If ever there was a better argument made for opposing finance and monopoly capitalism and introducing distributist economic principles into our national life, I haven’t seen it. If you’re a Catholic Tea Partier concerned about concentrations of power in the hands of elites, stop looking at government and start looking at a rapacious capitalist system that is rapidly sifting us into a few have’s and a vast population of have not’s. That’s where the real imbalance in American life and power lies.

“The Christian Doctrine of man is intrinsically bound up with the problem of property.There are three possible solutions of the problem of property. One is to put all the eggs into a few baskets, which is Capitalism; the other is to make an omelet out of them so that nobody owns, which is Communism; the other is to distribute the eggs in as many baskets as possible, which is the solution of the Catholic Church.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen, “Introduction to Christian Social Principles”

From “Of Two Minds,” the blog of Charles Hugh Smith

The Stock Market as Propaganda

Since 91% of stocks are owned by the Plutocracy, the much-ballyhooed rise in the stock market as proof the recession is over is perception management/ propaganda.

The 75% rise in the stock market from its lows a year ago is ceaselessly offered as “proof” the economy is recovering. Too bad very few Americans are drawing any benefit from this stupendous rise. As I detail below, the Great Middle Class owns at best only 7% of all stocks and mutual funds.
So the constant, breathless heralding of the stock market’s carefully manufactured ascent has only one purpose: to create perceptions of “recovery”and distract the populace from the fact that in terms of employment and tax revenues, the U.S. economy is still shrinking rapidly.

Let’s begin with the facts presented in the Wealth, Income, and Power website (G. William Domhoff).

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2009).

In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 38.3% of all privately held stock, 60.6% of financial securities, and 62.4% of business equity. The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America. (end of excerpt)

Here is a chart from the website:

According to the asset class breakdown on Wealth, Income, and Power, the bottom 90% owned 18.8% of all stocks and mutual funds in 2007. Since the bottom 60% own very little (only 22% of the bottom 60% own stock/mutual funds worth more than $10,000), and the bottom 80% own a mere 8.9% of all stocks/mutual funds, then the top 10% owns 81% of all stocks (of which the top 1% own 38%) and the “managerial/professional” slice between 80% and 90% owns about 10%.

Some 47% of the “middle class” (those between the bottom 40% with few financial assets and the top 20% with the vast majority of the assets) own stocks/mutual funds worth more than $10,000, but since the bottom 80% own a mere 8.9% of all stocks, it seems the Great American Middle Class owns about 7% of all the stocks and mutual funds in the U.S. (with the bottom 40% holding the remaining 2%).

According to BusinessWeek, the profits of the S&P 500 corporations rose in 2009 to over $500 billion–a vast sum presented as “yet more proof” that the recession is over.

Over for some perhaps, but not for the bottom 80%. It is no secret that the spurt in productivity which fueled those gargantuan profits was made by reducing headcounts and getting more work out of the remaining workforce. Bully for the S&P 500 managers and those who reap the profits.

Since there are about 130 million U.S. households and total corporate profits are around $1 trillion, we can do some simple math to see where all those profits flow.

If you dig through the BEA website and other sources, you find that Corporate profits were about 13 percent of GDP in 2007, their highest level in 40 years and significantly above the post-World War II average of 9.4 percent of GDP. Nonfinancial profits for 2006 were $1.08 trillion. Real GDP peaked in Q2 2008 at 13,415.3 billion; in Q3 2009 GDP was 12,973 billion (calculated annually).

Even assuming corporate profits have dropped back to 9% of GDP, we still get a number around $1 trillion in profit for 2009.

Based on the ownership of stock and mutual funds, we can estimate that 9% ($90 billion) of all that profit flowed to the bottom 80% of households (104 million), $100 billion flowed to the 13 million Managerial/Professional households (the 10% of all households between 80% and 90%), and $810 billion flowed to the top 10% (13 million households), of which $400 billion flowed to the top 1% (1.3 million households).

Since total household income runs about $9 trillion, then the $90 billion distributed among 104 million households doesn’t really ring a lot of chimes when the estimated loss of wealth in the U.S. as the credit bubble popped has been estimated at $15 trillion.

The rise in the stock market and corporate profits benefitted the relative few–yet is touted in the mainstream media as heralding the end of the recession for the entire nation. That is pure propaganda. How easy it’s been to manufacture a rising stock market, compared to engineering a recovery in the economy.

Indeed, the biggest problem facing the manipulators is the lack of participation by the professional and middle classes which have steadfastly kept their cash in money-market funds ($3 trillion) and put money in “safe” bond funds (about $350 billion went into such funds in 2009) while they withdrew money from the stock mutual funds.

The Grand Game has always been to engineer a rising stock market, sell to the middle class suckers and then go short, making a fortune as the bubble pops and the middle class loses the “sure bet.”

Now that the middle class isn’t responding to the endless propaganda about how great the stock market is doing, then the Powers That Be are forced to trade between themselves–hence the low daily volume and high-frequency trading.

The stock market isn’t about building middle class wealth, and the middle class seems to have finally figured that out. The equity market is all about concentrating wealth and managing perception: if the top 10% is doing well, then the bottom 90% are supposed to feel better about the whole thing, too, even if they are poorer by every financial metric.

Barack Obama will announce this week that he plans to move the United States away from our reliance on nuclear weapons, a reliance that as Garry Wills has shown (Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State) is responsible for the rise of empire, state capitalism, and nationalist idolatry in America.

In anticipation of the criticism that will be lodged by the War & Torture Party and its auxiliaries in the Catholic blogosphere, I offer the following rare television interviews with Servant of God Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker, and a lifelong peace advocate. I am not a pacifist (not yet, anyway), but surely Dorothy Day more accurately represents both the spirit and the letter of Catholic teaching on peace than neoconservative apologists for pre-emptive war.

In these days, when our politics is dominated by corporate charlatans like Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann, and a proto-fascist mob scours the nation for easy scapegoats, it is refreshing to listen to someone so thoroughly saturated by a distinctly Catholic, personalist, distributist, and yes, pacifist point of view.

You can view subsequent segments by clicking the following links:

Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZXZmuRekyE

Part III: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKrj5PGPw6k

UPDATE: Mark Shea on the difference between Dorothy Day and Ayn Rand, patron saint of neoconservatives.

Day Forty: An Everyday Faith

Thirteen years ago this evening, I was received into the Catholic Church in a brief but beautiful ceremony during the Easter Vigil Mass. In one fell swoop, I received the Sacrament of Confirmation and made my public profession of fidelity: “I believe and hold to be true all that the Catholic Church proposes and teaches.” Then, within a few moments I encountered my Lord for the first time in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The gifts I had received from my wonderful, faithful parents decades earlier - an intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ, an ingrained appreciation for the the Scripture, and a thoroughly Christian world-view - reached their full flower in a matter of moments. Meanwhile, in a touchingly sad commentary on the continuing disunity of the the Body of the Christ, my mother, the finest Christian I know, sat weeping in the second pew, bewildered by what to her appeared to be a tragedy, a loss.

I have often reflected on the strange fact that the Easter Vigil passed without much much meaning or intensity for me. After so many months and years of preparation, the actual event was anticlimactic. The late hour, the incense, the music, the crowd, the bishop in his magnificent vestments; it was all a bit too much to process within the moment. We were actors in a liturgical drama that evening, moving deliberately across a grand stage in accordance with an ancent script, but with the detachment of jaded thespians. Objectively, the drama was tailor-made for a peak experience, but one of the things I realized that evening was that Catholicism isn’t about peak experiences. Catholicism is an everyday faith, suitable for the mountaintop surely, but divinely configured for the valleys in which most people spend the days of their lives.

And so, it wasn’t until the 7:00 AM Mass on Easter Monday that the truth of what had happened to me became real. I wobbled into the silence of St. Brendan Church and took my place among a tiny cluster of five or six others. The lingering scent of incense hung in the air, a reminder of Saturday night’s revelry; but the crowds were gone, the bishop decamped to his chancery, the tiny tongues of Resurrection fire extinguished, and the choir dispersed. In the half-light of a Monday morning, the 100,128th Monday morning since the Resurrection, a sleepy priest ascended the altar nearly unnoticed. He crossed himself and said in a reed-thin voice, “We begin as always in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost …”

In that moment I knew I was home.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Thirty-Nine: Mother of Sorrows

Morning. 6:00 am
You never really slept last night, and now the ache is settling in. At 47, you are already quite old, and your body is beginning to betray you. This rootless existence you’ve led since your husband died isn’t helping any. Without warning an image floats into your mind of a beautiful young woman and her snuffling baby boy, the two of them curled up in sweet, dreamless repose, without back pain or worry. What you wouldn’t give …

How can I even think of sleep at a time like this? you ask yourself. Not a half hour ago, the sun rose over the baked bricks and cut stone of Jerusalem. Somewhere nearby a rooster cried and you startled from dozing. You caught a glimpse of Kephas leaving the courtyard, his head down, lips fluttering. Now none of your son’s friends are here except Ioannes. Of course, faithful Ioannes. More like a son than a nephew. Salome begged him to return with her to the little room she rented, but he insisted on remaining by your side all night, right outside the windows of Caiaphas’ palace.

7:00 am
There has been much coming and going already this morning, and the crowds have steadily grown. Angry faces flash. Brutal words are tossed and returned. Rumors swirl in little eddies of conversation, then break off and float away. Suddenly, an electric jolt and the crowd begins to move, slowly at first, then at breakneck speed. Carried along on the tide, you and Ioannes are helpless as the throng courses down narrow streets, turns left, then right, then left again before spilling into a large square before a columned courtyard. What is this place? you ask Ioannes. Pilate he answers, and you shudder at the name.

8:00 am
You would like to know what is going on, but you are wedged next to a wooden fence outside the stable, without a clear view of Pilate’s courtyard. There is a lot of shouting and cursing. The crowd roars its approval one moment, its condemnation the next. Between the roars a lone Latinate voice pierces the early morning air. What charge do you bring against this man? I find no fault in him! Shall I release him? Who do you want? As that last question ends, a low rumble begins in a certain segment of the crowd. it quickly rises to a chorus, and then a chant. Barrabas! Barrabas! You wonder Who is Barrabas? Perhaps this is all a mistake. Perhaps this is all about someone named Barrabas!

9:00 am
Somewhere you hear laughing. A man nearby shouts to his friend They just released Barrabas! That preacher is taking his place! Ioannes curses them under his breath. Taking his place how? you wonder. Suddenly, flashes of white and red dance at the edge of your vision. That sound of laughter is now mixed with the sharp retort of a whip and the dull thud of … something else. Curious, unsuspecting, you lean your head to peer through a slim gap in the fence. It takes a few moments to process the hell unfolding before you, and a few moments longer for the bile to rise in your throat and pour out of your mouth. Ioannes looks through the fence and recoils. He looks again and falls to his knees, wailing beside you. Then, as suddenly, he’s back on his feet and roughly carrying you away from the fence. Ioannes doesn’t stop until he reaches a column at the back of the courtyard.

10:00 am
Perhaps this is the worst that will come of it you say to no one in particular. Just then the crowd stirs to life once again. A Roman wearing the vestments and laurel of governor strides to his chair. Behind him the hunched, bloody figure of your son shuffles across the portico. A tattered purple blanket hangs from one shoulder. His head is encircled by a bramble of some kind. Behold the man! Pilate says, but all you can see is the boy, all skinny legs and tousled hair, with a wide grin and dark eyes. He always looked just like Joachim, and even now there is a way of standing, a set to his hips and shoulders that reminds you of your father. You watch as Pilate bargains with the crowd for his life. But they’re not buying. A man beside you screams “Crucify him” so hard that he begins to cough, his spittle splashing on your neck. By the time he recovers the portico is empty. They have taken your precious boy to be killed.

6:00 pm
Night creeps over the horizon. It is the Sabbath and you are in the room where Ioannes and his other friends are staying. Your son now lies in a borrowed tomb, his broken and bruised body spiced with myrrh and wrapped in fresh linens. Ioannes tenderly cradles you. I am your son now, and you are my mother he sobs in a hushed whisper. Suddenly, an unimaginable sorrow wells up within you as you recall the words of that old man in the Temple, the one who spoke on the day of the brit milah: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Today’s Grace: A Busy Day

You awoke today just a few miles from the city, in the village of Bethany, near the home of your friends Mary and Martha, and their father Lazarus. You could have stayed with them, as you had so many times before, but you chose to spend the few days before Passover in the relative discomfort of Simon’s little hovel on the edge of the village. Simon, that simple saint, who still bears the marks of the leprosy that once ravaged him … Simon was so happy to repay your healing love with what hospitality he could muster. The others much prefer the comforable pillows and hot food at Mary and Martha’s place, but as usual they have so much to learn.

You’ve just sent a group of them off to see the man you dreamed about. They looked dubious, but you’ve never been wrong about these things (even though they keep expecting it to happen). In fact, you’ve never even missed a detail, no matter how small. The man will be there, and the room above his shop will be just right, with plenty of table space and seating for a proper Seder. And it will be located adjacent to that lovely olive grove with its winding paths and spectacular views of the Temple.

You rest your back against the low lip of a well, your legs warming in the sun, your face shaded from the glare by a nearby carob bush. What a busy day today will be. Soon, you will perform your morning ablutions for the last time. Then you will marshal the remnant of your followers for the brief walk into the city. Later, you will preside over the meal, and the words of blessing you offer will both console and confuse your friends. Finally, they will understand (or, at least, they will think they understand) what you meant when you said, “my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” But the mysterious disappearance of one of them will disturb and frighten the others, especially after you speak so darkly of memory and betrayal.

When the meal is concluded, you will lead the group out into that beautiful grove. Kephas, as he always does, will move in close to pledge his love and loyalty. Your response will leave him stunned and muttering as he slips off to sleep under a fig tree. Soon, they will all join him in sleep, even as you stroll alone down the path. Near a small, thorny bush the reality the moment, of what comes next, will crash down upon you like a tidal wave. Wracked with fear, your body heaving, you will fall to your hands and knees and pray for deliverance; but with every entreaty the certainty - the necessity - of what you must do will become clearer and clearer. Your will, which once called the universe itself into existence, will wash away with your thick, viscous tears, dissolving into the will of your Father. When the moment has passed and the fear subsides, you will awaken your friends and turn to face the jangling, angry crowd making its way up from the Kidron Valley.

Yes, it will be a busy day. But right now, the sun feels good and you can feel your robe, moist from the early morning air, begin to stiffen. You think about your mother and the simple years in Nazareth, years that passed so slowly, and too soon. From somewhere you pick up the smoky scent of meat grilling. A rock pigeon gurgles softly nearby, as if to console you. But at this moment, you need no consolation. You think of Simon, his need, his joy, and his gratitude. You think of Simon the Leper and you are overcome with love for him … for them all.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Thirty-Seven: Notes on the Sexual Abuse Crisis

Having spent 36 days reflecting on a few of the manifold graces I’ve known as a Catholic Christian, I cannot allow Lent to pass without noting and offering some thoughts on the sexual abuse crisis that is once again afflicting the Catholic Church.

I write “afflicting the Catholic Church” not out of any sense of defensiveness, much less in an effort to point an accusing finger at the media. Rather, I am conscious that these horrible sins – both the original abuse committed by priests, as well as the criminal negligence demonstrated by bishops and other ecclesiastical authorities – have been committed against the Body of Christ, which is the Church. They have been attacks upon the bodies, souls and faith of Catholics, 99.7% of whom are members of the lay faithful. They have also been a crime against Jesus Christ, who suffers new agonies in the person of each and every victim of sexual abuse (Matthew 25:40). Abuser priests and criminal bishops may never have to face their victims again, but they will not escape the scrutiny of Christ, the Just Judge, who divides sheep from goats according to their works.

Here’s what the sexual abuse crisis is NOT:

It is not a conspiracy by the “liberal” media. If anything, the media has shown remarkable deference to the Church over the years. It is true that most reporters are not Catholic, and it is also true that there are some who seem to have an axe to grind with the Church (although most of those are typically Catholics or ex-Catholics); but there is simply no ground for claiming that this crisis was fabricated or exacerbated by the media.

The sexual abuse crisis is also not about homosexuality in the priesthood. It is true that original acts of sexual abuse, at least in the United States, had an overwhelmingly homosexual character. This was due to a number of factors, including the fact that the celibate priesthood has historically been an attractive vocation for homosexual men who wished to channel their conflicted desires into service to the Church. This may have even been true of St. Paul, who never married and who complained bitterly in Scripture about a “thorn in the flesh” that he asked three times to have removed by God. Whatever the reason, there is no evidence that homosexual men are more likely than heterosexuals to prey on children and young people. Priests are called to be faithful to their vows and the celibacy requirement of the priesthood. With self-control and the aid of grace the vast majority of priests – homosexual and heterosexual – are able to fulfill their promise.

The crisis is not about celibacy. There is plenty of sexual abuse in other institutions, none of which impose a rule of celibacy. Marriage is available for scoutmasters, teachers, camp counselors, rabbis, ministers, policemen, physicians, and dentists, all professions in which rates of sexual abuse are higher than the norm. In fact, the average child molester in America is married, educated, and employed. The New York City school system averages one student complaint of sexual abuse every day, and yet teachers and staff are able to marry. In a now-famous survey conducted in the 1980’s, some 35% of Protestant ministers admitted to illicit sexual contact with a parishioner during their tenure. The fact is that all Christians are called to chastity, in whatever their state. Married men and women are to be faithful to their spouses. Single men and women are to eschew fornication. The same is true for priests.

The sexual abuse crisis is not about the Catholic faith. There are those both inside and outside the Church who would like to use the crisis to undermine that faith. Atheists will suggest that there is something about religion in general, or Christianity in particular, that lends itself to this sort of behavior. Anti-Catholic Christians will dishonestly attribute the crisis to one distinctive Catholic doctrine or another. Dissenters inside the Church will take the opportunity of the crisis to push their theological agendas, which – irony of ironies – typically have to do with loosening Church teaching on sexual morality. The fact is that no one has ever made a convincing case that any article of the Creed – including the invocation of “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church – causes a man to rape a child. Those who imply or make such an accusation remind me of a crack made by the writer G.K. Chesterton. “When a man claims to doubt the validity of the hypostatic union (the doctrine that Christ is fully divine and fully human), he usually means that he’s sleeping with his neighbor’s wife.” In other words, there’s another agenda at work.

Most controversially, I would say that the crisis isn’t even fundamentally about sexually abusive priests! There have always been corrupt, wayward, dishonest, or lustful clergy and religious. The “John Jay Report,” commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and released in 2004, is the most extensive study of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The Report revealed that over a 50 year period, 1.5% of American priests had credible accusations made against them. Satistically, that is not an inordinate number for the profession, which suggests that there is not a causal connection between the priesthood and sexual abuse. Let me be clear: I am not excusing offenders. Far from it. I rejoice every time one of these slugs is tried and convicted of a crime, or removed from the active ministry following an ecclesiastical investigation. But the awful thing about this crisis isn’t that the occasional priestly pederast surfaced. It is that those pederasts were tolerated, even enabled, and that as a result most offenders had many victims - hundreds in some cases - and exercised their predation over long stretches of time. All of which leads me to what the crisis is really all about.

The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is fundamentally about the arrogance of bishops. It is an institutional crisis among those shepherds specifically charged with governing, teaching, and sanctifying the faithful entrusted to them.

In their arrogance, bishops thought they could protect their reputations and the reputation of the Church by playing a shell game with abusive priests. And so, they shuttled these men from one parish to another, apparently giving no thought to the damaged bodies and souls left behind, or the new victims that would inevitably appear. They crushed those in their own chanceries who dared to challenge their handling of these matters. They ignored the cries of victims and the good faith inquiries of third parties. They stonewalled the media, police, and district attorneys. They sicced their lawyers on critics. In some cases they even lied to Rome or to their brother bishops. And when finally cornered, they appropriated for themselves the mantle of victim.

In their ignorance, bishops chose to believe professional therapists who told them that the problem wasn’t ‘sin’ but ‘sickness, and that pederasts could be “cured” by a few months of therapeutic retreat. And so, they sent them away, paid their bills, and then welcomed them back. In their incompetence, bishops believed the lawyers who recommended what lawyers always recommend: limit the damage at all costs. And so they tried to ignore the pleas of victims, erecting a wall between themselves and their needy, aching faithful. Then, when victims could no longer be avoided, they cut backroom deals, cash deals, with side agreements about confidentiality – silence – and limited future liability. They thought and behaved like CEO’s, not shepherds; petty tyrants, not loving fathers; administrators, not mediators of grace.

What should happen now? First, we need to begin talking about it. Weeks, months go by and nothing is ever mentioned in our parishes. It’s as if this is happening on another planet, to another church. I don’t mean that we should remand the subject to religious education, or put everyone through idiotic classes on “sexual harassment.” I do mean that pastors and bishops should talk to the lay faithful about what went on, how it was wrong, and how things are going to be different. They need to do this with humility and honesty, really listening to people for once. They themselves need to become the crosses on which people can crucify their anger and confusion, their doubt and cynicism.

Second, any bishop or priest directly implicated in the cover-up should resign immediately. There will be time for confession and absolution, for prayer and penance. What is most important is that offenders – and by that I mean not sexual abusers, but episcopal criminals – remove themselves or be removed from positions of leadership. Quite frankly, if there is convincing evidence that he knowingly shuttled a sexual abuser from one parish to another, then even Pope Benedict XVI should step down, something that has happened many times in Church history. It will be his prerogative, of course, because no power can remove from office the man who exercises “supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power.” But for the sake of the Church, the Faith, the Gospel, and Christ Himself, the former Archbishop of Munich should resign if guilty. Moreover, if the Holy Father or any other bishop is guilty of breaching the criminal law, he should be prosecuted and, if convicted, jailed.

Third, the Church must find a better means of identifying, selecting, naming and empowering bishops. The fact is that most bishops are organizational yes-men, often chancery bureaucrats or glad-handing monsignori. They come to the attention of the Church not because of their personal holiness, teaching prowess or preaching ability, but because they have proven themselves to be effective managers, fundraisers, ecclesial executives. Once named bishops, these men are then moved around like marbles on a Chinese checkerboard, which only makes them more detached from the laity and more dependent on chancery “experts” who give them bad advice.

Finally, our hearts and hands must turn to the victims of sexual abuse and their families. They are our brothers and sisters, and we owe them prayer, love, understanding, and support. Many of them will never again darken the door of a church. Others are sitting in the pew next to us. In every case, we need to see Christ in them, and recognize that in their suffering He is crucified over and over again. For love of Him we must love them.

Napoleon Bonaparte once expressed the desire to crush the Catholic Church, which was frustrating his plans for hegemony over all of Europe. Upon hearing Napoleon’s desire, Cardinal Consalvi replied “If in 1,800 years we clergy have failed to destroy the Church, do you really think that you’ll be able to do it?” The more things change, the more they stay the same. Once again, Satan is sifting the Catholic clergy like wheat. We need to join with the overwhelming majority of faithful, holy priests to strengthen our brothers and sisters. Talk about the Catholic Church “surviving,” is ridiculous. Not only is the Catholic Church the 2000 year-old bedrock of Western Civilization, it operates under a divine guarantee that “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” The Church is going nowhere, but it is reforming, as it always must be.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Thirty-Six: Humility

Moving deeper now into Holy Week. My own words are beginning to fail, so I thought I’d offer for your reflection the following excerpts from some favorite spiritual classics. The topic is humility, my personal stumblingblock, but a challenge to every man or woman who would follow Christ. We’ll start with an excerpt from Humility of Heart, by Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo:

In Paradise there are many Saints who never gave alms on earth: their poverty justified them. There are many Saints who never mortified their bodies by fasting, or wearing hair shirts: their bodily infirmities excused them. There are many Saints too who were not virgins: their vocation was otherwise. But in Paradise there is no Saint who was not humble.

God banished Angels from Heaven for their pride; therefore how can we pretend to enter therein, if we do not keep ourselves in a state of humility? Without humility, says St. Peter Damian, [Serm. 45] not even the Virgin Mary herself with her incomparable virginity could have entered into the glory of Christ, and we ought to be convinced of this truth that, though destitute of some of the other virtues, we may yet be saved, but never without humility.

From Abandonment to Divine Providence, by Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade:

Humility should be sweet and tranquil, without self-contempt, or annoyance with ourselves or others, without despondency or voluntary vexation … Far from losing, we gain all in abandoning ourselves entirely to God by love and confidence. The sight of yourself: that confused heap of weaknesses, miseries, corruption, should never distress you. It is on this account that I say boldly, all is well, for I have never known anyone endowed with this keen insight, so humiliating, to whom it was not a most special grace of God; nor who has not found in it, combined with a true self-knowledge, that solid humility which is the foundation of all perfection. I have known, and do know many saintly people who, for their sole possession have that profound conviction of their weakness, and are never so happy as when they feel themselves, as it were, engulfed in it. They then dwell in truth, and consequently in God who is the sovereign truth. If you but knew how to walk before Him, your head bowed in this spirit of self-effacement, you would find in it all that makes the spiritual life. It only remains to know how to preserve this spirit of peace and abandonment.

From Story of a Soul, by St. Therese of Lisieux:

I tried my best to do good on a small scale, having no opportunity to do it on a large scale. As it was, all I could do was to take such opportunities of denying myself as came to me without the asking; that meant mortifying self-love, a much more valuable discipline than any kind of bodily discomfort … I’ve always wished that I could be a saint. But whenever I compared myself to the Saints there was always this unfortunate difference - they were like great mountains, hiding their heads in the clouds, and I was only an insignificant grain of sand, trodden down by all who passed by. However, I wasn’t going to be discouraged; I said to myself: “God wouldn’t inspire us with ambitions that can’t be realized. Obviously there’s nothing great to be made of me, so it must be possible for me to aspire to sanctity in spite of my insignificance. I’ve got to take myself just as I am, with all my imperfections; but somehow I shall have to find out a little way, all of my own, which will be a direct short-cut to heaven. Can’t I find an elevator which will take me up to Jesus, since I’m not big enough to climb the steep stairway of perfection?” So I looked in the Bible for some hint about the life I wanted, and I came across the passage where Eternal Wisdom says: “Whosoever is a little one let him come to Me.” To that Wisdom I went; it seemed as if I was on the right track; what did God undertake to do for the child-like soul that responded to His invitation? I read on, and this is what I found: I will console you like a mother caressing her son; you shall be like children carried at the breast, fondled on a mother’s lap. I could after all, be lifted up to heaven, in the arms of Jesus! And if that was to happen, there was no need for me to grow bigger, on the contrary, I must be as small as ever, smaller than ever.

Finally, Blessed Mother Teresa fixes humility at the apex of the pantheon of virtues, because it is only through humility that we can truly love. St. John of the Cross wrote that “in the evening of our lives we will be judged by love.” True, of course, but how we are judged will depend on our progress in humility:

Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Thirty-Five: Stories

I grew up in a home saturated by the Scriptures. My mom in particular was and is a lover of all things Old Testament, and so the stories of my youth were largely drawn from the Jewish Bible: Noah and the flood; Abraham and the offering of Isaac; Sodom & Gomorrah; Joseph and his brothers; Jacob and Esau; Moses and the Exodus; manna in the desert; the giving of the Law; the golden calf and the infidelity of Israel; Joshua at Jericho; Joshua’s conquest of Canaan; Samson and Delilah; Ruth and Naomi; The call of Samuel; all the stories of David, from Goliath to Bathsheba; David & Jonathan; Solomon’s wisdom; Elijah and the prophets of Baal; Elijah and the fiery chariot; captivity in Babylon; Jonah and the whale; Esther’s banquet; Daniel in the lion’s den; the writing on the wall; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace; Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the later prophets; and on and on and on.

These stories formed the background for our understanding of the nation and faith that produced Jesus of Nazareth, who we believed to be the Messiah long promised to Israel. We learned about Jesus and his Jewish world through stories featuring shepherds and angels; a young maiden and her pregnant cousin; a young boy holding court in the Temple; a young man and his mother at a wedding; a would-be prophet meeting his cousin at the Jordan River; a wandering preacher gathering followers to himself; a healer curing the blind and lame; a teacher instructing thousands; a wise and wary rabbi writing in the sand; a miracle worker feeding five thousand; a holy man casting out demons; a man-god commanding the wind and calling a dead man out from the tomb; a rebel condemning the religious leaders of his day; a friend relaxing at Bethany; a simple man hailed as a king; a priest offering bread and wine; a just man falsely accused; a king crucified between two thieves; a body wrapped in linen; a savior victorious over death.

We also learned how to be followers of Jesus through stories. In those tales we heard about tongues of fire, people speaking in strange languages, earthquakes, shipwrecks, prison breaks, stonings, blinding lights, persecutions, executions, arrests, trials, visions, and healings. These stories featured Jews, Bereans, Thessalonians, Phillipians, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, Greeks, an Ethiopian, and many others.

Christianity is not, at bottom, a syllabus of theological propositions. It is not defined by a philosophy, a culture, or even a book. At its heart, Christianity is a story with three main characters: you, me, and God! Surprised? You might have thought I would write that Christianity is about you and God, or me and God. One on one. But that would be heresy. We all know Christians who think they can go it alone. In fact, in this culture the temptation to reduce Christianity to “me, my Bible, and Jesus” is overwhelming. The dominant “story” in our culture is one of personal autonomy, self-reliance, consumer choice and the illusion of ‘freedom.’

But salvation history is the story of God gathering a people to himself. “Father, I pray that they may be one as you and I are one.” “Love one another, as I have loved you.” All of you! Surely, our response to the call is personal, individual. But once made that response is lived out in communion with each other, and together, with God. It is lived out in a Church, which is the Body of Christ. That’s not my story, or your story. It is our story, thanks be to God!

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Day Thirty-Four: The Apologists

My journey into the Church began in late 1989 and continued for nearly seven years, until the Easter Vigil 1997, when I was reconciled. During most of that time I traveled alone, without the benefit of any Catholic intimates, much less the direction and guidance of a priest or religious. In fact, I didn’t make my first real “Catholic friend” until 1995, and then only as the result of an odd coincidence in a professional setting. (That friend introduced me, in turn, to a holy priest who eventually persuaded me to take the final step across the Tiber.)

And yet, throughout those years of exploration, study and prayer, I was accompanied by a group of friends I think of as “The Apologists,” Catholic writers and lecturers whose work I consumed, and whose defenses of the Faith I put to the severest test. Ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary, The Apologists presented Catholicism in terms I understood well, employing Scripture, history, personal testimony and theological logic to persuade me that the Church is indeed what it claims to be. Some, like Scott Hahn, spoke to me audibly in the very rhythms and cadences with which I was familiar as a cradle-Evangelical. Others, like St. Justin, spoke to me from pages out of the dusty past, but with a clarity so pure and a passion so intense that the intervening centuries were wiped away instantly. Some, like Chesterton, could make me laugh out loud, while others, like Aquinas, forced me to bear down and concentrate. Some, like Francis deSales, were saints. Others are clearly not. Some, like David Currie, are converts. Others, like Belloc, were lifelong Catholics. What all of them shared was a love of Christ, the Church and the truth.

Let me introduce you to my spiritual companions, The Apologists:

Ancients
St. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, Origen, St. Polycarp, Irenaeus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Athanasius

Medieval & Early Moderns
St. John Damascene, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm, St. Francis deSales, Blaise Pascal

Moderns
John Henry Cardinal Newman, Ronald Knox, Hillarie Belloc, G.K. Chesterton, Frank Sheed

Contemporaries
Scott Hahn, Mark Shea, David Currie, Patrick Madrid, Karl Keating, Thomas Howard, Peter Kreeft

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”