Homeland Security on an Island of Misfit Toys

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Bill Schmitt

This is a preview of a commentary soon to be published in “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com. Please also see the story below, which is an accompanying sidebar essay.

Today’s headlines proclaim wars and rumors of wars—not only between countries, but between activists, advocates, and interest groups in our polarized homeland.

Fears of US vulnerability under the scenario of all-out, high-tech warfare deserve their share of serious reflection. We can’t disconnect that analysis from our everyday experiences with volatile issues here in America. They help reveal the essentials of our preparedness, as a nation and as individuals.

To begin, please check the boxes that identify us properly: A peace-loving country? Land of the free? Home of the brave? Good crowned with brotherhood? Shining city on a hill? Land that I love? God shed his grace on us? Needs to be great? Never was that great? (This last option was captured on video.)

Why We Fight

An ancient Roman general said, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” But he wasn’t calling for his own people to practice hostility toward each other!

It’s time to candidly assess America’s frequent dalliances with animus. We are a divided culture that too often mimics the antics of the lost children in Lord of the Flies.

Our common ground of values and aspirations has been nudged to the side by many factors, from social media to antisocial politics.

“NewsNation’s” Dan Abrams is still right to find hope in what he calls “the marginalized moderate majority.” Many of our problems and disputes are wrongly amplified. America’s heart is underappreciated.

But the country is haunted by skepticism, disrespect, mental strife, and nihilism. These can hobble our relationships abroad as well as in our public squares and politics. Caring relationships must also extend to those on the socioeconomic margins in the US and everywhere.

At all levels, our vicious cycle of insecure, self-affirming judgmentalism and passive-resistant appeasement is a destabilizing force. Visionary goals of coexistence and cooperation are being replaced by grandiose worldviews and micro-views of “us vs. them,” somehow promising secular salvation.

We’re making external judgments about good and evil constantly, especially those which are pointed simplistically toward “offensive” individuals or labeled groups, or leaders of nations.

In the media and sometimes in real life, we play the judge in mock (as in mockery) trials with little objectivity or cross-examination. The “oppressed vs. oppressor” mind frame pleasures us with lots of virtue-signaling, identity-building, and confirmation bias, not to mention conscience-easing and profit generation.

Too many folks see the globe merely as a cartoon of Bond villains. America itself looks like a playground filled with bullies, spectators, and those targeted as misfits.

In a culture without God or any trusted authority figures trying to bring us together, we tend to replace intellect and will with emotions. Guidelines like justice, mercy, and the common good give way to the selfish rules of power, protection, ego, and greed.

We invest bigger emotional stakes into smaller triumphs while we avoid addressing our deepest problems. For many (certainly not all of us), hostility or suspicion is our new habit of the heart. In lieu of faith and reason, we protect our passionate stances “at all costs,” even denying or re-interpreting uncomfortable realities.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Archipelago that our abstractions must be replaced with concrete realizations and responsibilities: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”

Job One on the road to improving our attitudes is to observe carefully how good and evil factor into our consciousness and relationships. We really ought to think concretely about more things, and good vs. evil is an excellent starting point.

What kind of stage are we setting? For what kinds of dramas? We need to humbly critique the good guys and bad guys we write into our scripts. More compelling stories would tell instead of basically good people who are struggling against their “most grievous faults.”

For decades, in a land blessed with relative peace and prosperity, we have had the luxury of creating enemies. Geopolitical dangers seemed distant. We began comfortably downplaying the broad consequences of our actions, forgetting the democratic knack for compromise.

What Hath Peace Wrought?

The Club of Rome saw this coming in its 1991 report, The First Global Revolution.

After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the report’s two authors wondered, “Can we live without enemies?” They saw the supposed dawn of global peace as an opportunity to make environmental perils the new, unifying foe. They called for “new enemies” and “new strategies.”  Soon, America got busy polarizing internally—not only around ecology, but around what Pope Francis nowadays calls the whole “human ecology.”

Looking for new things and people to hate is a terrible activity, given Christ’s command to “love your enemies” lest you unleash a cycle of chaos.

Nevertheless, we launch volleys of back-and-forth accusations even before we try to understand each other or examine the “root causes” for our fears.

So-called “leaders” have seized this discord as a persuasive tool, discovering that media, mimetic desire, confused values, and autocratic condemnations boost their niche popularity by dividing the populace.

Disagreements connect to other disagreements. Sometimes, we discover our fellow travelers have become strange bedfellows. Our political parties have become patchworks of interest groups to be pandered to or provoked.

Politicians forgot to ask the statesmanlike question, “Shouldn’t we sustain a united and viscerally strong nation just in case we someday must defend ourselves in a major war (not to mention the goal of promoting human flourishing)?”

We now reside in a strangely vulnerable superpower where individuals and groups perform as makeshift superheroes—self-styled Avengers—looking like teams but showing off independently. As loners, we feel fragile and uninformed, but we keep that identity secret.

The insightful journalist Bari Weiss expressed her concerns about today’s world of warcraft in the Feb. 1 edition of her podcast, Honestly.

The growing number of wars and disputes “should be alarming for everyone … not just because the threat of nuclear weapons looms over many of these conflicts, but also because I’m not sure America is prepared or capable of winning,” Weiss said.

After the terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, “I think a lot of Americans experienced a serious wakeup call,” she continued. “Could something like that happen here … and if we had to fight for our country, who would actually show up?”

Who Sank My Battleship?

Weiss’s question pin-points fault lines of friction where we must accept personal accountability for our positions and impacts.

We have made real progress regarding sexism, for example. The term is often subsumed under broader discussions of rights based on equality and sensitivity toward offenses. Scott Yenor muses that gender issues are now covered by America’s new “anti-discrimination sexual constitution.”

After morphing from an earlier constitution which assumed “that men and women had different and complementary roles,” as Yenor wrote in First Things, gender equality is now a doorway into a matrix of controversial questions.

In the Oct. 7 aftermath, many commentators rightly singled out the terrorism against Israeli “women and children.” But women’s issues slipped deeper into a maze of intersectionality. The United Nations drew criticism for half-hearted condemnation of the horrendous gender-based violence during the Hamas-led incursion. The UN agenda appeared to focus on passing grander judgments.

The New York Times on Jan. 29 reported that a UN team had finally arrived in Israel to investigate the reports of rapes and mutilations. Hamas denied the involvement of Palestinian fighters in those actions. They called the reports “propaganda” meant to justify “mass murder and ethnic cleansing” committed by Israel.

The grisly spewing of words, including genocide, supremacist, and colonizer, has generated a script for a regional war with deep emotional roots.

Since the US is inevitably involved in this and other face-offs, we must integrate additional facts and simplify the expanding equation of our emotions—how we feel about all sorts of subjects, from gender and race to “DEI” and “ESG” metrics. (More facts to ponder regarding these subjects follow in a sidebar essay.)

All these matters require “hard” applications of wisdom, logic, and will, as well as “soft” applications of values and virtues like charity, resilience, and self-restraint. But controversies tend to sow only  antagonism and confusion. How would these play out during a war?

Such a crisis properly would raise awareness of our many moral imbalances. We have to keep striving to reduce these.

But one wishes it also would remind us that life is not fair, there are limits to utopian pursuits, and we all must make sacrifices. JFK’s advice—to ask what we can do for our country, not vice versa—would have to be resurrected.

The list of scenarios here is not intended to trigger disenchantment or despair, but only to suggest what a concrete calculus of society’s options and imperatives might look like. We must see our cultural moment through a lens of readiness to defend both our country and its legacy of freedoms and rights, duty and magnanimity.

How shall we translate all these considerations into resolute acceptance of reality-based responsibilities?

Shall we require women to be soldiers? Shall the military be color-blind or “racist,” or “anti-racist”? Shall conscientious objectors refuse to defend a nation deemed supremacist or discriminatory? We need to better define words and standards so we can better define ourselves and our viewpoints.

Through lenses of victim vs. victimizer, can we still see ourselves as heroes fighting for meaningful justice and enduring security? We will have neither the time nor ability to purge the insecurities of domestic dilemmas before deployment.

Patience is a virtue for heroes on any mission. Americans’ short attention spans have required conjuring the appearance of limited solutions for some problems, but there is nothing quick or ephemeral about military preparedness and success.

Will government officials and other public- or private-sector elites try to maintain the country’s restless status quo of tangled ideas and weakened wills? Or impose a technocracy that changes the US fundamentally? Or appease international enemies to a point resembling surrender?

Ideally, they will reach empathetically into the hearts and minds of grass-roots Americans, the moderate majority of which Dan Abrams speaks. Politicians personifying transparency, esprit de corps, and confidence might find that most of the zeal we need to defend ourselves already exists and simply needs to be tapped.

The Answers are Blowing in the Wind

Much depends on the leaders we will have during a time of war. In the public sector, those on various rungs of the “Washington DC” ladder must be reminded to strive for purposeful excellence.

Their duty to certain absolutes is enshrined in the oath they take: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same … and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”  This says, “we’re in this together.”

We will need meritocratic thinking to ensure our leaders are well-advised and projects are well-run. When charged with elitism, those who rise to the top can justify their power with a commitment to noblesse oblige. At the same time, diversity without discrimination is a smart antidote to expertise that has passed its expiration date.

Wartime standard-bearers will have to speak and listen to the whole country as clear and candid communicators, explaining realities of the present moment, including context and consequences. They must allow and encourage citizens to open their minds and souls to each other, helping them to see our exaggerated differences in a much bigger frame.

Peacemaking and conflict resolution are round-the-clock jobs requiring tireless officials with keen emotional intelligence. “Lawfare” and blame games can be managed by skilled advocates-for-hire.

The words “remember,” “membership,” and “meme” all refer to transmission of, and engagement with, ideas that bind a culture together. Our opinion-shapers should accentuate memories of the US at its best. They should not mock imperfect individuals or obsess over baskets of deplorability. Most folks aren’t evil, but evil actions can easily increase when a society becomes either banal or belligerent.

Civic leaders must be crime-fighters on the home front, affirming that justice is what we’re fighting for. But strike a balance: Tyranny is what we’re fighting! Punishment is rightly aimed at unjust behaviors, not inconvenient persons.

Should we compare candidates “not to the Almighty, but to the alternative”? Perhaps, when our notion of the “perfect” becomes the enemy of the good.

However, don’t downplay the Almighty’s high standards and help. Dismissing transcendent wisdom renders meaningless those oaths of office, not to mention the pledges and ethics codes ubiquitous in the realms of public service, private enterprise, professions, religions, and other institutions which impart hope.

Authority figures should be willing to sacrifice in solidarity with our warriors and the whole population. They will be expected to show authentic tears and express deep thankfulness in the face of suffering.

They must inject a sense of local and global stewardship and restraint, managing internal disputes which make us weaker as well as foreign battles where some military tools are too fearsome for anyone’s good.

They should find and enunciate common ground and build consensus, simply but not simplistically. They must be critical thinkers and smart strategists whose gut tells them what is critical so they can help us set wise priorities.

Of course, the reason for demanding these qualities in our leaders is because all Americans must build the same strengths in each other. We’ll be better “followers” if we remember that our “commanders,” in a sense, report to us. To support and inspire are serious mandates of conscience, not abstract niceties, for everyone.

We can rise to the occasion by reading the section on “just war” in the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (starting at page 423), as well as prescriptions and proscriptions from other faiths.

An excellent, short video from the International Committee of the Red Cross describes the globally agreed rules of war. This International Humanitarian Law will help to remind us of our ancestors’ aspirations, applicable both at home and abroad.

The video’s concluding sentence says the law “is all about making choices that preserve a minimum of human dignity in times of war and make sure that living together again is possible once the last bullet has been shot.”

This bottom line about international hostility holds true for the Maginot Line between good and evil which runs through our hearts. So far, letting this struggle rage unrestrained has unleashed dopamine-fueled gamesmanship. But it is an awful waste of time, talent, resources, moral clarity, and spiritual energy—resources that must be preserved during any crisis.

If Americans cannot learn to coexist well immediately, we can at least hope and pray that passing time and growing wisdom will achieve our higher destiny.

In a post-truth age of mistrust and frustration, we must at least honor the reality of structures and traditions that can preserve us. The ultimate truth, present in the Kingdom of God, can give meaning to our perseverance.

Our peacetime prayers today should plead that frightful scenarios of modern warfare fail to come about. Pope John Paul II provided in 1982 a riveting prayer against evil that reflected on war very concretely.

Acknowledging current divisions, allow every home-grown instance of cruelty toward persons and groups, cancellation of others’ ideas and reputations, or pooh-poohing of misdeeds and their impacts to become a teachable moment. Calling out these errors will stretch our imaginations to pierce the protective bubbles we wear on our island of misfit toys.

The Club of Rome asked, “Can we live without enemies?” The right question clearly is, “Can we live with too many enemies?” And can we live with too much fear and hatred? The answer to those questions is “no.”

We have the opportunity to look at the American culture we are establishing—to critique its sustainability and suitability for “living together.” We can gain common sense and wisdom if we invite the “marginalized moderate majority” fully into the mainstream dialogue. With an outreach to all generations of Americans, their resilience, backgrounds of faith, and experiences of good and evil in family and community will make our camaraderie more vigorous.

The preceding litany of questions might help to soften our hardened hearts. Despite what some media and elites model for us, sober hearts will be more receptive to good leaders and teachers, make a violent world less vulnerable, and set the right stage for dramas with a happy ending.

Image from ClipSafari.com, a collection of Creative Commons images.

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Now We’ve Got God Right Where He Wants Us

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Bill Schmitt

This is the sidebar essay accompanying the story above, “Homeland Security on an Island of Misfit Toys.” Both commentaries will also be published in “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com. Please consider subscribing to that publication.

Here is more “grist for the mill” of emotions discussed above, but it can also be food for thought about our warfare at home and abroad. This critical thinking may not lead to solutions, but it can “wake us up,” as Bari Weiss said, to good questions that drive us toward reliance on a wisdom that transcends our media-fed animus.

What about the sex/gender/personal issues in a military mobilization?

The Pentagon has admitted female service members into “combat positions.” Pending further Congressional debates, the Selective Service requires only that men aged 18-25 register for any future draft. (Israel is in a minority of nations that draft both men and women, according to World Population Review.)

Commentators have wondered how many US citizens would resist the draft. And on what basis? The post-modern notion of “conscience,” now tied to expressive individualism, has lost some of the faith-based idealism voiced by conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War.

Debates on racism, identity, LGBTQ equality, and DEI metrics also may loom ahead for today’s all-volunteer military if the US adopts a wartime footing.

As of 2023, the proportion of recruits who are white had fallen to 44 percent, down from 56.4 percent in 2018, according to a recent report in The Telegraph. Black and Hispanic recruits each constitute 24 percent of the total.

How should we determine who fights for us?

A Senate bill introduced last year sought to ease the current shortage of recruits by “widening a pathway for non-citizens to join the US military,” according to a Stars and Stripes report. Immigrants “who entered the country unlawfully as children” would lose the immunity from military service granted by DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Is this fairness or injustice?

Even if the US is able to avoid a draft, the country might need to selectively summon personnel in specific fields, such as doctors, nurses, and pilots. Will civilians object to limiting the services they enjoy?

What else would have to be rationed, given the unwieldy federal debt and the shrinkage of the country’s industrial base?

Perhaps virtual reality, cyber-warfare, and AI could help compensate for our thinner ranks of service members. We can expect that technologists would contribute amazing advances—but with an emphasis on victory-centric abilities rather than the “person-centered AI” which Pope Francis and others have continuously called for.

Meanwhile, George Will has invited concern about our high-tech resources in his Feb. 2 column. He quoted an Education Next article on the “national security crisis” taking shape in high schools and colleges. “The domestic supply of college graduates with advanced scientific skills … cannot begin to meet the nation’s need for economic vitality and military preparedness.”

Separately, Will worried that youths “bring to college a complacent sense of entitlement.” Citing a National Review piece, he said many students are “increasingly exempted from meaningful expectations of rigor.” Idleness on campus “breeds extremism and ‘performative rebellion.’’ How would graduates’ mantras of victimization and anti-oppression fit with military goals?

Consider also today’s decline in patriotism, with more people focusing on the negatives in American history and fewer believing the country’s aspirations are a source of pride worth fighting and dying for.

Everything is connected to everything else. Let’s not forget that an America at war would bear much suffering in terms of lives disrupted and lives lost. Many leaders enforced stringent rules during the Covid pandemic partly because we moderns are terrified by the risk of dying. What can a secular, atomized society do for its seniors or juniors who don’t want their screens to say, “Game Over”?

Let’s hope Somebody has the answers.

Image from ClipSafari, a collection of Creative Commons designs.

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A Theology of the Disembodied: The Pope’s ‘AI’ Caveats Continue

Posted on January 25, 2024 by Bill Schmitt

Hear my interview with Father Philip Larrey, an advisor to the Vatican on artificial intelligence. Recorded in early February, this 47-minute audio provides Fr. Larrey’s insights on AI’s benefits and challenges, expanding upon the World Communications Day message described below.

Among the many ways in which Pope Francis has distinguished himself from his predecessors, he speaks a lot about algorithms. His proclivities as a pastor shine through when he critiques, in words of forbearance and warning, today’s high-tech temptation “to become like God without God.”

That’s a quote from his latest iteration of perspectives on the ethereal battle of Man vs. Machine Learning. It is among the insights in the Vatican’s Jan. 24 release of his 2024 message for World Communications Day, “Artificial Intelligence and the Wisdom of the Heart: Towards a Fully Human Communication.”

One might say that, four decades after Pope John Paul II concluded his landmark presentations on the “Theology of the Body,” Pope Francis is compiling a less formal “Theology of the Disembodied.”

He is summoning the flesh-and-blood faithful to heighten our commitment to mind, heart, soul, solidarity, and dignity at a pace that outwits the growing global endeavor to give us “chatbots” and much, much more.

“A new kind of human being must take shape, endowed with a deeper spirituality and new freedom and interiority,” Francis said in his message, which was posted on the feast day of St. Francis DeSales, patron saint of journalism, months ahead of the Catholic Church’s 58th annual World Day of Social Communications.

“At this time in history, which risks becoming rich in technology and poor in humanity, our reflections must begin with the human heart,” the Pope wrote. “Only by adopting a spiritual way of viewing reality, only by recovering a wisdom of the heart, can we confront and interpret the newness of our time and rediscover the path to a fully human communication.”

Technical extensions of our natural abilities can help the world to overcome its language gaps, better understand our “patrimony of written knowledge from past ages,” and support our thinking in many disciplines “as a means of loving service,” he acknowledged.

But digital dominance can also cause “cognitive pollution” that misinforms and misleads us. He cautioned against a “technology of simulation” which “distorts our relationship with others and with reality.”

Repeating his urgent call for “a binding international treaty” to regulate the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI), he said individuals and institutions must also take their own steps to cling to very personal values and responsibilities not recognized by “big data.”

The problem is that “algorithms are not neutral,” as Francis taught this week. They create a risk of “turning everything into abstract calculations that reduce individuals to data, thinking to a mechanical process, experience to isolated cases, goodness to profit, and, above all, a denial of the uniqueness of each individual and his or her story.”

Journalists and communications professionals have a particular duty to focus on truth in order to ensure that all people become “discerning participants” in a meaningful process of teaching, learning, and caring.

“It is unacceptable that the use of artificial intelligence should lead to groupthink, to a gathering of unverified data, to a collective editorial dereliction of duty.”

The Pope provides a long paragraph of questions we should pose toward the technology and toward ourselves.

How will we ensure human dignity in our communications, both among the content generators and audiences? How can we make “the operation of algorithms for indexing and de-indexing” more transparent? How can we govern search engines which are “capable of celebrating or canceling persons and opinions, histories and cultures?”

These are ideas Francis has been mulling for years. His monthly prayer intention for Catholics in November 2020 was “that robotics and AI would remain always at the service of human beings.”

In March 2023, he met with scientists, engineers, business leaders, lawyers, philosophers, theologians, ethicists, and members of the Roman Curia at an annual conference on digital technologies called the “Minerva Dialogues.”

He urged the developers of machine learning to “respect such values as inclusion, transparency, security, equity, privacy, and reliability” in order to make AI truly valuable.

As reported at the time by Fox Business News, Francis said regulation of future developments must “promote genuine progress, contributing, that is, to a better world and an integrally higher quality of life.”

A separate Vatican conference on AI ethics in January 2023 allowed him to meet with members of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. They signed a document calling on technologists, who were already seeing a need for a “pause” in their tidal wave of advancements, to make sure future collaborations include leaders in ethics and faith.

Francis returned to the subject in his Jan. 1, 2024, message for the Church’s 57th annual World Day of Peace.

He warned about the use of AI in propaganda, adding that we must apply critical thinking about communication and humility in our geopolitical plans:

“Human beings are, by definition, mortal; by proposing to overcome every limit through technology, in an obsessive desire to control everything, we risk losing control over ourselves; in the quest for an absolute freedom, we risk falling into the spirit of a ‘technological dictatorship.’”

The Pope even became a bit playful in the use of one of his favorite words. He urged “a cross-disciplinary dialogue aimed at an ethical development of algorithms—an algor-ethics—in which values will shape the directions taken by new technologies.”

It’s useful, even galvanizing, to recognize the thought and prayer Pope Francis is investing in the battle of Man vs. Machine Learning, the Flesh-and-Blood vs. the Disembodied.

As seen in his 2024 World Communications Day message, he has studied both the benefits and dangers of any new “wisdom” that is not ensouled with human values and activated virtues. And this pastor knows that our growth in wisdom must also include an embrace of our frailties and mortality, as well as an immortality in the hands of God—not to be handed over to AI.

His teaching of this theology isn’t just another entry in today’s exciting and enticing marketplace of ideas. As he said in his World Day of Peace message, “realities are greater than ideas.”

We can see he realizes that, in this season of zealous faith in technology, religion has picked up the transcendent duty to defend reality, reason, and truth-telling. That’s ultimately the basis for, and content of, good communication.

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Remembering Charles Osgood, a Muse of the News

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Bill Schmitt

Charles Osgood, an immensely talented alumnus of Catholic schooling and brilliantly effective purveyor of a “Catholic imagination,” died Jan. 23 at age 91, leaving an upbeat legacy in secular American journalism.

Osgood played a role in inspiring my own study of communications at Fordham University, from which he graduated in 1954. As I traversed my teen years in the 1970s, I was drawn to his knack for wit and rhyme and his enduring ability to integrate personality—and a certain spirit—into radio news.

He said radio was his favorite medium because it offered a “theater of the mind.” According to The New York Times, he continued his “Osgood File” audio broadcasts for decades, but his fame grew when he anchored the “CBS Sunday Night News,” the “CBS Morning News,” and “CBS Sunday Morning.”

Osgood celebrated his sunrise news duties in the book, Nothing Could Be Finer than a Crisis that is Minor in the Morning. One could also sense his good cheer from his signature closing for many broadcasts: “See you on the radio.”

He compiled many formative adventures from his 1940s Catholic parish life and education with the Sisters of Charity in Baltimore. Those went into another book, Defending Baltimore from Enemy Attack.

Not having officially studied journalism, his style was consistently unconventional.

He didn’t tell jokes, but he found opportunities to express the light-heartedness found in real-life occurrences. He didn’t write poetry, but he composed many memorable rhymes, harking back to books from childhood—as in this lyrical foreword: “To Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss)/Who gave me a new way to look at the neuss.”

On some programs later in his life, audiences heard Osgood display his talent on the organ, piano, or banjo. According to a 2004 article by George P. Matysek Jr. in the Archdiocese of Baltimore newspaper Catholic Review, he occasionally played for his teachers and later retained his mastery of Tantum Ergo and O Salutaris.

But he also was a serious journalist who cared about the news because it affected the lives of average people.

That’s why I speak of his Catholic imagination, defined by Jessica Hooten Wilson in National Catholic Register as a worldview which “emphasizes that the things of this world have spiritual meaning, as well as physical.” Through a larger lens of hope, “there is no unholy place, no image so broken it cannot be healed, no sin too gritty that it can’t be written about.”

With help from Osgood’s big-perspective professionalism, I came to think of journalism as a friendly place for Catholics, or at least for the Catholic imagination I sought to cultivate. He prompted pursuit of a curiosity which seeks truth but accepts mystery, using both faith and reason to interpret the world.

Religion was not on his beat, but he allowed the heroism, sorrows, foibles, and silliness in the world to make his coverage multi-dimensional, not merely multi-media.

After all, our faith is a driving force behind journalism, as well as modern science, because we believe the world embodies godly laws and a basic orderliness, challenging and allowing us to explore everything with a sense of adventure.

I send my thanks and prayers to Osgood as an adventurer who helped to launch many journalistic careers with a contrarian energy—not reliant on pride, greed, influence, or raw ambition. As he said in his remarks regarding his retirement from CBS News in 2016, he was reluctant to leave the work. A Baltimore Banner obituary quoted his words: “It’s just that it’s been such a joy doing it!”

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Words of the Year: ‘That Man is Not Real!’

Posted on January 2, 2024 by Bill Schmitt

This commentary was first published in “Phronesis in Pieces,” at billschmitt.substack.com. Please consider subscribing. You can inspect links to my latest work in print and online, including a radio program I produced and hosted, as well as a PBS segment featuring my accordion stylings.

The editors at Merriam-Webster recently announced that “authentic” was their “word of the year” for 2023. They affirmed the perceptiveness voiced decades ago by comedian Robin Williams regarding our experiences: “Reality—what a concept!”

More people are wondering about reality, whether they want to embrace it, pursue it, manipulate it, or marginalize it. Online searches for the definition of “authentic” surged at the Merriam-Webster site, prompting the dictionary company to say it’s a word that “defined the year.”

This echoes the editors’ “word of the year” for 2022, “gaslight.” It also follows a pattern set by Oxford English Dictionary editors in 2016 when they spotlighted the scary term “post-truth.”

In this culture where truth seems to be up for grabs, dictionary fans realize authenticity is important.

But Merriam-Webster acknowledged in their news release that “authentic” is a quality which is “subject to debate.” As they put it, “the line between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ has become increasingly blurred.”

That blur overshadows last year’s news stories, ranging from artificial intelligence to political propaganda to mysterious people in the back of airplanes.

Modern uncertainty about authenticity extends to its multiple definitions.

The editors say “authentic” can mean: not false or imitation (as in “real, actual”); worthy of acceptance or belief as aligned with or based on fact; conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features (as in “an authentic reproduction of a colonial farmhouse”); and true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.

These days, the latter definition can itself be problematic. We have assumed authentic people are honest and transparent; their words conform to their intentions and actions.

However, the expanding social phenomenon called expressive individualism, which Public Square magazine defined to be “a worldview that gives self-expression a privileged place” as a “paramount virtue,” can sow seeds of confusion.

Many people now claim the privilege of expressing “their truth,” which others might not deem transparent according to their own truths—or to their pursuit of the truth about reality. This dashes the hope that authenticity will reliably build trust and cooperation.

As Public Square author Jeffrey Thane explained, “Community and family norms do not always prioritize or privilege individual self-expression. Religion, tradition, culture, family, and peers can all stifle our attempts at self-definition” and can impose “expectations that we did not choose for ourselves.”

This potential for conflict seems to require extra efforts which might promote private advantage more than the common good. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy encouraged enforcement of personal narratives in a 1992 decision. “At the heart of liberty,” he wrote, “is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and the mystery of human life.”

Forbes magazine last month posted a commentary titled “How Inclusive Leaders Create Safe Spaces for Authenticity at Work.”

The author, Simon E. Morris, recommends, “Consider that each employee comes to the workplace with upbringing experiences that impact interactions.” Inclusion in the workplace might require “having conversations around authenticity and what it means concerning organization and team dynamics.”

The situation may call for “unlearning and consistent training” in the basic “skills” of interaction, Morris adds.

Endless discussions of what “authentic” means to individuals threaten to distract us from collaborative problem-solving. Those with the greater powers of advocacy and persuasion could score points which short-circuit broader remedies.

There’s another challenge, as reported last month by another business magazine, Fortune. Michael Serazio notes, “Authenticity has become a central moral framework in society—the subtle yet pervasive value that animates and adjudicates our media, culture, and politics.”

Marketers know that “consumers have long sought authenticity, as it gets stamped on a range of goods and experiences made attractive largely because they appear to lack marketplace motives.”

People prefer small local stores with a unique and home-like feel. Big companies increasingly try to sound authentic, expressing their “soul” through public positions on policy issues. Or at least, they aim to look authentic.

“Take Starbucks,” writes Serazio, “which has long tried to reproduce the ‘aura’ of that cute, little indie coffee shop in your neighborhood—some 55,000 times over.”

That copycat approach can be attributed to smart business strategy about the layout and types of materials in a Starbucks store. But we also see cases where authenticity is falsely claimed by a business or a person.

Groucho Marx, a predecessor of Robin Williams, is credited with the observation: “The secret of life is honesty…. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

This comic path takes us back to the tragic side of “authentic” as a clue about 2023. It is akin to the misfortune of gaslighting given Merriam-Webster’s salute in 2022. That term for manipulation and its relationship to today’s post-truth conundrum are the subjects of a Phronesis in Pieces commentary published one year ago in the blog of Fr. Robert Spitzer’s Magis Center.

In that piece, I wondered whether people might become so desperate in their struggle to define reality that “truth” itself would emerge someday as the “word of the year” with the most online look-ups. “Authentic” comes uncomfortably close to that prediction.

Our society is approaching a crisis of legitimacy. Interpersonal and institutional confidence have eroded. Our hobbled sense of trust as common ground feeds polarization.

Without a robust basis for integrity and conversation, without respectful and joyful adventures in a changing reality, we are lost in the fog of war. Our fears can make us turn to the government—and other powerful advocates and influencers—to tell us what is true.

Founders of our democratic republic held a different view, favoring strong limits on government. They recognized it’s the great duty and nobility of citizen-leaders to seek and represent areas of agreement. Through our Constitution and institutions, we have structures for determining authenticity based on purpose and principles we humbly share.

A contemporary Canadian philosopher of religion, Jonathan Pageau, says his homeland, as well as the United States and elsewhere, must re-establish transcendent bonds among the populace.

“I do believe that, without the worship of God, we’re not going to get out of this,” he says in his new video series at Daily Wire Plus. “One of the things that brought about this problem [of fragmentation] was the desire to remove God” in favor of rationality, science, and emotions. “That slowly devolved to a point where we can’t recognize facts anymore.”

So, what shall we do about the authenticity problem?

First, according to Pageau, we must acknowledge there is an overarching source of truth “in which all things are bound”—to which we are all responsible.

Second, we should focus our energy on “intermediary structures” which have been handed down to us, fostering interfaces of goodwill between the familiar and those people and things which are strange to us, says Pageau.

This responsibility “starts with the person” and moves upward to families, communities, the public square, the nation, and the world. The common denominator is human dignity— ultimately, legitimacy.

We need to put our own lives in order so we know how to be authentic to ourselves. “You have to become that which you want the world to be,” Pageau recommends. “Because the world is made from these stacked-up little worlds, the transformation of your heart and your habits and your attention will reverberate around you.”

He prescribes “creating moments of celebration in your family. creating moments of being together.” Step by step, we learn and accept bits of each other’s uniqueness.

This helps us to see ways in which “my little world is embedded into a bigger one.” We can find these intersections principally through religion, but also through such actions as sharing sports fandom and joining book clubs.

Third, we need to rediscover and share “the stories which bind us together.” These can include Biblical stories and the story of one’s nation, says the philosopher. They show what it means to “exist together.” Appreciating how human history has weaved itself together, and how it continues to do so in spite of missteps, provides a context for teaming up against current challenges.

In other words, the question of authenticity must indeed be answered first at the personal level—but not by simply deciding “who I am” within a bubble of one’s own observations, ideologies, and machinations. We are authentic not in a solo or static way, but through interactive growth.

“If you become more than what you are, then you will start to mend these other worlds around you,” according to Pageau.

To take his purposeful path toward hope, we should beware of kneejerk reactions to uncomfortable surprises. We risk retreating into ourselves as stubborn, suspicious, monolithic “centers” tasked with holding everything together. Yes, there is a solid core, but we’re not it.

Also, if we are so self-centered as to trick or force people to accept a false legitimacy we have contrived, we make life more difficult not only for others, but for ourselves.

Maintaining one’s façade often requires a pile-up of deceit, which creates hard work for the pretender and chaos in our “existence together.” We shouldn’t play power games in applying the standards of truth. That breaks down trust.

Nor should we rely on self-definitions which narrow people down to single labels or tribal worldviews in light of which everything else seems dubious, dangerous, or “fake.”

We need to nurture a culture that allows us to center ourselves in reality while recognizing that the whole truth is much bigger than us. All of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of “authentic” are worthwhile aids in embracing a fact-based life. But they don’t account for transformation.

Authenticity will emerge from expanding and sharing plenty of our stories. The video of the flyer pointing toward an “unreal” fellow passenger is an exception!  That was an individual’s spontaneous narrative, hardly a story we could learn from.

A calm curiosity about mystery and complexity, the known and the unknown, makes us participants, not mere spectators. Authenticity is a group activity.

If we celebrate the adventure of complicated humans muddling through this imperfect world together, if we express our doubts and desires and not merely our egos, our resignation to reality leaves room for more honesty and productivity, even happiness.

A sense of humor helps. Groucho was authentic when he mused, “I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.”

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A Worldly-Wise Carol That Makes Us Wonder

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Bill Schmitt

This commentary was published in the latest edition of “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com.

The gently pensive Christmas carol, “I Wonder as I Wander,” offers a few “epiphanies,” so to speak, about our secular politics and culture.

American folklorist John Jacob Niles wrote the song in 1933, drawing upon a tune sung at a gathering of evangelical Christians he attended in Murphy, N.C. He explained later that local police had ordered the group to get out of town.

A young girl performed fragments of old Appalachian lyrics. These gave Niles what he called “a magnificent idea,” according to Wikipedia.

The song that resulted was a wistful reflection on the paradox of the Christmas story—how God was born in “a cow’s stall,” how “Jesus the Savior did come for to die / for poor ordinary people like you and like I.”

The singer spoke volumes when she started, “I wonder.”

In today’s arena of torrential factoids, strategic gameplans and media pundits sparking emotions with pre-digested solutions, it takes a lot to quiet us down enough to do any serious pondering.

Those in the 1933 meeting had the time and inclination for wonder, defined as the curiosity to know something cloaked in mystery.

The invitation to such wide-ranging, open-ended musing is rare in the public square nowadays. As 20th century sage G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.”

Universities typically have instilled the thrill of deeper discoveries. They’re intended to cultivate informed, integrative and imaginative perspectives which generate fresh, constructive insights.

While students can tickle the imagination and simulate wonder through popular entertainment, learning on a clearheaded campus should sharpen their sensibilities—and boost their appreciation of what they haven’t figured out yet. This does not always work.

In light of the October 7 terror assault in Israel or the housing-bubble collapse which triggered the Great Recession in 2008, we should still be haunted by the “general finding” of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States that assessed causes of the 9/11 horrors in 2001.

“The most important failure was one of imagination,” the commission concluded. “We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat.”

A second potent lyric in our Christmas song is the idea of wandering. Americans excel at this trait, defined as moving without a fixed course or aim.

Without a sense of purpose, accomplishment or accountability, our civic life suffers from disenchantment—observed as “quiet quitting.” Minds wander. Our news is full of sound and fury, signifying numbing.

No wonder many voters crave a more powerful, activist government. Some try to “do something” personally to solve obvious problems but swerve toward resentment or violence. Where shall we set limitations?

That leads to a third highlight in the lyrics. The song’s references to wondering and wandering imply reaching wise conclusions, in our minds as well as in our actions. One supposes those hill-folk in Murphy wanted to wander toward a new home, so they craved understanding despite uncertainty, empowerment amid vulnerability.

Their words prompted Niles to write a “carol,” a tune that shares a joyful message with others. The message is, in secular terms, the power of paradox.

For Christians, the happiest puzzle is Jesus, born in a manger, growing up to save humanity. For all of us, other good paradoxes include hoping against hope; sacrificing for a greater goal; respecting inherent dignity even in our opponents, and simply taking one step at a time to make a journey.

Again quoting Chesterton, paradox means “truth standing on her head to get attention.”

Our modern insistence that everything must immediately make sense and be perfected runs alongside our post-modern credo that “nothing really matters” and repair requires deconstruction. We reject the power of paradox to focus us while patiently opening up space for a bigger picture.

The tempo and tenor of our times short-circuit purposeful wondering and encourage meaningless wandering.

We resort instead to what has been called a “cult of cognition,” with “experts” prescribing all-encompassing but abstract theories and specifically assigned steps, often for fame or profit. Advocates of causes insist that doubters be re-educated. Out-of-favor ideas must be canceled.

That small cadre in Murphy might have figured a power game was afoot. It was natural, even liberating, for them to embrace a higher power, one which allowed them to wonder and wander with hope.

Our politics and culture need fewer dour orchestrators and more joyous carolers. Isolated spectators and combative tribes must give way to bold visionaries and collaborative communities who gradually emerge with surprising wisdom.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote in a 2021 book, “The choice with which humankind is faced is between the idea of power and the power of ideas.”

We can gain bold confidence in our aspirations from a humble little Christmas tune. Hey, we just wandered into another happy paradox!

Image from ClipSafari.com, a collection of Creative Commons designs.

Merry Christmas to you all! Please consider exchanging messages with me at billgerards@gmail.com.

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Why ‘Head of State’ Should Win the POTUS Horse Race

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Bill Schmitt

This commentary was published in the latest edition of “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com. Please consider subscribing to that publication.

Whom should Americans elect as president in 2024? Here’s an answer that flips the standard viewpoint: Choose a worthy “head of state.”

This non-partisan suggestion focuses on aspects of leadership which could enlighten those handicapping the White House horse race—and reduce society’s political handicaps.

We know that, as a democratic, constitutional republic, our president wears two hats: “head of government” and “head of state.” Many other countries have two persons occupying the separate positions. Yes, it makes a difference who is honored at “state dinners” in DC.

Voters tend to be dismissive, even unconscious, of the double roles, which are distinctive and complementary. Our elections are framed mostly in terms of strategic contests. The news media emphasize the administrative power we grant to a head of government.

Of course, presidential candidates do face scrutiny about some qualities connected to a head of state, such as international experience and the “impression” an individual makes to today’s worldwide audiences.

But pundits obsess about who is topping the polls, whose domestic policies serve which interests, and how the federal machine may face rejiggering.

We need a detailed scorecard suited to the Oval Office’s complex demands.

The Encyclopedia Brittanica defines “head of state” as “the highest representative of a sovereign state … serving to symbolize the unity and integrity of the state at home and abroad.”

This online description includes a link which proceeds to define “integrity” three ways: “a firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values (incorruptibility)”; “an unimpaired condition (soundness)”; and the quality of being undivided (“completeness”).

In other words, we hope to have a “head of state” who represents America at its best. It could follow that the president symbolizes “a great nation” and guides us as “the leader of the free world.”

Sadly, these thoughts, which came naturally not so long ago, might now trigger blowback.

Some voters prefer a more global point of view that minimizes countries, including their borders. Others downgrade presidents as avatars of political parties, destined to be embattled and undermined. Still others think America “was never that great,” as a former governor said in a 2018 speech.

All of these views can be understood and tallied. But there’s a problem. If we do not believe the country we’re personifying has outstanding qualities, and has a healthy identity, what kind of representative will we elect?

This is crucial because the president reflects us not only to the world, but to ourselves. Just as presidents have a “bully pulpit” affecting policy, they can nudge the country toward high aspirations or disenchantment, moral goodness or meanness, wisdom or chaos.

Heads of state affect states of mind.

We saw an example early this year in the coronation of King Charles III. The United Kingdom continued to choose a hierarchy of governance pointing toward some level of godliness, however symbolic. A monarch professed values and virtues which transcend the mundane, and the promise of continuity brought celebration.

A “state funeral” in 2022 reminded us that Queen Elizabeth II elevated British hearts and minds as a beloved icon of noble behavior, accompanying her commonwealth through tumultuous decades.

Now, a majority of Americans say in opinion polls they want our society to arise from its own tumult and take a different track. Countless critiques and statistics have signaled a crisis of confidence related to cultural divisions, economic woes, mental wellness, and dystopian anticipation.

The cures demand a smart head of government, but also a wise head of state. We hunger for a servant-leader who practices phronesis, which Aristotle described as the virtue of practical wisdom, seeking the common good.

History has provided numerous exemplars. Even our popular culture easily generates heroic presidential images. Think of Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact, Téa Leoni in Madam President (née Madam Secretary), Martin Sheen in The West Wing, and Kiefer Sutherland in Designated Survivor. Kindly disregard Kevin Spacey in House of Cards.

It’s not enough for Hollywood to create impressive heads of state. Parents, teachers, religions, and communities must discover and develop such people.

The list of qualities to be cultivated is long.

Some key phrases might be: broad knowledge, critical thinking, sound judgment, grass-roots empathy, respect for human dignity, peacemaker, nuanced opinions, support for individualism and enterprise, healthy ego tempered with realistic humility, problem-solver, connection-maker, good listener, proactive planner, champion for the poor and marginalized, and esteem for those doing sacrificial service to communities and countries.

Here are some more descriptors: compelling communicator, emotional intelligence and restraint, self-discipline, readiness to sacrifice, avoidance of divisiveness, strong principles but openness to compromise, religious faith, sound reasoning, accountability, builder of esprit de corps, openness to all people’s stories and concerns, willingness to admit and correct errors, justice and mercy, law and order, good vs. evil, love of country, love of family, love of people, and care for the earth and all of creation.

That’s not asking too much, is it? We should at least hope that the lives we lead and the institutions we steward, especially our famillies, will yield role models bearing some of these priorities.

We can inform our judgments on such criteria only if we sift through campaign talking points and psychological gamesmanship with a mental checklist. Fair-minded journalists will help if they objectively curate aspirants’ words and deeds, from past and present.

At some point in the presidential race, sharp reporters should ask the candidates point-blank: How do they feel about becoming the nation’s head of state?

Does the idea resonate with them? Would they describe their accomplishments as “statesmanlike”?

Or do they pooh-pooh such “elitist” concepts in the name of utopian ideals or dumbed-down populism? If so, how would these contrarians represent the American people?

Ask candidates to discuss their formation in community and, yes, “state” government. Did they take local places, people, and civic affairs seriously, embracing the notion of “home” and the need for “belonging”?

(By the way, do they respect federalism for its distributed problem-solving and its diverse “laboratories of democracy”? How do they feel about the Electoral College? And the Constitution?)

All are free to decide the kinds of answers they want to hear.

Indeed, this whole line of questioning becomes more a personal “examination of conscience” than a quiz for campaigners. But it’s meaningful for politicians to have these aspirations on their minds from the start. In a democratic republic, we are all called to “represent.”

Whether voting for president or Rotary Club chair, let’s endorse the principle of putting forth the best of us to lift up all of us. We can stand up for incorruptibility, soundness, and completeness.

Combining the use of power and “the content of our character” in a single leadership position, and in every person’s consciousness, gives Americans citizenship insurance. If we select excellent heads of state, they are unlikely to be terrible heads of government.

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We Need a Little Advent, Right This Very Minute

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Bill Schmitt

This is a preview of a commentary to be published soon in “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com. Also, check out my podcast interview by the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. This 2018 “Church Life Today” interview about my book When Headlines Hurt: Do We Have a Prayer? was reposted in social media recently. You can listen here.

Just as the secular calendar reliably starts off with a January 1 holiday that looks ahead to the new year, the Christian church calendar (or revised common lectionary) starts its annual cycle with Advent, a whole season in December that likewise focuses on the future.

But the cheer of Christmas is elusive for many these days. We should consider adjusting our focus a bit during this winter of our discontent.

Catholics commonly channel their Advent spirituality along two tracks: short-term preparation for the Savior’s birth on Christmas, and a longer-range, more visceral preparedness for encountering Christ at the hour of our death, or in extremis, when the Second Coming comes.

The Nicene Creed explains the latter readiness: We “look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” Christ “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”

Most of the Advent expectation Americans enjoy travels along the December 25 track, keeping it light and frothy as we shop and plan family gatherings.

Meanwhile, many of the season’s Scriptural readings are admonishing us to reflect on the Lord’s ultimate return.

Yet it seems the typical Catholic strategy for the day of judgment is simple: “Oh-oh, look busy!”

Society’s First Look at the Last Days

Notice I’m not equating either Catholic track with the language used by many Protestants. They speak of the “First Advent” and the “Second Advent,” according to an essay in Bible Hub. Jesus’s first coming completely resolves the problem of sin, from whose captivity He did indeed save us. The second coming fulfills Jesus’s promise to “deliver into everlasting security those who have believed in Him.”

A Catholic lens (through which I peer only imperfectly) places more emphasis on Jesus coming to us, individually or collectively, as a Just Judge. This assesses whether we have sought to participate in God’s Kingdom, based on our faith and our works. Our decision to embrace the terms of His promise caps a lifetime of carrying crosses and overcoming temptations with the big picture—love—in mind.

Theology aside, most humans tend to give short shrift to the “last days.” The panoramic scene of love, truth, beauty, and goodness decorates the kitchen while we stuff the turkey and bake the pie.

Nevertheless, something tells me that Advent 2023 could become everyone’s bifocal lens to monitor both the holiday-prep and the hope-prep paths toward the future. We must observe the urgent need for love in the loneliness of society’s long-distance runners.

More and more people feel looser connections to the transcendent joy of the Feast of the Nativity—Jesus born as Emanu-El, incarnated in a human body, to teach us, accompany us, and break our sin-chains.

Despite this Good News, many have downplayed their religious affiliation and knowledge. Perhaps they have replaced God with something else, often themselves. Or life’s circumstances may give them less to celebrate and fewer families and friends to share a feast.

Their hope-prep isn’t going well either. Some folks will be devoid of real happiness because of distraction, detachment, and psychological pain. Much of that pain arises from today’s panoply of sorrow and bad news, whether from personal experiences or the tenor of the times.

American media cultivate a secular interest in Christmas, but they now hold us captive in an arena of non-stop hatred, existential threats, and artificiality.

We retreat to screens and social media because we lack a compelling personal story that exudes meaning and purpose. We don’t believe or invest in other people’s stories, especially if we see them as competitors or oppressors.

Wars and rumors of wars abound. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will report in January their update on the proximity of cataclysm. Early this year, these global grinches moved the hand of their doomsday clock from 100 seconds to 90 seconds before midnight. That’s barely enough time for a Relaxium commercial.

Actually, at some point, we do have to giggle at our grimness. According to the “Study Finds” website, a “survey” by BonusFinder.com suggested 71 percent of Americans say they have lost faith in the U.S. government to “save them” from a “doomsday event.”

About 56 percent expect a catastrophe caused by climate change. One-third believe another pandemic will hit. One-quarter predict World War III. “Another seven percent are betting on an alien invasion, while the same number believe 2024 will finally be the year zombies walk the Earth.” BonusFinder.com, a site about casinos, makes life look like one big gamble.

It’s a sure bet that many people foresee the world, or at least their world, ending in tragedy, in spiritual bankruptcy. This leaves no space for Yuletide cheer, and it leads to isolation, addiction, and nihilistic behavior down the road.

Giving Gifts During Advent

However, if we agree this ambient grief deserves our prayer and action, we can use an Advent awareness of Christ’s promised return to open up space for evangelization. The season’s religious observances and Bible readings are a good way to reach people where they are, to address the grimness with accompaniment and hope.

Admittedly, the Catholic message isn’t all holly and mistletoes. It opens a door of empowering wonder, but imagine it’s the door to your physical therapist’s exercise room. This is where challenge and rigorous preparation will pay off by revealing truth and restoring hearts.

A rigorous adventure during Advent re-establishes order and brings us back to a meaningful reality, which happens to include the joy of Christmas. If we are participating in the venture, we can become effective spiritual coaches. We can tell those who are languishing, “We hear the same media reports you do, and we understand your dismay, but we have glimpsed a long-range future you can live with.”

Think of this as “baptizing” the secular (but nigh onto spiritual) advice of public intellectual Jordan Peterson in his book, 12 Rules for Life. This clinical psychologist-turned-coach starts out by ordering his readers, “Clean your room!”

In a commentary on Advent’s lessons, Bishop Anthony Taylor of the Diocese of Little Rock, wrote to Catholics: “Jesus says ‘beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life … be vigilant at all times and pray that you will have the strength to escape the tribulations.” This is a hard saying, but it gifts people with a mission.

Ralph Martin, who leads Renewal Ministries, agrees with Peterson and Taylor that people who start mending their separation from reality can build a stronger relationship with the world, their church, and their God. Listen to the whole story! “If you don’t know the bad news, the Good News looks like no news.”

Bishop Robert Barron, in a video about Advent, explains it’s all about prioritizing, not drifting. Putting faith first, rather than oneself, helps other concerns fall neatly into place. We can regain personal agency by making Christ’s story—the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries—our own.

In a sense, the church calendar uses the immediacy of the Nativity to set a first milestone on a distant journey. Meanwhile, the “long game,” the “life of the world to come,” puts the lead-up to Christmas in context.

Unlike those secular “preppers” who told BonusFinder.com they wanted the government to protect them from doomsday, Advent preppers come to see they can have their own protection and propulsion. And there’s a bonus: There’s no real doomsday at all. Indeed, the only zombies are those whose hearts remain drowsy.

These considerations can help us share the wisdom of Advent as the church year begins. The season’s feedback loop of attentiveness helps us find more meaning on both the holiday-prep and hope-prep tracks.

We should be especially conscious of all those who lack the motivation or ability to face prospects of celebrating during their period of paralysis. Advent exists for such a time as this. It gets us all into motion. We can invite all our brothers and sisters to a feast—and to the full story of the future. Just in time for Christmas!

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Propaedeutics: The Last Word in First-Class Learning

Posted on November 21, 2023 by Bill Schmitt

This commentary was also published in “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com.

Universities often promise they will “prepare students to be leaders,” but it’s not clear how much progress either the teachers or the learners are making. How can we cultivate a crop of graduates with a spectrum of skills, solutions, and virtues when there’s barely any core curriculum and we find few professors who can serve as holistic role models?

Observe the alternative. The seemingly narrower project of training people for particular professions tends to be much more concrete. The protocols—in med school, law school, etc.—have passed the test of time. At their best, these professional schools can help students build strong and broad foundations for the specific ladders about to be climbed.

The advantage of these institutions springs only partly from the metrics they impose and the content of their courses. They immerse their aspirants in a matrix of experiences—internships, study groups, hospital rounds, 12-hour shifts, and much more—which combine concreteness with a less tangible quality.

They help to instill identity, focus, and curiosity; a sense of connectedness, resilience, and responsibility; a concern about the people and principles to be served; and a readiness to address those needs with analysis, not paralysis.

Professor Charles Kingsfield (John Houseman) said it best in The Paper Chase. He told his first-year law students: “You come in here with a skull full of mush, and you leave thinking like a lawyer.”

In that 1973 film, he cautioned that, in his class, “you will never find the correct, absolute, and final answer.” He promised that, through constant questioning, “you learn to teach yourselves.”

That’s why I’m interested in the recent efforts in the Catholic hierarchy—at the Vatican and among U.S. bishops—to refine the work of seminaries where male college graduates study to become priests.

In light of a scatterbrained secular culture, the incomplete formation we provide to rising generations in our families and classrooms, and the need for priests who can be spiritual “fathers” for their congregations, the bishops promulgated in 2022 a Program for Priestly Formation.

One result now seen at the nation’s numerous seminaries is a tightly structured “propaedeutic (prop-a-doo-tic) year” as the first stage of training. That hefty Greek term might scare away some guys, but it’s a compelling idea not only for future priests, but for laypeople of both sexes. We all need to build a frame of mind that prepares us for a healthy, happy, and vigorous life.

Propaedeutics simply means an introduction—furnishing the knowledge necessary before one becomes a “disciple” delving into any discipline.

America’s educators (including parents) might ponder the need to integrate such a “back to basics” vision in the formation of citizens, public servants, and contributive community members of every sort.

How do the seminaries intend to perform this service for priests? Not surprisingly, the steps occur on multiple dimensions of development—human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral.

The most remarkable propaedeutic requirement touches all those dimensions. It is essentially a “media fast,” which sounds revolutionary and “radical,” in terms of being “at the roots” of personhood.

College graduates entering St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, PA, for example, “will have extensive restrictions placed on their media use, including phones, tablets, computers, television, radio, music, and movies.”

As described at the seminary’s website, “an appropriate amount of technology use will be allowed at various intervals.” But the fasting “facilitates freedom to be guided by the Holy Spirit, to initiate quality interpersonal interactions and conversations, to expand personal capacity to be present to others in the moment, and to fortify healthy forms of leisure.”

The description continues: “While encouraging a balanced approach to internet use, the fast also promotes recovery from addictions or excessive reliance upon it.”

A combination of historical knowledge, pessimistic expectation, and optimistic imagination conjures up a scenario in which priests of the future will help to form a bulwark against technocratic tyrannies symbolized by the Terminator, the Matrix, the Hunger Games, and the dark predictions for artificial intelligence.

Whatever one may think about the Church as a flawed human institution, or as a force that either advanced/preserved or opposed/corrupted the progress of Western civilization, it’s appealing to think there is a Plan B for post-modernism if we sleepwalk our way toward an apocalypse.

R.R. Reno, editor of First Things magazine, says the current cultural moment can be called “The Great Forgetting.” He worries that college courses in foreign languages, history, and much of the humanities are being replaced by post-humanism, criticism and doubt, and the rhetoric of advocacy.

“We look to ‘theories,’ not just to solve technical and economic problems, but also to manage society, even our souls,” he wrote this month. “It’s interesting to note that the task of remembering is now largely taken up by religious people.”

Those lukewarm about the legacy of our civilization should at least agree on the desirability of contrarians who can use traditional values to interrogate current trends. Vaccinated against social contagions whose surge could sweep away individual human dignity, this group of questioners could be a rescue team in the marketplace of ideas.

I don’t think the bishops harbor this kind of vainglorious intention for the “media fast.” They merely want the Church to respond constructively to alienation, groupthink, and all the dangers of “screen time” proven by plenty of secular research.

And they see today’s project in a panoramic context that aims for wholeness and wellness—among aspiring priests as well as layfolk who must turn somewhere for Good News when evil and suffering strike.

Here are other aspects of the bishops’ propaedeutic outline for seminarians, in the words of the Borromeo website:

·      The daily schedule of these aspirants will “strengthen them in habits of prayer and liturgical life, self-knowledge, self-sacrifice, good health, faith-filled communal living, joyful fellowship, teamwork, personal responsibility, initiative, discipline, simplicity, silence, and detachment.”

·      On the intellectual front, the novices will receive instruction in such subjects as Scripture, theology, history, catechetics, and the Spanish language.

·      As preparation to be pastors, and to be pastoral, the men will visit and work in various parishes, participate in pilgrimages and retreats, and gain exposure to Catholic art and culture, where one discovers truth in beauty.

·      Extending beyond the Church bubble, a month-long experience will engage them in “meeting and serving Christ in the poor.”

·      “Throughout this year, the seminarian’s formation will be crafted to help the man comprehend who he is as a loved son of the Father while confronting whatever may be blinding him to this truth.”

Are you ready to sign up? Are you surprised that such an enterprise, both well-defined and vast, can be packed into one year?

Actually, it sounds like a time of remarkable liberation which everyone can experience differently. Sure, all students are taught with the same syllabus. But they are placed in locations and situations where each person can encounter the Holy Spirit in a unique way, sparking reflection to remember. Also, community life makes mentoring ubiquitous. Call now! Spiritual directors are standing by!

Of course, there will be rigor over the long haul. These students’ formation will continue throughout their seminary years, which include lots of intellectual exercise. They will be ordained as deacons, doing the nitty-gritty work of parish life for one year, before they are given the green light for priestly ordination.

But the point of all this is that man’s search for meaning begins with embracing reality (not the artificial kind). The initial phase, here called propaedeutics, is akin to the anchoring we all should receive as we grow up, regardless of one’s religion.

How many people receive this anchoring nowadays? We can guess that much of the suffering we see in society today—the anxiety, depression, confusion, addiction, isolation, narcissism, violence, and psychological distress—traces back to the lack of family stability, dynamic community, deep conversation, and visceral memory which otherwise could soften our hearts for learning.

Fewer people are turning to the Church as a house built on solid ground. But Catholics believe they are mandated to remain present as a resource responding to all people’s needs—and as a structure of unique relationships with Jesus Christ.

The intensive-care stewardship of the priesthood for this purpose is what intrigues me about the propaedeutic year. I also admire the seminaries for undertaking this task despite previous problems and cultural/psychological/financial excuses for giving up.

Most of all, I appreciate the Church reminding us that a priestly formation which liberates and disciplines us for the sake of truth is a useful model for everyone.

Outside the campus gates, this challenge falls largely on our shoulders. We must search out ways to develop self-knowledge, self-sacrifice, and genuine joy, taking tips from seminaries. We need these traits to fulfill our own vocational assignments and to accompany others who may struggle to make the honor roll.

Our “year” of preparation will go on ad infinitum. St. Francis of Assisi once told his friar-followers: “Let us begin to do good, for as yet we have done little.” We start the journey with “a skull full of mush,” and only gradually do we grow into nimble, attentive disciples for the Kingdom of God.

Let’s call seminaries “professional schools” because they empower people to make professions of faith. Each graduating class is a cadre ready to identify what and whom we believe in, and why and how we will proceed. We can be in the crowd applauding at commencement, reassuring a mushy-minded society that the Judeo-Christian tradition is planted on solid ground, common ground.

Much of the support we’ll offer is admittedly intangible, such as our verve for questions and answers, and a spirit of love and hope. Nevertheless, our home-schooling will prove more substantive than other curricula promoting “leaders” whose talents are seldom fully invested.

We should prefer the inspiration of servant-leadership—interactions which are harder to undertake and even harder for universities to advertise. Full investment in personhood may require a “media fast,” abstinence from our self-centered tendencies, and sacrificial commitments to everyday kindness. We need to form, not wear, good habits so that our neighbors recognize us as first-responders.

All it takes is a clear-minded, big-picture orientation. Fed by a daily dose of propaedeutics to refresh memory and boost energy, we can emerge from Kingsfield’s regimen thinking like a faithful “professor.”

Image from ClipSafari.com, a collection of Creative Commons designs.

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being Entertained

Posted on November 13, 2023 by Bill Schmitt

This commentary was published in the Magis Center Blog on Nov. 8, 2023. The Magis Center, founded and led by Rev. Robert Spitzer, SJ, seeks “to restore, reconstruct, and revitalize belief in God, the transcendent dignity of every human person, the significance of virtue, the higher levels of happiness, love and freedom, and the real presence of Jesus Christ.” The blog is read by teachers and catechists, clergy, and a large audience of viewers of “Father Spitzer’s Universe,” a weekly discussion series on the EWTN television network. Bill is an occasional contributor to the blog. Also find this commentary and much more in “Phronesis in Pieces” — Bill’s publication on Substack.

As we catechize young people, we quickly learn that this ministry isn’t a monopoly. We are competing with the countless counter-messages of a secular society. 

It may help to think of today’s “alternative lessons,” which are generated largely by the ubiquitous entertainment industry, as an alluring, easy-to-consume catechism. 

Young people—and adults, too—have more questions, spiritual and mundane, than ever before. We struggle to adapt to what has been called “liquid modernity,” where new circumstances surge in like the daily tides. Producers of popular culture provide compelling guidance to surf the waves of change. Imagine if these were presented in a compendium-like Q&A format. 

Tragically, the answers would be incomplete, to the point of dismissing, misinterpreting, ignoring, or scorning timeless insights and values the Church provides. The “A” in the secular “Q&A” is often vague, without much definitional rigor or critical thinking, simply adopting the narcissistic, emotion-based tenor of our times. 

The answer is also packaged to be easily absorbed and memorable—adding a “spoonful of sugar,” or a dopamine hit, to make it persuasive. Thus, the competition between this pseudo-catechism and the Catechism of the Catholic Church is profound, demanding wisdom and zeal from all of us. 

An Overture for Evangelizing 

The USCCB’s new Institute on the Catechism initiative has this in mind, at least implicitly, as it faces the challenge to develop its new guidelines. 

This new approach “recognizes that the passing on of the faith is no longer in a Catholic culture, but in a secular and hostile culture toward Christian faith,” according to Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of the Diocese of Bridgeport. 

He talked about the new challenges in an interview with Catholic News Service last year. The USCCB’s Subcommittee on the Catechism, which he chairs, is launching a new “springboard for faith formation” because Catholic parishes need to re-create a “Catholic culture that recognizes we’re in the 21st century,” as CNS reported. 

Recent decades have not seen “catechesis” flourish. Of course, we think of the standard, religion-based definition of the term. But some type of catechesis will always occur so long as people have soul-searching questions; the absence of one type merely leaves a vacuum to be filled by other means. 

The etymology of the term, rooted in the Church, draws upon the Latinized form of a Greek word for “instruction by word of mouth.” But one source suggests catechesis originally meant “to resound … in someone’s ear,” and kata implied “down” as in “thoroughly.” We might posit an unofficial definition: “oral instruction that resounds deeply.”  

The mission of an “evangelizing catechesis,” at the heart of the bishops’ new project, is all about fostering an individual’s encounter with Jesus Christ and helping it to resonate through the Church, as explained in an article in The Pillar. 

Many people have traveled on a long detour from Christ, consuming secular “answers” to key questions which arguably make an encounter with Him seem more difficult and foreign. Is He outdated? Is He real? 

This challenge requires not only an increased passion for evangelization, but a more direct confrontation with the proselytizing in popular culture. 

We need to be armed with an understanding of the arguments put forth by entertainers, media pundits, social media influencers, and the amalgam of secular voices—some of them wise, some of them shallow and destructive. At their thought-provoking best, they put us in touch with eye-opening truths; at their worst, they encourage an individual to be satisfied with “my truth.” That’s self-catechesis on auto pilot. 

Many well-intentioned people, immersed in the resounding din of artificial reality,  want a deeper sense of understanding. Lacking good guidance, they surrender to their natural “mimetic desire” to learn from others, to copy the in-crowd.  

Catholic catechists need to formulate for themselves what a secular Q&A might look like. Imagine the internal and external dialogues students experience with non-Christian influencers every day. Too many for-profit prophets seize on ideas and feelings they can highlight at the moment or slip in subliminally as a shading of the facts. 

Those asking life’s important questions get answers which make an impression but lack context or connection to real meaning and clear cognition. Our goal in this case should be to provide responses that illuminate the experience–not by being a buzzkill, but by expanding upon “the rest of the story.” Call this “spotlight evangelization,” which starts with common ground and then widens the aperture to show more that’s going on. 

Of course, the simultaneous advantage and obstacle Catholic catechists face is that our popular culture’s post-modern talking points are moving targets, often cloaked. Many lessons of entertainment are performed and insinuated. They are a patchwork of viewpoints, adopted and amplified on nearly all our screens in varied ways. They reflect a liberated but random human creativity, subject to constant re-definition to address new conditions and causes. 

These do not fit the structure of an authoritative catechism. Some of their principles contain virtues for a serviceable map of meaning—but only if one is not seeking intersections with the broader landscape and the Kingdom of God.  

If pressed, purveyors of this pseudo-catechism will cite intellectuals and arguments for the sake of “truthiness.” But, such sources focus only on “what works” in this world, in the moment. They preach a desire to “be on the right side of history,” to be cool and current.  

The worst of these ideas run contrary to human dignity and God’s love. They tend toward false pride and self-gain. They energize content-producers to create a “buzz,” to be edgy. They ignore Pope Francis’s 2020 comment that “no one is an extra on the world stage, and everyone’s story is open to possible change.” They encourage lockstep adherence to the loudest advocates of poorly defined “progress.”  

Raising the Curtain on Good Questions 

Catholic catechists, and all people of good will, should build up their enthusiasm for an honorable defense of truth vs. mere truthiness. The lackadaisical groupthink spawned on our screens can indeed become “hostile” to living out the Christian faith, as Bishop Caggiano said. 

We can be grateful that our key, indelible resources for a peaceful but impassioned confrontation are decidedly not statements of polarization. They are the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church—two time-tested, life-changing love stories more riveting and uplifting than anything Hollywood could imagine. 

In the context of total love, trustworthiness, beauty, and goodness, to which all human beings are drawn, we can spark a sense of mission, a reason to question and learn more, in those we teach. Our books and their messages have the power to fascinate young people, to reveal what they know their screens can’t show them.  

For example, the Bible has been called history’s first hyperlinked text; it is said to contain 63,779 cross-references. God enables His followers to be storytellers and connection-makers par excellence. 

We all should seize our responsibility to interact, to enter meaningful conversations with hungry audiences, because we bring unique insights to the table. We can serve ourselves, our families, our communities, and the world by pointing beyond randomness and promoting good order with a taste for truth in charity. 

The summons to proactive discipleship—a prebuttal, or preemptive rebuttal—can be galvanizing for young people who are drawn to the spotlights. They should set high standards, rejecting toxic entertainment. W.B. Yeats described the grim scenario of lethargic surrender in The Second Coming: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” 

Bishop Robert Barron offered his rallying cry in a video last year. “We’ve just got to come to terms with it. The spiritual life’s a battle–always has been, is today, always will be, until the end of time.” Those who stand with the ways of God “will be opposed by many,” with risks for all, and we must not be silent. 

A Catechist’s Role

As a step toward emboldening the over-entertained, catechists and all evangelizing Catholics may have to work harder to explore the polluted waters in which students are swimming. We must be conversant with trends in movies and Netflix series—or worse, the more shadowy abundance of violent video games, TikTok clips, and porn. 

Let’s ask those to whom we minister: What are you watching? How does it make you feel? What impact do you think it has on others? Does it seem really real? Is there another side of the story you would like to understand better? These questions provide teachable moments and opportunities for prayer to the Holy Spirit. 

Such preparation constitutes “basic training”—and fosters self-care—for our nascent corps of servant-leaders. We can affirm youth’s dissatisfaction with the status quo and “the same old story.” A serious mission to think for themselves, to make their passions more compassionate, may help young people to stem the tide toward anxiety, addiction, violence, suicidal thoughts, and cynical isolation in their ranks. 

The Catechism can reveal a wonderful legacy of well-considered, organized, connected answers. But we all need to be asking the right questions, with a pressing need in mind. 

This all can start with an authentic, amplified, Christian concern recognizing and addressing the dubious messages found in our popular media, even as we highlight and applaud various theatrical thrills and constructive lessons pumping through our cultural lifeblood. 

Our evangelization today will resound deeply amid this century of challenge and tumult. The bishops recognize that a peaceful but profound face-off between two divergent catechisms is already occurring, with eternal consequences. Christ is the answer, to be sought in all our virtual or very real adventures–making us learners/disciples, not mere spectators.  

Let’s “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” for our high-definition, panoramic battleground. As a preliminary checklist of protocols and tactics, reflecting on St. Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer can help us get ready for the spotlight. 

Image from ClipSafari.com, a collection of Creative Commons designs.

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