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By Anthony Esolen. But first a note from Robert Royal: As Professor Esolen explains today, there's a vast difference between our compassion towards sinners - which means, towards all of us since all of us need God's mercy and salvation - and the indulgence of self-destructive attitudes and acts, among bishops and the Vatican itself. A lot of confusion has arisen lately about the two sides of this consummately Christian truth, which is why we must be a steady voice for both mercy - and justice. Please, all of you reading, this: be generous in support of that fully Catholic vision. You know how. Why not do it? Now.
Now for today's column...
The latest news from the American episcopacy comes from a bishop who has welcomed, as a hermit, a woman who fourteen years ago underwent surgery and pumped her body with chemicals to simulate the appearance of a male. She says she did so out of a respect for the created order, which is like saying that you filled the lake with sand because you found it so lovely.
I grant also that the feelings of such a person must be powerful and extremely delicate. Some motive must be driving you to ruin your sex, as other motives drive people into other self-destructive or delusive actions. How much the persons are to blame, if at all, we must let God judge.
I'll grant that it is a touchy thing to minister to someone so confused about both male and female that she thinks a little lopping and pasting, some hair on the face, and some extra muscle can obliterate her womanhood and make a man of her.
The bishop, though, is another matter. I beg him to think about the whole situation, and if he cannot help rebuild the moral basis of a wholesome society that promotes marriage and family life and protects the innocence of children, shepherding them into healthy understandings of their own sex and its being made for the other, he should at least not go out of his way to make it harder than it already is.
Here is the situation. It has been a long time since we abrogated the Christian understanding of sex. The promise, when I was a boy, was of openness, liberty, the delights of love, and better understanding and appreciation of each sex for the other.
By the time I was in college, nobody believed that anymore. The revolution had soured. Loneliness set in, because the stakes for even a modest approach of a man to a woman or a woman to a man were too high.
It was not that everyone was in bed. It was that there was hardly any territory left between nothing and the bed; and then did people suffer the inevitable disappointments, betrayals, confusion, resentment, and self-accusation that come in the wake of such a life.
When we say that something is morally wrong, we do not simply blame those who engage in it. Often, they do not know any better. We affirm that it is bad for people, for the individual and for the society that accept it and its principle. Not all the sophistry in the world, or wishful hoping, or averting the eyes, can alter the fact.
To accept fornication as what everybody does and therefore as what everybody must do to begin a relationship or to continue it once it has tentatively begun, is to inject the social body with a virulent and debilitating disease.
Nor did the disease stay put. It spread, and it bred new forms, or rather its root principle, namely that what consenting adults do in bed is all right so long as they are nice to each other, already implied those new forms.
If man and woman, and with no children in mind, why not man and man? If two, why not three? If doing, why not watching? Meanwhile, rather than reject the principle, actions to control some of the unwanted results had to be justified too: hence was abortion sewn seamlessly into the Western way of life, or way of death.
It is no comfort to say that young people are less likely now to be engaging in fornication than they were twenty or thirty years ago, since their shying away from it has nothing to do with believing that it is wrong

By David Warren
But first a note from Robert Royal: We're moving well again in our fundraising. And it would be good if we started to move fast enough that we won't need to spend a lot more time at this necessary campaign. There are serious challenges that call for our full attention - and action. And we need to get back to them. We're getting close to our goal for this period. So let me urge all of you who have not yet given to this mid-year campaign that you do so today. Let's make this campaign a success. The need is great and time is short. And now the column...
The proposition I have stated so boldly in my headline has enjoyed some support among (not necessarily Christian) amateur and professional psychologists. But unless they are Christian, they are unlikely to see the implications. That "love" in our current profane culture is misunderstood, or we might rather say "misdefined," I assert to begin with. We have come to understand it as a development of sexual lust, or by comparison to our esteem for kittens and puppies. Babies, when they are lucky, may also be loved, and perhaps a little differently than a "hot" girlfriend, or a charismatic boy. But still, best avoided.
A baby can be special, because his (not "its") empathy is demanded, and is difficult. He is needy in ways that would make an adult uncool. Our empathetic affection will run dry when the babe is crying - unless nature has provided you as a parent. The child's non-parent, living with the mother, is a potential danger to it.
We begin to see that empathy is the flip side of narcissism. Like narcissism, as traditionally understood, we may think we love someone that we do not even know. It is a transient passion, perhaps best represented by the Hallmark card.
Love, it has been observed, in literature and non-pornographic art, is more closely allied with marriage than with sex. That is why a couple may continue to be "in love" when they are old and wrinkly; and too, why old friends continue to be faithful.
Conversely, the absence of love easily accounts for the divorce rate having gone through the roof, since "love" became something that happens to you, as it does in commercial songs. And it has also been broadened, so that the modern person may get married to something incapable of love, such as a bridge, or a pervert.
Something similar is happening within modern friendship.
That love can be invented by the humans is a fact of nature; one that was implicitly explained by Christ, or by Paul in his instruction to men. For he tells husbands to love their wives, as if they would not automatically do this. It takes work, just as it takes work to love one's neighbor. (Ask any husband, or neighbor.)
But it is like any other invention. Once it is assembled, it takes care of itself, as if it were a good and reliable machine. The comparison is not entirely inapt, when we consider the breadth of persons we are commanded to love, within the Christian dispensation.
We must know them, to love them; they must have "being." One is even commanded to love Hamas terrorists (or "Palestinians" as they call themselves), for God must surely love them, and know them, well. We cannot imagine Him loving from ignorance.
For God is the universal lover, and God knows, everything.
Empathy must be a choice. It is to imagine oneself in the position of another, suffering the same hurts and enjoying the same pleasures - without being that other person. That's why empathy can work as a strategy.
A policeman shows great empathy when he is able to identify the criminal by the circumstances of the crime. He reads this "signature."
Similarly, in war, the general must have enough empathy to understand his enemy's capacities. By imagining himself in the same position, he can guess what his enemy will do, and intercept the attack, or close up his own exposed defenses. Wars have been won with ingenious empathy.
For the purposes of strategy and tactics, however, the general need not love what he sees.

By Stephen P. White. But first a note from Robert Royal: The Catholic Church is the one truly universal institution in the world. And people who think that we need to be more "inclusive" - in the sense that the world uses that term - are deceiving themselves. As Steve White shows today, the Church can assimilate what's good in any culture, even the most remote. And it would be to her benefit, and the world's, if she could re-assimilate the wealth of her own incomparable culture. That's only one of the many things we're about here at The Catholic Thing. We're all just a small part of that universality, but together we can do something no other human group can. If that's something you value too, do your part. Don't make me beg. Click the button. Where else can you go to foster The Catholic Thing? Now for today's column...
The Diocese of Broome covers the northern portion of the state of Western Australia. Massive and sparsely populated, the diocese is home to some 35,000 souls spread across an area a good bit larger than Texas. The Catholic population of the Diocese of Broome is smaller still: fewer than 14,000 Catholics arranged in nine parishes. According to the diocese, the average weekly Mass attendance for the entire diocese was 694 in 2016. In 2021 it was 592.
Broome, as it happens, is also home to a significant Aboriginal population. In 1973, the local bishop approved, ad experimentum, the use of a new liturgical rite known as the Missa Terra Spiritus Sancti (Mass of the Land of the Holy Spirit).
According to the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC), the rite is a "distinctive Mass that beautifully amalgamates Catholic tradition with Aboriginal culture, thereby creating a unique celebration of faith that has served the diocese for over five decades."
While the Broome Diocese may have relatively few Catholics, according to NATSICC, there are more than 130,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholics in the whole of Australia and they represent the Australian Church's youngest and fastest-growing demographic.
Earlier this month, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference unanimously approved the rite for use in the Diocese of Broome and resolved to submit the rite to the Dicastery for Divine Worship in Rome for official recognition.
The Latin Church has a long tradition of what today might be called "liturgical diversity," approving various rites and usages for particular peoples, places, or communities. In recent years, these have sometimes been approved for use in mission territories (such as the Amazonian rite currently under consideration by Rome) or local churches in non-Western cultures (such as one finds in the Diocese of Broome).
Sometimes, but not always. The beautiful Anglican Use is just a few decades old, though it draws deeply on English liturgical traditions that pre-date the Reformation. The Dominicans have their own rite, as do the Carthusians, Carmelites, and Cistercians. The Ambrosian Rite has been celebrated in Milan, with some modifications, since the late fourth century.
All of this is to say that the Church is well accustomed to adapting her liturgy to the places and cultures in which she finds herself. When this is done well - when the Incarnate Word is the "authentic paradigm of inculturation," as Pope Benedict XVI insisted - the result is not syncretism but an embodiment of Paul's exhortation to the Thessalonians to, "Test everything; retain what is good."
In the years following the Second Vatican Council, the most obvious manifestation of liturgical inculturation in the West was the widespread introduction of the vernacular. But there were other manifestations.
In parts of the world where the Gospel is encountering established cultures for the first time, or where the encounter is only a few generations old, inculturation is not only inevitable, it's necessary. And it seems to be paying spiritual dividends in those parts of the world where the Church h

By Randall Smith. But first a note from Robert Royal: At TCT, we try to maintain a certain serenity rooted in our belief that God is, ultimately, in control. Of everything. But we also still cannot take this mission too casually. We're at the point in our mid-year fundraising that donations are flagging. That's understandable, but something we cannot accept. We're still a long way from where we need to be to be sure that this mission continues for 2024, with all its challenges, let alone in coming years. I can't say this clearly enough: if you believe in this mission, what are you waiting for? I know that in the past you've responded to our needs. I'm calling on everyone to support the work of TCT. Now. Without delay. The situation is dire. The need great. Click the button. Do the right thing. Support The Catholic Thing. Now for Professor Smith's column...
So I read that the pope was interviewed on 60 Minutes. I had the reaction most people probably did: "Wow, is that show still on?" I mean, I haven't seen 60 Minutes in years. I don't watch network television anymore - who does? - but it's nice to know that someone is still trying to keep alive those old television traditions. I fear it's probably a losing battle, though. It's likely that 60 Minutes will soon be like Sexagesima Sunday.
People will ask: "What's that?" and then an AI program will tell them a partially true story about it.
Like most people, I only read the headlines about the papal interview, not the interview itself. (Who has time for that?) So, I take it that the pope said something about people being "stuck in a box" in the past, not able to move on, and that this is suicidal. And there was something else about "madness." All this seems to have been controversial. I'm not sure why. I mean, I'm pretty sure I understand what he must be talking about.
Haven't we all been struck by those people who are "stuck in the past" as though it's still 1965 or 1972? Some Catholics are still playing the same tune about "the spirit of the Council," rather than paying attention to what the documents of the Second Vatican Council actually say. There are still aging boomers strumming out on their guitars the old St.
Louis Jesuit hymns from the 1970s, thinking it's "for the young people," when "the young people" haven't been interested in music like that for decades - if they ever were. Young people are increasingly falling to their knees to receive Communion, learning standard Gregorian chants and hymns by Thomas Tallis, Josquin des Pres, and John Taverner.
We still have aging church leaders who think that modernist church designs with white-washed walls and "church-in-the-round" are "cutting edge," even though that style also went out of fashion decades ago, and congregations are increasingly opting for contemporary churches that hearken back to classical, Romanesque, or Gothic styles. You want to say, "Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Philip Johnson are dead. Move on. Don't get stuck in that modernist box - literally.
And we still have church leaders who seem to think that the way to draw people back to Mass is to make it more "hip," even though "hip" isn't a term anyone uses anymore. I only use it with my students when I want to look especially nerdy. I say something like, "Hey, I'm really hip," which shows how totally out of touch I am, and they all laugh.
For some reason, these 1960s holdovers seem to think that stripping away all the beauty of the Church, the liturgy, and the vestments will make the Mass more "approachable." All I know is that more congregations, especially those with young people and families, are opting for more beautiful churches, more solemn liturgies, and more traditional music.
So too, the religious orders that have re-dedicated themselves to their traditional roots are thriving; those that abandoned them after the Council are dying or dead.
As is often said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and exp

By Robert Royal. But first a note. We hope you all had a restful Memorial Day with family and friends. But we're back now and need to do business again. Our mid- year funding campaign resumes with good progress made and more that needs to be made. Soon. We intend to be here for everything that will happen in the Church and the world for the rest of 2024 and beyond. Are you willing to do your part? Setting up automatic monthly donations is easy, and a possible option for those who can't give much all at once. And there are other ways: all fully tax deductible. If you click the button you can see several ways by which you can make your own, personal contribution to the ongoing work of The Catholic Thing. Please do so, today. And now for Robert Royal's column...
Sociology is the softest of the sciences - according to sociological surveys - and its practitioners, with noteworthy exceptions, largely lean - and more than lean - Left. Which may explain why a recent New York Times essay seems puzzled and not a little irritated by the fact, noted by the sociologists, that conservatives are measurably happier (and have been for half a century) than liberals in our radically rabid era.
Their explanations tend towards the judgment that conservative happiness may be deplorable - for instance, that conservatives are (allegedly) less troubled than their liberal counterparts by inequality and injustice in the world. But it doesn't take much insight into human existence to see that, on the question of happiness, the sociological dogs may be barking up several wrong sociological trees.
Let's stipulate at the outset that, to a reflective mind, it's not immediately evident what it means to be conservative or liberal. Pope Francis recently remarked in his CBS interview that conservatism is "a suicidal attitude," characterizing conservatives as people whose hearts are "closed up inside a dogmatic box." The world is wide, and it may indeed contain such strange creatures.
But that rather illiberal judgment doesn't come within a country mile of the vast majority of persons - inside or outside the Church - whom a sociologist would classify as a conservative.
Meanwhile, recent surveys show that almost all younger priests in the United States and large majorities in Germany (!) are what the pope would doubtless regard as conservative without showing any signs of clinging to the past and failing to engage the present. In fact, for many of us, their resistance to many currents in the world offers a viable shelter while the world - especially the Western world - seems hell-bent on suicide.
But for the sake of a manageable argument, let's say that the sociologists have a street-level understanding of who counts as a conservative. And for the same reason, let's accept that what they mean by such a person being happier than liberals is also - in ordinary, everyday terms - an adequate description. The reasons for this, however, seem to lie elsewhere than usually thought.
Now for today's column..
In philosophical terms, happiness, too, is no simple term to define. I've written here recently about what Christians might learn - actually re-learn - from the great ancient pagan philosophers. Happiness in a high, rational sense among the ancient philosophers was the aim of human life. And Christianity took over that concept from the pagans with obvious additions about the happiness we'll find in the next life.
The Dominican Servais Pinckaers, whose book The Sources of Christian Ethics remains our best account of the subject, writes: "quite frankly. . .there would have been no Christian theology or 'philosophy' were it not for the contribution of Greek wisdom."
To be clear, happiness in both its ordinary and deeper meaning does not mean an absence of suffering and disappointments. As any mature person knows, those are features of the world in which we live and come to all of us in greater or lesser degree.
Rather, it means the sense of satisfaction of training ours

By Brad Miner
"A good chaplain is as valuable as a good general." - British field marshal Sir Douglas Haig, 1915
Growing up in Worthington, Ohio, Memorial Day was always accompanied - as where was it not - by a parade down High Street that included veterans, our high school band, some active-duty servicemen, and lots of spectators.
There were many WWII-era soldiers, Marines, and sailors in our town, and a few veterans of World War I too.
My memories are vivid of flags on veteran graves at Walnut Grove Cemetery and of band members in their full, fall uniforms, especially one 80+-degree day, on which occasion a clarinet player collapsed from heat exhaustion after the mile-long parade.
That cemetery is always the parade's terminus (1300 veterans are buried there). A trumpeter always steps forward to play "Taps."
These days the band members wear shorts and t-shirts, and the procession is followed by medical personnel - and plenty of water.
A diminishing number of WWII vets remain among us, but the last American veteran of WWI, Frank Buckles, died on February 27, 2011 - at the tender age of 110.
And it's CPL Buckles' war, the Great War, I want to discuss today, in thoughts prompted by a remarkable exhibit at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri.
Sacred Service, which opened this past Thursday, presents stories about (and artifacts from) chaplains who ministered to soldiers between 1914 and 1918. All images herein are from the exhibit.
The "war to end all wars" was horribly bloody and led to the deaths of "an estimated 9 million soldiers . . . and 23 million wounded, plus up to 8 million civilian deaths from numerous causes." There were 37,000,000 casualties in all. And the war was followed by the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic that killed as many as 50,000,000 worldwide. One easily grasps why Gertrude Stein (with an assist from Ernest Hemingway) described the post-war cohort as the "Lost Generation."
The Second World War would dwarf those awful statistics, but that's another story for another Memorial Day.
Unlike WWII, WWI was not a war of ideology. It was more clearly an internecine conflict in which the fighting was partly among consanguineous ruling families and formerly (mostly) friendly allies.
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of England, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were cousins - Wilhelm and George were first cousins. George and Nicholas were also first cousins, and Wilhelm and Nicholas were third cousins. This had a great deal to do with Queen Victoria's nine offspring, all of whom married into royal and noble families. It was the Queen's (failed) plan for European peace.
These were all Christian leaders from nations (and although not directly consanguineous, this also applied to France, Italy, and most other combatant countries) whose day-to-day social, political, and economic traditions were more alike than different.
Still, the Great War was seen as a kind of holy crusade. Sacred Service notes that "animated feelings of national pride and religious fervor to nations at the brink of war. The 'Spirit of 1914' descended on European cities, towns and churches."
It was madness, as are all wars, even if the casus belli are justified. I don't intend to engage that further, and, in any case, whatever may result from a war - whether peace or simply the next war - the courage of the combatants should be a lasting legacy and inspiration.
The image above of the charm worn by chaplains bears the inscription: "A.E.F. COMRADES IN SERVICE '17 '18 NEH. 4:18." The citation from Nehemiah is, "And each of the builders had his sword girded at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me." The initial letters stand for Allied Expeditionary Force.
When Rev. John J. Allan, who served in both world wars and would become the Salvation Army's Chief of Staff in 1946, was reassigned to the General Headquarters Chaplain Office, he recommended Rabbi Elkan Voorsanger as his replacement as