop’s data and the recent experience of American Catholicism suggests that we’re dealing with long-term historical trends unlikely to be reversed in the flash of an eye.

In any event, I told the crowd in Washington, when it comes to building unity in a divided church, the trick is to hope that things have changed -- but to work as if they haven’t. Anyone looking for inspiration in that regard would do well to keep the Social Ministry Gathering in mind.