Head over there – http://wauckinrome.com

This week, the Italian publishing house, Lindau, based in Turin, has published a book edited by yours truly. It’s what I would call a St. Josemaria Escriva “reader” – an anthology of texts by the founder of Opus Dei. I chose the texts from a bunch of different sources – homilies, interviews, biographies, and books (The Way, Forge, Furrow, Via Crucis, The Holy Rosary) – and provided a longish general introduction and smaller introductions for each of the 20-or-so chapters. The Prelate of Opus Dei, Bishop Javier Echevarria has written the preface.

Lindau’s website describes the book here: http://www.lindau.it/schedaLibro.asp?idLibro=1142

For anyone interested in getting a quick introduction to the writings of St. Josemaria, it’s not a bad place to start… if I do say so myself. How’s that for shameless self-promotion? Actually, there’s very little of me in the book, so I don’t feel guilty about recommending it.

Caveat emptor americanus: the book is in Italian!

Nevertheless, the blog is certainly about Catholicism and moral issues, and, viewed from this perspective, Tuesday’s presidential election is going to be fascinating.

This year, partly in response to statements by Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, the US bishops have spoken with unprecendented bluntness about the evil of abortion and its importance in the election. The vigor and clarity of their statements has taken me by surprise. To take but one of the most recent examples, Bishop Rene Gracida of Corpus Christi, Texas, is sending out emails to Hispanic voters saying, “A Catholic cannot say that he/she voted in this election in good conscience if he/she votes for a candidate in favor of abortion.”

Obviously, what this will mean for the Catholic vote remains to be seen. The polls have been all over the place, and – once the election is over Рthe wild divergences in the polls will be a story in their own right.

A Fox News poll recently (Oct. 30) found that an 11-point Obama advantage among Catholics had disappeared in one week. If this were true, it would would be hugely important, since the Catholic vote is ordinarily a fairly faithful reflection of the overall popular vote.

One poll, conducted for Washington Post-ABC News in mid-October, gave McCain a 13-point lead (54-41) among Catholic voters, a margin that, according to the pollsters, had grown significantly over the course of the previous month.

In apparent contradiction to these polls, a report released on October 30 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, says that support for Obama among white, non-Hispanic Catholics rose by 21 points – a 13 point deficit became an 8-point lead – from late September to late October. Similarly, a New York Times/CBS poll in October found that, at the national level, Obama had a 59% to 31% lead among Catholics.

To complicate matters further, and in apparent conflict with his own organization’s study, the Pew Forum’s expert on religion and politics, John Green, has said even more recently (Nov. 1) that “there has been remarkably little change among whites in the religion gap.” The context for this remark was a Gallup poll showing Obama getting only 28 percent of the vote from “whites” (this term seems to mean non-Hispanic whites) who attend church at least once a week – a shade less than John Kerry and Al Gore received! The “religion gap” that John Green refers to is the overwhelmingly Republican voting habits of church-going “whites” in the US. Many commentators attribute this to the Democratic platform’s embrace of abortion, which has driven away many Catholic voters and evangelical Protestants who used to vote, by an even more overwhelming margin, for Democratic candidates.

In this sense, there is an “abortion albatross” hanging around the neck of the Democratic party, and – given the teaching of the Church Рit is hardly surprising that this should be the case.

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion and infanticide are – to use the words of the Second Vatican Council that are repeated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 2271) Р“abominable crimes.” Thus, faithful Catholics, who accept the teaching of Vatican II, believe in principle that abortion is, always and everywhere, an “abominable crime.” As everyone knows, at the national level, most of the major players in the Democratic party – including presidential candidate Barak Obama, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and vice-presidential candidate Joseph Biden (the latter two being Catholics) – are staunch advocates of the right to commit at least the abominable crime of abortion.

To make matters worse, as a state senator in Illinois, Barak Obama repeatedly voted against legislation that would have prohibited a particular form of infanticide: deliberately leaving newborn babies to die after they have survived abortions. This sort of common-sense legislation was approved by even the most pro-abortion members of the US Senate in a 98-0 vote. They said, in essence, “I may be in favor of abortion, but I‚Äôm not in favor of that.” Well, Barak Obama was ready to allow that. He would also have forced the American people to pay for it.

Now, it would be unfair to say that these politicians are baby-killers or even that they want unborn babies to be killed. I would assume that they would never personally commit the abominable crimes of abortion or infanticide. In fact, I would assume that they think that abortion and infanticide are, in some sense, evil.

Nevertheless, they are in the exact same position as a man who, while never dreaming of engaging in the slave trade himself, actively works to deprive African-Americans of human rights so that they can be legally captured, bought and sold by others.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Joseph Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Barak Obama want to deny human rights to certain members of the human family so that they can be deliberately butchered by abortionists with impunity. They think it is a good thing – something worth fighting for in the political arena Рthat unborn children should have no rights at all. They really do want unborn children to be legally killable, and they actively fight to ensure that they are. They want an “abominable crime” to be perfectly legal. They want it to be possible to legally kill hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings every year in the United States. Moreover, while they do not actually kill these unborn children with their own hands, they are quite happy to take money from the hands of those who do Рfrom professional killers, from people who do it for “a living.”

So, as I say, it is no surprise that serious Catholics are appalled by such candidates and that many, still strongly attracted to the Democratic party for other reasons, leap at the chance to vote for pro-life Democrats like my former boss, Robert P. Casey.

On Tuesday, we shall see how these conflicts play out. I have a hunch that the Catholic vote will be more important than ever. The strange variations in the polls suggests that something is going on that is not being adequately explained in the popular press.

But yesterday, here in Rome, a 68-year-old priest was brutally stabbed by a young man, Marco Luzi, who claimed to have watched a TV transmission of The Da Vinci Code the night before.

Police searching the apartment of Luzi found a variety of objects related to Dan Brown’s novel.

The priest, Don Canio, was in grave condition on Wednesday. Say a prayer for him. And for Dan Brown.

The Juno/Juneau line is already old (cf. James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal, Alessandra Stanley in the NYTimes, Google, etc.), but really, given the Palins’ penchant for funky first names, a “Juneau Palin” would be well within the realm of possibility (it is said that young Trig has a “Van” in his name so that it can rhyme with Van Halen). And there does seem to be something distinctly indie-movie – or maybe Coen-Brothersy – about the Palin story. Decidedly off-beat.

Of course, it is unfortunate that Bristol Palin must go through the final months of teenage pregnancy on a national – and not infrequently hostile – national stage. Some prayers for her are definitely in order.

On the brighter side, the Palin family – a child with Downs, an unwed teenage mom – seems to be some kind of testing-ground for pro-life sincerity, and, so far, they are passing the test with flying colors.

The saddest part of the story is that Barak Obama doesn’t know whether the baby that Bristol is carrying is a living human being or not. Such questions are, as he himself famously put it, above the eloquent Ivy-Leaguer’s pay grade. It seems that, when it comes to unborn babies, the only thing he’s certain about is that you can kill them with impunity. That’s the Obama position in a nutshell: maybe it’s a baby, I just don’t know, but you can certainly kill it.

Come to think of it, in the big picture, Senator Obama is probably more in need of prayers than Bristol Palin.

Barak Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his running mate has reminded me, though, of one of the most glorious pieces of political satire ever written. I refer to Dave Barry’s column on the Clarence Thomas hearings, in which Sen. Biden had a starring role. Since it is equally merciless toward both Democrats and Republicans (poor Orrin! poor Strom!), I feel that offering a link to Barry’s article is within the apolitical bounds of this blog.

It’s been 17 years now, but try as I might – and to tell the truth, I don’t try very hard – I still cannot see Sen. Biden’s face or hear his voice without recalling immortal phrases like these:

“Soamwhoan ben cudrin mheah widm tan’ bfust drang.”
(Click on the link below for translation!)

“May I just add that the top of my own personal head appears to be an unsuccessful attempt to grow okra…”

“This has been very, very painful, and believe me I know what pain is, because at one time in my career I was the son of a Welsh coal miner, and let me just say…”

“And believe me, no one is more disgusted than I am!”

And – in the spirit of things – MAY I JUST ADD that I am more than a little puzzled by Sen. Obama’s choice of a man who is surely going to be raw meat for the late-night comics: plagiarism on the campaign trail (who, I wonder, will be the first jokester to trumpet “Obama’s Surprise VP Pick: Neil Kinnock!”?); plagiarism in law school; an abymsal academic record (especially in light of Sen. Obama’s very public sneer at the rather impressive intellectual credentials of Clarence Thomas); politically incorrect remarks about African-Americans and Indians; swipes at Sen. Obama’s own inexperience… what more could the comedians ask for?

But that’s not our problem… here’s the link:

http://www.davebarry.com/natterings_files/clarencethomasall.htm

“If you want stability alllied to imagination, Catholicism has everything else beat.”
– Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, July 7 & 14, 2008

It’s one of the many striking lines in Adam Gopnik’s beautifully-written and fascinating article on G. K. Chesterton in The New Yorker entitled, “The Back of the World: The Troubling Genius of G. K. Chesterton.”

The article is affectionate toward Chesterton – the author’s sympathy is obvious, and he includes himself among those “who love Chesterton’s writing” (indeed, among those “who are used to pressing his writing on friends”) – and full of solid insights.

Along the way, Gopnik’s tries to wrestle with what he calls Chesterton’s “Jew-hating.” This leads him to posit a drift from the unadulterated delights of early Chesterton (“The Napoleon of Notting Hill” and “The Man Who Was Thursday” are his favorites) to the more problematic “orthodoxy” and anti-Semitism that, according to Gopnik, comes later. Nowhere in the article does he directly discuss Chesterton’s book entitled “Orthodoxy.” This is an odd omission, but it is difficult to imagine how he could have addressed it without upending his version of Chesterton’s development, since “Orthodoxy” was written in 1908, the very same year as “The Man Who Was Thursday,” and the discovery of “orthodoxy” recounted in that book is already a thing of the past. In short, the Chesterton of “Orthodoxy” and the delightful “early” Chesterton are one and the same.

It is true, of course, that Chesterton didn’t become a Catholic until 1922, but most of the specific instances that Gopnik sees as evidence of anti-Semitism are prior to that conversion (from the years 1912, 1918, 1920).

Gopnik deserves great credit for including in his account the elements that, at the very least, complicate any accusation of anti-Semitism. In fact, it would be interesting to see how the article would have turned out if, instead of asserting Chesterton’s guilt at the outset, he had begun with these phrases, with which his discussion of anti-Semitism more or less concludes:

“[Chesterton] did speak out, toward the end of his life [ie, 1936], against the persecution in Nazi Germany, writing that he was ‘appalled by the Hitlerite atrocities,’ that ‘they have absoutely no reason or logic behind them,’ that ‘I am quite ready to believe now that Belloc and I will die defending the last Jew in Europe.’”

Now, one can’t help but wonder how many Jew-hating anti-Semites were speaking openly of Hitler’s atrocities – before 1937, mind you – and talking about dying in defense of Europe’s Jews. If this is anti-Semitism, then it is a very strange form of it.

If one re-reads Gopnik’s criticism of Chesterton’s “Jew-hating” in the light of these statements, one immediately notices that the evidence for the prosecution is not any explicitly-stated hatred of Jews, but mainly Chesterton’s repeated reference to what he called “the Jewish problem.” And here again, Gopnik deserves credit for pointing out that there were, as he puts it, “points of contact between Chesterton and Zionism.” This is a useful reminder that, speaking about a “Jewish problem” in the 1920s was not necessarily a sign of anti-Semitism. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t. Clearly, if one wants to uncover the true meaning of Chesterton’s references to “the Jewish problem,” then his later comments have to be taken seriously.

Gopnik considers himself a proselytizer for “the pre-Catholic Chesterton” and claims that Chesterton’s later writing “suffers from conversion sickness.” But what he sees as defects in the Catholic Chesterton are the very same virtues that he sees in the early “pre-Catholic” one (I note again that the “pre-Catholic” Chesterton is the one who wrote “Orthodoxy” in 1908 at the same time he wrote the masterpieces that Gopnik loves). Speaking of Chesterton as “a Pangloss of the parish” (a fine expression!) for whom “anything Roman is right,” Gopnik claims, “It is hard to credit that even a convinced Catholic can feel equally strong about St. Francis’s intuitive mysticism and St. Thomas’s pedantic religiosity, as Chesterton seems to.” It is precisely this combination of apparent opposites, however, that attracted Chesterton to “orthodoxy” in 1908 and eventually to Catholicism. And – this is the best part – Gopnik knows this. I started with that opening quotation for a reason. Here it is at a bit more length:

“If you want a solution, at once authoritarian and poetic, to the threat of moral anarchism, then Catholicism, which built Chartes and inspired Dante, looks a lot better than Scotland Yard. If you want stability allied to imagination, Catholicism has everything else beat.”

On one side, St. Thomas (authoritarian stability); on the other, St. Francis (poetic imagination). Chesterton realized that, somehow, both of these were necessary for sanity, and he found them together in the Catholic Church. And, as I say, Gopnik appreciates precisely this doubleness in Chesterton, at least when he finds it in “The Man Who Was Thursday”:

“This double vision, where the appetite for romantic violence is imagined as the flip side of the desire for absolute order, gives the book its permanence.”

It would seems that Gopnik simply needs to read the later “Catholic Chesterton” with the same insightful appreciation that he shows for the “pre-Catholic” one. After all, it’s the same, albeit extremely large, guy.

At the moment Benedict’s name was announced I was speaking with a reporter for Associated Press television, and, when the interview was over, she asked me if I had any further thoughts. The first thing that came to my mind was that, in choosing the name Benedict – the name of the saint who, when much of Europe was pagan, laid one of the key cornerstones for the Christian civilization of Europe – the former Cardinal Ratzinger was sending a message of hope for Europe: despite what many say, despite the appearances, the spirit of Benedict is still alive and relevant today. That was what I took to be the point behind the name.

Naturally, these recollections are provoked by today’s feast – the feast of St. Benedict, patron of Europe – and they have a special resonance for me today because I am recalling them in Sweden, a country that is, in some ways, a poster child for the secularization that has transformed the Old World. Not that there isn’t competition. The Church of England seems to be – the expression was never more apt – dead set on its own demise. The less-well-known Church of Sweden has followed a similar trajectory: a tight alliance with the monarchy and an abject acquiescence in the steady erosion of faith.

Here in Sweden I have visited the birthplace of St. Bridget, near the Baltic coast a bit to the north west of Stockholm. As fate would have it, my office in Rome is essentially across the street for the room where she died in 1373. To think that this woman, in that century (the century of the Black Death), raised a family, traveled to Santiago de Compostela (Spain) on pilgrimage with her husband, returned to Sweden, was widowed, became a saint, mystic and foundress, and then died in Rome… it is to enter into a shared European civilization, a Christian culture that stretched, over national boundaries and linguistic divisions, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. She too is, like Benedict, a patron of Europe.

Next to the Old Town of Stockholm (Gamla Stan), there is a tiny island called Riddarholm (the Knight’s Island). It was the site of a Franciscan monastery until the time of the Protestant Reformation. The church built by the Franciscans is the oldest building in Stockholm. Gustav Vasa, the reforming monarch of Sweden, destroyed the monastery and gave the island to his noble friends (hence the modern name). The great Lutheran warrior king of the 30 Years War, Gustavus Adolphus, is now buried in the Franciscan’s church.

On the back of the apse of the main church in Gamla Stan there is a plaque that talks in glowing terms about the eradication of “papist superstitions” – the beliefs, that is, of the ancestors who had brought Christianity to Sweden and built these churches. In hindsight, it is easy enough to see that it was naive for the reformers to think they could do such violence to their own tradition without the fatal consequences that are obvious today. True, the modern Swedes tend not to believe in papist superstitions, but they also tend not to believe in Christianity either.

And yet, that is not the end of the story. Gustavus Adolphus’s daughter already had second thoughts about the reformation. She abdicated and became a Catholic. And over the centuries, many of the best and brightest – scholars, ministers, artists, ordinary folk – of the Protestant tradition have had similar second thoughts. We hear these days in the news that a fresh batch of Anglican ministers are talking about entering into Communion with Rome.

Here in Stockholm, there is a church – a state-controlled Lutheran church, of course – which is regularly used for large religious services. But those services are not attended by Lutheran Swedes. The “service,” celebrated in the Lutheran Church of St. John not far from where I am writing, is a Catholic Mass in Polish. I am told that Poles are filling churches in London as well. Call it the effect of John Paul II and the fall of The Wall. Sweden has one of the largest populations of Orthodox Christians (from Syria and Turkey) in Europe.

Who knows what the face of Christianity will look like in Europe in another generation? The secular Europeans have fewer children than the Poles. The Orthodox from the Middle East are all too familiar with the importance of demographics. They have large families too.

Clearly, Benedict XVI believes passionately in the Christian future of Europe, and he is certainly not focused on the past. Next week he will be traveling to Australia for the World Youth Day. As it turns out, he will be spending the first few days there, after the long flight, in a center run by Opus Dei. The prelate of Opus Dei is already on his way east, on a pastoral visit that will take him, via various countris, to Australia in time for the World Youth Day.

On this feast of St. Benedict, it only makes sense that our thoughts and prayers should go both to the Old World and to the Benedict of our own day and the young people he will soon be meeting on the other side of the world.

Unless something special happens. The special something may be the death and election of a pope – drawing not only enormous crowds of believers but also crowds of reporters to Rome at the same time. The experience in Rome in April of 2005 was an eye-opener. The vision of those prayerful and enthusiastic crowds, drawn largely by the personality and holiness of John Paul II, is what caused Benedict XVI to assert: the Church is alive; the Church is young.

Something similar seems to have happened during the U.S. trip. Reporters and huge crowds of happy Catholic believers were thrown together in a festive atmosphere without the filter of press releases and communications offices and the story-shaping lens of conflict. Reporters were in a position to simply write what they saw. As everyone knows, on this trip, the theme of conflict was present from the beginning, and it was given its due, but it gradually fell by the wayside as that larger, ordinarily-less-tangible story – the faith of countless Catholic believers Рgot told.

The trip did an enormous amount of good – for the US, for Australia (where they are preparing to host the Roman Pontiff at World Youth Day), for the world…

And, it seems, for the pope himself, because, today, in Rome, something else remarkable happened. In his Regina Coeli message, Benedict XVI credited the Catholics of the U.S. with confirming his own hope. Imagine, the sheep confirming the hope of the shepherd. This is what he said (the translation is my own):

“I thank God because He blessed abundantly this singular missionary experience of mine and deigned to make me an instrument of Christian hope for that Church and for that country. At the same time, I thank Him because I was myself confirmed in hope by the Catholics of America: indeed, I found a great vitality and a firm desire to live and bear witness to the faith in Jesus. On Wednesday, in the general audience, I will speak more at length about my visit to America.”

(Original Italian: “Ringrazio Dio perch?© ha benedetto largamente questa mia singolare esperienza missionaria e mi ha concesso di farmi strumento della speranza di Cristo per quella Chiesa e per quel Paese. In pari tempo lo ringrazio perch?© io stesso sono stato confermato nella speranza dai cattolici americani: ho trovato infatti una grande vitalit?† e la decisa volont?† di vivere e testimoniare la fede in Ges??. Mercoled?¨ prossimo, durante l‚ÄôUdienza generale, mi propongo di soffermarmi pi?? ampiamente su questa mia visita in America.”)

During the celebration of Holy Mass on Easter Sunday morning, as a torrential rain pummeled St. Peter’s Square, Benedict XVI looked out at the sea of umbrellas and soaking pilgrims and urged the people not to let the wet weather dampen their spirits, but rather to consider how much good the rainfall would do for the earth.

The pope’s resolutely positive interpretation of the deluge reminded me of the different ways people can see the same quantity of water and of the old question that is supposed to reveal how someone sees the world: is the glass half empty or half full? (In this case, of course, seeing St. Peter’s Square as half full of water would have been the negative view – accurate but negative.)

And now, on the eve of the pope’s trip to the United States, it is easy to imagine that, just as he gazed out at the rain-drenched Square, the pope must also be looking out upon the world and, more specifically in these days, the United States. What does he see? Is the glass half empty or half full?

On one hand, the recent study by the Pew Forum tells us that a third of those who are born Catholic in the U.S. eventually leave the Church. As a result, it is estimated that the current U.S. population is about 10 percent ex-Catholic. Naturally, it is difficult to know whether those who have left the Church had merely been baptized or had received a serious Catholic education, but the numbers are certainly not encouraging.

On the other hand, the RCIA (ie., the Roman Catholic Initiation for Adults program) welcomed more than 150,000 new Catholics this year – as it has every year for as long as I can remember. And, while a baptized Catholic may be, in some sense, a Catholic in name only, an adult who goes through the RCIA program is clearly making a free choice after a long period of education.

Looking beyond the U.S. and descending to particulars, we note that, among those recently received into the Church have been Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair and the Egyptian-Muslim journalist Magdi Allam, a major figure in Italian journalism. Both of these conversions have raised questions: Blair’s because it is not clear how his newly-professed faith squares with his un-Catholic policy decisions, Allam’s because his baptism by the pope during the Easter vigil was deemed by some (though not, I think, by anyone living under 24-hour police protection for fear of assassination) to be an unnecessary afront to Islamic fundamentalists. At the end of the day, however, the fact remains: in the last year, a British prime minister and a prominent Muslim journalist have asked to enter the Roman Catholic Church. In the U.S., three Episcopalian bishops became Catholics last year, and thousands of Episcopalians are knocking on the door.

Returning to our cultural glass, we see, on one hand, that the number of Christians in Europe is declining. In traditionally Catholic countries like Italy and Spain, Catholics are not replacing themselves. The number of Muslims in England’s mosques on Friday is about equal to the number of Anglicans attending church services on Sunday.

On the other hand, the Christianity of the Old World is becoming more Catholic. Before the imposition of Communism, among the Christians of Eastern Germany, the Protestants outnumbered the Catholics by a ratio of about 80 to 1. The ratio today is closer to 3 to 1. England too is now, once again, in practice, a Catholic country. More generally, while it is true that Christians are not replacing themselves, neither are secularists. In fact, the secularists are having even fewer children than the Christians. We frequently hear about the decline of European Christianity, but we will soon be hearing more about the suicide of modern European secularism.

On one hand, we have seen an absurd, anti-Christian novel, The Da Vinci Code, sell over 40 million copies. That the book was taken seriously by anyone is an embarrassment to educators everywhere. On the other hand, Christianity seems to have survived, and we have seen the extraordinary success of Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, and the similar enthusiasm that greeted the film version of Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings and the first cinematic installment of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (two of the most popular literary works of the last century, both by ardent Christian intellectuals). At the same time, the atheistic propaganda of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass turned out to be fool’s gold at the box office.

In the last year, at least three major books were published attacking God. Yet, as many have observed, in the broader scheme of things, these books – mostly regurgitations of hoary arguments from the 1700s Рare little more than atheistic hissy fits, written by authors who didn’t get what they wanted: the decline and fall of the belief in God. The books have swayed few readers. At the risk of offending the authors, it must be admitted that these books are preaching to the converted at its worst.

On the moral front, after 35 years, abortion is still legal in the United States. This is a undoubtedly a tragedy. And yet, the issue has not faded away. Legal abortion has not become part of the woodwork. Even in a Hollywood culture that is neither pro-life nor Christian, there are signs of growing unease with abortion. Within the last year, we have seen three popular films (two of them written by women) about difficult pregnancies in which mothers decide to keep their babies: Juno, Waitress, and Knocked Up. None of these films is an “orthodox” pro-life movie, like Bella, but none of them – with their insistent portrayals (at least in the latter two) of the developing child in the womb Рsupport the phony it’s-just-a-blob-of-tissue line of the abortion lobby. In every one of these films, there is no question that a human life, a baby, is at stake. Even the remake of Dr. Suess’s Horton Hears a Who Рwith its famous message: a person is a person no matter how small! Рcan hardly give comfort to the abortion lobby. The legal status of abortion remains in the hands of the Supreme Court, and one can’t help but notice that 5 of the 9 justices Рa far greater percentage than in the population as a whole Рare Roman Catholics.

On one hand, the pope has stirred up protests, because of his speech at Regensburg, his invitation to speak at the Sapienza University in Rome, and his baptism of Magdi Allam. He has been threatened by Osama bin Laden. These are, perhaps, unfortunate incidents and evidence of a lack of respect for the Holy Father. On the other hand, they are not the kind of things that happen to people whose words and ideas do not matter. A century ago, the papacy may have seemed a vestige of medieval times, marked for extinction in the modern world. This week, the pope of Rome will celebrate his 81st birthday by visiting the White House, and as he stands next to President Bush, there is little question who will be perceived as the man of greater stature. A few days later, in New York City, he will address the general assembly of the United Nations.

So, as the pope looks at the world today and prepares to address its representatives, does he see a glass that is half empty or half full? The answer is what it has always been: “yes.” The glass is both half empty and half full. But how much does it matter? As Christians, we cannot place our hope in such analyses. Nor can we be discouraged by them. The things that seem good can get worse. The things that seem bad can improve. The “sinners” can be converted. The “virtuous” can sin. Everyone must always decide anew. Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins may yet follow the footsteps of Tony Blair and Magdi Allam.

In the end, the glass that we contemplate as we look at the world calls us not so much to an analysis of a static situation (the supposed “pluses” and “minuses” mentioned above), but, above all, to personal conversion, prayer, apostolate and our daily work. Whether things are going well or poorly depends on us.

In the section of his encyclical letter Spe Salvi entitled “The True Shape of Christian Hope”, the pope notes that in the realm of ethics and moral decisions – that is, in the affairs of free human beings – there is no such thing as the kind of incremental progress one observes in the material sciences and technology “for the simple fact that a human being’s freedom is always new and one must always take one’s decisions anew.” Despite all that has happened, we are always, in some sense, beginners.

When he was elected pope, in one of his first Masses, Benedict XVI looked out at the huge crowds and said – and for anyone who was there, the words rang absolutely true – “The Church is alive. The Church is young.” That has always been true, and in many ways it is even truer of that part of the Church that Benedict is about to visit: with all its evident problems and defects, the Church in the U.S. is alive, and it is young.

The big and sad news for Catholics was this:

“The percentage of Catholics in the American population has held steady for decades at about 25 percent. But that masks a precipitous decline in native-born Catholics. The proportion has been bolstered by the large influx of Catholic immigrants, mostly from Latin America, the survey found.

“The Catholic Church has lost more adherents than any other group: about one-third of respondents raised Catholic said they no longer identified as such. Based on the data, the survey showed, ‚Äúthis means that roughly 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics.‚Äù”

This raises a lot of questions.

Above all, it’s a sad comment on Catholic education over the last 40 years. In some ways, the surprise is that the decline has not been worse. That’s why the the headline could have been “Despite Not Being Taught, Catholicism Hangs in There.”

Obviously the Catholic Church is by far – by many times over – the biggest religious group in the US, so, in a period of general decline, its losses would, in absolute terms, be bigger in any case. Moreover, the general decline reported among Protestants from two thirds to 51 percent is pretty darn steep. Indeed, it looks to me like a 15 percent drop. Hard to see how that isn’t reflected in some even steeper drops among certain select Protestant denominations (especially since the growing number of evangelicals can’t be accounting for the 15 percent drop).

It is also not clear how much Latino immigration is bolstering Catholic numbers. Obviously, to some extent it is, but it’s also true that a large number of the Catholics who become evangelical Protestants are Latino immigrants. I would be interesting in know how many people become Catholics through the Roman Catholic Initiation for Adults program every year. Last time I checked (some time in the ’90s) it was well over 100,000 people.

Finally, the Catholic Church is easier to leave in the sense that it has much sharper “boarders” in terms of doctrine and practice. It’s hard to leava country that doesn’t have boundaries. What does it mean to leave a “church” in which doctrine is vague and there is no clearly required practice?

This point is really the tip of a larger iceberg of a question: when we say “church,” are we really talking about the same thing? Strictly speaking, the Catholic Church doesn’t call protestant denominations “churches.” The Catholic Church and Protestant denominations are, in Catholic doctrine, apples and oranges. This sounds like an outrageous view in a Anglophone environment, but Рin the big picture Рit is the conventional and most popular view of most Christians (ie., over one billion Catholics). Putting it another way, to accept, as the Pew Forum does, as your basic premise that protestant denominations are “churches” is to take a minority view and impose it on the majority. An interesting procedure for an academic study. In the big picture, though, Protestant denominations are a minority in a world of Catholic and Orthodox churches.

I was particularly struck by the use, in the English translation, of the expression “foster children” where a literal translation from the Latin would simply say “students”. Clearly St. john Bosco wasn’t running orphanages, but many of kids in his schools were orphans. This seems to blur a distinction that seemed crucial in the discussions on the blog. In any case, here’s the reading. It may serve as something of an antidote to the more Dickensian – or worse – images rumbling around in many minds.

From a letter by Saint John Bosco, priest:

“First of all, if we wish to appear concerned about the true happiness of our foster children and if we would move them to fulfil their duties, you must never forget that you are taking the place of the parents of these beloved young people. I have always laboured lovingly for them, and carried out my priestly duties with zeal. And the whole Salesian society has done this with me.

“My sons, in my long experience very often I had to be convinced of this great truth. It is easier to become angry than to restrain oneself, and to threaten a boy than to persuade him. Yes, indeed, it is more fitting to be persistent in punishing our own impatience and pride than to correct the boys. We must be firm but kind, and be patient with them.

“I give you as a model the charity of Paul which he showed to his new converts. They often reduced him to tears and entreaties when he found them lacking docility and even opposing his loving efforts.

“See that no one finds you motivated by impetuosity or wilfulness. It is difficult to keep calm when administering punishment, but this must be done if we are to keep ourselves from showing off our authority or spilling out our anger.

“Let us regard those boys over whom we have some authority as our own sons. Let us place ourselves in their service. Let us be ashamed to assume an attitude of superiority. Let us not rule over them except for the purpose of serving them better.

“This was the method that Jesus used with the apostles. He put up with their ignorance and roughness and even their infidelity. He treated sinners with a kindness and affection that caused some to be shocked, others to be scandalised, and still others to hope for God’s mercy. And so he bade us to be gentle and humble of heart.

“They are our sons, and so in correcting their mistakes we must lay aside all anger and restrain it so firmly that it is extinguished entirely.

“There must be no hostility in our minds, no contempt in our eyes, no insult on our lips. We must use mercy for the present and have hope for the future, as is fitting for true fathers who are eager for real correction and improvement.

“In serious matters it is better to beg God humbly than to send forth a flood of words that will only offend the listeners and have no effect on those who are guilty.”

The following biographical comment is, I think, by John Allen (this is what happens when you throw things in files without labeling them!):

‚ÄúSt. John Bosco (1815-1888), known affectionately as “Don Bosco,” was shocked by the plight of the poor in Turin, especially the young — the peddlers, shoe polishers, stable-boys, factory workers, vendors, and errand boys who formed the lowest cogs in the wheels of the new industrial machine.

‚ÄúBosco became a tireless catechist among the young, hearing confessions, saying Masses, and organizing “oratories” where his boys could play, study and worship. He was also something of a labor organizer, negotiating contracts for young apprentices insisting that employers use them only in their acknowledged trade, that corporal punishment be abandoned, that proper wages be paid, rest periods be honored, and that decent sanitary conditions be maintained.

‚ÄúThus the Salesian pastoral model was forged: solid, orthodox Catholic piety; an “in-the-trenches” commitment to the young, the poor, and to education; and a smiling closeness to the people, as opposed to the rather foreboding and aloof profile of the typical Italian monsignore.‚Äù

And, no, I’m not talking about the presidential primaries in the United States of America – interesting though they may be.

This week, here in Rome, the Society of Jesus will begin the process (it starts with four days of prayer, before the actual voting begins) of choosing a successor to Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the first superior general of the Jesuits to retire rather than serve until death.

There are a number of reasons why I think that the election of a superior general for the Jesuits may be as important as a presidential election in the United States.

First of all, there is the extraordinary importance that the Jesuits have had and continue to have in the Church Рespecially, the importance of their institutions of education: from the Gregorian University here in Rome to the countless schools and universities scattered all over the world. Both in terms of numbers and geographical extension, the Church is a much larger “body politic” than the United States, and, with the decline of mainstream Protestant denominations, the Church is increasingly perceived as the sole authoritative voice of Christianity. As the historically pre-eminent religious order and the traditional intelligentsia of that ecclesial “body politic,” the Jesuits have a crucial role in determining the tone with which the Church speaks.

Second, while an American president holds power for at most eight years (unless, of course, his wife becomes president… he being, lest we forget, our first Jesuit-educated president), the superior general of the Jesuits, in principle, holds office for life. The outcome of this election can be with us for a very long time.

Third, the international reach of the general of the Jesuits is rivaled only by that of the pope himself. The decisions of one Jesuit general can have a direct, ongoing impact on generations of young people in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. The religious future – and with it, often, the political future Рof countries can depend on these decisions, especially in the developing world, where the Jesuits’ relative importance is even greater. I referred above to President Clinton’s Jesuit education partly in jest, but also partly because it shows in that the educational role of the Jesuits is far from being a merely internal “Catholic affair.”

In other words, even though it’s not making the front pages now with Barak and Huck, a great deal is riding on the decision of the 217 Jesuit electors in Rome, and I hope that we will all keep them in our prayers.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FOR TWO VOICES

In the beginning…

– God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen. 1:1)

was the Word…

– He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. (Rev. 19:13)

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell. (Col. 1:19)

He was in the beginning with God;…

Р‘Now, Father, glorify me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.’ (John 17:5)

all things were made through him, and without him was not made anything that was made.

He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…. All things were created through him and for him. (Col. 1:15-16)

In him was life…

РJesus said to Thomas, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’ (John 14:6)

and the life was the light of men.

РAnd God said, ‘Let there be light.’ (Gen. 1:3)

РAgain Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world.’ (John 8:12)

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Р‘He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ (John 8:12)

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

РBut the angel said, ‘He will be great before the Lord…. He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah.’ (Luke 1:13, 15)

РAnd Zechariah asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And everyone marvelled. (Luke 1:63)

РNow John wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. (Matthew 3:4)

He came for testimony…

– The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. (Mark 1:3)

to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light…

Р‘He who is coming after me is mightier than I.’ (Matthew 3:11)

Р‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him…. He must increase, but I must decrease.’ (John 3:28, 30)

but came to bear witness to the light.

РAnd John the Baptist looked at Jesus as he walked, and said ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ (John 1:36)

The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.

Р‘For we have seen his star in the East’… When the Magi saw the star they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. (Matthew 2:2, 10)

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.

РJesus said, ‘Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.’ Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’ (John 18:37-38)

Р‘If the world hates you, know that is has hated me before it hated you.’ (John 15: 18)

He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.

РNathaniel said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ (John 1:46)

Р‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?’… And they took offense at him. (Mark 6:3)

– Even his brethren did not believe in him. (John 7:5)

РThe chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ (John 19:15)

But to all who received him…

РSimeon took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, ‘Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace.’ (Luke 2:28-29)

who believed in his name…

РSimon Peter answered him, ‘Lord… we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’ (John 6:68-69)

Р‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’ (Matthew 16:16)

РThe Samaritans said to the woman: ‘It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.’ (John 4:42)

he gave power to become children of God;…

– Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God. (1 John 5:1)

РSee what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are…. Beloved, we are God’s children now. (1 John 3:1-2)

РAnd because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’ (Gal. 4:4-6)

Р‘Pray then like this: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…’ (Matthew 6:9)

who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh not of the will of man, but of God.

But when the time had fully come… (Gal. 4:4)

– In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrolment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. (Luke 2:1-2)

God sent forth his Son… (Gal. 4:4)

РFor while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed… (Wisdom 18:14-15a)

born of woman… (Gal. 4:4)

РAnd the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel Gabriel came to her and said, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you’… And Mary said, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word.’(Luke 1:27-28, 38)

РAnd her cousin Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women’… (Luke 1:41-42)

РAnd Mary said:…‘Henceforth all generations will call me blessed’ (Luke 1:48)

born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. (Gal. 4:4-5)

РAnd when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord … and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.’ (Luke 2:22-24)

РThe Jews answered him, ‘We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God.’ (John 19:7)

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…

– And Mary gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger. (Luke 2:7)

Р‘I am the living bread which comes down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ (John 6:51)

– Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. (1 John 4:2)

– For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily. (Colossians 2:9)

and we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father.

РThe shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. Luke 2:15-16

– Going into the house, the Magi saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. (Matthew 2:11)

РAnd Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light…. And a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased…’ (Matthew 17:2, 5)

РSo Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ (John 19:5)

– And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’ (Mark 15:39)

No one has ever seen God;…

Р‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.’ (John 14:9)

the only Son…

– And his father and his mother marvelled at what was said about him (Luke 2:33):

Р‘He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High…. The child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.’ (Luke 1:32, 35)

– You are my son. Today I have begotten you. (Psalm 2:7)

who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

– In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (Hebrews 1:1-2)

РThat which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it… (1 John 1:1-2)

РAnd the angel said to them, ‘Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.’ (Luke 2:10-11)

– Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:11)

Of course, Blair’s reception doesn’t come as a surprise, but this very public act is another step in England’s gradual recovery of its original Catholic identity. As many have pointed out, inasmuch as it is Christian, England is already, in practice, a Catholic country once again – with more Catholics (including Irish, Poles and Portugese immigrants) in church on Sundays than Anglicans. And the Anglican communion, after years of defections (three episcopalian bishops in the US became Catholics in this year alone), is itself on the verge of being further divided by schism.

Some English Catholics have expressed doubts about the profundity of Blair’s Catholicism – especially given certain public statements on moral issues by the former prime minister and his Catholic wife, Cherie. That is an excellent reason to keep him in our prayers. After all, reception into the Church is the work of a moment; being a Christian is the work of a lifetime, and everyone needs help – from God and others – to live up to the fullness of the Christian vocation, which is a calling to genuine holiness.

When Cardinal Ratzinger chose the name “Benedict,” it was clear that he had not given up on Christian Europe. There are signs that he had good grounds for hope.