Cui Bono?

"The famous Lucius Cassius,
whom the Roman people used
to regard as a very honest and
wise judge, was in the
habit of asking, time
and again, 'Cui bono?
 To whose benefit?'"

Can today's level of liberal dismay and cognitive dissonance be overstated?  For a long time, and especially the last eight years, the liberals have, or seem to have had, a lock on society at all levels, all over the world.  Even the Catholic Church is choked with leftists, all the way to the top of the hierarchy.  The liberals were certain of their hegemony.  But in A.D. 2016, the bunker has been busted.  In June, the United Kingdom voted to detach herself from the Soviet Union's velvet-upholstered successor, the European Union.  And now, in the States, a man who has never held political office or served in the military, who has been relentlessly ridiculed and savaged in the media, has trounced the heiress-apparent to Obama's neo-Marxist empire.  Not only that: the Party of Hillary has failed to gain a majority in the House or the Senate, and has lost control of all but five states and numerous local offices.

And the left is stunned.  Their frenzy and hysteria could not be greater if Old Scratch himself were elected president (assuming they believed in such a person).  Yet there is a clear disconnect for liberals between their outrage over the election of Chief Deputy Devil Trump and real life.  How do they handle their friends and relations who they know voted for Trump?  How do they account for people they know who have never hitherto shown the slightest inclination toward racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, phobophobia, etc., etc., etc. suddenly popping up and voting for a candidate they say embodies all these things?  Are they to believe that every single one of these people was a crypto-[insert prejudice-du-jour here] and it never emerged until now, despite countless opportunities to forward an Agenda of Hate?  The Hillary supporters I associate with daily have not changed their behavior toward me, as surely they should if I am really as low as I'd have to be to vote for a guy that is really as evil as they think Trump is.

It is hard to have to face up even to the possibility that one's world view might be somewhat off.  So for the last week the liberals have been taking comfort in the wearing of diaper pins, and in the notion that their side is being vindicated by events.  I refer not to the professional rioters out pillaging big cities to prove that Trump's election was fixed -- although we could talk about that -- but specifically to the "hate crimes" and "harassment" that minorities are allegedly suffering at the hands of Trump supporters.  See? they say.  We told you so!  We told you America would become a mean, dangerous place with Trump in the White House, and it's already starting even before the electoral college!  Ideology is so important to some people that they clearly devoutly wish it to be true that their fellow, flesh-and-blood human beings are being subjected to torments and degradations in Trump's name.  I think there are many out there who would be positively crestfallen to discover that this is not happening.

And I shall enjoy seeing their crests fall.  It is daily becoming more obvious that these harassment stories are being weighed in the balance and found wanting.  A woman who claimed a redneck in a Trump hat stole her hijab in Lafayette, Louisiana, later admitted to having made the whole thing up.  A story about a racial assault in Philadelphia, with enough idiotic specifics to check against the facts, proved to be groundless.  And then there is the gay Canadian filmmaker and his unsubstantiated story that even Snopes cannot get on board with.  Even anti-Trump types have come under fire as far-right fanatics, like the guy in San Francisco who flew a Nazi flag over his home to protest the election result.

But even setting aside debunked stories, I am calling Bravo Sierra on these "hate crimes" allegedly committed by Trump supporters.  These stories simply do not pass the smell test:

1. I voted for Trump, and I do not recognize myself in the caricature of Trump voters that is being put out there.  These "hate crimes" clearly reflect the left's cartoonish image of Trump supporters and what they believe, rather than reality.

2. The evidence offered to support these stories ranges from non-existent to...well, next-to-non-existent.  Mostly the existence of a report of an incident is the only evidence, even though an accusation is never evidence.  Many reports are pure hearsay, or hearsay upon hearsay.  The person passing on a report often claims or implies that the source is unimpeachable, but never names this source or tells us whether he questioned the source live and in person, or read it on social media, where anybody can say anything about anything.  Some people cite to the existence of photos or videos, as if these can never be photoshopped or staged (and where, by the way, is the moral outrage at the cameraman who is videotaping an assault with his phone instead of using that phone to call the police?).  Others cite to the sheer volume of reports as proof of their believability, adding another honoree to the Non Sequitur Hall of Fame.  Instead of producing competent evidence of Trump-supporter malfeasance, the proponents of these stories accuse anyone who so much as questions them of "creating an environment" that "silences" the victims.  In other words, (a) it doesn't matter whether these reports are true, and (b) my use of my right to free speech oppresses assault victims.

3. Fraudulent hate crimes are a standard leftist tactic.  During my university days, radical activists liked to stage some sort of "assault" at one of their sparsely-attended demonstrations, or claim to have "found" a racist message on a chalkboard in an empty classroom, just to liven things up.  The evidence that these incidents were other than the work of those who reported them was nugatory at best; and the question that never got answered was why, if this is such a racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe/etc.-ophobe society, there was a need to gin up fake evidence to prove it.

4. Conservatives prefer to stomp liberals in the voting booth rather than in the street.  We work hard to earn the money to buy clothes and would rather not bloody them up needlessly.

5. Conservatives would not profit by resorting to desperate tactics of street-thuggery after chasing the Party of Hillary out of the White House, the House, the Senate, 45 governorships, and numerous local offices.

6. Conservatives are too busy trying to lead productive lives to engage in brigandage.  This may come as a shock, but we are really quite ordinary, boring people whose idea of raising hell is to add an extra tablespoon of melted butter to the popcorn.  We do not live for the thrill of imprisonment, as this would interfere with getting up and going to work in the morning.  (Probably most people who vote Democrat are the same way; otherwise, we wouldn't need professional rioters to loot and pillage in the wake of an election.)

All we really need to do is ask ourselves: who wants these "hate crime"/"harassment" stories to be true?  Who needs these stories to be true?  Who profits if they are true?  Is it really plausible that Trump supporters want to look like a bunch of bigots?  Or is it more plausible that liberal leftists want Trump supporters to look like a bunch of bigots?

Cui bono?

President Trump

Before I read any commentary on the election, a few of my own thoughts.

Am I happy Trump won?  I am happy Hillary lost.  My support for Trump was based not on personalities, but on issues.  Trump has articulated positions congenial to conservatives, but is in some ways an unknown quantity: he has never held public office -- which I don't hold against him -- and he has changed his tune over the years on certain things.  I cannot be certain he will defend and advance authentic conservative values across the board.  Plus, Trump has a reputation, deserved or not, of being a rude, crude dude.  Hillary, on the other hand, is an absolute certainty.  She is certainty a hard leftist, and will advance the causes dear to hard leftists.  She supports the dismantling of bedrock societal institutions and the killing of babies in their mothers' wombs.  She is a sworn enemy of religious freedom in general, and the Catholic Church and all that the Catholic Church stands for in particular.  She thinks deeply held religious beliefs that are not congruent with her own ideology must be changed, and has said so publicly.  How would she propose to "change" these deeply-held beliefs, except by means of the coercive police power of the state?

Neither of these candidates was A-list, in my judgment, but I did not see this election as a question of choosing the lesser of two evils.  Rather, the question was how to minimize the damage and choose the course that had the better chance of turning out well.  Which one of these candidates would be more likely to further America's best interests?  Which one would unquestionably be an unmitigated disaster?  The answer seemed to me clear.  It was essential that Hillary be defeated.  The stakes seemed to me too high for sitting out the election to be an option, so the question was, where would I cast my vote?  When I weighed the certainties of Hillary against the uncertainties of Trump, and factored in the utter futility of supporting any third-party candidate, the decision to vote for Trump seemed to me a no-brainer.  Other people came to a different conclusion and either sat out the election altogether or voted third-party.  I can understand their reasoning, though I do not agree with it.  Happily, the abstainers and the third-party voters were not numerous enough to make a difference to the result.

So we will see what happens from here.  The future is uncertain (though it would have been certainly bad if Hillary had won), but there are hopeful signs.  That all the right people are under a black cloud this morning is encouraging.  Donald Trump is clearly hated and despised by the establishment types, including the media.  This was obvious in how the media held out calling Florida for Trump even with more than 99% of precincts reporting; and the broadcast media, including Fox News, held off calling the election for Trump even after the New York Times threw in the towel.  Leftists in Europe are clutching their pearls.  Celebrities are threatening to leave the country (promises, promises). 

Unfortunately, many of my friends and colleagues are in the doldrums too; but, to the extent they truly esteem me, I wonder if they thought through the fact that they supported a woman who would have subjected me, an observing Catholic, to all-out persecution if she had attained power.  Perhaps some of them are really indifferent to my well-being.  Perhaps their animosity toward the Catholic Church takes priority over any interest in my well-being. Perhaps this is an example of the incoherence of post-modern thought, pursuant to which beliefs are merely comforting abstractions that you can hold without actually applying them in real life; and since many of them pay lip service to beliefs which they clearly do not actually live out, they assume that I must do the same with my Catholic faith -- little thinking that if I take my faith seriously, then opposition to it must ultimately mean opposition to me personally.  But the reality is that there is indeed a connection between ideas and real life, and therefore there is personal responsibility for the consequences of the ideas one holds.

To echo a well-known blogging priest, I would have voted for the rotting, decaying corpse of Millard Fillmore to keep Hillary out of the White House.  Some would probably say I have; some might think I have done worse than that.  I dissent from their views, and choose to look out over the horizon with hope.

Getting Out the Vote: Election Thoughts

We created a haven of freedom in a world governed by brutal tyranny. 

We invented the airplane, mass-manufactured automobiles, and pioneered space travel. 

We produce enough food to feed ourselves and the rest of the world. 

We give massively to charity and send emergency relief to disaster areas around the world. 

We crushed Hitler, bankrupted the Soviet Union, and beat those commie bastards to the moon.

We brought the Apollo 13 astronauts back home using pencils, papers and slide rules.

We have been the freest country on earth, where millions have flourished throughout her history. 

No matter what happens today, nobody can ever take any of this away from us.

-- What was the point of early voting?  Let people vote on Election Day.

-- I was at my polling place before it opened this morning, and there was already a line starting.  By the time I got my ballot and got into my voting booth, the joint was jumping.  As the poll worker looked for my name through her roster of registered voters, I noticed that a lot of people were marked as having already voted. I don't recall things being so busy and lively at the last presidential election.

One Idaho county reports that they ran out of ballots and had to have more printed.

-- While I do not think Donald Trump is another Reagan, I do see similarities between this election and 1980.  Reagan was widely ridiculed by the media and the intelligentsia, as Trump is.  Reagan was not beloved of the GOP establishment, as Trump is not.  Reagan had been divorced, like Trump.  Reagan polled behind Carter, like Trump has polled behind Clinton.  And, of course, Reagan absolutely crushed Carter in a landslide, and repeated his performance on an even greater scale four years later against Mondale.

-- My conclusion about this election is that it is absolutely essential to defeat Hillary.  Trump is in some ways an unknown quantity; we know what he says now about the issues, and that this does not match what he has previously said about those same issues.  Hillary, however, is very much a known quantity, and a very bad quantity.  We can be absolutely certain that her victory would be a disaster.  That is why I decided that it would be a waste to vote for a non-viable third-party candidate.  A vote for a third-party candidate nearly always constitutes a vote for the Democrats.

-- This election also makes me think of the 1990 election of Violeta Chamorro in Nicaragua, when the voters dumped socialist Daniel Ortega.  P.J. O'Rourke covered this election and reported having gone in with a sense of discouragement over the widespread belief that the Sandinistas would win.  He said the high level of turnout should have been a clue that the conventional wisdom was not so wise after all.  People do not show up in their droves, from the ass-end of nowhere, he remarked, to maintain the status quo.

-- Hence my theory of this election: high turnout means a victory for Trump.  I doubt people will flock to the polls to vote in Obama 2.0.

We shall see.

Random Thoughts

-- In my experience, there are three areas where people consistently feel exceedingly pleased with themselves, regardless of justification: (1) driving; (2) in bed; (3) performing field sobriety tests.

--  As the daughter of a combat veteran, I have always been suspicious of anyone whose tongue wags too freely about their alleged combat experiences.  Persons who hold forth to casual acquaintances about "atrocities" they committed overseas are, I believe, worthy only to be dismissed out of hand as liars.  Persons who speechify about the deaths of buddies as a means of drawing attention to themselves or making excuses for their own failures were probably in the rear with the gear, if indeed they were ever near the combat zone in question.  Now, there is nothing wrong with being in the rear with the gear: somebody has to be, and the soldier on the front line could not function or survive without such.  But if that is where you served, then say so and stick with the truth.  Real combat veterans don't say much about their experiences at all, except maybe to other combat veterans; and they would be ashamed to capitalize on the deaths of their friends for selfish purposes.

-- When I was a kid, my afternoon cartoons were periodically interrupted by a PSA warning us against -- of all things -- not drowning our food in sauces and dressings.  I of course am guilty as charged.  I have even taken to making my own ranch dressing so that I can control the calorie content while still enjoying volume.  But my biggest downfall is butter.  Fortunately, butter in reasonable amounts is good for you -- unlike margarine, which is basically plastic and deposits itself like silt on the human midsection.  But somebody needs to get busy and invent a negative-calorie butter so I can have the unreasonable amounts I want.

-- And speaking of cartoons, a lot of the ones I grew up on that were produced in the '30s, '40s and '50s are considered anathema today, mostly because they made fun of people's ethnicities.  Now, the world would not be a better place if we could just get back to the halcyon days of belittling ethnic minorities with impunity.  Still, we did not make a better world by trading that state of affairs in for one which has everyone living in dread of transgressing the ever-shifting and often invisible rules against giving offense.

-- If you are couch-surfing, and can't hold down a job, and have a string of drug- or alcohol-related convictions on your record, then maybe -- just maybe -- you are not as smart as you think you are.

-- The liberals' claim that illegal immigrants do jobs Americans are not willing to do is false.  Of course Americans are willing to do those jobs.  I myself have done those sorts of jobs.  What Americans are not willing to do is work for slave wages.  So what the liberals -- and, by the way, big business -- are really saying is that we need a permanent underclass of fellow human beings who can be exploited on account of their willingness to be paid less than their labor is worth.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Defrauding a worker of his just wage is one of the four sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance.

-- And speaking of defrauding workers, there is more to the concept of a living wage than merely making employers pay people more money.  A living wage requires a just society that does not confiscate excessive amounts of people's dollars or the value of those dollars.  What is really necessary is a return to the Catholic principle of subsidiarity -- the running of affairs by the smallest, most local unit of competent authority capable of handling them.  The absence of subsidiarity is immoral.  The usurpation of local functions by big government requires massive taxation.  A social structure that diverts so much wealth away from the individuals who earn it, until they can no longer advance materially, support themselves and their families, or maintain themselves in a condition worthy of their human dignity, is evil.

-- And speaking of the welfare state: it seems that a good many decent people support the concept of the welfare state out of a belief that, without the state's coercive police power, no one would ever care for the poor and needy.  But in a Christian society, this is a lie.  Long before we got FDR's New Deal or LBJ's Great Society, the Catholic Church was a powerhouse of charity, operating untold numbers of hospitals and orphanages and schools and soup kitchens down the centuries, and giving birth to numerous religious orders dedicated to teaching, nursing, ransoming captives, and spreading the Gospel to foreign lands to inspire more and more people to do likewise.  The Christian spirit is so potent that even in a degraded and diluted state, it moves people to take pity on their fellow creatures; but a welfare state is calculated to deprive them of the means.


-- I am beginning to think that the number of people I know who do not have tattoos, besides myself, can be counted on one hand.  There are many tattooed faces out there: I even saw a guy the other day who had tattoos on his eyelids.  And then there are the many piercings: I feel like an aberration with only one hole in each earlobe.  Apropos of this phenomenon, my late friend Gary Reedy once observed that 30 or 40 years from now, nursing homes are going to be some of the scariest places on earth.

-- There are too many adolescents running around in adult bodies.  The latest manifestations of this seem to be (1) running around in public in pajama bottoms, and (2) the application to hair of unnatural colors like pink and purple.  Even middle-aged and elderly people are doing this, especially item (2).

-- Another trait of adolescence is thinking you can make up your own reality.  Sadly, many of us are failing to grow out of that.

-- What I do for a living can be summarized as follows: you provide the bubble; I provide the pin.  Bubble-popping is not an occupation calculated to make a person popular.  Sadly, I cannot seem to get out of doing it even on my off-time.

-- Of course, even I have my own bubbles that require popping.  As much as we hate to have our bubbles burst, the world will be a far sorrier and more wretched place the day we run out of people to do it.      

A Year with Major Attitude

By now I'm sure most of my former readers have all but given up on this blog.  I have been going for weeks and months without posting anything.  But the last year has been rough.

Some of my setbacks I cannot discuss in public.  (Nothing to do with my health thus far, fortunately.)  But it has been one disaster after another.  My grandfather, aged 93, died right before Christmas.  My friend, Gary Reedy, succumbed to cancer in January.  Nine days later, and two days before his funeral, my mother died.  I watched Gary fight his losing battle, and had time and opportunity to think about it and find the words to describe it, and what it meant.  Not so for the loss of my mother, whose death came as a sudden shock.  I still cannot trust myself to write about it. 

And then there are the changes at work.  In August the county rolled out a complicated new computer system, not all of whose features work as expected and which is playing havoc with my personal methods of coping with my caseload.  This month, the Big Boss, who has headed my office since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, is stepping down in favor of his chief deputy.  All the usual sorts of changes that can be expected when a new sheriff rides into town loom on the horizon.

And then there is the overall sense that the country is going to hell in a bucket, and the confusion within the Church.  I feel the confusion too.  When you belong to a society -- whether it is a family, a nation or the Catholic Church -- you have to take the bad with the good.  That is part of the deal.  Confusion is a suffering, and when a society suffers, all its members must partake of it.  It is hard to know what to say about it, or when to say it, or whether you should say what you want to say.  It would be nice to be able to pretend everything is okay.

I was thinking about all the trauma and turmoil the other day, and my failures, and how small and ineffectual and compromised I am in the face of it all; and then, in my mind's eye, I saw, as if in answer to the satanic fury, Christ hanging on the cross.  That is the answer, which I am very apt to forget.  The war has in fact already been won.  There may be much yet to suffer, but there can be no doubt about the end. 

Brexit: God Clearing His Throat?

We have now a generation of adults too young to remember the Soviet Union and the Cold War, and to appreciate the amazing shock of the former's demise.  We kids all knew who Leonid Brezhnev was, and the parade of his short-lived successors who were finally acknowledged to be dead after suffering from six-month-long "colds" was actually a topic of schoolyard conversation.  By the time I started high school, the Soviets held a vast nuclear arsenal, thanks to the treason of the Rosenbergs; had conquered over eight and a half million square miles and reduced a quarter of a billion souls to serfdom; and, on the psy-ops front, had fought the West almost to a standstill.  The mentality was widespread that containment of the "Evil Empire" -- always with the obligatory scare quotes -- rather than its unmitigated defeat, was to be the objective; and the Cold War and threat of nuclear holocaust would go on forever, thanks to the intransigence of the Western democracies.  But just when the Soviet Union seemed most unmovable, then -- as William F. Buckley, Jr. described it -- God cleared His throat.  And on March 11, 1990, little Lithuania declared herself independent from Moscow: the first falling pebbles presaging the avalanche that caved in the Soviet fortress.

But it would be a mistake to assume that the Communists and their fellow travelers all turned into freedom-loving capitalists just because their precious socialist paradise collapsed.  They simply found new homes and brought their elitist, materialist, socialist, globalist, bureaucratist, collectivist, secularist, modernist, totalitarian ideals with them.  One of their biggest new homes, judging by its fruits, is the European Union.  And now, with the United Kingdom's vote yesterday to leave the European Union, over the opposition of political and economic elites all over the world, those presaging pebbles are falling once again.  Other member nations will doubtless follow suit.

And this is no cause for regret.  However motivated its founders might have been by a sincere desire for peace and the prevention of future world wars, the reality is that the European Union is just the Soviet Union with velvet upholstery.  To the EU, as to the Soviet Union, "peace" means the absence of opposition, and it is brought about by laying down a leaden blanket of minute regulations under which no one can move.  The EU is a load of bureaucrats thinking they can run people's lives better than the people can themselves.  It has no respect for democracy; no respect for freedom of association (including freedom from association); no respect for national identity; no respect for the principle of subsidiarity; no respect for private property.  It subordinates flesh-and-blood human beings to ideology.  It bullied Ireland into holding a new referendum to accept the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, after a 2008 referendum in which the treaty went down to defeat.  It replaced the legitimate heads of government in Greece and Italy with its own appointees.  In 2013, it confiscated money out of people's bank accounts in Cyprus to support a bailout of that country.  Its grand schemes to manage the economy -- which in truth amounts to trying to control the movements, private decisions, associations and property of countless individual, flesh-and-blood human beings --  are calculated to spread misery rather than prosperity, except for the anointed few.

Which is why neither the EU nor any merely political institution is the last, best hope for peace in Europe, which has proven so elusive over the last century.  These Eurocrats may love humanity in general, but clearly have no respect for human beings in particular, with their messy hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes, needs and wants.  Individuals are merely means to an end.  This is why the Eurocrats see no problem with moving people and their property around like the inanimate men on a chessboard, as if they do not care where they are put, or with whom, or with what, or what the consequences will be.  At any rate, it is apparent that in the view of their betters in Brussels, they shouldn't care; after all, knowing better is what makes the betters...better.

After years and years of many people on both sides simply assuming that that is the way things are going to continue, there has finally been some pushback.   Despite the Eurocracy's best efforts, Britain is pulling out.  It is a hopeful sign that the tide is turning against the revolutionary ideologies and ideologues down the modern centuries that have busied themselves extinguishing the lights of Christendom, toppling thrones and altars, first in polities, then in men's hearts.  There are already calls for exit referendums in other EU member states.  The pebbles are falling.  God, in His mercy, is clearing His throat and opening the door to a new beginning.

But it is only a beginning, and we cannot expect to gain anything by resting on our laurels.  Perhaps now would be an opportune moment to suggest that the best insurance against tyranny and fratricidal slaughters like the two World Wars would be for Europe to return to her Catholic Christian roots.  The trust is ill-founded, as the Psalm says, that is put in princes, the children of men in whom there is no salvation.  It is men's hearts that need changing, and this cannot be effected by mere political institutions.

V for Victory

The French poet, Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), never dreamed of the role he would play in a great drama that would take place exactly 100 years after his birth.  Seventy-two years ago today, the French Underground tensely awaited the great signal that the Allied invasion of Normandy -- the greatest amphibious operation in history -- was immanent.  This signal was the first stanza of Verlaine's poem, Chanson d'automne, broadcast over the radio.  

Les sanglots longs

Des violons

De l'automne

Blessent mon coeur

D'une langueur

Monotone.

Tout suffocant

Et blême, quand

Sonne l'heure,

Je me souviens

Des jours anciens

Et je pleure

Et je m'en vais

Au vent mauvais

Qui m'emporte

Deçà, delà,

Pareil à la

Feuille morte.

The long sobs

Of the violins

Of autumn

Wound my heart

With a languor

Monotonous.

All suffocating

And pale when

The hour strikes

I remember

The old days

And weep

And I go away

In the ill wind

that carries me off

This side and beyond

Like the

Dead leaf.

"Believe me, Lang, the first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive...the fate of Germany depends on the outcome...for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day."

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to his aide, Capt. Hellmuth Lang, April 22, 1944

From Part One, Chapter 13 of The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan (available, by the way, on Kindle):

Now Eisenhower stood watching as the planes trundled down the runways and lifted slowly into the air.  One by one they followed each other into the darkness.  Above the field, they circled as they assembled into formation.  Eisenhower, his hands deep in his pockets, gazed up into the night sky.  As the huge formation of planes roared one last time over the field and headed toward France, NBC's Red Mueller looked at the Supreme Commander.  Eisenhower's eyes were filled with tears.

Minutes later, in the Channel, the men of the invasion fleet heard the roar of the planes.  It grew louder by the second, and then wave after wave passed overhead.  The formation took a long time to pass.  Then the thunder of their engines began to fade.  On the bridge of the U.S.S. Herndon, Lieutenant Bartow Farr, the watch officers and NEA's war correspondent, Tom Wolf, gazed up into the darkness.  Nobody could say a word.  And then as the last formation flew over, an amber light blinked down through the clouds on the fleet below.  Slowly it flashed out in Morse code three dots and a dash: V for Victory.

America's Heroic Priests

The (Congressional) Medal of Honor was established in 1861, during the Civil War.  The qualifications for being awarded the Medal have been tightened up and refined over the years, but it is currently awarded to a member of the U.S. military for acts of intrepidity and gallantry above and beyond the call of duty while involved in combat operations.  

Since the Medal of Honor was established, it has been awarded to nine chaplains.  Four Protestant chaplains were awarded the Medal for their service during the Civil War: John Milton Whitehead (Chaplain, U.S. Army, 15th Indiana Infantry); Francis Bloodgood Hall (Chaplain, U.S. Army, 16th New York Infantry); James Hill (1st Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company I, 21st Iowa Infantry); and Milton Lorenzo Haney (Regimental Chaplain, U.S. Army, 55th Illinois Infantry).  One Catholic priest serving the Confederate Army, Fr. Emmeran Bliemel, O.S.B., was killed at the Battle of Jonesboro while administering last rites -- the first American chaplain to die on the field of battle -- and is said to have been postumously awarded the Southern Cross of Honor. 

Since the Civil War, five more American chaplains have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Every one of them was a Catholic priest, and two have causes for beatification.  Herewith the five priests who have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor:

Lt. Comdr. Joseph Timothy O'Callahan, U.S. Navy (World War II)

Out of 464 Medal of Honor winners in World War II, Fr. O'Callahan was the only chaplain.  Here he is, ministering to the wounded aboard the U.S.S. Franklin in 1945.

Citation

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as chaplain on board the U.S.S. Franklin when that vessel was fiercely attacked by enemy Japanese aircraft during offensive operations near Kobe, Japan, on 19 March 1945. A valiant and forceful leader, calmly braving the perilous barriers of flame and twisted metal to aid his men and his ship, Lt. Comdr. O'Callahan groped his way through smoke-filled corridors to the open flight deck and into the midst of violently exploding bombs, shells, rockets, and other armament. With the ship rocked by incessant explosions, with debris and fragments raining down and fires raging in ever-increasing fury, he ministered to the wounded and dying, comforting and encouraging men of all faiths; he organized and led firefighting crews into the blazing inferno on the flight deck; he directed the jettisoning of live ammunition and the flooding of the magazine; he manned a hose to cool hot, armed bombs rolling dangerously on the listing deck, continuing his efforts, despite searing, suffocating smoke which forced men to fall back gasping and imperiled others who replaced them. Serving with courage, fortitude, and deep spiritual strength, Lt. Comdr. O'Callahan inspired the gallant officers and men of the Franklin to fight heroically and with profound faith in the face of almost certain death and to return their stricken ship to port.

Capt. Angelo J. Liteky, U.S. Army (Vietnam War)

Citation

Chaplain Liteky distinguished himself by exceptional heroism while serving with Company A, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade. He was participating in a search and destroy operation when Company A came under intense fire from a battalion size enemy force. Momentarily stunned from the immediate encounter that ensued, the men hugged the ground for cover. Observing 2 wounded men, Chaplain Liteky moved to within 15 meters of an enemy machine gun position to reach them, placing himself between the enemy and the wounded men. When there was a brief respite in the fighting, he managed to drag them to the relative safety of the landing zone. Inspired by his courageous actions, the company rallied and began placing a heavy volume of fire upon the enemy's positions. In a magnificent display of courage and leadership, Chaplain Liteky began moving upright through the enemy fire, administering last rites to the dying and evacuating the wounded. Noticing another trapped and seriously wounded man, Chaplain Liteky crawled to his aid. Realizing that the wounded man was too heavy to carry, he rolled on his back, placed the man on his chest and through sheer determination and fortitude crawled back to the landing zone using his elbows and heels to push himself along. pausing for breath momentarily, he returned to the action and came upon a man entangled in the dense, thorny underbrush. Once more intense enemy fire was directed at him, but Chaplain Liteky stood his ground and calmly broke the vines and carried the man to the landing zone for evacuation. On several occasions when the landing zone was under small arms and rocket fire, Chaplain Liteky stood up in the face of hostile fire and personally directed the medivac helicopters into and out of the area. With the wounded safely evacuated, Chaplain Liteky returned to the perimeter, constantly encouraging and inspiring the men. Upon the unit's relief on the morning of 7 December 1967, it was discovered that despite painful wounds in the neck and foot, Chaplain Liteky had personally carried over 20 men to the landing zone for evacuation during the savage fighting. Through his indomitable inspiration and heroic actions, Chaplain Liteky saved the lives of a number of his comrades and enabled the company to repulse the enemy. Chaplain Liteky's actions reflect great credit upon himself and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

Unfortunately, Fr. Liteky went on to change his name to Charles, repudiate his Medal of Honor (making him the only Medal of Honor recipient to do so), abandon his priestly ministry, attempted marriage with a former nun and took up political activism.  None of this changes his conspicuous valor under fire, or the fact that he deserved his Medal of Honor, or the indelible character of his priesthood.  Pray for him.

Maj. Charles Joseph Watters, U.S. Army (Vietnam War)

This photograph of Fr. Watters offering Mass in the field was taken shortly before he was killed in action on November 19, 1967.

Citation

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Chaplain Watters distinguished himself during an assault in the vicinity of Dak To. Chaplain Watters was moving with one of the companies when it engaged a heavily armed enemy battalion. As the battle raged and the casualties mounted, Chaplain Watters, with complete disregard for his safety, rushed forward to the line of contact. Unarmed and completely exposed, he moved among, as well as in front of the advancing troops, giving aid to the wounded, assisting in their evacuation, giving words of encouragement, and administering the last rites to the dying. When a wounded paratrooper was standing in shock in front of the assaulting forces, Chaplain Watters ran forward, picked the man up on his shoulders and carried him to safety. As the troopers battled to the first enemy entrenchment, Chaplain Watters ran through the intense enemy fire to the front of the entrenchment to aid a fallen comrade. A short time later, the paratroopers pulled back in preparation for a second assault. Chaplain Watters exposed himself to both friendly and enemy fire between the 2 forces in order to recover 2 wounded soldiers. Later, when the battalion was forced to pull back into a perimeter, Chaplain Watters noticed that several wounded soldiers were Lying outside the newly formed perimeter. Without hesitation and ignoring attempts to restrain him, Chaplain Watters left the perimeter three times in the face of small arms, automatic weapons, and mortar fire to carry and to assist the injured troopers to safety. Satisfied that all of the wounded were inside the perimeter, he began aiding the medics--applying field bandages to open wounds, obtaining and serving food and water, giving spiritual and mental strength and comfort. During his ministering, he moved out to the perimeter from position to position redistributing food and water, and tending to the needs of his men. Chaplain Watters was giving aid to the wounded when he himself was mortally wounded. Chaplain Watters' unyielding perseverance and selfless devotion to his comrades was in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

Lt. Vincent Robert Capodanno, U.S. Navy (Vietnam War)

Known for his sanctity and his devotion to his Marines, Fr. Capodanno was killed in action in Vietnam on September 4, 1967. Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien of the Archdiocese for the Military Services officially opened his cause for beatification on May 21, 2006.

Prayer for the Canonization of Fr. Capodanno

Heavenly Father, source of all that is holy, in every age You raise up men and women who live lives of heroic love and service. You have blessed Your Church through the life of Vincent Capodanno, Vietnam War Navy chaplain, who had the "courage of a lion, and the faith of a martyr." He was killed in action offering medical assistance to the wounded and administering last rites to the dying on the battlefield. Through his prayer, his courage, his faith, and his pastoral care he is an example of laying down one's life for one’s friends: Jesus told us that there is no greater love than this. If it be Your will, may he be proclaimed a saint! We ask this through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

Citation

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as Chaplain of the 3d Battalion, in connection with operations against enemy forces. In response to reports that the 2d Platoon of M Company was in danger of being overrun by a massed enemy assaulting force, Lt. Capodanno left the relative safety of the company command post and ran through an open area raked with fire, directly to the beleaguered platoon. Disregarding the intense enemy small-arms, automatic-weapons, and mortar fire, he moved about the battlefield administering last rites to the dying and giving medical aid to the wounded. When an exploding mortar round inflicted painful multiple wounds to his arms and legs, and severed a portion of his right hand, he steadfastly refused all medical aid. Instead, he directed the corpsmen to help their wounded comrades and, with calm vigor, continued to move about the battlefield as he provided encouragement by voice and example to the valiant marines. Upon encountering a wounded corpsman in the direct line of fire of an enemy machine gunner positioned approximately 15 yards away, Lt. Capodanno rushed a daring attempt to aid and assist the mortally wounded corpsman. At that instant, only inches from his goal, he was struck down by a burst of machine gun fire. By his heroic conduct on the battlefield, and his inspiring example, Lt. Capodanno upheld the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the cause of freedom.

Capt. Emil J. Kapaun, U.S. Army (Korean War)

The newest Medal of Honor winner, Servant of God Kapaun, is shown here offering Mass in the field on the hood of a Jeep, less than a month before he was captured by the Communists.  He would die in captivity, but not before making himself a thorn in the flesh of his jailers, and an inspiration to his fellow prisoners.  Father Kapaun would sneak out of his own compound in order to minister to the other prisoners, and, by the intercession of St. Dismas, the Good Thief, to scrounge for basic necessities to help them survive their hellish conditions.  He got even non-Catholic prisoners praying the Rosary, and also made himself irritating to the Communists by answering them back and openly defying them in their daily forced indoctrination sessions.  For a long time, they did not dare retaliate, for fear of provoking the other prisoners to rebellion; but when Father Kapaun came down with an eye infection and a blood clot in his leg, they seized the opportunity to carry him off to an isolated "hospital" and starve him to death.  

Father Kapaun's cause for beatification opened in 2008.  We should pray for his intercession against North Korea and its itchy nuclear trigger finger.

Prayer for the Beatification of Emil Kapaun

Lord Jesus, in the midst of the folly of war, Your servant, Chaplain Emil Kapaun spent himself in total service to You on the battlefields and in the prison camps of Korea, until his death at the hands of his captors.  We now ask You, Lord Jesus, if it be Your will, to make known to all the world the holiness of Chaplain Kapaun and the glory of his complete sacrifice for You by signs of miracles and peace.  In Your Name, Lord, we ask, for You are the source of peace, the strength of our service to others, and our final hope. Amen.  Chaplain Kapaun, pray for us.

Citation

Chaplain Emil J. Kapaun distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 3d Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division during combat operations against an armed enemy at Unsan, Korea, from November 1-2, 1950. On November 1, as Chinese Communist Forces viciously attacked friendly elements, Chaplain Kapaun calmly walked through withering enemy fire in order to provide comfort and medical aid to his comrades and rescue friendly wounded from no-man's land. Though the Americans successfully repelled the assault, they found themselves surrounded by the enemy. Facing annihilation, the able-bodied men were ordered to evacuate. However, Chaplain Kapaun, fully aware of his certain capture, elected to stay behind with the wounded. After the enemy succeeded in breaking through the defense in the early morning hours of November 2, Chaplain Kapaun continually made rounds, as hand-to-hand combat ensued. As Chinese Communist Forces approached the American position, Chaplain Kapaun noticed an injured Chinese officer amongst the wounded and convinced him to negotiate the safe surrender of the American Forces. Shortly after his capture, Chaplain Kapaun, with complete disregard for his personal safety and unwavering resolve, bravely pushed aside an enemy soldier preparing to execute Sergeant First Class Herbert A. Miller. Not only did Chaplain Kapaun's gallantry save the life of Sergeant Miller, but also his unparalleled courage and leadership inspired all those present, including those who might have otherwise fled in panic, to remain and fight the enemy until captured. Chaplain Kapaun's extraordinary heroism and selflessness, above and beyond the call of duty, are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the 3d Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, the 1st Cavalry Division, and the United States Army.

Roman collars...iron men.  It is no accident that the Roman collar is a military collar.  

The Evil of "Inculturation"

At the heart of modernism is the reduction of Christianity to an abstraction.  To say that Christianity is an abstraction is as much as to say it can be anything to anybody, which is as much as to say that it is not real.  The whole point of purging churches of statues and images, butchering the liturgical calendar, and discarding devotions was precisely to further this idea of Christianity as an abstraction divorced from reality and inaccessible to our senses.

But in the Incarnation, God entered history in the flesh and made Himself accessible to our senses.  Luke's Gospel carefully spells out for us the time and place when this happened, and under which temporal rulers, and in what cultural context -- precisely so that we understand and take to heart the fact that Salvation occupied actual moments in the history of the world.  True, the artists of different nations have always felt free to portray Jesus and His mother with various ethnic features and in various costumes; but it is another matter entirely to try to shape the Christian faith itself according to the molds of cultural idiosyncrasies.

And that is where "inculturation" becomes an evil, in the service of the heresy of Christianity as a mere "idea."  Fr. John Hunwicke puts it best in his musings on the intimate connection between the Christian faith and the realities of life in the Mediterranean basin (emphases in original):

But more insidious still is the idea that the principle of inculturation could be applied to the elements used in the Christian sacraments. I have known suggestions that to use bread made from something other than wheat, alcohol produced not from grapes, and the oil of vegetables other than olives, would 'affirm' cultures which do not find their origins in the Mediterranean basin. This seems to be based on the notion that Christianity is an idea; and ideas can, in different cultures, be garbed in different clothes. That is what is the basic heresy. Because Christianity is not an idea. It is a person, a God who took flesh - a particular flesh - from a particular Girl in a particular country in a particular culture, and in that flesh died on a Cross made from a particular Tree after he had, on a particular evening, given himself to his friends under the outer appearances of a loaf and a cupful of wine. This particularity and this materiality, this rootedness, is Christianity. That is why the Gnostics were not Christians, and why Matthew Fox is not a Christian. And the Matter of the Sacraments is rooted in the particularity of that Incarnation and its culture.

Without the Corn, the Wine, and the Oil, nulla salus.

Indeed.

The End of the Church's Prague Spring

A soul that is full shall tread upon the honeycomb: and a soul that is hungry shall take even bitter for sweet.  

-- Proverbs 27:7

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

-- The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene 1

The new apostolic exhortation has given rise to so much Sturm und Drang that I feel the need to crawl out from under my rock for a minute.  That commentators find themselves obliged to reach so strenuously for orthodox interpretations of everything in this text -- or indeed in any of the Holy Father's voluminous outpourings -- shows the depth and breadth of the Church's current crisis, and how desperate we are for any crumb of comfort.

But while there is consolation to be had from the continuing institution of the Papacy, which is a sign of the Four Markers of the True Church -- one, holy, Catholic and apostolic -- there is no consolation to be had from the man, Jorge Bergoglio, who now holds the office.  Look: the current occupant of the Throne of Peter is a standard-issue, spirit-of-Vatican-II liberal.  Just look at some of the prelates he has sidelined, and look at those who obviously stand in his favor.  Look at his words -- his many, many, many words -- and his conduct.  Look at his authoritarianism.  Look at the confusion that follows in his wake.  Look at the enthusiasm for him of all the other standard-issue, spirit-of-Vatican-II liberal priests and bishops, and contrast that with their attitude toward his immediate predecessor.  Look at the fact that so many non-Catholics love him precisely because he does seem to represent a break from Catholicity. 

Pope Francis is entirely unlike his immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI -- and that is exactly what too many people in the Church hoped for.  The depth of the hatred for Pope Benedict from day one of his pontificate cannot be overstated.  He was hated in my own backwater diocese.  I don't know how else to explain the failure -- indeed, refusal -- to implement his reforms within a 300-mile radius of the cathedral parish; or the fact that, at the then-bishop's Mass on that awful Ash Wednesday, 2013, not a syllable was uttered about the earthquake that had just stricken the Church.  Pope Benedict restored some of the treasures of our Catholic patrimony that the mailed fist of "liberalism" tried to pound out of existence.  He measured his words and his actions carefully, and submitted to the trappings of the office, which he knew were meant to honor, not him, but the One Who instituted the office.  He generated a great deal of controversy, but never confusion; and that is why he was so loathed by the Church's enemies, both from within and from without.  

Jorge Bergoglio, on the other hand, is, for better or for worse, much more to the liking of worldlings; thus, he has never, in all the three years of his reign, taken the salvos from the sewer that Josef Ratzinger took just during the moment he stepped out on the balcony in papal vestments.  The liberals are bound to be disappointed in Pope Francis to some extent, because many of them still do not get that the Church is not a mere human political institution, and that the Holy Spirit does indeed protect her from utter destruction, and therefore sets limits to the evils and follies of the men who populate her hierarchy.  But who can now doubt that the liberals are right to identify Francis as one of their own?  The Church's current chastisement was never going to play itself out until we got a "spirit-of-Vatican-II" pope; and now, that is just what we have got.  The assault on the wholesome traditions of our fathers, beaten back under Pope Benedict, has now been redoubled under Francis, at the hands of liberal priests and bishops who think this is their Big Mo'.  We are so overwhelmed with evil from the secular culture and confusion within the Church that we devour any crumb of comfort, trying desperately to spin things that come out of Rome as harbingers of reform. We hail the tiniest victories as great successes and a sign that things are getting better. Yet these soon get swallowed up in the status quo ante, and before you know it, we are back to square one.

When Pope Benedict abdicated, I wondered if we had not arrived at the time St. Don Bosco spoke of in recounting his vision of the two pillars, and the enemy assaults on the Barque of Peter.  I wondered if Pope Benedict was not the slain Pope in that vision.  Three years into the reign of Pope Francis, new thoughts emerge.  Perhaps the slaying of the Pope in the vision is not so much the slaying of a man but the apparent destruction of the papacy itself.  To all appearances, the papacy at present seems to be unmooring itself from the Catholic faith, failing to confirm the brethren in the Faith and sowing confusion, to the great joy of the Church's enemies, who think they see victory on the horizon.  But in fact the papacy cannot be destroyed, despite outward appearances: the death of the Pope was not the end of the vision.  Once the Pope was dead, there was no delay in electing the new Pope, who routed the Church's enemies and brought her calm and peace.  

Still, until that moment arrives, we have much to suffer.  All we can do is watch and pray, and ride out the storm until we are finally granted the victory.