Genesis Paints a Poor Picture of Polygamists

In fact, it is not hard to notice that everyman from the time of Adam until the time of Lamech (of the line of Cain) takes only one wife.  The Book of Genesis is very clear about Lamech’s deviation[2] as Lamech of the line of Cain is the first one of whom it is stated, “Lamech took two wives” (Gen 4:19), and then the Scriptures present Lamech as being a proud murderer as well (Gen 4:23-24).  More to the point, the Genesis narrative — using Lamech as its starting point — implicitly blames the Flood on the acceptance of Lamech’s practice of polygamy by God’s covenant family in Seth (line of the “sons of God”).  In fact, the very next time someone is presented as taking more than one wife (”sons of God” taking as many wives as they chose), the Lord decides to cleanse the world (Gen 6:3,7-8) and is grieved by man’s wickedness (Gen 6:5-6).

Presented for the first time, Lamech is not just a murderer, but a deviant in the sexual sphere who later commits murder more heinous than his forefather Cain.  He is the symbol of self-centered love.  He is the first occurrence of the Old Testament pattern: “They have committed adultery and blood is on their hands” (Ezek 23:37).[3]  Relevant to the discussion of implicit biblical condemnation of polygamy (Lamech’s two wives) is the connection between the descendants of Lamech of the line of Cain (sons of men) and the descendants of Lamech of the line of Seth (sons of God).[4]  For, too often, recent biblical scholars have missed that these two family lines have been set in opposition — and with allegorical significance — and so such scholars misinterpret the texts concerning the correct identity of the “sons of God”[5] (Gen 6:2,4), especially when they cling exclusively to form or historical critical analysis and view the “sons of God” as possibly divine beings taken from the myths of other ancient cultures.[6]

Before the Flood which ultimately kills it off, the line of Cain ends in the immediate children of Lamech (the polygamist).  It is these children who are the only ones listed as the founders or “ancestors” (Gen 4:20-22) of certain ways of life.  “Mysteriously,” the listing of Cain’s line — aside from naming the wives of Lamech — is all men, but it ends on a woman, “Naamah.”  Why her brothers are listed is clear…to let us know of what they are the exemplars.  So, why is “Naamah” listed without us being told that of which she is the exemplar?  Or is it implicit?

Deficiencies in the Jerome Biblical Commentary

The Jerome Biblical Commentary explains how the brothers’ names are related to what they founded.[7]  However, and despite noting two paragraphs later “a definite connection exists between J’s Cain list and P’s Seth list,”[8] concerning “Naamah” it records: “The significance of Naamah (na’amah, ‘lovely,’ ‘gracious’) is unexplained.”[9]  Herein shows a deficiency with adherence to the JEDP theories and exclusive reliance upon historical critical methods.  Such adherence seems to have disabled commentators from recognizing that the name “Naamah” (who is the daughter of the polygamist Lamech) is the allegorical connection between “daughters of man” and the “sons of God” and God deciding on the Flood.  In fact, her name can be translated “beautiful,” since persons who are lovely and gracious are described as beautiful.

The passage immediately before the passage when God decides on the Flood states: “the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them [polygamy] as they chose” (Gen 6:2)[10].  Seeing how “beautiful the daughters of man were” is a direct reference to the “Naamahs” of Cain’s line all over the earth; the very name means “lovely” and “gracious” and men seeing these qualities saw “beauty” that they sensually desired.  Laying aside reason — and so abandoning God whose image and likeness made them capable of reason — they took “for their wives as many of them [the ‘Naamahs’] as they chose.”

However, there remained children of an opposing Lamech, children who kept to the proper worship of God and love of neighbor and who were the descendants of Seth, as opposed to Cain.  These are the men who “invoke the LORD by name” (Gen 4:26) and in this familiarity are considered the “sons of God.”  Some in this line of Seth “walked” so closely with God that God took them to Heaven before natural death (Gen 5:24) or waited until after their death before punishing the world (Gen 5:27).[11]  Should they abandon God, then no other line of men would be left that pleased God or “knew” the LORD or could serve as the cultural container that would be needed for the Messiah.

Sadly, God is betrayed eventually by most of the line of Seth.  These “sons of God” chose to follow the “flesh” instead of the “spirit” and become polygamists (cf. Gen 6:2).  However, the son of Lamech (line of Seth), Noah, finds favor with God (Gen 6:8).  The good Lamech is marked by the number 777 (Gen 6:31) to show he belongs to the covenant of God and is intimate family with the Almighty.  Thus, Lamech’s child Noah will be spared from the Flood along with only the line of his descendants.

One might rightly ask, “What was it that caused Noah to find favor with God?”  Surely, Lamech being Noah’s father has much to do with it as the Lord blesses the generations of those that fear Him (Deut 5:10).  However, and additionally, there is something that might go easily missed in the whole account.  Notice that the other “sons of God” are taking as many wives as they want, but the son of the man marked with the sign of the covenant “777″ has only one wife and his sons only have one wife each (1 Pet 3:20).[12]  This line of Lamech continues, while the line of Lamech (”took two wives” (Gen 4:19)) is ended with the flood.

Additional Comment on “Sons of God”

In his critique of other misleading scholarship, Miguel Miguens defends against false postulations that the morality found in the Old Testament was culturally conditioned.  After demonstrating time and again that the “Bible itself claims that in sexual matters it marks a sharp reaction to the cultural milieu of the surrounding peoples,”[13] Miguens goes on to demonstrate a kind or running stream of morality behind various biblical stories which are found in specific condemnations in Leviticus or Exodus.  He sees in the Exodus 34:16 passage: “you shall not take Canaanite wives for your sons,” a law which is behind the blame expressed in the case…of the punishing Flood.”[14]  He seemingly views the new “sons of God” as Israel rescued from Egypt and the “daughters of man” as the pagan and idolatrous Canaanite women who will cause the “sons of God” to apostasize.  In other words, the Flood, as presented in Miguens article was not specifically about polygamy, but God’s family apostasizing by mixing with women who kept foreign gods; whether they took one wife from the Canaanites or many.  Nevertheless, his point deserves explicit development.

The very essence of “taking Canaanite wives” in its first appearance after the Flood by God’s covenant line (Esau) automatically entails polygamy (Gen 26:34) and violation of God’s family line; therefore, the rightful “son of God” will lose the line of blessing (Gen 26:35; Gen 27:34-37) and it will transfer to Jacob who is only later tricked into polygamy.  The theme of sexual sin leading to apostasy is repeatedly echoed as in Ezekiel’s prophecy, “For they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands” (Ezek 23:37).  Here Ezekiel is referring to spiritual adultery with God and betrayal of the covenant, but this spiritual adultery takes place due to Canaanite wives.  Canaanite wives necessarily entail polygamy and polygamy in practice is automatically a violation of authentic marital fidelity.  Polygamy denies the equality of the sexes founded upon the image and likeness of God which males and females both bear equally.  Once a man learns acceptance of infidelity within his sexual practice, it is not much of a step to take infidelity into his religious practice of worship and drift from his original fidelity to God.  This reinforces the point that the Flood is inseparable from polygamy and triggered when God’s human family line adopted the false religion of those who did not “invoke the LORD by name” (Gen 5:26 right worship and imaging of God) and who do not keep to an upright and properly formed conscience (cf. Rom 1:24-32).

It is further demonstrated that the root cause of the Flood entailed polygamy by an even closer analysis of the sixth chapter of Genesis and Naamah’s mother and brother.  The “beautiful…daughters of Man”[15] (Gen 6:2,4), typified and exemplified in “Naamah” (Gen 4:22), have children from unions with the “sons of God” and the children were “heroes of old, the men of renown” (Gen 6:4).  The “men of renown” are people who make their name great instead of God’s…the men who are feared instead of healthy fear of God.  They were obviously not “heroes” in God’s sight, or God would have spared them the Flood.  Thus, they must have been men who made a name for themselves by killing others, like their maternal grandfather Lamech who bragged that his name would be feared: “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (Gen 4:24).  It is also evidenced that the “men of renown” were murderers by examining God’s covenant that followed the Flood and his concern that their practice be stopped (cf. Gen 9:6).  Curiously, with what did the “men of renown” kill so many men and cause such fear?

The answer is found right before “Naamah” is listed.  The name listed before her as her brother, is: “Tubalcain, the ancestor of all who forge instruments of bronze and iron” (Gen 4:22); bronze and iron, the very dress and weapons of warriors.[16]  Brother and sister, Tubalcain and Naamah, representatives of the weapons of war and the women to fight over; they were both born of the second wife of Lamech, “Zillah” (Gen 4:20,22).  In an allegory, one could not more clearly state that the offspring of Lamech’s polygamy was the acceptance and continuation of murder and adultery.  Lamech is clearly shown to have two wives, before it is revealed that he became a hardened murderer.  As Tubalcain and Naamah are the continuation of Lamech’s unrepentant line within the polygamist union of Zillah, and as the line of men (Cain) is ended with them, it is clear the Flood is sent to end what the line of Lamech began and to punish the “sons of God” who began to accept multiple wives and murder as evidenced in their children becoming “men of renown”…men who seek to be worshipped in place of God.

Side-note on the Patriarchs and Kings

Finally, in light of the polygamy of the patriarchs and kings David and Solomon, is it only incidental that the Bible ties polygamy to Lamech’s murderous ways?  Why does God only specifically speak of murder by name after the Flood (Gen 9:6) and not polygamy?  Part of the apparent silence is due to respect for the patriarchs and kings, lest their children writing these stories seem to overtly attack and so dishonor their parents and origins.  Additionally, Christ had not yet come to override Moses’ tolerations (cf. Mt 19:8) of neglect of the intended order…an order that Christ demanded be re-established.  However, Moses and the other inspired authors still implicitly condemn the polygamy of their forefathers by showing its ill effects.

Polygamy amongst the patriarchs, though tolerated, is placed in a condemning light.  It causes nothing but problems for Abraham and Sarah when he takes Hagar due to Sarah’s prompting and Hagar is never really considered equal to a wife.  Polygamy occurs with Jacob because he was tricked[17] (so, seemingly forgivable), yet it leads to problems of favoritism and Joseph’s half-brothers selling Joseph into slavery.  Of note is the fact that Isaac — who most perfectly prefigures Christ as the child of promise — never has more than one wife.[18]

Most likely reflecting on chapters four and six of Genesis and the apostasies of the kings of Judah, the future Pope, Cardinal Wojtyla commented:

The books of the Old Testament provide sufficient evidence that…(polygamy) is in practice conducive to the treatment of women by men as [sex] objects…and so at once degrades women and lowers the level of morality amongst men.  We need only remember the story of King Solomon.[19]

This pattern of the lowering of the “level or morality amongst men” was exactly the pattern with Lamech of Cain and later the “sons of God.”  It is the disappointing pattern in King David’s fall from holiness, beginning with the adulterous affair with Bathsheeba, continuing in polygamy, and finally culminating in bloodshed — not only of Uriah, but in the fratricidal warfare of David’s sons.

There is a reason that adultery, whether it is found in polygamy or divorce and ‘remarriage’ (serial polygamy), leads to the lowering of “the level of morality amongst men.”  It is discovered within the failure to fulfill the vocation to love and in the violation of the personalistic norm, the violation of which hardens the heart into treating people like objects instead of persons.  Polygamy is a serious violation of fidelity, wounds the soul of the one who practices it, and insults God as it denies the image and likeness of God which makes women equal to men.  Polygamy inspires giving false honor to God when practiced by those claiming to ‘know’ him.

[4] Maly, “Genesis,” p. 14.

[5] Sutcliffe, E.F. “Genesis.”  in Bernard Orchard et al. A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953, 177-205, p.189 (j)

[6] Clifford, Richard and Roland Murphy, “Genesis”  R.E. Brown et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. 2^nd ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall Inc, 1990, 8-43, at 14.

[7] Maly, “Genesis,” p.14.

[8] Maly, “Genesis,” p.14.

[9] Maly, “Genesis,” p.14.

[10] New American Bible, St. Joseph ed. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1986.

[11] Methusaleh’s death coincides with the Flood as measured by the numerology.

[12] I am indebted to Mark Key for this insight.

[13] Miguens, “Biblical Thoughts,” p.103.

[14] Ibid., pp.106-7.

[15] The underlying assumption is that Genesis shifts the opposition of the worldly line of Cain and the heavenly line of Seth with the opposition of the “daughters of man” (Cain) and the “sons of God” (Seth).

[16] See: Sutcliffe, “Genesis,” pp.188-89.  Here-in the author claims Lamech’s brag in Gen 4:23-4 is actually a claim to more sophisticated “forged” weapons and thus the family secret passed to his son.

[17] The additional concubinage of his wives’ servants is in the same category of Sarah’s prompting of Abraham.  Notice how the “lowering of the level of morality” gets worse amongst his sons and grandsons; i.e. slaughter over Dinah, Reuben with Billah, Judah seeking prostitution, Onan and his brothers, etc….

[18] The real meaning of Exodus 34:16 as mentioned by Miguens might be found in Gen 26:35 where Rebecca is deciding to shift the covenant from Esau who took two wives.  Notice how Canaanites and polygamy are tied together in Gen 26:34.

[19] Wojtyla, Karol. Love and Responsibility. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993, p.212

In reality, no hand from heaven came down to deliver a special invitation to us. No angel materialized on our doorstep, kids in tow. Instead, God used our natural desires to have a family; a series of doors presented themselves to us, which we tested one at a time until we found the one that had our children behind it.

Door One: Acknowledge Any Grief and Fear

From the beginning, we knew that it would be highly unlikely that the ordinary path to parenthood was in store for us. A fertility specialist confirmed that my medical history and our ages made it unlikely that we would conceive without assistance. And yet, we were sure of two things: (1) If God wanted us to become parents, it would happen in His way, in His time; (2) We refused to let infertility wreak havoc on our marriage, as it had preoccupied and even destroyed the marriages of other couples we knew. We remained open and trusting, simply taking life one day at a time.

I was very fortunate in that Craig and I always seemed to be on the same page where these decisions were concerned. I knew couples where one — usually the woman — longs to enlarge their family, while the other is content just as things are. One is eager to adopt … while the other holds back because of the expense, or the inconvenience, or out of fear of what adding an “unknown quantity” might do to the existing family dynamic.

Door Two: Gather Information

In situations like this, it’s important to arrive at a mutual decision based not on fears, but facts. Talk with other adoptive and foster parents to find out the names of reputable agencies in your area — then go to an information meeting or two. Online sources are also available; websites like adoption.com or tools like the “Adoption Guide Planner” (http://www.theadoptionguide.com/tools/planner/matrix) can help you decide which kind of adoption or foster plan is best suited to your family situation.

Adoption need not be expensive, especially if you consider foster care or foster-adoption. You do not even need to own your own home, and a wide variety of resources are available to assist couples with more heart than money. In the state of Michigan, for example, children adopted out of the foster care system continue to receive the monthly subsidy and medical insurance benefits that they received while they were wards of the state; they are also eligible for a variety of benefits ranging from free hot lunches to free college tuition.

Neither is the age of a couple necessarily a barrier. Remember that no two children are the same or do they have the same level of need. Couples who feel too old to do the “diaper brigade” may be a godsend for a grade-school child or teenager whose opportunities for a real home diminish with each passing year. Those who long for a baby — but who are willing to open their hearts a little wider, to include the infant’s older brothers or sisters — can find the blessings multiply with the challenges. In many cases, families willing to consider a child with special needs (both temporary, due to trauma, and long-term due to physical and developmental needs) or a biracial child often discover that love comes in all shapes, sizes and colors.

Door Three: Prepare Yourself

So what do you need to be a good foster or adoptive parent?

• Patience. Whether dealing with bureaucratic red tape, a toddler who hides food in the closet, or a boy-crazy teen, you will have ample opportunity to practice virtue.
• Support. Even experienced parents will quickly discover that adoption and foster care is an “extended family affair.” When extended family lives too far away to be of practical assistance, it becomes that much more important to cultivate a support network — even if you have to pay for it temporarily. (In the beginning, a large chunk of our subsidy checks were spent on babysitters and housekeepers.)
• Faith. Adoptive and foster parenting is not for wimps, or for those with an over-inflated sense of self-reliance. Extraordinary parenting (investing yourself in the life of a child you did not bring into the world yourself) requires spiritual strength, cultivated through prayer and the sacraments.
• Time. A child who comes to you through adoption and foster care will often require special attention, especially in the first months that he or she joins the family. Especially for the first six months or so, the child needs one primary caregiver to assist with the bonding process. Depending on how he came to you, he may also have physical and emotional problems that may not immediately present themselves. Remember … parenting is a marathon, not a sprint!

Door Four: Make a Choice

As you gather the information you need, continue to ask the Holy Spirit to make your way clear to you. Remember that while God calls us to take up certain challenges in life, ultimately the choice is ours to make. Adoption and foster care are adventures for the whole family … and yet, timing is very important. For example, you may decide to postpone adding to your family until your youngest child is in school, or even wait until all your children are fully grown. Or you may decide that a younger sibling is just what you and your children need to grow in virtue!

If, after gathering the information you need to make your decision together, you conclude that adoption and foster care are not appropriate at that time, there are other ways to make a difference in the life of a child. You can volunteer as a tutor or mentor through your local school or “Big Brother/Big Sister” program. Become a CASA volunteer, who befriends and advocates for foster children currently in the system. Volunteer as a respite worker for foster or single parents. Host a fundraiser to assist families from your church who are pursuing international adoption, or organize a toy drive for your local foster agency or children’s home. Befriend a family with special needs children, and offer them practical support — even sitting with the child while they go to Mass for an hour of uninterrupted prayer.

If you have a heart for kids … there are always children who need you!

During the hours he lay in state in Castelgandolfo, mourners filled the main square in front of the building as well as roads leading from the countryside. A motorcade proceeded along the Appian Way. Carlo Tei, who now resides in Hong Kong, wrote (March 12, 2008): “As a young student in Rome, I joined the procession of the people accompanying the body of the Pontiff, from Castelgandolfo to the Vatican. We all felt we were accompanying a ‘Saint’ to the Holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem.”

Pius XII’s body was taken first to the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Pope’s titular church in his capacity as Bishop of Rome. Then it was taken in solemn procession to the Vatican where he lay in state for three days under Michelangelo’s gigantic dome in the Basilica of St. Peter. Pius XII’s body was clothed in pontifical robes and lifted on to a five-foot catafalque. Covered with red damask, the catafalque had a sloping top so that the Pontiff’s head was considerably higher than his feet, affording a full view to the public. From 6 a.m. on October 11^th when the bronze doors of St. Peter’s Basilica were opened to 8 p.m. when they were closed, thousands upon thousands of mourners walked around the Pontiff’s bier. This continued until noon of October 13^th.

Deep emotion was evident and many shed tears as they passed near Pope Pius XII’s corpse. People of all races knelt in prayer. Nine solemn funeral Masses were sung in St. Peter’s Basilica. On the 13^th, the doors were closed at noon to prepare for the funeral ceremonies which began at 4 p.m. Representatives from governments around the world and diplomats accreditated to the Holy See were present, as well as his family and Sister Pascalina, who served him for forty years. During the singing of the “Miserere” the Pope’s body was removed from the catafalque and placed in a strong box of cypress.  A white silk mask was placed over his face and hands. At his feet a red velvet purse containing a sample of each coin and medal struck by the Vatican during the Pope’s reign, which would serve as identification centuries later.

One cannot fail to recall that, unofficially, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was the first Papal Secretary of State to set foot in the USA. In fact, on November 6, 1936, he had lunch with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at Hyde Park, New York.

One must also acknowledge Pius XII’s interest in the United Nations. Through Catholic international organizations and Catholic members of national delegations, the Holy See’s influence was seen in the non-political branches of the UN. Whenever religious and moral problems were discussed, the Catholic Church was heard. A case in point was the Economic and Social Council of the UN, which constituted a clear recognition of the principles, always stressed by the Papacy, that the problem of peace was not exclusively political. According to its constitution, the Economic and Social Council granted so-called “consultative status” to a large number of non-governmental international organizations. A special commission was assigned the task of drafting the Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations Assembly, December 10, 1948.

The Holy Father’s Christmas message of 1942, included an appeal to respect the rights of each individual. Unfortunately, the UN declaration omitted any mention of the name of God or the divine origin of man in its preamble. After much discussion a compromise was reached and the preamble read: “The respect of the human person and of its dignity imposes itself independently of any contractual engagement. The religions proclaim man’s divine origin and the peoples recognize that principle as one of the foundations of any civilization.” Along with fifty-eight states, the Holy See signed the four conventions on December 12, 1949.  Pius XII desired to have peace founded on spiritual and intellectual cooperation.

In his 1950 Holy Year prayer, Pius XII included a special appeal to God to grant “peace in our days, peace to souls, peace to families, peace to our country, peace among nations.” On August 21, 1950, in his encyclical Humani Generis, he refuted modern philosophical doctrines which are irreconcilable with the Catholic faith. In many of his writings, Pius XII includes cooperation with non-Catholics in the defense of principles and ideals which all believers in God, in the dignity of the human person and in the supremacy of spiritual values have in common.

On December 6, 1950, Pius XII made an urgent appeal for a crusade of prayer to avert the horrors of war: “…East and West do not represent opposite ideals but share a common heritage, to which both have generously contributed and to which both are called to contribute in the future also. By virtue of her divine mission she is a mother to all peoples, and a faithful ally and wise guide to all who seek peace.” The Pope concluded his Holy Year message by stating that “the Vicar of Christ knows no duty more sacred, no mission more gratifying than that of being the unwearied advocate of peace.”  Eight years later, Pius XII’s life ended.

For the 50^th anniversary of Pius XII’s death, my new book, The Truth Will Set You Free (Paulist Press, 2008), challenges everyone to learn the truth and speak out courageously. The Foreword by Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, casts a great deal of light on the present pontificate’s thinking about the campaign against Pius XII:

How profoundly unjust it is to draw a veil of prejudice over the work of Pius XII during the war….directives given on the radio, in the press, and through diplomatic channels were clear. In that tragic year of 1942 he told everyone: ‘Action, not lamentation, is the precept of the hour.’

Disgust with the German Government

Ivone Kirkpatrick, British Chargé d’Affaires at the Holy See, in a letter to Sir Robert Vansittart, records an encounter he had with His Eminence Eugenio Pacelli, Vatican  Secretary of State and future Pius XII, who “was extremely frank and made no effort to conceal his disgust at the proceedings of Hitler’s government.” On August 19, 1933, Ambassador Kirkpatrick reported: Pacelli deplored “the action of the German Government at home, their persecution of the Jews, their proceedings against political opponents, the reign of terror to which the whole nation was subjected.”

For almost two decades, Pius XII condemned Nazi racialism as antireligious and stemmed the Communist tide. He condemned Nazism prior to and during hostilities; alleviated the suffering and saved the lives of Jewish and Christian war victims; and worked with great devotion for peace. Inspired by his  fatherly concern, his smiling face, and his affirming words, millions of visitors to the Vatican experienced intense faith, hope and love of God and of neighbor.

Pietro De Marco tells us that Pius XII gave sanctuary to those who sought refuge:

Having the responsibility for the universal Church, the Pope did what his conscience told him and worked in practical ways for the spiritual and physical good of so many. Under his direction the Catholic Church saved the lives of Jews, Fascists, anti-Fascists and Germans.

In the magazine Christianity in History, Kenneth L. Woodward noted that The New York Times praised the pope in an editorial for his intense spirituality and for standing up to the Nazis. He also reiterated the unanimously positive opinions about Pius XII that appeared in the press after his death in 1958.

Pope Pius XII may not appeal to modern sensibilities largely because he was always teaching the Gospel and Catholic doctrine to a world deafened by nationalism and the drums of war. It is very significant that he had the nearly unanimous praise of all his contemporaries, a fact mostly ignored by his detractors. Most importantly, not one of the charges against him holds up under careful analysis. There is absolutely no evidence that he did anything wrong or stupid; there is overwhelming evidence that he did virtually everything right, and that he acted only after the most careful and penetrating analysis of every possibility and after fervent prayer.

Testimonials of survivors of the Holocaust also make it perfectly clear that the Pope was not anti-Semitic or indifferent to the fate of the Jews. In a letter to me, dated June 18, 1997, historian and Holocaust survivor, Michael Tagliacozzo, clearly expressed his sentiments:

In my study of the conditions of the Jews (The Roman Community during the Nightmare of the Swastika, November 1963), I pointed out the generous and vast activity of the Church in favor of the victims. I learned how great was Pope Pacelli’s paternal solicitude. No honest person can discount his merits …. Pacelli was the only one who intervened to impede the deportation of Jews on October 16, 1943, and he did very much to hide and save thousands of us. It was no small matter that he ordered the opening of cloistered convents. Without him, many of our own would not be alive.

Again, August 8, 2004, the survivor reiterated his convictions:

Any apology on the actions of Pius XII must be considered superfluous. This is clear to all men of good will and is entrusted above all to the memory of those Jews, now living, who have not forgotten the efforts and solicitude of Pope Pacelli…. One must add the countless expressions of gratitude of those whose lives were saved in the religious houses in Rome, Assisi and elsewhere. Even if gratitude was expressed directly to the Institutions who protected them, the merit goes to Pope Pacelli who, on October 16, 1943, gave orders to open the doors of the parishes, convents and monasteries to save the Jews from deportation.

Edvige Carboni lived in Rome during the entire pontificate of Pius XII. In her correspondence she repeatedly stated:

Our Pope is truly a saint! During the war we suffered so much! If it had not been for the help of the Holy Father, we would have all died of hunger….but the Pope came to us and to all Rome with help, giving us bread. And also clothing. Our Pope is a saint! Love him.

The Catholic Church recognized Pius XII’s sanctity soon after his death. In a discourse given in Jerusalem, Pope Paul VI stated (January 5, 1964):

We nurture only benevolent thoughts toward all peoples as did Our predecessor Pius XII, sentiments that he manifested at various times during the world conflict, something that all have been able to witness and above all those who have been helped by him.

Again he recalled the great Pontiff on March 12, 1964, during the unveiling of Pope Pius XII’s monument in the Vatican Basilica:

We can still vividly recall the incomparable vigor of his intelligence, the exceptional power of his memory, the admirable versatility of his spirit, his phenomenal capacity for work — in spite of his slender body and delicate health. We witnessed his rare capacity to pay attention and take care of little things in the course of perfectly carrying out the substantial formal tasks of his work, while simultaneously and ever-vigilantly attending to great concerns which were ceaselessly engaging him. … To follow his teachings and his example will be a comfort, and to think of him being close to us, still a friend, still teacher, still father, in the communion of Saints, will give us all unfailing hope….

On November 18, 1965, Pope Paul VI announced in the Basilica of St. Peter that the Causes of Beatification and Canonization of his predecessors, Pope Pius XII and Pope John XXIII would be initiated. Today, many ask, “Why the delay for Pius XII?” One can only respond that the pontificate for Pius XII was much longer than that of John XXIII and therefore the research has taken many more years. When questioned about the status of Pius XII’s beatification during an interview for Inside the Vatican, Reverend Peter Gumpel, S.J., stated:

The more documents we find, the more the cause of Pius XII is strengthened, and the greater grows our conviction that he was an extraordinary man who faced terrible situations with courage and great wisdom, and who was in his personal life an exemplary Christian, Priest, Bishop, Cardinal and Pope.

Judging an Extraordinary Pontificate

Not only was Pope Pius XII a teacher. He was a friend and concerned father of all. His wisdom and strength came from a correct view of human events He was also a sharer in all the pain, suffering and human tragedy during World War I and II. To judge him one must consider the theological vision of the Church, of history and of the world that guided the policies of his early life and his pontificate. Indeed, all the Pope’s actions were rooted in charity. He shared all the pain, suffering and human tragedy of the period. Any judgment of the pontificate of Pius XII that excludes this perspective, offers a distorted interpretation of the facts.

In an excellent article entitled “Pius XII: The Martyrdom of Silence,” Dr Emilia Paola Pacelli summarizes the important elements that must be considered in judging his faith and wisdom. One must be attuned not only to Pius XII’s mind, but primarily to his soul and heart. For his spirit was close to suffering humanity and constantly and intimately united with God. This is where one finds the reason and explanation for Pius XII’s so-called “silence”. His was the silence of wisdom and strength. He knew that the destiny of thousands of men and women was at stake and that “silence” was the only way not to lesson the already harsh destiny of so many people. A sense of responsibility required restraint to avoid recrimination:

The Italians are certainly well aware of the terrible things taking place in Poland. We might have an obligation to utter fiery words against such things; yet all that is holding Us back from doing so is the knowledge that if We should speak, We would simply worsen the predicament of these unfortunate people — Audience with Italian Ambassador Dino Alfieri, 13 May 1940, in Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City, vol. 1, 1970, pp. 454-455.

Consequently, His Holiness stated:

“Every word from Us … to the competent authorities, every public allusion, should be seriously considered and weighed in the very interest of those who suffer so as not to make their position even more difficult and more intolerable, even though unwillingly”. — Address to the Sacred College in response to the greetings for his feast day, in L’Osservatore Romano, June 3, 1943, p. 2.

It is impossible to judge Pius XII’s “silence” correctly without taking into account the fact that Pius XII was not a politician, but rather the head of the Catholic Church. His theological vision of the Church, of history and of the world guided the policies of his pontificate. His vision of faith was enlightened by the presence of God in his life. (See Conference for the 40th anniversary of the election of Eugenio Pacelli, held in Rome at the Synod Hall in 1979, in R. Spiazzi, Pio XII mezzo secolo dopo, Bologna 1991, pp. 163, 176.)

Pope Pius XII lived in God’s presence and suffered with humanity. After an examination of his words and actions, one must conclude that his was the silence of the strong, of the champions of the faith, of the martyrs. When the destiny of thousands of men and women was at stake, faith was needed to choose silence and impose it on himself. His wisdom and strength came from a correct view of human events. It was his sense of responsibility that helped him restrain the surge of recrimination and indignation toward the Nazis. Silence was the only way to lessen the harsh destiny of so many unfortunate people.

Pope Pius XII’s silence was misunderstood, misinterpreted and branded with slanderous accusations. Heroic patience and prudence were needed and his office required “almost superhuman effort” to remain silent (see Letter to the Archbishop of Cologne, 3 March 1944, op. cit., p. 365).

“\Where the Pope wants to cry out loud and strong, it is expectation and silence that are unhappily often imposed on him; where he would act and give assistance, it is patience and waiting [that are imposed] — Letter to the Bishop of Würzburg, 20 February 1941, op. cit., p. 201. 

And patience and prudence were also needed to deal with the dilemma:

“It is extremely difficult to decide what must be done: reserve and prudent silence, or resolutely speaking out and vigorous action…” (Letter to the Archbishop of Cologne, 3 March 1944, op. cit., p. 365).

He was aware of the incalculable consequences that one word too many could unleash. His spirit was formed in the most rigorous asceticism which was needed to neutralize the temptation of a “sensational and theatrical gesture,” certainly satisfying, but which would have catastrophic effects in terms of human costs. He had to reject, “the way of applause” and choose “very wisely … the way of duty” (L’Osservatore della Domenica, “Il Papa ieri e oggi,” 28 June 1964, p. 46).

A recently-found document helps to understand the work of His Holiness:

 Jews of great importance have turned to the Holy Father to ask his intervention because of the excessive antisemitic actions taking place in Germany. Since it is the tradition of the Holy See to extend its universal mission of peace and charity toward all men, no matter what their social condition or religion may be, intervening also whenever necessary through its charitable offices, the Holy Father entrusts Your Excellency with the task of finding out if and how it may be possible to take an interest in this matter in a most desirable way. Willing to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with you to express my distinct and sincere esteem, I am Your Excellency’s Most Reverend Servant.

In fact, as Secretary of State, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli wrote the following:

Most Reverend Sir: With the venerable letter dated last April 6th, Your Eminence graciously indicated the news item of a newspaper, according to which the government of Poland has introduced a law that would tend to prohibit the slaughtering and strangulation, imposed on the Jews by their religious laws and would constitute a true persecution of the Jews. You insinuated, therefore, the advantage of a passage of the Apostolic Nunzio to stop such a law. I have not failed to interest in this regard His Excellency, Monsignor Cortesi, and I am happy now to send Your Eminence a copy of Report Number 89 of May 7th that contains precise information on the problem in question. I willingly take advantage of this encounter to express to Your Eminence my profound veneration and humbly kiss your hand. I am Your Eminence’s humble Servant E. Card. Pacelli.”

As the Vicar of Christ, Pius XII was fully aware of the tremendous responsibility that rested on his shoulders. He aimed at saving human lives! He knew that the slightest provocation could have devastating repercussions for thousands of innocent people.

Revelations from the Archives

As indicated above, in the past couple of years much correspondence relating to this pontificate has come to light and strengthens the cause of this very holy and admirable pope. The Vatican secret archives on the papacy of Pius XI between 1922 and 1939 were just recently opened and, according to the Catholic News Agency (September 21, 2006), some   documents already demonstrate a future Pius XII with no love for Nazis and Fascists. Indeed, already on March 25, 1928, the Church “condemned the hatred regarding the chosen people of God that is called ‘antisemitismo’.”

On September 19, 2006, Marco Tosatti of La Stampa quotes from a draft in the Secretariat of State that the religious in a school in Orte must be reprimanded for having accompanied 120 school children to greet Hitler’s train as it passed on his visit to Italy in May of 1938: “These religious must learn to obey!” The Vatican disagreed with the Fascist government and ordered that no Nazi flags appear with the swastica on any Vatican buildings and along Via della Conciliazione. The Pope and the Secretary of State departed for Castelgandolfo to avoid meeting Hitler in the Vatican. Even the Vatican Museum was closed during his visit.

German historian Hubert Wolf told Associated Press that the recorded minutes of Vatican meetings held in the late 1930s show that the ailing Pope Pius XI greatly relied on Cardinal Pacelli, then Secretary of State, to enforce his Pontificate’s stance against Nazism and Fascism. Wolf revealed what he recorded in the first few documents he had seen among the millions opened up by the Vatican. The documents showed a flurry of discussion between the Pope, Cardinal Pacelli and 10 other cardinals as to how the Vatican should respond to the protests of Hitler’s administration.  He also saw documents relating to the strong anti-Nazi statements Chicago’s Cardinal George Mundelein made in 1937.  These Vatican communications centered on whether the Vatican should blame the U.S. cardinal or exonerate him.  It was Cardinal Pacelli, who to the dismay of the Nazis was successful in pushing for a reply to German authorities that defended Cardinal Mundelein, saying he had simply exercised freedom of speech within his diocese.

The Vatican archives may offer some answers into the controversy surrounding Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli who later became Pope, and who has been accused by some historians of failing to do enough to protect Jews during the Holocaust. The truth of the matter is that Pius XII used discreet diplomacy that saved hundreds of thousands of Jews and other victims of the Nazis. Pacelli not only defended anti-Nazi clergy, but also censored priests who expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.

The Vatican archive also includes extensive documents regarding Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of Vienna’s 1938 endorsement of the German annexation of Austria. Cardinal Pacelli reportedly responded to this situation with harsh communications, ordering Cardinal Innitzer to report to Rome. The meeting in Rome resulted in a retraction of the pro-Nazi statement.

Among these documents, scholars will find Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli’s private views on the 1933 Concordat with Nazi Germany, his relations with Fascist Italy, as well as information about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the Nazi annexation of Austria, the attempts to appease Hitler by France and Great Britain with the 1938 Munich Agreement. The documents will show that to avoid reprisals against Catholics and Jews, Cardinal Pacelli had to be very cautious. Scholars may now examine the 30,000 files totaling millions of pages. Unjust judgments expressed in recent books, for example, John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope, 1999, and Susan Zuccotti’s Under His Very Windows, 2001, will undoubtedly be overturned. 

Slanderous statements against Pope Pius XII contradict the words of Holocaust survivors, the founders of Israel, and the contemporary record of the New York Times. The historical record shows that  Pius XII, through his network of apostolic delegates throughout the world, was able to save the lives of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. Clearly it is time to stop the misrepresentations with regard to the role played by the Catholic Church during World War II. Not only should this wartime Pontiff be honored by Yad Vashem, but there is more than enough evidence to prove that he was a genuine saint. His influence is described in my book, Crusade of Charity: Pius XII and POWs (Paulist Press, 2006).

Today, we Catholics justly celebrate the life of Pope Pius XII, the noble, saintly and prudent pope of World War II.

• “Brought up a devout Catholic, [he] aspired to become a priest….”
• Although a devout Catholic, [she] is happy to face evil in her latest film, she tells Gill Pringle:

..”At home I expose my children to all faiths. I put a different book on the stairs leading up to our bedrooms — books on Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and so on. I want them to get a taste of different religions and see how different people approach things and what their motivation is. But, for me, The Omen is not about religion. It’s just another role and it’s been a lot of fun. Besides, my mother never told me not to do roles that involved evil or Satan,” [she] says, laughing.

• Devout Catholic answers a call to challenge church…
• A devout Catholic, he attended Mass every week…
• Devout Catholic author rigorous in examining gospels…
• “…events in the first week of January will try to plant [her] version of her life story in the national consciousness, showing her as an Italian American and devout Catholic from Baltimore”
• [He] calls himself a devout Catholic and says his latest comedy… is “pro-faith, pro-Catholic, spiritually uplifting.”
• In an exclusive interview, the 33-year-old devout Catholic (and author of How to Make Love Like a Porn Star) tells Us Weekly that she’s made peace with her heartbreak.

I’ll wait a few minutes while puzzle out the subtle thread connecting all these quotes.  When you figure it out, t’will be a consummation devoutly to be wished.

So: about this word “devout”.  What, I wonder, does it mean to the MSM types who sling it around with such abandon?  There are certain sorts of people who come to mind when the word “devout” is employed.

The nun who prays and washes the leper with her wrinkled, arthritic hands.  The pious Sicilian peasant woman for whom it is second nature to invoke the Virgin when her little bambino skins his knee.  The simple Joe who goes to Mass every day he can, spits and swears, but would give a stranger his kidney if he thought it would help give another Joe a break in this crazy world.  There’s room under the Big Tent of Devoutness for these sorts of people and a lot more like them.

But is devoutness an infinitely big tent?  Is everybody (or at least every Catholic) devout?  It would appear so, judging from MSM and blogosphere usage of the term.  So, for instance, it turns out Michael Moore is a “devout Catholic” despite the fact that he holds some rather important aspects of the Church’s teaching in contempt and tells absurd lies in order to score political points.

King: What about how he’s handled the Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright thing?

Moore: Jeez, you know, I mean I go to Mass still.  I’m a practicing Catholic.  I’ve been that way all my life.  But if I had — if I had gotten up every time I heard a priest from the pulpit in my travels around the country say things like I’ve heard them say, that birth control is a sin, that women should not be priests, that women should have a different role in church …

King: You’d be walking out all the time?

Moore: I would have been walking out so much — that would have been so much aerobic activity for me… I wouldn’t look like this.

Uh huh.  I’ve been an ordinary, non-devout schlub of a Catholic for 20 years.  I’ve seen the Church in parishes from Australia to Dublin and from Boston to Houston to British Columbia.  I have never heard from this phalanx of priests who are constantly going on about birth control and women’s ordination in the pulpits across America.  And that’s just the start of things I seldom hear priests offending their congregation with.  In fact, rare indeed is the homily that offends anybody with gospel offense (offenses to intelligence, taste, sound theology and the dignity of both priest and parishioner are another matter).  But apparently, telling bald-faced lies about such things does not affect Moore’s status as “devout”, because the Big Tent of Devoutness covers all.

Therefore, Mia Farrow is a “devout Catholic.”  Why?  Because she’s Catholic.  James Carroll, who has made an entire career of bashing the Church as the author of the Holocaust and demanding she recant her most fundamental beliefs about Christ?  He’s a “devout Catholic” too.  Andy Warhol?  Devout, cuz he went to Mass each week.  Garry Wills?  Devout, despite his tireless complaining about the Church’s failure to convert and agree with him and God.  Nancy Pelosi?  Devout and fanatically pro-abortion.  Kevin Smith?  Devout and casually blasphemous.  Jenna Jameson?  How could a porn star not be devout?  Even Hitler and Himmler were devout.

In short, “devout” appears to be, not so much a “word” exactly, as a sort of acoustical cue. It’s the sonic cue you put before “Catholic”.  Its meaning depends, as in Chinese, not merely on the phonemes that comprise it, but upon the tone and inflection with which it is said.  Used in one way “devout” is a term of approval which aims to persuade the audience of the Devout Person’s bona fides. 

So, for instance, if you are a reporter and your subject is a movie star or an artist and they go to Mass once a week or so, they’re “devout”.  It adds color to that People Profile for journalists who ask breathy questions about spirituality.

“Devoutness” is useful, not just for People profilers, but for more muscular endeavors of social and political change.

If you are an unbelieving press agent or the sort of Catholic who doesn’t let this religion crap get in the way of what you really want and you are trying to coax a vote out of somebody or get them to approve of something that is pretty plainly dodgy, you can use the word “devout” to describe yourself or the person who is advocating the dodgy stuff.

“Yes, Jenna Jameson’s work in XXX films is controversial, but she is a devout Catholic.”  Message: Only a Pharisee could express skepticism about the term “devout” here or state the fact that Jesus never said, “Neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin some more!”.

Similarly, if you are a politician whose devotion to the sacrament of abortion is so extreme that you cannot even muster the gumption to oppose sticking scissors in a newborn’s brain, all you need do is have yourself photographed wearing ashes and follow it up with stern blaring about the Primacy of Conscience.  Say something like “My oath privately between me and God was defined in the Catholic church by Pius XXIII and Pope Paul VI in the Vatican II!”  That way, you can equate doing whatever the hell you like with fidelity to the Tradition!  You’re devout!

If you are not Catholic, and you are trying to sell yourself to Catholics, simply describe as “devout” any supporter of yours who is a carbon-based life form with a pulse that shows up in Mass now and then because, well, that’s the AP style manual term for “Catholics who have been to Mass sometime in the past couple of years who support abortion, gay marriage, and like to talk about being green.”

Of course, there is also (using the right tone of voice and emphasis) the sinister meaning of “devout” too.  The top Nazis were “devout Catholics” we are assured by some of the more zealous New Atheists.  “Devout Catholics” are the ones who go for Inquisitions, witch burnings, and psychic trauma that makes women have cramps (according to the Number One Selling Book in the Universe at the time of this writing).  “Devout” people, when the word is spoken in that tone of voice are not warm, diversity-affirming, leftish people who recycle, listen to NPR, support the library, give to Planned Parenthood and live in the sure and certain hope of the Third Vatican Council.  Spoken in that tone of voice, “devout” means narrow, bitter, angry, frightened, dogmatic, cocksure, suffused with the deepest wish to suppress all joy, impose thought control, end freedom, and smash all curiosity, pleasure, liberty, and hope.

All this leaves me rather baffled.  I recognize that words can be polyvalent.  I even recognize that a word can, now and then, have two completely opposite meanings (as when we cleave a thing in two and the two halves cleave together).

But I can’t help having the sensation that this is not what’s happening with the word “devout”.  It’s not a word so much used by Catholics as about them.  Indeed, the paradox of the word is that those who use it to describe themselves are almost invariably either rotters, former Catholics or both.  There’s something strange about a person who announces “I am devout!” just as there is something either creepy and laughable about a person who announces (in a serious, not flippant manner) “I am humble!”  It’s like the Tibetan Buddhist in the Onion article shouting like Muhummad Ali, “I am the greatest monk of all time!”  Really devout people are too busy living life to go around reminding everybody they are “devout”.

Which, of course, is why (though some will undoubtedly try), none of this column is intended to (nor can) be construed as making any claims about the state of the souls of any of the various folks mentioned above.  I can’t judge their souls.  I can only judge their words and actions, as our Lord says to do when he bids us to judge trees by their fruit.  When I do that I find that I must revise the MSM definition of “devout” to a concept so vague that it means nothing whatever.  That fault lies, not with the various people mentioned above (none of whom have the impudence to call themselves “devout”) but with the cliche-ridden minds of American journalists whom no mortal power can restrain from sticking the acoustic stimulus “devout” in front of “Catholic”, any more than they can hold back their indomitable urge to speak of Vatican crackdowns and plunging busses.

In the name of nice, Canada’s government is silencing Christians and pro-lifers from voicing opinions that others might find offensive. This prohibition applies even when one’s opinion is grounded in Christian truth and charity. Stating that the child in the womb is a human being is one such opinion being floated as potentially hateful. And now that Canadian law has redefined marriage to include same-sex couplings, to state publicly that marriage is between a man and a woman can lead to thousands of dollars in fines and possible jail sentences.

And Americans are not immune from this tyranny of nice. Similar cases are popping up south of the border as well. For instance, Christian photographer Elaine Huguenin was fined $6,500 by the New Mexico Human Rights Commission for crimes of conscience. Mrs. Huguenin declined, for reasons of faith, to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony between two lesbians. Since photography is an art form that requires a certain photographic eye, the New Mexico government agency was essentially compelling speech in violation of a private citizen’s conscience and First Amendment protections. In so doing the New Mexico Human Rights Commission used language similar to that of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Another case involves Marcia Walden, a licensed associate counselor in Georgia and an African-American Christian. She was fired from a government contract for following her profession’s code of ethics. When she sensed a personal conflict between her religious convictions and an individual seeking same-sex relationship counseling — a conflict that would prevent Ms. Walden from giving the potential client the best treatment possible — the counselor politely referred the client to another counselor in her office who did not share her religious convictions, and who could see the client the same day. Despite admitting that the counseling from this second counselor had been superb, Ms. Walden needed to be fired because her religious convictions as a Christian were deemed ‘not nice’.

Yet the tyranny of nice is even more entrenched in Canada. Many CE readers have heard of the case against Fr. Alphonse de Valk, a founder of Canada’s pro-life movement and the publisher of Catholic Insight magazine. For the past year Father has been fighting a human rights complaint because he dared uphold the teachings of the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church during Canada’s contentious debate over same-sex marriage. Not content with having won the political war to re-define the world’s oldest and most sacred institution, homosexual activists are now attempting to silence the 76-year-old Basilian priest from the pulpit. What’s more, Father has been forced to pay $20,000 in legal expenses to defend himself, while the costs incurred by the government in its persecution of this priest are picked up by the taxpayer.

Yet Father is still fighting the good fight. Pastor Stephen Boissoin, Fr. de Valk’s evangelical counterpart, lost his case after publishing a letter to his local newspaper critical of homosexual activists who promote their lifestyle in schools among children as young as six. The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal ordered the pastor to pay $7,000 in various fines, publicly apologize to homosexual activists for having offended them, cease all private and public communication concerning Biblical teaching on homosexuality, and refrain from any criticism of the government process to which he was subjected. Should Boissoin fail to abide by this ruling, he could face time in jail.

Another case documented in Tyranny of Nice concerns Scott Brockie, an evangelical protestant who owns a small print shop in Toronto. In 1996 a homosexual organization asked him to print stationary promoting their lifestyle. Mr. Brockie declined for reasons of conscience. The activist in charge of the organization denounced Mr. Brockie to the Ontario Human Rights Board of Inquiry. In February of 2000, the board ordered Mr. Brockie to pay the complainant $5,000, despite acknowledging Mr. Brockie’s religious convictions in its decision.

“In fact nothing in [the] order will prevent Brockie from continuing to hold and practice his religious beliefs,” the ruling states. “Brockie remains free to hold his religious beliefs and to practice them in his Christian community.”

Notice how Canada’s tyrants of nice have restricted Mr. Brockie’s practice of his Christian faith to his local community. So long as he remains within the confines of his Protestant church, he may act upon his Christian convictions. However, he must bow to Moloch upon exiting his Protestant chapel or the tyranny of nice will fine him thousands of dollars for observing the Sixth Commandment.

Now some may object that Mr. Brockie and Mrs. Huguenin engage in business of a secular nature with the general public. What about a specifically religious organization? In 2003, a Knights of Columbus council in Canada declined to rent its hall to a lesbian couple, who wanted to marry in the hall. The couple complained to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.

Two years later, the tribunal ruled that the Knights of Columbus had ‘discriminated’ against the lesbian couple and ordered the Knights to pay the couple approximately $450 in expenses, interest, and $1,000 each for “injury to their feelings, dignity and self-respect.” The tribunal further prohibited the organization “from committing the same or similar contravention” in the future. Despite previous government assurances that no religion would be affected by passage of same-sex marriage into Canadian law, the tyranny of nice took over once the bill passed, deeming that hurt feelings of those who reject Church teaching trumps the right of Catholics to adhere to their beliefs in their own facilities.

G.K. Chesterton once warned that where orthodoxy is optional it soon becomes proscribed. The tyranny of nice is an example of how orthodoxy has been proscribed within Canadian society. What began as tolerance for heterodoxy has now metamorphed into a full-fledged persecution of orthodox Christians. By law, same-sex marriage is taught as equal to traditional marriage in Canada’s public schools. And the same law prohibits parents from removing their children from the classroom when this is taught. To do so is considered a hate crime for which parents can be charged and their children removed from the home.

Such is the twisted thinking of Canada’s tyrants of nice. Numerous studies show that children perform best in stable, two-parent families, especially when the parents are their own. In Canada, however, niceness trumps the welfare of children. Better to break up good Christian families, ripping young children away from their loving parents, than to ignore the hurt feelings of sexual activists.

And thus I can only agree with Mark Steyn, who in the introduction to Tyranny of Nice, wrote:

Canada, one of the oldest continuous constitutional democracies on the planet, is no longer a free society… [In] its determination to enforce a dubious government-mandated ‘niceness’, key elements of the Canadian state have taken a jackhammer to the cornerstone of a free society: freedom of expression, freedom of ideas, freedom of belief, freedom to engage in the whole messy rough’n'tumble of vigorous debate that distinguishes open societies from lesser, stunted, insecure ones. In Canada, in the cause of promoting a bunch of pseudo-’human rights’, a huge federal and provincial bureaucracy has declared war on real human rights — not least the presumption of innocence, the right to a free and fair trial, and the other pillars of our legal system.

Father Riccardo graduated from University of Michigan and spent some time working in the secular world before pursuing his vocation as a priest. He was ordained in the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1996. Father studied philosophy at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit and theology at the Gregorian University in Rome. He received a Sacred License in Theology (STL) from The Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family. The radio program Father hosts, “Christ is the Answer” is a catechetical program and one of the most informative I listen to on Catholic radio. For more information on Father, visit www.AveMariaRadio.net where you can listen live to his show any weekday at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (these shows are previously aired) or 8 p.m. on Wednesday evenings (new shows).

Most recently Father was a guest on Catholic radio’s pledge drive and spoke of the need for fasting and praying in the time leading up to this November’s presidential election. I asked Father if he would answer a few questions and he graciously agreed.

Father, you’ve mentioned fasting and praying, on Fridays, for the election. Could you give us a bit of direction on this and how we can join others in this cause?

Fr. Riccardo: The sense of a need to fast for this election came some months ago now when our readings at daily Mass dealt with the history of the people of Israel during the reign of the various kings, and in particular with the reality that the life of the king effected the people as a whole. This is a concept we don’t keep in mind much in the US. We tend to think a person’s private life is entirely their own. Now, there’s some truth to that, but the idea that the life of a leader has no impact on the life of the nation he or she leads is entirely in contrast to the revealed Word of God. It was during that time that I felt the Lord put on my heart a deep conviction to not only fast myself but to invite others to do the same for God’s mercy and blessing upon our land until and specifically for the men and women running for public office. Perhaps many of us forgot, or are unaware, of how often some of our Founding Fathers would call the nation to pray and fast during certain times.

As for the nuts and bolts of the fast, I myself just drink liquids on Fridays until dinner, and then break the fast at that time, trying to call to mind throughout the day the intention that I have. Some people, I know, can’t fast from foods for various reasons, but something else could easily be substituted in its place.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the Catholic Church today?

Fr. Riccardo: The Lord says in His Word, “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” I think that might be how I would answer that question. It’s a question with many possible answers, but this comes to mind right now anyway. That lack of knowledge would be manifold: about God, about His personal love, about the basics of our faith, about what it means to be a Catholic, and so forth.

What do you suggest Catholics do to live their faith more fully?

Fr. Riccardo: This, too, is a topic that could fill a book, but certainly some basics come to mind. First of all would be to put in place a game plan for how to live this life well. We have strategies for almost everything we do with regards to various parts of life, but seldom do we take the time to come up with one for all of life. I think it works best by starting with the desired end: heaven and hearing the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” That end, sobering as this is, is not a given. It’s a gift, to be sure, and so not something that we can earn, but it must still be received by each of us.

Each of us needs to prayerfully determine how we should respond to the gift of life entrusted to us by God, and how to live in such a way so as to try to honor Him in all we do and build up the civilization of love here and now. Fundamentally, I think, it starts by making a commitment to pray, to “waste time with God,” as I put it. This isn’t to imply that prayer is a waste of time; not at all! It’s meant to convey that we need to be in the daily habit of wasting time in a positive way with Him, of listening to His voice in silence and in Scripture, of praising Him, thanking Him, saying we’re sorry, asking for help, asking for vision, and so much more.

Finally, could you give us a little insight into your thoughts about the upcoming election?

Fr. Riccardo: We obviously have many pressing issues and needs in our country at present, and each day only seems to raise even more concerns, with economic concerns currently dominating the headlines. I think I’m sobered, quite frankly, by how much hostility seems to be out there, on all “sides,” and how little humility there seems to be.

Author’s note: If you’ve not yet read a Catholic voter’s guide or would like to understand, more fully, what it means to be a Catholic voter, here are a few helpful links… http://www.ewtn.com/vote/brief_catechism.htm, http://www.catholic.com/, http://westcoastcatholic.blogspot.com/2008/08/archbishop-chaput-vote-for-real-change.html, and http://www.stlouisreview.com/abpcolumn.php?abpid=7051

The Gospel account tells us of the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. Tradition has it that they resided there for as many as seven years — Saint Joseph laboring to provide for Jesus and Mary — and returned to Nazareth after Herod’s death. It was no accident that the Infant Jesus paid a visit to this pagan land and to be sure He took pity on the poor people who were enslaved by idolatry. This sojourn was the seed planted which would blossom into a verdant garden on the Nile.

What motivated early Christians to move into the desert? What was it that took such a strong hold on so many to enter the desert to seek perfect union with Christ? Undoubtedly deep faith and love, something that goes beyond what the lips can utter. It is the search for the pearl of great price hidden in the field of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel. However, there were also political and ecclesiastical factors at work which made this spiritual conquest of the heart possible. Some went into the deserts of Egypt in order to escape persecutions raging against the Church but for the most part, it was a desire for solitude with God and to engage in the spiritual combat with the Devil. It was believed that Satan’s place of residence was the desert. The faith of Christians dwelling in the cities had driven him out into the wilderness, forcing him to retreat. Well, in the mind of the monk, it would be the goal to drive him out even further.

For the founders of Eremitic and Cenobitic monasticism in the Eastern Church — Saint Antony and Saint Pachomius — setting out into the desert was a whole new adventure. If one takes a close look at a topographical map showing the colors indicating sea level in relation to the land, what a surprise it is to discover that the areas of major monastic settlements of the Sketes, Nitria, Celles and Marea are in the green to dark green along the Nile. This meant that water was not as scarce as we may think and there was vegetation and cultivatable land. Clues pointing to this are also given us in the classic Sayings of the Desert Fathers where Fathers such as Abba Antony, Abba Arsenius, Abba Gelasius, Abba Moses and others speak of marshes, palm trees, figs olives and plots of land for growing! Still the fact that there was cultivatable land does not mean at all that was this an easy life. The Fathers were still surrounded by the desert sands and extreme heat and even cold, the threat of wild beasts and barbarian hordes, yet they still had the wherewithal to survive. Their goal was union with Christ, the vanquishing of the passions, and purity of heart, not a comfortable living. They lived in the desert and subsisted on just what was necessary. Life was a continual harmony of prayer, silence, battling with the devil and work: weaving mats and baskets from rushes or palms, growing food, or baking bread.

In his book, The Desert a City, Derwas Chitty is among those who show that this title is a proper description of monasticism in Egypt in every sense of the word. Archeological studies reveal that the Nitira and Sketes Monasteries had wells, ovens for baking bread, and the ability to grow crops. At the height of what is known as, in the words of Monastic scholar Evelyn White, “the Golden Age” of Nitria, as many as thousands lived in those desert communities. The desert marvels were not as isolated as we once believed them to have been, either, and this proved to be unfortunate indeed. While the Nile waterway system brought visitors, it brought troublemaker as well. Arianism, coming from Alexandria, was able to destroy the Nitria monastery by fomenting factions within, resulting in riots. News also circulated fairly well and with remarkable speed through the desert, as Saint Augustine, hundreds of miles away mentions in a letter to a priest the barbarian tribe that wiped out the Sketes settlement. Despite the collapse of these magnificent monasteries, they served as a model and guide for future foundations that would sprout like wheat in successive generations and which exist even today. Even greater are the spiritual treasuries, words of recorded wisdom from the Heiromonk to the novice that set the standard for formation in the school of virtue in the Eastern Churches.

How can Catholics today feel a connection with the Egyptian saints of the desert? It comes with the realization that they were ordinary people just as we are now. What made them unique was that they responded to Christ’s call to sanctification in a radical way: leaving everything for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven through the Evangelical Counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. Some, such as Saint Antony, left a great inheritance of money behind; others, such as Saint Mary of Egypt, had a tremendous conversion of heart from a life of prostitution to solitude, wandering through the desert sands. Those who were considered wolves became like lambs such as the great Abba Moses who turned from a profession of robbery and donned the monastic habit, bringing his whole band of thugs to conversion with him. Others left the noise of the world by mounting a pillar where they prayed day and night for the salvation of mankind.

As it has been said so many times, saints are not born, they are made by the grace of God and so it is with all of us. Many entered into the desert crucible with very sinful pasts, it is true; but they ended their lives well, having made up a hundredfold by their ascetic labors. This should be a source of encouragement for all that we are, each and every one without exception, called to sainthood. Noise is the endemic disease of our times. All desire silence and solitude, but the majority are not called to monastic life but to life in the world. The desert Fathers challenge all Catholics today regardless of state in life to maintain recollection with God in everyday duties, that everything we do becomes a prayer. Saint Catherine of Sienna, a great Saint of the West gives us the best example: to make the soul a “cell,” your own “desert of solitude,” where despite the confusion and noise around you, you can remain continually united to Jesus in perfect love.

I whimpered a prayer: Here I am again at your feet, Mary, and, as usual, it’s not pretty. Please help me!

Three months ago I had my hip replaced. This fall might be a serious setback in my recovery.

Remarkably, I took comfort in the fact I took my fall in front of Mary. (Of course, I realize her statue had no power of its own to help me, but its presence reminded me of the Mother who did.) My meager prayer was heard. With faith in her maternal protection, I assessed the damage, and slowly stood, hobbling into the last pew. After Mass I limped back to my car and drove myself to the hospital for x-rays.

I sat in the ER contemplating my crash at Mary’s feet. This was not the first time I have found myself looking to her in desperation.

This points to my thesis: all of us should fall for Mary. Not that I’m suggesting personal accidents, but rather, we should fall in love with Mary, and not wait for tragedy to strike before we invite Mary into our lives.

As a younger woman, I avoided the suggestion that Mary should be a part of my life or, worse, a role model for me. To my way thinking, with a feminism formed-by-the-culture and not necessarily by the Gospel, Mary was a weak role model for me. Despite this bias, I never doubted Mary’s role in God’s plan. I just didn’t include her in any of mine.

Back then, for me, Mary was more of a historical character — necessary for God to take on flesh — an iconic reminder of the Jesus story. I knew she showed up at Christmas and at Calvary, but I didn’t appreciate much beyond that.

My Catholic education taught me Mary was the mother of Jesus, the mother to the Church, and a mother to me. I accepted the first two titles fine, but I denied she had any connection with me. I had no “relationship” with her, other than praying the “Hail Mary,” and an occasional rosary.

As a teenager, I had a dynamic conversion to Christ. But even with a growing faith, outside influences still swayed me. I confused staid depictions of Mary with the truth about her nature as a human person brimming with grace. I was influenced by prevalent skepticisms about Mary. My false impressions were not rooted in Scripture or Church teaching.

Two events in my adult life drew me toward love of Mary. The first was my first pregnancy. At the time, I was so sick I vomited around the clock. My life was in tatters. My only prayer was “Lord, help me!”

Jesus answered my prayers by sending me his Mother, armed with the “girl talk” and strong feminine connection I needed. And I was desperate enough to accept Mary’s help and example.

It wasn’t pretty, and I often faltered but, for the first time, I asked Mary to pray for me.

Over those nine months, I began to see what was missing. I traced Mary’s life through the scriptures, discovering the many lessons she had for me. The rosary and its meditations on the life of Christ and Mary became sources of inspiration.

I no longer kept Mary on a distant shelf — like a statue. Now she became a living, holy presence in my life. She never diminished my relationship with Jesus; she only increased it. And I began to trust the wisdom of the Catholic Church — not outside opinions — about Mary and Marian devotions.

Mary took me in — the one who denied her for so long — mothering me as I entered motherhood, forgiving my years of neglect. I trusted her. She wanted the best for me: faith, hope, and love in the Holy Trinity. After all, she is Daughter of the Father, Mother to the Son, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit.

Ten years later, a second event deepened my relationship with Mary. At 36, as a mother of three small children, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I faced my own kind of Calvary.

Recall John’s Gospel:

[At Calvary,]… standing by the cross of Jesus [was Mary]… When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home(John 19:25-27).

Mary, who stood at the foot of her Son’s cross, and later embraced His broken body, now stood by me. I was broken. It wasn’t pretty. But there she was… filling me with her gifts of grace-filled power… a mother at Calvary beside the child she loves.

Twelve years later, I still take my cue from Jesus’ words, and the action of St. John: I have made a place for Mary in my home. More important, I have embraced being Mary’s daughter.

My falling for Mary continues… I still have messy stuff in my life that needs cleaning up. I still fall and Mary picks me up and dusts me off. With her help, I’m becoming a better woman, a stronger Christian.

The ankle x-rays reported a sprain. No other damage; none to my newly replaced hip joint. You could say that I had the best possible fall, given my circumstances. I believe Mary had a hand in that.

If you haven’t already, let yourself fall for Mary, our Mother. But don’t just drop in on her “by accident,” call on her today!

Fresh Possibilities

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that hope “is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises, relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (1817). Let us unpack this definition.

When God reveals Himself to us, and enables us to believe in that revelation by the grace of faith. He throws open fresh possibilities for our lives, possibilities that our minds could never conceive of on their own. As St. Paul says, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him, God has revealed to us through the Spirit” (1 Cor 2:9-10). Without faith, we can only know of enduring hardships and fleeting joys in a life that is all too short. But with faith we know that the Son of God became the Son of Mary to save us from death by His death and resurrection. By faith, we know that we have received the Holy Spirit so that we might become adopted sons and daughters of God, co-heirs with Christ the Son of God to an eternal inheritance: life with the Blessed Trinity for all eternity.

Because of the fresh possibilities opened up for us by faith, our lives can never be the same. It is the virtue of hope that renders the possibilities known by faith active in our lives. But how does this work? A comparison with our ordinary human hopes can help us to understand. Suppose a person has a serious illness. The discovery that his illness is curable and that there is a physician who can cure it will bring about two hopes in him. First, since he knows that his disease is curable, he will hope for a restoration of health. Second, since he knows that there is a doctor who can cure him, he will hope in the doctor, trusting that the doctor can cure him. Similarly, the theological virtue of hope does two things. Based on what we know by faith, we hope for eternal life and we hope in God, trusting that He will give it to us. Just as faith strengthens our intellects so that we can believe the things God has revealed, hope strengthens our wills so that we can expect the things that God has promised. As St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Hope makes us stand to God as to a good to be obtained finally and as a helper strong to assist.”

“Trust in Him and He Will Act”

All of this means that hope should produce an attitude of confidence in us with respect to the spiritual life. The person who has faith not only believes in the promise of eternal life; he also believes in a God who is omnipotent and merciful. Because He is omnipotent, He is able to give us eternal life. Because He is merciful, He wants to give us eternal life. Thus He is constantly active in our lives, working to remedy our miseries with the blessings of His grace. The person who has hope trusts in this omnipotence and mercy, and these are the sources of his confidence. The person who has hope finds deep consolation in the words of Sacred Scripture: “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will dwell in the land, and enjoy security. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act” (Ps. 37:3-5). “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11).

“Hope Does not Disappoint”

Therefore, difficulties and frustrations in prayer are opportunities for us to grow in hope. Every time we are frustrated by our progress in prayer, we can recommend ourselves anew to Jesus and again throw open the doors of our hearts to the Holy Spirit. We do this because we know that an omnipotent and merciful God is constantly at work in our lives. We can gaze on the Crucified and confidently assure ourselves, “A God who would do that for me will not abandon me now and have it all count for nothing! Jesus, I trust in You and Your work in my life. Lord, come now, have mercy on me and make me holy.”

Such an act of hope turns the distractions and frustrations of our prayer into occasions for growth in prayer. For the more we place our hope for sanctification in the omnipotent and merciful God, the more we begin to realize that sanctification is not something that we are responsible for all by ourselves. Rather, it is God who sanctifies us according to His generous mercy. It is our job, enabled by His grace, to give Him permission to work in us. This is what St. Paul means when he says, “Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom 5:5).

This hope also helps us to make it through periods of desolation in prayer. By hope, we trust in a God who is constantly at work in our lives. Desolation in prayer, then, must be but another way that God is at work in our sanctification. God may seem absent, but really He is present in a different way. We may not fully understand God’s ways with us, but we know Him well enough by faith that we can reliably place our trust in him. Therefore, the way through desolations in prayer is also through making acts of hope.

Thus we can see a way past our initial difficulty. It is true that “we do not know how to pray as we ought.” But by yielding to the action of the God who works wonders, by making acts of hope in the omnipotent and merciful God, we will discover that “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:8) and we will grow in prayer.

Now, of all ethnic groups, only the Jews have ever really had a claim to be Chosen. But the paradox of biblical election is that the Chosen are always chosen for the sake of the Unchosen. And that imposes a terrible burden on any who would aspire to such a terrible blessing. For if you are chosen for the sake of the unchosen, the day must inevitably come where it is required that you give up your life that another may live, since all (including the Jews) are “chosen in the Beloved” — that is, chosen in Christ and for His plans and purposes, not theirs.

So to be chosen is to be called to walk in the way of Christ, which is the way of death and resurrection. Sooner or later you must lay down your life — or not. When that choice is required, you can instead choose the mystery of evil and say, with Caiaphas, “It is better that one man die than that a whole nation should perish.” Like John and James, nations can and often have sought to have a place at the right and left hand of Christ. To them, our Lord has always replied, “You do not know what you are asking.”

That there is something in the nationalist impulse that hankers after the same claim of blessing God conferred on the people of Israel seems self-evident to me. Again and again we see nations, in their prime, desiring to be a royal priesthood, a chosen nation, a people set apart for the Lord with a mission to the world.

And so, for instance, the great nation-states of Europe all seem to have gone through their phase of claiming divine anointing and a Special Place in the Divine Plan. We see it reflected in the myth of the Grail in England and the notion that Jesus took time out of His busy schedule to pay some boyhood visits to Albion:

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

Likewise, when France was in peak form, she claimed the title of Eldest Daughter of the Church (that’s before she went to Paris, took an atheist lover, and started reading Voltaire and Sartre). Russia, too, had its spasm of Christo-nationalism in the 19th century when it claimed the title of “Christ of the Nations.” I once heard a talk by a Byzantine Rite priest who seriously claimed that Byzantium was the physical instantiation of the City of God on earth and that Constantine, not Jesus, was the “Founder of the Church.” The Boers of South Africa were once filled with a somewhat demented notion that they were the elect of God, chosen to bring light to the victims of their apartheid policies. Seventy years ago, Germany likewise embraced an (extremely debased) notion of being a Chosen People with catastrophic results, proving once again that nothing is more dangerous than a single biblical idea cut off from the rest of revelation.

And, of course, for nearly 500 years, America has had a long and rich history of discerning the Hand of the Almighty at work in her founding and history. From the Pilgrim’s City on a Hill, to the Founders’ Novus Ordo Seclorum to Lincoln’s Second Inaugural to the theory of Manifest Destiny to Bill Clinton’s “New Covenant” and George W. Bush’s faith in the “power — wonder-working power — in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people” to the current anointing of Sen. Barack Obama as a sort of Messianic God-King by his disciples, American politics is suffused with the constant tendency to confuse the Kingdom of Heaven and the American Way. Not for nothing did Chesterton remark that we are a nation with the “soul of a Church.”

So it should come as no surprise that, in the late 1970s, just as conservative Evangelicals were feeling their oats, the theory that there was Something Divinely Special about America regained currency among Righty types and The Light and the Glory was published. Along with it came a great deal of quasi-biblical stuff about America’s Providential History and so forth.

Now, in one sense, we can of course speak, as Catholics, of “America’s Providential History.” God’s Providence, after all, governs Everything That Happens down to the fall of a sparrow and the numbering of the hairs of your head. Is America part of God’s plan? Of course! So is Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and the reign of Emperor Norton I.

After that, though, things get rather tricky and Evangelicals have to perform prodigies of exegesis that Catholics tend to shy away from in order to work out the specifics of “what the Bible says” about America’s “role” in God’s plan. The reason for this is simple: the Bible doesn’t say anything about America’s role in God’s plan. The only ethnos that figures, as an ethnos, in God’s plan as a nation is the Jewish people. But other nations, including our own, keep trying to see their reflection in the looking glass of the Old Testament. The only thing we know for sure, however, is that the story of Israel is intended to tell us, not about America, Britain, France, Russia, or Switzerland, but about the Church, which is, as Paul tells us, the Israel of God.

The result of this thoroughly unbiblical notion about some more-special-than-everybody-else place for America in Providence has been, of course, a source of tremendous confusion on the Right for the past 30 years. Drawing from deep American cultural roots, the notion of America as a Chosen Nation is something that brings out the best and the worst in us. It inspired us to do great and noble things out of real self-sacrificial heroism — and it fills us with incredibly obnoxious hubris. It prompted us to storm the beaches of Normandy, save Berlin from the Commies, and found things like the Peace Corps.

But, because our Puritan missionary spirit goes marching on even when our culture degrades into complete apostasy, we continue our sense of mission even when the mission becomes to “export abortion and our pornocratic culture as far as humanly possible.” This frequently hurls Evangelicals into chaos because America acts like the whore of Babylon just as often as she mimics the Virgin Daughter of Zion. It gets tough to cling to the Light and the Glory when your chief cultural export is Madonna, Sex and the City, and condoms.

For Catholics, the situation is rife with confusion too, but Catholic social teaching has always had a pretty good bead on primary and secondary goods. Love God and your neighbor are the two big commandments, in that order. Love of country is simply a corollary of the second greatest commandment. As long as the greatest commandment is Numero Uno, the second greatest can be followed with complete freedom. But the moment somebody tries to put the second commandment first is the moment a line has been crossed and idolatry has occurred.

So the sacred and secular are clearly distinguished in the Catholic tradition. If somebody tries to tell us to put the interests of Caesar before the command of God, they are speaking with the voice of the devil. Ultimately, our goals as a nation are not the same as those of Holy Mother Church, who is the only fully fitting recipient of all that prophetic witness in Scripture about being a “chosen nation,” etc. So Evangelicals are often at sixes and sevens about America, because she goes on stubbornly being a purely temporal creature concocted by Enlightenment minds and subject to all the mutability this world has to offer. They keep hoping she’ll fill the bill for the Church. But she’s not the Church. She’s only a nation with the soul of a Church — and she’s been exhaling that soul for some time now and breathing in lots of other spirits. She won’t last forever. No merely human nation will. On the Last Day, the only two peoples we are guaranteed to still see standing will be the House of Israel and the Catholic Church, finally reconciled in their common Messiah.

That’s not a reason not to fight for America. My mother won’t last forever either, but that’s scarcely a reason to give up on her. America is one of the greatest human inventions the world has ever seen: an almost sacred thing. But only almost. Great as she is, she remains a human invention, not the inspired creation of God. Not a Light of revelation to the Gentiles nor the Glory of His people Israel. That role has been filled for all time by Jesus Christ. So all the normal apostolic warnings about exalting human traditions to the level of the Tradition of God apply.

If you don’t make that distinction between human and apostolic tradition, you wind up getting unjustly angry at America (or whatever other human thing you idolize) for being only human and not meeting our divine hopes. That’s the blunder of Lefties like Jeremiah Wright and others. Like those on the Right who accord America hyperdulia or latria, they wind up honoring merely human things more highly than they ought.

Touchstone sums it up well:

There is a liberation theology of the Left, and there is also a liberation theology of the Right, and both are at heart mammon worship. The liberation theology of the Left often wants a Barrabas, to fight off the oppressors as though our ultimate problem were the reign of Rome and not the reign of death. The liberation theology of the Right wants a golden calf, to represent religion and to remind us of all the economic security we had in Egypt. Both want a Caesar or a Pharaoh, not a Messiah.

But a Messiah is what we have, thanks be to God.