Letter from the Editors: May 2020

Dear Reader,

Thank you for taking the time to read this edition of The Fenwick Review. We hope that you and your families are doing well, and staying both healthy and sane.

Almost every Letter from the Editors this year referenced the fact that we live in crazy and exciting times. In retrospect, those comments seem funny—even though we anticipated that this would be a wild and surprising year, we never could have imagined that our final issue would be written from quarantine, in the middle of a global pandemic. But that’s just how it goes.

We hope that you enjoy this issue. We have a number of exciting articles, including a review of President Trump’s handling of coronavirus, a discussion of the Easter bombings that took place last year in Sri Lanka, and an explanation of why Catholics use male pronouns for God. We also have a full-length version of an article that was partially published in The Spire, and a reflection on Holy Cross’s identity.

One article in this edition might catch your eye, or at least, raise some eyebrows—Mr. Poellinger’s defense of monarchies. As a publication, we proudly support democratic ideals and the traditional American way of life. At the same time, one of the advantages of living in a free, democratic society is that people, if they feel compelled, can make the case for other forms of government. It is then, perhaps somewhat ironically, that we publish Mr. Poellinger’s article on monarchy precisely because of our democratic ideals and appreciation for our American liberties.

Finally, this edition is the last for both our editor-in-chief, Seamus Brennan, and our editor emeritus, Michael Raheb. They are both graduating this spring, along with several of our staff writers: James Dooley and Justin Lombardi.

Thank you for your support.

Seamus Brennan ’20 & Jack Rosenwinkel ’21

Co-Editors-in-Chief

A Bold Undertaking

Efforts to found the College of the Holy Cross nearly two centuries ago were far from easy. Hurdled by political pushback and widespread anti-Catholic sentiment, Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick – the eventual founder of the College in whose honor this publication is named – was fighting a grimly uphill battle. Because Protestant leaders blocked his plan to establish a Catholic college in Boston, Bishop Fenwick was forced to move westward to Worcester. “Will not this be a bold undertaking?” he wrote as the project finally began to take shape. “Nevertheless I will try it. It will stand on a beautiful eminence & will command the view of the whole town of Worcester.”

The founding of the College of the Holy Cross represents an inspiring commitment to the timeless truths of the Catholic Church and a staunch resistance to the social and religious norms pervading nineteenth century New England: rather than caving to cultural pressures, tiptoeing away from ties to the Church, or forfeiting his own integrity for reasons of cultural or fiscal expediency, Bishop Fenwick stood firm in his ambition and held tight to his values. He was, fittingly, a crusader in the truest sense of the word. Situated atop the soaring Mount Saint James, the College of the Holy Cross symbolized a daring defiance against the prejudices of the surrounding region and wielded a resilient pride in its Catholic roots. Upon its founding, the College was truly, both in its physical placement and in its proud radiance of its Catholic heritage, a shining city on a hill.

Although the campus founded by Bishop Fenwick in 1843 still sits atop that same hill all these years later, the mountain of boldness on which it once stood has been almost entirely dislodged. No longer does the College of the Holy Cross stand as a beacon of resilience or as a radiant espousal of Catholic ideals. Instead of furthering its legacy of going against the societal grain and adhering to the truth rather than complying with the times, the College has become a mere absorber of the ideas and attitudes that surround it. Like far too many other religious and even nonreligious institutions, Holy Cross has sacrificed its institutional integrity and countercultural grit on the altar of secularization, fueled by a misplaced desire for acceptance from the masses.

Of course, no one can blame administrators for seeking to bolster the College’s national reputation beyond northeastern Catholic circles. But doing so should never have come at the cost of its Catholic standing. In attempting to broaden its appeal to a national secular audience, the College has stripped itself of its distinctiveness, and in doing so has reduced itself to just another alternative to the plethora of liberal arts colleges struggling to find ways to stand out. When Catholic education is deprived of Catholicism, it neglects to offer anything that secular education cannot.

Unfortunately, the style of “Catholicism” brandished by Holy Cross in recent decades can hardly be considered dependably “Catholic” at all. It merely reflects the progressive social activist ethos prevalent elsewhere in secular American society, permeated by contemporary sociopolitical norms and almost utterly devoid of the universal truths that serve as a foundation for the faith. Holy Cross in 2020 represents a neutered, wishy-washy Catholicism that elevates so-called “Jesuit” and “Ignatian” “values” over the more decisive Catholic ones — which it has achieved by extracting from the faith only what is culturally acceptable and throwing everything else by the wayside.

Examples of the College’s feeble approach to its faith are not difficult to find. Many student tour guides are outwardly ashamed of St. Joseph Memorial Chapel and the religious statues scattered across campus when speaking with prospective students. Some of the main functions of the Chaplains Office include holding “Ignatian Yoga” (or really “Ignatian” anything) retreats and obnoxiously pandering to special interest groups in ways that do not in any way align with Catholic Church teaching. The chaplains’ version of St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises attempts to parallel Christ’s Passion with something as comparably insignificant as climate change, and presents the Stations of the Cross not via Scripture but through written accounts of refugees. In the two years the Chaplains Office office has been preoccupied with producing climate strike and DACA stickers and hanging rainbow flags anywhere it can, it has also cut the number of on-campus Catholic Masses in half.

Meanwhile, the College’s Religious Studies department directs almost more attention to Islam, Judaism, and other faiths than it does to Catholicism, and even the Catholic-centric offerings that remain have been largely taken over by liberation theology and “sexual justice” courses. The current administration has shown itself time and time again to timidly succumb to angry segments of students with lists of “demands,” leaving the impression that the inmates are running the asylum. Even our own Bishop has been effectively ousted from campus for professing the supposedly bizarre notion men are men and women are women. The on-campus diversity bureaucracy seemingly multiplies by the semester, leaving less and less room for Catholic thought or influence in important campus decisions.

Holy Cross is in crisis. It has allowed itself to be defined by its surroundings rather than even attempting to define itself. Its Catholic roots are seen as impediments rather than as unique and much-needed assets. At this point in time, other than its name and the Catholic symbols visible on campus, the College is essentially indistinguishable from the hundreds of other colleges across the country, many of which are in a similarly desperate search for an identity.

Of course, none of this is to say that there is no room for institutional evolution and growth: the small, all-male campus that existed on Mount Saint James in centuries past needed to take many of the steps it has to grow and succeed today. But by surrendering the philosophy of its founding and conceding its once dearly held values to the whims of an ever-changing society, the College has ceased to be the shining city on a hill it once was. Though it may still command the physical view of the city of Worcester as Bishop Fenwick predicted, the world no longer sees an institution of strength, of faith, or of willpower on that hill. It only sees a reflection of itself, albeit with a disingenuous “Ignatian” slant. Until Holy Cross can reassess its value as an institution and embrace Bishop Fenwick’s spirit of determination – even at the risk of unpopularity – it will never again be anything more than a small liberal arts college on top of a hill with nice-looking buildings in central Massachusetts.

Luckily for Holy Cross, it’s far from too late. At some point, perhaps even in the near future, the College will need to finally make a decision it seems to have been avoiding for so long. Going forward, will the College of the Holy Cross choose to embrace its Catholic history and operate as an authentically Catholic institution? Or will it continue bowing down to what it thinks is trendy and leave its Catholicism behind for good? We can’t keep trying to be everything to everyone. At some point, a decision has to be made: are we Catholic? Or will we allow the surrounding world to tell us who we are?

Restoring authentic Catholicism at Holy Cross should be nothing burdensome or out of reach. Summarizing Pope John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Bishop Robert McManus of the Diocese of Worcester told The Fenwick Review last fall 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 Berkeley 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.” He continued: “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.”

Should the College choose to heed our Bishop’s advice and once again harness the values, fortitude, and vigor that led to its creation, it would again become a force for meaningful change in the world and a leading voice among Catholic colleges and universities. In the summer of 2016, several weeks before fall orientation, the Class of 2020 voted to select a quote from former Holy Cross president Rev. John Brooks, S.J. as its class quote. The quote, printed on the back of class t-shirts, reads: “What we desperately want and strive to achieve at Holy Cross is an education that leads rather than follows.” When Bishop Fenwick overcame all the obstacles set before him to found Holy Cross, he was leading rather than following. And we should too. Though the Holy Cross community, and particularly the Class of 2020, is facing unprecedented alienation and tremendous uncertainty in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, now is perhaps the best time to consider how we want to emerge from isolation and redefine ourselves in the wake of new life and new opportunity. For far too long, Holy Cross has subserviently followed other cultural and academic institutions while failing to confidently pave its own path. Now is the time to recognize the extraordinary advantages of our Catholic heritage and, once more, to become an institution that leads rather than follows.

Will not this be a bold undertaking? Nevertheless we should try it.

Apostles at Home

At the time of this article’s publication, we will have just elapsed the feast of the Apostles Saint Philip and Saint James. The latter of these, James the Lesser (deemed as such solely because he was younger in age than Saint James, the son of Zebedee) is known as the first Bishop of Jerusalem and as the author of the Epistle of James found in the New Testament. His story is of particular interest in how it differed from that of his fellow Apostles. After the Ascension of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Christ’s other Apostles journeyed to the ends of the known world – from what we know as India in the East to Spain in the West, and Ukraine in the North to Ethiopia in the South. Conversely, Saint James remained in Jerusalem, the capital city of his ancestral lands. Though due to the charism of his mission and not a government-mandated quarantine, much like us James, in essence, stayed home.

However, this does not mean he refused the call that all Christians receive to evangelize. On the contrary, it was his specific mission to remain home and evangelize those there who had not yet heard the Good News. Fulfilling this mission, he was eventually martyred, just as all his fellow Apostles, save Saint John. Knowing his call to stay home and subsequent martyrdom, we gleen the necessity of his work on the home front. Though graced by the presence of Christ himself, the people of Judea still rejected Him and had yet to turn towards the Truth. They still needed an Apostle.

At the end of this month, we will celebrate the feast of another great Saint, also known for staying home: Saint Philip Neri (a different Philip from the one sharing the feast day with St. James). Though born in Florence, Rome became his home and the center of his evangelical work. Renowned for his affable and humorous personality, Saint Philip was integral in revitalizing the city’s Catholic populace in the midst of the Reformation. He dedicated his life to driving out the rampant corruption in Rome’s Church and healing the moral poverty of the populace. It was not through fire and brimstone that he found success in his mission, but rather through friendship and simple dialogue with the cities’ inhabitants. In doing so, he founded the Oratorians: a society of priests committed to evangelizing and serving through the same means and example of Philip himself. He has since been dubbed, alongside Saints Peter and Paul, an “Apostle of Rome.”

If you haven’t noticed, we are all stuck at home. States across our nation are under various degrees of lockdown, and countries across the world are very much the same. Though limited to our homes instead of entire cities, we find ourselves forced into a position strikingly similar to that St. James and St. Philip willingly undertook. These are trying times where keeping the faith has become a challenge. Most of us are separated from the Mass and the other Sacraments. It is tough enough being Christians for ourselves, much less Christians for each other. We may even feel like our duties as Christians are on hold, that we can just put them off until the world returns to normal. This, however, is not the case. Each day of our lives is meant to be lived for Christ. So, we must continue to pray. We must continue to fight sin and temptation. And, we must continue to evangelize. This last point is made abundantly clear through the example of both St. James the Lesser and St. Philip Neri.

One thing, among many, we can learn from these two great saints is that our home turf is never perfect. As Jerusalem, the city where Christ walked, and Rome, the Mother City of the entire Church, needed St. James and St. Philip as their respective attendants, serving and nurturing their inhabitants, so too do our homes require us to attend to them. Perhaps, you have a sibling, parent, or child who has fallen away from the faith. My own brother has strayed from the Church - a brother whom I hope one day to bring home. Well, this time of quarantine is inviting us to reach out and, in our forced closeness, engage with whoever these lost sheep may be and draw them back to Christ. Such engagement could be a discussion, but it can also simply be the example of patiently bearing our hardships, avoiding frustration and anger, and living virtuous lives within our households. Take the time to consider how God might be calling you to evangelize your family.

Still yet, there are ways to evangelize our homes themselves. What around your house is distracting you from God? Is it an obsession with video games or other worldly pleasures? Is it porn on your phone? Perhaps, you have a surplus of unhealthy foods? Are there unnecessary clothes and other various items you don’t require that could be donated to the less fortunate? These are all things, using this time within our homes, we can expunge from the physical space around us, and thus prevent from invading our spiritual lives. Improving the space around us not only practically provides means to keep us busy during quarantine, but can also assist us, and our families, in living holier lives. It could even be as simple as hanging a crucifix on the wall. Though I’ve only provided a few examples, there are countless more ways we need to attend to our homes and the things within them. 

Following the example of Saint James the Lesser and Saint Philip Neri, let us devoutly take up our mantle to evangelize our homes - to be Apostles of our confined spaces and those within them. This is not a time to be idle. This is not a time to wait. For, one day, we will have to return to the world outside and, if we have done our due diligence at home, we may more effectively carry that devout spirit we’ve cultivated out into the world – a world starved for Christ.

College, Identity Politics, and the 2020 Election

A public servant of 40 years is now on the offense against President Donald Trump. He has already surpassed the average life expectancy. Honorable in tone and political in nature, his career has primarily pleased his state and constituents. 

On the other hand, his last boss waited over a year to mention his name publicly. His son represented an American corporation that received $1.5 billion from a state-owned company of an adversarial government in 2015. He couldn’t poll more than 1 percent in his three previous attempts for the presidency, yet now represents the only hurdle for President Trump. Although to his credit, Vice President Joe Biden is currently polling higher than the president. 

Critics of Mr. Biden point to his increasingly senile behavior, arguing that any election in the past 50 years would have eliminated his chances for success. That would not have been the ex-Vice President’s fault. It is the reality of life. In their eyes, Christopher Nolan captured the rising theme of Joe Biden in The Dark Knight: he could die a hero or live long enough to become the villain. Maybe Joe Rogan’s bluntness on the issue of age will hold out, and a 78 year old man who mumbles through his interviews cannot win the presidency. In that case, the introduction of this article will be an afterthought. 

I can’t help but ask if the 2020 campaign is the work of an inside job? I still scratch my head entertaining these thoughts, sitting in quarantine as my father’s dehumidifier rumbles in the background of this basement.

Maybe my four years at Holy Cross have given me the slightest insight into how and why things work. Perhaps my refusal to publicly write until April of 2020 validates my sincere discernment of this topic.

In Jesuit fashion, I followed-up my original question with another bigger question: What is wrong with America?  That’s far too big of an inquiry, and would lead to a theological discernment on the nature of man — a subject beyond the scope of this article. Thinking smaller, I found myself posing this question: How do we, as college students, knowingly or unknowingly contribute to our country’s partisanship? That’s the question I will answer here. 

Perhaps the boldest claim I’ll make for this audience is that elite colleges and universities (yes, sometimes even Holy Cross) have tarnished a tremendous intellectual culture that has been imperative for our country’s past success. The transition of our intellectual culture from a culture of reason to one of competing identities is to blame for partisanship, and helps to understand why someone like Joe Biden is the nominee. Reason is innate; identities are subjective and ever changing. Problems arise when people falsely believe identities are innate. The American university system has started to believe these lies.

A common denominator of civilization—a reason—has been gnawed at by subjective ideologies that seek to place identities above our rational functions. Unfortunately, this flawed process is most present at American colleges and universities and leads to deepened partisanship. Though millions of American people are tired of identity politics, our academic institutions have failed to recognize it.

The rise of identity politics correlates with the increasing problems of the American college system. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines ‘Identity Politics’ as, “politics in which groups of people having a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identity tend to promote their own specific interests or concerns without regard to the interests or concerns of any larger political group.”

Identity politics adversely affect the majority of Americans who do not attend college. This ideology removes people of the same fabric and places them into separate ideological and political categories. Moreover, identity politics attaches itself to the brightest among us (top universities), only to further divide and alienate the most talented from each other. It also lends a hand to managerial dysfunction that severely weakens Americans’ interest in sending their kids to college. 

A recent Pew poll showcased how identity politics have infiltrated college-educated voters. When asked if, ‘they were bothered’ that the Democratic nominee was not ‘of color,’ 58 percent of post-graduate students responded that Biden’s nomination bothered them. On the other hand, over 70 percent of black and latino voters responded that Biden’s nomination ‘did not bother’ them. 

The real world operates at a radically different  and more successful level than a college campus. How can we measure that? Take supply and demand as basic indicators. How can a college education continue to get more expensive in spite of the historically high supply of American universities and low student demand? That math fails to work. 

The anecdote that allows this math to work mainly rests on a bloated administrative state. In the face of the largest economic recession since the Great Depression, U.S. colleges expanded administrative roles by 15 percent. From 1993 to 2015, administrative roles at colleges and universities grew 60 percent. Why?

Simultaneously, educational polling suggests that over eighty percent of Americans cannot afford college. The same polling shows that a mere two-thirds of Americans are unable to identify what a 529 college saving plan is. The Department of Education has reported that, “Between 2006–07 and 2016–17, prices for undergraduate tuition, fees, room, and board at public institutions rose 31 percent, and prices at private nonprofit institutions rose 24 percent, after adjustment for inflation.” Yet, the same report indicates that student enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities is down 7 percent from 2010 to 2020. Steadily, a minority of Americans attend college.

So, why in light of an extreme lack of affordability and falling enrollments, would public and not-for-profit colleges and universities expand their bureaucracy?  Author of the book, The Changing of the Guard: The Political Economy of Administrative Bloat in American Higher Education, Todd Zywicki, writes, “The interesting thing about the administrative bloat in higher education is, literally, nobody knows who all these people are or what they’re doing.” Reason and logic cannot answer why colleges operate in this manner. There must be a deeper ideological problem that has circumvented the generational American interest to afford college.

Obviously there are other contributing factors to university failings, such as the incentive structure of the federal student-loan system and private banks. These serve as an additional incentive for colleges to increase costs. However, credible and normative observations showcase that the prevalence of identity politics is the core failure of our university system.

Holy Cross, as an institutional actor, naturally perpetuates identity politics. Just ask the Admissions office what the chances are that a female from Massachusetts is accepted, compared to me, a male from Michigan? Lucky for me, I have the advantage. Yet, is it unjust that Holy Cross desires geographical diversity and 50/50 gender delineation in its ranks? No one questions if justice was not served in this scenario. However, I’m willing to bet a year’s worth of tuition that there were female candidates with higher qualifications than myself from Massachusetts who drew the short end of the stick. 

Apply this standard when considering the acceptance of any race or religion on campus. It follows a similar logic. Although, the social and political pressure becomes intensified. Suddenly, the sense of justice is shifted. As you can see, identity politics are vague and subjective, yet become problematic when applied to individual groups.

The real problem arises when this logic becomes pervasive on campus. Many professors apply identity politics as a serious standard in their academic inquiry. Students in a ‘majority’ identity and ‘minority’ identity are placed in a hierarchical standard of assessment. Identity politics suddenly impedes each group’s natural capacity for reason and diminishes the normative pursuit of truth.  

For instance, think about the feeling of second-hand embarrassment that runs through your veins when the subject of race is mentioned in a mandatory administrative fishbowl. How awkward is it when students refuse to address a topic as simple as race?  Of course, there are major historical complications in race relations, but why are we afraid to say it?

As you can tell, when the topic is cloaked in a hierarchical standard of identities, nobody in a majority group would seek to diminish the standing of a minority group. It counters our capacity for good if we think we are hurting others. No rational person desires to hurt someone. However, if you pull back the subjective cloak of hierarchical identities, suddenly you are in the objective pursuit of truth and feel free to present competing ideas. No one is being hurt. 

St. Ignatius teaches us that our natural emotions can help guide us to truth. The unnatural feelings of second hand embarrassment with a topic as simple as race suggests that we are being led by a false ideology. With identity politics at the helm, students are inherently limited from presenting their ideas due to factors outside their control. Moreover, when students do share ideas, their ideas could be discounted, again, due to factors outside of their control. A student's parent’s, job, skin color, hometown, and citizenship can stand in the way of pursuing truth if identity politics control the narrative. This runs contrary to the American education system, and more importantly, a Jesuit education. 

I’d argue that the feeling of second-hand embarrassment propagated by identity politics turns rational people away from engagement and enhances partisanship among those who do engage. The shyness of intelligent people forces them to withdraw from political engagement. They would rather withdraw from identity politics, an ideology they know is subjective and illogical. They make a conscious choice to not engage, rather than take the risk of social alienation. They think to themselves, “Let the Gender Studies majors solve the problems that they created. I can’t change their mind.”

Identity politics removes our most talented people from government and places them in business and finance. Whereas governing addresses the laws of society, business and finance point toward monetary gain. If American society’s morals are presented in a narrative that alienates its most talented citizens, why would they want to engage in those platforms to create law? In this case, identity politics in universities and government serve as a detriment to our joined national interest. 

For instance, Wall Street steadily maintains deeply vested interests in communist China. If our own citizens sell American companies to this communist state, our government is severely undermined when trying to hold China accountable for severe human rights and trade abuses. We as a people are speaking with two contradicting voices, thus speaking with no voice at all.  

The rise of Wall Street partly stems from the social, academic, and economic benefits of non-engagement with identity politics. Instead of recognizing a joint purpose, identity politics at American colleges alienate our country’s brightest students. Billions of dollars are being made by our smartest individuals at the expense of their fellow citizens, because our universities decide to pursue subjective narratives that underscore the pursuit of truth. 

The governing and political fabric of our nation deteriorates at the hands of a small subsection of society who educate students at our most esteemed universities. Unfortunately, many students today leave college with an underlying framework that tells them that the necessity to rectify certain social groups’ ills outweighs the needs of the aggregate.

If one is looking for evidence of this, look no further than the last time Congress passed a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform. It occurred in 1986. Despite at least three documented attempts, the inability of our largest deliberative body to disregard factional identity interests now results in millions living in shadows and our sovereignty questioned.

Our true national interest is lost at the behest of an ideology. Partisanship backed the interest of identity politics and created no room for compromise. Now, compromise is viewed as the harming of a minority group, rather than the pursuit of the common interest. Rather than tending to the needs of both sides, identity politics restricts Congress and harms both immigrants and the American population. 

There are people in this country, especially in academia, that see identity politics as a driving force in our attempt to structure a just society. On the other hand, there are people in this country, especially young people, that see identity politics as a hindrance to society and choose not to engage. 

Perhaps the steady stream of identity politics in the last decade has turned young people off from engaging entirely. Why is it that sixty-five percent of people who actually vote are over the age of 60?  Young people, who make up the largest segment of society from the ages of 18 to 44 participate at the lowest levels. 

Ideals such as freedom, equality, and justice are diminished when universities consistently structure their institutions to perpetuate identity politics. Identity politics transcribes our ideals reactively, drawing from our country’s worst sins, rather than the settled truth decided at our country’s foundation. What I’ve learned most about the United States while at Holy Cross is that our country maintains an everlasting commitment to uphold natural rights, alongside the pursuit of a more perfect society. Both these endeavors are lost if the best formats to pursue a just society limit the flow of ideas, intentionally or unintentionally.

When the perceived victimhood of groups within society overcomes the pursuit of truth, then serious inquiry is lost. Citizens choose not to engage and free discourse disappears. The only way to combat identity politics is to talk about them. A full picture is finally illuminated when we talk about the most pressing and controversial issues, without special regard to any one group. 

If reason is to be practiced again, then professors, students, and administrators will need to jump over a fundamental hurdle and assume that people do not intend to harm others with their ideas. In the off chance they do harm others, they need to jump over another fundamental hurdle, and not let it bother them. If hurt, they can again say to themselves, while embodying the Christian virtue that Martin Luther King extolled in his crusade, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” When this change in attitude occurs, many college bureaucrats will become irrelevant. Happily, tuition will be lowered and more Americans can afford college. How could this happen? 

Identity politics will inevitably fail. Its logic fails to work, for; consistent subjectivity erodes into an oblivion. Maybe the Trump administration represents the beginning of a cultural paradigm that defeats identity politics and bolsters the reunion of the smartest financial and government actors.

So back to the 2020 election. Who’s going to win? President Trump. Why? In addition to Joe Biden’s inability to communicate thoroughly, there are sectors in the Democratic Party that, rather than working within the constitutional logic ingrained in American culture, prefer to dabble in identity politics. 

It’s why President Trump could win in 2016 by hammering the establishment that was built on identity politics. Most Americans do not have a four year degree. They are not directly exposed to subjective and alienating narratives. In the large portion of America, there is a concerted effort to end identity politics. That’s why the Democratic establishment failed to elect any candidate that promotes these narratives. Rather, the Democrats placed their chips on a 78-year old moderate who can barely finish a 10-minute TV interview, because they hope he can relate to Americans who reject identity politics.

If the unprecedented increase of tuition continues alongside the perpetuation of identity politics at American universities, we should not be surprised that our political choices are two individuals in their seventies who do not faithfully follow identity politics. Americans reject identity politics, yet universities fail to follow suit. If post-secondary institutions cannot grasp reality, we should be prepared to see that our generation is becoming further polarized or has become disengaged all together. 

Perhaps the reason that we - college students, professors, and administrators—fail to understand the successful rise of President Trump—is because we do not fully understand ourselves.

God Is (Not) A Woman: Why We Use Male Pronouns for God

More and more lately, I’ve heard people refuse to use pronouns for God. Some even object to gendered God-language like “Our Father,” or “Lord.” Others go even further—they replace male pronouns with female pronouns.

The argument that people often make is that God is not a created being, and does not have a gender. Using male pronouns and other distinctly “male” words—like Lord or Father—reflects not God’s nature, but our own patriarchal mindset. By refusing to use pronouns for God, or by using female pronouns, people argue that they can combat the patriarchal recasting of God, while emphasizing certain qualities (like His tenderness) that can be overlooked when male pronouns are used.

To an extent, people are right. God does not have a gender. That said, there are several compelling reasons to use male language for God.

1. We have pronouns for a reason.

Pronouns are clean. They’re efficient. Without pronouns, language is incredibly clunky and awkward. To talk about how God reveals God’s self to show us God’s love might be politically correct, but it’s also a poor usage of the English language.

2. Specifically male pronouns for God are a convenient and widely agreed upon linguistic convention… with Biblical roots.

Blame it on the patriarchy if you’d like, but almost everyone knows what I’m referring to when I talk about Him. Talking about Her, however, would likely be confusing. That’s because male pronouns for God, better or worse, are part of our language and culture. Plus, the Bible uses male language (although there are attempts to translate the Bible using only gender-neutral language). 

3. It’s just distracting. 

Using female pronouns for God isn’t just confusing, it’s distracting, and talking about Mother God is probably the fastest way to derail almost any group prayer, by triggering either laughter or confusion.

4. When God reveals Himself, He does so as Father and Son (and Holy Spirit).

In our P.C. culture, the best way to figure out a person’s pronouns is to ask, or at least wait for them to tell you. In the Christian Bible, when God reveals Himself, He does so as Father and Son, not Mother and Daughter.

One objection to this argument is that the Son (the second person of the Trinity) had to come as “Son” and not “Daughter” because of Israel’s patriarchal norms, and not because of any deeper spiritual reality. In other words, if Jesus was a woman, nobody would have taken him seriously. And sure, I sympathize with this argument a little… but not much. See, initially people didn’t take Jesus seriously, even though he was male. But then he started performing miracles, walking on water, and raising people from the dead, and he eventually got people’s attention. You’re telling me that, if God had wanted to become incarnate in a female body, there’s no way He could have somehow gotten people’s attention or earned some respect? After all, the ancient world was full of religions that took female goddesses seriously. Besides, that argument only accounts for one person of the Trinity. Jesus frequently referred to the first person of the Trinity as Father. After Jesus had earned respect, he could have talked about God as Mother, but he preferred to use the term Abba, or Dad. 

Now that’s not to say that God does have a gender (although it’s worth noting that Jesus is definitely male), but it does mean that the gendered language we use for God might not be inconsequential. In fact there might even be some spiritual significance for—

5. There’s real spiritual significance associated with using male language to describe God. 

Ok, ok, so I will admit that, at various points in the Bible, there are feminine images of God. That’s true. But when those images come up, they always reveal some deeper, spiritual meaning. The same is true for using primarily male language for God.

Here’s one nugget of spiritual wisdom that can be drawn from male “God language.” When we speak of God with male pronouns, it signals a complementarity with the ancient understanding of the soul as feminine. The idea here is that the “male” instills the feminine soul with divine life. In other words, the soul is like a womb for God’s grace. It’s a little weird… but it’s also beautiful. 

6. While gendered “God language” fails, so does all God language.

Often, people argue that we can’t use male pronouns for God, because God doesn’t have a gender. To describe God as “He” is to anthropomorphize God, or turn Him into a being with human characteristics. Instead of using inherently flawed language, people argue, we should give up on pronouns and other gendered terms altogether.

This argument makes some sense… except that all attempts to describe God are inherently flawed. For example, when we say that God is good, we have to acknowledge that our understanding of “goodness” is radically shaped by our own human limitations (the maximum degree to which we can understand goodness is the maximum extent to which a human being can be good). It would be, for example, like an ant calling a human being “strong.” The ant isn’t wrong, per se, but the ant cannot begin to fathom how strong human beings are, and we cannot fathom how good God is. When it comes to God, all language, not just gendered language, fails.

Confronted with this confusing dilemma, we might be tempted to give up altogether on trying to say anything about God. But theologians and philosophers have argued that we can speak about God analogously. Now the whole concept of analogous language is more complicated than we have time for today. Essentially, it should suffice to say that all language about God is, somehow, inadequate. Gendered language might also be inadequate, but that doesn’t mean we should stop using it, any more than we should stop saying that God is good. 

7. What’s the motive?

More often than not, it seems like people advocate for gender-neutral or feminine God language for political and ideological reasons, and less because they have a legitimate theological argument. Admittedly, it would be fallacious to argue that the conclusion (gender neutral or female pronouns for God) is wrong simply because the means of arriving at that conclusion (via ideological or political agenda) are flawed. However, wouldn’t it be worse to conform God to our political agenda, than to conform Him to widely agreed upon linguistic constructs?

President Trump's Handling of the Coronavirus

With a tragic pandemic in our midst, it is sad to see the media and certain publications on our own campus pushing a false narrative of President Trump’s handling of coronavirus. Between coming across a timeline on The Federalist to listening to Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) explain what Trump has done to watching President Trump’s press briefings to checking information on PolitiFact, I have constantly been learning about coronavirus, and more specifically, our President’s  response to it. It is evident people are being misinformed about what Trump has done, what others have done, and the effectiveness of both.

Before I begin, there are two common misconceptions about the Trump administration before the pandemic even began that need to be squashed. First, Trump did not fire the leaders of the Pandemic Response Team nor did he simply disband the group. The senior director of global health and biodefense on the National Security Council was Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer. He was in charge of the United States’ response to infectious diseases, but after he left the administration in May 2018, John Bolton reorganized the global health team in order to merge similar offices and have them work together. He did get rid of Ziemer’s job position, but it was only after he had left and, therefore, the job was vacant. Many members of the original department stayed on while others left to work in other offices, but Bolton and Trump did not fire the team nor did they simply get rid of having an office ready to face a pandemic. The one aspect of the Trump administration that was not fully prepared for a pandemic was the federal stockpile of PPE, but that was because the Obama administration used most of their reserves during the H1N1 virus and never replenished them. Although they could not foresee the necessity of replenishing, it was their job to do so.

Second, Trump did not cut funding for the Center for Disease Control (CDC). He did propose a smaller budget than the spending from the previous year for zoonotic infectious diseases, a major component for fighting coronavirus. However, Congress, when creating their final spending bills, looks at the president’s suggestion and adjusts accordingly. During the Trump administration, he has signed off on every funding bill, regardless of how different it has been from his proposed amount, and each has surpassed the previous year’s spending. The CDC’s final budget, for example, in 2018 was decided at $575,704,000, while in 2020, the final budget decided was $635,772,000. 

In regard to President Trump’s coronavirus response, a claim consistently propagated is that he failed to act fast enough. Trump, many say, was well aware of the threat that coronavirus posed, and yet he did not act, which supposedly caused the death of thousands. This brings about two main points. First, it implies that Trump had information that should have prompted him to take action, and the second that others were acting as quickly as they should have.

The first point is true: Trump did have enough information to take action, and he in fact did, while others strongly disagreed with his actions and did not act. The first patient with coronavirus entered the United States from Wuhan, China on January 15, and before the case was even reported on January 21, Trump began to have screenings in airports for flights coming from Wuhan in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles on January 17. Even after the second case was reported a few days later, the CDC stated, “Based on what we know right now, the immediate risk to America remains low.” Despite this, Trump, a few days later, extended airport screenings to look at twenty different airports across the country with travelers that had visible symptoms, as well as mandating quarantines. It was not until January 30 that the WHO declared coronavirus a national health emergency and that the CDC confirmed, for the first time publicly, that the virus can spread by person-to-person contact. In response to this, Trump created the White House Coronavirus Task Force that same day. The next day, January 31, he declared a public health emergency and implemented a travel ban between the United States and China. Meanwhile, the Senate had a vote on additional documents for the president’s impeachment, Biden accused Trump of hysteria and xenophobia, the WHO criticized Trump saying trade and travel bans are unnecessary, and members of the media accused the Trump administration of an overreaction.  Vox tweeted, “Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No” and The New York Times quoting Dr. Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist, calling Trump’s travel ban “more of an emotional or political reaction.”

On February 4, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was instructed by the Trump administration to establish procedures for coronavirus diagnostic testing. The CDC said they were taking precautions to make sure the risk of contracting coronavirus stayed low, and they continued to emphasize the risk being low all the way through February 18. But, Trump still continued to act in order to protect Americans. Trump raised the warnings of travel to Japan and South Korea to “high” on February 20, and he asked Congress for $2.5 billion to deal with coronavirus on February 25. House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), on the other hand, encouraged people to join her and others in Chinatown on February 24 to celebrate the Chinese New Year, saying “It’s exciting to be here, especially at this time, to be able to be unified with our community. We want to be vigilant about what is out there in other places. We want to be careful how we deal with it, but we do want our people to say, ‘Come to Chinatown, here we are—we’re, again, careful, safe—and come join us.’” Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), a prominent figure during Trump’s impeachment trial, did not publicly mention coronavirus until February 25, despite being the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee and therefore having similar information about coronavirus as President Trump. With the information at hand, it is understandable why Pelosi and Schiff were not having strong reactions to the coronavirus. The WHO and CDC appeared to not present the virus as a serious threat to Americans, and China had continually lied about the reality of their number of cases, deaths, and overall information about the virus. Only exercising very slight caution is an understandable response at this point. 

On February 26, it was confirmed by the CDC there was the first case suspected to be transmitted locally, and Trump chose Vice President Pence to lead the task force, who appointed Dr. Deborah Birx as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator within a day. The next day, the media and Democrats tried to claim Trump called the coronavirus a hoax. But, his words in question were, “The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that right? Coronavirus, they’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue.” He went on to talk about the questions of Trump and Russia and then the “impeachment hoax,” explaining how Democrats have continually gone after him for his actions despite a lack of wrongdoing with Russia and committing no impeachable offenses. When a reporter accused him the next day of calling coronavirus a hoax, he said, “I’m talking [about] what they’re doing. That’s the hoax. That’s just a continuation of the hoax, whether it’s the impeachment hoax or the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax. This is what I’m talking about. Certainly not referring to this. How could anybody refer to this? This is very serious stuff. But the way they refer to it — because these people have done such an incredible job, and I don’t like it when they are criticizing these people. And that’s the hoax. That’s what I’m talking about.”

President Trump was drawing attention to the fact the Democrats have been accusing him, and therefore the coronavirus task force, of poorly handling the virus, even though he has taken it extremely seriously from the beginning. Their lack of support thus far of his actions only deepen the true hypocrisy of their attacks. 

It was not until March 10 that Italy locked down, and the WHO declared coronavirus a worldwide pandemic the next day. In response, Trump put travel restrictions to Europe in place-- an aggressively criticized tactic yet again by Democrats and the media. Biden called this travel ban xenophobic, and some media outlets came out speaking against it implying it would not help, “Coronavirus is already here. Blocking travelers won’t prevent its spread” in Vox, and others claiming he did it for the upcoming election,  a Washington Post headline: “Europe blindsided by Trump’s travel restrictions, with many seeing political motive.”

While others continued to insult his decision, Trump then declared a national emergency for the United States. Spain the next day locked down, and soon after, Trump put out Fifteen Days to Slow the Spread then later added Thirty Days to Slow the Spread. He has continued to have daily press briefings with various experts in order to keep the public informed, and he and his team have constant meetings with the governors to help them come up with plans for each of their states.

During all of this, on paper, it appears Trump was acting quickly and effectively. But could he have not done more? If we look at the data given to us, Trump did even more than what would have been expected. There are claims that Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade advisor, informed Trump of the threats of coronavirus and that he ignored the memos. Although Trump says he did not see them, he acted how he should have according to this advice. One memo was sent on January 29th that encouraged a travel ban on China, which Trump did implement on January 31st, and the other was on February 23rd that said the United States would need $3 billion to deal with coronavirus and on February 25th, Trump requested $2.5 billion from Congress. 

Despite Biden’s criticism of Trump’s travel bans, Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, is now saying, “The bottom line: if Donald Trump had listened to Joe Biden, fewer Americans would be dying, losing loved ones, losing their jobs, or losing their retirement savings.” Dr. Anthony Fauci, in an MSNBC interview in late March said, “One of the things we did right was very early cut off travel from China to the United States,” and Nancy Messonier, director of National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, supported the ban saying, “We believe our aggressive travel precautions are working.” In response to Trump’s European travel ban, Dr. Fauci explained, “Because if you look at the numbers, it’s very clear that 70 percent of new infections in the world are coming from that region [Europe].” He continued, “It was pretty compelling that we needed to turn off the source from that region.” If Trump had listened to Biden’s claims of travel bans being xenophobic, experts such as Fauci, would agree that the number of cases and deaths in the United States would be much higher. 

Despite the perceived low threat posed by the WHO, CDC, China, politicians, and the media, President Trump took drastic, necessary steps that have saved many Americans. But, the final major criticism of Trump’s response lies in testing. Trump was quick to look into it, but the CDC had a major issue. When they first were developing tests, China would not give the United States actual samples of the virus, making it significantly more difficult for developing tests. To make matters more difficult, because of FDA regulations in place, private industries were unable to make tests. Fortunately, Trump was able to reverse these regulations so they could. The process changed for labs, as explained by the FDA at the end of February, that their tests would still need to be approved by the FDA, but the labs could still begin testing rather than waiting for the official consent. But, the FDA implemented another change in March. Instead of them being in charge, labs now only had to go to state officials about their development of tests, and there was no longer a need for an Emergency Use Authorization for the tests made. 

This poses the question: where does this leave us? The United States cannot afford to simply stay in lockdown until a vaccine is developed. Trump and his team have been doing their job on the federal level. But, it is ultimately now up to the governors to continue to do their part. Trump and his team presented a plan that states should follow with reopening, but each state is different and therefore the governor has to figure out what is best for their own state. The federal government, when states are ready, needs to ween states off federal aid so they can begin reopening on their own. If they need more federal help, they can and should reach out. Trump, from the beginning, has saved countless lives, and if it were not for his actions, it is scary to think about what kind of state the country would be in. But, the cure cannot be worse than the disease, so it is the governors’ turns. They need to get to work on saving their people and saving jobs, just as President Trump has been fighting for since the beginning.

We All Might Like Each Other More If the Government Was Smaller

Despite living in the freest country on earth, Americans still display a palpable negativity and distrust towards each other. There are undoubtedly innumerable reasons as to why this is the case, but there is an agent, that while seeming unrelated, may be one of this developing phenomenon’s prime movers: big government. This article will not be making a case for small government for fiscal or cultural reasons, but rather simply from the standpoint that the bigger the government gets, the less we like each other. Civic organizations from churches and the Knights of Columbus, to parent-teacher associations have, as Robert Putnam famously explained in Bowling Alone, fallen apart, and a common sense of ‘American values’ seems no longer to exist. Lacking these ‘glues’ of social cohesion, it does not take much to slowly pull the community apart. The growth of government is both a major cause of this ‘glue’ being degraded and of the resulting collapse of social cohesion writ large, the latter of which will be the primary, but not the only, focus of this article. 

The main reference point for the creation and the solution of all of the problems the country faces today has become the government, thereby making its control of the utmost contention. As power is concentrated, so are the forces of anger and hatred. The President of the United States was not always as powerful as he is today. In fact, the Founding Fathers intended the legislature, not the executive, to be the most powerful branch of the Federal Government. This remained so for most of the nation’s history until Franklin D. Roosevelt. Of course, in times of war, be it the Civil War or World War One, the Federal Government and the presidency grew in power significantly, but it was generally impermanent. With the rise of FDR and his slate of New Deal programs, the Federal Government’s role and function changed forever. With massive government schemes ranging from Social Security and job programs, to extensive regulation and an attempted packing of the Supreme Court, the Federal Government ballooned in size and power. Much of this new power, while having been given by Congress, rested in the executive branch, which is the branch that did, and still does carry out and enforce congressional legislation. In due course, through Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, Nixon’s creation of the EPA, Obama’s Affordable Care Act of 2010, and more, the Federal Government and, importantly, the executive became inordinately powerful. There are plenty of arguments to be had for the efficacy of this mass shift of authority to the executive, but what matters is that this power grab helped to make the office of the president all the more contentious. 

When the president has the power to almost unilaterally effect powerful regulations on issues ranging from abortion and the environment, to immigration and education, it should be no wonder that the contest for the office has become so vicious. People begin to place their hopes and fears for the future in the one man or woman who occupies that office. Because of the power that is concentrated in the hands of one person, the vitriol created over who that person should be serves only to divide Americans who are already lacking a ‘glue’ of social cohesion. People choose to find that cohesion in politics generally, and the president specifically. There is an almost cultish love for figures from Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders, which is not healthy for the country, for a candidate always runs the risk of failure. The fall of someone who was the object of a cultish love and a replacement for true social cohesion almost inevitably sparks anger. Good social cohesion comes from nominally permanent, widely encompassing beliefs and communities, of which a presidential candidate is neither.

The relative insignificance of the presidency through much of US history speaks to the point. Elections were undoubtedly contentious at times, particularly when major issues erupted, like slavery and the Civil War, but in general most election campaigns did not engender nearly as much division among the general populace as today. A reason for this might be because much of the population could not vote, but even at a time when the vast majority of the population had voting rights, in the 1920s, there was comparatively little contention over the presidency. In fact, the presidents of that era, in particular Calvin Coolidge, tended to run on a platform of small government. When the Great Depression struck, rather than waiting for a natural economic recovery, FDR was elected on a platform of big government, and his presidency was, unsurprisingly, marked by serious political divisiveness. 

Additionally, the radical candidates that cause so much fear and division among Americans today would not be nearly as concerning or detrimental to the country if the presidency was not so powerful. It would be of much less consequence to have a radical president if the office did not have the ability to implement his or her policies on such a massive scale as could happen today. A Republican would have less to fear from a Sanders presidency, and a Democrat less to fear from a Trump presidency if each knew that neither man could radically alter the face of the nation.

The president is only the largest target for criticism, and may only be the consequence of the growth of the Federal Government as a whole. Similar to how the Founders intended the legislature to be more powerful than the executive, they also intended much of the responsibility of governance to be in the hands of state and local governments. Of course, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States (Article VI, Section 2) dictates that the laws of the Federal Government are to supersede those of the states. However, the Founders also laid out the premises for the power of the Federal Government in the Constitution, which are quite limited by comparison to what it has snatched away in the 225 years since. Those powers not listed in the US Constitution were generally assumed to be left to the states, and while it would be difficult to propose that the Federal Government should stick only to the responsibilities directly outlined, it has certainly claimed far too many. 

Like the division caused by an inordinately powerful president, an unduly powerful Federal Government produces the same result. As people focus their hope and hatred on the federal level, it also focuses them on all Americans. One can always move to a different state to avoid bad policy originating from a state’s legislature. If the tax law is not to one’s liking in California, there is always the opportunity to move to Michigan or Texas. If the Federal Government makes a law, there is nowhere to move, nowhere to hide. Thus, control over the Federal Government, which has become so incredibly powerful, becomes a battle for the very heart and soul of the country. There are always certain policy areas that should rest with the Federal Government, like civil rights, foreign policy, trade, and the military, among others, but that list should be kept as minimal as possible. It should be no surprise that as that list has grown, people become ever more desperate to control and place ever more faith in the Federal Government. 

Big government also lends to the collapse of social cohesion through how it is exploited. People are opportunistic, it is simply human nature, and that will never change. Because of this, programs that the government offers, however well intentioned, will be taken advantage of, and this inevitably causes division. Opportunism in regard to government power is almost always at the expense of someone else. It is usually the taxpayer, as in the cases of freeloading, competition stifling tariffs, or the like, or the business owner in the case of mandated paid sick days etc. Nobody likes being taken advantage of, not the taxpayer nor the business owner, and when they are, anger and division results. 

History lends much insight into this phenomenon, but an excellent example is an academic paper by John Connelly, The Uses of Volksgemeinschaft: Letters to the NSDAP Kreisleitung Eisenach, 1939-1940, on the Kreisleitung (District Offices) in Nazi Germany. This is obviously not a perfect comparison, as there is clearly no similarity between Nazi Germany and the United States. What is useful is the underlying situation: that of a big government and the opportunism that results. The District Offices of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) were spread throughout Germany in nearly every locality. These offices, headed by Kreisleiter or District Leader, were granted the power to do almost anything assuming it was not contrary to the interests of their superiors. Citizens could contact the District Offices with any complaint they had, and often could acquire help in achieving what they wanted. Many took advantage of this opportunity, requesting that Jewish Germans be kicked out of their homes so they could move in, or denouncing another German in the hopes of getting him or her punished. It is not difficult to see the divisiveness this system engendered, nor the abhorrent results it created. The reason for utilizing such an example is not to make a direct comparison, but rather to point to the potential of powerful government and opportunism combining to create serious discord. 

All of this helps to elucidate why a big government creates conflict and why shrinking it might alleviate some of the division, but a more concrete example is helpful to understand why a small government can reduce disunion and foster community. The BBC recently produced a short video chronicling developments in the town of Harrismith in South Africa, a country where racial strife and a corrupt government have produced significant problems. Harrismith, a relatively small town, is representative of an ever larger part of South Africa: a poor economy and the failure of government to provide even the most basic of services, like sewage. With the government unable to act effectively to solve the crisis, and with sewage backing up and other utilities failing, people of every stripe were forced to come together to solve the problem. The racial discord that so divides South Africa had to be transcended. Headed by black townspeople, with the help of wealthy white farmers who provided the capital and helped in the labor, the sewage system was repaired and other utilities managed. People worked together towards a common good, and had to look to their fellow man to solve their problems. Indeed, they could fix problems that the government utterly failed to solve. 

Of course, this is taking small government to an extreme, and is in no way representative of a viable solution to social division. Nobody would propose kicking the government out of essential services or living in a sort of pseudo-anarchy, but the sentiment of this situation is what matters. When the government gets smaller, there can still be solutions to problems that would otherwise be relegated to a bloated state, and an increased sense of community is often a consequence. This fits well with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which stipulates that every solution should be solved at the lowest level possible. What can be solved at the local level should not be solved at the federal level. The farther away the solution is from the problem, the less respect and care is paid to individual human dignity. Federally sourced solutions produce one-size-fits-all programs that are often out of touch with the needs of people located hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from Washington, DC. Local solutions are close to the problem and make the best use of resources, while giving people a greater sense of control and community.

The unity of the citizenry form the structural support of any nation, and if that unity disintegrates, despite the continued outward trappings of a state, the country will not stand the test of time. If big government is ignored, or grown yet further, it will likely result in an ever increasing deterioration, and possibly even the eventual collapse of American social cohesion. It would behoove the country to consider the costs of such a collapse and to act accordingly. We just might all like each other more if the government was smaller.

The Death Penalty: A Modern Conundrum

I am a pro-life Republican, and I mean pro-life in all senses of the word. Catholic conservatives today face the question of whether society and government should sanction the death penalty. The Republican party platform as it currently stands supports the death penalty whereas the Catholic Church officially opposes it. There are a number of different arguments against the death penalty, whether from the point of economics or the perspective of liberalism, but I come to argue on the grounds of modern conservative ideology and Catholic theology.

The most compelling case against the death penalty from the Bible comes from the Ten Commandments. In these, God gave the Israelites a set of rules to live their lives by in a very simple form. The 6th command says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ In a very blunt straight to the point statement, God says that you cannot kill. God does not then provide instances where one would be allowed to kill others. God does not then say that if someone breaks this commandment that one is then permitted to break it again with capital punishment. God simply says that you cannot kill and Jesus reaffirms this in the New Testament in Matthew 19:18 when he says ‘You shall not murder.’ However, this then raises the question: is self-defense allowed, and if so, is capital punishment a form of self-defense?

One of the best distinctions I have come across to alleviate the complexity of this situation is to divide self-defense into three separate categories. Personal self-defense is the defense of oneself such as against a home intruder. National self-defense would be to defend your nation through war. Social self-defense is the use of lethal force to protect society, for example, executing criminals that are a danger to society; this is one of the examples someone in the pro-death penalty camp might use to justify their beliefs. All of these forms of self-defense are allowed in Catholicism, but the problem in the instance of social self-defense is that in a modern society like the United States, once these people are arrested, they are no longer considered a threat to society. They are put into a level of security in prison where they are with criminals who committed similar crimes. Any act of capital punishment that is used against these murderers by the state is then unjust since they pose almost no threat to society in such a state. Today, these maximum security prisons, where murderers are housed in, have reduced escapes to nearly zero. Someone who is convicted and sentenced to death should instead have a life prison sentence to contemplate the sin he has committed and then, hopefully, repent.

However, this does mean that execution would be allowed just because someone poses a threat to society This is only the case in a society that is not modern, unlike the United States. In medieval Europe where life was much more chaotic and less safe, it is reasonable why one might execute someone as they could pose a legitimate danger to society, which is permitted by the Catholic Church. Additionally, in a tribal setting, where one does not have the means to detain people, it would be a wise choice to execute a serial killer. These do not conflict with Catholicism, but needless killing does.

Americans are not seeking the death penalty to protect society, as those that receive the death penalty would otherwise spend their life in prison. Instead, many Americans seek the death penalty for revenge. This was made blatantly evident when anti-death penalty candidate Michael Dukakis, in his 1988 run for president, was asked in a debate whether he would support the death penalty if his wife was raped and murdered. In response, he stood by his principle, and calmly explained why he would say “no.” This was seen as a gaffe by many, but the most notable point that arose from the exchange is the question’s key revelation as to the American outlook on the death penalty. Dukakis was not asked whether the man was a danger to society, but whether he would personally want to seek revenge for the rape and murder of his wife. It is made very clear in the Bible that seeking revenge is prohibited, for God will give what every person deserves on Judgment Day.

Despite the aforementioned arguments, I find the secular arguments in situations like these to be even more compelling, especially as pertaining to secular nations. As a conservative, the question of how much power the government should have always comes to mind when discussing politics, and the death penalty is no different. An argument against the death penalty is an argument for limited government. The government should not be given the ultimate power to choose whether people live or die. In the American spirit of standing against tyranny, for the people to willingly give the government the power to kill,while the people have no such power, is a very dangerous choice. For the same reason one might support the Second Amendment to ensure that the government can never become tyrannical, one should never support the death penalty and the life or death power that those who support it entrust in the government.

Government has a long history of being ineffective at doing certain tasks, and this is why centrally planned economies, government-run health care, and socialism are all opposed by American conservatives. States such as the Soviet Union have shown the government’s ineffectiveness in excessively managing the functions of everyday life and operations. This shows in the United States through the justice system, with the widely agreed statistic that 4% of convictions are false, including those sentenced to capital punishment. This would mean that the government has the right to kill, and indeed has killed, innocent people. This should scare anyone, for that the United States government has the capability to kill you and anyone you know through a false conviction.

For clarification, I do not believe that the United States is in immediate threat of devolving into a tyrannical regime, but I do believe that if certain powers are not safeguarded in a way that prevents the state from excessively exercising them, then we run the risk of dangerously expanding government power. Prominent Democrats that have gained national support in presidential campaigns such as Beto O'Rourke have put out a proposal for a mandatory gun buyback program for what he would classify as ‘assault weapons.’ American conservatives would agree that this would be a gross overreach of power and that it would limit the American public’s ability to protect themselves from state tyranny. But, when the similar issue arises of allowing state-sponsored murder that could fall on innocent people, many do not have a problem.

The death penalty in a modern society is state-sponsored murder prohibited by the Bible. The American public justifies this by seeking revenge against those convicted who are now rendered contained and helpless at the whim of the government. The death penalty has no place in a modern society that could devolve into tyranny and totalitarianism, and should not be tolerated by those who seek to act in a Godly way or those who fear tyrannical government power that has plagued human history.