Despite the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s (UGCC) widespread dissatisfaction with the so-called “Havana Declaration” between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the heads of the UGCC were in Rome last Friday to both commemorate the sorrowful 70th anniversary of the “Pseudo-Synod of Lviv” which liquidated the Ukrainian Church and reaffirm the UGCC’s ties to Rome and the Holy Father. Here is an excerpt from the official address of the UGCC’s Holy Synod:
After an eight year hiatus, Mark Lilla has a new book coming out this September, The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction. (Apparently a post at Columbia University comes packaged with a less demanding publication schedule than one might expect from Lilla’s former home, the University of Chicago.) Here’s the description:
A sense that history has taken a catastrophic course and attempts to recover a lost philosophical or religious tradition characterize the twentieth-century intellectuals whose work Mark Lilla investigates in The Shipwrecked Mind. From Franz Rosenzweig, who sought to lead assimilated Jews back to the sources of Jewish tradition, to Leo Strauss, who tried to recover the Socratic tradition in philosophy, to Eric Voegelin, who wrote a multivolume universal history to explain human consciousness, to the rediscovery of Saint Paul by former Marxists, Lilla traces the craving for theological-political mythmaking, for grand—if imaginary—historical narratives that explain why we feel shipwrecked in a decadent present and how we can escape it. In the 2015 attacks in Paris and their aftermath, he finds political nostalgia on both sides: the terrorists’ longing for a glorious Muslim past that they hoped to recreate in a modern caliphate and the cultural pessimism of French intellectuals worried about the decline of France. Reactionary illusions of a lost golden age, Lilla argues, continue to have potent effects in our own time.
Anyone who has kept tabs on Lilla’s output at the New York Review of Books won’t be terribly surprised by the list of thinkers Lilla chooses to examine nor his interest with France. With respect to Rosenzweig, Strauss, Voegelin, and more recent critical theorists enamored with St. Paul (e.g., Badiou and Agamben), Lilla has penned essay-sized reviews of their works over the last decade, meticulously noting how each offers an ostensible “escape” from late modernity through a return to some semi-utopian past. The problem posed for Lilla is that “escape” may not really be what the thinkers he considers were after, particularly Voegelin and Strauss who, despite appearing to superficially romanticize the past, always had their eyes set on the future. They weren’t seeking to escape modernity an its various iterations; they wanted to overcome them, and they believed — in very distinct ways — that those who came before had managed to chart a pathway beyond. That’s not exactly a new thought, mind you. Roll back the clock more than half-a-millennium and one finds any number of medieval philosophers and theologians casting a long gaze back at pagan thought in order to both unlock some of the most pressing puzzles of their times and, to a possibly more limited extent, overcome the limitations of their age. No, neither St. Thomas Aquinas nor Moses Maimonides thought a “better future” lay in a more “glorious past”; but both were broad enough in their respective thinking to know that that the past, or more specifically a particular past and the great minds it produced, still had much to say well over 1,000 years after the fall of classical civilization.
Of course, Lilla deserves a fair hearing, but “fair” doesn’t mean “blind.” Recall, for instance, that Lilla’s last scholarly effort, The Stillborn God, was rightly panned for its radically incomplete treatment of religion and politics for choosing to omit Catholic thought altogether. And notice that once again Lilla seems to be intentionally side-stepping Catholicism, choosing instead to focus on secularized Jewish, atheistic, and religiously ambiguous figures (e.g., Voegelin). Could it be that this time out Lilla is giving quiet credit to Catholicism for producing thinkers who were not “political reactionaries” in his limited, polemical, sense? If only that were true. However, anyone who has perused Lilla’s hard-hitting critique of Brad Gegory’s The Unintended Reformation knows full well that Lilla believes Catholics are quit capable of engaging in their own form of historical (and hysterical) myth making in order to both critique modernity and, in some sense, escape it.
Maybe he’s right. Contemporary Catholicism is shot through with a very amateurish form of myth making, one that posits a glorious Catholic age in the not-so-distant past while suggesting, nay, advocating that the resurrection of certain pieties, to say nothing of liturgical forms, will help usher it back into existence or, absent that, protect “the remnant” from the pathologies and temptations of the present age. Then there is that other, most liberal, form of myth making, the one that claims that every renovation, innovation, or flat-out insurrection against anything and everything recognizably Catholic from within the Church herself has some sort of historical antecedent, a connection with a more “pristine age” of Christianity where love and mercy flowed freely and the intolerance of dogmatization and legalistic thinking had no place whatsoever. What are the political consequences of this dueling myth making? I doubt Lilla knows, or cares.
I was deeply saddened to learn this morning that Hayabusa (real name Eiji Ezaki) passed away today at the age of 47. Few fans under the age of 30 likely know the name, but anyone who watched international pro-graps during the 1990s remembers Hayabusa as one of the most spectacular junior heavyweights of that era, mixing outstanding high-flying maneuvers with solid Japanese-style in-ring psychology. Devastatingly, in 2001, he slipped on a “routine” springboard moonsault (known otherwise as the “Lionsault” which Chris Jericho uses to this day) and broke his neck, leaving him paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Although he finally managed to walk again last year with the use of a cane, the amazing performer die-hard wrestling fans knew and loved was never the same after that tragic day nearly 15 years ago.
I make mention of Hayabusa for two reasons. First, as an avid collector of pro-wrestling video tapes in the 1990s and early 00s, he was one of my favorites. I was privileged in August 1998 to drive down with one of my best friends to Dayton, Ohio and watch him perform at Extreme Championship Wrestling’s Heatwave 1998 Pay-Per-View. (For those interested, the event is available on the WWE Network and I can be clearly seen throughout on the far left of the screen sitting in the second row.) Heaven only knows where his career would have gone had he avoided injury, but he left behind a body of work that still inspires pro-wrestlers to this day.
Second, and more importantly, Hayabusa’s injury should serve as a reminder to all of those who deride pro-wrestling that the sport is dangerous. Even “routine” or “casual” moves can lead to devastating consequences if executed poorly or something as “simple” as a slip-of-the-foot occurs. People who decry pro-wrestling as “fake” have no idea what they are talking about, and the price Hayabusa paid to be among the top talents in the world is proof positive of that. I haven’t the foggiest idea why Hayabusa got into the world of pro-wrestling or what he hoped to get out of it. But I have no doubt, after watching him in the ring for years, that he loved and dedicated himself to the craft which ultimately cost him everything. Requiescat in pace.
Eric Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago, has posted a fascinating reflection on whether the Constitution and American political institutions are strong enough to constrain (potential) President Donald Trump, assuming he chooses to behave like a dictator. Here’s an excerpt:
Let’s consider one of Trump’s proposals: to strengthen libel law so that he can punish those who criticize him. Could he do this? He cannot do it by executive order, and he probably cannot do it even if he persuades Congress to pass a law. First Amendment doctrine is clear: a court would strike down the sort of libel law that Trump advocates (or appears to advocate).
But there are ways that Trump could maneuver around this barrier. If he can appoint flunkies to head the Department of Justice and the FBI (Chris Christie, maybe?), they can order agents to spy on a political opponent and bring prosecutions. All that is needed is a reasonable suspicion of law violations, and there are so many laws that any prominent person, particularly journalists and opposition politicians, might violate even if inadvertently—campaign finance laws, tax laws, business licensing laws, and secrecy laws come to mind, depending on the person’s activities—that an excuse for audit, inspection, or surveillance can be ginned up. Judges can interfere at various steps along the way; whether they do will depend on whether there are plausible reasons to think that the person has broken a law (think of Hillary Clinton, for example). While nothing may come of the investigation, the risk of such harassment, if pursued vigorously enough, may deter opposition to Trump at the margin.
To be fair, I think Posner may be overplaying his hand a bit by suggesting so strongly that Trump will indeed choose to behave like a dictator should he assume office. Moreover, Posner’s suggestion, found elsewhere in his post, that people flock to Trump because they “yearn for a strongman who will protect them” is too condescending to take seriously. Still, it’s not out of the question that Trump will follow his predecessors (particularly George W. Bush and Barack Obama) in expanding the centralized powers of the Presidency. That shouldn’t surprise Posner one bit, particularly since he, along with Harvard professor Adrian Vermeule, announced the death of the Madisonian system of checks-and-balances in their 2010 book The Executive Unbound.
I am not sure what inspired Peter J. Leithart to take an interest in Catholic liturgical reform, but over at First Things he has an post up on it entitled “Liturgical Orientalism.” For the most part, Leithart leans on an earlier academic presentation, “Eastern Presuppositions and Western Liturgical Reform,” by Fr. Robert Taft, S.J. For those familiar with Taft’s previous work, much of what he says (and what Leithart summarizes) is old news: “everyone” agreed that liturgical reform was needed at Vatican II; Latin liturgists took a shine (perhaps too much of a shine) to Eastern liturgy; the post-Vatican II reforms are a mixed bag (at least as far as the Liturgiae Horarum is concerned); and so forth. Unfortunately, Leithart doesn’t have much to add to the conversation, preferring instead to defer to Taft whose conclusions are, at points, contestable.
There can be little doubt now that Latin liturgical reformers “looked East” for inspiration (or perhaps just ex post facto justification) during the tumultuous decades of the 1950s and 60s, though subsequent scholarship has poured cold water on the idea that all of the reforms undertaken were truly “Eastern” and/or “ancient.” And while neither Taft nor Leithart make mention of it, some of the Latin liturgical reforms undertaken during the last century actually had the effect of driving contemporary Roman Rite praxis further away from widespread Eastern praxis as exemplified by the Byzantine Rite. For instance, the Latin reform of Holy Week, which ushered out the possibility of anticipating services like Tenebrae and the Easter Vigil, stands in contrast Eastern Christians anticipating the services (e.g., Holy Friday Matins on Thursday evening, Holy Saturday Vigil Liturgy in the morning, etc.). Other, more noticeable, reforms, such as the three-year lectionary, priests commonly serving Mass versus populum, “Extraordinary Ministers,” and such find no legitimate basis in the Christian East.
I have been torn for the last week on whether or not to post something on the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. After all, there is already a flood of commentary out there (pro and con), including numerous Catholic journalists and bloggers weighing-in on the matter. Amidst all of the heartfelt praises and damn demonizations has come some soberminded analysis as well, such as Eric Posner’s eyebrow-raising (albeit incomplete) analysis of Scalia’s legal influence. That doesn’t start to measure Scalia’s far more potent political and jurisprudential influence, however. Several generations of lawyers, judges, and law professors have been influenced by both Scalia’s originalism when it comes to constitutional interpretation and textualism with regard to statutes. At the political level, American conservatives have long looked to Scalia as their champion on the Court, wryly picking apart the opinions of his fellow liberal justices while attempting to fashion a legal basis upon which to roll back “living constitutionalism,” if not now, then at some point in the (distant?) future. And even if Scalia’s influence peters out over the next generation, there can be little doubt that his writings from the bench — particularly his dissents — will be marveled over for centuries for their rhetorical genius.
For what it’s worth, I have never been very high on either Scalia or originalism. In my first foray into legal-academic writing (which I am not inclined to defend too strongly these days), I found myself siding with Harry Jaffa’s “Straussian” critique of originalism as a historicist jurisprudence unfit for a vibrant and virtuous democracy. Over time, however, I became less convinced of Jaffa’s account of how the Constitution should be interpreted and started to appreciate the consequentialist defenses of originalism as a means of limiting the courts’ capacity for running roughshod over classical federalism. Still, there is no denying that originalism, as a judicial philosophy, is riddled with difficulties, not the least of which being its abhorrence toward the natural-law tradition. Why that doesn’t appear to bother more (American) Catholics is something of a mystery, but I digress.
No one expects the upcoming political battle over Scalia’s replacement on the Court to be either pretty or edifying. Some are hoping the appointment can be delayed until next year when either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump take the Oath of Office. Either way, it is doubtful that Scalia’s successor will carry either the gravitas or talent he did to the bench regardless of their ideological persuasion. Besides, the arrival of a single conservative justice to the Court will do next-to-nothing to undo the social and moral damage which has already been inflicted on the nation. Catholics, particularly conservative Catholics, need to learn that the Supreme Court will not save us, nor for that matter will the liberal democracy so many desperately cling to as the surest means of securing our freedom.
Last year I took note of “Mark Lilla’s Tragic Trilogy on France” which ran in the New York Review of Books. Lilla now returns with the first of a two-part series on France’s socio-political decline in the wake of both the Charlie Hebdo and Paris attacks. Here is an excerpt from “France: Is There a Way Out?“:
Economic stagnation, political stalemate, rising right-wing populism—this has been France’s condition for a decade or more. So has nothing changed since the Charlie Hebdo killings? Yes it has, and not simply because of the Bataclan massacre. Since 2012 France has suffered a steady series of Islamist terrorist attacks, some dramatic, some less so, that have changed the political psychology of the country. Intellectuals and politicians have been arguing about the causes of le malaise français for decades, calling on the French to change their policies and thinking, on the assumption that their destiny was in their hands. That assumption no longer holds. The globalization of economic activity, including the American financial crisis and the transfer of decision-making to the opaque institutions of the European Union, has been eroding the sense of national self-determination for some time. And now the refugee crisis and international jihadist networks are eroding confidence that the state, which the French expect to be strong, can protect its citizens.
Though there were no major successful terrorist attacks on French soil between January and November 2015, there were enough small or unsuccessful ones in the news to keep the public on edge. In February, just weeks after the Charlie murders, three soldiers defending a Jewish center in Nice were stabbed by a Muslim man, and in November a jihadist network in Saint-Denis and Lyon was discovered and dismantled. In June another Muslim man whose name was in a police terrorist database decapitated his employer at a delivery company near Lyon, and before trying to blow up the building planted the man’s head on the building’s gate next to two banners, one referring to ISIS and the other with the Muslim shahada written on it (“There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is Allah’s messenger”). He then took some photos.
In August a young Moroccan living in Spain, who was also in a European police database, boarded a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris with a Kalashnikov and a Lugar pistol; he wounded five people before his guns jammed and he was wrestled down by two vacationing American soldiers. In October and November French police foiled what would have been two major attacks against naval installations in Toulon and Orléans by French Muslims with Syrian connections. And in December police investigating a recent female convert found in her apartment the hollowed-out mold of a pregnant woman’s belly, presumably intended to hide explosives. The French government now has a policy of publicizing its antiterrorism operations, which keeps the public alert but can also leave it with the jitters. In September the minister of the interior announced that over 1,800 French citizens had been identified as belonging to jihadist networks, triple the number recorded in January 2014.
The second, yet-published, article promises to focus more on France’s political future and the prospects of the National Front taking control of the country. And if people think the French experience has little to say to those living in the United States, think again. America, like France, is experiencing a surge in right-wing populism, only of a less principled and far stupider variety.
Bishop Richard Williamson, the infamous former member of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) and leader of the so-called “Resistance,” is planning to consecrate a third bishop for his “movement” next month. From Catholic World News:
Bishop Williamson told followers that on March 19, he will ordain Father Thomas Aquinas, the prior of a traditionalist monastery in Brazil, as a bishop. In 2015, on the same date, he presided at the episcopal ordination of Father Jean-Michel Faure, also in Brazil. Bishop Williamson said that new bishops are needed to sustain “the resistance.”
. . . .
Under Church law the new ordinations will be regarded as valid but illicit. Canon law stipulates that anyone involved in the ordination of a bishop without approval from the Holy See incurs automatic excommunication.
At this point Williamson is still technically excommunicated for his arguably illicit consecration of a second “Resistance” bishop in March 2015, so what does he have to lose? Although I can only admit to following the activities of the “Resistance” from a distance, it doesn’t appear the movement has gained much steam since Williamson was ejected from the SSPX in October 2012 for defying the Society’s Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay. This doesn’t mean the movement is on the verge of dying out, however. The addition of another bishop to its ranks could speed-up the number of ordinations the “Resistance” performs in the coming years, not to mention making the sacrament of Confirmation more readily available to “Resistance” lay adherents with children. It stands to reason that there are a number of individuals and families who attend Society chapels but would otherwise depart for “Resistance” centers if they were more readily available. Moreover, some continue to suspect that if/when the SSPX gains full canonical regularization, a portion of the Society’s more “hardcore” clerics will take a walk.
Over at The Distributist Review John Medaille has a thoughtful article which largely discusses the distinction between being merely anti-abortion as opposed to thoroughly pro-life. Someone who is pro-life, according to Medaille, should also be pro-family wage, pro-natalist, pro-just war, and so forth. Unfortunately Medaille veers a bit off course toward the end with a diatribe against the Republican Party for its limp-wristed approach to pro-life issues, as if the Democratic Party warrants a free pass. While it is true that Republicans have come up painfully short in delivering on their promise to end (or at least curtail) legal access to abortion, let no one forget that Democrats (i.e., contemporary American political liberals) have worked tirelessly for decades to promote abortion in not only the United States, but around the world. The fact that Democrats, by and large, support centralized entitlement programs, transfer payments, and thicker market regulations than Republicans in no way, shape, or form exonerates them from helping to perpetuate one of the greatest horrors in human history.
Although Medaille does not come right out and say it, it is not difficult to read his piece as lending a tacit endorsement for the contestable claim that Democratic policies by and large align with the tenets of Catholic social teaching (CST). (Whether or not Medaille personally holds such a view is not altogether clear, however.) But where in CST does one find direct support for the bloated administrative state and the centralization of power in the federal government? Granted, the Republicans do not do much better on this front, and the more libertarian wings of the party often directly oppose principles of CST such as a just wage and solidarity in the name of “freedom of contract.” At the close of business, it has to be admitted that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans carry the principles of CST deep in their hearts, preferring instead to march to the bloody beat of late-modern secular liberalism.
None of this is to say that Medaille’s instincts are not in the right place. With the election cycle well underway, no doubt many Catholic (and other Christian) voters will be tempted to follow the elephant in the (long) hope of gaining back some of the ground lost in the “culture wars” of the past decade or so. Battling back that temptation, however, should not come at the grave price of supporting a party that has fought vigorously for decades against the most basic tenets of the natural law. Now is the time for all Christians to seriously reflect upon the fact that when it comes to present-day America, we have no political home.
A great deal is being made of a certain papal plane interview in which the Holy Father referenced a decades-old story that Pope Paul VI permitted nuns working in the Congo to use contraception due to the extremely high risk of rape. (A similar tale, which Pope Francis did not cite, involves Pope John Paul II giving the same permission to nuns who were ministering in Bosnia in the 1990s.) This has prompted Catholics to refer to the Paul VI permission story as an “urban legend” or, if you’re Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (Fr. Z), an outright lie.
I would of course encourage readers to examine Fr. Z’s post and the anonymous source he quotes at length to “prove” that both the Paul VI and John Paul II stories are fabrications. Then I would encourage readers to consider the following three points:
My point in mentioning this is simply to caution Catholics from jumping on one bandwagon or the other with regard to either of the Paul VI or John Paul II stories (or both). Granted, the veracity (or, again, lack thereof) of either story neither adds nor detracts directly from the reigning Pontiff’s position (whatever that happens to be exactly). However, given what we have seen transpire in the Catholic Church over the past 50+ years, it is certainly not beyond the pale to wonder if either Paul VI or John Paul II would give such controversial permission to nuns and what that might mean for the future of the Church’s public condemnation of contraception which, I might add, may have little to do with the doctrinal truth of the matter going forward.
