Things to Come?

It's's been said that art which disturbs forces the partaker into a realm of solitude that is not entirely welcome, for it forces one to confront his innermost thoughts, to enter "a world of aloneness, ineluctably insisting on one’s attuning oneself to one’s self.”

And it's in that sense that I use the word "disturbing" to describe Assassinio nella Cattedrale, Ildebrando Pizzetti's 1958 operatic version of T.S. Eliot's (equally disturbing) verse play Murder in the Cathedral, the story of the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket in 1170.  

Most of us know, or should know, the basic story of Thomas Becket: his early life as friend and close associate of King Henry II, becoming Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury, and—finally and tragically—how a fatal rift developed between them over the authority of the State over the Church. Eventually, Henry is (supposedly) heard to utter the famous words "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?", whereupon four of his knights travel to Canterbury and there murder the Archbishop in his cathedral.

The question of man's relationship to authority, and the legitimacy of said authority, is timeless. Eliot's play, which premiered in 1935, was taken by many as a commentary on Nazi Germany and its growing oppression of religious freedom. However, it is difficult to view Assassinio today and not think of the growing religious oppression on the horizon in America, the disease of nihilism and threat of totalitarianism that envelopes the nation and the world.

As the opera opens, it is December 2, 1170. Becket has returned from exile in France. There is a truce between Becket and King Henry, but nobody expects it to last. Becket's congregation fears that the Archbishop's return can end only in tragedy, not only for him but them as well. Becket is unfazed by the prospect of martyrdom, but is it a measure of the man's spirituality—or ego? The answer is soon to come.

Becket (Ruggero Raimondi) faces the four Tempters

In a stunning first act confrontation, Becket meets four Tempters; manifestations of Becket's own intellect, they converse with him in a reflection of the inner dialogue tearing through the Archbishop. The first three offer the usual—safety (by running away); power (by compromising with the king); and rebellion (joining the barons against the king). Thomas is able to deal with those temptations easily; it is the fourth that gives him pause, for the fourth temptation is martyrdom itself, the chance for eternal fame and influence through giving up his life.

This one proves the most dangerous, for it is easy to convince yourself that you're dying to draw attention to a cause, when in reality it is you to which you draw attention. Is this why Becket returned to England? Does he look for the ultimate "I told you so" moment? As the tempter says, it would put everyone under Becket's heel: king, emperor, bishop, baron.

It is here that Becket must provide the ultimate measure of who he is and what he believes—and he does, defiantly casting aside the temper, saying "The last temptation is the greatest treason/To do the right thing for the wrong reason." With this act, Becket finds a kind of peace; he comes to the knowledge that he is not looking for martyrdom, but is prepared to accept it as part of sharing Christ's Cross.

In his Christmas Day sermon, Becket gives us a profound meditation on the meaning of Christmas. Yes, it is a day to rejoice in the birth of the Savior, but also to realize the price that salvation will ultimately exact from Him*. It is in this spirit of unity—and love—that one embraces martyrdom, Thomas says, warning the congregation that "It is possible that in a short time you may have yet another martyr."

*I've always thought that the ideal Nativity set should somehow cast a shadow of a Cross over the crib where Christ lays. The Creed celebrates both His birth and death, and at no time is this more clear than at Christmas.

The denouement of Act Two is, at once, tragic, inevitable, and joyous. Four of Henry's knights, played by the same four singers of Act One's tempters, confront Becket, accusing him of disloyalty, and calling on him to surrender or face death at their hands. Becket refuses all attempts by his priests to protect him, either by locking the doors of the Cathedral or by fleeing; in so doing, Becket echoes the words of Pilate that "what has been written is written." He accepts the savage act of martyrdom with peace, and meets his death on December 29, 1170, vested for the liturgy, sprawled on the steps of the altar. 

So what does it all mean to us, and why should we care about Assassinio nella Cattedrale as anything other than a work of art? It has to do, I think, with a question we will have to ask ourselves, sooner or later: of what kind of stuff are we made? We may dare to hope that it doesn't come in as public a venue as it did for Becket, but in truth we don't know. And while we like to hope we'll know how we'll respond to such a moment of truth, as Joyce Carol Oates once wrote, "You won't know until it beckons. To you. So long as it temps others you can judge—can sneer—can express shock, disgust, outrage, and prim distain—the usual emotions of punitive people. But you won't know."

The Martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket,
by Michael D. O’Brien

It may be pessimistic to see in these days the twilight of America, if not the world, but then there are reasons to be pessimistic; we may be far closer to the times of Becket than we think. The late Francis Cardinal George, former Archbishop of Chicago, once said, "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square." While his incompetent succesor (no Becket he!) is more likely to wind up in prison due to corruption, Cardinal George's words should serve as a warning to us all.

The time is coming, I think, when we will find out what we're made of. It will beckon, as Oates says, and then we will find out. The battle is not merely fought among the high-ranking, the statesmen and prelates; its battlefields not confined to the ancient histories of centuries past. No, history is here and now, and each of us will be called upon to take up our own roles in this drama. And then we will find out, we will know.

Here is an superb performance of Assassinio nella Cattedrale from December 22, 2006, staged at the Basilica di San Nicola in Bari, Italy, with Piergiorgio Morandi conducting the Orchestra Sinfonica della Provincia di Bari. The grandeur and solemnity of the Basilica provides a unique but stunning location for the production (with the orchestra situated between the audience in the nave and the singers at the altar), compelling us to consider the story in an atmosphere that for once justifies the correct use of the word "awesome." 

Bass Ruggero Raimondi delivers a dignified, powerfully moving performance as Becket, a man walking at the same time with both truth and death. The New York Times once described Eliot's play as "an opera libretto waiting to be set to music," and Pizzetti, working from an Italian translation of Eliot's play, is faithful to both the story and the underlying meaning. Events are condensed, as they often must be in opera, but at all times Eliot's message comes through without distortion. The music is clearly modern but never lacking in melody, and it creates an atmosphere that will stay with the viewer long after the opera ends. Let's all hope that it remains an entertainment, a history lesson—and not a preview of things to come.

Keep Your Faith To Yourself – Unless I Say Otherwise

In 2015, a county clerk for the state of Kentucky named Kim Davis decided to deny marriage licenses to gay couples, in open defiance of federal law. She did this, she said, because she believed the teachings of her church were more eminent than those of her country.

For doing so, she was roundly condemned and eventually relieved from this responsibility. The loudest voices of opposition came from the political left who howled about “separation of church and state!” She’s free to believe what she wants on her own time, they generously consented, but as long as she lives in this country she better abide by its laws, by jingo.

They probably didn’t say “by jingo,” but it seemed to fit.

These crusaders against Christianity having any say in politics probably don’t know where the concept of “separation of church and state” originated, and why it was created in the first place (it’s certainly not for the reason they think). But that is not relevant here.

What is relevant is that last week, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) just became the country's first 'sanctuary church body.’ They have proclaimed their intention to shelter and protect those who are in this country illegally, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that are attempting to enforce a law that has existed for decades under both Democrat and Republican administrations.

And the same people who mocked and condemned Kim Davis are now at risk of spraining their wrists from applauding so hard, in celebration of Christians openly defying federal law.

Has something changed? Did we become a theocracy when I wasn’t paying attention? Come on, you guys, someone should have told me.

This announcement was particularly troubling to me because I was baptized and confirmed in a church that now identifies as evangelical Lutheran. It was just plain old Lutheran back then, but I guess someone decided 32 Christian denominations weren’t enough, so it was time to add a few more.

I went to the ELCA’s Facebook page to get a sense of what the rank and file were saying about what I assumed would be a controversial decision. I expected opposing views, intelligently expressed; what I did not expect was insults, arrogance, and a level of discussion as puerile as what you’d find in the comments section of a fringe political blog. With few exceptions there was no attempt at respectful dialogue and debate. It was like a Trinity Broadcast Network version of Crossfire.

But if the question were to be decided by popular vote, the consensus on that Facebook page suggests this decision has majority support.

I think it’s terribly misguided, and the fact that I would even have to explain why is a sad reflection on how the world has changed. Right and wrong, legal and illegal, have all become amorphous terms in a society that is now allergic to emphatically expressed truths.

A legitimate government is enforcing a just law. Every country can and should regulate immigration as a right related to its national sovereignty. Period.

What message is the ELCA sending to the million or so immigrants who come to America legally every year? That they’re like fools who circle a parking lot for ten minutes waiting for someone to leave, when all they had to do was pull into that handicapped spot without a placard? Who cares about doing things the right way?

What message does it send to other churches who may wish to defy a law it believes is unfair? If the ELCA can shield an illegal immigrant from lawful deportation, why can’t a Catholic church detain a woman who wishes to terminate her pregnancy, to protect the innocent life of her child, because that too would be in accordance with a higher law?

This is a big door swinging open, and my guess is that all the Trump-haters who love seeing him get a middle finger from a house of worship have not considered all of the ramifications. This time it’s great because they agree with it. But they reserve the right to tell the church to hit the road on issues where they don’t. I’ll take “Cafeteria Christians” for 600, Alex.

Yes, there is a Gospel imperative to “welcome the stranger.” But any legitimate church’s doctrine also supports the right of sovereign countries to have borders, and the reality that immigration must be subject to some regulation.

The ELCA has elected to separate from that doctrine. That will get them some good press from a left-leaning media for a while. But I wonder if anyone will ask its members (or those cheering from the secular sidelines cause Jesus finally got one right) if they ever gave a thought to the strangers laying all over the sidewalks of San Francisco and Seattle and Portland.

I’m guessing they haven’t – thankfully the Catholics and the Protestants are doing their best to provide food and shelter and counseling. Maybe if some of those pitiful souls decided to have a gay wedding, they’d get a little more attention.

Throwback Thursday: Kaepernick

This whole Colin Kaepernick thing is fascinating for many reasons, not the least of which being that there are so many sides to it all. Dreher points out a lot of them, and I'd actually been thinking along those lines myself. I mean, it's hard enough for me to have pride in a country that sanctions the murder of unborn children, encourages (in some cases) the murder of the elderly and infirm, demands that Christians kowtow to prevailing opinion on things like homosexual marriage, and the like. And that doesn't even begin to get into questions like sending young men and women into combat for reasons that don't clearly present themselves.

So make no mistake about it, I understand where someone could be coming from with this stand. And I do think Kaepernick has the right to do what he's doing; whether or not the First Amendment applies to private industry, there's still such a thing as freedom of political expression in this country - at least for now. Provided that one recognizes the possibility of blowback for their actions, there should be no question about having the right to take a political stand. For years blacks had what they thought of as their own national anthem, so this itself is nothing new.

I also don't go for the idea that his actions somehow "disrespect" the military. While the military may well be credited for winning American independence in the Revolution, the truth of the matter is that this army was led by a politician - George Washington - and was spurred to action by an entire Congress of politicians, the Founding Fathers. It is no lack of respect of America's armed forces to say that the National Anthem stands for more than just them. To say so might actually disrespect the rest of America. The Anthem belongs to all of us, after all. It does seem that in the last few years we've turned almost every major holiday in this country, with the exception of Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's Day, into some type of tribute to our soldiers. Let's honor them by all means, but leave us not turn everything into a cause célèbre. 

Things get murkier when it comes down to the case of Kaepernick specifically. This may blow my cover when it comes to how much I pay attention to the NFL, but until this I didn't even know that Kaepernick was partly black. I just saw a scruffy guy with a beard and a lot of tats, and when you put him in a football uniform there isn't much else showing. That's why I was confused when this first came to light, because I wondered what was in it for him. Now I understand that a little better, but it hardly answers my questions. Most of these questions have been raised by others, but that very fact means they're good questions:

1. How much has Kaepernick himself done for the black community? Does he pledge money? Does he have a foundation or charity? Has he personally become involved with the families of any of the people he claims are laying dead in the streets?


2. Does Kaepernick really believe we should be taking him seriously when he's making as much money as he is? Being a celebrity doesn't mean you sacrifice your right to have an opinion, of course, but when you've been as much of a success in America as Colin Kaepernick has, any complaints about inequality and lack of freedom tend to ring hollow. Has he done anything to overcome this?


3. Speaking of which, how much discrimination has Kaepernick himself faced? To the extent he hasn't been singled out, could it be because he's lighter-skinned than many blacks? And from there, does this open up a larger discussion about attitudes toward light-skinned blacks in the greater black community? Do they have a hierarchy themselves?


4. I have a hard time believing Kaepernick's sincerity considering he's become a borderline quarterback who stands a good chance of being cut by the 49ers before the start of the season. Why is it that I'm cynical enough to believe he's either (a) trying to deflect attention from his failures on the playing field by trying to curry favor with blacks and liberals; (b) trying to prevent the 49ers from releasing them by setting them up to appear racists and reactionaries if they do; (c) hoping another team will see positive PR coming from picking him up; or (d) a combination of the above? Note that I'm not accusing him of any of this - I'm merely saying that a cynic might think so. Not that there's any room for cynicism in professional sports. Not at all.


5. Finally, how much does this reflect on Kaepernick's leadership? As the quarterback he is, as one wag put it, the CEO of the team (at least on the field). Does he show leadership by refusing to stand with his teammates as one on the sideline? Does he show leadership by calling attention to himself and his individual actions, rather than the team as a whole? Does he show leadership by creating such a distraction? You tell me.

Truth be told, I find the discussion about Kaepernick far more interesting than Kaepernick himself, which might be the cruelest cut of all if he is in fact just trolling for publicity. Dreher asks a couple of pertinent questions, and where I break severely with him is in the way I react to them:

We may see no contradiction between being a good Christian and a good American, but what happens when Americans as a whole look at dissenting Christians and call us un-American for the things we believe and do? Will we stand for the National Anthem then? If so, will we stand for the America we think is real, versus this politicized, debased America that the mainstream holds to? Or will it be more important for us not to stand, and to accept whatever consequences come with that?

[...]

What will it cost us if we lose the ability to stand together for the National Anthem? Is it worth what we stand to gain

Dreher typically reacts with horror to this thought, of America breaking up, but I don't; I've a hard time thinking of this as a unified country for some time. Dreher craves order, and freaks out when there's even a whiff of anarchy (and I don't mean the French Revolution kind); were it not for that, I wonder if he wouldn't be able to see that this ship sailed a long, long time ago. We're split, not just on ideological disagreements, but increasingly on fundamental questions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When I ask the questions I did in my opening paragraph, I'm not just wondering about a hypothetical situation - it already exists. Dreher, for as pessimistic as he is, only intellectualizes that we might have passed the point of no return, when the only question is whether the split is peaceful or not. For many of us, thought, the upside of such a split continues to seem far greater than the downside of remaining one nation, even though it may not be under God (or so we think, anyway) and doesn't offer either liberty or justice for all. 

I think the time is coming, and in fact is already here. We just haven't felt the shockwaves yet.

Originally published August 30, 2016

Throwback Thursday: The end of the world

As a little experiment, I'm going to reprint a quote. It's a little long, but read it. Afterward, I'll tell you more.  (H/T Dreher)

The Liberal notion that religion was a matter of private belief and of conduct in private life, and that there is no reason why Christians should not be able to accommodate themselves to any world which treats them good-naturedly, is becoming less and less tenable. This notion would seem to have become accepted gradually, as a false inference from the subdivision of English Christianity into sects, and the happy results of universal toleration. The reason why members of different communions have been able to rub along together is that in the greater part of the ordinary business of life they have shared the same assumptions about behaviour. . . . The problem of leading a Christian life in a non-Christian society is now very present to us, and it is a very different problem from that of the accommodation between an Established Church and dissenters. It is not merely the problem of a minority in a society of individuals holding an alien belief. It is the problem constituted by our implication in a network of institutions from which we cannot dissociate ourselves: institutions the operation of which appears no longer neutral, but non-Christian. And as for the Christian who is not conscious of his dilemma — and he is in the majority — he is becoming more and more de-Christianised by all sorts of unconscious pressure: paganism holds all the most valuable advertising space. Anything like Christian traditions transmitted from generation to generation within the family must disappear, and the small body of Christians will consist entirely of adult recruits. . . .

What is often assumed, and it is a principle that I wish to oppose, is the principle of live-and-let-live. It is assumed that if the State leaves the Church alone, and to some extent protects it from molestation, then the Church has no right to interfere with the organization of society, or with the conduct of those who deny its beliefs. It is assumed that any such interference would be the oppression of the majority by a minority. Christians must take a very different view of their duty. But before suggesting how the Church should interfere with the World, we must try to answer the question, why should it interfere with the World?

The author of that quote was T.S. Eliot, which means that though it sounds as if it was written yesterday, it was actually quite a while ago.  Try almost 75 years ago.

In one way this is encouraging; it seems as if whatever time in which you lived was always pointing toward the end, which was always just around the corner.  At the same time there's something depressing about it as well; because he describes today's times so well, his pessimism is that much more so.  Either way, there's no doubt that his words are prophetic.

But there's more to Eliot than that, and ultimately - if you read the whole thing - you'll find that he also provides a call to action, a description of exactly what we're called to do. "To accept two ways of life in the same society, one for the Christian and another for the rest, would be for the Church to abandon its task of evangelising the world. For the more alien the non-Christian world become, the more difficult becomes its conversion."  That's the challenge; those are our marching orders.  It sounds vaguely like a call to martyrdom; I don't know.

But one thing that comes instantly to mind: has the Pope ever said anything this cogent?  In this sense, the money quote:

I do not mean that the Church exists primarily for the propagation of Christian morality: morality is a means and not an end. The Church exists for the glory of God and the sanctification of souls: Christian morality is part of the means by which these ends are to be attained. But because Christian morals are based on fixed beliefs which cannot change they also are essentially unchanging: while the beliefs and in consequence the morality of the secular world can change from individual to individual, or from generation to generation, or from nation to nation. 

He's not talking about the Catholic Church, though I have no doubt that if Eliot lived today, seeing what's become of his Anglican church, he would convert.  The message remains the same, though.  Unlike, perhaps, the Bishop of Rome, Eliot does not soft-sell the faith; he does not dumb down the message.  The Church does not exist in a state that renders insignificant what it really stands for.

No matter how confused today's message might be.

Originally published July 18, 2014

Throwback Thursday: On the real persecution

At the risk of being disowned by my fellow orthodox Catholic friends, I picked up a copy of Rolf Hochhuth’s infamous play The Deputy a couple of weeks ago at a used book store.  It was no great revelation to me; I’ve read it before, and I bought it on this occasion as a research aid for a writing project that you may or may not ever hear about again.  It went on the bookshelf, between The Complete Works of Ayn Rand and How to Become a Libertarian in Six Easy Steps.

As a work of fiction likely to be taken as fact by readers and viewers, The Deputy is little more than a slanderous piece of Communist propaganda, deliberately promoted to tarnish the reputation of Pius XII through lie and innuendo.  And over the decades since it was published in the early ‘60s, it has indeed gone a long way to smear a man who, in the immediate aftermath of WW2, had been praised by Jews and Christians alike for his efforts to save Jewish lives while in a delicate position.  Evidence has since been uncovered linking Hochhuth with East German intelligence, and it’s likely that the whole thing was part of an orchestrated plot to undermine the Church.

It’s also not that well-written; far too polemical and strident, not to mention the slander I mentioned earlier (which, I guess, means I shouldn’t have to mention it again).  As a play, though, at least in written form, it has some intriguing qualities.  For one thing, Hochhuth’s prose stage instructions go on and on, sometimes for pages.  They’re obviously meant to be more than just directions; indeed, they provide background and commentary in such depth that they become an integral part of the story.  If you’re attending it as a performance without having the book in front of you, there’ll be so much left out that you won’t really receive the full impact.*  With some judicious editing, it would be reminiscent of a book I enjoyed quite a bit, Michael Herr’s Walter Winchell – a prose novel written in the form of a screenplay, complete with descriptions of fade-ins and fade-outs, camera cuts, and the like.

*Of course, there are many who’d argue that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If there’s one redeeming factor in my purchase, aside from the research aspect (which has already borne fruit), it’s that I bought it second-hand, which means that neither Hochhuth, his publisher, nor anyone else connected with The Deputy made any money off of me.  Had I been forced to pay full price, I probably would have had to make a trip to the confessional.

There is, however, one thing I’d like to note in favor of The Deputy, although it has nothing to do with the book itself.  It came to me as I was driving in this morning, pondering the Christian persecution that seems to be in America’s immediate future.  Oh, I don’t necessarily mean a persecution on the scale of the Holocaust; it’s more subtle and insidious than that.  It’s the persecution occurring when an individual refuses to conform to the new social order and realize that religion is best kept hidden away in a dark corner, not to be brought out into polite company.  You’re OK if you want to cling to your superstitions, just don’t do it where you can be seen, or in a way that might influence public policy.

It might not be as pronounced as wearing a yellow Star of David, at least not at first.  But when you’re queried at work about political beliefs that have nothing to do with your job, when you can be forced to step down from a job or sell a company because of contributions you’ve made to various organizations, when the government can try to force companies to fund insurance coverage for acts that violate their own religious beliefs – well, you fill in the blanks.

Eventually it spreads.  The skeptic might suggest that, in a free-market economy such as ours, anyone confronted by religious discrimination is at liberty to start their own company, hire people who agree with you, and so on.  But when the prospective business isn’t able to get funding because lending institutions won’t provide it to those of a certain ideological or theological bent, when the business can’t attract customers because of intimidation tactics waged by those for whom freedom of speech applies in only one direction, when the burdens placed by government on the business force an owner to choose between conscience and profit – well, you try explaining it to someone who still has to put food on the table for a wife and children.  There’s more than one form of persecution, and sometimes the unbloody ones are every bit as painful and damaging.  They don’t attack the body, at least not outwardly, but they chip away at the soul.

Which leads me back to The Deputy.  Hochhuth’s claim is that Pius allowed political and financial considerations to prevent him from taking a stronger stance against Nazi persecution of the Jews.  And for all of his preaching, there’s no doubt that Hochhuth’s words (if they’re sincere and not simply a propaganda tool) show a great deal of compassion for the plight of the Jews during WW2.  If he really means what he says, if his fictional Fr. Riccardo (based, supposedly, on St. Maximillian Kolbe) really exemplifies, in his contempt for Pius, a desire to empty himself out for those being persecuted, then one can at least begin to understand the depth of abandonment that the Jews must have felt back then.  To have the entire world abandon you, turn its back on you and ignore what’s being done to you, and then to have the man who carries the greatest amount of moral authority remain silent* - well, that truly speaks to the dark night of the soul.

*To be clear once again: despite Hochhuth’s claim that the play was “ein christliches trauerspiel,” that is, a Christian tragedy, I believe it to be a smear job backed by the KGB, with no intent of sincerity.  However, as Caiaphas discovered (John 11:50), anyone can be an inadvertent prophet, no matter how much the thought might horrify them.

And so, as we enter the once and future persecution, I will put that hat on and look toward Rome and its bishop.  Can you see what is happening here, or are your eyes only on the refugees and the dissenters?  Do you feel the pain that so many are feeling, the choices that are having to be made, the sense of despair that rises, or are you more interested in kissing babies and playing the role of the kindly, benign father?  Are you prepared to confront a powerful government of an increasingly post-Christian nation that wants to marginalize Christianity and its beliefs in the name of progress and majority rule?  Are you ready to speak out for those who have no voice, to show the truth to a world that prefers not to see?

Are you aware of how high the stakes are, of how immigration and social justice and wealth redistribution and all the rest are of no consequence without this basic freedom?

In other words, are you ready to interfere?

Or, like Hochhuth’s fictional Pius, are you all-too willing to allow worldly considerations to influence you to look the other way?


Originally published July 21, 2014

Throwback Thursday: A new humanist theocracy?

I was raised in the reading of A Beka's wonderful history books about the United States, and the discussions of the Separatists, those who wanted a split from the Church of England, and the Strangers. It was a love of religious freedom that sent the Separatists on their way to the New World to settle nearly 400 years ago in the Plymouth Colony.

Now with the advancement of the homosexual agenda, including the systematic swiping of an entire region, I have this scary thought to consider:

Four hundred years ago, the Separatists left England over the fearsome arm of the Church of England, and a state-run church. Freedom of religion was the main goal, the ability to study God's Word, and being able to worship God. Now, in the same region, freedom of religion and speech are both being stripped, as homosexual activists have made it clear they want a humanist theocracy, where their agenda is the "gospel," and those opposing them are arrested and punished.

The Pilgrims, if they see what has happened today, would be very angry and wanting to escape the humanist theocracy that the sexual deviants have pushed on the nation, through the media and indoctrination of generations. They wanted to escape the state-run Church of England; now they are seeing a humanist agenda establishing a state religion, where the sexual deviants' agenda is law and freedom of speech and religion are eliminated by the state religion of humanism, which is controlled by the sexual deviants, with a President of the United States helping push the end of religious freedom and the push of a new state religion. While the First Amendment only bans Congress from establishing a state religion, today's modern humanist agenda is only glad using courts and state legislators to push a state religion where the state is a deity, and Christians are prohibited from any activity, from running ministries to help the needy, to adoption and foster care, and even teaching children a worldview opposed to the humanists.

Has the nation, especially in New England, fallen prey to a humanist order that is every bit as troubling as the Separatists 400 years ago leading them to leave England for the New World? The sellout to humanist ideas is the saddest thing we're seeing today. If Roger Williams saw what was happening, he would prohibit this humanist agenda.


Originally published April 27, 2013

Kaepernick

This whole Colin Kaepernick thing is fascinating for many reasons, not the least of which being that there are so many sides to it all. Dreher points out a lot of them, and I'd actually been thinking along those lines myself. I mean, it's hard enough for me to have pride in a country that sanctions the murder of unborn children, encourages (in some cases) the murder of the elderly and infirm, demands that Christians kowtow to prevailing opinion on things like homosexual marriage, and the like. And that doesn't even begin to get into questions like sending young men and women into combat for reasons that don't clearly present themselves.

So make no mistake about it, I understand where someone could be coming from with this stand. And I do think Kaepernick has the right to do what he's doing; whether or not the First Amendment applies to private industry, there's still such a thing as freedom of political expression in this country - at least for now. Provided that one recognizes the possibility of blowback for their actions, there should be no question about having the right to take a political stand. For years blacks had what they thought of as their own national anthem, so this itself is nothing new.

I also don't go for the idea that his actions somehow "disrespect" the military. While the military may well be credited for winning American independence in the Revolution, the truth of the matter is that this army was led by a politician - George Washington - and was spurred to action by an entire Congress of politicians, the Founding Fathers. It is no lack of respect of America's armed forces to say that the National Anthem stands for more than just them. To say so might actually disrespect the rest of America. The Anthem belongs to all of us, after all. It does seem that in the last few years we've turned almost every major holiday in this country, with the exception of Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's Day, into some type of tribute to our soldiers. Let's honor them by all means, but leave us not turn everything into a cause célèbre. 

Things get murkier when it comes down to the case of Kaepernick specifically. This may blow my cover when it comes to how much I pay attention to the NFL, but until this I didn't even know that Kaepernick was partly black. I just saw a scruffy guy with a beard and a lot of tats, and when you put him in a football uniform there isn't much else showing. That's why I was confused when this first came to light, because I wondered what was in it for him. Now I understand that a little better, but it hardly answers my questions. Most of these questions have been raised by others, but that very fact means they're good questions:

1. How much has Kaepernick himself done for the black community? Does he pledge money? Does he have a foundation or charity? Has he personally become involved with the families of any of the people he claims are laying dead in the streets?


2. Does Kaepernick really believe we should be taking him seriously when he's making as much money as he is? Being a celebrity doesn't mean you sacrifice your right to have an opinion, of course, but when you've been as much of a success in America as Colin Kaepernick has, any complaints about inequality and lack of freedom tend to ring hollow. Has he done anything to overcome this?


3. Speaking of which, how much discrimination has Kaepernick himself faced? To the extent he hasn't been singled out, could it be because he's lighter-skinned than many blacks? And from there, does this open up a larger discussion about attitudes toward light-skinned blacks in the greater black community? Do they have a hierarchy themselves?


4. I have a hard time believing Kaepernick's sincerity considering he's become a borderline quarterback who stands a good chance of being cut by the 49ers before the start of the season. Why is it that I'm cynical enough to believe he's either (a) trying to deflect attention from his failures on the playing field by trying to curry favor with blacks and liberals; (b) trying to prevent the 49ers from releasing them by setting them up to appear racists and reactionaries if they do; (c) hoping another team will see positive PR coming from picking him up; or (d) a combination of the above? Note that I'm not accusing him of any of this - I'm merely saying that a cynic might think so. Not that there's any room for cynicism in professional sports. Not at all.


5. Finally, how much does this reflect on Kaepernick's leadership? As the quarterback he is, as one wag put it, the CEO of the team (at least on the field). Does he show leadership by refusing to stand with his teammates as one on the sideline? Does he show leadership by calling attention to himself and his individual actions, rather than the team as a whole? Does he show leadership by creating such a distraction? You tell me.

Truth be told, I find the discussion about Kaepernick far more interesting than Kaepernick himself, which might be the cruelest cut of all if he is in fact just trolling for publicity. Dreher asks a couple of pertinent questions, and where I break severely with him is in the way I react to them:

We may see no contradiction between being a good Christian and a good American, but what happens when Americans as a whole look at dissenting Christians and call us un-American for the things we believe and do? Will we stand for the National Anthem then? If so, will we stand for the America we think is real, versus this politicized, debased America that the mainstream holds to? Or will it be more important for us not to stand, and to accept whatever consequences come with that?

[...]

What will it cost us if we lose the ability to stand together for the National Anthem? Is it worth what we stand to gain

Dreher typically reacts with horror to this thought, of America breaking up, but I don't; I've a hard time thinking of this as a unified country for some time. Dreher craves order, and freaks out when there's even a whiff of anarchy (and I don't mean the French Revolution kind); were it not for that, I wonder if he wouldn't be able to see that this ship sailed a long, long time ago. We're split, not just on ideological disagreements, but increasingly on fundamental questions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When I ask the questions I did in my opening paragraph, I'm not just wondering about a hypothetical situation - it already exists. Dreher, for as pessimistic as he is, only intellectualizes that we might have passed the point of no return, when the only question is whether the split is peaceful or not. For many of us, thought, the upside of such a split continues to seem far greater than the downside of remaining one nation, even though it may not be under God (or so we think, anyway) and doesn't offer either liberty or justice for all. 

I think the time is coming, and in fact is already here. We just haven't felt the shockwaves yet.

Are we down to just one freedom, invented by a few cities?

Albert Mohler calls it "religious liberty versus erotic liberty".  John Stonestreet references it as religious freedom versus sexual freedom in the late Charles Colson's BreakPointcommentary that he is the lead commentator today (BreakPoint has been the subject of religious radio's decline as it tilted towards a new entertainment-based format that refuses to inform evangelicals that was noted in 2006.)

Those two commentaries have sadly reared their ugly heads in a series of Supreme Court cases where the court has ruled "sexual freedom is the first (or only) freedom" that I can call part of the Obergefell movement's ulterior motive to ensure that religious freedom is replaced by the Left's call of sexual freedom, and that sexual freedom becomes the only freedom.

For the urbane courts decided, especially since the Bork rejection, to turn its back on the people and favour just those few cities and crybaby losers as a form of "social justice" to the form that Clarence Thomas referenced through the heavy court packing (40% of the court's judiciary from this Administration), “The Court has simultaneously transformed judicially created rights like the right to abortion into preferred constitutional rights, while disfavoring many of the rights actually enumerated in the Constitution.”  It's not just abortion but all of erotic liberty from marriage to adoption and all forms of lewd behaviour.

Look at the sexual freedom movement's line of wins.  From erasing marriage laws to erasing abortion restrictions, mandating businesses support erotic liberty's mandates, erasing male/female standards in restrooms, and all types of common sense being erased, this forced Dr. Mohler in a commentary to notice the line of left-wing victories from a Biden (1), Clinton (2), and Obama (2) left-wing majority in courts.  Now we have states attempting to force out colleges with a Christian worldview by mandating the only worldview that can be pushed is the liberal worldview of no moral standards and erotic liberty endorsement.  See the rampant parades of the sexual perversion movement, appropriately named "pride" because they are, as mentioned here in the past, throwing Christians to the lions.

In the thoughts of my fifth-grade history book, Old World History and Geography from A Beka, we have become classic Hindu India's caste system.  All of the Left's leadership are now the warrior caste, while Christians are now entirely sent off into the untouchable caste.  Those liberal denominations are in the middle, and we are seeing how the denominations that are in Protestant liberalism have seen steep declines to the point conservative factions have broken away similar to Brexit (see the Episcopal, Presbyterian PCUSA for examples).

In correlation to Brexit, I see a pattern in the UK that applies to the United States also.  The elites are losing at each turn of the ballot box.  The entire sexual freedom movement's victories have come by elites.   In essence, we are now coming to a dangerous part of our nation where the law is the feelings of a few elites on the bench, and the people are now being suppressed, similar to what the Colonists understood that led 240 years ago to the most important document in this country's history.  We are eerily seeing, thanks to the advancement of the sexual freedom movement, the late, great Lawrence Berra's phrase, "It's Like Déjà Vu All Over Again," come back.  Our laws passed are being erased by elites in the left-wing judiciary.  Didn't we fight England over the king erasing our laws and replacing them with his wants?

Throwback Thursday: What if democracy, like higher education, is just a scam?

Yeah, don't remind me. I know I've been away for awhile. I'm reminded of it often enough by The Boss. (That's Mr. Hadley, in case you're wondering.) Just consider this a cameo appearance if you want, but I promise I'm going to try and come back here more often.

Anyway, I have a couple of pieces for your consideration.  The first hearkens back to the "Scam of Higher Education" series I did a couple of years ago, and it concerns the new director of Islamic Studies at Duke University. (I asked Mitchell if he wanted to take this one, since he used to work at Duke; his reply was more or less unprintable, but by and large suggested that if I wanted to write about Duke, now or at any time in the future, I was more than welcome to do so.)

Anyway, this gentleman, Omid Safi, compares recent Israeli "crimes" to the Holocaust. I'll let you read all about it here, but what bothers me about this is not only the dishonesty that apparently accompanies his "scholarship," but the laziness of it all. I mean, how many times do we have to read about something being compared to the Nazis or the Holocaust? It's just plain lazy - lazier than the number of F-bombs that show up in a Martin Scorsese movie. I used to think that just dropped them in there to meet the word count minimum, but it's a stroke of pure creativity compared to how many times liberals compare _________ (fill in the blank) to the Holocaust and equate ___________ (various conservatives) to Nazis.

Just give me an effing break, will you?

The second item this week is more thought-provoking.  It's by one of my favorite pundits, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and he asks a disturbing question: what if democracy is a fraud?

Yes, I know - there are a lot of conservatives who throw that question around the same way liberals toss around Nazis.  But, setting aside the provocative nature of the headline, there's some real food for thought here:

What if democracy as it has come to exist in America today is dangerous to personal freedom? What if our so-called democracy erodes the people’s understanding of natural rights and the reasons for government and instead turns political campaigns into beauty contests? What if American democracy allows the government to do anything it wants, as long as more people bother to show up at the voting booth to support the government than show up to say no?

He goes on to elaborate with a number of similar points, before he comes to the conclusion, which is a crusher:

What if the late progressive Edmund S. Morgan was right when he said that government depends on make believe? What if our ancestors made believe that the king was divine? What if they made believe that he could do no wrong? What if they made believe that the voice of the king was the voice of God?

What if the government believes in make believe? What if it made believe that the people have a voice? What if it made believe that the representatives of the people are the people? What if it made believe that the governors are the servants of the people? What if it made believe that all men are created equal, or that they are not?

What if the government made believe that it is always right? What if it made believe that the majority can do no wrong? What if the tyranny of the majority is as destructive to human freedom as the tyranny of a madman? What if the government knows this?

What do we do about it?

I've always been one to defend the United States from those (primarily very traditional Catholics) who charge that the nation was conceived in sin, so to speak, that religious freedom itself was license for the kind of hedonistic libertarianism we seem to have today. While the Founders may not have been Catholics, they were great Americans nonetheless. As someone once said, the United States is the worst country in the world in which to live, except for all the rest of them.

Nowadays, that defense is harder and harder to maintain. What do we do about it, indeed? Thoughts?

Originally published July 28, 2014

On the coming persecution (iii)

From Francis Poulenc's famous opera Dialogues of the Carmelites:

Sister Constance: "Are there no men left to come to the aid of the country?"

Mother Superior: "When priests are lacking, martyrs are superabundant."

Biblical definition of "Hell" not acceptable? (C-SPAN censorship of it)

The seven words you cannot say on television have become commonplace.  But we know there is a hatred of God in today's society.  It reminded me of a turn of the century pop song made famous by the "Gold City" quartet (now this was pre-LaRoche era, folks!) that at the end said, "I got saved because of what the old time, hell fire, brimstone preacher said![1]"

The last line I quoted mattered when I observed C-SPAN's video from the National Prayer Breakfast. Fox broadcaster Darrell Waltrip was making his speech at the event, which was attended by the President and Dalai Lama among others, when during his speech, he referenced the 1983 Daytona 500 crash that he admits changed his life.  During that portion of his speech, the Nashville-area businessman who owns auto dealerships representing Honda, Fuji Heavy Industries, Geely, and General Motors went to the classic "fire and brimstone" that C-SPAN cameras decided to censor.

"If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, if you don’t have a relationship, if he’s not the master of your life, if you’ve never gotten on your knees and asked him to forgive you of your sins, or if you are just a pretty good guy or a pretty good gal, you’re going to go to hell.”

For simply saying those who are not saved will be sent to the Lake of Fire, C-SPAN decided to censor him.  So you can air obscene language on television, you can air raunchy content, but if you say Biblical truth and go fire and brimstone, that's worth censoring.  Go figure.  The incident takes place at the 17-minute mark of the speech.  Rob (No Hell) Bell and his minions would praise the censoring, but there is hell, and there is a place for punishment.  Why can a television broadcaster censored for saying the Biblical truth?



REFERENCES  
1.  "He Said," Dianne Wilkinson.  Centergy Music, 1999.

Standards? We don't need standards! We make them

The ruling elites have shown their hatred of the nation, and their attitude is clearly aimed at an "I want what I want," and "we don't care what the Constitution says, we go by what we want" has an ugly taste of the evil judges (worse than those in the Book of Judges), considering what Albert Mohler calls the rise of "erotic liberty" triumphing over "religious liberty.  See how judges have overrun Constitutions in the majority of 30 states that voted to write marriage is only between one male and one female, and no other unions can be recognised, because of egos.  When supermajorities of 60%, 70%, and 78% are overrun by judges reminiscent of that book in question, the sexual freedom fighters are showing their egos.

The elites in Atlanta have shown their colours.  The mayor of the city, who has blood on his hands from the loss of hockey to Winnipeg and baseball to Vinings (2017), and potentially losing the NBA to an unknown city likely in the Cascadia area, has sided with the tiny minority of perverted behaviour by firing the head of the city's fire department, Kelvin Cochran, because he posted a Biblical worldview.  He clearly meant that "sexual freedom" triumphs as a protected right, and those who oppose the worldview must be fired.  With the numerous "nondiscrimination" clauses including "sexual orientation," and the push by numerous crybabies to advance the sexual deviancy agenda.  Mr. Mohler's words regarding the rise of "erotic liberty" must be seriously considered considering the absurd push of "civil rights".

Erotic liberty is new on the scene, but it is central to the moral project of modernity — a project that asserts erotic liberty, which the (Founding Fathers) never imagined, as an even more fundamental liberty than freedom of religion. The logic of erotic liberty has worked its way from law schools and academia into popular culture, entertainment, public policy, and Supreme Court decisions.
In one classic example, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy famously wrote  of human dignity in terms of one’s “concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” — and he has explicitly tied that to erotic liberty in a series of decisions and opinions.

What the erotic liberty folk demand is their behaviour to be called a "civil right".  They want to call marriage a civil right that cannot be restricted to one man and one woman only -- they want any two, even three, or more.  Now take their "civil right" logic to the workplace, where employees must pass a drug test at a World Anti-Doping Agency approved laboratory, and cannot test positive for drugs listed in the WADA Anti-Doping Code.  One person fails the test, and is fired, but goes to the pro-Bolshevik ACLU and sues the employer, saying he has a "civil right" to work there and they cannot discriminate against him because of a failed drug test.

So, if an employee of a company is fired for failing a drug test at a WADA-approved laboratory, required at work, can he cry out he has civil rights, and they cannot fire him for failing a WADA drug test, when passing the test is required to work there?  That is the same logic of homosexual activists demanding marriage is a "civil right" and that "they cannot be defined by the Bible," in addition to demanding the protection of their behaviour.  In essence, the relativism lobby claim it is their "civil right" to use illegal drugs, and illicit drug use is a behaviour that must be protected, similar to sexual deviancy.

I'm being serious.  That is their logic.  You cannot punish for behaviour.

And that's only Part One of the "We don't need standards" crowd's behaviour.

The second part of this "we don't need standards" folk come from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.  As Dr. Mohler noted, popular culture is pushing the deviancy agenda, and in television, control is clearly in the cultural Left, where most shows winning major awards come from ultra-premium pay television or non-commercial streaming services, where decency standards are not required, and the alleged "quality" is based on advancing the "no decency, it's what I want, and nothing else matters" attitude.  At the Foreign Press Association's Golden Globe Awards, it was clear the winning television shows were HBO and Amazon Prime.  Showtime and Netflix are also part of the game at the Emmys, while broadcast networks, which are under stricter standards of decency to avoid offending advertisers and authorities, while appealing to a mass audience, have become second-class carriers where the "critics," who are just as much Hollywood elites, ignore them because of standards that must be met.

Seriously, when "critics" vote for shows that few people watch because they do not want to pay for premium television, they are advancing the idea that television for elites, which most people do not watch, is the only television that is worth watching, with better "quality" that is not quality but additional material not suitable for most viewers of the Heartland.  But, as we have learned, the heartland and their values do not matter to these ruling elites that demand what they want is all that is suitable.  The Golden Globe ceremony celebrated the elitism of modern television, and it was the equivalent of calling out a Dies Irae (yes, I love the Verdi though I've sung the Mozart twice).  Another push for sexual deviancy normalisation, considering what we have learned in studying God's Word years ago, inappropriate, but it was widely celebrated at the show.  At the ceremony, the best comedy award went to a streaming service programme that advanced the sexual deviancy agenda, and the people thanked the activists, along with a kid who was taught the wrong things and killed himself, trying to become a "martyr" for the cause.  Another award went to a Reagan-bashing drama that advanced the same agenda.  These events seem to be propaganda for the leftist causes that cannot win save for elites who want to bash anyone who opposes them into a new prison.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI warned, "We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires. "  He also noted, "In recent years I find myself noting how the more relativism becomes the generally accepted way of thinking, the more it tends toward intolerance, thereby becoming a new dogmatism. Political correctness, whose constant pressures you have illuminated, seeks to establish the domain of a single way of thinking and speaking. Its relativism creates the illusion that it has reached greater heights than the loftiest philosophical achievements of the past. It prescribes itself as the only way to think and speak – if, that is, one wishes to stay in fashion. Being faithful to traditional values and to the knowledge that upholds them is labelled intolerance, and relativism becomes the required norm. I think it is vital that we oppose this imposition of a new pseudo-enlightenment, which threatens freedom of thought as well as freedom of religion."

The Golden Globe ceremony, and the logic of sexual deviancy activists, especially in overturning constitutions and the Atlanta situation, show that regardless of Catholic or Protestant, Mr. Ratzinger or Mr. Mohler, both are warning against relativism that is taught in schools, popular culture media, and the elite media critics rewarding the propaganda with awards.

WORKS CITED

Albert Mohler, "Religious Liberty vs Erotic Liberty:  Religious Liberty Is Losing," 12 January 2015.

L. Brent Bozell III.  "The Golden Globes of Propaganda," 16 January 2015.

Joseph Ratzinger and Marcello Pera, Without Roots:  The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam.  New York:  Perseus Books, 2007.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, "Mass," 18 April 2005.

The future of religious freedom in America

I'm just catching up on things that have been sitting around for awhile, so the half-dozen or so of you who are regular readers might have already read this elsewhere, but I found it interesting.  Rod Dreher reported here on a conference regarding the future of religious freedom in the United States, sponsored by the magazine First Things.  This isn't the first time First Things has gotten into this kind of provocative discussion; many years ago, I recall them hosting a symposium on the end of democracy in America.

These discussions often seem extreme, and yet how many things that once seemed equally extreme are taken for granted today?  No, the time to discuss them is now, before they reach critical mass, but to look at them with a level head, rather than a Chicken Little sky-is-falling mentality.  Don't panic - but on the other hand, don't poo-poo it either.

Anyway, Dreher links back to a past article asking whether or not Catholicism and liberal democracy are fundamentally irreconcilable.  It's a discomforting question, one that makes you uneasy regardless of how you feel about it.  It's well worth your time reading all the articles linked to here, and thinking about your response to it.  Despite the results of the elections a couple of weeks ago, which might broadly be considered a victory for conservatism - which, though not to be equated with religious freedom, nonetheless represents an ideology perhaps less hostile to religion - I remain vaguely pessimistic about the whole thing.  We already know that the America in which I grew up is gone forever, let alone the America that our forefathers remember.  The questions remain - how far gone?  And what, in fact, does America stand for anymore?  Can you stand for it as well, or do you feel like a stranger in your own strange land?

Make no mistake that I'm still thankful for living in this country, which may well have the worst system in which to live except for all the rest, but what will the future bring for us?  And are we prepared to make a stand for our beliefs?  Who, indeed, knows?

Abusive courts attack Declaration of Independence

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Constitutions declaring marriage as One Man and One Woman to force five states into the evil agenda of the humanists, the Founding Fathers could be easily angered by the actions of these rogues that, in 11 years, have imposed their ideology on half of the nation (and potentially more) through their whim.

In our fourth grade history books, we had to quote most of the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence.  One specific section holds true with these cases.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

These activist judges overturning Constitutions have effectively become a tyrant.  When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered marriage redefined in 2003, other states struck back and imposed a check on these rogue judges.  Now, the judges are overturning the checks placed on these judges, effectively making them tyrants.  These actions are reminiscent of six grievances listed by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence:

(1) Obstructing the administration of justices (see the numerous Autogol strategies, where the administration of justice is obstructed by a whim).

(2) Judges dependent on the leader's will. (See court packing to advance the agenda.)

(3) Establishing new government offices (such as "human rights" panels used to enforce homosexual activism).

(4) Trial for pretended offenses (see hate crimes or supporting the Bible, not the state).

(5) Abolishing the free system of laws to make it an arbitrary government (in most cases, same-sex "marriage" is a byproduct of judicial mandates, or large cities using abuses that were developed by courts in Reynolds v. Sims to overturn the Great Compromise;  furthermore, when abolishing the Constitution to develop something they want themselves, that was abuse the Founding Fathers warned against).

(6) Taking away the charters, abolishing valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments (see the courts overturning Constitutions; the check on the judges has been overturned by the judges themselves -- our checks and balances system was designed to protect against rogue judges, so they strike back).

Ponder these points from our Founding Fathers when you consider the rogue activism today.

The once and future persecution

At At the risk of being disowned by my fellow orthodox Catholic friends, I picked up a copy of Rolf Hochhuth’s infamous play The Deputy a couple of weeks ago at a used book store.  It was no great revelation to me; I’ve read it before, and I bought it on this occasion as a research aid for a writing project that you may or may not ever hear about again.  It went on the bookshelf, between The Complete Works of Ayn Rand and How to Become a Libertarian in Six Easy Steps.

As a work of fiction likely to be taken as fact by readers and viewers, The Deputy is little more than a slanderous piece of Communist propaganda, deliberately promoted to tarnish the reputation of Pius XII through lie and innuendo.  And over the decades since it was published in the early ‘60s, it has indeed gone a long way to smear a man who, in the immediate aftermath of WW2, had been praised by Jews and Christians alike for his efforts to save Jewish lives while in a delicate position.  Evidence has since been uncovered linking Hochhuth with East German intelligence, and it’s likely that the whole thing was part of an orchestrated plot to undermine the Church.

It’s also not that well-written; far too polemical and strident, not to mention the slander I mentioned earlier (which, I guess, means I shouldn’t have to mention it again).  As a play, though, at least in written form, it has some intriguing qualities.  For one thing, Hochhuth’s prose stage instructions go on and on, sometimes for pages.  They’re obviously meant to be more than just directions; indeed, they provide background and commentary in such depth that they become an integral part of the story.  If you’re attending it as a performance without having the book in front of you, there’ll be so much left out that you won’t really receive the full impact.*  With some judicious editing, it would be reminiscent of a book I enjoyed quite a bit, Michael Herr’s Walter Winchell – a prose novel written in the form of a screenplay, complete with descriptions of fade-ins and fade-outs, camera cuts, and the like.

*Of course, there are many who’d argue that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If there’s one redeeming factor in my purchase, aside from the research aspect (which has already borne fruit), it’s that I bought it second-hand, which means that neither Hochhuth, his publisher, nor anyone else connected with The Deputy made any money off of me.  Had I been forced to pay full price, I probably would have had to make a trip to the confessional.

There is, however, one thing I’d like to note in favor of The Deputy, although it has nothing to do with the book itself.  It came to me as I was driving in this morning, pondering the Christian persecution that seems to be in America’s immediate future.  Oh, I don’t necessarily mean a persecution on the scale of the Holocaust; it’s more subtle and insidious than that.  It’s the persecution occurring when an individual refuses to conform to the new social order and realize that religion is best kept hidden away in a dark corner, not to be brought out into polite company.  You’re OK if you want to cling to your superstitions, just don’t do it where you can be seen, or in a way that might influence public policy.

It might not be as pronounced as wearing a yellow Star of David, at least not at first.  But when you’re queried at work about political beliefs that have nothing to do with your job, when you can be forced to step down from a job or sell a company because of contributions you’ve made to various organizations, when the government can try to force companies  fund insurance coverage for acts that violate their own religious beliefs – well, you fill in the blanks.

Eventually it spreads.  The skeptic might suggest that, in a free-market economy such as ours, anyone confronted by religious discrimination is at liberty to start their own company, hire people who agree with you, and so on.  But when the prospective business isn’t able to get funding because lending institutions won’t provide it to those of a certain ideological or theological bent, when the business can’t attract customers because of intimidation tactics waged by those for whom freedom of speech applies in only one direction, when the burdens placed by government on the business force an owner to choose between conscience and profit – well, you try explaining it to someone who still has to put food on the table for a wife and children.  There’s more than one form of persecution, and sometimes the unbloody ones are every bit as painful and damaging.  They don’t attack the body, at least not outwardly, but they chip away at the soul.

Which leads me back to The Deputy.  Hochhuth’s claim is that Pius allowed political and financial considerations to prevent him from taking a stronger stance against Nazi persecution of the Jews.  And for all of his preaching, there’s no doubt that Hochhuth’s words (if they’re sincere and not simply a propaganda tool) show a great deal of compassion for the plight of the Jews during WW2.  If he really means what he says, if his fictional Fr. Riccardo (based, supposedly, on St. Maximillian Kolbe) really exemplifies, in his contempt for Pius, a desire to empty himself out for those being persecuted, then one can at least begin to understand the depth of abandonment that the Jews must have felt back then.  To have the entire world abandon you, turn its back on you and ignore what’s being done to you, and then to have the man who carries the greatest amount of moral authority remain silent* - well, that truly speaks to the dark night of the soul.

*To be clear once again: despite Hochhuth’s claim that the play was “ein christliches trauerspiel,” that is, a Christian tragedy, I believe it to be a smear job backed by the KGB, with no intent of sincerity.  However, as Caiaphas discovered (John 11:50), anyone can be an inadvertent prophet, no matter how much the thought might horrify them.

And so, as we enter the once and future persecution, I will put that hat on and look toward Rome and its bishop.  Can you see what is happening here, or are your eyes only on the refugees and the dissenters?  Do you feel the pain that so many are feeling, the choices that are having to be made, the sense of despair that rises, or are you more interested in kissing babies and playing the role of the kindly, benign father?  Are you prepared to confront a powerful government of an increasingly post-Christian nation that wants to marginalize Christianity and its beliefs in the name of progress and majority rule?  Are you ready to speak out for those who have no voice, to show the truth to a world that prefers not to see?

Are you aware of how high the stakes are, of how immigration and social justice and wealth redistribution and all the rest are of no consequence without this basic freedom?

In other words, are you ready to interfere?

Or, like Hochhuth’s fictional Pius, are you all-too willing to allow worldly considerations to influence you to look the other way?

The end of the world

Apropos of yesterday's "Best Of" piece, today I'm going to reprint a quote. It's a little long, but read it. Afterward, I'll tell you more.  (H/T Dreher)

The Liberal notion that religion was a matter of private belief and of conduct in private life, and that there is no reason why Christians should not be able to accommodate themselves to any world which treats them good-naturedly, is becoming less and less tenable. This notion would seem to have become accepted gradually, as a false inference from the subdivision of English Christianity into sects, and the happy results of universal toleration. The reason why members of different communions have been able to rub along together is that in the greater part of the ordinary business of life they have shared the same assumptions about behaviour. . . . The problem of leading a Christian life in a non-Christian society is now very present to us, and it is a very different problem from that of the accommodation between an Established Church and dissenters. It is not merely the problem of a minority in a society of individuals holding an alien belief. It is the problem constituted by our implication in a network of institutions from which we cannot dissociate ourselves: institutions the operation of which appears no longer neutral, but non-Christian. And as for the Christian who is not conscious of his dilemma — and he is in the majority — he is becoming more and more de-Christianised by all sorts of unconscious pressure: paganism holds all the most valuable advertising space. Anything like Christian traditions transmitted from generation to generation within the family must disappear, and the small body of Christians will consist entirely of adult recruits. . . .

What is often assumed, and it is a principle that I wish to oppose, is the principle of live-and-let-live. It is assumed that if the State leaves the Church alone, and to some extent protects it from molestation, then the Church has no right to interfere with the organization of society, or with the conduct of those who deny its beliefs. It is assumed that any such interference would be the oppression of the majority by a minority. Christians must take a very different view of their duty. But before suggesting how the Church should interfere with the World, we must try to answer the question, why should it interfere with the World?

The author of that quote was T.S. Eliot, which means that though it sounds as if it was written yesterday, it was actually quite a while ago.  Try almost 75 years ago.

In one way this is encouraging; it seems as if whatever time in which you lived was always pointing toward the end, which was always just around the corner.  At the same time there's something depressing about it as well; because he describes today's times so well, his pessimism is that much more so.  Either way, there's no doubt that his words are prophetic.

But there's more to Eliot than that, and ultimately - if you read the whole thing - you'll find that he also provides a call to action, a description of exactly what we're called to do. "To accept two ways of life in the same society, one for the Christian and another for the rest, would be for the Church to abandon its task of evangelising the world. For the more alien the non-Christian world become, the more difficult becomes its conversion."  That's the challenge; those are our marching orders.  It sounds vaguely like a call to martyrdom; I don't know.

But one thing that comes instantly to mind: has the Pope ever said anything this cogent?  In this sense, the money quote:

I do not mean that the Church exists primarily for the propagation of Christian morality: morality is a means and not an end. The Church exists for the glory of God and the sanctification of souls: Christian morality is part of the means by which these ends are to be attained. But because Christian morals are based on fixed beliefs which cannot change they also are essentially unchanging: while the beliefs and in consequence the morality of the secular world can change from individual to individual, or from generation to generation, or from nation to nation. 

He's not talking about the Catholic Church, though I have no doubt that if Eliot lived today, seeing what's become of his Anglican church, he would convert.  The message remains the same, though.  Unlike, perhaps, the Bishop of Rome, Eliot does not soft-sell the faith; he does not dumb down the message.  The Church does not exist in a state that renders insignificant what it really stands for.

No matter how confused today's message might be.