Freedom Versus Self-Will

Continuing my way through Roman Brandstaetter’s superb literary corpus, I ran into a collection of short meditations he penned, inspired by his positive encounter with Franciscanism. He spoke of a writer, sitting at his desk, who noticed a bee walking along his window pane. Caringly, he opened the window to let it out. But the bee, distrusting the gesture, began instead insistently to fly into the transparent glass. Brandstaetter dismissed it by putting these words on the writer’s lips: “One more victim of metaphysical self-torment.” I’d say: One more victim of false freedom who affirms his “autonomy” by beating himself to death.

Glass Shards, Broken Windows

Contrary to some people’s belief, Americans are sometimes thick-skinned, especially when it comes to admitting signs of societal decline. That phenomenon struck me the other day as I headed to the Washington Metro for work. Apparently some people had decided the night before to have a drinking party near one of the Metro stations in northern Virginia, the “safe space” where feds go to sleep. It was instructive watching people circumnavigate the shards on the crosswalk because it was out of the ordinary for them. They likely dismissed it as one night’s carousing. But that’s the problem both with broken bottles and broken windows: We write off progressive deterioration to singular events, in the manner of the proverbial frog being slowly boiled. I’m glad my fellows had to tiptoe through shattered glass. It might wake some up. (For more on this, see here.)

Words and Meaning

In “Ruminations #11” [here] I wrote about “stress,” contrasting its apparent ubiquity in prosperous America with my memories of a woman in Poland who went through the Warsaw Uprising. The latter could say a few things about “stress.” I mention that because of the overdramatic language I encounter in the press, particularly from professional scriveners who should know better. Case in point: The New York Times recently ran a piece about the “Sunday scaries,” the phenomenon of being struck on Sunday night by concern over everything awaiting you at the job on Monday. It did a separate piece on the end of summer. On the latter, the author, who previously wrote a book on grief, suggested working through summer’s demise using five stages of grieving. On the “dread” of the “Sunday scaries,” the author counseled a nice hot tub soak and some journaling. (For more on this, see here.)

This is silliness. If you are filled with “dread” by thinking about going to work Monday morning, what will you do when you face your own death? And if you have to “grieve” the passage of summer, are you capable of truly grieving the loss of another human being? French philosopher Damien Le Guay argues that Western man has lost the sense of mourning. This kind of melodramatic blather suggests he’s right.

Sr. Theresa Kane, RIP

Sr. Theresa Kane has gone to meet her Maker. For those of you who might ask, “Who?” Kane was the nun who was supposed to welcome John Paul II to the National Shrine in Washington in 1979 but instead used the occasion to push women’s ordination on a captive Pontiff. All the obituaries, including the statement from her Sisters of Mercy who identified her “ministry” as “truth-speaking,” treat her insubordination as “speaking truth to power.” One might think something else other than confronting a pope would be the highlight of her 60+ years in religious life. Of course, no matter how many times the Vicar of Christ says something, it’s not the definitive truth. But an upstart nun, in the name of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), clearly enjoys a private Holy Spirit hotline.

Fr. Reese on Deacons

Alongside the Kane paeans, Jesuit Father Thomas Reese counsels Pope Francis to halt ordination of deacons. Why? Because “if women cannot be deacons, we should stop ordaining men deacons” (see here). He concedes that, the current Pope’s fits and starts notwithstanding, a female diaconate will almost certainly not happen in Francis’s lifetime. His argument is not just an equality issue (though that notion simmers under the surface but is not laid out). Instead he argues that permanent deacons (note the sleight-of-hand) are primarily found in North America, whereas even more grossly sacramentally-underserved parts of the world do not have permanent deacons but use catechists instead. Since deacons are clergy but what they mostly do (preach, baptize, witness marriages, or conduct non-Mass funerals) can be done by laity, Reese thinks we don’t need male deacons.

Where to start? You certainly need to ordain transitional deacons on the way to priesthood. If he thinks permanent deacons are redundant, he could make that a self-standing argument independent of the female diaconate question. But that’s not what’s in the cryptic language. It’s rather than promote vocations according to the teaching of the Church, let’s further cut back in order to accommodate the modern or feminist agenda. We’ve already seen how well that’s worked for the Society of Jesus, which had 50,000 members when I started grad school but now, 40 years later, about 15,000. Only in certain ecclesiastical circles does loss of 75% of your human resources constitute success. The same applies to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which could rename itself the LCWRRH: the Leadership Conference of Women Religious’ Retirement Homes.

Meeting God in September Nature

Catholicism affirms that man can come to “certain knowledge” of God through nature, and our ever more technologically-dominated culture is one increasingly alienated from nature. That’s why I’d like to point to two natural things about September:

–September 22 is “Harvest Moon.” That full moon derives its name (like next month’s Hunter’s Moon) from the fact that it rises almost simultaneously with sunset, thus prolonging the day in a simpler (less electrical) age for farmers to bring in their harvest or hunt for the winter. It’s one of the ways God has arranged the movement of the spheres for human good. Take a walk out that night and appreciate it. (For more on Harvest Moon, see here).

–William Cullen Bryant is an underread 19^th century American poet, whose verse celebrates nature. One of his poems is a tribute to apple trees, whose fruit will “drop, when gentle airs come by/that fan the blue September sky/While children come with cries of glee/And seek them…”

When my children were ten years younger and smaller, we’d make a practice of going out on a September Sunday after Mass to a “pick it yourself” farm near Washington, D.C. The kids had a ball climbing and picking and we all had a great day as a family out in the fresh air. One might keep a closer eye on one’s youngins, as we came home one year with 80 pounds of apples! Luckily, they store well and my wife liked to bake, so lots of people got apple pies that year. Why not check out your area?

Would You Buy from This Used Vacuum Salesperson?

Long after Catholic candidate Al Smith, dubbed “the Happy Warrior,” ran for president in 1928 and was shellacked, Democrats have regularly turned for candidates to CINOs — Catholics in Name Only — those who promise and deliver that their Catholicism will have no effect on their politics: JFK, John Kerry, Joe Biden. Or they pick anti-Catholics, like Kamala Harris, who not only would enact policies hostile to Catholic values (think her fealty to abortion or gender mutilation of minors) but treats Catholics (e.g., judicial nominees who belong to the Knights of Columbus) as inherently suspect, guilty until proven woke.

Summing up Kamala’s August 29 venture into the kiddie pool of media interviews, National Review concluded Kamala Harris “is as vacuous as her campaign.” Help me out, readers: If Smith was a “Happy Warrior,” what do you call a candidate trading in vacuity? A “Happy Vacuum Salesperson?” Vacuum is an adequate description, not just for Kamala — who wants no responsibility for the Biden-Harris disaster but wants to run on “vibes” and “joy” — but for many of her followers. “Salesperson” is fitting, because we are being sold a package of goods for which there will be no one for “returns or exchanges” when the public (quickly) experiences buyer remorse.

Will she succeed? Consider these vacuities in the August 30 New York Times. Op-ed columnist Michelle Cottle’s panegyric was entitled “Kamala Harris’s TV Interview Was a Solid First Effort.” First effort? The lady has been around four years. Remember, she’s the lady who told interviewers she hadn’t been to the border “or Europe,” who cackles hysterically, and is transfixed by Venn diagrams. How do you get off suggesting her “first effort” was passable? Probably when you have respondents commenting with equal vacuity, like “Tom Tuna” of Michigan. He admits “I learned nothing,” acknowledged “Dana Bash [was] not very good at her job [because] the point of conducting an interview would be to educate voters,” and complains the interview just elicited her reactions to “points made… by Trump” (in other words, asking her to respond to her opponent). But Tom is still going to vote for Kamala. Which shows the American electorate is susceptible to happy used vacuum salespersons.

Kamala for Kids?

Over at “Women’s March,” the pro-abortion radicals posted a page with pro-Kamala Harris merchandise. Among the stuff on display is a women’s T-shirt that reads, “Childless Cat Lady,” and a baby onesie announcing “Kids for Kamala!” That shirt may honestly express the baby’s mom’s opinion. What would be totally dishonest is a shirt that reads, “Kamala for Kids!”

Childless Cities?

Apropos those cat ladies, Aaron Renn has a piece [here] at the Institute for Family Studies about the rise of “childless cities.” The National Marriage Project has been warning for years about the shrinking amount of time the average American spends in environments with children. Now Renn reports how, since 2020, the <5 years population in major American cities has declined: New York 18.3%, San Francisco 15.4%, Chicago 14.6%. One demographer thinks the child populations in those places will halve in the next 20 years. Kinderfrei zones? Isn’t that weird?

The Long Abortion March

Speaking of pro-aborts, “Women’s March” is planning a major demonstration in Washington for November 2, the Saturday before Election Day. I won’t comment further on how they apparently want to augment the number of souls to be commemorated on that day, but I want to flash some sense of urgency to pro-lifers and Catholics around the country. Ahead of a tight election and with efforts to adopt abortion-by-referendum in several states, that march is intended to be a last minute seize-the-narrative to bring out the pro-abortion vote. What’s our counterplan?