Last week, the social left’s disdain for people of faith rediscovered one of its most eloquent witnesses. Amy Coney Barrett, a Catholic law Professor at Notre Dame and nominee to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, faced sharp questioning over her religious beliefs at her confirmation hearing. Senator Dick Durbin (D., Illinois) demanded to know whether she considered herself “an orthodox Catholic.” Senator Diane Feinstein (D., California) went further. Implying that Barrett’s religious faith would prevent her from serving effectively, Feinstein declared, “The dogma lives loudly in you. And that’s a concern.” The two senators make an effective example of a process now well underway in this country -- the gradual exclusion of social conservatives and people of faith from the public square. In pursuit of this goal, the rhetoric of “hatred” and “bigotry” has been one of the social left’s most effective tools.
In his essay, Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, the philosopher Josef Pieper argues that language has two purposes: to express the truth, and to communicate it to someone. The two are fundamentally linked: if a speaker does not tell the truth, he fails to communicate at all. There is precisely nothing to communicate. If the content is knowingly false, it is nothing, devoid of meaning. Deceit transforms communication into obfuscation. But words, even false words, have consequences. Through a lie, we hoodwink the other person to act in a certain way, to keep silent, or to think as we would have them think. Lies makes others the unwitting implements of our will. Divorced from truth, language becomes purely a tool of power. In support of a political agenda -- and it almost always is -this sort of speech is a profound threat to any shared intellectual, religious, or political life. It is in precisely these terms that we must understand the accusations “hatred” and “-phobia” so favored by the social left.
An example will illustrate the point. We have all heard the term “homophobia” employed in any discussion of sexual morality, most likely lobbed at an observant Catholic or Evangelical Protestant. Frequently, it accompanies an array of other lovely, communicative, dialogue-friendly terms: “hateful bigot,” “judgmental Pharisee,” “ignorance,” et cetera. There are different terms for different topics: “Anti-choicer” for the pro-life crowd, “Islamophobe” for anyone who votes Republican, and so on. Pick a cultural norm, imagine what you’d call a person who transgressed it, and the point is clear.
These examples all share a few common properties. In each case, the accuser pretends to know the heart or mind of the person who holds the offensive view. I know, for instance, that the “homophobe” actively detests gay people, and would very much like to see them chemically castrated -- even if I only met him five minutes ago, and he has done nothing but make an innocuous moral statement. He is, by definition, a stranger to me -- and yet, I know him well enough to comment on his motivations and emotions, and to lecture him about the true reason he believes what he believes. In short, all of these terms are used not in response to the expression of an actual emotion, but in response to a (usually “conservative”) moral or political belief. There is no ground for the accusation to be true or not; it relies instead on an assumption, often self-serving, about a person’s interior life. Ultimately, the claim these terms make is either unverifiable or manifestly false -but that hardly matters. The accusation is not, however, an inconsequential one. “Homophobe,” “Islamophobe,” “sexist” and all the rest do not express an idea in terms which allow for discussion and response. Instead, they act as rhetorical bludgeons, meant to intimidate, discredit, and ultimately silence the other side. When we call people "homophobes,” whatever they say is immediately discredited.
Their ideas are rooted in an irrational hatred of other people. Hatred is bad. Therefore, the ideas are bad. We can ignore them. Hatredlanguage imposes a remarkable skew on any discussion -- one person is forced to defend both an idea and his own character, while the other has merely to make accusations. In this fashion, any argument about a major social or moral issue may be short-circuited before it even begins -- not by superior argument, but by superior sophistry.
Branding a social or ethical position “hatred” or “-phobia” discredits the idea before it can be rationally evaluated. The most terrifying consequences of such a strategy then become clear. The accusation of bigotry does not rest with the individual; instead, it contaminates the entire system of belief from which the offender speaks. Hence, a Roman Catholic’s opposition to abortion makes the entire religion “sexist” and “anti-choice.” And as a result, any Roman Catholic is discredited in the public eye before his or her arguments can even be heard. No matter whether people of faith argue on biological, philosophical, or constitutional grounds, the political claims will be readily dismissed as “theological,” and the people will be written off as “bigots.”
That is not to say, of course, that legitimate examples of racism, homophobia, hatred and all the rest do not exist. The violence in Charlottesville and the attack on the Pulse nightclub attest to that. Instead, the problem is that the semantic range of the term “hateful bigot” is progressively expanding. We may truly describe the staff of the Daily Stormer as hateful bigots: as a matter of principle, they support ethnic cleansing. To describe
Christians in the same terms because they dissent from cultural orthodoxy on sex, abortion, and other issues does not express any sort of truth. It merely advances a particular social agenda -- the attempt to expel people of faith from the public square. Feinstein merely attests to the success this movement has enjoyed.
Senator Feinstein does not imagine a world without dogma; she imagines a world without any dogma but hers. Whoever of us relies on accusations of hatred to win debates -whoever abuses language to silence people of faith -- builds up toward that same world. For all Americans, religious or not, this is troubling. The work of theologian and cultural critic R.R. Reno is insightful. Faith, he argues, is one of the few elements of human life explicitly directed towards higher things, beyond the control of the state and the world. It gives us the courage to resist expansion of both the state and the market, and to scorn the demands of a government that thinks itself all powerful. It motivates us also to defy injustice, to raise up the poor and promote solidarity. In American society, people of faith are perhaps the best defence that freedom and solidarity possess. Reno writes, “What’s inscribed on our hearts strengthens our spines.” We live loudly in the world because the dogma lives in us.
Why Holy Cross Needs a Monastery
As a Catholic and Jesuit school, Holy Cross has certain privileges. We are used to having Jesuits at the school say Mass and hear confessions, as well as teach classes, work in various departments, attend events, and generally act as a positive presence on campus. They participate in a legacy dating back to the school’s founding in 1843, and in one stretching far further into the past. Not all Catholic schools are so lucky; many, particularly those without an affiliation to a religious community, can only occasionally bring in visiting priests and lay missionaries.
The earliest universities were not necessarily Catholic, but there is a long history of affiliations between the Catholic Church and universities. This makes sense; from a practical standpoint during the medieval period when universities first began to appear, the Church had a variety of resources to offer a university, such as the power to grant degrees and legal protection. There is a deeper link, however: the rise of Christianity enabled the growth of science into what we have today. There is a cognitive dissonance in our culture today, where the Church is portrayed by secular entities as the enemy of science and progress. It is remarkable that such critics never question why the Church which is so dedicated to suppressing science has fostered scientific thinkers such as Copernicus, Lemaître, Mendel, Pascal, and Pasteur, as well as running the world-class Vatican Observatory.
We enjoy the inheritance of this religious and scientific collaboration today, usually unconsciously. Even at a small school such as Holy Cross, there is great emphasis placed on the natural sciences, mathematics, and the social sciences. Sometimes it seems that there is too much of this. As a senior about to graduate in the spring, I hear a lot about the importance of a liberal arts degree grounded in both the sciences and the humanities (and less than I would like about the Catholic history thereof). It is always implied that my degree will lead to a fulfilling career making money—after all, we’re regularly reminded that Holy Cross graduates are highly employable and have an above-average starting salary ($50,534 for the class of 2016, if you’re wondering). However, the focus on the material benefits of our education comes at a steep cost.
What is lost with the emphasis on money and success is any mention of what our most important heritage as a Catholic school is: prayer. I hear more about what companies are recruiting on campus than the fact that the body of Christ is present in our chapels day and night, and I get more reminders about meeting with potential employers than I do about going to Mass. It might sound silly, or archaic, but this is the belief of the Catholic Church and the focal point which enables our school’s rich study of science, mathematics, and humanities (and the post-graduate jobs in these fields). By not emphasizing the Eucharist or prayer enough, our school is missing out on a beautiful Catholic legacy, and on a lot of graces needed to lead souls to Christ (the actual mission of all Catholic schools). The solution can only come through prayer. The Jesuits are amazing, but their way of life is not conducive to constant intercession on behalf of the Church through formal prayer, though undoubtedly their prayer for the school benefits us all. What Holy Cross really needs, in addition to the prayer and witness of the Jesuits, is a cloistered monastery of nuns or monks on or around our campus.
The 1999 Church document Verbi Sponsa describes the importance of the contemplative life: “The ancient spiritual tradition of the Church, taken up by the Second Vatican Council, explicitly connects the contemplative life to the prayer of Jesus ‘on the mountain’… the cloister is especially well suited to life wholly directed to contemplation. Its totality signals absolute dedication to God...” Cloistered religious life is uniquely oriented toward prayer. It takes only a walk around Dinand, even this early in the academic year, to sense that there is already abundant stress and desperation, and probably not enough prayer (not that there ever can be enough prayer). Even beyond the schoolwork, a college or university cannot be a peaceful place; it is a battleground for the future of our world, whether we like to think about it in such dramatic terms or not. Here too, a monastery would act as a center of prayer for the campus. Verbi Sponsa states regarding this: “A contemplative monastery is a gift also for the local Church to which it belongs. Representing the prayerful face of the Church, a monastery makes the Church's presence more complete and meaningful in the local community. A monastic community may be compared to Moses who, in prayer, determined the fate of Israel's battles (cf. Ex 17:11), or to the guard who keeps the night watch awaiting the dawn.”
As well as praying for our souls and academics, a cloistered monastic community would serve as an inspiration and reminder of what is truly valuable in life, particularly as we grow ever closer to finals/graduation/our departure of this life. “As a reflection and radiation of their contemplative life, nuns offer to the Christian community and to the world of today, more than ever in need of true spiritual values, a silent proclamation of the mystery of God and a humble witness to it, thus keeping prophecy alive in the nuptial heart of the Church” (Verbi Sponsa). Verbi Sponsa speaks of nuns, and there is something to be said particularly for having an increased presence for women religious on campus. The Jesuits serve as spiritual
fathers to many students, faculty, and staff, and having a similar maternal presence could be nothing but beneficial.
The logistics, admittedly, could be difficult. The grass lots at the corner of College Street and Southbridge Street have been sitting vacant since the buildings previously there were demolished. Perhaps it is time for them to receive a new lease on life. Or maybe we can install a new cloistered wing off Ciampi. In the worst-case scenario, there are a lot of floors in Hogan that we don’t really need. As for the new community’s finances, I’d be more than happy to donate the part of my tuition that normally goes to the Spring Concert, and I’m sure many other students would be willing to as well. Many monastic communities sell cheese, beer, candy, or other food items so we could also benefit from having good, locally produced food on campus.
And since there is no contemplative branch of the Jesuits, we will have to invite a religious community of a different tradition. The Benedictines are probably our best option, as St. Benedict, their founder, is a patron saint of students, and St. Ignatius of Loyola had a beautiful experience of prayer and forgiveness at the Benedictine monastery at Montserrat. Holy Cross needs a monastery so that we can return to our Catholic roots. I do not suggest that we abandon altogether our career searching and grad-school applying, only that each of us re-evaluates our priorities. A monastery on campus or just outside the gates is a way to emphasize the importance of prayer and refocus the mission of the school on bringing souls to heaven and not just to Fulbrights. The spiritual and financial investments would be worth every bit.
Name Change
Recently, a dialogue arose concerning the name of our mascot, The Crusader. A letter, signed by forty-eight distinguished faculty members, appeared in the latest The Crusader, urging students to engage in conversation because our newspaper shares the same name as the KKK’s and the feelings of animosity they believe the term “crusader” carries.
Claude Hanley ’18 already addressed how the College is purposefully slating the dialogue on this very matter in his article “Welcome to Secular Sunday School”. I echo what he said and would like to emphasize that changing our mascot solidifies our entry into this heretical “Secular Sunday School.”
In response to citing the KKK as a reason to discuss changing the name, that argument seems eerily close to an existential instantiation- a logical fallacy where one assumes existential import. I do not think that the vast majority of people know that the KKK’s newspaper bears this name and also, I do not think that the mutual name associates us with them. A proper assessment of Crusaders reveals that they (they being the Crusaders) were anything but white supremacists (since racism did not surface until later). The KKK’s message and agenda of hate and supremacy should not deter us from acknowledging that Crusaders are remembered for being staunchly Christian, above all else, even if that is simply a stereotype.
However, the crux of the argument to change the name that we identify with is not the connection to the KKK, but rather the “anti-Muslim tensions…counter to our mission and goals” as the faculty writes. This assumes that there is a direct connection between the Crusades and anti-Muslim tensions. While I can see how one could reach that conclusion, I believe that conclusion is an oversimplification of a complex series of wars.
Dr. Thomas Asbridge, a leading expert on the Crusades, in The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land writes “when Latin crusading armies arrived in the Near East to wage what essentially were frontier wars, they were not actually invading the heartlands of Islam. Instead, they were fighting for control of a land that, in some respects, was also a Muslim frontier.” Dr. Asbridge provides an excellent backdrop for how we should examine the Crusades- as a political war, not primarily a religious war. Understanding the Crusades as a political war allows you to recognize that both sides waged war over territory, not exclusively religious zeal.
Michael Haag, a historian with books published by Yale University Press, American University in Cairo Press, etc. writes in The Catholic Herald “In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade, but neither Christianity nor the West was the cause of the Crusades…The Crusades were part of a centuries-long struggle between Islam and Christianity throughout the Mediterranean world.”
Synthesizing these two historian’s thoughts, we see that the Crusades were a war fought between two groups of people, one mainly Christian and one mainly Islamic, but the Crusades resulted from political struggles.
Understanding the dynamic of the Crusades is crucial to understanding my argument about keeping the name. If one views the Crusades in a historical context, one sees that the Crusades do not originate from a place of Islamophobia, as some may argue. This distinction between hatred of a religion and a territorial struggle defines how we view the actual Crusaders.
Speaking of actual Crusaders, history and society stereotypes them as a zealous Catholic, pillaging every village and killing everyone in sight. As with most stereotypes of Christians, this is completely inaccurate. Dr. Thomas F. Madden, a Crusader historian, addresses this common misconception in his article The Real History of the Crusades by writing “They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world…But the truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.”
Immediately, Dr. Madden deftly squashes the stereotype of the pillaging knight, similar to how the College squashes open dialogue about perpetuating our Christian tradition. I write this statement ironically because similar to how I am advocating for preserving our Catholic history, the Crusaders believed that Islam would destroy Christianity as they destroyed Zoroastrianism, according to Dr. Madden.
As Christians, as American citizens, as people, as whatever we identify as, a universal truth that most, if not all, of us can agree upon is that everyone should have freedom of religion. Then, if a group tries to take away that freedom, wouldn’t we fight? The short answer is we’ve already done that. Earlier, I stated that the Crusades were a political struggle, which is true, but this political struggle led to Muslims inhabiting more territory and as Dr. Madden points out, posing a threat to Christianity. Dr. Madden concludes his article with “Without the Crusades, it might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam's rivals, into extinction.”
I write this not to justify the Crusades because anything that results in killing, stealing, etc. is morally wrong, but I think it expands our view of the Crusades. The Crusaders simply are not what they are remembered as, therefore we should not change the name of our mascot because of a misconception of their intent.
Yes, Crusaders committed atrocities, but so did people on the other side. I do not wish to justify their sins, but rather emphasize that they fought for their families, rights, and religions- in other words, what we call “noble causes”.
In my view, when we call ourselves “Crusaders”, we remember those who prioritized preservation of the family and Christianity. Beyond the stereotypes that society pins upon it, the term Crusader always evokes Christianity. To me, to change the name is to ignore that the message of Christianity is love. In Matthew 22, a Pharisee lawyer asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and Jesus responds “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it: love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these commandments.”
In this time in history where hate is unprecedented, it is crucial and essential that we spread love everywhere. Since we live in a time where Islamophobia is rampant, we need to speak out against the hatred with a message of love, which I believe we can do as Crusaders and as Christians. In my mind, our path forward is self-evident.
We need to delineate what we believe being a Crusader means, educate others on this, and then, check our personal contributions to hatred. Every slightly racist joke or phrase, instance of gossip, insult or jab, even sarcastic comment piles up and smothers the true message of Christianity.
Since Crusader carries negative connotations, we cannot simply do nothing about those connotations. I believe that we should stand by our Christianity, stand by our values of love, and stand by our name as Crusaders. As I wrote before, we need to educate others on the Crusades and what we mean by using the name, underscoring our commitment to Christianity. I view this name change as one attempt of many to rid the College of Christianity, which is why I strongly oppose the name change. Instead of denying our Christianity, let us embrace it, as the Crusaders did, and show our love for God and our neighbors by doing so.
Quod Verum Pulchrum: What's Behind the Fenwick Review Motto
By Stephen Merola ‘16, Editor Emeritus
The motto of this journal was once the Latin phrase quae nocent, docent – what harms, instructs – and its acerbic veracity reflected well the Review’s predilection for tough love. Then for one issue (November 2012) it was changed to the less blunt but equally strong Ciceronian aphorism “If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.” For whatever reason, however, that quotation never again appeared as the journal’s maxim. “To give witness to the truth” (testimonium perhibere veritati) stayed for a few issues three semesters ago, but after that the paper was left without any pithy prescription to adorn its front page.
But as any observer of this edition’s front page can observe, the year-long dearth of dicta has come to an end. We have chosen for our motto three Latin words which contain elements of the above three phrases (essentially, the need for the truth) and add to them a description of the nature of that truth. It is simply, quod verum, pulchrum – what is true, is beautiful.
In his treatise on moral obligations, Cicero (by no means the first to see the relation between truth and beauty) expounds on the concept of decorum. In his context, this Latin word refers not to its modern connotation of seemly behavior, but rather expresses the idea of propriety and rightness. Decorum is the ideal but attainable form that a thing possesses, to which it aspires and away from which it is imperfect. In short, it is the truth in which an entity is called to participate fully. And Cicero argues that someone or something which has attained this true form is beautiful for having attained it. We perceive things that exist rightly as expressing an inherent pulchritude and lacking that decorum we apprehend them in their deformity. Beauty, then, is the experience of truth.
Cicero’s observation (if we think it accurate) necessarily points us to a larger question: why does truth have an inherent aesthetic appeal? Why does it follow that, if something is what it ought to be, it must be beautiful? Cicero’s own answer to this question is that the relation is accidental. His descriptions of the decorum-beauty reality seem only to say that it is simply the nature of things for it to be so. And so, although his exploration of this relation provides us insight into its unfolding within nature, we are still left to ask whether there is any grounding to that relation at all.
In an effort to discover this grounding, we should begin by trying to pin down what we mean by “beauty.” As St. Augustine observed about time, we all seem to know what beauty is until asked to define it. And although we cannot deny that the Sanctus of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcellior the coming New England autumn, for example, possess the rapturous and delightful quality we call beautiful, the reason two things as disparate as the October florae and a Renaissance Mass should evoke (ultimately) the same ineffable experience remains mysterious. Yet when we consider the beauty that nature or music effect, we can acknowledge that this beauty is utterly gratuitous; it need not be. As (among others) theologian David Hart has argued, beauty is an end unto itself. It is not ordered toward any one end, as most other things are, but simply exists to exist. It is a gift we are delighted to receive amidst our participation in reality. But although beauty is a gift, we would be foolish not to acknowledge that without beauty our experience of reality would be severely lacking – indeed, entirely different. In Hart’s words, “the beautiful presents itself to us as an entirely unwarranted, unnecessary, and yet marvelously fitting gift.”
With this understanding in mind, we proceed to a modified form of our original question: if something is true, and for that reason beautiful, does truth express the same gratuity its aesthetic appeal portends? If we are to understand truth as a gift, we are led to contemplate the idea of creation. All that exists exists solely because it participates in the transcendent reality of its Creator. Creation is the temporal unfolding of the eternal logos, and as such finds its source and sustenance in a reality both eternally beyond and wholly immanent to itself. In short, being as we know it is only so by the grace of the ineffable Godhead. Truth is an unwarranted, unnecessary, and yet marvelously fitting gift, and by virtue of that givenness is inherently beautiful.
Yet because of the gift of revelation, we can delve even further into this transcendent understanding of beauty and truth. For as Christians we confess belief in the Trinity, a God who is one in being and three in personhood. The three persons neither divide the Godhead nor are confused among themselves, but rather the Son and the Holy Spirit eternally proceed from the Father, and, though not created, are begotten by Him through all eternity. Though we cannot say that the persons of the Trinity are unnecessary as we are, we can nonetheless see that the pattern of the divine life is one of eternal and necessary gift and thus eternally beautiful. Since we, therefore, exist in a reality whose source and sustenance is this same divine giving, our truth is a temporal reflection of that eternal outpouring of love. The beauty of the Trinity is our origin and the end for which we are made.
To answer the question prompted by Cicero’s initial observation, then, truth is beautiful by virtue of its givenness as creation and its participation in the Trinity.
Though I cannot adequately treat these matters in a mere editorial (or in any capacity, for that matter), I hope I have at least made clear some of the logic behind The Fenwick Review’s new motto. Our past mottos (and indeed our mission as an independent journal) have always expressed a striving towards and defense of the Truth. Those who write for the Review are often at odds with the predominant animus at Holy Cross, and as such have been made to endure ridicule, vehement opposition, and even the accusation of being hateful. Nonetheless, our hope is simply to give witness to what is true and to turn from what is false. And our new motto should serve as a reminder that regard for the truth is not hateful. It is just the opposite; to pursue the truth is to pursue the ultimate, ineffable beauty toward which we aspire and to which, from all eternity, we have been called.