While We’re At It

♦ Australian poet James McAuley on Catholic clergy after Vatican II who were rushing to catch up with Rudolf Bultmann and other liberal Protestant grandees:

We know all the moves,
The language-games, the ploys;
We jam the transmission
With a verbal kind of noise:

Called dialogue . . . insights . . .
Meaningful! relevant!—
Updated, Christ retires
Replaced by “the Christ-event”.

Demythologized, our
Pastors really are swine
They race us down the slope;
Turn blood into wine.

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♦ Incoming medical students at the University of Minnesota received their white coats, a traditional sign of induction into the medical community. But instead of reciting the Hippocratic Oath, they were asked to repeat a woke litany, which included a pledge to “honor all Indigenous ways of healing” and to fight “white supremacy, colonialisms [and] the gender binary.” After viewing video of the ceremony, Chris Rufo, the scourge of progressive pieties, noted that the medical professor leading the recitation “almost certainly doesn’t believe in what he’s saying. But he submits anyway—because the institutional powers now require otherwise intelligent people to falsify their own beliefs and repeat left-wing copypasta.”

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♦ I had to look up “copypasta.” It refers to a block of text that is repeatedly copied and pasted into contributions to internet chat groups and on social media, often because the verbiage is amusingly ridiculous.

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♦ Samuel Johnson on the impulse to conserve: “Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings; let us be therefore cautious how we strip her.”

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♦ In October, Pope Francis announced that the process of preparation for the Synod of Bishops on synodality will be extended by one year. As he explained, “The fruits of the synodal process underway are ­many, but so that they might come to full maturity, it is necessary not to be in a rush.” Writing in the Catholic ­Herald, Hugh Somerville Knapman speculates about why, boilerplate aside, the Holy Father is delaying a signature initiative of his pontificate. He notes that “lay involvement in the process has been underwhelming.” Another possible explanation for the ­delay: “The opinions and insights received from this low sample of Catholics have not met the expectations of the ­synod’s organisers.” They want more time to accumulate input that reflects their desired output. A third ­explanation, which Somerville Knapman ­develops at length, amounts to the prospect that “­synodality” ­really means a never-ending process. As a New Age guru might put it, the journey is the destination. If so, I worry that the Church will fall victim to Oscar ­Wilde’s criticism of socialism: too many night ­meetings.

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♦ On Monday evening, October 3, First Things inaugurated what I hope will be an annual event in Chicago. I sat down with Ross Douthat to talk about Christian faith and its relation to political power. He had taken up the topic in a recent essay (“A Gentler Christendom,” June/July 2022) as part of an exchange with Edmund Waldstein. The event was held at the Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture, a historic facility in the ­Lakeview neighborhood that is being restored to serve as a beacon for truth and beauty. I’d like to thank ­Lawrence Daufenbach, executive director of the ­Athenaeum, for providing the ideal venue for First Things.

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♦ We held our first regional reader summit at Belmont Abbey College on October 14–15. Our theme was friendship. I delivered a lecture on Friday evening (“Civic Friendship and Polarization”), and the seventy participants met in small seminars on Saturday morning to discuss assigned readings, which included the marvelous short story by Willa Cather, “Two Friends.” I’m grateful to Belmont Abbey College president Bill Thierfelder for opening the college for our use, and to Honors College dean Joe Wysocki for developing a superb syllabus of readings and leading his expert team of tutors.

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♦ The Cather story is a gem. The narrative follows two small-town businessmen who, although different in all sorts of ways, enjoy a warm friendship. One of them, Mr. Dillon, goes to the 1896 Democratic Convention in Chicago, at which the nominee, William ­Jennings Bryan, famously insisted that mankind must not be crucified “upon a cross of gold.” Upon returning to his small town, Dillon takes up politics and the friendship dissolves in the acids of partisan passion. It’s a story sadly relevant for many of us with liberal friends who have become political Manichaeans.

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♦ Jeffrey Lewis would like to form a ROFTERS group in Camden, Maine. To join, contact him at ­revcapjclewis@gmail.com.

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♦ Bethany Gates of Kenosha, Wisconsin, would like to form a ROFTERS group. You can reach her at ­bethanygates@gmail.com.

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♦ As you read this issue, we will be launching our year-end fundraising campaign. Our goal: 1,200 donations totaling $800,000. Ambitious, yes, but that’s to be expected. To speak forcefully about natural and revealed truths in the public square—First Things is nothing if not a bold enterprise. I thank you in advance for your generosity in supporting our mission.