Multiculturalism's cheap rationalizations of non-Western pathologies

Fr. George Rutler (Weekly Column, July 8, 2018):

There is no limit to the excuses ideologues will make to promote theory over fact. Consider attempts to justify Aztec human sacrifice in the interest of “multiculturalism.” Archeological discoveries of massive numbers of victims are being explained away as not really significant. The estimable scholar, Victor Davis Hanson, has written: “For the useful idiot, multiculturalism is supposedly aimed at ecumenicalism and hopes to diminish difference by inclusiveness and non-judgmentalism. But mostly it is a narcissistic fit, in which the multiculturalist offers a cheap rationalization of non-Western pathologies . . .”

Like hyperbole about the Spanish Inquisition, refuted by the latest scholarship, the “Black Legend” would have us believe that the Spaniards destroyed a benign and creative civilization in Mesoamerica. The Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, a missionary and pioneer anthropologist who translated the Gospel into the Aztec Nahuatl language, represents the best of a not unblemished Hispanic cultural imperative that led to the abolition of human sacrifice, though at a cost, for many Spaniards were cannibalized by the Acolhuas, Aztec allies. Similarly, it was the influence of Christian missionaries like William Carey that banned the Hindu practice of “sati,” the cremation of widows on their husbands’ funeral pyres in the Indian principalities. Between 1815 and 1818, 839 widows were burnt alive in Bengal province alone. A general ban was enforced by Queen Victoria in 1861, the year her own husband died, but sati was still practiced in Nepal until 1920.

One estimate has 80,400 Aztec captives sacrificed in 1487 at the re-consecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlán. Although the actual figure may have been lower, the cutting out of hearts from victims still alive is an intolerable barbarity, graphically depicted in the film Apocalypto, which shows such rites among the earlier Mayan people. A mixed-race descendant of Cortez, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl, calculated that 20% of the infants and children in the general “Mexica” area were sacrificed annually to appease rain deities, along with men and women sacrificed in honor of the serpentine god Quetzalcóatl, the jaguar god Tezcatlipoca and the aquiline warrior god Huitzilopochtli.

In the sixteenth century, Montaigne, anticipating Dryden’s “noble savage,” sought to cut the primitive cultures a little slack because he saw barbaric acts among his own European peoples. Those who were scandalized by his analogy then are like those today who commit atrocities under the veneer of progressivism. In 1992, a writer in the leftist Die Zeit of Hamburg rhetorically bent over backwards to deny that the Mesoamericans had committed human sacrifice. We know what happened in his own country among the National Socialist eugenicists.

Sacrifices on the altars of ancient temples cannot match the millions of infants aborted today in sterile clinics. Pope Francis has said, “Last century, the whole world was scandalized by what the Nazis did to purify the race. Today, we do the same thing but with white gloves.” Perhaps five centuries from now, revisionists will deny that abortion was ever legal.

Nothing new here, folks. Move along.

Claire Chretien, "Prominent Jesuit priest tweets support for transgender bathrooms to 100k followers" (LifeSiteNews, February 23, 2017).

Fr. James Martin, editor-at-large of the Jesuit America magazine and Big Mack Jesuit Daddy of American Jesuits in the media. Who else???

Yawn ... Capitulators are so ... boring.

We Are [Are Not] The World.

A courier pigeon from Guy Noir came flying in my open window this afternoon with a message from last October. Not sure what happened here, though the weather has been unseasonably warm of late.

So back on October 15, 2016 Noir apparently wrote this message linking to an article by James V. Schall, S.J., "On Universal Citizenship" (The Catholic Thing, October 11, 2016). Noir's handwriting was barely legible (was he back to nipping that bourbon again before breakfast?). In a scrawled hand, he wrote:

The fundamental difference in trad vs modern Catholics: is modern man at enmity with God? Fr Schall hits the nail on the head in such a single, graceful paragraph no one even notices or hears the "bam!" of impact.

Here are the key excerpts:

From high over the planet in a space capsule, all boundaries on earth disappear. It looks like one unified system below....

Why would it not be a good thing, many ask, if we discarded the political frontiers? We could all be citizens of the same world-government....

Mankind is tired of all this violence. It causes wars. Wars are caused by distinctions, by differing religions, by racism, by poverty, by genderism, by property. Let everyone have access to everything. We can eliminate evil. This is the “right” of every world citizen if given his due.

Above all, no set “doctrines” exist, no “sins,” except for the denial of world citizenship without restrictions....

Yes, we are no longer Gentiles or Jews, Romans or Greeks, barbarians or civilized, Christians or Muslims or Hindus, or Chinese. Nothing is above us. Nothing is below us. We are impatient. We have waited long enough! We are at home everywhere. Nowhere is alien to us.

I look at these claims as a reader of Augustine. He already understood most of these things in the fifth century after Christ. He thought them all mostly true – but only after this life. Here, we are in a vale of tears, a broken world. We are not asked to save the world, but to save our souls in a world mostly at odds with what it means to save our souls.

We are given commandments to keep, not to oppose. The only “universal citizenship” is in the City of God begun in this world following the plan of divine providence, but completed in the next. The meaning of our times is straightforward. We refuse to accept the world for which we were created. What we see about us is the universal citizenship of our collective refusal. [emphasis added]

Pro-life group overwhelmed at abortion clinic

Maybe 'overwhelmed' isn't the right word. They held their own. I know some of these guys in the group reciting the Rosary -- Companions of the Cross. And the intrepid Monica Miller in the white coat in front. But they are soon nearly drowned out by the obscenities and shouts of wymyn representing the Culture of Death, with signs that proclaiming their message: keep baby-killing safe, affordable, and legal. (Safe?? For whom, the baby??) I can't help but admire the fortitude of those who continue to pray amidst the din and babble of hell, bearing witness to the truth about life, death, and abortion, and to the fact that the battle involves the unseen world of powers and principalities.

One of those present told me that he eventually found himself in a meaningful conversation with some in the pro-abort crowd. May the Lord bless that and such conversations and pro-lifers such as these to bring illumination to hearts darkened by a society now fallen under the shadows of the Culture of Death.

I was told that pro-aborts have rarely turned up at abortion clinics like this in the past. Word is that the election of President Trump seems to have galvanized them by a real fear that wymyn's right to have their babies killed may actually be in jeopardy.

Here are the published remarks below the video, from Feb. 11, 2017:

If there ever was a video that captures the difference between those who support the killing of the unborn and those who support the sanctity of human life-- well-- here's one. Demonstrators in support of abortion at this ProtestPP (see: www.protestpp.com) demonstration in Detroit, Feb. 11, 2017 are obnoxious, vulgar, obscene and rude-- indeed they acted like bullies toward those with whom they disagree-- namely the pro-lifers assembled calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Notice the "F" word shouted out by abortion supporters in an attempt to drown out the pro-lifers peacefully praying. Surely God ​​still heard these prayers that no amount of noise and vulgarities could ever drown out.

For more information, see the account by Monica Miller at Citizens for a Pro-life Society

Shapiro: some excellent debate points on transgenderism and abortion

Note: I didn't say every one of his points was good. He doesn't understand the arguments against contraception. But he's got some terrific points on transgenderism, in particular.

On leftist hyperventilation over change in administration

"Tom Cotton: Media, Democrats ‘Astonished’ Federal Government Still Working" (Breitbart, February 11, 2017):

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) this week ripped into critics of President Donald Trump who predicted a world of “chaos” under the new administration, and defended his muscular foreign policy stance.

“Some people, especially in the media and the Democratic Party, are astonished that we’re 18 days into the Trump administration, yet the federal government is still functioning,” he said in a wide-ranging speech on foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute.

“World War III hasn’t broken out. America is still standing,” he said. “Perhaps our Constitution is more resilient than some believe, our people built of sturdier stuff than sugar candy, to borrow from Churchill. So resilient and sturdy, in fact, that our system can withstand the shock of a Republican presidency—even if the media can’t.”

Cotton cited one senator as saying Trump’s penchant for tweeting is “going to lead to chaos in our international relations.”

“I hate to break this to you: The world already is in chaos. The world already is unsettled. And I have more bad news: Barack Obama was the president for the last eight years, and it’s his actions that unsettled the world and spread chaos, not Donald Trump’s words,” he said.

Cotton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was a vocal critic of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, particularly in the middle east, where he served as a soldier in Iraq.

He listed a litany of what he characterized as Obama’s missteps:

Barack Obama quit Iraq, sacrificing the gains we’d fought so hard for and leaving that country to fend for itself against Iran and the Islamic State.

Barack Obama conciliated with Iran from the first days of his presidency, ignoring the Green Movement and tolerating Iran’s imperial aggression across the Middle East, all in pursuit of a fatally flawed nuclear deal.

Barack Obama reset relations with Russia and promised more flexibility after his reelection. In return, Russia invaded Ukraine, destroyed Aleppo, harbored Edward Snowden, teamed up with Iran in the Middle East, and shot a civilian airliner out of the sky .

Barack Obama said al Qaeda was on the run, handcuffed our military and intelligence officers, and refused to call the jihadist enemy by its name, resulting in more and more complex terror threats than anything our nation has ever faced.

Even when he used force, he did so half-heartedly. He surged troops into Afghanistan—but not as many as his commanders requested and only with an explicit withdrawal date. He toppled the Qaddaffi regime in Libya with neither a plan nor any interest to stabilize the country.

“I would challenge you to name one country where America enjoys a stronger position than we did eight years ago—or one country that’s better off because of American policy. President Obama’s legacy is a legacy of ashes from the smoking ruins of a world ablaze,” he said.

Fr. Perrone: How could a Catholic possibly support a party promoting abortion, contraception, euthanasia, sodomy, and "transgender" identification?

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, February 12, 2017):

A few made known to me their appreciation for the pastor's column last week in which there was a commendatory word about President Trump for his pro-life stand. One may wonder whether it is to be afeared that the pastor now becomes an advocate of partisan politics. Without addressing that suspicion, it must be admitted that for a long time Catholics generally -- and the clergy especially -- have been victims of the gag rule which has deterred them from deep opposition to the immoral policies of the Democrat party, those very moral issues St. John Paul II stigmatized by the shocking epithet, "the culture of death." Surely it ought not to be a matter of preference for one political party over another that every Catholic, every Christian -- indeed, every citizen of sane mind and moral decency -- should oppose abortion, contraception, euthanasia, sodomy, and "transgender" identification. And yet this one partisan body has made these particular issues the basis of much of its program for a revolutionized American society. Can Catholics support these anomalies, these moral atrocities which are an outrage to God and a repugnance to any rational being? This is no endorsement of one political body over another (historically, by the way, the American hierarchy has had a long track record of open support for the Democrat Party). The fact that both major political parties, though unequally, have been supportive of these crimes against humanity means that Catholics must work to expunge these deleterious proposals from any political platform.

Catholics have every reason and duty to be the best of American citizens. they represent, no matter how poorly they may exemplify it in their individual lives, the teachings of Christ and the magisterium of the church which upholds the natural law. They must send this 'message' to their politicians and insist that they uphold moral truth. On its side, government must protect the rights of the Church to be this moral voice for American society and it must not interfere in the right of the Church to assert the moral truths God implanted in human nature and expressed so clearly in divine revelation.

Catholics must contribute to the good of society by its untiring witness to the law of God. The fact that one political party has chosen to espouse immoral ways of living and acting is most regrettable. We pray in our daily rosary "for God's mercy on our country,." This is not a plea that God allow us to continue merrily downward towards moral degeneracy with impunity -- that would be a veritable mockery of divine mercy. Rather, we are praying for a moral conversion of men's minds and their ways of living to conform to God's truth while we make reparation for damage already done by the sins that "cry out to God for vengeance" (as they are labled in the catechism).

There's much work to be done for the spiritual rebuilding of America. If our mores begin to improve, many other national benefits will result, including a renewed confidence in the basic, though not perfect, good of our constituted government; a rediscovered love of our fatherland (patriotism); and the recovery of the Christian faith upon which the entire moral and political order depends.

I have at time spoken in sermons on this theme, though perhaps with less of a political epmhasis, and concluded by insisting that there cannot be hope for a morally improved country or Church without a personal reform of each individual to keep from the sins which are the cause of his own ruin (those so called "besetting" sins of spiritual literature). Everyone contributes wittingly or not to the upbuilding or the ruination of public life. In short, if you do not reform your own life, you become part of America's and the Church's "problem."

By the time you read this the funeral rites for Fr. John's father will have taken place. While I did not know Anthony Bustamante very well, I know he was a lifelong Catholic, very dedicated to his faith, to Holy Mass, and to his family. With the parishioners of Assumption Grotto Church I wish to express condolences to the Bustamante family in this sorrowful time. While their faith and hope in Christ is a great consolation, the inevitable sadness of this great absence in their lives cannot be denied. We lend them the unseen support of our prayers for Anthony's eternal welfare.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him!

Fr. Perrone

"Why Saint Thomas Aquinas Opposed Open Borders"

Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D., discussing this passage from the Summa Theologiae, writes (Catholic Family News, January 31, 2017):

Every nation has the right to distinguish, by country of origin, who can migrate to it and apply appropriate immigration policies, according to the great medieval scholar and saint Thomas Aquinas.

In a surprisingly contemporary passage of his Summa Theologica, Aquinas noted that the Jewish people of Old Testament times did not admit visitors from all nations equally, since those peoples closer to them were more quickly integrated into the population than those who were not as close.

Some antagonistic peoples were not admitted at all into Israel due to their hostility toward the Jewish people.

The Law “prescribed in respect of certain nations that had close relations with the Jews,” the scholar noted, such as the Egyptians and the Idumeans, “that they should be admitted to the fellowship of the people after the third generation.”

Citizens of other nations “with whom their relations had been hostile,” such as the Ammonites and Moabites, “were never to be admitted to citizenship.”

“The Amalekites, who were yet more hostile to them, and had no fellowship of kindred with them, were to be held as foes in perpetuity,” Aquinas observed.

For the scholar, it seemed sensible to treat nations differently, depending on the affinity of their cultures with that of Israel as well as their historic relations with the Jewish people.

In his remarkably nuanced commentary, Aquinas also distinguished among three types of immigrants in the Israel of the Old Testament.

First were “the foreigners who passed through their land as travelers,” much like modern day visitors with a travel visa.

Second were those who “came to dwell in their land as newcomers,” seemingly corresponding to resident aliens, perhaps with a green card, living in the land but not with the full benefits of citizenship.

A third case involved those foreigners who wished “to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship.” Even here, dealing with those who wished to integrate fully into the life and worship of Israel required a certain order, Aquinas observed. “For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations.”

“The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst,” Aquinas logically reasoned, “many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people.”

In other words, Aquinas taught that total integration of immigrants into the life, language, customs and culture (including worship, in this case) was necessary for full citizenship.

It requires time for someone to learn which issues affect the nation and to make them their own, Aquinas argued. Those who know the history of their nation and have lived in it, working for the common good, are best suited to participate in decision-making about its future.

It would be dangerous and unjust to place the future of a nation in the hands of recent arrivals who do not fully understand the needs and concerns of their adoptive home.

When facing contemporary problems, modern policy makers can often benefit from the wisdom of the great saints and scholars who have dealt with versions of the same issues in ages past.

Aquinas’ reflections reveal that similar problems have existed for centuries—indeed, millennia—and that distinguishing prudently between nations and cultures doesn’t automatically imply prejudice or unfair discrimination.

“'PO SI JIU!' RED GUARDS ARISE! CRUSH THE REACTIONARIES!"

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, “'PO SI JIU!' RED GUARDS ARISE! CRUSH THE REACTIONARIES!" (Fr. Z's Blog, February 10, 2017):

The liberal juggernaut … libbernaut? … is well-connected and organized. They work together.

Perhaps you saw the NYT’s piece (aka Hell’s Bible) which managed (through fake news) to make an absurd connection between Card. Burke (whom libs hate with the intensity of a type O star), and chief advisor to Pres. Trump (whom libs hate with the intensity of a type O star), former Breitbart editor Steve Bannon (whom libs hate with the intensity of a type O star). It was a tour de force of smear. The objective: link Burke and Bannon and Trump with the liberal Alt-Right bugbear. The upshot is that Burke, etc. are white supremacist, LifeSite reading rubes who watch Duck Dynasty. They are “rad-trads”, “church militant” types… real knuckle-draggers who stand in the way of the Revolution! They must be crushed, publicly humiliated, sent to camps, thrown from windows.

Then there is the surreal piece at WaPo worthy of the Red Guard of China’s Cultural Revolution entitled, “How Pope Francis can cleanse the far-right rot from the Catholic Church”. Guess who’s picture surmounts the screed. But hey! It’s only an opinion piece, right? Let’s see the first paragraph ....

"Pope goes gaga for super bowl"

Why?

Is there a connection? Our attitude toward the fragile unresistance of the Host and toward the defenseless vulnerability of the unborn infant?

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, February 5, 2017):

Without veering into the arena of political commentary, allow me to say that Catholics ought to rejoice mightily that President Trump has made explicit and significant advances in the direction of the pro-life movement, to the extent that I feel real shame for those politicians who identify themselves as Catholics (though that may be a ploy, especially since they may in fact be excommunicated from the Church due to their pro-abortion voting) and who have been thus complicit in the abortion industry. Now here comes a non-Catholic man, who has no magisterium of the Church to direct him, and is the first president ot be unequivocally pro-life, and is actually doing something effective to prove his convictions.

As is often and rightly said, there will be no change in the crimes of abortion in the USA until there is a change of people's minds and a conversion of souls. The Church exists for this purpose. Faithful Catholics, however, have often been criticized for an over-emphasis on this "one issue." How any rational person can assume that the abortion problem is too important in political life is bewildering. Of all other social concerns which clamor for attention and remedy, can there be anything more urgent than to stop the willful killing of the innocent human lives of babies? Select any infant of choice and ask yourself the question whether it is a right to kill this human being. It is either madness or else demonic obsession that would admit the concession of such an evil. This "one issue" is of far, far greater importance than anything else, sins of sacrilege apart. Why are Catholics not united and vociferous in their opposition to these crimes against God and humanity? That needs to be probed.

Mother -- and now Saint -- Teresa of Calcutta is once reported to have said that abortion will not cease in our country until there's an end to the sacrilegious reception of Holy Communion -- i.e., until Catholics reform in respect to the Holy of Holies. If that assessment be correct, Catholics who commit sacrilege are the reason why abortion is still legal, or at least is widely practiced in our country! That may seem an absurd assertion, but there is some logic to it. If God Incarnate, truly present in the Holy Sacrament, is mishandled, received in a state of mortal sin, neglected, ignored, and profaned; if particles of the Blessed Sacrament (each of which carries the divine presence) are strewn on altar tops, flaked off the palm of the hands, and trampled upon the carpets of the churches (note that I speak here of the mistreatment of the very Son of God!), should we expect respect for mere human life? The easy fragility and unresistance of the Host has an analogous relation to the defenselessness and vulnerability of the pre-natal, infant life. If one can with impunity defile the one, why can one not slaughter the other?

While the reception of Holy Communion and the sacred liturgy are distinct topics they are related. Unless the people of the Church recover the true faith in its fullness, rediscover a rightful fear of the Lord, and conduct themselves reverently at Mass, there can be little hope for ending sacrilege and, by extension, there can be meager prospect for ending the abortion holocaust.

This is the Fatima centenary. The principal seer of the Blessed Virgin, Sister Lucia, was told to make prayers of reparation -- penitential compensation -- for "outrages, sacrileges, and indifference" which gravely offend God. This was told in 1917. We've made a long moral plunge since that time. Should we not make it our business to make such acts of 'apology' (for lack of a better synonym) to our Lord in the Holy Sacrament for all the mistreatment He has been receiving?

If you should ever lack intentions for your participation in Holy Mass or your reception of Holy Communions, know that making prayers of reparation to the offended God is a most noble objective. And, needless to add, making the most reverent, loving, and worthy reception of your Communion is an excellent way to advance your own spiritual life, to give honor to our affronted Lord, and ... here it is ... to contribute no small part to ending the horror of Abortion USA.

A "Climate of Fear" in the Vatican?

The Editors, "A 'Climate of Fear' in the Vatican?," New Oxford Review (January-February, 2017):

Several independent reports out of Rome paint a troubling picture of the working situation at “headquarters.” Indications are that the Eternal City is on edge. And in the midst of the palpable sense of unease, anxiety, and, yes, even fear, one man looms large. That man is Pope Francis.

Much, though not all, of the distress radiates from a remarkable development: Four high-ranking prelates have publicly challenged the Pope over Amoris Laetitia, his murky and verbose apostolic exhortation in which he seems to suggest that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can be admitted to Holy Communion. On November 14 cardinals Raymond Burke of the U.S., Carlo Caffarra of Italy, and Walter Brandmüller and Joachim Meisner of Germany made public a dubia, a set of five short yes-or-no questions addressed to Pope Francis about passages in Amoris Laetitia that, they say, have caused “uncertainty, confusion, and disorientation among many of the faithful.”

The cardinals decided to go public with the dubia after submitting it to Francis privately in September — and then waiting two months for a reply that never came. The dubia calls on the Pope, “with profound respect,” to “dispel ambiguity” and “resolve the uncertainties and bring clarity.”

So far, not only has Francis refused to respond privately to the cardinals’ request, he has also refused to respond publicly. In fact, he’s made only one public comment about the dubia. In an interview in Avvenire, an Italian Catholic magazine (Nov. 18), Francis referred obliquely to “a certain legalism” that wants to see everything as “black and white,” and he wondered aloud whether such criticism doesn’t come “from an evil spirit” or “the desire to hide one’s own dissatisfaction under armor.” Yes, you read that correctly: Francis actually suggested that the men who asked him to make specific some of his (intentionally?) ambiguous ramblings might be under the influence of demons!

While maintaining a certain aloofness about it in public, the Pope is apparently very agitated about the dubia. Edward Pentin, a respected Vatican correspondent, told Raymond Arroyo, host of EWTN’s The World Over (Nov. 18), that Francis is “boiling with rage.” Reportedly, the Holy Father has been working hard behind the scenes to vilify and isolate the four cardinals and their supporters.

Pentin offered further insight in an interview with Beverly Stevens, editor of Regina, an online Catholic magazine (Dec. 8). The Pope, he said, instead of addressing the cardinals’ concerns — either in public or private — is treating them as “adversaries.” He has even questioned the cardinals’ “mental state.” Observers are reading this as a manifestation of Francis’s “anger at having his agenda taken off course,” Pentin went on to say. And so, one hears the phrases “reign of terror” and “Vatican martial law” frequently bandied about in Rome these days.

Pentin’s report was echoed by Steve Jalsevic, managing director of the pro-life news service LifeSiteNews.com. Blogging from Rome during a recent visit, Jalsevic wrote that there is a “consistent pattern of widespread anxiety and very real fear among faithful Church servants,” the likes of which he’d never witnessed before in his ten years of making biannual trips there (Dec. 16). The tension gripping the Vatican is by no means limited to those embroiled in the dubia controversy. Many curial functionaries, Jalsevic said, are “afraid of being removed from their positions, fired from their jobs in Vatican agencies or of encountering severe public or private reprimands and personal accusations from those around the pope or even from Francis himself.”

That the Pope could be so vindictive would be startling if he hadn’t already given us glimpses of the man behind the magnanimous papal persona. “Severe reprimands” and “personal accusations” don’t seem all that out of character. As anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to this papacy knows, Francis rarely passes up an opportunity to deliver a tongue-lashing to Catholic prelates or laymen (see, for example, our New Oxford Note “Pope Francis: Put-Down Artist?” Apr. 2014) — especially to those whom he considers excessively orthodox (or “rigid,” as he likes to label them). It is odd — isn’t it? — that the alleged “Pope of mercy” would so readily indulge his mean streak.

Natural born haters behind the monolithic cult of 'diversity'

The Editors, "The Cult of Diversity at Providence College," New Oxford Review (January-February, 2017):

One of the common propaganda techniques used by today’s cultural hucksters is known as the empty vessel — a vague “virtue word” or phrase that aims to evoke positive feelings rather than convey meaningful information. An empty vessel is often so vague that everyone is expected to agree on its appropriateness and value, though no one is really sure just what it means. Empty vessels are designed to make us approve and accept certain assertions without examining any real evidence. Consider the words change, equality, sustainability, progressive, and multiculturalism — words that are readily bandied about in our ordinary political exchanges but rarely convey anything meaningful or specific.

Anthony Esolen, a professor of Renaissance studies and an acclaimed Dante scholar at Providence College in Rhode Island, recently took on the politically correct usage of the word diversity. Esolen, an orthodox Catholic who’s taught at the Dominican-led school for twenty-five years (and who has appeared in our pages), is an enthusiastic proponent of both liberal-arts education and the teachings of the Church. In an article at the website of Crisis magazine (Crisis.com, Sept. 26), Esolen lamented his Catholic college’s manipulative misuse of the watchword diversity as a political slogan — for example, the phrase Celebrate Diversity is brightly emblazoned on a conspicuous campus mural, and the school’s website prominently features a four-page Diversity Program. “Is not diversity as it is now preached a solvent for any culture?” Esolen asked. “Is not that same call for diversity, when Catholics are doing the calling, a surrender of the Church to a political movement which is, for all its talk, a push for homogeneity, so that all the world will not look like the many-cultured Church, but rather like the monotone non-culture of western cities that have lost their faith in the transcendent and unifying God?”

The problem, as Esolen sees it, is this: Providence College (the initials of which are, perhaps fittingly, P.C.), in appealing to the vague and undefined empty vessel of diversity, is willingly suppressing its own Catholic culture in favor of an infection with Western sexual obsessions. What that means for professors like him who believe in the teachings of the Church is that they must risk anything from censure to public humiliation to outright firing for simply speaking with the voice of the Church, especially in the realm of sexual morality. The secular preachers of diversity brook no dissent from the politically correct acceptance of all celebrated sexual attractions and proclivities. Their vision, Esolen explained, is “a vision that pretends to be ‘multi-cultural,’ but that is actually anti-cultural, and is characterized by all the totalitarian impulses to use the massive power of government to bring to heel those who decline to go along.”

Esolen complained that several of his faithful colleagues at Providence had been harassed by fellow faculty members and university administrators for simple expressions of the Catholic faith and Church teaching. The college even has a Bias Response Team standing by to field any and all reported incidents of “bias” — such as explaining why the Church opposes same-sex marriage and does not condone acts of sodomy. According to Esolen, these bias investigators “are like a Star Chamber whose constitution and laws and executive power no one will know.” If a Catholic college threatens to bring its faithful professors before a diversity-review board, how can it possibly allow for expressions of disapproval toward any disordered inclination or sin, sexual or otherwise? Ironically, this is not diversity at all. It is conformity and homogeneity: Accept our politically correct principles or suffer the wrath of the Thought Police. Think like us or be bludgeoned in the name of an undefined and perhaps undefinable “diversity.”

As if to prove Esolen’s point, the diversity police at Providence College somehow got hold of his Crisis article and used it to publicly denounce him. In an interview with Rod Dreher (The American Conservative, Nov. 1), Esolen explained that a group of students led by a “radical professor” took heated umbrage with him. “The students accused me of racism,” he told Dreher, “despite my explicit statements in the article that I welcome people of all ethnic and racial backgrounds.” Bizarre! Nowhere in his Crisis article did Esolen even remotely intimate that he took issue with a member of any racial or ethnic group. The students — and later, it turns out, fellow professors — went into apoplectic spasms inspired solely by his criticism of the diversity obsession. “They were angered by my suggestion,” he said, “that there was something narcissistic in the common insistence that people should study themselves rather than people who lived long ago and in cultures far removed from ours by any ordinary criterion, and there was something totalitarian in the impulse of the secular left, to attempt to subject our curriculum to the demands of a current political aim.”

In other words, Esolen’s detractors didn’t even understand the well-reasoned argument he was making about the misuse of the term diversity. It was much easier for them to disregard his arguments and all relevant facts in favor of calling him a racist — another propaganda technique, by the way, simply referred to as, you guessed it, name-calling. But they weren’t satisfied with just calling him a racist. The group later organized a protest on campus. “About 60 students marched around,” he told Dreher, “while a female student led them around, shouting slogans through a bullhorn.” These students ended their protest march at the office of the college president, Fr. Brian Shanley, and demanded a response from him. Some even demanded that Esolen be fired right then and there.

Why Benghazi won't go away and Hillary isn't immune from prosecution

The core of the political war is spiritual (sex & abortion), not pocketbook issues, says M. Matt

Some off-hand thoughts on the movie, Silence

I read the novel Silence by the Japanese Catholic author, Shusaku Endo, years ago when I lived in Japan. He's called the "Japanese Graham Greene." With good reason. Like Greene, he's a darn good novelist. Also like Greene, his Catholicism in his writings is ambiguous. I don't hold that against him as a novelist. Some of my favorite Catholic novelists are also ambiguous about the Catholic faith in their writings, even though they are clearly and intentionally Catholic, like Walker Percy or Evelyn Waugh.

I read many, many reviews of Martin Scorsese's film based on Endo's novel, also called "Silence." One of the best on the critical side, I thought, was Monica Migliorino Miller's "Scorsese's Silence: Many Martyrs -- Little Redemption" (Crisis, January 9, 2017). But there were others that were also good on the appreciative side.

Personally, I liked the movie Silence. I think it was very well done. Whatever Endo's and Scorsese's motives, I think they both dealt powerfully with two things: (1) the exquisitely horrific tortures underwent by Catholics in Japan before the Meiji Restoration, and (2) the diabolically insidious temptations to apostasy that can make infidelity to Christ itself look like fidelity and virtue.

The latter theme of the movie, which I think most Christian audiences thought most significant, I think were (mis-?)understood in two ways: (a) by the 'liberals' as proclaiming a gospel of merciful accommodation indifferent to doctrine, and (b) by 'conservatives' as a message of doctrinal compromise intended by both Endo's novel and Scorsese's film.

I'm not at all certain that the latter is true. Whether it is or not, I think that not only the temptations but the consequences of apostasy were shown by both novel and film in a faithful light: the temptations were beyond ingenious, with the voice of Jesus seeming to come from His image on the fumie itself ("Step on me.") as if Christ Himself were counseling the mercy of apostasy as the path to redemption; and both apostate priests ended their lives by faded into oblivion, morphing into gollum-like shadows of themselves; and the Japanese Catholics (not all, but many) who witnessed their apostasy were significantly demoralized by it.

Remarkably, however, when Catholic priests returned to Japan after the Meiji Restoration of the mid-nineteenth century, they encountered Kakure Kurishitan (hidden Christians) who came out of hiding once again to present rosaries and crucifixes and statues of Maria Kanon that doubled as secret images of the Madonna, showing that the Faith had not been entirely wiped out. The price of persecution as well as apostasy was high. Only something like one tenth of 1% of Japanese people are Christians, and of these, half (about 509,000) are Catholic.

Some of you may remember the movie, The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe. One of the young samurai actors in the film was Shin Koyamada, who only discovered during the making of that film that his ancestors were among the Kakure Kurishitan. So moved was he by the narrative of persecution and Catholic resistance during the Shimabara Rebellion, that he ventured to make film about those events in which he played the father of Shiro Amakusa, the leader of that rebellion (see my review here with a trailer of the film, "Good Soil").


Another recent discovery is the book, A Christian Samurai: The Trials of Baba Bunko, William J. Farge, SJ., which contradicts the generally held belief among Western historians that the Catholic mission in Japan ended in failure. Farge relates how Christian moral teachings not only survived the long period of persecution but influenced Japanese society throughout the Tokugawa period. Baba Bunko was a Japanese Catholic essayist and satirist whose biting criticism of the authorities of his time eventually led to his execution; but he was brazenly bold in asserting his views, declaring, for example, that a representation of the Eucharist would be a more fitting symbol for Japan than the coat of arms of the emperor and insignia of the shogun.

Gotta run.

Donald Trump and postmodernism

David Ernst, "Donald Trump Is the First President to Turn Postmodernism Against Itself" (The Federalist, January 23, 2017). Ernst picks Tony Montana in "Scarface" as an example of a postmodern antihero who responds to his public exposure as a criminal in polite society by turning the mirror back on his audience and dressing them down:

What you lookin’ at? You all a bunch of f—in’ a–holes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your f—in’ fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy.” So… what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you.

There's more, obviously; but there's the leap off point.

Conservatism? Liberalism? What do we mean?

Conservatism and liberalism are notoriously ambiguous terms. They are relative by their very nature. Conservative? Liberal? With respect to what? And what do we mean by them? Understood in its political sense, classical 'liberalism' promoted views that would be regarded at 'conservative' today: minimal government with a severely restricted job description: the protection of life, liberty, and property. Furthermore, both terms have also non-political meanings, such as theological or cultural 'liberalism' or 'conservatism.'

A friendly colleague recently described herself as a "liberal" on Facebook. She did this during the politically-contentious election season, and I think her description was meant to distance herself, in part, from the mud-slinging we witnessed on both sides of that event, but also, in part, to distance herself from the slurs of racism, sexism, xenophobia, coarseness, and ugliness that the media did their best to identify unilaterally with Trump and other 'deplorable' opponents of Democratic party enlightenment, just as they portrayed Hillary as polished, professional, refined, etc. (Who can forget Michelle Obama's remark: "When they go low, we go high"!)

I commented on my colleague's Facebook post that by her description of 'liberalism,' I, too, saw myself as a 'liberal'-- educated, high-minded, open-minded, concerned for the poor and dispossessed, desiring to be fair and generous toward others, etc. Yet I cannot imagine that this did not produce at least a little bat squeak of cognitive dissonance, in that part of her intended meaning was surely political and she very likely did not regard my severe criticisms of Hillary and her sycophant media promoters as 'liberal' in any sense of the word.

There is a very good discussion of conservatism and liberalism in R. R. Reno's editorial in the latest issue of First Things (February 2017), though couched in a deeper analysis of "Gratitude for the Given" that pervades traditional Christian understandings of one's fatherland or motherland, which involves accepting limitations but with a disposition that allows us to rest in thankfulness for all that is good in our national heritage.

Modern liberalism, says Reno, discourages rest:

We must work in the present for the sake of the future. Everything is subject to improvement, which means we are required to forsake the mode of enjoyment. The injustices tolerated by our system of government cry out for remedy. We need a living Constitution, one plastic and available for the great and the good to use in order to bring us into a better future. The same goes for our history and traditions. They must be critiqued and updated so that they are more diverse and inclusive. By this way of thinking, gratitude for the given brings complacency, and complacency is an enemy of the future.

Conservatism, on the other hand, comes from a sober recognition of limits -- or, perhaps, getting mugged by reality:

We are fallible, fallen creatures, and the conservative learns to doubt the efficacy of the grand schemes of progressivism, efforts of social transformation that often require the power of government. Ignorance, self-interest, greed, hubris, sloth -- these and other vices, so stubbornly resistant to the beneficent ministrations of progress, subvert even the best plans. The conservative, therefore, argues for political humility. We should seek to ameliorate injustices and make marginal improvements in our political system. But let's not imagine we can perfect society with a master-stroke of social engineering.

But Reno goes on to tie in this traditional conservative skepticism into what Yuval Levin calls a "conservatism of gratitude," as adumbrated earlier. He also goes on to discuss these alternatives in combination with other variables such as libertarianism, utilitarianism, and free-market purism, finally returning to themes of tradition (Chesterton's "democracy of the dead"), gratitude, repose and rest in politics that comes ultimately from Pax Christi. There is so much more that could and should be said here, but here are, at least, some chestnuts of wisdom worth tucking away in one's mental pocket to mull over in the days and months ahead.

Distantly related: George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"

Trump and Black Americans

FDR offered the hope of prosperity. Can the new president do the same? Daniel Henninger addresses this question in his searching article, "Trump and Black Americans" (Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2017). a very good article.

Trump, Republicanism, conservatism, & populism: Larry R. Arnn speculates

Trump does not always speak in complete sentences. His language is sometimes coarse. He is not a smooth-talking politician. He knows, however, how to play a crowd. He sizes up personalities and situations instinctively. He is impulsive rather than reflective. He comes from a business background where he is used to making deals autocratically and intuitively, not by consensus. These characteristics lead many of us to worry about demagoguery.

Is this, however, all there is to Trump? Is Trump simply an unprincipled opportunist and demagogue? Larry R. Arnn, who comes from circles very much involved in thinking about political principles and constitutional law doesn't seem to believe so. Are his ideas about Trump's instinctive conservatism anything more than wishful thinking? One would like to believe not. Time will tell. In any case, Arnn suggests there is a great deal we can learn from this election and from President-elect Trump about political conservatism, liberalism, and populism if we reflect on them in a principled way.

Larry P. Arnn, President, Hillsdale College, "A More American Conservatism" (Imprimis, Vol. 45, No. 12, December, 2016):

The astonishing political campaign of 2016 involved much debate about whether Donald Trump is a conservative. He was not always facile with the lingo of conservatism, and he pointed out once that he was seeking the nomination of the Republican, not the conservative party. Yet there is a lot we can learn from him about conservatism.

What is conservatism? It is a derivative term: it refers to something outside itself. We cannot conserve the present or the future, and the past being full of contradiction, we cannot conserve it entire. In the past one finds heroism and villainy; justice and injustice; freedom and slavery. Things in the past are like things in the present: they must be judged. Conservative people know this if they have any sense.

What then makes them conservative? It is the additional knowledge that things that have had a good reputation for a long time are more trustworthy than new things. This is especially true of original things. The very term principle refers to something that comes first; to change the principle of a thing is to change it into something else. Without the principle, the thing is lost.

If American conservatism means anything, then, it means the things found at the beginning of America, when it became a nation. The classics teach us that forming political bonds is natural to people, written in their nature, stemming from the divine gift they have of speech and reason. This means in turn that the Declaration of Independence, where the final causes of our nation are stated, and the Constitution of the United States, where the form of government is established, are the original things. These documents were written by people who were friends and who understood the documents to pursue the same ends. Taken together they are the longest surviving things of their kind, and under their domain our country spread across a continent and became the strongest nation on earth, the bastion of freedom. These documents do not appeal to all conservatives, but I argue that they should, both for their age and for their worthiness.

It follows then that if Donald Trump helps to conserve these things, he is a conservative in the sense that matters most to the republic of the Americans. Will he?