Column 09/25/2023: Prudence, Wisdom, and the Contemporary Crisis in Catholic Ethics

Prudence, Wisdom, and the Contemporary Crisis in Catholic Ethics

I am going to attempt what I fully understand is both a very difficult and very presumptuous task: that is, to summarize what I see as a centrally important concept to ancient philosophical and Catholic ethical theories, and to indicate why lack of proper understanding of this concept wreaks havoc with attempts to understand and apply these concepts in the modern world. This is quite an obnoxious thing to do; if you are annoyed by it, please pray for me. If you like it, pray for me anyway. 

In contemporary Catholic ethical discourses and debates, especially on a popular level, but increasingly also in academic and even clerical circles, there are two terms that are thrown around more than any others. These terms, in fact, are thrown around with such frequency that one would think that there were more or less no other issues in Catholic ethics at all; and what is perhaps oddest of all, they are thrown around by both sides of virtually all contemporary Catholic ethical debates, and in highly similar terms.

In watching these debates unfold, I have grown more and more and more certain that, put simply, these terms are being used all wrong--not just trivially or technically wrong, but in ways that, frankly, I can find no parallel in the tradition prior to the 20th century, and which taken together threaten the very edifice of Catholic ethics. This is a strong claim; but it is strong precisely because these terms refer, however increasingly remotely, to base assumptions of Catholic and ancient philosophical ethics without which the whole edifice of Catholic ethics simply makes no sense, and simply cannot be lived out or applied.

I refer, of course, to the two terms intrinsically wrong and prudential. 

Poem: Blood

Blood 

The leaves on the trees are wet with blood

From the heart of the dying sun.

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Jesu, do you really know what it is like

To be created?

To be nothing?

How could you have done this to us?

How could you have created us, and left us alone

In this dark of which you made us

With only each other’s faces

To reflect the light from heaven

And make us be a little while?

In the end, we are thrown on the garbage dump

In Gehenna, where the worm does not die

Nor is the fire quenched:

Darkness devoured into light

And life

And feeling

It is better to be damned

Than not to exist

Than never to have existed.

But oh, what sorrow, whether in hell

Or in heaven

To be only darkness

Forever

Are you really inside of me?

No, I don’t care about that now:

Are you really with me?

Do I face you, exist to you,

And you to me?

Do I have a face?

I know that you have a face,

And that your Father is with you,

And that you face him for all eternity,

And for all eternity he is with you

And you with him.

How happy you must be!

To never be alone.

To be all light

With no darkness at all.

But Lord, do you really know

What it is like to be created?

Column 09/11/2023: The Trial of Donald J. Trump

The Trial of Donald J. Trump

[Given the strong interest in the media right now about the possibility of a trial of former President Donald J. Trump, I thought people would be interested in the contents of a holographic tape recently uncovered by archeologists digging in the future ruins of Philadelphia. As you can see, it purports to be a record of Trump's upcoming trial. Given the oddities of the events portrayed, however, it is likely that it in fact contains a later reproduction or dramatization of the original event, dating from as late as a century afterward--perhaps in the form of a school play, or some sort of fertility ritual. While the accuracy of this record and its meaning cannot be deduced with accuracy, it undoubtedly was considered an important document by the future culture that produced it, and is thus relevant to scholars for that reason alone.

Please note that the below written transcript of the original holographic record was created by AI, and may contain errors and other artifacts. Viewer discretion is advised.]

A room, completely dark. Suddenly, a single shaft of red light rises, piercing the darkness, revealing a dais on which three draped figures sit.

Judges (in unison): When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?

A red light goes up under the face of the first judge. It is LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, in full costume as Alexander Hamilton.

Judge Miranda: How do a bastard, an orphan, and the son of a whore grow up to be judges?

The light goes up under the face of the second judge. It is Hollywood Actor ROBERT DOWNEY, JR, dressed in his Iron Man suit.

Judge Downey, Jr: We're sort of like a team.

The third judge is revealed as OPRAH WINFREY; she is the only one of the three wearing judicial robes, and a powdered wig.

Judge Winfrey: Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher.

Small yellow lights like stars come up overhead, revealing that the trial is being held in a massive theater with an arched gothic ceiling and red velvet seats. Most of the stage is still dark, but a red curtain can just be made out at the back. The audience goes wild, cheering and applauding and screaming, encouraged by the judges, who wave their hands wildly in answer.

Judge Miranda (enthusiastically): Look around, look around!

Judge Downey, Jr (firmly): It’s not about how much we lost, it’s about how much we have left. We’re the Avengers. We gotta finish this.

Judge Winfrey silences the two men with a wave of her hand. She stands.

Judge Winfrey (severely): Youth, with its enthusiasms, which rebels against any accepted norm because it must: we sympathise. It may wear flowers in its hair, bells on its toes. But when the common good is threatened, when the function of society is endangered, such revolts must cease. They are non-productive...and must be abolished!

Advocate for the prosecution, please make your opening argument.

Poem: Who Jesus is to Me

Who Jesus is to Me

“He said to them: 'But you, who do you say that I am?'”

The Father said: tell others

tell the flock

who Jesus is to you

who is Jesus to me?

he is the terror in the night

that puts the terrors to flight

the stranger more strange

than the strangeness of the world

the monster more monstrous

from which the monsters flee

he is that broken, twisted body

hanging on the pole

the pierced flesh

all pierced flesh

bleeding

rotting

the curse

blasphemy

horror

in the sunlight

foulness offensiveness

obscenity

of the body

emptiness

of the heart

the pause, cessation, caesura

of the mind

and the soul

rest

respite

fulfillment