An Interview with Bishop Robert McManus

A few weeks ago, Co-Editor-in-Chief Jack Rosenwinkel ’21 interviewed Bishop Robert McManus, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Worcester. They discussed everything from McManus’s own background to what it means for Holy Cross to be an authentically Catholic school. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Questions are in bold; everything else is Bishop McManus.  

Bishop McManus was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. He entered high school seminary at the age of 14, studied philosophy as a Basselin Scholar at the Catholic University of America, and was ordained a priest in 1978. He has a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. In 1998, he became the rector of Providence’s seminary, and later that year, he was ordained a bishop. He has led the Diocese of Worcester since 2004. 

Do you like being a bishop? 

I accepted the role of bishop because that’s what the Church wanted me to do. I’d never thought about being a bishop. Unfortunately, it’s been a very difficult time in the life of the Church. I’ve been a bishop for 20 years, and for 17 of those, I’ve been dealing with the sexual abuse situation, which is absolutely a scourge. So, there’s many joys. Many, many joys, and I thank God for the gift and the responsibility of being a bishop, but the present context, in the last 17 years, it’s been a cross. But I think that’s God’s providence, because he chose me to be a Bishop and he gives me the graces I need everyday. It’s just amazing the source of strength one gets from meeting people throughout the diocese who are praying for me. If I didn’t have the prayers, I’d be in a mental institution. So it’s been a gift, it’s been a joy, but I’ll be frank in saying that there have been many moments of great suffering. 

Going off that… with the abuse crisis and increasing animosity towards Catholicism, your job has probably gotten a lot harder.

The greatest hurt for a bishop and a parish priest is two-fold. It’s secularism, and then a lot of the mistakes we made in the renewal of the Church after the Second Vatican Council… those two things have decimated the population in terms of practice of the faith. 

But I would say it’s a big church and there’s room for everybody as long as you want to be authentically Catholic. That’s what it’s all about. And that’s another difficulty I have. You see it so often with Catholics in public life, especially among Catholic public officials. What’s going on here in Massachusetts is a prime example of this. The mayors of Massachusetts just stood up at a press conference in front of the State House and publicly proclaimed their support for this Roe Act, which promotes abortion. Those Catholic politicians have to realize that by taking a public, pro-abortion stance, they jeopardize their relationship to the Catholic Church. They are, in some level, involved with a very, very grave evil. It’s a type of apostasy. 

It’s also very upsetting when Catholic institutions claim to be Catholic but have squandered their Catholic identity. Those are some of the biggest hurts. To see the beauty of the faith either being watered down, or set aside, or actually being repudiated by people who still claim they want to be Catholics. But they can’t have it both ways. 

What does it mean for a college to call itself Catholic? 

Well, first of all, any Catholic institution can only be called Catholic by the endorsement of the local bishop. The local bishop grants the title of Catholic identity to a local institution, and for very, very serious reasons, could withdraw that Catholic label. 

What fundamentally makes Catholic colleges Catholic is that they have to be completely and unambiguously supportive of promoting, fostering, and furthering the great Catholic intellectual tradition, which spans from Jerusalem right to the present moment. Just look at the 13th century. you had St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great—these great intellectuals. 

We had two magnificent pontificates with John Paul II and Pope Benedict, which I think was a great moment in the Church’s intellectual tradition. With then with Cardinal Newman’s canonization, we have to stand back and realize that this man—hopefully, someday a Doctor of the Church—has so articulately contributed to the Catholic intellectual tradition. These are the things that a Catholic college or university has to be rooted in. 

I think fundamentally, you do that by hiring for mission. You only hire people—even if they’re not Catholic—that thoroughly and authentically commit themselves to supporting the mission. The Catholic identity of a college is completely tied up with the mission, and if we don’t get the mission straight, the identity is going to be undercut. When you don’t hire for mission, you get off the track. Once you get off the track, it’s hard to get off the track, because of tenure. Once you have a tenured professor who’s off the tracks, you have a big problem. There’s very little you can do administratively in that situation. 

 How do we balance the belief in objective truth and the Catholic intellectual tradition with academic freedom?

Well, it’s very well established in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, by John Paul II. He’s very clear in that document. In 2008, Pope Benedict came to the United States and gave a talk at Catholic University to Catholic educators—from university presidents to elementary school teachers. He talked about academic freedom the way Ex Corde speaks about it, which is to say that a university cannot be a university without academic freedom, but within certain parameters. In some instances, what academic freedom means at Harvard University, or Berkley in California, that type of academic freedom cannot be exercised at a Catholic university, especially in the fields of theological education. Because we are a dogmatic Church, a Church with a whole doctrinal tradition. 

As a result, theology is faith seeking understanding. The theological tradition moves forward, but always within the confines of the dogmatic tradition of the Church. There certainly can be a development—Newman makes that clear, and we see it in the Second Vatican Council—but there cannot be theological rupture in the tradition, what Benedict XVI called “a hermeneutic of discontinuity.” We saw this after Vatican II. The mandate of the Council was to bring the tradition forward, but we saw some theologians—and I don’t say it was done with any ill will—actually get off the Catholic rails. 

What advice would you give to a student who is in a class, particularly a religious studies class, where they feel like the professor has gotten a little off the rails?

If a student hears something in class that he or she knows is not the teaching of the Church, and if it’s being propagated in a... theological… what do they call it? 

Religious studies. 

I know, they try to make the distinction between theology and religious studies. Well, fine, make the distinction, but the reality is, it’s a Catholic college, and if you hear something that is contrary to the faith, I think students have a right to put their hand up and respectfully challenge that particular position. Then, they should ask to see the professor—again, in a very respectful and civil way—and raise their objections.  

You don’t have to be Catholic to go to a Catholic college, but I think when you go to a Catholic college, or a college that claims to be Catholic and strives to be authentically Catholic, then you’re going to be introduced to the great Catholic intellectual tradition, which may be very contrary to some of the tenets of religion that a non-Catholic student may have. 

That is why Ex Corde Ecclesiae says very clearly that a majority of the professors at a Catholic college should be Roman Catholic. I would go a little bit further and say they don’t just need to be Roman Catholics; they have to be Roman Catholics who are committed to the Catholic intellectual tradition. A college is a place where intellectual conversations go on all the time, but what I am finding is, in some quarters, some people who argue in the name of diversity, or argue for tolerance, are unfortunately very intolerant of positions that do not square with them. And if you disagree with them, it’s hate speech. I just find it very intellectually unsettling that this plea for diversity and tolerance often does not play out from their point of view. 

Over the years, there have been moments when Holy Cross has been at the center of this debate about what defines a school’s Catholic identity. How do you feel like the school has handled some of these incidents? 

I’ve been here 15 years, and I think the college has sometimes handled things very appropriately, and sometimes less so. A couple years ago, when had this controversy over Benny Liew, I was just completely disappointed in the reaction of the College. He shouldn’t have been hired. He shouldn’t still be hired. I don’t think he should be teaching in a Catholic college. He’s still there though. 

And then last May, I was upset too. I happened to give a talk up at the Cross for a group of physicians and nurses who are very attached to the Divine Mercy spirituality. I gave on a talk on the Church’s moral concerns about transgenderism. I was very forthright. I never named anyone, never named any colleges, never named faculties… well, there’s an article done in the paper, and I’m being criticized by the chief administrators at the college, saying that my speech was hate speech. 

That’s ridiculous! It’s just crazy. These days, I’m less than certain that the Catholic identity of Holy Cross is strong. I’m very concerned. 

Does that put Holy Cross’s official Catholic status in jeopardy?

Well, a bishop can remove the Catholic title, but I would rather dialogue with the school. But when it’s cut off by saying, “We don’t want you here on campus,” well, give me a break. 

So what do you do? How do you have dialogue if the other side refuses or just says it’s hate speech? 

You just have to pray for some type of conversion. It seems to me that when people want to cut off dialogue with these subjective arguments, basically they’re saying, “Well, you’ve hurt my feelings.” And that’s the end of an intellectual conversation, because it’s not about feelings. It’s about truth. It’s difficult. 

 My concern is, and I’ve said this to Fr. Boroughs, every Catholic kid and Catholic faculty member on that campus is part of my pastoral responsibility, and if I think something is being said or taught that I find dangerous to the faith, then before God I have a responsibility to speak up, and not only at Holy Cross. When people are on campus, they are part of the Church here in Worcester. And I take that seriously. 

 When young people are at Catholic institutions, they have absolutely every right to be introduced to authentic Catholicism, not a watered-down version of it.  

 Do you have any final parting words for Holy Cross Students?

Don’t settle for what George Weigel calls, “Lite Catholicism.” Young people want the real McCoy. By your example, your enthusiasm, your practice of the faith… it catches on. When my younger brother graduated college, we moved to Grand Rapids, and he had a roommate. One of the first weekends they were together, my brother gets up and gets dressed to go out. And the roommate goes, “Where are you going?”

My brother says, “Mass.”

“You’re going to Mass?”

 My brother goes. Three weeks later, the guy gets up and goes, “I think I’m gonna go to Mass with you.” And he came back to practicing the faith.

You people have a lot of responsibility. But it’s all about prayer. Prayer and living an authentically Catholic life, praying for the conversion of souls. But I ask you all to pray for me, and I pray for the College every day. 

Social Phenomena, Public Intellectual, Model of Christian Living? What Evangelical-Minded Catholics Can Learn from Jordan Peterson

Once upon a time, a Canadian psychology professor publicly denounced a bill that he thought to be an intrusion on free speech, and the ensuing controversy caused a media firestorm. Since then, the spotlight has never left him. That professor, Jordan Peterson, is a sort of modern sage, a mouthpiece of ancient wisdom commenting on the plight of modernity. The popularity of Peterson’s latest book (it sold over three million copies) shows that Peterson’s blend of philosophy, religion, and science is striking a nerve. 

I find the buzz that surrounds Jordan Peterson particularly exciting. His popularity reveals that our culture is grappling with big questions and is unsatisfied with quick answers and shallow ideologies. I am not going to attempt to summarize Peterson’s metaphysical worldview. Instead, my goal is to invite fellow Catholics to seriously explore his work and engage with his thinking, because if the Peterson phenomena shows anything, it’s that the world, if approached correctly, is ripe for conversion. Because of this, I believe Catholics can look to Peterson for insights on how to evangelize the present culture.

So what can Catholics learn from Peterson?

First, Peterson shows that Catholics must contend with the greatest minds and influencers of our time. Peterson does this through his engagement with Freud, Jung, Nietzsche, and Frankl—thinkers that modern, secular culture takes very seriously, but Catholics often write off. Catholics need to engage these thinkers; after all, evangelization relies on the ability to externally dialogue with the ideas of thinkers outside the Church. Today, the Church needs figures like Newman, who wrestled with the Enlightenment philosophers Hume and Locke; Thomas who baptized Aristotle's naturalism; Augustine, who engaged with the Neo-Platonists; and Paul who preached at the Areopagus. The Church must show outsiders that it not only understands popular modern thought, but that it also stands as a prophetic voice calling for something greater than modern thought. By engaging with Peterson, as well as the secular thinkers he draws from, Catholic intellectuals can open doors to evangelization.

The next lesson Catholics can learn from Peterson is authenticity. This comes in two forms.

First Catholics have to stop dumbing down doctrine simply because they think that watered-down Catholicism will be more popular. Peterson doesn't avoid hard ideas; instead, his lectures tie together an array of disciplines and are often over two hours long. The Church must do the same; it must stop thinking that people are stupid, that they can only handle a ten-minute sermon. In an educated and interconnected world, the Church doesn't stand a chance if it doesn't begin to ask more of its people intellectually. Most Catholics have a minimal grasp of the faith, the Bible, and Church history, leaving even the most devout unable to evangelize an educated modern audience. As evidenced by the Peterson phenomena, as well as the astounding number of young Catholics that stop practicing by the time they get to university, if the Church isn't an authoritative source of articulated truth, people will go elsewhere. Rather than settling for an elementary understanding, the Church must press her faithful towards intellectual contemplation.

Peterson can also help the Church be more authentic by enabling us to admit, like him, that we are seekers. Peterson readily admits the limits of his knowledge and, importantly, leads him to ask questions, wonder, and contemplate. As evangelists, we should never put on the façade that we have all the answers and dismiss new findings— for example, not pursuing a new philosophical understanding on the basis that Thomas Aquinas already answered everything in his Summa. The inquisitive Angelic Doctor would be ashamed of such close-minded thinking, and there are few things more unattractive to would-be converts.

Catholics must be informed, know the Truth, and be able to articulate it. However, the faith teaches that the Truth is a person, not a set of written ideas or ideological positions. Given that we can't even fully understand ourselves, how much more impossible is it to wrap our minds around the person of Truth? From this, in the back of every Catholic’s mind must be the words of Augustine: Si comprehendis, non est Deus—if you understand, it is not God.

Embracing mystery is key to evangelization. For seekers, there's something utterly attractive in this; evangelists must be co-seekers as part of their ongoing conversion, we cannot convert a culture that we refuse to learn about or learn from.

Lastly, Peterson boldly calls people to conversion. His message reminds people of their potential and how far they are from living up to it; calling out the mediocrity, nihilism, relativism, and expediency of modern western culture, he readily reminds those he lectures that their lives are full of suffering and their hearts are full of malevolence. Catholics are aligned with Peterson on this. We agree that there is a problem—what Pope Francis calls the 'culture of death.' Peterson boldly calls for change. In comparison, I think the Catholic Church is not demanding enough of its people. This is a massive impediment to evangelization.

Consider the "product" the Church offers: the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. If the Church fails to call out the sinfulness of the world, the world has no reason to turn to the Church for a solution. The Church must remind the world that its problems are not political, racial, or environmental—those are the wrong levels of analysis. Instead, it is the evil (sin) that lives within the heart of the individual. Peterson understands this and calls it like it is. Without proclaiming that the world has a problem, evangelization and conversion become, at best, an offer to join a weird club and, at worst, a means of oppressive influence (as post-moderns never fail to remind Catholics).

For many today, Peterson is the lone voice crying out in the wilderness, reminding his listeners that the lives they are living are not okay. People want to hear that they are not as good as they could be. Whether Peterson knows it or not, that's the Church's line—the call to Sainthood.

Catholics can (and should) learn a great deal from Peterson. That said, Peterson is not a Catholic. While we can seek what is valid and enriching in what he teaches, we must resist the temptation to totalize his philosophy as a sort of elixir of life that can explain everything. Much like the Catholic Platonist must resist the temptation to dismiss the body and the Catholic scientist, a kind of reductive scientism that negates spiritual reality, within Peterson, there is a tendency to reduce religion into a discipline for psychological well-being. This is the influence of the psychoanalytic-existential tradition that sees faith as a sort of logotherapy aimed at relieving suffering and making life meaningful. Interestingly, this tradition—religion as logotherapy—has long gripped western Catholicism, and in some way, through reading Peterson, Catholics can be made aware of this and work to avoid such temptation.

Catholics must walk a narrow path, wrestling with both God and man. As one can see, engaging the world is a real threat to one's faith, but so is refusing to participate. To use Our Lord's candle analogy, we must not be so bold in adapting to the times as to expose our flame to winds that might blow it out. So too, however, we must not be so reserved, so focused on merely preserving, as to risk smothering our flame. A flame needs both air and wax—the flowing breeze of the modern-day, finding warmth and light in exposure to Eternal Truth.

A Recipe for Division: Mixing Politics and Mass

As the old saying goes, “Never discuss politics or religion in polite company.” This is not to say religion and politics are to go unheard, but rather that discussing these subjects require a sort of rational delicacy and a consciousness of one’s surroundings. Both being essential parts of the human experience, religion and politics should, indeed must, be debated. Why this saying bears truth, however, is because of the incredible divisiveness in both subjects. However, sometimes religion or politics are endemic to certain situations. The campaign trail requires political dialogue, and a Catholic Mass is (and this should be no surprise to anyone) by its very nature religious. The question becomes what the relation between religion and politics should be when the two are mixed. In this article, I intend to make the case for why, in a Mass setting, overt partisan politics must be avoided. To put a slight twist on the classic maxim, “Never discuss religion and politics as one during Mass.” A core part of the  Catholic Church’s mission is to create a community of believers in the Catholic faith, and community requires a sense of belonging and being welcome. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the faithful come into communion with both Christ and the Catholic community. Particularly in the political environment of today, infusing partisan politics into a Mass serves only to divide that community.

Politics and Mass most commonly mix during the preacher’s homily. In an interview with The Fenwick Review, Fr. James Flynn of St. Matthew’s Parish in Southborough, Massachusetts, explained that a homily is meant to remind parishioners of the teachings of Christ, and to provide a thought evoking analysis of the Word of God as per Sacred Scripture. Homilies should certainly address the issues of the day, but should do in a non-partisan manner, and merely attempt to find what Christ would say. Fr. Flynn also explained that the homily is not a place for the preacher to attempt to provide his personal interpretation of Sacred Scripture. The responsibility of scriptural interpretation lies with the magisterium of the Catholic Church alone. Homilies are not simple stories, and require careful consideration by the preacher, for they are teaching laypeople about the Word of God. To try to frame that in a partisan political manner puts an unwarranted restraint on the teaching of the Lord. God is not bound by the fickle nature of earthly politics, and to posit that He would support a particular point of abstract political policy is simply ridiculous. 

In understanding what a homily is supposed to be, it can now be explained why one infused with politics is so incredibly harmful. Politics by its very nature is divisive. In the political environment of today, one would be hard-pressed to find a political issue that is widely agreed upon. Given this environment, it should hardly be surprising that bringing politics into Mass is a bad idea. The House of God should be reserved for the worship of God alone, not the preaching of the petty politics of the Earthly City. As Fr. Flynn explains, when this occurs, it is the inevitable result that people in the community of worshipers will be alienated. This runs completely contrary to a core mission of the Catholic Church: the unity of believers. The Church has a responsibility to carry out God’s will for One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and it is a failure of the preacher when that unity is unnecessarily undermined. 

It is worth delving deeper into what it is meant by ‘politics,’ because the necessity of its exclusion from Mass is not absolute. There are two kinds of political policy - one that serves as the only means of resolving an issue, what I will call direct policy, and one that is among many proposed ways of solving a problem, what I will refer to as indirect policy. When Catholic doctrine is explicitly opposed to a certain situation that involves a direct policy solution, the preacher has every right (and responsibility) to make that clear. Abortion can be categorized among these kinds of issues. The Church is categorically against the taking of an innocent human life, and there are no questions on that front. Additionally, there are no other options to avoid the killing of a child aside from a strictly anti-abortion stance. There is simply no alternative policy ground to stand on. Given this, the preacher is in the right to proclaim the inherent evil in the practice of abortion, and the need for its restriction. By contrast, for an issue like poverty, there are a plethora of proposed policy solutions. This would be an example of indirect policy. There are many streams of political theory on how to mitigate poverty, ranging from increased freedom in the market to an increase in government support. It is in a situation like this that the preacher has the responsibility to avoid pushing a particular policy point. He does not have the authority to dictate which policy path God would desire, and for him to do so would be tantamount to presuming to know the Will of God. One could say that the preacher is merely suggesting a solution, but this is not necessarily the case. In his role as pastor, he has a particular religious authority, and this authority includes a responsibility not to abuse it. There are few issues that fall into the category of direct policy, and many that fall under indirect policy, and it is in the latter that preachers most often get into trouble. This is not to say that the preacher should not address an issue that involves indirect policy, he should. In addressing it, he should explain the result that we can determine is God’s Will according to Sacred Scripture, and that we should move towards that end. On the issue of climate change, for example, the preacher certainly has a duty to advocate for the protection of God’s creation, but he should not do so in the context of a particular policy solution, for that (being indirect policy) should be left to the temporal world of politics. In following these guidelines, the preacher can best serve his flock. His goal should be the continued unity of the Catholic Church, and that can not be achieved if the congregation is unnecessarily divided on grounds of temporal politics. 

Participation in a Catholic Mass (or any Christian religious ceremony) should be a time for unity in the Light of God. Partisan politics only serves to artificially break this unity. The preacher has the ultimate responsibility to guide his parish to being disciples of Jesus and evangelists of the Church. While this may at times include political elements, the preacher has the added duty to refrain from unnecessarily divisive rhetoric. The best practice for a preacher when walking into the dangerous realm of politics is simply to urge the faithful to form their own opinions in light of God’s teaching. If Sacred Scripture is taught properly, the faithful should be more than capable of coming to a conclusion without the need for partisan preaching.

The Death of Liberty

Joy to My Youth: The Value of the Traditional Latin Mass

A lot of people seem to be under the impression that, before the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church was cold, barren, and excessively rigid. The Council, people think, represented an “enlightenment” that brought the Church’s teachings up to date and into the modern era. However, if we look closely at the pre-Conciliar Church, we discover that Catholicism had vibrant traditions and rich expressions of faith long before Vatican II. Nowhere is this hidden beauty better encapsulated than in the Traditional Latin Mass.

The Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) is the lost crown jewel of the Church, representing almost 2,000 years of continuous liturgy. Forms of the TLM have been around since the early days of the Church. It was formally codified by Pope St. Pius V in 1570, and the TLM continues to thrive into the present. And yet, among many Catholics, the TLM can be a source of discomfort and division. But why? If anything, TLM is a powerful and ancient tradition that has something valuable to offer the whole Church. 

As previously stated, the TLM represents timeless liturgy at its finest. The TLM is the Mass of our forefathers, the Mass in which the Saints were formed. It is the Mass of Bishop Fenwick, founder of Holy Cross, and of St. Ignatius Loyola. In seeking to follow in the footsteps of those who have come before us, what better method could there be than to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as it was in their time?

A criticism often leveled against the TLM is the barrier that is posed by the language, but this argument is flawed on a number of levels. For one, if one attends Mass in a foreign country, the Mass would be offered in a foreign language. Would this prove a barrier to one’s participation? Perhaps. But as a universal sacrifice, the Mass serves to bridge such minute barriers as language. The understanding of the sacrifice that is occurring on the altar, the focus and climax of the Mass, requires no translation. And as a matter of joining differing communities, the TLM is especially powerful in its use of Latin. Strangers are brought together by a shared sacred language, the language of the Church, and part of the common cloth of faith that unites us. Furthermore, for purposes of practicality, Latin-English missals are easily accessible through the internet.

The TLM is also unique in its liturgical construction, with each element of the Mass carefully constructed to give glory to the Triune God. The nine verses of the Kyrie represent the nine choirs of angels. The prayers prior to the reading of the Gospel recall the prophets of old and ask God’s assistance in worthily proclaiming his word. The prayers of the offertory emphasize that the Mass is a re-presentation of the sacrifice at Calvary, rather than merely a communal meal. The ringing of bells and lifting of the priest’s chasuble symbolize the radiation of God’s power as the consecration takes place. The three-fold (rather than singular) statement of “Lord, I am not worthy…” gives exceptional emphasis of the inherent unworthiness of mankind, yet exemplifies God’s love for us that he allows us to approach. Even the orientation of the priest, ad orientem (“to the east”), acting to lead the people toward God instead of merely making them the center of the Mass, has inherent symbolic virtue. Though it is possible to celebrate the Novus Ordo (the “New Mass”) ad orientem, this rarely happens. So many beautiful components of the TLM are completely absent in the New Mass. 

Aside from symbolism, critical practices in the TLM related to the Eucharist illustrate the true presence of Christ in the holy sacrifice, serving to cultivate greater respect for the Lord as sacrament. After the consecration, the priest keeps his fingers together until the ablutions to avoid scattering precious particles. Reception of communion while kneeling acknowledges Christ’s nature as the sovereign king of all, and thus brings communicants to approach him in a manner befitting of this status. With only one third of US Catholics holding a belief in the true presence, according to Pew Research, perhaps the proliferation of the TLM would stand to fortify this critical dogma.

Critically, young adults as a demographic have been shown to be particularly drawn to the TLM. According to Matthew Schmitz of the Catholic Herald, “young traditionalists are competing against old progressives.” Schmitz adds that “many young Catholics feel that they have been denied an inheritance that was rightfully theirs,” and thus have searched for and found that missing birthright in the TLM. The TLM itself seems particularly to beckon the young. For those in the Holy Cross community‒a community almost exclusively made up of young adults–seeking a reverent, timeless liturgy, I posit that the TLM is precisely what you are looking for, and thus extend the invitation to go unto the altar of the Lord, to God who gives joy to our youth.

Letter from the Editors: September 2019

Dear Reader, 

Thank you for picking up the first edition of The Fenwick Review of the 2019-2020 academic year! 

This is an exciting time for The Fenwick Review. It’s the beginning of a new school year — and that means new classes, and a wave of new students. We’re also rolling out a new layout, making some staff changes (one of last year’s editors-in-chief, Michael Raheb, is now Editor Emeritus), and hopefully recruiting some new writers.

The excitement is not limited to what’s happening on the Hill. The 2020 presidential campaign season is officially underway, and so far, it’s been wildly entertaining (yes, Marianne, we’re looking at you). We’re looking forward to bringing you quality pieces about the candidates, the debates, and the issues that matter. But the election is just the tip of the iceberg. In many ways, our culture—on campus, throughout our country, and in the Church—is facing a major turning point. We’re grappling with issues like gun violence, immigration, and sexual misconduct. Dialogue is becoming more difficult, censorship more rampant, and polarization more prevalent. In this climate, we believe the work we do at the Review is even more crucial, which is why we’re so excited about the beginning of this new year and this new chapter. 

This edition is just a hint at what’s to come. You’ll find articles about Catholic and conservative culture, a look at chapel architecture, coverage of former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, a theological discussion on women’s ordination, an analysis of the abortion debate, and a take on President Trump’s reelection bid. We don’t expect you to agree with everything you’ll find, but it’s our hope that these articles challenge you, make you think critically, and inspire you to pursue truth, goodness, and beauty. 

Seamus Brennan ’20 & Jack Rosenwinkel ’21

Co-Editors-in-Chief

Contextualizing the Conservative Movement

The past several months have been nothing short of amusing for those of us on the right side of the aisle.   With each passing day, the fragmentation afflicting the Democrat party becomes more apparent, the sheer absurdity of their policy proposals becomes more impossible to ignore, and the apparent race to the left in which most remaining presidential candidates appear to be engaged amplifies the case for their un-electability.  The Democrat party and progressive movement more broadly are suffering from severe disintegration, and with it, a growing ineffectiveness of their ambitions, uncertainty of their values, and crisis of their identity.  As gratifying as the self-destructive ‘let’s decriminalize illegal border crossings’ and ‘partial birth abortion is a human right’ talk has become, conservatives ought not lose sight of their own movement and the frictions it faces.

Our movement faces one key contention that has yet to be fully reconciled and carries along with it significant implications for our future.  This dispute can best be recapitulated by last spring’s quarrel between Sohrab Ahmari of the New York Post and David French, senior writer at the National Review.

In his conspicuously titled May 2019 First Things piece “Against David French-ism,” Sohrab Ahmari, op-ed editor of the New York Post, tirades against what he calls “David French-ism,” or the “earnest and insistently polite quality” that he finds “unsuitable to the depth of the present crisis facing religious conservatives.”  Prompted into writing the piece by an online advertisement for a “children’s drag queen reading hour” at a public library in Sacramento, Ahamri contends that figures like French have resorted to excessive politeness and disproportionate civility when engaging in cultural and political battles – a strategy that has left the conservative movement weakened, frail, and subordinate to the ever-growing cultural prowess of the progressive left.  Ahmari argues that such “politeness” is wholly insufficient in combatting the bully-like tactics of the modern left and in achieving his own ultimate political objective, which is to “fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good.”  ‘David French-ism’ purportedly prioritizes individual autonomy above all else, which Ahmari claims has led to a self-exacerbating cycle of powerlessness for conservatives.  French’s so-called inclinations towards “sentimentalization” and his “idle wish that all men become moral” amount to what Ahmari describes as “an almost supernatural faith in something called ‘culture’—deemed to be neutral and apolitical and impervious to policy—to solve everything.”

Unrestricted faith in individual autonomy – something Ahmari implies to be a byproduct of French’s classical liberalism – will inevitably lead to libertinism, in which cultural values are gradually “depoliticized” and become engrained in the social fabric that is already dominated by progressive ideas.  Ahmari goes as far as to imply that government intervention might be necessary to prevent the spread of this “depoliticized politics” and the demise of conservative values.  “Progressives,” he concludes,

understand that culture war means discrediting their opponents and weakening or destroying their institutions. Conservatives should approach the culture war with a similar realism. Civility and decency are secondary values. They regulate compliance with an established order and orthodoxy. We should seek to use these values to enforce our order and our orthodoxy, not pretend that they could ever be neutral. To recognize that enmity is real is its own kind of moral duty.

French punched back the following day with an adamant defense of his brand of conservatism and classical liberal values: the “two main components” of his worldview, he writes, are “zealous defense of the classical-liberal order” and “zealous advocacy of fundamentally Christian and Burkean conservative principles.”  Conservatives’ defense of such values should “be conducted in accordance with scriptural admonitions to love your enemies, to bless those who persecute you,” and being “kind to everyone,” regardless of how hostile or otherwise antagonistic our adversaries may be.  French maintains that “America will always be a nation of competing worldviews and competing, deeply held values” and defends “neutral spaces” as essential for American life.  “There is no political ‘emergency,’” he concludes, “that justifies abandoning classical liberalism, and there will never be a temporal emergency that justifies rejecting the eternal truth.”

This quarrel is representative of a growing intellectual gap that seems to be taking shape on the right, and presents a crucial set of questions we cannot simply set aside – even in spite of the minor rifts it has afflicted onto our movement.  While both Ahmari and French present insightful, well-considered, and valuable ideas and approaches, the best solution lies, as with much else this world, somewhere in the middle.

French’s political objective is, plain and simple, the correct one.  Should we ever opt to forsake our classical liberal tradition in favor of a centralized, quasi-theocratic government that aims to “weaken” and “destroy” any institutions and ideas that conservatives don’t like, we would be annihilating the very premises Ahmari defends and the very foundations upon which the conservative movement rests.  If conservatives aren’t fighting tooth and nail for a pluralistic society that treasures liberty and cherishes each and every man’s right to speak freely, no matter how egregious their ideas might be, we may as well not be fighting for anything at all.

Moreover, “civility and decency” should never become “secondary values,” and Ahmari’s suggestion that they ought to be overtly contradicts his self-described objective of reaching the religiously affiliated “Highest Good.”  As French correctly observes, our political opponents are our fellow citizens.   We can’t preserve Christian values and bolster Christianity’s role in society by discarding fundamental Christian behavior; a God-centered culture cannot be cultivated through godless character and un-Christlike conduct.

What French fails to understand, however, is that the American moral consensus that once permitted truly “neutral” cultural zones has been utterly obliterated.  It has collapsed on its head, and its remnants are, day by day, being eradicated in similar fashion.  We no longer live in an America that recognizes the value of a pluralistic society concerned with the virtues of classical liberalism.  That America has been discreetly but forcefully replaced by a progressive cultural tyranny that does, in fact, set out to “weaken” and “destroy” conservative ideas, institutions, and individuals.  The ‘French-ian’ conception of America simply no longer exists, and it is naïve and counterproductive to pretend that we are operating within the same cultural framework as in decades past.

The American people no longer share the unity of purpose and commonality of vision they once did, which has bred the divisive, relativistic, and purposeless culture in which we are currently trapped.  As John Adams famously wrote, the Constitution of the United States “was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  An August 2019 Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that values such as patriotism, religion, and belief in God – which were once prized as the most important ideals by the vast majority of Americans – have become not only secondary, but also growing sources of division.  The United States, broadly speaking, is no longer a nation of “moral and religious people.”  The ‘French-ian’ tactics of persistent politeness and anti-confrontational conduct were perfectly fitting for most of our nation’s history, to be sure, and up until recent years, they were the only truly acceptable ways of engaging in political dialogue.  But the progressive left has fundamentally changed the terms of our debates; they have aggressively and uncompromisingly imposed their own cultural will onto the American social fabric with an unforeseen intensity.  The left has already broken the rules.  Coerciveness has already come into play.

One need not look further than Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process to comprehend just how far the progressive movement is willing to go to, as Ahmari accurately notes, to “destroy” anything or anyone that stands in its path.  Cruelty and callousness cannot be responded to with an unwillingness to be combative and confrontational.  Kindness, though always valuable, cannot suffice alone.  Radical progressivism cannot be adequately fought with tameness and complicit agreeability, and if these are our only sources of ammunition, our failure is already imminent.

French is correct in his assessment that culture is the only proper medium through which conservatives should fight back against the ever-tightening clutches of progressivism, but in order to engage in the culture war, we have no choice but to acknowledge that a culture war exists – something French seems unable or unwilling to do.  Nothing is “neutral” anymore, and if we intend to restore some sense of cultural neutrality and reestablish a faith in pluralism, we cannot merely stand on the sidelines preaching the virtues of “decency” while we idly watch our country and our values being violently dismantled and decimated.

Luckily for the conservative movement, no one in politics is better suited to take on the challenges we currently face than President Trump.  The President is a perfect avatar of a brand of conservatism that is in-your-face yet far from repressive, bold yet not imprudent, and unafraid yet not unrestrained.  He stands his ground, never backs down, and refuses to be silenced or intimidated by incessant (and typically outlandish) attacks from Democrats and those in the media.  In fact, the President’s election can (and should) be understood as a direct consequence of the failures that the ‘French-ian’ approach has yielded over the last two decades.

No two politicians embody the tenets of ‘French-ism’ more impeccably than Senators John McCain and Mitt Romney.  With unblemished characters, untarnished personal histories, calm and composed campaigns, and well-mannered demeanors, no one in good faith could question either man’s integrity, fitness for office, or ability to lead our nation.  A case could be made, in fact, that McCain and Romney represented two of the most honorable and morally upright men in American politics.  Nonetheless, Democrats jumped at the chance to disparage McCain as an unfit, war-mongering bigot and Romney as a vicious racist and sexist who sought to objectify women and, in the words of former Vice President Joe Biden, put African Americans “back in chains.”  Each candidate held steadily true to the creed of ‘French-ism.’  Rather than hitting back and holding their own in Trumpian fashion, they continued their campaigns with their attacks uncontested, their demeanors unruffled, and unsurprisingly, their presidential bids unsuccessful.  When we concede our cause to figures like John McCain and Mitt Romney in the current political environment – their respectability of character notwithstanding – we lose, and we lose soundly.

In the age of woke progressivism and search-and-destroy political techniques, ‘David French-ism’ is a recipe for failure, and in November 2016, the American people finally had enough.  Ahmari writes the following of Trump’s election: “With a kind of animal instinct, Trump understood what was missing from mainstream (more or less French-ian) conservatism. His instinct has been to shift the cultural and political mix, ever so slightly, away from autonomy-above-all toward order, continuity, and social cohesion.”  In short, President Trump has become necessary because the left does not play fair, and no one else in politics possesses the sheer audacity to withstand the influx of unsubstantiated cries of ‘racism’ and the orthodoxy of contemporary left-wing politics.  As Thomas D. Klingenstein wrote in a May 2019 Claremont Review piece, President Trump’s “unequivocal defense of America’s way of life is nothing less than extraordinary.”  “Even on the Right,” he continues, “he is virtually alone in making the arguments.”  Conservatives are blessed to have someone in office who fights for our cause without timidity, without remorse, and without backing down.

Conservatives must not be complacent and we must never waver.  Though we should never lose sight of civility and graciousness when we interact with our political foes, proper engagement in the culture wars requires some semblance of a backbone and some willingness to stand up for what we know to be the most superior vision for America and all of its citizens.  All of this is achievable without discounting civility, relying on government coercion, or adopting the left’s bad-faith strategies for ourselves.  We are better than that, and we owe it to our movement, to our country, and to our fellow citizens to approach this important episode in our nation’s history with fearlessness and fortitude, but in a way that doesn’t nullify the values we preach and hold dear.

We must not underestimate the power of words or undervalue our capacity to change hearts and change minds.  The art of persuasion and the free exchange of ideas are cornerstones of American democracy, and even in these politically turbulent times, they ought not be forsaken.  Winning our neighbors over to our point of view is not within the threshold of the federal government.  Rather, that charge lies with each and every one of us.  That charge is our duty as human beings, as Americans, and even on this campus as Crusaders.  That charge, in fact, is the very foundation of this publication, and it is my hope that we continue to advocate for our ideas and our worldview in a way that is combative but caring, fierce but friendly, and daring but diplomatic.   The truth is on our side.  Let’s do right by it.

Catholic Culture and the Sacramental Imagination

The casual reader of Flannery O’Connor might describe her short stories as violent, gloomy, and full of grotesque characters. O’Connor herself would have added another word: Catholic. This might come as a surprise. After all, there are scarcely any Catholic characters or mentions of Catholicism in her stories. Furthermore, O’Connor’s blunt treatment of death and suffering seems out of place in a world where Christian stories all appear forcefully optimistic. And yet O’Connor herself wrote, “I write the way I do because (not though) I am a Catholic.” She’s not the only one. J.R.R. Tolkien insisted that his Lord of the Rings trilogy was also deeply Catholic, despite the fact that his books are devoid of any mention of organized religion. Yet Tolkien, who was raised by a Catholic priest, considered his Catholicism a driving force behind his fiction. 

Both Tolkien and O’Connor—as well as countless musicians, painters, filmmakers, and poets—create art that’s Catholic, not because it’s full of overt Catholicism, but because it’s rooted in a deeply Catholic way of seeing the world. For these creators, Catholicism—with its nuanced understanding of good and evil, its awareness of the fallenness of humanity, and its intense physicality—provides a framework for engaging with—and portraying—reality. By looking at the world from a distinctly Catholic point of view, countless artists have created work that is both deeply and discretely Catholic. George Weigel, in his book Letters to a Young Catholic, refers to this Catholic worldview as “the sacramental imagination.” 

In order to understand the sacramental imagination, we have to first make sense of sacramentality. Sacraments, simply put, are physical signs of God’s grace. In the sacraments, God uses elements like water, oil, and wine to enact the drama of salvation history. Catholicism is deeply sacramental, because it posits that God works through creation—rather than against it. Which is why Catholic churches are often full of stained glass, incense, and statues. These physical objects serve to help people place themselves in God’s presence. But sacramentality, properly understood, isn’t confined to the walls of a church. True sacramentality involves recognizing the ways in which God’s grace is present in the created world, even in the grittiest of places. 

In case this all sounds rather abstract, let’s take a brief look at a concrete example of sacramentality in action: the conversion of Avery Cardinal Dulles. Dulles, who’d been raised Presbyterian, became a committed atheist by the time he was a teenager. One day, while he was a student at Harvard, he went for a walk and spotted a flowering tree on the banks of the Charles River. Suddenly, he was filled with the sense that there was a God who had personally created the world. Dulles later converted to Catholicism, entered the Jesuits, and became a Cardinal. In that moment on the banks of the Charles, the created world revealed something to him about the transcendent. 

Sacramentality changes the way we interact with the world. The realization that God works through physical creation “allows us to experience the world not as one damn thing after another, but as the dramatic arena of creation, sin, redemption, and sanctification” (Weigel, 11-12). Essentially, Catholicism enables a deeply poetic worldview. The meaningless is imbued with meaning. Trees now have the capacity to trigger mystical experiences. God is not a distant concept, but an immanent experience. 

In a sense, this was what St. Ignatius was getting at when he insisted that we try to find God in all things. God isn’t just found in church or on Christian radio stations. He’s in back alleys with addicts, He’s present in broken homes and bad neighborhoods, and He’s alive and at work in the muck of our humanity. 

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned J.R.R. Tolkien and Flannery O’Connor. Why? Because their work is driven by the sacramental imagination. But it isn’t just them, it’s all Catholic culture, and that’s what I want to talk about now—Catholic culture. But before we really get into why Catholic culture is awesome, it’s important to understand how it’s tied to the sacramental imagination. 

For starters, the sacramental imagination shows that something can be Catholic even if it isn’t overtly religious. Why? Because the entire point of sacramentality is that grace is often disguised. Just as someone might look at a host and miss the fact that it’s Jesus’s body, people might miss Tolkien’s heavy reliance on Augustine’s notion of evil. But just because people don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Sacramentality allows Catholics to create culture with a subtle Catholicism. In this way, Catholic culture is awesome, because it isn’t a distinct subculture. It’s not detached from mainstream, American culture. It’s American culture with an intentional Catholic flavor, and it says something about God. Look, for example, at G.K. Chesterton’s fiction. Some of it stars religious characters, but his novel The Man Who Was Thursday expresses profound Catholic ideas without directly engaging religion. 

Because of the often “hidden” nature of Catholicism in Catholic culture, Catholic culture is remarkably distinct from America’s protestant subculture. While America’ protestant subculture is full of Christian rock music, low budget movies, and self-help books, Catholic culture is a direct engagement of questions about humanity, the purpose of our lives, and the nature of God, often in a veiled and incredibly creative way.

The sacramental imagination also demands that Catholic artists reflect something of the human experience as it actually is. Remember: a key feature of sacramentality is that God can work through all aspects of our lives, not just the neat “churchy” parts. It would be problematic, then, for Catholic artists to feel the need to pretend like humanity is less broken than it actually is. Weigel explains why in Letters to a Young Catholic. He points out that when God redeemed the world, He redeemed this world, with all its muck and brokenness. Yet for whatever reason, when many Christians create art, they seem to portray a painfully sanitized version of reality, a world that looks nothing like the world we actually live in. 

But Catholics, writes Weigel, can’t do that. We have a responsibility to find God here. We have to engage “this world, not some other world or some other humanity of our imagining—because God took the world as it is. God didn’t create a different world to redeem” (Weigel, 14-15). A prime example of this is the film series 8beats, a collective of short Catholic films based off the Beatitudes. The film about the beatitude “Blessed are the pure of heart” is about an erotic dancer. Talk about engaging an un-sanitized reality. 

The result is a culture that is at once relevant, transcendent, gritty, and real. Catholic culture doesn’t shy away from the hard topics, nor does it see itself as a refuge from the secularization of society. Instead, Catholic culture is a vehicle of change. It challenges nihilistic worldviews by suggesting that the world is imbued with transcendent meaning, and it uses beauty to communicate objective truths about the human experience. It has a lesson to teach all of us about sacramentality, and it stands as a challenge to artists who want to make art purely for political activism, and not for the sake of beauty. More than anything, Catholic culture engenders a commitment to seeing the world in a deeply Catholic way. That means acknowledging the fact that God works through the material, the mundane, and the messiness of our lives. It also means creating art that engages the world as it is, instead of pretending that we live in a utopia—or that a utopia is even possible. Catholic culture is about saying yes to grace, which often hides in the most unexpected places. 

So if you have a moment, go and appreciate some Catholic culture. You got plenty of stuff to work with: The Lord of the Rings, The Old Man and the Sea, Sagrada Familia, the Dies Irae, the stories of Flannery O’Conner, the poetry of Hopkins, the novels of Waugh, Tolkien, and Greene, the music of Mozart, Rossini, and Haydn (but not Haugen), the art of Michelangelo—

Well, you get the idea.