Shaw: What we can learn from the frightful presidential campaign of 2012

By Russell Shaw

As the 2012 campaign passes into history, it’s not too soon to note some of the genuine horrors of this increasingly strange way of choosing a president.

First, though, let me repeat a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic "Democracy in America" that I cited many months ago when the campaign was heating up. The point isn’t to celebrate my foresightedness but Tocqueville’s. Here’s what he said about an American presidential campaign 175 years ago:

“The election becomes the greatest and, as it were, the only matter which occupies people’s minds. Then political factions redouble their enthusiasm, every possible phony passion that the imagination can conceive…comes out into the light of day. The President, for his part, is absorbed in the task of defending himself. He governs no longer in the interests of the state but out of concern for his re-election….

“The whole nation descends into a feverish state; the election becomes the daily theme of newspapers, the subject of private conversations, the object of every maneuver and thought, the only concern of the present moment.”

Ah, yes. Consider the campaign of 2012.

Perhaps the most obvious fault of these quadrennial exercises as they’ve evolved is that they are much too long. Campaigning now formally begins at least a year before Election Day and, in reality, much earlier than that.

No doubt the process serves the useful purpose of weeding out unsuitable candidates, but there must be more expeditious ways of doing that. The one thing the interminable campaign of 2012 unquestionably accomplished was to run up the costs of campaigning, with huge sums going into expensive advertising. The media then happily banked the cash while deploring the role of big money in politics.

Dependence on expensive media to wage a campaign in turn fed the systematic dumbing-down of political discourse so evident this year. Complex issues were routinely reduced to ad hominem attacks delivered via TV spots and the like. This was nothing short of a scandal in a country that prides itself on being a model of democracy at work.

At least two serious problems with the primary system stood out. One was that it placed unreasonable power to shape the agenda — and bend the candidates — in the hands of a minuscule group like the folks who turn out to vote in the Iowa Republican caucuses. The other was the practice in some places of allowing members of one party to vote in the other party’s primary. That is like inviting the head coach of the opposing team to send in plays to your quarterback.

Media bias was of course a pervasive presence this year. To be sure, bias is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. But it would be hard to argue with a straight face that it wasn’t a reality in 2012. Its most conspicuous handmaid arguably was the “gotcha” journalism, focused on verbal slips and malapropisms, that at times turned campaign coverage into a carnival of gaffes instead of a sober discussion of issues. It’s easier for journalists to cover an election this way, but it’s also a disservice to voters.

I could go on, but I close with a thought about the Catholic sector. Here the big contributions of 2012 were to emphasize and exacerbate the corrosive split between pro-life Catholics and social justice Catholics, and to spotlight a woeful lack of continuing catechesis aimed at helping Catholics form their consciences in applying moral principles to politics. Serious remedial action is badly needed long before 2016.

The missionary in the mirror

A smile. An embrace. A helping hand. An ear to listen. Every day and every person we encounter is a missionary opportunity. The essence of the Church’s “evangelizing mission” is simply to help people, not necessarily convert them. Conversion is important, but we are called first and foremost to love and to serve. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) captures this view in its new blog series.

From USCCB on Ad Gentes (Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity):

When most of us think of “missionaries,” we picture priests, sisters and brothers going to far off lands to convert others to Christ. Most of us don’t look in the mirror and see a missionary, but we should.

The council decree aimed to “rally the forces of all the faithful.” Missionaries plant “the Church among peoples or groups who do not yet believe in Christ.” Given this reality, how can the rest of us, who do not go “forth into the whole world,” be missionaries? The decree stresses the answer is simple because missionary activity always occurs through personal example and acts of love that foster charity, justice and peace.

The blog post, “The Council At 50: All Are Missionaries,” is part of a series of blog posts from USCCB about the documents produced by the Council Fathers of Vatican II. Each post will discuss one of the 16 documents from the Council.

Kateri Tekakwitha: a saint for the youth

St. Kateri Tekakwitha is a wonderful example of holiness for young people, according to Matthew Bunson, co-author of Saint Kateri: Lily of the Mohawks (OSV, 2012) and editor of the Catholic Almanac. In a recent interview with Rome Reports, Bunson discussed the inspiring life of the first Native American saint, who was canonized Oct. 21 by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican.

Kateri Tekakwitha was the daughter of a Mohawk chief and a Catholic mother. She contracted smallpox as a toddler – a disease that swept through her village – claiming her family and leaving her severely disfigured and half-blind. Drawn to the Catholic faith by the Bible stories and teachings of the French Jesuits, Kateri amazed them by her perfection of the virtues, her mystical prayer life, and her total love for Christ. She died in 1680 at the young age of 24.

How often do you go to church?

According to recent research, many people don’t go to church as often as they say they do. Check out NPR’s analysis of a recent Pew Research Center study. According to the study, 79 percent of Americans claim affiliation with an organized faith group. However, walking step-by-step through someone’s week with the “Time Diary Method” tends to get different results.

From NPR science correspondent Shankar Vedantam:

So, rather than tell people you're asking about their church attendance, what you do is you march people through their week and have them describe to you exactly what they're doing at any given moment. So you say: What were you doing at four o'clock in the morning on Sunday? And most people will say: I was asleep. And then you ask them: What did you do next? Who were you with? Where did you go?

And when you march people through the week in this manner, it turns out only about 24 percent of Americans actually report attending religious services in the past week. And Brenner told me there's two things that's very interesting about this. What this suggests is that in actual religious practice, Americans might not be that different from people in Western Europe when it comes to what they do, but they might be very different for people in Western Europe when it comes to reporting what they do.

Read the full story.

Matthew Bunson in Rome: Seven new saints

As you have likely seen and read, Pope Benedict XVI Sunday canonized seven new saints:

• Kateri Tekakwitha and Marianne Cope;


• Jacques Berthieu, a French Jesuit missionary who was martyred in 1896 by rebels in Madagascar;


• Pedro Colungsod, a Filipino catechist who was martyred in the Marianas Islands in 1672;


• Giovanni Battista Piamarta, an Italian priest who founded the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth for men and the Congregation of the Humble Sister Servants of the Lord for women, as well as a publishing house;


• Carmen Sallés y Barangueras, a Spanish nun who founded the Congregation of the Conceptionist Missionary Sisters of Teaching to educate children in 1892; and


• Anna Schäffer, a German lay woman who endured immense suffering in her life from burns on her legs that never healed and offered them up as a victim soul.

CNS reports on it here and here.

The Mass and canonization were a momentous occasion for the 80,000 pilgrims who packed St. Peter’s Square. The papal Mass had all of the customary grandeur, and also the poignancy that is part of the Universal Church. As I wrote when I first arrived here last week, there were dozens of languages being spoken in the square, and that of course continued on Sunday at the Mass.

The Filipino contingent was very large and delightfully vocal, in attendance to honor Pedro Colungsod. Romans in the Borgo Pio and the Prati sections that are adjacent Vatican City were clearly delighted by the happy and singing Filipino pilgrims.

But the stars of the weekend were the Native Americans, who seemed to capture the attention of every reporter with a camera or a notepad in the piazza. This was a very good thing given the extraordinary story of Kateri and also of the Native American Catholics, not to mention the long and tortured history of the Native Americans in the country.

The pope seemed much older than the last time I saw him a year or so ago, but his voice is still strong and steady, and I am being told that his mind is as sharp as ever. He had an interesting comment about the first Native American saint during his homily:

“Leading a simple life, Kateri remained faithful to her love for Jesus, to prayer and to daily Mass. Her greatest wish was to know and to do what pleased God. She lived a life radiant with faith and purity. Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life in spite of the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other!”

The Holy Father – it seems to me – is making an argument that Kateri is very much a figure of the New Evangelization. We can see in her life parallels to our current day when young people are discouraged from a life of faith and purity. She rejected the notions of her time but did not hide from her own culture. Rather, she became a powerful model in that culture, the very one that persecuted her for her faith choices, and strove by her simple act of living the faith to change her own society, her own time, for the better. And the legacy she left behind of miracles, conversions and personal spiritual transformations attests to the validity of her choices.

No doubt many of the young pilgrims in attendance could not hear much of what the pope said, or even understand the English language that was used for that section of the homily. But I don’t think it mattered. As with World Youth Days, the significance and the value for them was in the vast context – being with their pontiff and tens of thousands of fellow believers in St. Peter’s Square, sharing in the Eucharist and honoring the saints. It was as Catholic a moment as one could possibly have.

As one young woman commented as we were leaving the piazza after the Mass, “I will never forget this as long as I live.” Neither will I.

Matthew Bunson in Rome: Of Hula and Pachyderms

Matthew Bunson

The celebrations for the canonization on Sunday of seven new saints – including Sts. Kateri Tekakwitha and Mother Marianne Cope – kicked into high gear on Friday night with a reception at the Vatican Museums. Technically, "danced into high gear" might be more appropriate, as the evening was marked by what one can only assume is something that has never happened before in the fabled history of the Vatican City State.

The event was organized by the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Miguel Diaz, and the staff of the Embassy here in Rome, and the host was the Vatican Museums. The ambassador, for those who may not be familiar with him, was appointed by President Obama in 2009. That choice at the time was a slightly unconventional one, as Diaz was a theologian by profession, earning a Ph.D. in theology from Notre Dame; he has a specialization in liberation theology.

The ambassador and his wife were gracious hosts, and I know first-hand that the Embassy staff went out of its way to be efficient and more than helpful to the many pilgrims who had made their way to the Eternal City. The Cuban-born theologian/diplomat gave a warm opening address to the combined groups for St. Kateri and St. Marianne, and seemed genuinely excited to have so many people in Rome for the occasion. He singled out several notable guests, including Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu; Father Wayne Paysse, the current head of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions; and Monsignor Paul Lenz, the director emeritus of the bureau and also the vice-postulator for the Cause of Kateri Tekakwitha. Both Father Paysse and Bishop Silva spoke briefly, and the bishop presented Ambassador Diaz with a special gift.

As the ambassador is a musician, he was given a specially made ukulele that had the elegant buttery sheen of the finest hand-made instruments from Hawaii. Finally, a short welcome was also offered by Dr. Antonio Paolucci, the Director of the Vatican Museums.

The rest of evening continued with a distinctly Hawaiian flavor, courtesy of a hula show that honored the life of Mother Marianne in song and dance. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that hula has been performed in the ornate cortiles, or courtyards, of the Vatican Museums. The courtyards have been the scene of everything from bull fights to carousels to dances, and even Pope Leo X paraded his beloved elephant Hanno there – the papal pachyderm was later buried in the Belvedere Cortile. It seems fitting, then, that the Museum that already houses and honors the world’s greatest art and cultural patrimony should host an evening of Hawaiian dancing and give praise to two such extraordinary figures.

• For some interesting coverage, the Hawaiian television station, KHON had a report on the reception. See it here.
• And my friend Patrick Downes, editor of The Hawaii Catholic Herald also offered this interesting take on the evening here.

I will have a full report on the canonization Mass. When I walked through the Piazza San Pietro at midnight there were already pilgrims in line to get a jump on the tens of thousands expected in the morning.

Matthew Bunson: Report from the Synod

Matthew Bunson

The discussion the last few days at the Synod of Bishops has apparently centered on two very active members: Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in the Vatican, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C.

Turkson is from Ghana and is thus very much aware of the challenges facing the Church in his native continent. A few days ago, he played a YouTube video called “Muslim Demographics.” Cardinal Turkson played the video during a free discussion period, not as a formal presentation.

The video, which was anonymously posted, is an alarmist presentation of the demographic growth of Islam in Europe and North America. It was originally posted apparently in 2009 and has been seen 13,000,000 times. When played at the synod, it caused a major uproar in the media here. The video provoked criticism from a number of European bishops who questioned both its statistics and its tone. Catholic News Agency offers a good summary of the fallout and Cardinal Turkson’s apology.

Nevertheless, the discussion is a good one to have as there are two major realities at work. The first is the need for on-going dialogue with Islam, especially as they are rivals with Christianity as the fastest growing religion in the world, and the second is also the need to rebuild much of an increasingly sclerotic Western culture that is also becoming a demographic wasteland. The Holy Father is committed to the former and his important project of the New Evangelization is concerned especially with the latter.

Cardinal Wuerl, meanwhile, is doing a superb job as relator – or one of the leaders steering the work of the synod. One of his tasks is to guide the progress of the 262 members and present a summary of its labors, including 230 formal speeches and the sometimes even more memorable informal statements. Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, has been doing some blogging for the Catholic News Service, and he offered a very helpful analysis of Wuerl’s presentation a few days ago. He also touches on the question of Islam. Read it here.

Of course, this synod is on the New Evangelization and proclaiming the unchanging truths of the Gospel to the modern world in a way that can be comprehended by the modern mind. It was the task given to the Church fifty years ago by Pope Bl. John XXIII when he opened the Council. In looking back on the start of the council (something Benedict XVI has been doing with great energy over the last months), Pope John’s opening speech could very well have been written yesterday. More on the Council will follow over the next days.

In understanding the modern mind, it might be worth noting that while the incendiary “Muslim Demographics" video has been seen 13 million times, it pales in comparison to Gangnam Style, the eccentric and hilariously ludicrous video of the middle-aged Korean “dancer” Psy, which has now been seen more than 483 million times on YouTube. In a barometer of modern culture, I sat next to a young woman on the plane coming over, who watched the Korean dance video on her iPhone. And while I was at dinner at a restaurant near the Vatican yesterday, I heard a group of Italian girls singing the line “Hey sexy lady” from it. We clearly have our work cut out for us.

'Humble pilgrim' Matthew Bunson reports from Rome

Matthew Bunson

I arrived in Rome [Wednesday] morning and headed, of course, to St. Peter’s Square and the basilica. It is a custom for many who travel to Rome on a regular – or somewhat regular – basis. It is a kind of like heading home and giving your mother a kiss on the cheek upon entering the door.

The amount of restoration going on in the square has gained considerable steam, and the piazza is dominated now by scaffolding that covers parts of the great architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s magnificent colonnade – the one that he described as intending to represent the Church’s arms outstretched to embrace the entire world.

(For a little background to the restoration, take a look at L’Osservatore Romano’s story on the restoration project.)

When restored, the colonnade will resemble the piazza as it did in the 1600s when Bernini had just finished it. It reminds me of the generous gift of the Knights of Columbus in the late 1990s when they funded the restoration of Carlo Maderno’s façade of the basilica. When it was done, the visitors were amazed to see the vibrant colors of the columns. Expect something similar with the colonnade that is part of the iconic picture from the dome of the basilica.

(Talking about Bernini, the upcoming January/February issue of The Catholic Answer Magazine has an article on arguably his second greatest sculpture piece (art historians consider the Ecstasy of St. Teresa of Ávila to be his foremost piece of sculpture): the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica with its sumptuous window of the Holy Spirit that bathes much of the church in a heavenly golden glow. There will be more on Bernini in the coming days.)

But back to the Piazza San Pietro. With the Synod of Bishops in full swing, there is a constant hub of activity around the left hand side of the square and the synod hall. I will be spending time in the hall for the next days, but the sheer number of priests, nuns, monsignori, bishops, and cardinals moving in and out is a reminder of the events unfolding there to focus on the New Evangelization. 

They are joined, however, by unusually large crowds of tourists and pilgrims as the Holy See gears up for the canonizations on Sunday of seven new saints. The Germans seem to have a head start as hundreds of German high school kids were everywhere in the square, part of the celebration honoring Anna Schäfer, a victim soul who died in 1925 and the declaration of St. Hildegard of Bingen as a Doctor of the Church

The crowds, though, are the first things you see when you enter the Via della Conciliazione, the stretch of road leading from the Vatican to the Tiber. Not that the basilica has become less magnificent, as that would scarcely be possible. Rather, the sheer scale of the church is slightly offset by the dominating image of the thousands from around the world who have come to visit.

They arrive from everywhere, and I heard Italian, English, Japanese, Mandarin, Filipino, German, French, several African dialects, and Spanish -- and that was during one walk across the square. I was reminded of Henry James’ comment in 'Transatlantic Sketches' (1873): “As a mere promenade, St. Peter's is unequaled. It is better than the Boulevards, than Picadilly or Broadway, and if it were not the most beautiful place in the world, it would be the most entertaining.”

Some came obviously because it is part of their tour or they just want to see the greatest church in the world.

Thousands more, however, were there for a deeper reason. They came to the place of St. Peter as humble pilgrims. They came to pray before the tomb of Bl. John Paul II. To pray at the burial place of Peter himself. And I had the immense privilege of counting myself among their number.

 

 

Matthew Bunson is editor of Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Almanac and The Catholic Answer magazine. He is a well-known and media-savvy scholar, a prolific author, and a familiar voice for the Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend's Redeemer Radio. Dr. Bunson is in Rome covering the Synod and the canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha. His new book, co-authored with his late mother, Margaret, is Saint Kateri: Lily of the Mohawks (OSV). 

Shaw: Make no mistake, this election is about values

By Russell Shaw

When Americans go to the polls next month, they will be participating in a national referendum on values. This "values" dimension makes the election, in the estimate of seasoned observers, the most important in many years. “The closest thing to political Armageddon since 1860,” Frank Gannon and Jeffrey Bell of the conservative Washington-based American Principles Project write. If that is stretching it, it’s not by much.

Values like justice and charity and economic self-determination are fundamental to economic policy. Values are at stake regarding the scope and configuration of government, the central challenge here being balancing solidarity and subsidiarity. Values speak to the question of America’s role in the world, including a realistic and constructive stance toward a resurgent and sometimes hostile Islam.

And it hardly needs saying that values are at the heart of the social issues — pre-eminently abortion and same-sex marriage — that are intimately linked to the sanctity of human life and the meaning of marriage and family. Apparently reflecting the preferences of both parties and their candidates, not a lot has been said about social issues in this year’s campaign. But whether the politicians and the media acknowledge it or not, everyone knows these issues are there, this year’s political version of the elephant in the living room. What role they will play in the election has yet to be seen.

In order to understand how America reached this present state of affairs, a bit of context will help. It comes from a Church source. Speaking at the world Synod of Bishops now nearing its close in Rome, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., referred to the “tsunami of secularization” that swept over Western Europe and much of the rest of the world in the last several decades.

Powerful currents from that cultural tidal wave also have pummeled — and, indeed, they continue to pummel — the United States. For fresh evidence of that, we need look no further than the new Pew Research Center study that shockingly found nearly 20 percent of Americans now describing themselves as religiously unaffiliated. (This group includes atheists, agnostics, and a significant number of people who just don’t identify with any particular denomination.)

The tsunami of secularism reflected in this situation didn’t come from nowhere. In his influential book "Modern Times," historian Paul Johnson notes that the breakdown of the religious impulse among members of the West’s cultural elite occurring in the 19th century left in its wake what the author calls "a huge vacuum” of convictions and values. Efforts to fill that vacuum make up a large part of modern history.

Much of this work, as Johnson and others point out, has been done — usually with disastrous results — by zealots of secularist ideologies (think fascism, Nazism, communism) who busied themselves with constructing secularist utopias of one or another sort. The United States has, happily, been largely spared the most noxious expressions of this unhinged zealotry up to now, but the urge has been present all the same. Of late it has tended to take the form of a kind of statist populism, practiced to varying degrees by both political parties, that seeks to win and hold power by organizing coalitions of heterogeneous interest groups held together by rhetoric, habit and the promise of rewards.

And so we come to the election of 2012. Every election is a choice, but the choice this time focuses on an especially large question: what kind of values — contemporary secularist or modestly traditional — shall 21st century America officially espouse and practice? Good luck with that one.

Biden's HHS mandate claim raises eyebrows

One comment from last night's spirited vice presidential debate between Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan has elicited a strong reaction from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In response to debate moderator Martha Raddatz's question about how his Catholic faith influences his view of abortion, Biden had this to say:

"With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear, no religious institution, Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy Hospital, any hospital, none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact."

Today, the USCCB issued a statement that poked holes Biden's claim. It said, "This is not a fact. The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain 'religious employers.' That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to 'Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital,' or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served."

Read what else the USCCB statement had to say.

Shaw: Two visions of the Church's future

By Russell Shaw

Two new books by thoughtful Catholic authors take deeply different views of the future of American Catholicism. Both deserve serious pondering.

One of them is called "Why Catholicism Matters." The subtitle tells it all: “How Catholic Virtues Can Reshape Society in the 21st Century” (Image Books). It’s the work of Bill Donohue, feisty president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

The other volume is "Bad Religion," and its subtitle is similarly telling: “How We Became a Nation of Heretics” (Free Press). The author is Ross Douthat, a Catholic who writes an Op-Ed column for The New York Times.

In "Why Catholicism Matters," the Catholic League boss, a social scientist with a doctorate who was a college professor before becoming the scourge of anti-Catholics, argues a cheerfully, unapologetically triumphalistic line. He writes:

“If there is one institution that embodies the right recipe for the makings of the good society it is the Roman Catholic Church. Its teachings, especially those that have a public impact, are as well suited to answering today’s social problems as they were two thousand years ago.”

“If only they were followed,” he adds ruefully. Ah, there’s the rub. In two millennia it’s doubtful whether any society anywhere has ever pulled that off consistently and for a sustained period of time.

Donohue isn’t the man to let that discourage him. In fairness, though, it must be said that he isn’t predicting it will happen now but only making the case that it should. From that perspective, "Why Catholicism Matters" has an important message.

But so does Douthat’s "Bad Religion." American Catholicism isn’t his only subject here, but the Church is central to the story he tells. And the story is disturbing.

In brief, it’s this. Orthodox (i.e., traditional) Christianity has faded drastically in America during the last several decades as measured by vanishing cultural impact and “steady institutional decline.” That includes mainline Protestantism, evangelical Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism.

In its place, millions of Americans have embraced various “heresies,” four of which Douthat examines: the “real Jesus” movement represented in the fictionalized fantasies of Dan Brown, the “prosperity gospel,” the “God within” religiosity of pantheistic feel-goodism, and a religious form of hyper-nationalism. The result, Douthat believes, will be a future—possible to the point of being probable—in which “orthodoxy slowly withers and only heresies endure.”

No more than with Donohue’s triumphalism need anyone agree entirely with Douthat’s gloom. But it would be a mistake simply to dismiss either. In the case of American Catholicism, one thing is certain: neither scenario, Douthat’s or Donohue’s, is inevitable. To a great extent, the future is up to us.

Considering how widespread de facto defection from the Church has become, that’s not a comforting thought. What can be done to turn things around? In many cases—probably not much. But in the case of Catholics who practice their faith, part of the answer lies in a much stronger appreciation of what Pope Benedict XVI calls co-responsibility than many laity and clergy now possess.

“Co-responsibility demands a change in mindset,” he says. The laity “should not be regarded as ‘collaborators’ of the clergy but, rather, as people who are really ‘co-responsible’ for the Church’s being and acting.” Then the Church will truly be as it’s depicted in the Acts of the Apostles: “The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul” (4:32).

That’s asking a lot. As Bill Donohue and Ross Douthat make clear, much now depends on it.