The all powerful totalitarian state in George Orwell’s novel 1984 uses the comforting, familial image of “Big Brother” to mask the ugly reality of its absolute control. Big Brother uses many tools (such as constant surveillance) to keep and exercise his power, but the most effective is language. By tightly controlling the language, Big Brother can control the way his subjects think. Just as the image of Big Brother himself is a fiction, words and phrases serve, not to convey meaning, but to hide real meanings in favor of whatever content the state chooses to give them.
Newspeak
This language that is intentionally designed to deceive rather than inform is called Newspeak. A character in the novel named Syme, a lexicologist, explains that, as Newspeak develops . . .
Ah, I see the Satan Club is in the news again. This time spreading light. . . . well, not light, exactly . . . but speading somethingin the Milwaukee area. Don’t be alarmed, though, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel assures us that, despite their evocative name, the group “does not believe in a supernatural figure equal or similar to Christian definitions of Satan – rather, according to the Washington Post, the Satanic Temple [sponsor of the Satan Club] “rejects all forms of supernaturalism” and instead promotes “scientific rationality.” Right. Which is why they call themselves after that eminent scientist, Satan.
I first heard about the Satan Club several years ago, when they were bringing their special kind of joy to Portland, Oregon. They’re still up to their old tricks, posing as an angel of light when, in truth, they are something very different. In honor of Satan Clubs everywhere I’m republishing my original post, called “One H*ll of an After School Club.”
There’s A New Club In Town
Here’s some happy news: the Nehalem Elementary School in Portland, Oregon, has approved a “Satan Club” for its young (i.e., pre-teen) students. The club is sponsored by a group going by the felicitous name of The Satanic Temple. Does that, or does it not, sound uplifting?
I don’t doubt that there are some people who do consider it good news that there will be a club upholding the Prince of Darkness as a role model for youngsters. In particular, some of a more secular bent may appreciate that this puts those of us in with, shall we say, more traditional religious views, in something of a bind. After all, aren’t we always carping about religious freedom, and complaining about efforts to exclude religious belief from the public square? Don’t we claim that government has no business deciding what is legitimate religion and what is not? Are we not, in fact, hypocrites if we try to prevent the satanists from sharing their enthusiasm for Lucifer with the boys and girls at Nehalem Elementary School?
Keeping The Satan In Satanism?
The answer is, I think, simpler than it might at first appear. We absolutely ought to oppose as strenuously as we can anything as poisonous as a “Satan Club” in schools, especially for pre-teen children, and no, there is nothing whatsoever hypocritical about it. Consider the following:
Charming illustration from “Educatin With Satan” website
The satanists themselves make it clear that they are not really a religion. For instance, The Satanic Temple is also trying to install an after school club in the Seattle, Washington area. The Seattle Times (story here) quotes Tarkus Claypool, campaign manager (um, “campaign manager”? Since when does a religion have a campaign manager?) for the group in that area, as saying: “We don’t worship a deity . . . We only see Satan as a metaphor for fighting religious tyranny and oppression.” This is a fairly common trope among Satanists, one you might have heard before. There was a similar quote in the original Fox News article about the Oregon Satan Club. That quote has since been removed, perhaps because the spokesperson in Portland also added that most satanists are really atheists, which tends to undercut even further their claim to religious status.
So, if the satanists don’t really believe in Satan, what is the purpose of their club? “Our curriculum is about teaching them logic, self-empowerment and reasoning”, according to Claypool, “The most Satanic thing about it is in the healthy snack — we have an apple.” Finn Rezz, speaking on behalf of the newly-approved Nehalem group in Oregon, adds that, in addition to “science and rational thinking”, the club will promote “benevolence and empathy for everybody.”
If only that were true. After all, if all they want to do is to promote rational thinking, why not a “Reason Club”? Why not a “Science and Empathy Club”? Those are perfectly legitimate viewpoints. Why not even an “Atheists Club”? However much we believers might dislike it, the same laws that allow Christian clubs on school grounds also protect the nonbelievers. The Satanic Temple has chosen a different route, however, and their choice of the Prince of Lies as their public persona tells us what they’re really about; it has nothing to do with reason or benevolence.
The Devil Is In The Details
To begin with, let’s talk about Satan. He has a track record: he’s been a public figure, so to speak, for millennia. If you were to go out on the street and ask people at random what the Devil represents, what responses will you get? Most people will, of course, answer “evil”, “sin”, “death”, “corruption”, etc. How many do you think will say “a metaphor for fighting religious oppression”? There may be a few, perhaps, but a very few indeed. No, Lucifer’s image has remained true what it is in Scripture, the source that introduced him to us. There we read:
He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. (1 John 3:8)
He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)
Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)
Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
Image from the “Educatin With Satan” website
How rational is it to hold up as a paragon of “reason” a figure who is the enemy of truth, a born liar who hides his true nature? How appropriate a personification of “empathy and benevolence” is someone known as a murderer who seeks to “devour” the unwary? My purpose here is not to make a Biblical argument against the Satan Club, I’m simply pointing out who and what its patron has always been known to be, and what he actually represents. One doesn’t need to believe in the truth of the Bible to recognize that Satan represents the exact opposite of what the Satan Club claims to promote.
“By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them”
In fact, their choice of the universally acknowledged personification of every evil as their public face brings to mind another applicable scripture passage: “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit.” (Matthew 7:16-17). Again, that’s just common sense, isn’t it? And what are the “fruits” the Satan club displays? Do the satanists act like people committed to reason, love, and kindness, and do their own self-explanations emphasize any positive message of their own . . . or are their fruits of a different kind? Let us look again at what they say about themselves. Seattle satanist Tarkus Claypool says of the Satan club, “It’s designed to be a counterpoint to the Good News program.” Portland Oregon’s Finn Rezz says that their Satan club “will be held on Wednesdays once a month at the same time as the Good News Club.” In fact, if we look at the FAQ page from the satanists’ “Educatin With Satan” website, we find that they really have more to say about this “Good News Club” than they do about their nominal patron demon, and certainly more than they do about reason, science, benevolence, and empathy put together. In several places they cite the Good News Club as their reason for being, and they even advise those who might wish to establish a Satan club (my bold):
Please keep in mind that The Satanic Temple is not interested in operating After School Satan Clubs in school districts that are not already hosting the Good News Club. However, The Satanic Temple ultimately intends to have After School Satan Clubs operating in every school district where the Good News Club is represented.
Good News: What’s Not To Like?
What are these Good News Clubs that so exercise the good people at the Satanic Temple? The Good News Clubs are a ministry of the Child Evangelism Fellowship. From CEF’s website they appear to adhere to a fairly traditional Evangelical Protestant understanding of Christianity. They describe the purpose of their Good News Clubs as follows:
Photo from the CEF website
Our ministry teaches morals and respect for others, helps build character, strengthens families, assists schools and encourages children. We frequently receive comments of support from school officials, bus drivers and parents which complement the positive change in the behavior of the boys and girls who attend Good News Clubs. Our mission is to serve the children, their parents, the school and the community.
They also give a succinct explanation of their methodology:
. . . trained teachers meet with groups of children in schools, homes, community centers, churches, apartment complexes, just about anywhere the children can easily and safely meet with their parent’s permission. Each week the teacher presents an exciting Bible lesson using colorful materials from CEF Press. This action-packed time also includes songs, Scripture memory, a missions story and review games or other activities focused on the lesson’s theme.
As with all CEF ministries, the purpose of Good News Club is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.
Here and in numerous other places they emphasize that they only meet children with their parents’ permission, and do not seek to supplant their family’s church. Also, while they are straightforward in proposing sin as something that infects everyone, at the same time they emphasize Christ’s saving love and forgiveness: “Now, because of what Jesus has done for you, you can have your sins forgiven. Read on to see how!”
J’Accuse!
Most fair-minded people, even if they take issue with the Child Evangelism Fellowship on some points of theology and ecclesiology, would have a hard time objecting to this program. Perhaps you won’t be surprised that the Satanic Temple doesn’t take a positive view. On their FAQ page they say:
[T]he twisted Evangelical teachings of The Good News Clubs “robs [sic] children of the innocence and enjoyment of childhood, replacing them with a negative self image, preoccupation with sin, fear of Hell, and aversion to critical thinking . . . ”
Forgive me for observing that this angry, accusatory smear seems neither rational nor objective, nor terribly benevolent or empathetic. In fact, it reminds me of nobody so much as the Satan Club’s standard bearer, of whom I observed in an earlier post (“‘Choice’ and The Father of Lies“):
For this reason he is called “the Devil”, from the Greek διάβολος(diabolos), which means “slanderer, perjurer, false accuser, and can also mean “deceiver, one who misleads”. It derives from the verb διαβάλλω(diaballo), whose original meaning is “drive through”, or destroy. Satan seeks to destroy us, eternally, by using falsehood and deception to separate us from God.
Rational thought and benevolence: Seattle area Satanic Temple members (Seattle Times photo)
Isn’t that just what the Satan club is about? They pose as “angels of light” with their talk of empathy and science, but it’s clear by their own words and deeds that their true agenda is to disparage and harass a particular Christian group, and separate Christian children from the religious beliefs of their families; the only plausible reason to choose as their public face Satan, the personification of mindless hatred, untruth, and evil from the Christian Scriptures, is to taunt and insult Christians; their stated policy is to form their clubs only where they can target the Evangelical Christian “Good News” clubs. Clearly, their purpose is not to promote a religion in which they assure us they don’t believe, and they manifestly don’t model the virtues they claim to advocate. They are in reality a hate group dedicated to denying Christian students the right to exercise their own right of free expression in their own clubs. Far from being hypocrites, we have solid legal and moral reasons to work to deny them access to public facilities.
. . . and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:32)
I’ll bet you’re tired of talking about COVID. I certainly am. The curious little virus (SARS-CoV-2) from Wuhan (or, more accurately, our reactions to it) has tyrannized not just conversation but public life for almost two years now, in a way that no other illness (or illness causing agent) has since the Spanish Flu a century ago. The HIV virus never achieved anything like the universal impact of COVID, not even back in the eighties when AIDS first burst on the scene and a young doctor named Anthony Fauci came to public prominence predicting that we were all at risk, and that we could look forward to millions of people dying of AIDS by the 1990s (forty years later, the official count stands at approximately 700,000).
The little tyrant: SARS-CoV-2 (publicdomainpictures.net)
I’ve addressed COVID a few times on this blog, but I’ve avoided getting into it too deeply. I try to avoid partisan politics here, and COVID is very, very (very) political. We live in a time, however, in which politics intrudes very deeply into our personal and spiritual life, so just as politics is unavoidable, so is COVID . . . or, more accurately, the public policies and practices predicated on COVID. Having said that, take heart, this discussion is not really about COVID, or about the vaccine mandate, they just provide the raw material. Today’s topic is truth.
The precipitating event for today’s discussion was Thursday’s U. S. Supreme Court decision striking down the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate in the guise of an OSHA regulation. I tend to think the Supreme Court did the right thing. But again, that’s not my argument here. Instead, I’d like to start with a remark I heard on Catholic radio this morning. A commenter observed that Catholics who base their criticisms of the vaccine mandate (or other public policies) on the concept of individual rights are taking the wrong approach: “rights” is a secular concept, Catholics ought instead to make “solidarity” their primary thrust.
There’s a lot that is true in that observation, but there’s enough that’s not quite right that I must, respectfully, disagree. The speaker is correct that the concept of individual rights in and for themselves has never been part of Catholic teaching. I could point out that the term “solidarity” doesn’t have much of a Catholic pedigree, either: it’s my impression that it doesn’t appear in Catholic teaching before the pontificate of St. John Paul II (I’m happy to accept correction if I’m wrong about that). Nonetheless, it is true that the idea behind the term has been a core concept in Catholic teaching since the beginning of the Church. It’s omnipresent in the Gospel: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40). So what’s is my objection to the comment?
Let’s start with rights. First of all, we need to make a distinction between arguments we use among other Catholics, other Christians, and non-believers out in the world. We invoke teaching documents and the established tradition of the Church along with the testimony of the Bible when we want to convince a fellow Catholic. Protestant Christians won’t be impressed by Catholic magisterial teaching, but they’ll listen to those arguments based on Scripture. Depending on their flavor of Protestantism, they may also be willing to look at the practice of the early Church, and maybe the first few ecumenical councils. Non-Christians or those whose orientation is largely secular won’t be swayed by any sort of religious arguments. That’s why the public arguments of the pro-life movement are generally based on natural law and concepts of right and wrong that are accessible to everyone regardless of belief, including atheists. Catholics who invoke the secular concept of rights in the case of COVID vaccine mandates are not arguing from Catholic theology, but are appealing to a concept shared by believers and non-believers alike in order to convince the largest number of people.
“I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:22) St. Paul Preaching on the Ruins, by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, 1640
Beyond that, it’s not quite true to say that Catholic teaching has no concept of rights, even if it doesn’t envision them in the same way the secular world does. Consider this passage from The Catechism of the Catholic Church (my bold):
Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. “He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.” (CCC 1782)
The Church, then, is very much in favor of our right to follow our conscience. Conscience, in fact, provides a good illustration of how the Catholic idea of rights and freedom differs from a more worldly view. God gives us good things so that we can use them for good ends: a free conscience, for instance, enables us “personally to make moral decisions.” We are certainly capable of making immoral decisions (and we all often do so, unfortunately), but such decisions are an abuse of our freedom, and inevitably bring bad consequences for ourselves and others. Rights, in the Catholic view, don’t exist just for ourselves alone, but to enable us to achieve higher ends.
So, where does the COVID vaccine mandate come into this discussion? Before I go any further, let me stipulate that I’m not judging (after all, who am I to judge?) anybody’s personal decision to take or not to take the available vaccines. The official statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (based on the 2008 CDC instructionDignitatis Personae, among other sources) assures us that, despite the use of cells from aborted embryonic humans in the production of the vaccines:
when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available . . . it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process. (Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines, 2)
To put the above quote in context, it’s important to take into account that the acceptability of a tainted vaccine is not just dependent on the availability (or not) of other vaccines. We need to consider the gravity of the illness we are seeking to avoid, and whether there are other means of avoidance or treatment. We need to weigh whether possible side effects of the vaccine outweigh potential benefits. If we decide to receive the tainted vaccine, we have “a duty to make known [our ]disagreement and to ask that [our] healthcare system make other types of vaccines available” (Dignitatis Personae 35). There are no hard and fast answers to these questions: everyone needs to evaluate them in the light of his or her own properly informed conscience. That’s why the CDC note goes on to say:
At the same time, practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary. In any case, from the ethical point of view,the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one’s own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good. (Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines, 5)
The idea of the common good brings us to St. John Paul’s concept of solidarity, to which it is closely connected. John Paul explains the concept as follows:
The exercise of solidarity within each society is valid when its members recognize one another as persons. Those who are more influential, because they have a greater share of goods and common services, should feel responsible for the weaker and be ready to share with them all they possess. Those who are weaker, for their part, in the same spirit of solidarity, should not adopt a purely passive attitude or one that is destructive of the social fabric, but, while claiming their legitimate rights, should do what they can for the good of all. The intermediate groups, in their turn, should not selfishly insist on their particular interests, but respect the interests of others. (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 39)
Pope St. John Paul II
There can be little doubt that any Christian response to the COVID situation, including the question of vaccination, should be informed by a sense of solidarity. The difficulty is, what specific actions should we take, or not take, “for the good of all”? In what way does taking a given vaccine benefit my neighbor? Does it really provide the promised protection? Do any benefits outweigh potential harms? Does the gravity of the threat require making the choice at all? Must my idea of appropriate solidarity in this situation necessarily be the same as someone else’s?
As is the case with conscience, we need to apply prudential judgment to determine what solidarity demands in a given circumstance, and my answer may not be the same as yours. As is the case with conscience, our prudential judgment needs to be informed, both by the moral teaching of the Church and by the actual facts on the ground. COVID and the newly developed vaccines have been so thoroughly politicized that it’s difficult to trust the information provided by public authorities, prominent medical spokespersons, and major media outlets. What are we to make of the fact, for instance, that even the head of CDC admits that the vaccines can’t prevent transmission of the virus, while the administration demands we all get vaccinated in order to prevent, yes, transmission of the virus? This is just one example of public pronouncements and policies in conflict with what appear to be objective facts.
So, yes, solidarity is an essential part of our response to questions of public policy, but true solidarity needs to be rooted in the truth. Pointless gestures that make us feel good about ourselves but do nothing to help our neighbor aren’t true solidarity. Giving public affirmation to a political narrative based on distortions, or even falsehoods, does not promote the common good. Feelings of solidarity not rooted in reality are mere sentiment, which can (and and so often has been) used by demagogues to manipulate the masses.
We can’t act in meaningful solidarity if we don’t know what solidarity really requires. We can’t properly exercise our consciences if we don’t know the actual facts. We can’t have any sort of healthy civil society, to say nothing of a properly functioning republic, without a healthy respect for reality. A society that builds on lies will sooner or later come under the sway of the Prince of Lies. Our starting point as Catholics in approaching questions of public policy must be to insist on a commitment to the truth.
Feature image top of page: St. Augustine Disputing WithFortunatus, by unknown Umbrian Master, c. 1510
One year ago I started this blog, Spes in Domino, in large part because I felt the need for independent voices, even small, insignificant voices like mine, to provide some alternative to the increasingly totalitarian dominance of tech giants such as Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Google. I had previously run two blogs on Blogger, but hadn’t done much with them for several years previously.
The alarming highhandedness and arrogance of the Tech Tyrants in 2020 convinced me that it was time to take up the standard of Catholic Bloggery once again – but not on Blogger, which, like many useful and innovative products available online, had been acquired (or stolen – ask Oracle about that) by the evil empire known as Google. I would start anew on the free platform WordPress.com, and avoid, if at all possible, using any other Google owned entities (such as YouTube).
I intend to publish an update and retrospective on the past year next week. If all goes well, I will have moved this blog from WordPress.com to my own platform by then (WordPress.com is better than feeding the Beast known as Google, but it’s not without its own issues). In the meanwhile, I’m reposting my inaugural post for Spes In Domino, a stirring manifesto entitled, “Forget the Tech Tyrants, Our Hope is in The Lord”:
Welcome to Spes in Domino (Hope in the Lord). This new blog grew out of my efforts to disengage from the giant communications companies that seem increasingly intent on squashing any voices that don’t submit to a certain secular and, increasingly, totalitarian social and political perspective (needless to say, traditional Christian belief and morality lie very much outside of that perspective). I found dropping the likes of Twitter and Facebook to be easy; untangling myself from the many tentacles of the behemoth known as Google is a more complicated task.
In my current job there’s not much I can do about the pervasiveness of Google: Gmail, Google Meet, Google Classroom, and a whole series of (admittedly convenient) other tools are furnished by my employer. Ending my personal entanglement with Google is another matter: it’s achievable, but time-consuming and tedious. I’ve begun the process of shifting my email traffic from Gmail to Protonmail, I’m moving documents from Google Drive to Zoho, and I’m looking for ways to replace other Google products as well. Among my Google connections are two Blogger blogs, now mostly moribund, except at Christmas time. Blogger was swallowed up by Google some years ago. As I’ve been looking over all my old blog posts while working to rescue them from the maw of Google, I’ve been inspired to resume the regular practice of bloggery. I’ve reflected on how important it is to keep independent voices in the public square – especially Catholic Christian voices. In addition to providing a sane perspective on our life here on Earth, I had always tried with my old blogs to share the immense, beautiful, and inspiring treasury of religious art and music we have inherited, much of which remains unknown to so many of us. I’m convinced that this remains a an essential mission.
Don’t trust in this guy
Sharing some of those treasures more widely, then, is one of the purposes of this blog (and part of the fun for me is learning about them and experiencing them myself). I also hope to discuss (charitably, if I can) events and ideas from a Catholic perspective. In addition, I will also be taking note of saint’s days, liturgical feasts, and other elements of Catholic life and Catholic culture as they suggest themselves to my distractible mind. Oh, and I promise to try not to get too caught up in the specifics of politics. Politics is like the horse in Psalm 33: “The war horse is vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save” (Psalm 33:17).
The Good News is that there’s someone who can save:
Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death, and keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and shield. Yea, our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let thy steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in thee. (Psalm 33: 18-22)
Our hope is not in politics, or programs, or policies, or in people . . . our hope is in The Lord: Spes in Domino est.
It’s a beautiful autumn day in New England, a clear, bright, warm (but not too warm) day such as this region has produced every October since before the first humans wandered across the Bering Land Bridge and meandered south. It was snowing when I started this blog nine months (and 111 posts) ago. I had mostly let my old Blogger blogs lapse because of changes in my life that made the pursuit of bloggery difficult, but in January I felt driven to pick up the, um, not pen . . . hmm, what does one pick up when starting a blog? Anyway, I felt driven to resume the practice of bloggery. Nine months, of course, is the length of time (more or less) that most of us spend in the womb, so this seems like a good enough time to look back and evaluate how things have developed.
Back in January there was much lamentation in the land to the effect that 2020 was The Worst Year Ever. I wasn’t quite sure it was the “worst year ever”, or even one of the worst, at least if we considered actual events: nothing came even close to the horrors or the war years 1914-1918 and 1939-1945; the coronavirus “pandemic” couldn’t hold a candle to the death and suffering caused by the Spanish Flu in 1918-1921, and all that was just considering the preceding century: every preceding century can boast years far worse than 2020.
No, the events of 2020 were not evil on an epochal scale . . . in and of themselves. At the same time, history had seemed to take an unsettling and ominous turn in the previous twelve months: the year was dreadful not so much for what actually happened as for revealing the rot that had been steadily growing beneath the surface, and for raising the specter of much worse to come. The rush to surrender freedoms both political and (even worse) religious at the onset of the nasty-but-not-chart-topping COVID 19 virus; the mayhem in our cities throughout the summer with the tacit, and sometimes not so tacit, indulgence of government officials and influential social entities; the sheer juvenile hysteria of much of the political class, and the shambles of a national election that at least appeared to be fraught with all manner of fraud and dishonesty: all these served to undermine whatever faith we might have had in the institutions that protect our lives, property, and freedoms.
Most frightening of all, perhaps, was the unmasking of the immense power wielded by large electronic communications behemoths, no longer restrained by any appearance of restraint or sense of fairness. How could we hope to reason freely with one another, as Americans have been wont to do, when giants like as Amazon, Twitter, and Google could shut out a major news organization such as the New York Post, shut down a rival social network as they did to Parler, and shut up even Donald J. Trump when he was still President of the United States? The dystopian nightmares in Brave New World and 1984 suddenly look less distant.
I determined that I needed to do something, however small, to counter the societal shamble toward Dystopia. In part, I would stop Feeding The Beast: I immediately dropped Twitter and Facebook, and committed myself to using Google as little as possible. I decided that, rather than reviving one of my old Google-owned Blogger blogs, I would use a different free platform that was not affiliated with any of the largest social media monsters (I eventually settled on WordPress.com). I had always seen my blogs as a way of preserving and sharing the treasures created by Christian culture over the millennia, so I would include, if possible, a sacred music post every Monday. I would not post any music from Google-owned YouTube, however. I have managed to find most of the musical clips I wanted on Vimeo, and in the case of those selections that weren’t already there, I’ve made my own videos and posted them to a free Vimeo account. I have also made a point of including as much sacred art as possible, always including the name of the work and the artist.
Woodrow Wilson, U.S. President 1913-1921
So far I’ve managed to keep it going, although in the last month or so my schedule has prevented me from maintaining my original goal of at least three posts a week (one music, one re-run from my old blogs, one all-new piece). Over that time, things out in The World have continued to become ever more interesting. The new U.S. administration has shown a taste for totalitarianism not seen at least since the Woodrow Wilson administration (if even then). Just one example: we now have dozens of ordinary citizens imprisoned indefinitely for the crime of trespassing on federal property in support of the wrong candidate. It is also now clear that leftist totalitarians here and around the world have been exploiting COVID as a handy excuse to seize and exercise ever greater power. The large media entities have enthusiastically joined in that effort, vigorously shutting down anyone who disagrees with the “official” narrative or who offers factual information about proven safe and effective COVID treatments other than the experimental gene therapy that the Powers That Be have decided to impose on everyone, including upon those who have already acquired natural immunity. The resulting Medico-Fascist regime differs little, at least in effect, from Mussolini’s ideal of “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”, except for the lack of a Duce at its head (the sad, confused old man in the White House hardly fits the bill).
The fashion for reactionary progressive totalitarianism has affected the Church as well, as we saw in last summer’s crackdown on the Traditional Latin Mass. In some places (particularly Latin America) some bishops have gone even further than the dictates of Traditionis Custodes to attack religious orders which use more traditional liturgy and any practices among the faithful (such as kneeling for Holy Communion) that so much as suggest that the Church existed before 1970.
Good Old Days or Bad Old Days? The Traditional Latin Mass
“The Mass of St. John Matha” by Juan Carreño de Miranda, 1666
That all sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? Ah, but there’s good news, and the good news for Catholic Christians is, well, the Good News (εὐαγγέλιον in Greek, god spell in Old English, from which we get our word Gospel). Scripture advises us:
Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help.
When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish.
Happy is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God
(psalm 146: 3-5)
No human being, and no human institution, will last: all will return to earth. “The Lord,” on the other hand, “will reign forever” (psalm 146: 10). We’re kidding ourselves, of course, if we think that means comfort and safety here and now. “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus says to Pontius Pilate (John 18:36). Our journey to that kingdom lies along a via dolorosa in this one: we can depend upon the powers of this world to save us no more than Jesus could rely on Pilate to save him from Calvary.
Now, while our Kingdom is in the next world, that doesn’t mean we can just let the powers of this world roll over us: we need to fight to preserve the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. At the same time, we should bear in mind that victory on the eternal plane often looks like defeat here and now: how do you think things looked to The World on that first Good Friday? Who really won?
So let’s keep fighting the Good Fight: that has been a theme of this blog since its inception. Our Hope, however, should be in the One who rose on Easter Sunday: Spes in Domino est.
Featured image top of page: “The Judgment of King Solomon” by Nicholas Poussin, 1649
This July 4th is the 245th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which grounds the founding of the Unites States in a theological argument:
. . . that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .
This post looks at a related argument: the founders believed that only those who subject themselves to the rule of God are capable of successfully directing the government of a republic.
“The Declaration of Independence” by John Trumbull, 1818.
The Great Experiment
“It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.” –Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #1
The Publication of the American Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, marks the formal beginning of a great experiment. As Alexander Hamilton put it a decade later during the debate over adopting the new constitution, the question was whether free men, exercising “reflection and choice,” were up to the job. The founders of the new republic, as Hamilton’s quote above suggests, also saw the new republic that they inaugurating as not simply a matter of local interest, but as an example to the rest of the world that such an arrangement could succeed. The conventional wisdom at the time was that republics and democracies were doomed to fail, devoured by the unchecked passions and appetites of the populace. That, it was said, was the verdict of history.
Dispositions Which Lead to Political Prosperity
We might reasonably ask what it was that led Hamilton and the other founders to believe that this republic would not similarly fall victim to the baser motives of its citizens. It wasn’t education, as important as that might be, because the founders understood the difference between knowledge and wisdom, as so many of us today do not. George Washington put it very directly in his Farewell Address [bold mine]:
…Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens . . . Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense ofreligious obligationdesert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
“. . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” -George Washington
Washington was most emphatically not referring to a national religion or state church, something that was explicitly ruled out in the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Despite the current conventional wisdom that the founders were “all deists”, in fact he and most of the others were Protestants of various stripes; some, such as Jefferson, did hold to rather idiosyncratic mixtures of Christianity and deism. A very few were Catholic, including only one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, who was nevertheless one of the most prominent Catholics in the colonies.
Despite their differences their way of looking at the world was shaped by Christianity, even those who were deists, and they all shared a firm conviction that human dignity demanded that men should be accorded the freedom under God to conduct their own lives. Religious toleration was therefore an essential part of the polity they devised, an arrangement amenable to the flourishing not only of Protestant Christians, but also favorable to a growing Catholic population as well (often in spite of very real prejudice on the part of their non-Catholic fellow citizens). The result was an inversion of the usual political order, in which ordinary citizens occupied the lowest position, with a governing elite above, and God over all; the American model still had God at the apex, but directly below him not the rulers but the citizens themselves, and they, each one shaped and informed by his faith, were empowered to help direct the government.
A New and Different Experiment
Pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong, 2019 (Ng Han Guan/Associated Press)
For its first two centuries the American experiment seemed to be proving the doubters wrong, although not without a few significant rough spots along the way (the stretch from 1861-1865, for instance, and the long struggle of which it was a part to free the slaves and extend the full benefits of citizenship to them and their descendants). The United States has grown and prospered, and has often been the example its founders hoped it would be (witness the prominence of American flags in pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong not too long ago).
Material success, however, often leads both individuals and nations to lose sight of their radical dependence on the Grace of God. That would seem to be the case in the United States today. It appears that a new and very different experiment is under way, in which religion and morality are no longer guiding principles; the indulgence of appetites and passions is held to be a virtue, such that those who object must be harassed and silenced; oaths of the Courts of Justice, as Washington called them, are no more than empty words, if recent judicial decisions are any indication. History and reason suggest that experiments of this sort do not end well. I am reminded of the words of Thomas Jefferson who, deist though he might have been, had the wisdom to say: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
God is indeed just, but he is also merciful, and this country has seen several “Great Awakenings” of religious faith in the past. I believe with Alexander Hamilton that the “conduct and example” of the American people are being watched with interest around the world; the failure of the experiment in Liberty under God would be a loss not just for Americans but for people everywhere. Please join me in praying that we rediscover the reliance on our Creator that animated the signers of the Declaration of Independence whose proclamation we celebrate today; please join me in echoing one of our great presidents, Abraham Lincoln, who at perhaps the darkest juncture of our national history prayed “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
N.B. Lincoln’s quote comes from his “Gettysburg Address”, which he delivered at the dedication of a cemetery to inter the dead from the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest and most destructive battle in the history of North America. It was fought on July 1-3 1863, 158 years ago this week.
An unusual and unfamiliar expression, “Eucharistic Coherence”, has been showing up on a lot of Catholic websites lately. I’ve written about the abuse of language on more than one occasion in the recent past (here and here, for instance), but this term is not itself abusive, rather it’s intended to expose and correct abuse. It refers to the coherence that ought to exist between the way Catholics profess and live out their faith in public on the one hand, and their worthiness to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord in Communion on the other. To put it more plainly, it’s a fancy way of saying that public figures who actively promote abortion and other egregious violations of the moral law are not “devout Catholics”, despite their self-professed devotion to Mother Church, and ought not receive communion.
Devout Catholics?
Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? And yet it’s not. Here’s the short version of the story: given the exuberance with which certain nominally Catholic politicians in the United States promote the killing of the unborn, the dismantling of the family as an institution, and other unlovely manifestations of the Culture of Death, the U.S. Catholic Bishops are preparing to discuss Eucharistic Coherence (i.e., what to do about the scandal caused by said politicians) at their annual meeting later this month. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that a group of 68 American bishops (I could name names, but you probably know them already) have written to Archbishop Gomez, head of the Bishops Conference, asking him to halt the discussion. It seems these bishops are gravely concerned that applying the standard that St. Paul first sets in his First Letter to the Corinthians, that one must be in communion to receive communion (see 1 Corinthians 11:27), would be to “weaponize” or “politicize” the Eucharist.
As they say, never a dull moment, eh? Some interesting commentary on the situation has been published in just the last few days (you can find a sampling here, here, and here). Of course, this issue did not just arise within the last year, it’s been going on for decades. Given it’s current prominence, however, it seemed a good time to republish a piece I first wrote six years ago, originally called “Is The Catholic Church A Political Animal”, in which I raise the question: who is really “politicizing” the Eucharist?
You’re going to find politics wherever people gather, or so someone once told me when I had objected to using the secular political terms “liberal” and “conservative” to describe different factions within the Catholic Church. And he was right, if by “politics” we mean the small-p wrangling that unavoidably accompanies any human enterprise requiring two or more people. But that is a very different thing from Politics, of the partisan variety. The Church is not a political party, and does not work like a political party. Nor should it.
That may seem an obvious point to you and to me, but it’s not at all obvious to everybody. It’s a distinction lost on a large number of people outside of the Church for instance, for many of whom politics has taken the place of religion, and so has become the lens through which they interpret everything. Many such people have come to dominate the secular media in the developed world, with the result that the mass media projects the secular political model onto the Church, with bad guys called conservatives working to thwart the good guys, the liberals (sometimes referred to as progressives), who are fighting to bring about a kinder, better Catholic Church More In Step With The Times. This is the only model of the inner-workings of the Church most people (including most Catholics) see in print, on television, or online, unless they intentionally seek out those Catholic outlets which reject this distorted interpretation. Sadly, many self-described “Catholic” entities embrace the false political model of the hierarchical Church.
U.S. Catholic Bishops (NCR Online photo)
That is not to say that there isn’t a wide range of legitimate differences of opinion within the Church; there is and always has been. Unlike a political party, however, where major policy planks can change overnight with a vote of the membership (and why not? They’re only opinions), there are many things in the Church which are grounded in Divine Revelation, and are therefore not up for negotiation. This vital distinction was expressed very clearly by then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) in 2004. Senator John Kerry, the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States, was widely criticized for receiving communion and touting his Catholic bona fides despite his open advocacy for legal abortion and other positions contrary to Catholic moral teaching. Accordingly, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a letter (later published by the Holy See under the title “Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles”) to Kerry’s ordinary, then Archbishop of Washington, D.C. Theodore McCarrick, which shows very clearly how the Church is different from a political party. Cardinal Ratzinger writes:
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
This crucial difference between particular moral issues can be obscured by applying secular political terms to church “politics”. Political parties often change even basic positions, and this is sometimes a good thing: consider that, when I was a child, many prominent leaders in the Democratic Party in the United States were unapologetic White Supremacists and segregationists. Such a position would be unthinkable today, and yet nobody doubts that the Democratic Party is still the Democratic Party.
“There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus XVI)
The political analogy can create the impression that proposed changes in the Church are benign or even desirable changes of the same sort, but nothing is further from the truth. The difference between abortion and euthanasia on the one hand and war and capital punishment on the other is that the Church has always taught that the first two are intrinsically evil, i.e., never permissible; this teaching is part of the deposit of faith and cannot change, and to publicly oppose it is to separate oneself from the Church (hence the unworthiness to receive communion). In the case of war and capital punishment, the Church has taught that they may be morally licit under some circumstances, a teaching that likewise cannot change. While there are certain moral principles that bind a Catholic here (e.g., the Just War Doctrine), the actual application of these principles belongs to the prudential judgment of individual Catholic decision makers. It is in the application of prudential judgment that legitimate differences of opinion may arise.
Many so-called “progressives” in the Church today, however, are not advocating simply the more progessive application of unchanging principles in prudential situations, but are pushing for changing more foundational things like the teaching on marriage, the meaning of priesthood, sexual morality, etc. The Catholic Church, however, unlike a poltical party, can’t change its teachings and still remain the Catholic Church. One can usually make a case for being either a conservative or a liberal in political matters, but when it comes to Church Doctrine, we can only be Catholic . . . or Not.
Featured image top of page: “The Last Supper” by Juan de Juanes, 1562
They say that necessity is the mother of invention but, as today’s feast of St. Joseph the Worker shows us, sometimes measures taken for practical purposes can point to deeper truths.
Pope Pius XII
The memorial of St. Joseph the Worker is a very recent addition to the liturgical calendar. Pope Pius XII, who wanted to present a Catholic alternative to the Communist celebration of May Day, instituted this feast day in 1955. Who better to counter the self-proclaimed “vanguard of the workers” than a great Saint who was also a laborer, a man known for his patience and perseverance, but also his piety? As such, St. Joseph is also the ideal embodiment of the Dignity of Work. He shows us that work is not simply something we do to survive, or that connects us to a certain economic class, but is an essential part of our humanity, a way in which we act, at least in a small way, as co-creators with God (see St. John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens). At the same time, we can see that while a worker may be honored for his work, he is not defined by it. Here the Catholic view stands in sharp contrast to the outlook of Marxism, where a working person’s primary identification is with his class, and he finds meaning by working toward the “workers’ paradise” of a fully communist society. Since the realization of the workers’ aspirations is the Greatest Good in this worldview, those who are seen as obstacles (such as members of the Capitalist Class) deserve to be extirpated. Western market-driven societies have their own false anthropology in the phenomenon of the workaholic, whose whole life centers on his career, and who sees no meaning beyond it.
“St. Joseph, Carpenter” by Georges de La Tour (1642)
As Christians, however, we see our primary identification as adopted sons and daughters of God: equal in dignity (regardless of externals such as class, sex, race, etc.), called to love, and all of us members of the One Body of Christ who are made in the image and likeness of God the Creator. What we do is an expression of what we already are, particularly when, as Christians, we dedicate our work to the Greater Glory of God: Ad Maiorem Dei Gratiam, as St. Ignatius Loyola put it. Now look at St. Joseph. There have probably been carpenters more skillful than Joseph, or more productive, but none of them have feast days. We honor him today in his role of Worker, but that’s not why he is a Saint. He’s a Saint, and a great Saint, because he cooperated in God’s great work of salvation. Today’s feast reminds us that we can all aspire to sanctity, even humble laborers, and that whoever we are, and whatever we do in this world, what we do for the Kingdom of God and who we are in the eyes of the Father is what matters in the end.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Mark 12:17)
Deciding how to balance what we really owe to Caesar with what we owe to God is a perennial issue for a believing Christian. In the age of Covid and related governmental tomfoolery that question has become, let us say, even more acute. This coming weekend I’ll take a more specific look at recent events; today I’m posting an updated version of something I first published a few years ago drawing upon the work of a certain Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger when he was head of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It’s an oldie (in keeping with Throwback Thursday), but, as they say, a goodie.
Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI)
One need not buy in to the confusing and often intentionally obfuscating “Wall of Separation” language here in the United States to understand that the proper role for a believing Christian in public and political life is not always clear. As in other areas of decision-making, we need to apply our personal judgment in determining how to act in specific situations, but we should form those decisions in the light of the moral law and the teaching of the Church. An enormously helpful guide in sorting out these questions is the Doctrinal Note On Some Questions Regarding The Participation Of Catholics In Political Life [text here], published November 2002 with the authorization of Pope (now Saint) John Paul II, and under the name of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
The Doctrinal Note, despite its brevity (it’s only about eight pages long) is a wonderfully rich yet concise discussion, as we have come to expect from Joseph Ratzinger. It deserves a much fuller treatment than I can give it here, but it’s worthwhile to consider a couple of its main points.
First of all, participating in public and political life is a good thing:
It is commendable that in today’s democratic societies, in a climate of true freedom, everyone is made a participant in directing the body politic. Such societies call for new and fuller forms of participation in public life by Christian and non-Christian citizens alike . . . The life of a democracy could not be productive without the active, responsible and generous involvement of everyone, “albeit in a diversity and complementarity of forms, levels, tasks, and responsibilities”. (sec. 1, citations omitted)
As Catholic Christians, however, we have a particular mission to fulfill, a “proper task”:
By fulfilling their civic duties, “guided by a Christian conscience”, in conformity with its values, the lay faithful exercise their proper task of infusing the temporal order with Christian values, all the while respecting the nature and rightful autonomy of that order, and cooperating with other citizens according to their particular competence and responsibility. (sec. 1, citations omitted)
In other words, we need to recognize our mission to be Salt and Light to a world in desperate need of the Truth (see Matthew 5:13), while at the same time respecting the freedom of those who might disagree.
The Doctrinal Note goes on to say that such involvement on our part is not only good, but is in fact essential if democratic governance is to survive:
At the same time, the Church teaches that authentic freedom does not exist without the truth. “Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery.” In a society in which truth is neither mentioned nor sought, every form of authentic exercise of freedom will be weakened, opening the way to libertine and individualistic distortions and undermining the protection of the good of the human person and of the entire society. (sec. 7, citations omitted)
That is to say, without the Christian witness of the truth about God and man, society will devolve into a self-indulgent free-for-all: amoral, undisciplined people are incapable of self-government.
Joseph Ratzinger was not the first to point this out. In fact, it was the accepted wisdom prior to the establishment of the United States two and a half centuries ago that republics in general, and democracies in particular, would eventually collapse in a self-destructive orgy of unrestrained appetites. That’s the traditional understanding that Abraham Lincoln was invoking “four score and seven years” after the American founding in his Gettysburg Address. Lincoln described the Civil War as a “testing” of whether a nation “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal . . . or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
The founders themselves were aware of the dangers, but saw the Christian faith of the American people as the key to overcoming those perils . . .as long as Americans held to that faith. John Adams warned that men “may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” George Washington was very emphatic on this same point in his farewell address:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens . . . Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.
“It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” -George Washington
Both the Church and American founders agree that the freedom to govern themselves is only possible for people who know, and who have been formed in, the Truth.
And that leads us to the limits of politics and government. Our actions as citizens in a republic are guided by, and in that sense subordinate to, our properly formed consciences; likewise, the policies of the government are subject to a higher moral law. If our consciences are not properly formed, no law can make us good. At best, we can hope to encourage good behavior by providing incentives for it, and discourage bad behavior by providing disincentives. And when you have a large number of people with improperly formed consciences combined with government incentives to bad behavior, you face societal and political chaos.
What that means for us is that our first and most important task is to be the best Catholic Christians we can be, before we ever cast a vote or sign a petition. To the degree that we create a more Christian society, we make possible a more just government. We should approach direct political action with the understanding that whatever we do politically (and not, certainly, to subordinate our consciences to majority opinion or the party platform), it is guided by, and in service to, the Higher Truth. This may seem ironic, particularly to an unbeliever, but the first and foremost thing that a Christian citizen owes to Caesar is that he or she be, in fact, a faithful Christian: without that, nothing else is enough.
Finally, it’s good to keep in mind that God and Casesar each have a claim on us, but that doesn’t mean that they have equal claims. Government can do many good and essential things: provide for a common defense, nurture a secure environment for civil society to flourish, build and maintain infrastructure, help alleviate the temporary effects of poverty and abuse. Government cannot do everything, however, nor should it try: in keeping with the Principle of Subsidiarity [link], we should beware of the government subsuming responsibilities that rightfully belong to individuals or other associations, especially the family or the Church. The very real dangers of government overreach of this sort have come into particularly sharp focus over the past year. And, of course, as Christians we have to know that, however much the state can do, only Jesus Christ can bring about the Kingdom of God.
“When a man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.”
You have probably run across the quote above, usually attributed to G.K. Chesterton. While Chesterton never actually said it in quite those words, it does appear that he really did express this sentiment in a somewhat different form in several places (for more information, see this discussion on the website of The Apostolate of Common Sense). More to the point, the events of the recent past have shown this observation by the “The Prince of Paradox” to be tragically on target.
G. K. Chesterton
In that regard, allow me to direct your attention to some other quotes (albeit somewhat less witty) that you have probably run across. In the run up to last year’s election yard signs started popping up with a rainbow colored litany that ran something like this:
science is real
black lives matter
no human is illegal
love is love
women’s rights are human rights
kindness is everything
The interesting thing is that, not only do none of these statements mean what they appear to mean, not a single one of them is even intended to mean what it appears to mean. “Science is real”, for example, is declaration that if you disagree with a certain global climate theory, however much you ground your argument in data and scientific reasoning, you’ll be branded a “science denier” (and don’t you dare even bring up the lack of any scientific basis at all for the current vogue for genderism or other current enthusiasms). “Love is love” means that intrinsically sterile homosexual relationships are exactly the same as the generative relationships between men and women. “Women’s rights are human rights” refers to the “right” of grown women to kill their unborn babies (including unborn women) if they find it convenient. And of course, “kindness is everything” means that if you disagree with any of the above you are ipso facto a “hater”, and kinder folks have every right (indeed, the responsibility) to destroy your reputation and your livelihood.
Again, don’t expect any effort to explain or justify the statements above: they’re not intended to form any sort of coherent argument; they’re not even intended as a coherent political program, although they are very much intended as a political statement. The litany above is in fact a religious Creed, a statement of adherence to a political religion, the apotheosis of pure Will in the form of Government Power.
So, what’s the connection between the Kindness Creed and the quote attributed to Chesterton? Let’s go back to the first clause of the initial quote: “When a man stops believing in God . . .” If you doubt that we in the United States no longer believe in God, consider the report just released by the Gallup organization: for the first time in American history, a majority do not formally belong to any religious body. In 2020 the figure had declined to 47%:
When we look at the generational breakdown, we can see that each successive generation is less religious than its predecessors. This is not simply a matter of people becoming more religious as they age; in fact, the trend lines move in the other direction: every group actually becomes less religious over time, including those born before 1946. The big story that the chart below shows is that, as decade follows decade, proportionally fewer Americans have any experience of religion at all:
Now, people can believe in God, and even identify with a particular religious group, without the benefit of formal membership. The Gallup report indicates that there are in fact a fairly sizable number of people who fall into this category:
The U.S. remains a religious nation, with more than seven in 10 affiliating with some type of organized religion.
. . . but there’s a big “however” coming:
However, far fewer, now less than half, have a formal membership with a specific house of worship. While it is possible that part of the decline seen in 2020 was temporary and related to the coronavirus pandemic, continued decline in future decades seems inevitable, given the much lower levels of religiosity and church membership among younger versus older generations of adults.
I would take it a little further. While it is certainly conceivable that someone could have a strong and meaningful faith in God without belonging to a church (or synagogue, mosque, etc.), joining with other believers in worship of God is the primary way in which that faith becomes a reality in our lives, rather than just an abstraction. People who never attend church are unlikely to have any experience of religion in their lives, and are correspondingly unlikely to be influenced by religious moral teachings and values.
In other words, the change noted in the graphs above is of enormous significance. A generation or two ago the accepted wisdom of our society was taken directly from Christianity. This is not to say that everyone lived perfectly in accord with Christian teachings, but that everybody’s attitudes and expectations were shaped by those teachings, even among the non-religious. That is no longer the case, and we can see the results in, for instance, radically changed attitudes toward marriage, sexual morality, and so on. Christian morality used to be the default; no longer.
What’s true of morality is true in other areas as well. Fifteen years ago Arthur C. Brooks published a book called Who Really Cares, in which he explored in meticulous detail all the statistical data that demonstrated, contrary to popular impressions, that political conservatives give more time and money (a lot more) to charity than do liberals. Among the various factors that Brooks examined, one of the most prominent was the fact that statistics show that religious belief is a large determinant in personal charity. Believers are much more charitable than non-believers, and so religious liberals, for example, give more of their time and treasure than non-religious conservatives do. The main reason why conservatives over all were more generous fifteen years ago when Brooks published his book is that religious liberals made up only 7% of the population. Conservatives were then and are now more generous givers largely because conservatives are much more religious.
Or were. Conservatives are still quite a bit more religious than liberals, but the data from Gallup cited above indicates that, along with everyone else, they are less religious than they used to be, and will be even less religious in the years to come. Expect less charity in our society, and more government.
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
-Justice Anthony Kennedy, Planned Parenthood v. Casey
Which brings us to the second half of the Chestertonian paradox: “. . . he believes anything.” The problem goes beyond charity and personal morality. We should expect all sorts of craziness to manifest itself in the years to come. That’s the significance of the Kindness Is Everything Litany. When a critical mass of the population is no longer constrained by a belief in a Transcendent God, what is left to limit the human will? U. S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a moment of unintentional self-parody, authored the most famous formulation of the Creed of the Unconstrained Will in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” This quasi-mystical piece of fantasy (derisively called the “Sweet Mystery of Life Passage” by Justice Antonin Scalia) is now the closest thing we have to a dominant political philosophy in the West.
Politics can’t fix this. That’s not to say there isn’t an important role for politics in mitigating the damage: just this past week another Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, suggested in a concurrence that the protections our increasingly totalitarian big tech companies currently enjoy might be up for legal challenge. We should take him up on that. As I previously explained here, here, and here, however, the political issues are in fact a consequence of cultural and, prior to that, religious causes.
So, yes, by all means, let’s keep fighting the political fight, but given the societal trends (and the Gallup data above is just the latest evidence), we can expect the political arena to become increasingly difficult. Long term we need to work on bringing our country back to Christ. One of my two favorite quotes is this one from John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Well, we are no longer a moral or a religious people. Welcome to mission territory: we have our work cut out for us.
Featured image above: “Francis Xavier” by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo , c. 1670. St. Francis Xavier is a patron saint of missions.
