The Climate Strike

Environmental activists gathered on the Dinand steps today, in front of the statue of Christ’s Crucified Hand. Representatives from the Chaplain’s office tried to hang one of their strike signs on the statue, but the wind blew it off; they made sure to use the statue for the remaining time as a placeholder for their plastic water bottles and cell phones. To prevent starvation, protestors were given dozens of colorful bagels to munch on as they paraded with their capes and signs.

“The world is dying and we need to do something about it,” said student Jack Parks ‘23, who told The Fenwick Review that he was protesting “deregulation on things like mercury, or waste - how people handle waste, stuff like that. Companies throwing stuff into any bodies of water that they can pollute just to get waste away from them.”

Despite the protesters’ widespread opposition to plastic items like straws, the protest’s organizers were passing out plastic Climate Strike stickers. When pressed, protestors acknowledged that it seemed a little hypocritical.

At a little past nine, the event officially started, with speeches given by the march’s leaders. The first speaker was a junior who attempted in vain to rally people up. The cheers were vaguely reminiscent of teenagers at a concert. There were calls to demand action, and to interrogate their fellow students on why they didn’t attend the rally: “...you must hold the people around you accountable.” The first speaker was the longest and was followed by other students with similar points.

Finally, Marybeth Kearns-Barrett, the head of the Chaplain’s office, addressed the crowd. She continued to use the same rhetoric as the former speakers, quoting Pope Francis and calling for action. Towards the end of her speech, she spoke about God’s graciousness and love, referring to God with the pronoun “she.” When asked to clarify that this is what she meant, she did so without hesitation. Her speech ended with a prayer.

Our warriors then proceeded to march through the streets of Worcester to City Hall to demand their voices be heard.

A Statement on the May 2019 Telegram & Gazette Article

"This week, there has been a considerable amount of controversy about a speech delivered by Bishop McManus, a Telegram and Gazette article about that speech, and the school’s subsequent response. Some students are calling for Holy Cross to jettison Catholic values, which are often construed as archaic and regressive. On the other hand, as a Catholic institution, Holy Cross has a responsibility and a mission to uphold the teachings of the Church. Thankfully though, these two goals—to be a place of love and a place that upholds and defends authentic Catholicism—are not in conflict. Unfortunately, many have come to believe that the Catholic Church is guided by regressive hatred, homophobia, and the denial of science. This is a cartoon, a comically false depiction of the Catholicism. In reality, the Church calls for all human beings to be treated with dignity and respect, a point which Bishop McManus made clear in his speech. This love, observes Pope Benedict XVI in his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate, must be guided by truth, since authentic love cannot be divorced from absolute truth. In times of confusion and chaos, Catholic teachings are a beacon of clarity and stability that guide, clarify, and enable both individuals and institutions like Holy Cross to love authentically.

For further clarification on the Church’s teachings on gender and human sexuality, there are a variety of resources—including papal encyclicals, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Pope St. John Paul II’s theology of the body—available online."

Death, Graduation, and Being an Easter Person

“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song” –Pope Saint John Paul II

At the time that this article is written, we are still in the Easter period. By the time that this article is published, at some point in May, it will still be Eastertide. Christ is risen - Christ is risen indeed - so let us be glad and let us be joyous that our Savior has risen from the dead. Let’s face it: if Christ did not rise from the dead, he would have been another so-called prophet that was put to death for his radical ideas. It is not enough to limit the Resurrection to a metaphor and it is not enough to pretend that it was just a part of a nice story. Jesus Christ was sentenced to death on the cross, died between two thieves, descended into Hell to free the heroes and prophets of the Old Testament, rose from the dead, walked among us again, and then ascended into Heaven. That is what we believe, that is what we defend, and that is what we should be in awe of every day of our lives. To be Christ-like, among other ways in which to emulate Him, is to assert that death has no dominion because we are an Easter people. We are focused on the Resurrection.

When I was growing up, I attended many wakes and funerals for deceased family members and friends. From an early age I was exposed to the grim realities of death and to face this fact of life head on. How do you explain to a child why his Great Aunt isn’t with us anymore? How do you explain to a teenager that the Grandmother who was the strong Matriarch and glue of his family has passed away? How do you explain to a college student that one of his dearest friends and role models has died very suddenly? How does a young adult face the fact that his parents, his family, his friends, and all the people he loves will one day die? How does he face the fact that he too, will die someday? These aren’t easy questions to answer, and they’re reasons behind why people look toward religion for the answer. In my faith, I have found solace in that I am a member of the Body of Christ and this Body has conquered death.

I am no theologian, nor will I ever say that I have all of the answers to life’s challenging questions. I trust that the thousands of years of Church scholarship have already approached these subjects and offer a much more articulate answer than I ever could. It took a while for sure, but when I was willing to take a leap of faith and trust in God for the answer I found that things made sense. Thankfully, we are subject to the mercy of Christ, a mercy that included walking among us, teaching us how to live, dying for us, and ultimately opening up the gates of heaven to all people. Thankfully, there is an outline in the form of the Catholic Church as to how one can follow Christ’s footsteps and conquer death. It makes sense that if we don’t follow the instructions, we are going to have a hard time and ultimately fall victim to the temptations of Hell, a place void of God (which, suffice it to say, is devoid of love, hope, charity). Hell is not the place to be, no matter what people may try to suggest. To say that you want to be devoid of all that is good is just a blatant lie to yourself and others. We are not meant for Hell, we are meant for Resurrection, and we are meant to be constantly living in the model of Easter.

All of this may seem grim, and frankly, a talk about death is going to be grim and uncomfortable. In navigating our discomfort with the subject of death, we can find the joy that Christ died in order to bring us: we don’t need to be afraid of death. If we are truly an Easter people, death is just another motion toward Eternal Life with the Body of Christ. That Body is the Communion of Saints, those holy souls who dedicated their lives to serving Christ and to serving others. That Body includes our family and friends who have answered Christ’s call to community, compassion, and all things that are good. In dying, we are not alone. That part is particularly important because we must face the reality that we are all probably going to Purgatory first, which is not a bad thing. It is that final purification before Heaven and we, as the Church on Earth, can pray for the souls in Purgatory and help them along their journey. Please always pray for the deceased, as they may need all the help that they can get. The Venerable Fulton Sheen has a beautiful quote on this connection, saying, “As we enter Heaven, we will see them, so many of them, coming toward us and thanking us. We will ask who they are and they will say: ‘A poor soul you prayed for in purgatory.’” There is nothing but love in our call to prayer.

To wrap up this idea and, ultimately, my final article as an undergraduate, there are many things in life that seem to offer the opportunity for despair in a similar manner to death. For example, as a graduating Senior there are many times that I feel like I’m dying in a certain way. I feel like I’m losing a part of my identity and, in a sense, this may be true. In graduating from college and Holy Cross in particular, it seems like a whole world is being left behind. Post-grad seems a type of ‘Purgatory’ before getting a job or establishing myself. It is so common to get into these nostalgic daydreams of desolation as the doomsday clock seems to tick ever so closer to midnight. Yet I cannot stress this enough: we are an Easter People. Graduation isn’t death, it is a resurrection of one’s own self that has been aided by four life-changing years. We don’t have to leave everyone and disappear. We will see each other again and true friendships will last. Death, or rather graduation in this sense, will only have as much power as we will let it. Do we fear it and run from it or do we have the faith and confidence to trust that it is not the end?

I trust that my graduation is not the end of my connection to Holy Cross nor is it an end to any sort of life. I will forever be grateful for the guidance, for the people, for the challenges, for the heartbreak, and most importantly, the outpouring of love from my friends and family. We are an Easter people. We are an Easter campus. We are meant for something greater than death or graduation; we are meant to rise into new life with Christ. May we always be comforted by Christ’s love and mercy and may you, reader, find solace in the victory of Christ over death because you are meant for Heaven and meant to be loved.

Get Uncomfortable, It’s College

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and an expert in the psychology of morality, gave a talk at Holy Cross in April as the Hanify-Howland Memorial Lecture’s distinguished speaker. He currently teaches at NYU in the Stern School of Business, has won three major teaching awards, has had over three million views on his TED talks, and has written countless articles and three books. His latest book, The Coddling of the American Mind, co-written by Greg Lukianoff, was released in 2018. This book was the focus of Haidt’s talk. Although Haidt’s speech was quite good and I heartily recommend buying his book, I would like to emphasize one topic from his ideas: exposure to discomfort and its necessity on the campus.

One of Haidt’s key points in his speech and book is “How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.” In other words: covering up triggering material and preventing controversial speakers from speaking at universities, which supposedly helps college students, hurts them in the long run. Sure, listening to controversial material might be uncomfortable. A socially conservative student learning about transgenderism and LGBT culture in a Gender Studies class may feel uneasy, but many others would emphasize the importance of being exposed to such ideas. Exposure provides a better understanding of American society, where understanding other perspectives is - or at least should be - important.

That idea of exposure applies on both sides, however, which many college students (and nowadays professors) often forget. Why was it acceptable for protestors at UC Berkeley, for example, to scream at Ben Shapiro to the point where the University spent $600,000 on security? Students insulted Shapiro as he went by and several were arrested. Yet he in no way, shape, or form has tried to incite violence or harm at any college campus. His ideas, such as those on abortion and transgenderism, might be uncomfortable, but he has openly denounced white supremacy, says he does not support hate, and emphasizes that respect for those with different views is critically important. Rather than protesting and preventing controversial speakers from coming to their universities, students should willingly endure discomfort in order to better understand their own views. I do not expect anyone reading this to magically change their political and moral ideologies, but they need to be open-minded and respectful of all views. That often does not occur on college campuses.

Since becoming a writer of The Fenwick Review, I have become more aware of how people view its content. When I hear it mentioned, I usually hear “it’s trash,” “let’s rip this garbage up,” and so on. One of the latest, and more public, comments I have seen is on the Gossip at HC Instagram page, where someone submitted “Don’t have gossip. I just want to drag the Fenwick Review. I saw a copy and ripped it up. Thank God Claude is gone.” The Instagram page responded with “He is sorely (not) missed and hopefully the FR just fades out of existence soon.” They then posted the caption as follows (note the asterisks are for profanities): “Ding dong the witch is dead, the wicked witch, the wicked witch. F**k the Fenwick Review and the alumni that fund them. All it does is divide campus and fuel hate. Do we need to talk about Prof. Liew and the bulls**t they started?”

Most people read this and will not even blink an eye. In fact, many of you may even laugh and agree. No, I am not going to find the person who wrote that and tell them how hateful they are. No, I am not going to respond with hateful speech or insult views that are different from mine. I do, however, think this view of The Fenwick Review shows a subtle way that the problem of polarization and avoiding discomfort is continually growing. The Fenwick Review prides itself on its Conservative and Catholic ideals, which many people do not agree with. Instead of entertaining an article against the ENGAGE Summit or an article where a Conservative professor speaks about problematic student behavior, many students simply call them “trash.” They imply - or even explicitly state - that Conservatism and Catholicism are wrong, hateful, or both. I am not saying that the Review has never published a controversial article (on the contrary, in fact). However, college is an optimal time for students to learn and grow. Only reading The Spire, going to talks that align with one’s views, and taking non-controversial classes does not encourage true learning. It creates a false sense of security in one’s beliefs.

Since being at Holy Cross, I have considerably deepened my own views and beliefs, but the times I have grown most were when I was pushed out of my comfort zone. I had always gone to small, private, Catholic schools where I learned little about topics like gender, sexuality, and race. I took an Anthropology class my freshman year which included contemporary subjects such as transgenderism, immigration, economic systems, and white privilege. I was also introduced to more foreign concepts, such as cultures with nontraditional ways of living: walking marriages, headhunting, and circumcising women. In some classes, I had knowledge of the subject matter and was excited to participate and learn more. On other days, I felt uncomfortable and entered class without understanding how some cultures could hold their respective views. Although I did not suddenly change my beliefs about every subject, I did, however, learn much more than I expected to. After taking that class, I am now better able to speak more confidently on my views while also respecting the perspectives of others.

Similarly, during my first semester this year, I attended a combined College Republican and College Democrat meeting. Although I was excited, I was worried that both sides would devolve into yelling and insults. Instead, we calmly held small group discussions on gun control, immigration, and healthcare. Everyone at the meeting seemed to enjoy talking openly about their views, even the most controversial ones, and at the end of each topic, the groups shared what they agreed upon. Sometimes the agreement was plentiful; at other times, there were only one or two points of agreement. Creating an open environment allowed for healthy discussion on uncomfortable, controversial topics.

I tell those anecdotes not to pat myself on the back, but to demonstrate that we should let ourselves be uncomfortable. While maintaining your convictions, let yourself be exposed to different views. Consider exposure therapy in psychology: an individual with anxiety improves more quickly and for a longer time by exposing themself to what makes them anxious. They fall deeper into anxiety by shielding themselves from it. Next time you walk into Kimball, pick up a copy of The Spire and The Fenwick Review. Go in with an open mind. If you disagree, have an intellectual conversation with a friend who disliked your favorite article. Instead of just going to Rehm talks for your classes, go to talks with controversial subject matters. If you agree with the speaker, talk to a professor who disagreed. Discuss each others’ viewpoints. If you disagree, ask the speaker a considerate question. If you are still unsatisfied, you at least will leave there having learned about a different perspective and its reasoning. Being uncomfortable is the only way to grow.

And in case you were wondering, the Fenwick Review is not fading out. We’re here to stay.

On Homosexuality and the Church

A Priest, a homosexual, and a drag queen walk into a chapel. No, this isn’t the start of some joke, but a scene I was honored to witness at a special morning mass the Sunday of this year’s IgnatianQ conference. This event, a conference for members of the LGBTQ community at Jesuit colleges (as well as Notre Dame), brought students to Mount St. James from across the country in order to discuss the relation of faith, Ignatian Spirituality, and LGBTQ identity. Though invited, I refrained from attending the conference, save the aforementioned mass. Due to my lack of attendance, I will not attempt to discuss the mission or credibility of this conference, though I’ve heard positive responses from friends in attendance. Nay; sparked by the once in a lifetime scene from that 9:00 A.M. mass, I would rather discuss the complicated (and oft times misrepresented) relationship between the Catholic church and homosexuality. For now, I will discuss solely homosexuality, as addressing each LGBTQ identity would be excessively long for one article. In doing so, I will omit my personal biases about the Church’s teaching and simply present the teaching as it stands.

I must start by addressing a disparity between how our contemporary culture and the Catholic Church conceptualize the very idea of homosexuality. Our society describes homosexuality as an identity: that is, a group one belongs to based on their attraction to the same sex (gay for males, lesbian for females). However, in order to address homosexuality as a moral issue, the Church can only speak on homosexuality as an action. In a Catholic sense, morality is dependent on action. In other words: a person cannot be morally good or evil in themself, but can act in a good or evil fashion. It is important to note that conscious thoughts as well as physical deeds constitute actions. If, for instance, a lustful thought (or otherwise unholy notion) pops into your head and you chose to dwell on and entertain that thought, you have committed a morally evil action.

So, to address homosexuality in a moral context, we cannot continue (for the sake of this article) to consider homosexuality an identity. There is no morality within an identity to discuss. Thus, I will be addressing homosexuality as an action. Further, to be judged morally, this action must be “freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of conscience” (CCC 1749). A homosexual act into which a person is unwillingly coerced or of which they are invincibly unaware cannot be deemed morally good or evil either. Conscientiousness is muddled in a state of vincible ignorance (ignorance that can be removed through reasonable search for the truth) because the culpability of the moral action varies from case to case. Thus, throughout this article, I will be addressing homosexuality as a freely chosen action made with insight from a well-formed conscience.

This establishes that attraction to someone of the same sex is neither morally good nor evil. An attraction is not an action. In conjunction with an action, however, this attraction can have moral weight. A good action inspired by this desire renders the desire good, and vice versa, meaning that if a homosexual attraction inspires a morally evil action, that attraction is rendered morally evil (CCC 1768).

As the word “homosexuality” blatantly points out, a homosexual act is a sexual act. The Church is very specific about the role and purpose of sexual desires. The role of sex, for the Church, is simultaneously unitive and procreative (CCC 2351). A sexual action should only take place if it deepens the bond between married spouses and is open to the creation of new life. The pleasure derived from sex is a gift from God to encourage and bless this holy act of sex. However, the holy pleasure of and desire for sex can be very easily tainted. This tainting is Lust, wherein one seeks sexual pleasure for the sensation of pleasure itself, disconnecting sex from its sacred connection to Procreation and Unity (CCC 2351). It follows that a homosexual act is disordered because it can never be open to procreation and, as it is done outside the context of marriage, cannot contribute to the unity of spouses. A sexual act performed between two members of the same sex is, therefore, a morally evil action. For quite the same reason, however, so are sexual acts between an unmarried man and woman.

This leads into perhaps the most controversial teaching of the Church on homosexuality: “Why can’t gay people get married? If gay people could get married then they could have sex, right?” The answers to these questions are relatively simple. To answer the first, we need only follow the same argument that explains why homosexual acts are disordered: they are closed to fertility. A Catholic marriage must be “open to fertility” (CCC 1643). As a gay couple cannot reproduce, they cannot be married. Christ instituted marriage as a sacrament in which a man and women are bound in union with the express purpose of procreation. This

is completely unavailable in a homosexual union. As to the second question, the answer to the hypothetical is simply “no.” Again, their sex is still not procreative. Due to the inability to procreate, homosexual relations are “intrinsically disordered,” and “under no circumstances can they be approved” (2357).

None of this, however, means that the Church denies the validity of Same Sex Attraction, nor does it condemn those with such an attraction. In fact, the Church teaches the exact opposite. To elucidate this fact, I will lift a large passage from the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assure no words are omitted or glossed over:

“The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.” (CCC 2358)

This constitutes a state of mind that I doubt anyone would disagree with.

Knowing that the Church does not condemn, and in fact supports, people with same sex attractions - but also considering that homosexual acts and marriages are prohibited - begs a question. What is the place of men and women with same sex attractions within the Church? Everyone is called to a specific vocation by God. Whether the vocation is to married life, religious life, or single life, each human has a certain call. For gays and lesbians, it boils down to either religious life or the single life. Both of these vocations call for homosexuals to be chaste. This does not disavow the potential for deeply loving relationships between members of the same sex. Priests and Brothers can maintain profound love for one another, as can Sisters. Lay single men and women can participate in similarly loving relationships. One could, perhaps, even argue that a chaste relationship between two members of the same sex is not anathema to Church teaching. One could question the purpose of this relationship; romantic relationships are a sort of marriage interview and, without the culmination of marriage, that might leave same sex romantic relationships purposeless. This question is not explicitly answered by the Church, so I will not speak to it myself, though I find it necessarily raised.

Chastity, however, is not a restriction. The Church expounds that chastity is a great freedom in which human passions are correctly governed by reason. This chastity is a virtue and so must be practiced and built, freeing us from subservience to our desires and giving us the discipline to control them instead (CCC 2339). In this sense, just as all other Catholic men and women, homosexuals are called to be free from the slavery of desire. Living and practicing their faith in such a way, with the help of the sacraments, friendships, and prayer, men and women with same sex attraction can live up to the call of every human to Christian perfection (CCC 2359). I would even propose that, perhaps postulating a bit too much, there are special graces these men and women can receive in staying faithful to Christ during their unique struggle. In this way, I consider homosexuality a gift. It is a gift by which the faithful can unite the sacrifice of personal desires to Christ, and, in return, be the recipients of great grace.

Don’t Worry, Your Paper Usage Is Not Causing Deforestation

Recently I and, I gather, all other members of the Holy Cross community received the first of what promise to be an endless series of personalized monthly “paper usage reports.” The report compares my paper usage with that of my departmental colleagues; my department’s usage with that of other departments; and the College’s overall use compared to what it was a month previously. I might take pride in the fact that I used 92.04% less paper in March than my political science colleagues, and 72.89% less than the average Holy Cross employee – were it not  for the fact that I am on sabbatical during the current academic year, am thus on campus only occasionally, and have no need to print out materials such as my lecture notes since I’m not currently teaching. On the other hand, while my department printed 13.75% fewer pages in March than in February, we might still be liable to blame for using 79% more paper than the average department did. (Of course the reduction from February to March might have something to do with the near-absence of faculty on campus during the March break.)  Most alarmingly, it was reported that so far this year alone, my department’s paper usage is responsible for the “deforestation” of 4.99 trees.

These statistics – compiled, I have learned, by a private monitoring service that the College employs – are based largely on meaningless comparisons, for such reasons as those I have offered. (Additionally, it is quite likely, I would surmise, that heavily “verbal” disciplines like political science, history, philosophy, and English would tend to engender more paper use in the normal course of work than such fields as the natural sciences, mathematics, and perhaps foreign languages.) They have the same irrelevance as the statistics that the company that supplies my family’s electricity is legally obliged to provide on how our usage compares with those of other similarly sized houses in the neighborhood: of necessity, the statistics cannot take account of varying family sizes, whether anyone is home during the daytime on weekdays, or the presence or absence of central air conditioning.

What is most ridiculous about the paper usage report, however, is the charge that all such usage is responsible for “deforestation.” This is an utter misuse of the term. Deforestation, properly speaking, refers to the more or less permanent elimination of large forests in areas like the Amazon basin (where settlers keep clearing land in order to settle and farm – just as Americans did from the time colonization began until the settling of the West was completed.) (In the American case, however, with the decline of small-scale farming in the Northeast, much of the cleared land was subsequently re-forested.). It is particularly a problem in the Amazon because of the possibly major role that the enormous rainforest plays in the global ecosystem. It has led to a major, permanent environmental disaster in Haiti, where the thoughtless removal of most of the country’s forest some time ago led to heightened vulnerability to flooding and the loss of essential topsoil, thus impoverishing the nation. And recently, it is reported, Russian forests are being cut down by Chinese lumber companies on a large scale, without any effort at replacing them. (The Chinese are able to buy the timber cheaply, and don’t particularly care about the long-term future of Siberian forest land. It’s not their country.)

None of these dangers has any application to American paper usage. Our paper doesn’t come from the Amazon or Siberia. Leaving aside a relatively small quantity of “high-end” paper derived from rags, it comes from forests – largely in the U.S. and Canada – that are either owned or (in the case of American national forests) managed by private companies, whose practice is to replace the trees they harvest with new seedlings, and to do so on a schedule that guarantees that the overall size of the managed forest will not shrink. The lumber companies engage in this process essentially because it is in their long-term interest to do so: the trees are their “capital,” and destroying their capital would ultimately put them out of business. So they are not guilty of deforestation at all.

When I made this point to the highly qualified person in the IT department who is responsible for transmitting (not writing) the paper usage reports, she acknowledged that the “deforestation” claim was misleading, but justified it on the ground that it was a useful means of motivating faculty, staff, and students to avoid wasting paper – thus reducing the net cost to the College. In other words, the claim is something like the “noble lie” of which Socrates famously speaks in Plato’s Republic.

Speaking for myself, I believe that wasting useful resources of any kind (to say nothing of raising tuition costs as a consequence) is something to be avoided. As a child I was taught by my parents (like many other kids of the postwar era) not to leave food over on my plate, because (at the time) people were “starving in Europe.” (Unfortunately, for a while this may have led me to an undesirable weight gain, as it left me with the semiconscious impression that the more I ate, the less others would starve.) To this day, when I see a light left on in an unused room at the College (or at home), I reach in to turn it off. (My wife is sometimes irked by this practice, as when I shut off the TV when she leaves the family room for a limited time.)

I do not believe, however, that a publicly desirable goal justifies misleading the public, as the College’s paper-monitoring service is doing with its misuse of the term “deforestation” – least of all at an institution devoted to the pursuit of truth. Nor, in fact, do I see much merit in issuing individualized monthly paper reports to faculty who, I think it can safely be assumed, do not go out of their way to waste paper. And if some students are engaged in egregious, unjustified overuse of paper, why not simply charge them a modest sum for exceeding their monthly quota? (The net savings to the College might – who knows? – result in a slightly smaller tuition increase for the following year, unless it is swallowed up by the appointment of yet another associate dean for some politically correct cause.)

We are bombarded regularly, on campus and off, with an endless stream of often fact-free political propagandizing, regarding issues of race, gender, or even (per AOC) the destruction of the Earth within a dozen years owing to the supposed dangers of climate change. Please, let’s not add to it. Whether it’s printed on paper or not, such propagandizing causes infinitely more harm than wasting paper does.

In Support of Priestly Celibacy

Not long ago, an article was published in The Spire about the abuse scandals surrounding the Catholic Church which included some suggestions for reform within the Church. As with most of the suggestions from ignorant college students, most of them were discernible by any thinking Catholic as radical and intrinsically wrong (i.e women priests). That being said, there was one suggestion that continues to be controversial within the Church and can indeed be changed: the requirement of priestly celibacy. Various groups of Bishops have discussed this topic recently, and in the Byzantine rite, it is indeed allowed. However, just because something can be changed does not mean that it ought to be changed, and when it comes to question of marriage for secular priests, the answer ought to remain the ideal: priests should stay celibate. As Russell Kirk said, if we want to make real just change within society, we must look back to “custom, convention, constitution, and prescription.” We must examine the history of the Church on this issue and above all the reason for this particular custom, this tradition of our Church.

When it comes to the history of priestly celibacy, an objector to it is always inclined to point to the fact that some of the Apostles were married, and that in the early Church there were plenty of married clergy. One can skip over the question of the Apostles, as they can easily be viewed as an exception due to their being part of the establishment of the Church. In terms of the other married clergy, as the Vatican will tell you, “one has to desist, when faced with this incontrovertible fact, from assuming that this necessarily excluded the co-existence of an obligatory celibacy discipline.” In reality, the Church had clerical celibacy even in the patristic era. “The first legislative expression of this is found in the eastern councils of Ancyra (314), c. 10, and Neocaesarea (ca. 314-325), c. 1, for deacons and priests respectively.” The prohibition “is clearly expressed in the Apostolic Constitutions and Apostolic Canons of the late fourth century.” Furthermore, “Canon 14 of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451) likewise endorses this discipline...and it is found in other documents of the fifth and subsequent centuries which consider the practice to be an ancient and timeless tradition” (emphasis added). From these examples and countless more from the early Church, it is clear that, at least on paper, priestly celibacy was a recognized tradition of the Church. As recent times have shown us, while some priests may disobey laws of the Church, nevertheless the laws themselves remain valid.

Since a foundation has been established from the early Church for priestly celibacy, one must now look to see if the long held tradition is itself valid by examining the pros and cons. The main reason for priestly celibacy is the attachment that marriage brings at the expense of the type of spiritual life that a priest requires. This is because of the sexual, familial, and financial obligations of marriage. For the sexual component, as Saint Augustine writes, “Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of man downwards as the caress of a woman and that physical intercourse which is part of marriage.” This is of course not to suggest that sex in itself is inherently evil, or that married people cannot be highly devote. Marriage is a beautiful sacrament that shows the beauty of the Trinity through its love, but a married man cannot love and serve God with the same devotion that a celibate priest can, for he has a strong earthly attachment to his wife that a priest ought not to have to anything of this earth, but to God and the spiritual life alone. As for familial obligations, the priest is required to work incredibly long hours, including working on holidays, and is bound to have little time for his children or for his wife. To give an idea, the priest is required to say Mass everyday as well as attend the Sacrament, say the Divine Office, teach classes or run a parish, and do spiritual direction. For a married priest, there is bound to be strife between the priest’s hereditary children and his spiritual children, for a good priest is a father to many within his flock. Financially, a priest will find it extraordinarily difficult to support a family with his salary, especially considering that Catholic families tend to have a large families. With all of this in mind, it is likely that a married priest will be conflicted in his obligations to his wife and those to God, will have severe familial problems, and will struggle financially, all of which are bound to show in his preaching and in his saving of souls to the detriment of his flock.

In conclusion, there is much talk today about radical reforms within the Church that are meant to go against long standing tradition in favor of supposed “progress”. But change is not necessarily improvement, and is often a derailing perversion cloaked with the euphemism of “progress”, an eloquent wolf sneaking into the flock. To quote Henry Ford, “Change is not always progress...A fever of newness has everywhere been confused with the spirit of progress.” When one looks at most of the problems in the world today, one can usually find the answer to them from old traditions and thought, for our ancestors were far wiser than us. In line with that previously mentioned Spire writer, I will do my own suggestions for reform in the Church. The Church ought to return to its traditions and roots by proclaiming with more fervor and boldness its sacred doctrines, especially the ones that even many Catholics do not think about or practice. Specifically, the Church ought to focus on countering this perverted and sexually disordered society by proclaiming far and wide the Word of God, and clinging hard to the principles of Natural Law, as expressed by those such as the Angelic Doctor Saint Thomas Aquinas, for there are few greater sources than these. In any case, traditional Catholics need not worry about ridiculously radical reforms (i.e women priests), for as Christ said about His Church, “...the gates of Hell shall not prevail.”

In the Name of Freedom