St. Joseph’s Memorial Chapel: Holy Cross’ Historic Event Hall?

Throughout the history of the Church, the saints have said plenty of things about St. Joseph, a man who said nothing about himself. St. John Henry Newman, a 19th century English literary and theological giant, says of St. Joseph: “His was the title of father of the Son of God, because he was the Spouse of Mary, ever Virgin. He was our Lord’s father, because Jesus ever yielded to him the obedience of a son. He was our Lord’s father, because to him were entrusted, and by him were faithfully fulfilled, the duties of a father, in protecting Him, giving Him a home, sustaining and rearing Him, and providing Him with a trade” [1]. St. Teresa of Avila, a 16th century Spanish mystic, Doctor of the Church, and reformer of the Carmelites, says of St. Joseph: “As [Jesus] was subject to St. Joseph on earth – for since bearing the title of father, being the Lord’s tutor, Joseph could give the Child command – so in heaven God does whatever he commands” [2]. St. Joseph was declared “patron saint of the universal Church” by Pope Pius IX in 1870 [3], a title which was celebrated by Pope Francis in his 2020 Apostolic Letter Patris corde [4], written for the 150th anniversary of the declaration.

The Church affirms time and time again St. Joseph’s crucial role in the Holy Family and subsequently in salvation history. Next to the Blessed Virgin, he is our greatest intercessor and exemplar of everyday virtue. He is also the role model for masculinity and fatherhood, making him the perfect patron saint for the chapel of a Catholic men’s college, which was what St. Joseph’s Chapel was back in 1924, when it was consecrated.

On April 21st, 2024, Holy Cross celebrated the 100th Anniversary of the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel with a celebration of Holy Mass featuring alumni, faculty, staff, and students of the College. President Rougeau gave opening remarks, Bishop McManus was present among the faithful, and three college choirs joined in song to commemorate the event [5]. What better way to celebrate Holy Cross’ stunning, historical chapel dedicated to the father of the Holy Family? A few more events took place to commemorate the Chapel’s 100th Anniversary – on March 23rd, 2024, the College Choir and orchestra performed pieces that were performed at the chapel’s original dedication, and this past November the College held a special Mass for All Saints’ Day featuring the Gospel Choir of St. Augustine’s Church from Washington, DC.

However, on March 19th, the Feast of St. Joseph, the College barricaded the doors of the Chapel, removed the altar from the sanctuary, replaced it with armchairs, and moved the Blessed Sacrament to the downstairs tabernacle. By 5 PM, security was guarding every entrance, and students were prohibited from entering. This was because of a panel event which would take place in the Chapel’s sanctuary. The panel featured Dr. Anthony Fauci and his wife, Dr. Christine Grady, in conversation with President Rougeau and his wife, Dr. Robin Kornegay-Rougeau. The panelists were invited to speak about how they have “navigated their personal and professional paths; how they have balanced demanding careers with family life; and the lessons they have learned along the way.” In the promotion for the panel, the College called it “the culmination of our celebration of the 100th Anniversary of St. Joseph Memorial Chapel.”

At the beginning of the panel event, Michele Murray, the Senior Vice President for Student Development and Mission, remarked that the College was delighted to host the panel “in honor of St. Joseph.” What could be more unrelated to the celebration of a Catholic chapel or St. Joseph than a panel event whose topic had nothing to do with the Catholic Faith, and whose main guest is not a practicing Catholic [6]? A Fenwick Review writer in attendance remarked that only one of the panelists explicitly mentioned God. In fact, in order for the event to occur, the College needed to strip the chapel of the qualities that sacramentally defined it as a Catholic chapel – the Blessed Sacrament and the altar. St. Joseph Chapel was reduced to an event hall, devoid of the sacred.

Is St. Joseph Chapel primarily a beautiful, old, event hall, whose function is to host the College’s most prestigious guests? Does it deserve to be celebrated merely for being a beautiful building, completely stripped of the features which define it as a place of worship? Can the College celebrate a “culminating event of the 100th Anniversary of the Chapel” while completely dismissing its sacred purpose and its patron saint?

The College held no special devotional events for St. Joseph’s feast day, no additional Masses to mark the “culmination” of the Chapel’s 100th Anniversary, and barricaded its entrances as early as 9 AM. By the time I arrived at 4:45 PM, security was blocking every door and prohibiting students from entering, even for personal prayer. The panel event ended at 8:30 PM, and as a result the regular 9:00 PM Mass had to begin late. Students were not allowed to enter the Chapel until minutes before the Mass began. So, even the regular sacramental activities of the day were pushed aside for the panel event.

It is a great privilege to have a beautiful chapel on campus, and an even greater privilege to have St. Joseph as its patron. What can be said of a College which “celebrates” its chapel and its chapel’s patron saint with an event that has to do with neither? Was St. Joseph’s Solemnity just an excuse to host our prestigious guests in the campus’ most beautiful building? What might the College’s attempt to celebrate the Chapel on St. Joseph’s feast day without an emphasis on the sacraments, or any religious element, reveal about its commitment to its Catholic tradition?

Endnotes

[1] John Henry Newman, A Triduo to St. Joseph, “Day 2: Consider the Glorious Titles of St. Joseph.” Newman Reader. https://www.newmanreader.org/works/meditations/meditations8.html#triduojoseph

[2] St. Teresa of Avila, The Life of Teresa of Jesus, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez O.C.D. (Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1995), 79-80.

[3] Pope Pius IX, Decree: St. Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church, Dec. 8, 1870, https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/quemadmodum-deus-20726 

[4] Pope Francis, Patris Corde, Dec. 8, 2020, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/papa-francesco-lettera-ap_20201208_patris-corde.html

[5] William McHale, Holy Cross Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of St. Joseph Memorial Chapel, May 3, 2024, https://hcspire.com/2024/05/03/holy-cross-celebrates-the-100th-anniversary-of-st-joseph-memorial-chapel/

[6] “Doctor Anthony Fauci on why he left the US government | BBC,” BBC News, December 1, 2023, YouTube Video, 3:43-4:51, https://youtu.be/3p6N6Lt3fo8?si=UPGSCkVxyzl-Qzyx. 

In Defense of Classics

A lurking sentiment pervades the Classics Department, one which inspires unease and uncertainty for the future of the study at Holy Cross altogether. Classics, many feel, is on the brink of erosion. Well, do such claims have grounds to be made? And if so, is Classics worth keeping alive in its current form?

Several factors may indicate that Classics will undergo further change. Recently introduced changes have raised questions among Classics students as to the trajectory of the department. Hebrew, a language traditionally taught in theological contexts [1], has joined Ancient Greek and Latin as potential languages to satisfy the two-language Major requirement, with a few other languages being floated around as potential additions. Though new languages may bear relevance and cultivate interest, this alteration in the language requirement follows a general trend in the department. Classics is shifting from being a study of the ancients who inspired Western tradition to a study of the ancillary states to the classical tradition, which, although incredibly important and involved, do not define the basis of the tradition. Although it is important for Classicists to be open to various perspectives from the study of Classics, it is also important to ensure that hypercritical viewpoints are not the only ones relayed; otherwise, the study has effectively failed at delivering a variety of perspectives. Many Classics students worry that these new courses are a sign of an eventual “loss of identity” for the department, wherein the focus will no longer be on Greece and Rome and will instead be on the broader ancient world.

Such a shift would not be unheard of. Last semester, a talk was held in Rehm Library in which Classics scholar and President of the American Council of Learned Societies, Joy Connolly, proposed a new way to teach about premodern history: Ancient Studies. Connolly expounds her proposition further in her upcoming book, All the World’s Past, where she sets forth to foster a “decolonized field” [2], a composite of perspectives inspired by Afrofuturist thought [3] The idea of Ancient Studies appears utterly unproblematic on its face—a means of recognizing underappreciated cultures and getting a broad sense of the ancient world is both appealing and admirable. But this is not the complete story—Connolly makes it clear in her speech that Ancient Studies is in some way a substitute for Classics [4]. She presents Classics as a declining field and enumerates her grievances with it. Where she frames her new field as an “epistemic reparation,” she implies that Classics operates as a “vehicle for white supremacy” [5]. While talking about colonialism, she disparages Classics for its supposed “Eurocentrism,” “proto-nationalist origin story,” and value assessment on subjective matters (such as others saying that Greek or Roman art is the best). Connolly claims that “Greeceandroman Studies” (her monolithic term for Classics) was founded on ethnonationalism and racism, designed for nationalism, and informed and animated by white elites [6]. Evidently, Connolly must have had a reason to intertwine her criticisms of “Greeceandroman Studies” in her speech, and it’s difficult to see this as a call to anything other than replacement or redirection.

This speech would not be so notable if there was no likelihood for it to bear any fruits—but there’s good reason to believe that Connolly’s proposals could have consequences. The same aspirations and theories are echoed by scholars throughout the field of Classics. If Connolly’s mission is to bring Ancient Studies to institutions around the country, it would not be unreasonable to assume that faculty or administration at Holy Cross could soon be in favor of phasing the Classics department into Ancient Studies, especially given the department’s new course offerings (regarding the increasingly Near Eastern focus) and the diminishing of the Greek and Latin language requirements. Holy Cross is not a large enough institution to have the diversity of field selection at schools such as Boston University. Were two similar departments to be run in tandem with one another, the scarcity of students and funding would likely cause the dilution of one of the fields, thereby making it more advantageous for the school to prioritize one of the other. Such could be the case were Ancient Studies to be introduced alongside Classics. It’s possible that were it introduced, it may just be a replacement for Classics altogether.

Given the possibility that Connolly’s criticisms of Classics are shared among members of the Holy Cross administration, faculty, and even the student body, I believe it is worth analyzing the criticisms made of Classics in detail and giving the department a fair trial before it is slowly dispensed with. As a student who does not study Classics and bears little attachment to the major, I would like to offer my perspective. I shall divide these claims as such: first, that Classics is used as a proto-nationalist origin story and wherefore a vehicle for ethnonationalism and white supremacy; second, that Classics is a eurocentric field; and third, that value assessments in favor of Greece and Rome are indefensible.

To address Connolly’s thesis, it is necessary to deracinate the core of these beliefs. A recent view that has notably risen to prominence in the last decade is the denial of “the West”: the idea that “Western Civilization” does not exist and never has. Eight years ago, The Guardian’s Kwame Anthony Appiah published an article called “There is no such thing as western civilisation” claiming as much—that Western Civilization is a modern invention that lacks proper reason for any continued usage [7]. Appiah argues that “Western” values are not beholden to any group and are appropriated by modern Europeans for a false identity, yet it is unanimously agreed that values are an aspect of culture. Much of Appiah’s argument is reliant on the blurred lines entailed by the label of “Western,” yet for much of the article, Appiah’s well-read historical recounting makes a rather competent case in favor of Western Civilization, outlining the development of the identity and shift in ideological spread from the time of the ancients through the conflicts between Christendom and Islam. It is certainly the case that the idea of “Western Civilization” is blurred on its borders, has morphed over time, and has been misappropriated—but does that make it a false phrase worth discarding? Or is it still applicable in certain instances? Even if centuries ago the West was not an established enough idea for its distinction to be made, its continuous reassertion has, at this point, manifested itself into existence. Additionally, even if it had not gone by the same name, the sentiments of Western Civilization predate its coining. In Saint Thomas More’s 1516 novel Utopia, the character Raphael represents the West to the Utopians by bringing them the Bible and Ancient Greek philosophy. What More viewed as the undergirding tenets of a broadly Western culture may also be reflected in Jesuit tradition.

When Connolly refers to Greeceandroman Studies as a “proto-nationalist origin story” [8], it seems that she’s expressing support for Appiah’s point of view, believing that Classics have been used to justify nationalism through a sense of having a historic “right” [9]. And, Connolly isn’t wrong—this certainly has occurred (Byzantine Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, etc.)—but is it the fault of Classics? Or is it the byproduct of nation-states being the dominant form of government in Europe and needing to reach for national credibility? The latter seems far more culpable, and to push such guilt on the study of Classics itself seems rather misdirected. The abuse of knowledge is not the fault of knowledge itself.

In his article, Appiah also asserts that the term “Western” can often be seen as a euphemism for “white,” but I find this to be a case of falsely conflating causation with correlation. Much of Western Civilization happens to be “white,” but only because the idea of the West was most popular in European geographical bounds before colonialism, upon which colonial settlers brought ideas such as the West with them through their relocations. This may be similar to the reason that Connolly calls Classics a “vehicle for white supremacy.” If she believes both that “Western culture” means “white” and that the field makes value assessments on a cultural basis [10], it’s no wonder that she sees Classics as having racist undertones. But Classics today is no longer limited along the lines of race; anyone within and outside of our cultural bounds can live, observe, and learn from the teachings we’ve valued for centuries.

Is the study of Classics Eurocentric? I find this proposition to be rather comical, not because it is incorrect, but because its attention is misdirected. Classics inherently carry with them some degree of Eurocentrism because the study primarily focuses on two largely European powers (albeit ones that are far more focused on the Mediterranean than Europe). Asking whether or not Classics is Eurocentric is the wrong question to ask. Instead, we should be asking: Would it be wrong for Classics to be Eurocentric? Are we to believe, too, that the study of the Ancient Sinosphere is too Asiacentric? Every field is in some way exclusive; every study, by its nature, must focus on one area and exclude many others, as it is impossible for people to learn everything. It’s okay to have a broader study of history where the courses aren’t all concentric on one region of the world and its culture, but that’s no longer Classics and loses the reasons why Classics is taught. The core of Classics is not whiteness, nor is it the European continent—it’s the framework that’s inspired generations of cultural change and intellectual consideration. Its influences and references may be found everywhere, including the country we reside in. James Madison explains in Federalist No. 10 that the American constitution intended to make valuable improvements on the “popular models, both ancient and modern,” implying reference to Athens and Enlightenment thought, which was inspired by Athenian thinkers. Much in the same way studies of Confucious are warranted in East Asia due to their unabashed influence, the same applies to the United States and the Classics.

The final point of Connolly’s I should address is that Classics makes a value assessment on subjective matters [11]. I would counter by saying that value assessments in any field depend on who is informing, and choosing to focus on one topic does not necessarily express its superiority over others as much as its cultural relevance. And, were the department to hold Classical art in higher esteem than art of other civilizations, would it be a problem? Although art is ultimately subjective, there tend to be objective reasons that lead people to enjoy art. The conversation of objectivity in art is complicated enough to render one’s value assessment that Classical art is better than others decently defendable, so why not let such a conversation occur? Drawing out the argument of value assessment in art to imply racial superiority falsely indicates that genetics are the primary determining factor in cultural development. For these two reasons, value assessment is, at its root, not an issue.

In a time of sweeping changes, Classics is not a vestigial relic of the past that warrants overhaul. It is not problematic, showing no sway to ethnonationalism and white supremacy, being more about its tradition than its place of origin, and assessing value no differently than any other study. We should not rebrand Classics, nor should we alter its purpose; we must double down on the tradition of Classics in a time when others brush it aside. Christendom and Classics are the two defining aspects of Jesuit tradition, as mentioned in the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum [12], and to impede on them is to destroy the culture of our esteemed and historical institution.

Endnotes 

[1] See: Ratio Studiorum, rules of the Provincial paragraph 7. https://ia802307.us.archive.org/12/items/ratio-studiorum-1599/ratio-studiorum-1599.pdf. 

[2] Joy Connolly, “All the World’s Past: The Case for a New Field,” (lecture, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, October 8, 2024), 45:08. https://youtu.be/CZ6MRpg3_a0?si=PuFASPCd5GFcAhmZ. 

[3] Ibid. 47:27 

[4] Ibid. 32:49-33:16, 35:23-35:54

[5] Ibid. 7:28. 

[6] Ibid. 40:25, 42:05

[7] Kwame Anthony Appiah, “There is no Such Thing as Western Civilization,” The Guardian, November 9, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/09/western-civilisation-appiah-reith-lecture. 

[8] Joy Connolly, “All the World’s Past: The Case for a New Field”, 36:53. 

[9] Ibid. 41:51 

[10] Ibid. 39:59, 37:51-38:21

[11] Ibid. 35:40-35:54, 37:51

[12] See: Ratio Studiorum

Cover photo: Statue of River Tiber in the Vatican Museums – Photo by Daniel J. Capobianco

The Office of the Presidency: The Dignified & the Efficient

“In such constitutions there are two parts (not indeed separable with microscopic accuracy, for the genius of great affairs abhors nicety of division): first, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the population–the dignified parts, if I may so call them; and next, the efficient parts—those by which it, in fact, works and rules.” ~ Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, 1867

The English political analyst Walter Bagehot was correct in his pronouncement that a functioning government is made up of two components: the dignified and the efficient. From this, I shall make a personal assertion: we, as Americans, do not know nor attempt to know what this means. Yes, we always desire an efficient government; we always attempt to elect one and become furious whenever Congress or the President cannot fulfill their promises. But, this desire does not extend to them striving to behave as exemplar models of dignity. The effects this has had on our collective institutional confidence are extraordinary.

Before I continue, I must make a quick note to the reader. I am not advocating for the adoption of a British style of government: we declared independence to attempt a democratic republican experiment. Instead, I am using this particular aspect of the unwritten British constitution to analyze a perceived defect in the American one and to recommend a remedy. It should not, therefore, be dismissed as that of an idealist but reviewed as a part of a wider introspection on the American identity.  

Since the unprecedented turmoils of the 1960s and 1970s—from Vietnam to the Iranian Hostage Crisis—the confidence that Americans have in their nation and her governmental institutions has steeply declined [1]. How did this nation, this “Great Arsenal of Democracy” (as Franklin Roosevelt described it), lose her people’s respect in less than six decades? For us to get a sense of an answer to this question, I believe we must take a look at the evolution of the most visible and controversial position in our nation: that of the Office of the Presidency. 

To understand this Office, we must look at the powers invested in it from the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution empowers the Office of the Presidency in a single clause: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States” (Article II, section 2, clause 1). No specifications are given as to what these executive powers are, making it a direct contrast to the confining perimeters set for the legislature by Article I. Herein lies our contemporary problem. 

To understand the meaning behind this vagueness, we must turn back to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when our founders attempted to rectify the errors of the Articles of Confederation. These Articles—our first constitutional attempt—granted a wide berth of authority to the states and purposefully rejected power separation to avoid any semblance to a European monarchy. These states jealously guarded their autonomy to the extent of ignoring the interests of their citizens. Their local legislatures—that is, the senates of each state—were autonomous to the point of eminence over the federal. This ineptitude culminated in Shays’s Rebellion, which ignited a national desire for a powerful federal legislature and judiciary presided over by a unifying federal executive. Formulating a powerful legislature and judiciary was easy for the Convention; deciding on what an executive would look like was quite another matter altogether. What powers would be entrusted to the individual, how exactly this individual would be chosen, and whether there would only be one individual; these were but a few of the many questions the framers debated over. Their deliberations—influenced heavily by The Federalist Papers [2], co-authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay—produced Article II of the Constitution. The point was to ensure that the Office was flexible in times of change but rigid enough to maintain the tenets of the Constitution  [3] [4].

For nearly three centuries, our country has faced an array of unprecedented challenges, both foreign and domestic. Each has required an extraordinary vision, a commanding force, and a persuasive voice from an altruistic figure who is above the fray. The first five presidents—more or less—successfully did this and built our national foundations, from Washington’s two-term precedent and noble bearings to Monroe’s Doctrine that initiated America’s standing in the global theater. Certain presidents after, such as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Gerard Ford, imitated them, fortifying the mortar that at times required departures from individual rights and institutional expectations—the termination of habeas corpus, the unparalleled four-term presidency, and the pardon of a disgraced former president—in order to “preserve the principles of democracy for the long-run” [5]. 

All presidents have had these intentions at heart whenever they act; yet, the development of social media, an expansive press, and entrenched partisan views have oriented the importance on the occupant rather than the Office and have distorted and sidelined this focus. 

Permit me to use President Kennedy as an example of this modern, systematic emphasis on the individual. A popular, charismatic leader during the thick of the Cold War, his far-reaching, unrealistic rhetoric, coupled with his Hollywood glamor, aided an undue reverence to the officeholder—the individual—rather than the Office [6]. It inflated the legacy of this tragic young man, who lacked morality and discipline, into a Camelotian figure.

We, the People, expect the President not only to be an administrative fixer but to have the charms of a hero. We would like him to be better than a King, better than a Dei Gratia Rex. We want him to be a demigod. 

We have empowered the presidents to be concerned about their popularity and to proclaim unity in public while behaving depravedly at the same time. We adore their extravagant affirmations and demagogic speeches. We would prefer them to move with the national currents, making promises of restoration and reversing moral decay with very little substance on how they are going to accomplish this. We are quite content—even though we say we aren't—with them simply being puppets on stage, creating policies that react to changes rather than enact any [7]. 

We have played a significant part in expanding this malaise through our ignorance and passive behavior. It is, therefore, not solely the responsibility of the President to make his office respectable again but that of us—the people. Perhaps we would do well to learn from the wisdom of two philosophical politicians—Cicero and Riezler—of two failed republics—the Roman and the Weimar—on what should be expected from a chief executive. The moment he is elected, he is, in essence, transfigured from the politician—who maneuvers from one short-lived smartness to next—into the statesman—who is a skillful and clever politician who actively carries out his laundry list of long and short-term goals [8]. Though the stability of institutions will fluctuate because of the everchanging times, it is the duty of the leader to embody and employ civil and political prudence, to serve as moderator and rector in order to be the source for the polity—the political institution—as a whole [9]. To be rector et gubernator civitatis: the model statesman.

Endnotes: 

[1]“Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024,” Pew Research Center, June 24, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/. 

[2] Melvyn Bragg and Guests, “The Federalist Papers,” October 12, 2023, on BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r7sv. 

[3] Joseph A. Pika, John A. Maltese, and Andrew Rudalevige, The Politics of the Presidency, (SAGE Publications Incorporated, 2020). 

[4] Stephen F Knott, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline Into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal, (University Press of Kansas, 2019).

[5] American Political Thought: The Philosophical Dimension of American Statesmanship, eds. Morton J. Frisch, and Richard G. Stevens, (Transaction Publishers, 2011).

[6] Stephen F Knott, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline Into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal, passim. 

[7] Kurt Riezler, “The Philosopher of History and the Modern Statesman.” Social Research 13, no. 3 (September): 368-380. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40982156. 

[8] Ibid. 

[9] Walter Nicgorski, “Cicero's Focus: From the Best Regime to the Model Statesman.” Political Theory 19, no. 2 (May 1991): 230-251. https://www.jstor.org/stable/191663.

In Defense of Israel: A Response to Juan Cortes’s “Reconsidering Israel”

n.b., Prof Emeritus Schaefer sent us this article in November of 2024.

I regret having to observe that Juan Cortes’s essay advocating a cutoff of American support for Israel is sadly misinformed. To begin with, his criticism of Israel’s current war of self-defense against attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran lacks any historical context.

First, one must understand how the state of Israel came to be born. The nations of Israel and Jordan, along with adjacent territories, grew out of what was originally part of the Ottoman Empire. Following World War I, Britain established a “mandate” over these territories (as did France over what later became Lebanon and Syria). pledging in its 1917 Balfour Declaration to establish a Jewish state in part of the land. The Jews, having had a continuous presence in what came to be called “Palestine” since antiquity, migrated to the territory, coming especially from Europe, acquiring land by purchase from its inhabitants, not by force. Yet the Jews were assaulted in a series of violent pogroms by local Arab groups, led by a Mufti who became an ally of Adolf Hitler during World War II (and was unsuccessfully pursued as a war criminal by the Western allies after the war). The land’s Jewish population nonetheless grew, especially as those who were able to flee the Nazis’ endeavor at extermination found refuge there.

In 1947 the Jews were authorized by the United Nations to establish a state of their own on a very small territory. But rather than accept its existence, the surrounding Arab nations launched an attack to destroy the new state as soon as it was declared in 1948.

While Israel won its war of independence, Arab nations never accepted its legitimacy. During the 1950s, Egypt, under its socialist dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser, repeatedly launched irregular “fedayeen” attacks against the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Jordan, which held the historic Old City of Jerusalem, where Jews’ most sacred sites were located, destroyed them, and used the Jewish New City for target practice, compelling its partial depopulation.

In 1956 the nations of Britain, France, and Israel launched the Suez war in order to liberate the Suez Canal, critical to world commerce, from Nasser’s control. But they were compelled to withdraw by the Eisenhower administration, eager to improve its image in the so-called “Third World.” Then in 1967 Nasser and leaders of four other Arab nations prepared to launch a war of total destruction against Israel. But again, Israel won (with no American aid, I add). It was as a result of that war that Israel gained control of the Old City of Jerusalem, along with the “Palestinian” territories of the West Bank of the Jordan River and Gaza, and Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. Rather than wishing to retain those territories, Israel repeatedly sought to surrender them (except for Jerusalem’s Old City), in return for a guarantee of peace from its neighbors. But none of them would agree to recognize the Jewish state. Instead, in 1973 they launched the Yom Kippur War (on Judaism’s holiest day), in which Israel averted destruction only with American assistance. And finally, during the Carter administration, Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, finally agreed to grant peace and recognition to Israel, in return for the return of the Sinai (which had contained the only oil wells in Jewish-controlled territory). (For his pains, Sadat was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot.)

In the Oslo Accords of 1992, arranged through negotiations with U.S. representatives, Yasser Arafat, leader of the terrorist Palestinian Liberation Organization, which governed the West Bank and Gaza (under Israeli supervision), agreed to a “framework” for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But instead of leading to actual peace, the Accords culminated in two “intifadas” (violent uprisings), in which Palestinian suicide bombers murdered thousands of Israeli civilians. (In the last days of the Clinton administration, in negotiations at the Israeli town of Taba, Israel agreed to grant Arafat control over all the Palestinian lands (including minor “land swaps”) in return for peace, but the PLO leader refused (doubtless fearing the fate of Sadat had he agreed). President Clinton specifically blamed Arafat for the failure of the negotiations.

In 2006, Israel took another step for peace, withdrawing all its settlers and troops from Gaza, hoping that the Gazans would now devote themselves to peaceful economic development. But PLO rule over Gaza was shortly replaced by that of the even more terroristic Hamas, whose leaders (including over 1,000 violent prisoners released from Israeli jails in return for one young captured Israeli soldier) soon set about plotting what became the attacks of October 7, 2023, in which over 1,200 Israeli civilians were murdered – with women raped before being tortured to death; babies decapitated; children murdered in front of their parents, and vice versa; and some 251 civilians (including American and Thai citizens) seized as hostages.

Following the October 7 attacks, Israel has had no choice but to set out to destroy Hamas so as to preserve itself against future attacks – just as the United States or any other nation would have done in a similar situation. It has also sought desperately to rescue the hostages. But it has been hampered in its ability to strike at Hamas by the latter’s devilish strategy – in violation of both international law and elemental morality – of concealing nearly all its military facilities underneath or inside of schools, hospitals, and private houses, giving Israel no choice but to attack those facilities at considerable and deeply regrettable cost in civilian lives (even as it has made every effort to minimize such casualties). All this was by the design of the Hamas leader, ex-Israeli terrorist prisoner Yayah Sinwar, who intended to bring about a massive war of Arab vengeance in which the nation of Israel would finally be obliterated. Hamas is in fact a death cult, whose members taunt Israelis with their slogan, “You want to live, and we want to die.” (Nor is Israel responsible for any shortage of humanitarian assistance in Gaza; instead, much of the arriving goods are confiscated by Hamas before they reach the civilian population.)

But behind Hamas and Hezbollah stands a far more powerful, sworn enemy of Israel, the theocracy of Iran, whose leaders, ever since their 1979 seizure of power, have sworn to destroy the “little Satan” (Israel) before taking on the “big Satan” (the United States) in a final battle for global supremacy. Iran has been the “target” of Israeli strikes, as Mr. Cortes puts it, only because it has funded Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism to the tune of billions, while more recently launching a series of missile attacks directly at Israel (rather than just funding Hezbollah’s rockets). Does Mr. Cortes really expect Israel to remain passive in response to these attacks – any more than the United States would if such attacks were directed at this country? How can he justify Iran’s latest attacks on Israel as “retaliation” – when it is Iran that has been consistently attacking Israel, directly and by proxy, ever since the fanatical mullahs established their rule?

Despite Pope Francis’s equation of all war with terrorism, as cited by Cortes, the Catholic theological tradition has long maintained a distinction between just and unjust wars. What could be more just than a defensive war aimed at national survival? And whereas just-war theory emphasizes the need to minimize civilian casualties in war – a rule with which Israel has taken extraordinary efforts to comply – Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran have aimed at the opposite.

Despite Iran’s continued endeavor to develop nuclear weapons capable of striking the U.S. as well as Israel – an enterprise which the Obama and Biden administration’s policies of appeasement did nothing to halt – Cortes is for some reason unable to comprehend why it would be in America’s own interest to fortify Israel’s capacity to mitigate that threat. In fact, when he laments how much “American blood” has been drained in the Middle East in recent decades (referring to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq), he seems unaware of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on this country that provoked the former, and the suspicions held by leaders of both American political parties that Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein, whose previous nuclear plant in Syria had been destroyed by Israel, was himself engaged in restoring his “unconventional weapons” capacity (including chemical and biological warfare) that led to our overthrow of his bloodthirsty tyranny. Both such attacks were launched for America’s sake, not that of Israel. But it should be noted that in recent decades, America has enjoyed a mutually beneficial economic and military relationship with Israel, in which our own defensive capacities (including missile defense) have been fortified by Israeli technological advancements.

Most distressing to me, as a Jew, is Cortes’s comparison of Israeli’s response to the terrorist attacks against it as “genocide.” We Jews know well – just as other Americans should – what genocide looks like. Its exemplar (and the origin of the term) was Hitler’s slaughter of half the world’s Jewish population, by mass shootings and in gas chambers, for no reason other than sheer hatred. To equate Israel’s endeavor to defend itself with such a crime is, quite simply, obscene.

I urge Mr. Cortes to pursue further education regarding the history of Israel, of the Middle East, and of anti-Semitism before writing further on such topics.

Reconsidering Israel

“Yes, it is war. It is terrorism,” he said. “That is why the Scripture affirms that ‘God stops wars… breaks the bow, splinters the spear’ (Psalm 46:10). Let us pray to the Lord for peace.”

-Pope Francis

As the war in the Middle East continues to escalate, we Americans find ourselves at a point of reflection. The support of ‘our greatest ally in the Middle East’ has been viewed as a defense of democracy, Western values, and justice in a region hostile to us [1]. Yet war has come, and over the last year we have been given the opportunity to analyze the actions this ally would take. 

The greatest issue we must consider is the nature of the conflict. Up until the recent Iranian retaliation on Israel, this war, has been more characteristic of a genocide [2]. Israel, justifying its actions as defense, repeatedly strikes refugee camps [3], has a history of severing humanitarian aid and basic necessities to Gaza [4], and pushed Palestinians to the border of Egypt [5], pressuring refugees between two irreconcilable forces. For all intents and purposes, Israel’s actions are not characteristic of war, and in many instances mirror terrorist measures [6]. In our rules of engagement, the U.S. refuses to use tactics in any way similar to these, even if such precautions risk American lives [7]. As the standing global hegemon, the U.S. has repeatedly criticized such states that use similar, brutal tactics [8]. So if we are to align ourselves with another power, should we not be even more critical, when their actions are seen as American-sponsored ventures?

Even though Israel’s behavior may seem distant and tangential to American politics, our institutional biases are evident through our excessive media support.  When else has the influence of a foreign nation been so blatant in our domestic politics?

It seems like every day another media effort is made to demonstrate how strongly our leadership supports Israel. If it’s not Representative Brian Mast wearing an Israel Defense Force uniform in the halls of Congress [9], then it’s the presumptive nominees for both parties arguing about who is a greater ally to Israel, in their first debate [10], when they cannot agree on virtually any other policy measure. Or if neither of those, it is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) —an organization fighting to not be classified as a foreign influence since the days of JFK [11]—openly bragging about the weight they hold on elections [12]. Or perhaps it is the more than one-thousand police officers from around the country sent to Israel for training [13] [14].There are thousands of other examples like this which  paint an eerie relationship between the U.S. and Israel. What other nation has a bond anything akin to the one Israel maintains with the U.S? Is there an Indian lobby as influential as theirs, a German, British, or even Ukrainian? 

Especially since the October 7th attacks of last year, more has surfaced that rings a strange note; from the persecution of our Ivy League for antisemitism [15], the ambiguous federal redefinition of antisemitism [16], internal pressure on journalists covering the war in Gaza [17], to individual US states dictating foreign policy for Israel.

Though we have had a relationship with Israel since 1948, our country’s increased involvement over this past year  forces us to consider the following: Where is all this pressure coming from? Why have our institutions and leaders doubled down on their commitment to Israel, in the face of rampant humanitarian atrocities? And why Israel specifically?

But we may not have the luxury of time to reconsider our ally. As the war rages on, it is obvious that it has  amped up its harassment campaign against its nemesis in the region: Iran. With the active presence of the U.S., Israel has continued to provoke its neighbors. It claims to be in the interest of rooting out Hezbollah, but it is clearly seeking to escalate the conflict and ultimately neutralize all possible threats in the area—even at the cost of regime change and generations of turmoil. That is why Israel invaded Lebanon, “depopulating villages” as they went [18]. That is why they freely strike Russian airports [19] when Ukraine still has to ask before doing so. And that is why they continue to alternate missile strikes with Iran, escalating the conflict. It seems as though Israel is perpetually in need of defensive systems [20] [21], and the U.S. always has to come to its rescue. Over the past couple of months alone, the U.S. has both mobilized the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system with one-hundred American troops to operate it [22] and  deployed multiple Air Force squadrons and American aircraft carriers with an “additional few thousand” personnel to the Middle East [23].

Iran has always been the target. Even before the Iraq war, Israeli officials had been promoting our involvement in Iraq, and especially in Iran [24]. In recent days, U.S. agencies have leaked that Israel has further plans to attack Iran [25], surely with US aid: their prime weapon. So as we look to the coming days, we must seriously reconsider this ally and the depth of this war. Is a state with so much overt, odd influence in our domestic politics for our benefit? And are we willing to wage war, on behalf of this state, in a region that has already drained American blood and ammunition for the last thirty-three years?

Endnotes: 

[1] The Editorial Board, “Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values,” The New York Times,  Oct. 14, 2023. 

[2] Alene Bouranova, “Is Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza? New Report from BU School of Law's International Human Rights Clinic Lays Out Case,” BU Today, Jun. 5, 2024. 

[3] Nidal Al-Mughrabi, “Israeli strikes in northern Gaza cause scores of casualties, doctors say,” Reuters, Oct. 19, 2024. 

[4] Jomana Karadsheh, Lauren Izso, Eyad Kourdi, Kareem Khadder, “Red Cross says at least 22 killed as strike hits displaced civilians in Gaza as Israel expands operations,” CNN, Jun. 22, 2024. 

[5] Patrick Wintour, “Israeli assault on southern Gaza could push 1m refugees to Egypt border, UNRWA chief warns,” The Guardian, Nov. 30, 2023. 

[6] Matt Murphy, “What we know about the Hezbollah device explosions,” BBC, Sept. 20, 2024. 

[7] “The Efficacy and Ethics of U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy- John Brennan,” Woodrow Wilson Center, April 30, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM4mCEXi5v4. See transcript here: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-efficacy-and-ethics-us-counterterrorism-strategy

[8] The White House. “Remarks by President Biden on the United States’ Response to Hamas’s Terrorist Attacks Against Israel and Russia’s Ongoing Brutal War Against Ukraine,” October 20, 2023. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/20/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-unites-states-response-to-hamass-terrorist-attacks-against-israel-and-russias-ongoing-brutal-war-against-ukraine/. 

[9] Sarah Fortinsky, “GOP lawmaker wears Israeli military uniform to Capitol Hill,” The Hill, Oct. 13, 2023. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4254384-brian-mast-israeli-military-uniform-capitol-hill/.

[10] “Trump says Harris ‘hates Israel’ during debate,” NBC News, Sept. 10, 2024. https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/trump-says-harris-hates-israel-during-debate-219042885646.

[11] The Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. “DOJ orders the AZC to Register as a Foreign Agent,” The Israel Lobby Archive, accessed November 13, 2024. https://www.israellobby.org/azcdoj/.

[12] AIPAC. “The Largest Pro-Israel PAC in America,” AIPAC PAC, accessed November 13, 2024. https://www.aipacpac.org. 

[13] Edith Garwood, “With Whom are Many U.S. Police Departments Training? With a Chronic Human Rights Violator - Israel,” (Blog), Amnesty International USA, August 25, 2016. https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/. 

[14] “U.S.-Israel Strategic Cooperation: Joint Police & Law Enforcement Training,” Jewish Virtual Library, accessed November 13, 2024. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joint-us-israel-police-and-law-enforcement-training. 

[15] “A look at college presidents who have resigned under pressure over their handling of Gaza protests,” The Associated Press, Aug. 15, 2024. https://apnews.com/article/college-president-resign-shafik-magill-gay-59fe4e1ea31c92f6f180a33a02b336e3. 

[16] U.S. Congress, House, Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023, H.R. 6090, 118th Cong. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6090. 

[17] Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, “Leaked NYT Gaza Memo Tells Journalists to Avoid Words ‘Genocide,’ ‘Ethnic Cleansing,’ and ‘Occupied Territory’” The Intercept, Apr. 15, 2024. https://theintercept.com/2024/04/15/nyt-israel-gaza-genocide-palestine-coverage/. 

[18] Nader Durgham and Josephine Deeb, “Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon: What is Happening on the Ground?” Middle East Eye, Oct. 17, 2024. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israels-invasion-lebanon-what-happening-ground. 

[19] Ronny Reyes “Suspected Israeli airstrike hits near Russian airbase accused of housing weapons in Syria: report” The New York Post, Oct. 3, 2024. https://nypost.com/2024/10/03/world-news/suspected-israeli-airstrike-hits-near-russian-airbase-accused-of-housing-weapons-in-syria-report/. 

[20] “Iron Dome failed to activate during Hezbollah rocket barrage on Kiryat Shmona,” The Cradle.Co, Oct. 9, 2024. https://thecradle.co/articles-id/27214. 

[21] Aamer Madhani and Melanie Lidman, “Iran fires at least 180 missiles into Israel as regionwide conflict grows,” The Associated Press, Oct. 2, 2024. 

https://apnews.com/article/israel-lebanon-hezbollah-gaza-news-10-01-2024-eb175dff6e46906caea8b9e43dfbd3da. 

[22] David Brennan, “Why America's THAAD missile defense deployment to Israel is a 'gamble' in Iran conflict, analysts say,” ABC News, Oct. 17, 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/International/americas-thaad-missile-defense-deployment-israel-gamble-iran/story?id=114845323. 

[23] Chris Gordon, “US Sending More Air Force Fighters to Middle East,”Air and Space Forces Magazine, Sept. 30, 2024. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/us-sending-more-air-force-fighters-middle-east/.

[24] Jon Hoffman, “Benjamin Netanyahu Is Pushing for War with Iran,” Cato Institute, Apr. 16, 2024. https://www.cato.org/commentary/benjamin-netanyahu-pushing-war-iran. 

[25] Natasha Bertrand and Alex Marquart, “Leaked documents show US intelligence on Israel’s plans to attack Iran, sources say,” CNN, Oct. 20, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/politics/us-israel-iran-intelligence-documents/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc. 

On Swiss Cheese

I don’t like Swiss cheese, and this isn't an issue of taste or texture. I don’t like that every slice is really less than a slice on account of the fact that it's spotted with holes. Allow me now to digress from my introductory digression so as to maintain the time honored tradition of silence towards the subject of cheese [1]. In early September of this year, I was enjoying the company of an Eastern Orthodox friend of mine when he mentioned to me his frustration with the Catholic Church’s allowance of abbreviating scripture readings in Mass. He mentioned that he had learned about this when he accidentally happened upon a Catholic liturgical aid with brackets around part of the text and the words “optional” over the second reading of the day. He was scandalized by what he viewed as “censorship” of the scriptures. Our discussion then evolved into a larger discussion about the reform of the Church’s lectionary following the second Vatican Council, work which was ultimately carried out by the Consilium ad Exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia between 1964 and 1969. The lectionary of the traditional Roman Rite [2] dates its origins to time immemorial whilst the lectionary of the reformed Roman Rite [3] has its origins in the 1960s. The reformed lectionary is quite larger than the traditional and contains more scripture passages on account of its multi-year cycles of readings. This is a laudable accomplishment, but not every aspect of the reform was necessarily for the better. The reformed lectionary of 1969 can at times unfortunately be marred by an insistent suppressio veri. Frequently it abruptly omits or, through the allowance of short form options, allows the celebrant to omit difficult or controversial passages in the scriptures which have enjoyed a place in the Latin lectionary for centuries prior [4] [5] [6].

Perhaps the most (in)famous example of omission in the new lectionary is the missing verses of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians warning them not to unworthily take the body and blood of Christ. The reformed rite curiously omits the verses that read as follows:

27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. 30 For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:27-32, NRSV-CE) 

These verses appear thrice in traditional lectionary: Maundy Thursday, Corpus Christi, and the Votive Mass of the Holy Eucharist. This repetition typifies the nature of the sacred cycle of readings. To be clear, the Catholic Church still professes Paul’s words to be true (CCC 1385). Removal from the lectionary does not equate to denial of belief, nor does it indicate a removal from the canon of scripture itself. But, the law of prayer is the law of belief, lex orandi lex credendi, and removal from the lectionary is, in my opinion, a serious matter because it at the very least creates an edifice of disbelief. Omissions in the lectionary are themselves an indirect communication. Since we still profess the words of Paul to be true, we are even more so left to answer for our refusal to solemnly proclaim them in the liturgy. 

To cite another example of this phenomenon in the lectionary, let us look to October 2nd, the feast of all Holy Angels, where the Gospel reading is rather omissive. While the traditional rite assigns the entirety of Matthew 18:1-10 to be read, the reformed rite curiously lists the reading as Matthew 18: 1-5, 10 (i.e. read verses 1-5, skip verses 6-9, read verse 10). This is what the new lectionary omits:

6 “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes! 8 “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire. (Matthew 18: 6-9, NRSV-CE)

Not only do these verses not appear in the reading for the feast of the Holy Angels, they appear nowhere in the reformed lectionary at all [7]. Scripture passages like this are difficult and intense, even when the distinction between the literal and the spiritual sense is established. Despite sacred scripture's array of difficult and challenging passages, the council fathers at Vatican II still wrote: “The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord” (Verbum Dei, 21). Passages like these would otherwise occasion pastors to instruct their flocks on how to read the scriptures, both the easy and the hard passages. The censoring of them in the liturgy presents a distortion of our Church’s scripture.

The importance of difficulties like these verses from Matthew’s Gospel reminds me of Kierkegaard’s “socratic task” described by the Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft in his lecture series, The Great Debates of Philosophy. Kreeft begins by analyzing a passage from Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, wherein he concludes that “Out of love for mankind, therefore… I conceive it my task to create difficulties everywhere” [8]. Kreeft summarizes Kierkegaard’s task as “making things harder in a world that was trying to make things easier” [9]. Kreeft then goes on to note that “the one thing that Kierkegaard wanted to make harder above all was Christianity,” [10] the meaning of which Kreeft then clarifies by saying “not that he wanted to change it into something harder than it is, but that he believed his culture had changed it into something easier than it is, easier than Christ made it” [11]. The canon of scriptures, indeed, contains passages with difficult messages, but in an age where almost everything has been made easy for us, religion must remain difficult, just as Christ left it for us. Let us, then, earnestly encounter the difficult passages of scripture in the Church’s lectionary. 

There are many verses missing from the new lectionary, but these two examples suffice to illustrate the point. A reform spurred by a desire for there “to be more reading from holy scripture” in the Mass (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 35), should answer to the fact that it removed a multitude of verses that had been prayed by the Church for time immemorial. It almost bears no repeating, but, lex orandi lex credendi. To pretend by way of omission that the Church no longer believes what she still claims to believe is dishonest to the faithful, and not only to the Catholic faithful, but indeed to all Christians. Rather than assisting the Church in “scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel” (Gaudium et spes 4.), the new lectionary tiptoes around difficulties; scrutinizing what should be read and what should be omitted according to the signs of the times. Like a slice of Swiss cheese, the new lectionary is full of unnecessary holes.

Endnotes 

[1] See Chesterton: “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of Cheese.” 

[2] Also called the Extraordinary Form, usus antiquior, the Missal of Pius V, the Missal of John XXIII, or simply “the Traditional Latin Mass.”

[3] Also called Ordinary Form, usus recentior, Missal of Paul VI, or “Novus Ordo.” 

[4] Peter Kwasniewski, “Not Just More Scripture, But Different Scripture — Comparing the Old and New Lectionaries,” Rorate Caeli, January, 11, 2019, https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2019/01/not-just-more-scripture-but-different.html. 

[5] For more on short form readings see: Matthew Hazell, “Short Forms of the Readings: Distorting the Gospel?,” New Liturgical Movement, October, 18, 2017, https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2017/10/short-forms-of-readings-distorting.html. 

[6] For a complete side by side comparison of the traditional and reformed lectionaries see: Matthew Hazell, Index Lectionum: A Comparative Table of Readings for the Ordinary Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite, (Lectionary Study Press, 2016). 

[7] Matthew Hazell, Index Lectionum, 66. 

[8] For the full passage and context see: Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 186-7. 

[9] Peter Kreeft, “Kierkegaard vs. Hegel on Religion and Individuality,” Word on Fire Institute, April 20, 2023, YouTube video, 25:49-54, https://youtu.be/9QHNodY8Ki8?si=cdJEoK_nACxAucaa.

[10] Ibid. 28:03-7

[11] Ibid. 28:08-18

The Crisis of Meaning at Holy Cross

I have been a student here at Holy Cross for four years. I have lived and breathed this campus for four years of my life. I have been immersed in various classes, social groups, campus events, and way too many Thirsty Thursdays at Weagle. Even after all this immersion, I still do not know what it truly means to be a Holy Cross student. 

However, I do know that I have been inundated with a lot of slogans that tell me what it means to be a Holy Cross student. According to these slogans, a Holy Cross student must be “a man or woman for and with others,” who always seeks “magis” and “cura personalis” above all else. By themselves, these slogans are pretty good. Who is opposed to being a “man or woman for and with others?” Are we going to be men and women for ourselves? Or cura personalis? Are we really just going to care for one aspect of ourselves to the detriment of the rest? Nonsense. The vast majority of people, even those outside Jesuit-sponsored institutions, intuitively understand that these things are good and important. 

These slogans allow Holy Cross to escape from answering the big question of “what does it mean to be a member of this community.” The administration uses these amorphous statements as a substitute for answering the tough questions posed at the beginning of our mission statement. These questions, which you might have glanced at in Montserrat (which, by far, is one of the most misguided programs at Holy Cross), are very good. In order to live the good life, we must figure out “how to find meaning in life and history” and “what are our obligations to one another.” It is impossible to live a truly human life without answering these questions.

The sad fact is that Holy Cross has made these questions, which lie at the heart of the College’s current mission statement, impossible to answer. They have made them impossible to answer because, above all else, Holy Cross has made the institutional decision to become a corporate institution. 

You might be asking what is the difference between a corporate institution and an educational institution. Well, for starters, a corporate institution seeks above all else the minimization of conflict, the maximization of the endowment, and the growth of the administrative bureaucracy. Can anybody with a straight face tell me that these goals are not the main goals of our administration? 

An educational institution does not seek these things. These goals, while sometimes important for the survival of the institution, are not the telos of an educational institution. To Holy Cross, these three corporate prongs are our final end. We have no greater end. Our end is not “in hoc signo vinces” or “ad maiorem Dei gloriam,” but rather it is “make sure that we soothe the concerns of alumni (whether they are progressive or conservative; old or young; white or non-white) enough that they are still willing to remember us, and the endowment, in their will.”

This corporate model has inevitably hurt the student body because it has produced an administration that is fundamentally incapable of giving students anything more than amorphous, relatively subjective, and undefinable slogans. For example, can anybody really define for me what it means to be “a man or woman for and with others?” Or, does it just mean whatever I want it to be? 

The scariest consequence of the administration’s corporate approach to institutional management is that they have entrusted these questions to people who fundamentally disagree with the mission of our college: the progressive academic.

Our faculty, composed mostly of very kind and overly generous people, is also stacked with dangerous ideologues. The faculty, by and large, has proposed solutions to these fundamental questions, but many of these solutions are inhuman and drastically opposed to the traditional mission of our college. Their solutions are not grounded in claims of Truth, but rather you will hear plenty of variants of “the truth is whatever you want it to be,” “objective truth does not exist,” or “just live your (undefined, subjective, and constantly transforming) truth, babe” from them. 

By grounding their answers in these morally relativistic terms, they have fundamentally destroyed the student body’s ability to answer these questions. Every man, woman, and child who labored to answer these questions in generations past would have been unable to answer them without resting them on solid, morally secure foundations. However, the progressive academics have intentionally destroyed this capacity in order to fulfill their ideological goal–the transformation, and thus destruction, of the liberal arts and humanities.

The modern academic is not a traditional academic, rather they are ideological conquistadores intent on colonizing the liberal arts and humanities in an attempt to “decolonize” and deconstruct them. In their opinion, one does not become a “man or woman for and with others” through living lives of charity and faith; rather, one only becomes a “man and woman for and with others” through actively working to dismantle “systems of oppression” and “recentering” social structures both on and off campus (ideas that would have been very foreign to Ignatius, Fenwick, and Arrupe).

The question remains: what can we, people who are opposed to this ideological colonization and believe that the administration is weak-kneed, do about this institutionally existential crisis? 

The answer is honestly not much. Holy Cross has made the active decision to become an Amherst College with a pretty chapel. No amount of complaining, arguing, or writing op-eds in The Fenwick Review will change this fact. As a result, somebody has to lay out a plan for institutional recapture, and the good thing is that, unlike the progressive academic, we do not have to start from scratch. The plan for institutional recapture has been laid out since 1843.

The plan is evident in our campus’ architecture. Holy Cross was built by men who believed in the good, true, and beautiful. And so, they built a campus that corresponded to all that is good, true, and beautiful. There is no greater example of such a building than Dinand Library. Dinand, an intentionally imposing neoclassical structure, tells that our mission is “ut cognoscant te solum deum verum et quem misisti Iesum Christum.” Institutionally, we exist in order for students to be able to “know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent.” That is our mission. 

Holy Cross also knew that one can only truly know Christ and live this mission through the liberal arts and humanities. One can only truly be immersed within this tradition by studying “religio, philosophia, ars, literae, historia, scientia, medicina, jus.” These disciplines “nourish youth [and] delight old age.” They make us human. They answer these fundamental questions posed in our current mission statement. The works, conquests, and ideas of men such as Aquinas, Benedict, Bellarmine, Columbus, Copernicus, Dante, à Kempis, and Justinian (whose names are all prominently featured in the Main Reading Room) are examples of individuals (and there are many more, including modern, female, and non-Western figures) who show us what it means to be truly human and Christian. These figures have engaged in the Great Conversation through studying and participating in the triumphs and failings of our civilization, the liberal arts, and the Church. They are the models that our administration and faculty should point us toward.

Holy Cross, like much of our world, is in a crisis of meaning. We are unable and unwilling to answer the fundamental questions posed by our very institution because our current corporate administration acts primarily out of fear. As a result, they leave these human questions to the province of ideologues whose intent seems to be the destruction of the institution itself. However, this story does not have to end with Ignatius wishing that the cannonball hit his head instead of his leg, rather Holy Cross can go “ad fontes.” Holy Cross can return to the sources of her heritage, her very self, as evidenced through her very campus. There, she will find the answers that she poses to herself; there, she will be able to tell her students what it truly means to be a member of this college.

The Critical Need for Institutional Thinking

“Civil man is born, lives, and dies in slavery. At his birth he is sewed in swaddling clothes; at this death he is nailed in a coffin. So long as he keeps his human shape, he is enchained by our institutions.”  – Rousseau

Institutions, in the modern period, have gained the reputation of purveyors of oppression, restriction, and normative binding. Really, discussion around institutions today revolves around ideas of ‘institutional racism’, anachronistic modes of thought, and criticisms of how the past continues to inhibit progress for today’s society. Yet, we seldom consider the benefits we have gained from these inherited structures, and further how we may continue to live in excellence in accord with them.

Man inherently derives his identity from an institution, be it his church, school, profession, or even  sport. In essence, an institution is the binding of tradition, mission, and purpose to a field of habit. We often decry lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc. for their collective manner of action; they seem to act very much alike despite only sharing a profession. But these attributes are ingrained into the persona of their field. A lawyer acts like a lawyer because he has been taught by lawyers and mimics his predecessors in law. A lawyer derives his identity from the sanctity and purpose of the law, invoking figures like Cicero and Aristotle, while clerically thinking of the policy of circumstance. In fact, the idea of a lawyer, though seemingly off-putting in character to most, helps bind delinquent lawyers to a greater form of behavior in representing their field. One may think of Saul Goodman in contrast to his stereotypical lawyer brother, Chuck McGill.

To think institutionally is to first inherit an institution, with its customs, tradition, history, figures, and mission and carry its legacy forward so future generations may not be deprived of the value it has provided. The benefit of such a system of thought is that we are not divorced, in arrogance, from our ancestors nor are our progeny disinherited from the long system of reason which our society has built. Institutional thought drives us to esteem our tradition and act in a manner befitting it, rising above immediate temptations for the sake of our lineage. It is the sort of mode of habit that keeps the world running. Institutional thinkers kept our Church active and able in times of disheartening war and peril; they maintained Japan functioning in the wake of utter defeat in World War II; bankers and clerks aided the Western world function despite being overwhelmed by the black death. It is the “business as usual” model that maintains stability and some form of certainty in the face of absolute fear and turmoil.

In today’s academic schools, we are rather imbued with “critical thinking” skills, prized for its skeptic and ‘rational’ analysis. Often, to think critically is to criticize everything inherited and take nothing as a guarantee. But people do not function like that. We live with assumptions. No skeptic wakes up and devotes his day to analyzing all he eats and all his relationships. He does not question that the world is still turning, that the police will come when needed, that the law of gravity persists, etc. Rather, it is habit that allows us to live our lives efficiently, and habit can only be made with the assumption that there is some consistency in the world. These helpful habits are related to the institutions that operate our world. For example, we as Americans live with the assumption that there is a definable law, a functioning grid, and a trust that we can lend our fellow Americans. So called “critical thinkers” are more preoccupied with questioning our assumptions about everything: is the US really under the rule of law? Can we really trust our neighbors? Does religion really help improve man? Is capitalism fair? Exceptions and circumstances are constantly used by these sophists as justification to undermine every institution that has aided the survival and betterment of man.These questions are useful, but they have their time, place, and certainly must be in respect to the institution rather than in malice.

Yet, institutional thinking does not ask you to receive everything faithfully and blindly, as may be presumed. Rather, what you inherit must be innovated with faithfulness to those who came before and those that will come after you. As Sir William Slim put it, “[t]radition does not mean that you never do anything new, but that you will never fall below the standard of courage and conduct handed down to you. Then tradition, far from being handcuffs to cramp your action, will be a handrail to guide and steady you in rough places.”

Post Scriptum, I wish I were wise enough to have figured these ideas out for myself, but unfortunately not. A great deal of this article is a paraphrase of Hugh Heclo’s exceptional piece: “Thinking Institutionally”, from the Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions. I exhort everyone who finds a modicum of inspiration from this argument to check it out.

References 

Heclo, Hugh, 'Thinking Institutionally', in Sarah A. Binder, R. A. W. Rhodes, and Bert A. Rockman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (2008; online edn, Oxford Academic, 2 Sept. 2009), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199548460.003.0037, accessed 1 Apr. 2024.