Attraction, Not Promotion

I have often been blunt in my criticisms of slipshod Catholics, even prelates. I don't say the criticisms weren't merited.

But I have recently had occasion to reflect on what drew me into the Church, then, much later, to the traditional Latin Mass.

I came into the Church because it was only there that I found the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. That made all other arguments irrelevant to me.

The attraction to the Latin Mass was more gradual. I engaged with many online Trads for several years, and what I experienced was denigration of the "novas ordo" and the implication that that worship was inferior or even invalid. Even though I hated liturgical abuse and the silliness I encountered in the 1980s, I reacted defensively to such attacks. I knew that, whatever its deficiencies, any valid Mass offered the true presence of Jesus Christ and the opportunity to receive Him in Holy Communion.

One voice was different. He made no secret of his love for the Latin Mass--he referred to himself as a "knuckle-dragging traditionalist." But he never suggested that I was evil or deluded for attending the Pauline Mass. He sent me a video 📹 of the traditional Mass (since there wasn't one within hundreds of miles of me), along with some Latin devotional materials). Ever gentle, ever respectful.

When I moved to San Diego, I found I had some colleagues who assisted at the Latin Mass (the bishop grudgingly permitted a Sunday Mass in the mausoleum, but no parish activities or weekday Masses). Then one week I was invited to a Mass and talk given by the regional superior of the FSSP. I wanted to hear the talk, so I went to the Mass. That's it. Remote preparation, curiosity, and a simple invitation. No bluntness required.

Later, I had the opportunity to meet Abbot of Fontgombault Dom Antoine Forgeot when he came to Oklahoma to acquire land for the Clear Creek foundation. Most striking were his holiness and humility. I later found the same in all of the founding monks, these men who had undergone a white martyrdom for decades to preserve their traditional Liturgy and Rites. Those qualities have brought them such an abundance of vocations that within scarcely a decade they are already making a second, possibly a third, foundation.

I have often said that the occupational hazard of the apologist is to focus on winning the argument rather than the soul. For the traditionalist, I sometimes think the focus is on being right instead of being loving.

By "loving," of course, I don't mean sentimental or cuddly. I mean wanting the good for another, and humbly offering to help him achieve that good. As I look back on my own conversions, I realize that they were effected by attraction, not argument. I saw someone living his faith deeply, and I wanted what he had.

The question I am forced to ask myself is: If someone witnessed the way I live my faith, would he want what I have? And, if so, would I know how to help him get it?

Selective Outrage from Liberal Historian

I listened to the Fresh Air interview on NPR today. The subject of Adam Cohen's book, the eugenics movement in America, is shocking and tragic. It's one of those medical fashions that make us cringe to recall, like lobotomies and syphilis studies.

I recommend listening to the interview. It elucidates past maltreatment of those considered "undesirable" in the gene pool, both internal and immigrants. Indeed, immigration laws of the 1920s were specifically crafted to eliminate non-Nordic types from entering the country (and reproducing). Homegrown undesirables were often confined to institutions and/or forcibly sterilized. And the laws permitting the latter were upheld, and even recommended by the Supreme Court, 8 to 1. The only dissent was from the lone Catholic on the high Court. Cohen credited Catholics as the *only* group that made an effort to defend such persons at that time.

Therefore, I was dumbfounded, as I  listened, that he made absolutely no reference in the entire interview to Planned Parenthood or its founder, Margaret Sanger, who was prominent in the eugenics movement, and who referred to blacks and other undesirables as "human weeds" who must be eradicated. Her goal was the betterment of the white race by eliminating non-whites' ability to reproduce.

Cohen's omission was even more striking after he quoted the 3,500-year-old Code of Hammurabi, the set of Babylonian precepts that prefigured the Ten Commandments. The purpose of the government, it says, is to protect the weakest members of the culture from the strongest. That, Cohen says, is still the function of law.

Yet he fails to make the connection between the "weakest" citizens and the unborn who are murdered or the newborn who are allowed to die. He sees no relationship between eugenics and the exploitation of the unwanted, and the racist abortion industry committing genocide. He makes no mention of the selling of baby parts or the adoption of horrific techniques to take living organs from still-living fetuses.

Cohen gives a list of shameful Supreme Court decisions, going back to Dred Scott, which failed to uphold the rights of the helpless against the more powerful. But utter silence on Roe v. Wade, the one decision that will ultimately be seen as the most horrifying of all, the decision that condemned 55 million innocent Americans to death. No mention of that travesty of justice, or the heroic role of the Catholic Church in decrying it.

No, Cohen rather takes a swipe at the late Justice Antonio Scalia, whom he accuses of championing the causes of the strong against the weak.

I was left speechless and angry, not only at Cohen's glaring bias, but at host Terri Gross's negligence in failing to confront him on the omissions. Extremely disappointing, NPR. I hope you will give equal coverage and equally softball questions to a representative of the prolife position. I would be delighted to furnish names.