August, 2017 - Opus Publicum

August 28, 2017 Church

Some More Unpopular Remarks on Alcohol

A post from last month, “An Unpopular Remark on Alcohol,” received some negative feedback on social media, partially because certain individuals thought I was calling for a return to the temperance movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Still, I would be remiss if I did not state that I continue to be suspicious of the “alcoholism-as-Catholicism” mentality that is still present in and around the Church. Moreover, no one with eyes to see can deny the “drink [insert craft spirit/beer]-as-sign-of-sophistication” posturing that is all the rage these days, not just among Catholics, but certain brands of hipster Protestants and Eastern Orthodox as well. Far be it for me, of course, to ruin anyone’s fun. For the life of me, I don’t know how anyone is supposed to imbibe from the wells of contemporary Catholic writing without a stiff chaser. However, instead of single-barrel bourbon or the latest quadruple hops IPA, let me suggest that the tripe which fills Catholic bookshelves today is best paired with either Wild Turkey or Miller High Life.

In 1933, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) linked arms with a pro-temperance movement to stop the purchase and use of alcohol and tobacco. According to the account from Stepan Bandera: The Life and Aftermath of a Ukrainian Nationalist, “OUN activists urged Ukrainians to publicly pledge that they would not drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Drinkers who could not resist buying alcohol were beaten up. Taverns were demolished.” Ah, the good old days.

In reality, the OUN had little concern with temperance per se, even though Bandera, their leader, was not a fan of alcohol. What’s striking about this little snippet from history is that it would likely appall many Catholics today to learn that any of their religious forebears could not only perceive problems with alcohol, but would take active measures to see its use diminished within society. I have heard over the years from more than a few gents that to be “anti-alcohol” is, in essence, to be “anti-Catholic.” When I pressed one young fellow on this point, he ultimately defended his position by pointing to the alcohol content in communion wine. This is where we are in 2017, folks.

At the close of business, it is less alcohol per se which is the problem and more the attitude most Catholics believe they have to have toward it. How many of us have heard, “I can hold my liquor, I’m [insert random ethnic identity here]”? I wonder how many of them still feel “Chestertonian” when they are vomiting last night’s gin into the toilet the following morning.

August 14, 2017 Catholic Social Thought, Integralism

A Remark on the Racist Right

A great deal has been made of this past weekend’s events in Charlottesville, Virginia where the “Unite the Right” rally descended into violence. That’s not surprising. What is surprising, however, is how many pundits and social-media “experts” are only now coming to the realization that racism and bigotry in the United States is not confined to fever swamps and southern mountains. For decades, civilized white America has patted itself on the back with the self-confident belief that racism, by and large, had been eradicated from everywhere except the peripheries of society. The election of Barack Obama in 2008, so the story went, proved that America had overcome the race problem. All the while disparate groups identifying as neo-Nazi, neo-Confederate, nationalist, and, eventually, alt-right had begun leaning on increasingly more subtle and complex arguments for why race—and indeed racism—still mattered. America, they claim, is on the verge of losing its white-European-Christian-whatever identity; the time to stand up and fight has finally arrived.

Of course, how many “soldiers” of this particularly distasteful manifestation of the Right are available is something of an open question. By most accounts, only a few hundred folks attended the “Unite the Right” rally. And while there are plenty of racist trolls lurking around social media, many are anonymous, cowardly, and lacking anything resembling a coherent outlook. So now the media, indeed white America as a whole, is at risk of compensating for its prior dismissal of the race issue by overblowing the extent to which ideological racism shapes the thinking and political choices of a noticeable swathe of Americans. The reason this is a risk is because racial issues, like gender issues, tend to obscure one of the deepest problems in the United States (if not the West), namely class. But few people want to talk about that.

There is another risk that should also be noted: giving the racist Right a deeper (but ultimately false) sense of their own power and influence. Make no mistake about it: “Unite the Right,” a rally involving anything but a proper sampling of the American population, is now being heralded as a victory for no other reason than it has upset the Left so. Those who adhere to the true principles of the Right or, rather, principles often associated with the Right but only have coherence and meaning if moored to the Catholic tradition should worry about this. While there can be no doubt that civilizations must be defended if they are to be preserved, it is only Catholic civilization—Christendom—which warrants defending. The racist Right’s nationalism, fueled by such idiotic pieties as “Southern pride” and “Western values,” is devoid of any sense of the common good; whatever its purposes, the salvation of souls is not among them.

Unfortunately, too many Catholics (meaning any Catholic, anywhere) have been enchanted with the racist Right and its wobbly nationalistic outlook. Instead of identifying with the Church and working for the restoration of all things in Christ, they cling to the useless hope that by marginalizing minorities, mindlessly halting immigration, and touting the “glories” of America, they are somehow engaged in a holy crusade that finds favor with God. The reality is that the only thing pleasing to God is the re-Christianization of society, of bringing to Christ His lost sheep (of which there are hundreds of millions in America alone).

Although it should go without saying that integralists can have nothing to do with the raw nonsense spouted by the racist Right, certain remarks popping up on social media compel me to point to an early piece I wrote for The Josias that makes clear the racism and nationalism being promoted in certain circles has nothing to do with integralism or Catholicism. Catholics are not concerned with the color of man’s skin but the state of his soul. The civilization we seek to rebuild has nothing to do with the heritage of a country infused with the false principles of liberalism, but everything to do with the timeless principles articulated and defended by the Church for centuries. Ultimately, we have no use for secular presidents and legislative bodies that serve the interests of elites. It is Our Lord Jesus Christ, not liberalism, which we wish to see reign over society, and until He does again, our work for the rights of God, modest though they be for the time being, will never cease.

August 8, 2017 Catholic Social Thought, Politics

John Zmirak’s Silliness Continues

At this point there is little use highlighting how out-of-step John Zmirak is with the Catholic Church’s social doctrine. For years, Zmirak has attempted to blend his idiosyncratic form of the Catholic religion with secular liberalism, choosing to side with the latter when any conflict presents itself. In a recent piece for The Stream, a garbled mess of hysteria and hyperbole, Zmirak once again takes umbrage with Catholics who, following the timeless teachings of the Church, oppose liberalism. For reasons which are difficult to discern, Zmirak opens his salvo by attacking the “Tradinista!” collective which, if you haven’t heard, went belly up months ago due to petty infighting and intellectual incoherence. By the close of his article, Zmirak conflates the positions of these wannabe socialists with those advanced over at The Josias. Perhaps someone should have informed Zmirak that The Josias, through its editor Elliot Milco, never had much time for the inanities of the “Tradinista!” project.

Zmirak’s confusion does not end there. One of the focuses of his piece is this idea that Catholics who reject liberalism—including integralists and those who follow the Church’s traditional doctrine on religious liberty—believe that the stae, the Church, or Church and state acting in concert should actively persecute non-Catholics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Regardless of what one thinks about the status of Dignitatis Humanae, it has never been maintained that the spiritual or temporal authorities should coerce non-Catholics into accepting beliefs against their will. The issue comes down to whether or not an individual or religion has the right to promulgate error. When Catholics speak of coercion, it is the coercion necessary, for example, to stop Mormons spreading error door to door or prevent Muslims from publicly rejecting Christ.

As for the Church’s right to coerce baptized Christians through penalties, Zmirak panics at this suggestion—but why? Has no one told him what excommunication is? Does he know nothing of the suspension of priests and bishops from their duties for certain infractions? The Church’s denial of the sacraments to Protestants and others who reject Catholic teaching is a form of coercion, arguably the most powerful form available. While I doubt that Zmirak would advocate for the Church to remove all ecclesiastical penalties from the table so as to not be accused of coercing anyone, it seems that he has not thought his position through with much rigor.

Or maybe he has. It’s not out of question that Zmirak knows that he is appealing to some of the basest prejudices of his readers in order to advance his private cause against those who take Catholicism more seriously than liberalism. By leaving the impression of angry mobs armed with pitchforks and torches marching toward the local synagogue in his readers’ minds, Zmirak may be trying to shame his opponents into walking back their ideas or, at the very least, making certain compromises with the liberal order. Thankfully, that is not going to happen. What Zmirak fails to understand is that illiberal Catholics (whatever their particular affiliation) did not set out on the hard path of resistance only to abandon the fight at its earliest stage. The Catholics Zmirak has no time for are the very sort who take the Church’s teachings seriously and will not forego the instructions of reason and revelation simply to get along with a socio-political ideology which, odds are, will recede into the darkness in the centuries (if not decades) to come.

Zmirak may not want to accept this, but it matters not. He can continue to pander to the lords of this world; the rest of us have business elsewhere.

August 7, 2017 Movies

A Remark on Malick’s Song to Song

Terrence Malick’s cinematic achievements, which includes nine films, have grown increasingly abstract, if not opaque, in recent years. After two decades of silence following his highly praised Days of Heaven, Malick returned with The Thin Red Line (TRL) and The New World (TNW) before falling silent again. Since 2011’s Tree of Life (TOL), Malick has been on something of tear, releasing four more films in the span of six years. Many critics, including some of Malick’s longtime admirers, were nonplussed. How could the man who had unsettled and enchanted audiences with nature’s indifference—and transcendence of—man’s inhumanity to man in TRL and created one of the greatest films of the 00s in TNW descended into student-film madness wrapped in trite philosophical-religious sentimentality devoid of coherent plots? Defenders of Malick argue that such criticism does not apply to TOL, and they’re probably right. While digressive and ethereal at points, TOL recapitulates portions of the Book of Job while returning to one of Malick’s favorite themes, namely the luminosity of creation and the grace to be found in everyday life.

Song to Song (STS), Malick’s latest offering, is far less easy to follow and comprehend than TOL or its predecessors. Set against the backdrop of the Austin, Texas music scene, STS primarily follows the destructive love patterns of four individuals—two male, two female—while blending in musician cameos from the likes of Iggy Pop, Flea, and Patti Smith. Michael Fassbender’s Cook, a philandering record producer whose immense wealth is inversely proportional to the vacuity of his soul, is a rarity for a Malick movie: a truly irredeemable character. Even Nick Nolte’s Colonel Gordon Tall in TRL, who orders a reckless and bloody assault in the hopes of impressing his superiors, is warranted some sympathy; after years of bootlicking and sacrifice, Malick’s version of the Battle of Guadalcanal is his final moment to shine, to prove to himself and his family that his martial life wasn’t a failure. Cook, on the other hand, feeds on the bodies and souls of those lured by his hollow promises of love and success. There is something almost satanic about Cook, the way he is often found leering at his prey, studying the faults of others before moving in to exploit them for his own personal satisfaction.

Less revolting, though not completely so, is Ryan Gosling’s BV, a musician who locks arm with Cook while carrying on a painful romance with Cook’s former assistant, Rooney Mara’s Faye. Faye, as the story unveils, has—and continues—to carry on a sexual relationship with Cook even while trying to be with BV. Faye is as close to a central character as STS is allowed to have, and while many of her voiceovers early in the film come across as sophomoric brooding mixed with half-formed musings, by the film’s end she becomes Malick’s conduit for mercy, love, and forgiveness. Left on the peripheries is Natalie Portman’s Rhonda, STS’s only obvious Christian (albeit superficially so) whose relationship with Cook ends in tragedy.

While often linear, it should be noted that STS’s final act cuts back and forth in time, a device whose power is marred by Malick’s failure to draw clear lines of demarcation between past, present, and future. The ending, which borders on the fantastical, may be just that—an idea, a hope, a longing for a love that never ends, a love that endures all things with patience and humility. That message, though beautiful, is difficult to trace through the movie’s earlier acts, some of which are shockingly gratuitous for a Malick movie.. Love his work or hate it, Malick has often favored subtle intimacy over graphic depictions of sexuality. His choice to rely on the latter in this movie can be interpreted in a number of ways, the most charitable view being his desire to juxtapose transient carnality with transcendent love. The less charitable view is that Malick, now into his 70s, has simply become a dirty old man.

August 1, 2017 Catholic Social Thought, Political Economy

Joe Carter Doesn’t Get It

I have no idea if the Acton Institute’s Joe Carter has ever been described as a stupid man, but he’s making a pretty powerful case that he’s an ignorant one. In his second lamentation on the apparent rise of “socialism” among conservative Christians, he speculates why 20-somethings might be attracted to socialist ideas while ignoring the fact that many Christians (specifically Catholics) who oppose the Acton Institute and the free-market ideology it promotes are neither in their 20s nor have been “burned” by the marketplace. Carter, like so many free-market apologists, prefers to take a condescending approach to those who disagree with him by purporting to unveil psychological and material causes behind his opponents’ arguments. In the end, Carter might as well just called those who apparently hold to “socialist” ideas lazy, immature, and uneducated. And even if he did, he would still be missing the mark.

Those who stand fierce against the Acton Institute and all of its works are those who are committed not to their personal self-interest but rather to the social magisterium of the Catholic Church. Promoting just wages and solidarity isn’t an “option”; it is a duty that all faithful Catholics are bound to uphold. Even in an age where the capitalist system militates against the true principles of Catholicism, Catholics must, with prudence, do all they can to ensure that their public behavior comport with the social doctrine of the Church. It is to Christ, not capitalist greed, that Catholics look to, or at least should. Carter, through his association with Actonites, no doubt realizes that many Catholics have no compunction about ignoring what the Church teaches in order to make false deals with the world. Indeed, the Acton Institute itself is run primarily by Catholics who would rather sit at the feet of Mises and Rothbard rather than Leo XIII and Pius XI. It is nothing short of a scandal that these men can continue to work against what the Church teaches without reprisal.

As I have discussed before, for Carter, almost any form of public regulation of the market is “socialism,” which in effect means that the guidance offered up by Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII, etc. all falls under the banner of socialism since all of their writings contemplated the need for the state to step in under various circumstances to uphold the common good. As such, it is difficult to take his critiques very seriously. Perhaps he wrongly thinks that if he refers to a certain idea or instruction as “socialist,” it will instantly send Catholics running for the hills lest they be sullied by so terrible a term. Or maybe Carter thinks that he can lean on the Church’s longstanding condemnation of socialism in order to propagate the (false) idea that capitalism and capitalism alone provides the only sure and faithful path for Catholics to follow if they wish to fulfill the precepts of the Church. Certainly there are some Catholics like that, but their error cannot be taken as received wisdom. While socialism must be resisted at every turn, so does capitalism. This is what Carter cannot or will not understand. For him there are only two paths present, but those who are willing to open their hearts and minds to the Church know better.

In the end there is no need for faithful Catholics to be bothered with Carter’s carping. He will, to the best of his ability, try and throw up accusations against those who reject the lies of economic liberalism, but to no avail. There can be no appeal to “economic science” or materialism or base self-interest which can overcome the truth which only Christ’s Church teaches. It is not to Wall Street but the Cross where we must go, and if that places us out of step with the present age, an age shaped around entertainment and greed, then all the better. Let the economic liberals have their home in this world, for they have received their reward. The rest of us can look to our final end, which is Heaven.