Chevalier de la charité

As the Vatican prepares to host the second part of Pope Francis’ major summit on the future of the Catholic Church this October, one of the event’s main organizers said a central purpose of the gathering is to create « a new style of leadership » for the global faith institution.

In an exclusive interview with National Catholic Reporter in late January, Xavière Sr. Nathalie Becquart said that, through the October 2023 and 2024 assemblies of the Synod of Bishops, Francis is creating « a path of conversion » toward « a new way to exercise the authority » in the church.

Becquart, an undersecretary at the Vatican’s office for the Synod of Bishops, also described the synodal process as « the Second Vatican Council in a nutshell. »

« I really see that what we are doing is really to continue to implement the Second Vatican Council, » she said, speaking in an interview at the synod office for NCR’s « The Vatican Briefing » podcast. 

Francis has called the two synod assemblies to discuss a wide range of issues facing the global Catholic Church, including women’s leadership, priestly celibacy, and ministry to LGBTQ Catholics.

The first assembly ended on Oct. 29, but postponed action on most of the hot-button issues until the upcoming 2024 assembly.

In her interview for « The Vatican Briefing, » Becquart discussed in particular the synod’s ongoing consideration of women’s leadership in the church.

« We have also emphasized that, at this time, what is also very important … [is] to continue to put into practice many things or many ways that are already possible to put into practice, for becoming more and more a synodal church, » she said.

« That means calling more women [to] leadership in different church bodies and in dioceses, in bishops’ conferences, Catholic Charities, in Catholic universities, » said Becquart. « Finding ways to move, to go forward, to have more and more women in leadership. »

« For many things you don’t need to wait, you know, [for] the end of the synod, » she said.

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This winter, my son played in the snow for the first time. He’s 3; before the winter storm that swept through the Northeast in mid-January, depositing almost 5 inches total on our area of Southeastern Pennsylvania, he’d never experienced snow deep enough to play in.

That struck me because snow was such an essential part of my childhood. I lived in Connecticut until third grade and some of my earliest memories involve wading through knee- to waist-deep snow. When we moved to Pennsylvania, snowy days remained an expected and welcome part of every winter. The fact that my son had to wait three years to have one feels strange.

But if climate change continues unabated, I’m afraid that our winters will only get warmer. My fear isn’t just that my kids won’t have snow days, but what we’ll all lose if the natural cycle of the seasons is broken.

Snow days were one of the greatest joys of childhood. Only Christmas morning could compare with the thrill of waking up to cool white light coming through the window shades and knowing that when I pulled them up I would see a world transformed: my orderly suburban neighborhood changed into a place both alien and brimming with possibility.

The best snow days were spent almost entirely outside. I would spend hours playing and exploring, digging trenches and building snowmen, wandering to the far edge of the yard just for the satisfaction of looking back and seeing my footprints carving across that empty white. 

Snow days invited me to immerse myself in nature and the rhythms of winter. I familiarized myself with the different consistencies of snow: what was good for packing into snowballs and snowmen heads, what would just land as fine powder, what was slippery and treacherous to walk on. 

In the backyard, I would trace animal and bird prints, or study how the different plants and trees around our house reacted to the snow and ice.

These days, when there are driveways to shovel and cars to clean and offices to get to, I understand why my parents saw snow as a nuisance. But for me, the magic didn’t fade as I got older.

Instead, I learned to appreciate the unique peacefulness of snow days: the particular way snow muffles sound, as if you’ve somehow stepped into a world a little distant from the chaos of everyday life. I love watching the sunset over snow, casting purple and pink shadows along the soft white hills. I love standing outside at night as the snow comes down in perfect silence, and knowing that the world is fundamentally good and beautiful, despite much evidence to the contrary.

But we have more to lose than snow days and happy winter moments. As snow becomes less frequent, we’ll feel the ripple effects throughout our ecosystems. In some ways, we already are.

Warmer winters, for instance, mean less snow and more rain. This winter, heavy rainfall in my area led to power outages and dangerous flash floods. After one particularly brutal storm in early January, roads around our house were washed out for days.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported record-breaking water levels from three of its stations in the Philadelphia region following this storm. Its station in Philadelphia recorded the highest water levels since it was established in 1989, exceeding the record previously set during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Maryland and Maine also saw historically high water levels during the same storm. 

On the other hand, a wetter winter could mean a drier spring: scientists predict that a lack of snowmelt into the soil will lead to spring droughts, which could negatively affect crop growth.

Local wildlife are also affected. Scientists believe that climate change is responsible for a marked decrease in the population of ruffed grouse — Pennsylvania’s state bird — in recent years.

During the winter months, grouse typically bury themselves in snow tunnels to sleep and conserve energy, a process called « snow roosting. » But as less snow falls, grouse are forced to roost in trees, exposing them to predators. They are also particularly susceptible to West Nile Virus, carried by the mosquitos that thrive in the warmer, wetter climate.

And then there’s the economic impact as seasonal businesses adjust to this new reality. In 2020, some snowplow companies began negotiating seasonal contracts with large property owners who pay the same regardless of snowfall, a preemptive measure for winters that will need less and less of their services. 

Meanwhile, ski companies and other businesses associated with winter tourism worry that warmer winters may dramatically alter the business model they’ve taken for granted for decades. 

In the Pocono Mountains, winter tourism has a yearly economic impact of $4.2 billion. Already, resorts and tourism companies are building up their indoor options and investing in automated snowmaking to avoid losing their most profitable season.

In his recent apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum, Pope Francis writes: « What happens in one part of the world has repercussions on the entire planet. This allows me to reiterate two convictions that I repeat over and over again: ‘Everything is connected’ and ‘No one is saved alone.’ « 

Snowfall varies from year to year, and warm winters have happened before. But it would be a mistake to only consider these things in isolation. Our seasons exist in an intricate cycle; disrupt one piece of it, and the entire system shudders.

So as I watched my son enjoy his first snow day, I felt both joy and a sense of urgency. I want him to have more days like that. That means remaining committed to mitigating climate change, and healing the damage already done to the fragile rhythms of our world. If not, happy memories of snow days will be all we’ll have left.

« Unclean! »

Sometimes a message conveys the inverse of what was intended.

A man with a skin disease begged Jesus for help. Had he already done his ritual shout? Had he torn his clothing? Was he following the rules about beard and hair so that he looked « Unclean! »?

In Jesus’ time, healing lepers was nearly the equivalent of raising the dead. In the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures only two people were healed of leprosy, Moses’ sister Miriam (Numbers 12:10-15), and Naaman, the Syrian (2 Kings 5:1-14). Avoiding lepers had nothing to do with fear of contagion, an idea first introduced in the 11th century by Ibn Sina, a Muslim physician and philosopher. A 16th-century Italian, Girolamo Fracastoro, seems to have been the first to propose the germ theory — an idea that was largely rejected for hundreds of years. So why the taboos?

The purity system of Jesus’ day attempted to keep the world as it ought to be, with holiness equated with wholeness. Contact with an unclean person or thing rendered a person temporarily unclean as well; the unclean were to be avoided. Because the ban on these people was a socioreligious regulation, it had deep roots in the people’s psyche. The resultant shunning increased the discomfort of people already afraid or ashamed.

« Unclean! » That was the shout Jesus heard more than once. What did he see when someone had to declare that about herself or himself? Mark tells us that the man’s cry hit Jesus in the gut. He felt for the man, and he felt with the man. And so, in a gesture that defied the purity system itself, Jesus touched the man, demonstrating that no person deserves such shunning. Then, demonstrating the absurdity of such dehumanizing laws, Jesus told the man to complete the legal rituals so that the priests could learn that Jesus had the power to free people from systems that destroy innocent people.

In effect, Jesus took up the man’s shout, « Unclean! » But instead of declaring himself unclean for touching the man, he unmasked the system itself as unclean — as something contrary to God’s intention for the world. Of course, the legal eagles were not going to take that lightly. Jesus acted as a subversive, and he was attracting the attention of people who were victims of a system of stratification authorized by powerful people who benefited from it.

Jesus told the healed man not to publicize the matter. Fat chance! Mark doesn’t tell us who else witnesses their encounter, but the very fact that the man could walk in public and eat with others was enough of a proclamation that something new was afoot. It was not going to remain a secret — not from the curious, not from disciples, and certainly not from those who recognized Jesus as a threat to their comfortably established way of doing things.

Today, as last week, St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians add another facet to understanding the implications of Jesus’ behavior. Paul and the Corinthians had been embroiled in legalistic battles over food purity. In this situation, when large amounts of meat had been offered to the gods, the leftovers went to the market. The question: Could Christians eat that meat or was it a communion with idols? Paul insisted that Christians were free from the law, that obedience to the law would never save anyone. Thus, they could eat what they wanted. The real problem was that some people were scandalized by the eating habits of those who felt free. 

Paul’s solution is applicable far beyond the dinner table. He says, « Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. » (Sounds a bit like Ignatius of Loyola.) That instruction brings us right back to Jesus, the transgressor whose rule of life was to promote human thriving. 

Paul said, « You are so free, that you can care for one another above all else. If another is seriously offended by your exercise of freedom, make yourself free enough to practice charity! » That’s the rule for the dinner table. Paul encourages the community to imitate Christ. Christ lived a new kind of freedom as he transgressed the law on behalf of human flourishing. 

The implications of all of this seem almost too obvious to mention. Be imitators of Christ. Imitate the one who responded first to the marginalized, to society’s outcasts, to the ones who feel they can never measure up. These neighbors of ours live next door, barred from schools and churches because of their sexual orientation, they’re at our border hoping to save their lives, they are being injured by our armaments.

How are we to imitate Christ today?

Last July was the hottest month ever measured, and in late June my friends and I were drenched in sweat. The apocalyptic weather was miserable, but nothing could damper our excitement to see boygenius live at Centennial Park in Nashville, where from our seats in the grass we could see a full scale replica of the Greek Parthenon. 

The replica was built for the 1897 Centennial Exposition primarily because of Nashville’s nickname, « The Athens of the South. » It has the grandiosity of a temple, with massive columns that bear the weight of its ornate roof, meticulously designed with the stories of Greek myths. But get too close, and you’ll notice it’s made of pebbles and concrete, hardly marble. It reminds me of my great-grandma’s driveway in Mississippi. This is, after all, not Greece. It’s a stop on the « Sites of Nashville » bus tour. Still, it was an impressive backdrop to one of the best rock shows I’ve ever seen.

Boygenius is a supergroup composed of three indie rockers: Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus. The band had a remarkable year; they released their debut album, aptly titled « The Record », graced the cover of Rolling Stone, gave an iconic Coachella performance and took home three Grammy awards for best rock song, best rock performance and best alternative music album. Each artist has incredible discographies in her own right, but together their synergy is magnetic. 

« What are they wearing? » I asked my friends, squinting to make it out. « Are they in drag? » Sure enough, boygenius took the stage to perform that night costumed in drag as a protest against Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s « drag ban, » a bill he had signed that March, that would prohibit drag performances from happening on any public property in the state. (In early June a judge ruled the law unconstitutional.) In a bizarre twist, a photo of Bill Lee himself dressed as a woman circulated earlier that year, around the time he signed the legislation.

Maybe it was the heat cooking my brain, or that despite a recent school shooting, Gov. Lee could only talk about how drag queens were the most dangerous thing facing Tennessee’s children; or maybe it was that the Nashville Parthenon felt like a portrait of our country, an empire that daily feels more like a facade. A roadside attraction. Whatever was to blame, I found myself overcome with the sense that we are all languishing. We’re living at the end of something, it seems; the end of an empire, capitalism or maybe the planet itself. 

This nagging feeling holds a prominent place in boygenius’ music, particularly their newest album.

« The Record » is deeply honest, not just about the state of the world but also about the complicated feelings and relationships young people are figuring out while navigating the state of the world. The empire might crumble, but we still have breakups; we still have to find peace with the decisions we’ve made and discover who we were meant to be.

All of that coalesces into an album that feels like an intimate conversation between lifelong friends. Even the flow of the album models a conversation. At times, Bridgers, Baker or Dacus will hold an entire song, illustrating the details of what they’ve gone through for the others. On other tracks, the vocalists will each take their own verses, bouncing off each other and adding to the conversation.

In « Satanist, » the three wonder if they were to take their beliefs to their extreme ends, would their friends still be around? Each imagines a caricature of themselves living just past what people in their lives might be comfortable with. It’s a great, fun rock song. But just like those kinds of conversations, the song ends in quiet harmony, agreeing that differences in belief over time can grow into a « seismic drift » impossible to come back from and that the three are worried that the world that is radicalizing them more and more each day will isolate them. There’s that feeling again.

To see boygenius live is electric. The three bounce around the stage, hugging each other and rolling around. They’re unsupervised kids playing rock stars in their garage. Their genuine love for each other and the music is palpable. There’s a sense that Lucy Dacus is speaking directly to her bandmates in « True Blue » when she sings, « It feels good to be known so well/ I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself. »

Trying to explain friendship is like trying to explain a joke; it just ruins it. « The Record » has that inexplicable quality. Boygenius has created an album that will go down as one of the best rock albums of our time — with the Grammys to prove it — but on the other hand, boygenius is a group of three friends who thought it would be fun to start a band, go on tour and lose their minds on stage together every night. 

It’s that balance between existentialism and revelry that boygenius does so well. The Swiss Jungian psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz once said, « It’s easy to be a naive idealist. It’s easy to be a cynical realist. It’s quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame. » 

If the impending ecological disaster, the ever-revealing cheapness of our temples and institutions or the absurdity of our government officials is more than you can bear, boygenius gets it. But in all of that, boygenius reminds us we still have a life to live. Even if the world is ending, you should still start that band, go on that road trip, find the people who get you — and love them. 

This year’s U.S. presidential election is going to be of historic importance for both America and the world, and the Catholic Church in the United States is uniquely positioned to help foster nonpartisan conversation.

By Catholic Church, I do not mean just Catholic bishops. All Catholic citizens, and even ex-Catholics, can make a difference.

Catholics are important because there are lots of them. They are both Democrats and Republicans, and some of them are swing voters.

Catholics make up 21.4% of the U.S. population (12.6% are white Catholics, 8.6% Hispanic Catholics), according to the Public Religion Research Institute. Another 13% of adult Americans are ex-Catholics, according to the Pew Research Center. Altogether, that is about a third of the country.

By numbers alone, Catholics matter, but in addition many of them are in battleground states. 

A majority of Catholics usually vote for the winner in presidential elections.

From 1928 to 1968, Catholics voted solidly Democratic in presidential elections, with perhaps one exception: Gallup says they voted Democratic in 1956, while the National Election Studies says they voted Republican.

In 1972, a majority voted for the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, and in the following few decades, they tended to vote Democratic but were not as reliable as they had been for the party of FDR and LBJ. Most importantly for election results, some Catholics could be counted among the swing voters who can determine the outcome of an election.

More recently Catholics have been split, with nearly equal shares going to each party. A deeper analysis finds that a majority of white Catholics identify as Republicans, while a majority of Hispanic Catholics are Democrats.

This is very different from white evangelical Christians, who are predominantly Republican, and Black Protestants and Jewish voters, who are predominantly Democratic.

The partisan divide among Catholics is a challenge and an opportunity for the church.

It is a challenge for Catholic preachers when their congregation is spit politically. What can they say without alienating half their congregation?

As a result, Catholic preachers avoid politics in their sermons. Only 41% of Catholics heard at least one sermon that mentioned the 2020 election, according to Pew, as compared with 71% of evangelical Protestants and 63% of Black church and mainline Protestants.

Although the partisan divide makes preaching difficult, it also provides an opportunity for the church to model proper civic behavior for the rest of the country.

Unlike white and Black church Protestant ministers, Catholic bishops and priests have traditionally not endorsed political candidates or parties. You might see them giving a prayer at a national convention, but not giving campaign speeches. (Full disclosure: My brother, who is a friend of the McCain family, said a prayer at the 2008 Republican Party convention.)

Protestant clergy could avoid a lot of problems if they followed the example of Catholic clergy by not endorsing candidates.

The Catholic bishops also have a document, « Faithful Citizenship, » which discusses issues and encourages political involvement and dialogue.

The combination of official nonpartisanship with a congregational mix of Democrats and Republicans could make Catholic churches a unique location for civic conversation, where diatribes and hate speech are not allowed. The methodology of synodal conversation would work well to keep the temperature from boiling over into partisan rancor.

For this election especially, Catholics in the pews and in the hierarchy need to stick to facts and adhere to the values presented in « Faithful Citizenship. » The bishops should not retreat from their affirmation that the 2020 election results were legitimate and fair. They have no need to avoid issues like global warming, which have been raised by Pope Francis. How to respond to these issues is open to debate, but the moral obligation to support human rights, seek the common good and protect the planet is absolute.

The 2024 election will be crucial to the future of our country and the world. As citizens, Catholics must be part of the solution and not the problem.

« The Democrats’ Taylor Swift election interference psyop is happening in the open, » said Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist whom former president Donald Trump has embraced.

Fox News’ Jesse Watters raised the possibility that the pop singer could be part of a Pentagon plot to get President Joe Biden reelected, claiming « around four years ago, the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset. » This gross distortion of the truth has not cost the increasingly irresponsible and unhinged Watters his primetime slot at 8 p.m.

It is notoriously tricky to deploy influence acquired in one realm of the culture, entertainment, to another, politics. Bruce Springsteen campaigned with John Kerry in the closing days of the 2004 presidential contest and it didn’t matter. Jay Z and Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Bon Jovi, all took to the stage on behalf of Hilary Clinton in 2016 and she still lost. 

With 279 million followers on Instagram, Swift undoubtedly has an enormous reach. When Swift encouraged young people to register to vote in September, 35,000 people went to the website to which she had directed them. That is more than the margin by which Biden beat Trump in three states in 2020. 

The reason Republicans have concocted these ridiculous conspiracy theories about Swift, however, is not just because she has a reach that exceeds the other pop stars and the election is destined to be a squeaker. It is that the slice of the electorate who will decide the 2024 election is increasingly difficult to reach with any kind of standard political pitch.

Lee Drutman, in a recent Substack post, looked at the 20% of the electorate that do not fall into either partisan camp. He calls them the « Shrug Emoji » voters. 

« Disaffected from both parties, and mostly disengaged, » Drutman said. « They skew less wealthy, and younger, than the rest of the electorate. They defy easy ideological categorization. They vote sometimes, if they can be convinced the stakes are high enough to pay attention, or a new candidate breaks through and energizes them. The most pivotal are the least knowledgeable, an odd group for a democracy to empower. » 

Drutman added: « They begin with a broad cynicism towards anyone in power. If anything unites them, it is a broad anti-system animus. Establishment politicians hold an especial stink for these voters » (emphasis in original).

There is a lot to unpack there. The Founding Fathers, as well as the ancient Greeks, certainly believed that democracy could only flourish if the electorate was well informed. Americans’ fetish for consumer goods and entertainment has crowded out the amount of intellectual bandwidth available for things like assessing candidates and political platforms, so Drutman’s point about the most pivotal voters being the least knowledgeable is something to worry about long past 2024. 

Anti-establishment sentiment was baked into the American psyche from the very beginning. The Puritans fled the established order in England, complete with biblically inspired narratives to justify their opposition to king and church. Their cultural and political biases would become dominant in early America. The founders mounted a revolution, the most anti-establishment act a people can take, and subsequent political fortunes have usually needed to include some anti-establishment fervor, from Andrew Jackson’s populism to Donald Trump’s.

The reason the Republicans are worried about Taylor Swift is because she crosses the usual boundaries. Democrats go to her concerts and so do Republicans. More importantly, the disaffected « Shrug Emoji » voters go to her concerts too. Everybody seemingly loves Swift. Her romance with Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce seems to put everyone in a good mood. 

Come November, neither Swift’s nor Kelce’s name will be on the ballot. As Drutman explains, the American electorate is in a deep rut. Our politics is driven not by what we want but by what we fear. Polarization has combined with social media to create a desperately divided nation. The only thing most Americans agree on is that they do not want a Biden-Trump rematch, but that is exactly what they are going to get. 

Those who will likely decide this election, accustomed to the comforts of our affluent society, poorly educated in civics and distracted by all the entertainments our culture has to offer, have forgotten Cassius’ observation when another, earlier republic was imperiled: « The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves. »